Sen. Martin M. Looney, the only son of two working-class Irish immigrants, stood last week with Gov. Ned Lamont, a scion of Wall Street who variously has boosted and thwarted Looney’s liberal visions of social justice and equity for Connecticut. The two Democrats chatted amiably, as they do. I n his 46th year as a legislator and a record 11th as president pro tem, the Senate’s top leader, Looney still plays the long game of patience and persistence, thanking Lamont for agreeing to a significant body of pro-labor laws, including one of the nation’s highest minimum wages, while pressing him to do more, much more. Lamont’s veto last year of Looney’s strikers’ benefits bill? That’s a setback, not a final answer. Looney has ideas for a compromise, a way to shrink the bill that would have offered jobless benefits to any striker. His push to raise taxes on the rich? That’s in its 35th year. He’d like a 1% increase on capital gains. It could raise $280 million or so, cash that could go to property tax relief. Or aid to education. He’s got more ideas, always more. No one ever has seen the bottom of his bag of ideas. “It’s like Mary Poppins’ bag,” said Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff, D-Norwalk, laughing. It’s endless. Lamont is wary of what might pop out next, what else is on Looney’s list of needs that so obviously should be met, must be met. But there is an element of useful theater to the governor’s complaints about the insatiable appetites of what legislators want for their districts. Being seen as a check on the legislature is not bad politics. Like most who have their disagreements with Looney, the governor rarely finds Looney personally disagreeable. A succession of Senate and House Republican leaders tend to make the same observation: They cannot recall Marty Looney — and references to him always are just “Marty” — ever raising his voice or breaking a promise. “He’s got a lot of heart. He’s got strong principles,” Lamont said. “No question, we don’t agree on everything, but we start where we do agree, and that’s always a good way to start in life. You know, we got the minimum wage done together.” Sen. Martin M. Looney, D-New Haven, addresses the Senate as the legislative session ended just past midnight on June 5, 2025. Credit: Shahrzad Rasekh / CT Mirror Elected to the House in 1980 and Senate in 1992, Looney’s first term in Hartford began on Jan. 7, 1981, a week after a dying Ella T. Grasso resigned as a governor, succeeded by William A. O’Neill. The current leader of the House, Matt Ritter of Hartford, hadn’t been born. The state Capitol was grimy, leaking and overcrowded. There was no Legislative Office Building, no computer tracking of bills, no 24/7 coverage of debates by the public access channel, CT-N. “The one thing that hasn’t changed is Marty,” said Vinnie Mauro Jr., a lobbyist who was Looney’s top aide for 27 years and remains close. That, of course, is not entirely true. Looney was 32 years old, single and not yet a lawyer when he arrived. He turns 78 this summer. On Wednesday, the annual session opens. Looney is coy about whether it will be his last representing the 11th Senate District of New Haven and Hamden. A decade after a successful kidney transplant and nearly a lifetime of the rheumatoid arthritis that bent his spine and slowed his gait, Looney has registered as a candidate for reelection without definitively committing to going forward. The session ends in early May, just before the parties will make candidate endorsements. Ellen Looney, the young widow Looney married 44 years ago, certainly will influence whether he opts for reelection or retirement. So might his late mother, nearly 35 years gone. His friends say Mary Mescall Looney saw her son gifted with a unique mind and spirit, more than offsetting a flawed body. Mauro said her mantra was unflinching: “You give until you can’t.” State Sen. Marty Looney, then a challenger for mayor of New Haven, gives a campaign brochure to Ann Curtis during a door-to-door campaign in New Haven in 2001. Credit: Marc-Yves Regis I / Courtesy Hartford Courant Differences among Democrats Last week, Looney joined Lamont and Ritter in a show of pre-session, election-year unity. As the Senate president pro tem and House speaker, Looney and Ritter are the sole arbiters of when and if a bill gets a floor vote. Each have had disagreements with the fiscally cautious governor over what Connecticut can afford to spend. But those differences pale against their shared dismay over President Donald Trump, the great unifier of Democratic politics. They find his cuts to the social safety net reckless, his periodic suspension of grants to blue states punitive. With a full rainy day fund and budgets producing surpluses, Lamont is one of the few governors willing and able to meet some of the needs opened by Washington. Lamont acceded last fall to a request by Looney and Ritter to declare an emergency allowing the legislature to exceed the spending cap and create a $500 million Trump contingency fund. They gave the governor authority to spend it as necessary without further legislative debate. The governor has spent about $170 million to subsidize health coverage, stabilize SNAP benefits and replace a federal grants for homeless care that disappeared with little notice. Lamont, Looney and Ritter just agreed to a new emergency declaration that will maintain his unilateral ability to draw on the contingency fund. It had been scheduled to expire Wednesday, the day lawmakers return in session. What did the agreement signify about the state of play regarding the governor, the legislature and spending? “It says we are on the same page on the issues we’re discussing today and likely to have a meeting of minds and broad agreement on other issues as we go forward,” Looney said. His answer was careful, positive while not overpromising. The identities of those “other issues” were left for another day. Growing up Irish Looney can be both garrulous and inscrutable. His parents, Martin Francis and Mary Mescall Looney, emigrated from County Clare, Ireland, on the eve of the Great Depression that would remake America and its politics, primed to join a labor movement and a welcoming Democratic Party. Both joined unions. To know their stories is to understand the son and his politics. He talks about his father’s experience working to organize a union at the sprawling Winchester Repeating Arms Company plant in New Haven, a difficult if ultimately successful campaign. His father was punished during the campaign, moved off his job driving a forklift to one requiring heavy lifting. The father was an inspiration for a ban on “captive audience” meetings that management use to hector workers against joining a union. His parents emigrated in 1927 and 1929, each loyal to the cause of Irish independence and teachings of the Catholic Church, though not always enamored of its clergy. His mother had attended a church whose pastor spoke against the rebellion, a source of lifelong skepticism about authority.  Friends say they see more of the mother than the father in Looney. When nuns taught him to turn the other cheek when struck, his mother preached that a quick punch might be more effective. She was unafraid to contradict nuns, priests or anyone else. “She was the boss,” said Jack Keyes, who is Looney’s law partner and one of his oldest friends. I could talk to [Looney] about anything. We could get the stuff done and move business along. And he never stabbed me in the back.Len Fasano, former Senate Republican minority leader Looney recalls his exasperated father once pointing to the crucifix on the wall of their apartment in Fair Haven and complaining that his wife would contradict Jesus Christ himself had he come down off the cross. Then a young boy, Looney asked his mother if she really would do that. “Without missing a beat, she said, ‘I would if he was wrong,’” Looney said. Looney said his mother nonetheless was a devout churchgoer, habitually committing to saying novenas — nine-day periods of prayer seeking intercession for a person or cause, the beneficiaries often a surprise. Looney suspected that his mother was the only Catholic from County Clare to say a novena for Angela Davis and the Black Panthers. The mother’s allegiance to the Democrats transcended other loyalities, ethnicity among them. In 1970, the Republican candidate for governor was an Irishman, Thomas Meskill, his surname a variation of Mescall. The Democrat was Emilio Q. Daddario. At his uncle’s wake, Looney recalls watching Mrs. McCarthy, an Irish ward leader, try to recruit his mother to Democrats for Meskill. “You could be cousins,” McCarthy said. “I wouldn’t care if he was my brother,” his mother replied. “I’m for Daddario. He’s the Democrat.” His parents were older when he was born: his mother, 38; his father, 48. Looney said he attributes his interest in funding child services to a persistent childhood fear that he would lose them before he reached adulthood. He was 23 when Martin Francis died at age 72. His mother lived to 81. Supporters of the minimum wage celebrate in the Senate gallery after passage at nearly 3 a.m. in May 2019. Credit: keith m. phaneuf / ctmirror.org The last word Colleagues say he eschews direct personal confrontation, but committee chairs sometimes fall out of favor, never for reasons that Looney publicly shares. Embarrassing a caucus member is anathema to him.  As the president pro tem of the Senate, Looney makes the call on what bills will come to a vote. One his prerogatives as the chamber’s leader is that he gets the last word in every debate, often framing what they are about to do, what preceded it — and what must come next. “I love listening to his remarks at the end, when we’re done debating a bill and about to vote,” said Sen. Julie Kushner, D-Danbury, a retired UAW executive and Looney’s choice co-chair the Labor and Public Employees Committee. “He not only understands things in the present, he not only understands things historically, he actually has a vision for the future.” One of his oldest friends, Martin Dunleavy, a unionist and former Democratic National Committeeman, said Looney always has overarching goals but is unafraid to take small steps on longer journeys. “He’s always willing to take the slice, not the whole loaf,” Dunleavy said. Republican leaders past and present praise his management of the Senate, even when bitterly opposing his agenda. “I could talk to him about anything. We could get the stuff done and move business along. And he never stabbed me in the back,” said Len Fasano, the former Senate Republican minority leader. “He never lied to me, never misled me, always was honest, and you can’t ask for more from somebody on the other side of the aisle.” After the 2016 election produced a rarity — an evenly divided Senate — Looney and Fasano negotiated a power-sharing agreement, avoiding a deadlock that could have paralyzed the General Assembly during a difficult fiscal year. The deal was finalized in December while Looney was hospitalized for a kidney transplant. “That was from his bed, 12 hours after surgery,” Fasano said. “But it meant he wanted to make sure this went right, because it was the first time in 100 years.” The evenly divided Senate and closely divided House brought Republicans to the table for a bipartisan budget deal. “I gained respect for him during the bipartisan budget process. He had to compromise his position to get a balanced budget,” said House Minority Leader Vincent J. Candelora, R-North Branford. “He is a believer. He doesn’t say and do things to be a populist. He says and does things because he believes them. If you are going challenge his position, you have to convince him.” The power sharing ended with the next election, when Democrats won strong majorities. They now hold majorities of 25-11 in the Senate and 102-49 in the House. Gov. Ned Lamont, center right, reached a deal on bonding with top Democratic lawmakers, including Sen. President Pro Tem Martin M. Looney (right) and House Speaker Joe Aresimowicz in 2019. Credit: Mark Pazniokas / ctmirror.org He voted in 1991 for Connecticut’s first broad tax on wages, a flat 4.5% levy that he has worked to make more progressive ever since. Rates for low and middle incomes have been cut, and on the upper end, raised to 6.99%. Lamont was his willing partner in cutting the rates at the lower end, agreeing to raise the state’s earned income tax credit for the working poor from 30% to 40% of the federal EITC. Looney had sought the creation the refundable credit for more than 25 years, finally succeeding after a Democrat, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, took office in 2011. But Looney’s push for creating 1% surtax on the capital gains of the wealthy to produce money for property tax relief has not moved the governor. “Let’s face it, we’ll go back and forth on taxes and probably say, ‘We don’t agree there,’ And then we’ll talk about Calvin Coolidge, because we both love history.” A doctoral dissertation on what? Looney was Senate majority leader for 12 years, beginning in January 2003, not long after he had contemplated leaving the legislature. In 2001, he challenged New Haven Mayor John DeStefano, losing a Democratic primary — and ensuring his continued presence in Hartford. In January 2015, he succeeded Donald Williams Jr. in the top spot as Senate president pro tem. Looney holds the record for longevity in both positions, milestones he reached without public notice or comment.  Looney is a familiar, if circumspect, figure at the Capitol. He can be a gifted storyteller who rarely tells his own story outside a close circle friends, most rooted in New Haven and united in allegiance to the Democratic Party, Catholic Church and Boston Red Sox. (Looney says the latter two teach their adherents patience.)  His seeming total recall of names and dates is generally known, whether relating to history or sports trivia. He can recited the name of every Heisman Trophy winner beginning with Jay Berwanger in 1935. He recalled an amused Larry Cafero, the former House GOP leader, asking, “What are you, Rain Man?” Announcing a grant to begin renovating an armory on Goffe Street in New Haven, Lamont challenged Looney to explain the origins of the street name. Looney told the story of William Goffe, one of the judges who signed the death warrant of King Charles I in 1649 and fled to New England to avoid reprisals. Less discussed is that Looney’s original interest in politics was literary. He was writing a doctoral dissertation assessing Anthony Trollope’s 19th-century novels about the power, wealth and aristocratic politics of Victorian England when Frank Logue and Rosa DeLauro knocked on his mother’s door in 1975. He dropped the project to work with Logue, the anti-machine reformer running for mayor, and DeLauro, his young campaign manager and future congresswoman. Logue won, and Looney joined his staff at city hall. Five years later, DeLauro quarterbacked Looney’s election to the General Assembly. A framed photo of Sen. Martin Looney, D-New Haven, and his wife Ellen Looney sits beside a football helmet from Wilbur Cross High School on the fireplace mantel in the senator’s office at the state Capitol. Credit: Shahrzad Rasekh / CT Mirror Looney and his wife, Ellen, attend weekly Mass. The clergy he most admired were two men who preached about service to the poor and disenfranchised, the late Cardinal John Bernardin of Chicago and Archbishop Óscar Romero of San Salvador, who was assassinated while celebrating Mass. Keyes calls Looney “a Sermon-on-the-Mount Catholic,” a believer that blessed are the poor. The senator says his wife shares his values through working with individuals in her parish, not politics. Looney says she is fond of telling him that her faith is exhibited in retail, his in wholesale. His kidney transplant in December 2016 drew some attention to his long struggle with the rheumatoid arthritis that struck him as a teen, first attacking his feet and later his spine. Unable to walk during one protracted flareup, he missed nearly a year at Notre Dame High School but still graduated and enrolled in Fairfield University as a commuter. A friend drove him to campus, where he navigated on two canes until another attack left him unable to exit a car. He was treated with gold sulfate injections that reduced the severe inflammation but later proved to be toxic to his kidneys. Looney is stooped from the arthritis in his spine. To make eye contact in conversation, he subtly rocks to raise his gaze. But he walks more comfortably in his 70s than he did in his teens.  “The last reunion I went to at Notre Dame High School, one of the guys said, ‘You were old then, and we’re just catching up to you,’” Looney said. He said his son, Michael, has likened him to the protagonist in “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” the satirical F. Scott Fitzgerald short story, later made into a movie starring Brad Pitt, about a freakish child who’s born old and ages in reverse. He laughed when telling the story. Keyes said Looney can laugh at almost anything about himself. “He’s remembers himself as the kid who couldn’t get up the stairs at Notre Dame, the kid who had to miss a year at Fairfield because he couldn’t get in the car,” Keyes said. Today, Marty and Ellen Looney can be expected at Mass at St. Bernadette. It’s the fourth Sunday of the year, when the readings and Gospel focus on Matthew’s account of the Sermon on the Mount. The first reading includes an admonition to “seek justice, seek humility.” There are varied responsorial Psalms, one being, “The Lord raises up those who were bowed down.” ...read more read less