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Hartford (WTNH) – Connecticut’s Chief Administrative Judge goes public in criticizing Governor Rell’s latest veto. Judge Barbara Quinn said the veto will create major problems in the administration of justice in Connecticut.

The judge said the Judicial Department has 10 percent of the state employees and only gets about three percent of the state budget.

Judge Quinn served on the bench for 13-years until she became Chief Administrative Judge two years ago; essentially she’s the “Chief Operating Officer” for all the judges and court houses.

She said the Governor’s veto will severely impede the Judicial System.

“We will need to move to close some court houses. We will need to cut some programs that the legislature has indicated it wishes us to move forward on,” said Judge Quinn. “One of the most important of these is the Raise The Age Legislation to bring older juveniles within Juvenile Court confines so the 16-year-olds will be coming effective January 1st.

When asked why she was willing to do such a public interview, Quinn replied, “We have received a cut, in addition to normal cuts, at 28-percent of the state wide total. So we just feel that’s disproportionate to our size and to what we are statutorily and constitutionally, under our state constitution, required to perform.”

Davis: “Will you openly lobby the legislature to attempt to over ride the Governor’s veto?”
Quinn: “We have been looking at that and are hopeful perhaps that might still happen, although, the early indications [are] that the legislature’s not moving in that direction.”

Speaker of the House Chris Donovan said he’s ready to over ride the Governor on this and has the votes in the House.

“I don’t know what the prospects are in the Senate,” said Rep. Donovan.

Senate President Pro Tem Donald Williams is out of the country but a spokesman said they don’t have the votes in the Senate to over ride the Governor. Three Democrats voted ‘No’ on Friday and two others were absent. They only got 19 votes on this; you need 24 for the over-ride.

The Democratic Senators who voted against the bill tell News Channel 8 they did so because it also contained spending and other policies they couldn’t go along with. They said that if the part, that funds the judicial department, were to come up as a stand alone bill they would likely vote for it and that is a possibility.