Republicans leaders were invited to attend governor’s news conference, but…

But House Minority Leader Larry Cafero, R-Norwalk and Senate Minority Leader John McKinney, R-Fairfield, never saw the bill. Speaking to reporters at about 10:30 p.m. Monday, they said that a hold-up in the deal spiked a tentative noon news conference where Gov. Malloy was going to announce a deal. It got pushed back to 10 p.m. Cafero said that on Sunday, he and McKinney were shown a two-page summary of what is now about a 200-page bill. “The language that did come out did not jibe with the two-page memorandum,” he said. “It was off in several substantial areas and the governor wanted assurances that those disagreements, or those inconsistencies, would be corrected, as did Sen. McKinney and myself.” The 10 p.m. newser was based on verbal agreements on changes to the bill, he said. “We cannot stand before the public nor our respective caucuses and say we’re on board a bill we haven’t seen. As a matter of fact, it would be fair to say that the governor has not seen it, that probably at this point, 99.9 percent of the General Assembly has not seen this bill.”

McKinney: “I don’t believe any legislator, except maybe one or two in the Democratic caucus, has seen the bill yet. We were given a summary of an agreed deal yesterday; a working draft today which differed from that agreement and were told went through a series of changes throughout the day and evening. And there’s a final version that we’ve yet to see.”