The House sends a message. Democrats decline to act on Dykes renomination. Hard cider delay.

Katherine Scharf Dykes is alone on the House calendar. Democrats did not act Thursday on her reappointment as Commissioner of the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP).

The delay is unrelated to Dykes’ costly bungling of energy policy. Enough House members are dismayed over the inclusion of hard cider on the 2022 expanded bottle bill. Members believed they had an agreement that hard cider would not be included in the containers subject to a ten cent deposit.

A DEEP explanation of its administration of the bill notes “that Public Act 21-58 makes explicit that spirit-based beverages labeled or marketed as hard seltzers are covered, due to the inclusion of ‘hard seltzer’ in the definition of ‘carbonated beverage.'” Enough House members feel betrayed by Dykes that they prevailed upon leaders to meet in session Thursday without taking up the resolution confirming Dykes.

The impetus for the Dykes delay was hard cider but the controversy gave House Democratic leaders an opportunity early in the session to remind the Lamont administration that Democrats in the legislature possess independent authority and may choose now and then to exercise it. They are not the hired help.

The House meets again in February on a day to be announced.

Published January 27, 2023.