As Vermont legislative session stretches on, adjournment is a moving target – VTDigger

The session stretches on 

“We’ve got to get out of here,” said Rep. Alice Emmons, D-Springfield, the longest-serving member of the Vermont House and the chair of the House Corrections and Institutions Committee. 

She’s ready to adjourn for the year and tend to her garden. 

Emmons, who was first elected in 1982 and has been a committee chair for 20 years, said the longest legislative session she remembers ended in the middle of June, during the 1990s. 

“But to go until the end of May is, I hope that’s not going to be our norm,” Emmons said. 

As joint Senate and House committees continue to debate some of the year’s most significant bills — the state budget, education reform, property tax rates — the legislative session has dragged on longer than in years past. 

For Vermont’s part-time Legislature, adjourning late causes practical complications in people’s lives. Many legislators arrange for seasonal housing in Montpelier, like Emmons who said she rents an apartment and lives alongside two other representatives. Although Emmons no longer works full time outside the legislative session, other lawmakers have jobs they planned to return to and childcare arrangements that end soon. 

The Legislature has typically adjourned in the middle of May in recent years, so many lawmakers plan accordingly. 

Last year, the last day of the session was June 16, though most committees finished their work by the end of May.

John Bloomer, secretary of the Senate, said that he thinks of 2020 as one of the most memorable legislative sessions. That year the Legislature didn’t adjourn until September. And because government procedure was so disrupted by the pandemic, lawmakers had to pass multiple short-term budgets, Bloomer said. 

Other lengthy years include 1961, during which the legislature didn’t adjourn until Aug. 1, due to a budget stalemate between the governor and the leader of the Senate. 

Rep. Emilie Krasnow, D-South Burlington, said she collected signatures to run for reelection early this year, anticipating the legislative session might get drawn out. She’s heard from other House members that they have a harder time campaigning against opponents back home when the session draws on. Their opponents may be living closer to voters and have more time to campaign, she said. 

By having a session for only half the year, Vermont’s Legislature is made up of community members with occupations rather than professional politicians. That leaves plenty of room for legislators to have potential conflicts of interest in their area of expertise, or — on the flip side — lack thorough expertise in the committee work they are assigned. But Emmons said she thinks the pros outweigh the cons. 

When legislators have a gaggle of staffers doing work for them, they start to disengage, Emmons said. Whereas in Vermont, legislators are always talking to each other face to face. 

“You’ve got a problem with a piece of legislation that’s coming out of another committee? You go and talk to the members of that committee, you go and talk to the chair,” Emmons said.

In the know

A proposed change to Stowe’s charter that would allow the town to double its local option tax to 2% “will die on the wall” in the Senate Government Operations Committee, the committee’s chair, Rutland Republican Sen. Brian Collamore, said Tuesday.

The committee voted 1-4 against advancing the charter change, which passed the House last week. Only Sen. Becca White, D-Windsor, voted for it. 

The proposal, H.954, faced opposition from the outset this year because some lawmakers were concerned that approving it would set off a wave of requests from other towns to boost their own local taxes on meals, rooms and other purchases. Debate over Stowe’s change was further complicated when the House Ways and Means Committee revised the language that town voters approved, altering where some of the newly proposed tax revenue would go. 

Under Ways and Means’ plan, which that committee drafted Friday, half of the newly added 1% in local tax would be deposited into a new, statewide fund for town highway projects. That fund, which would also get revenue from other sources, has been proposed in the Senate’s version of the budget bill, H.951.

Sen. Alison Clarkson, D-Windsor, called the changes to Stowe’s charter “an appalling precedent” ahead of the vote in Senate Gov Ops on Tuesday.

“We are not raising transportation money on the backs of visitors to Stowe and Stowe residents,” she said.

— Shaun Robinson

The House last week passed a version of the law enforcement masking bill stripped of its provisions penned in the Senate that were supported by anti-ICE activists. Lawmakers Tuesday reviewed a copy of the changed bill, S.208, on the Senate floor. 

Rather than voting on the bill — as changed by the House — legislators agreed to send the bill to a conference committee, made up of lawmakers from both chambers, in an attempt to reach a consensus. 

At 5 p.m. Wednesday, the House had not yet appointed lawmakers to the conference committee. If the House does not appoint members to the committee, or if the committee fails to reach a consensus, the bill will die. 

— Charlotte Oliver

On the move

The House on Tuesday passed S.71, a data privacy bill, after a landslide 129-3 vote. 

“This legislation limits what data can be collected, requires full transparency with consumers about how their data is used, increases protections for sensitive information, and bans manipulative data practices designed to exploit consumers,” House Speaker Jill Krowinski, D-Burlington, said in a statement. “Most importantly, it gives Vermonters real tools to fight back; the right to correct their data, opt out of collection, obtain a personal copy, and know exactly which third parties have received their data.”  

Two years ago, Gov. Phil Scott vetoed a more stringent data privacy bill, with supporters of the bill blaming tech industry lobbyists for spreading misinformation about it. 

Some of the House’s strongest data privacy proponents blamed a similar lobbying push for weakening this year’s bill. The amended bill now heads to the Senate for further consideration. 

— Ethan Weinstein

Dog days

What’s the end of a legislative session without some shenanigans?

As of Wednesday, there’s a new portrait up on the Statehouse walls — and it features not a historic leader but rather Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky’s dog, Laika. 

Vyhovsky brought her 13-year-old Samoyed to the Statehouse last Wednesday night, and captured the photo, which shows Laika seated dutifully at the Senate dais, to prove, should she ever be asked, how her dog “was acting lieutenant governor for about 10 minutes.”

What was supposed to be a clandestine transfer of power, however, turned out to be anything but. Laika left white hair all over the LG’s chair, Vyhovsky said — so much so that upon seeing it the next day, Vyhovsky explained, Lt. Gov. John Rodgers remarked that it looked as if “a sheep had died” there.

Investigation by Senate staff, including a review of security camera footage, soon exposed the two Vyhovskys as the culprits. Staff then had to lint-roll the chair and, apparently, shampoo it as well — two things Vyhosky said she never meant to happen.

“I have since apologized to the lieutenant governor for forgetting a lint roller,” she said. 

Vyhovsky said the LG was amused by the story, however, and asked for a framed version of her photo as penance for the hairy inconvenience. The photo was tacked up, in a well-appointed gold frame, in the Statehouse on Wednesday. Vyhovsky hopes the location will stay a secret, until The Powers That Be find out.

In exchange for this hot scoop, VTDigger agreed not to reveal its location and spoil the fun.

Here’s one hint, though: “I just have fun trolling John Bloomer,” Vyhovsky said.

— Shaun Robinson

Department of corrections

Yesterday’s newsletter misstated which chamber Tim Ashe led. He was, of course, the Senate pro tem. It’s been a long session …