For more than 40 years, Rep. Alice Emmons, D-Springfield, has roamed the Statehouse halls representing her hometown. 

That makes her the longest-tenured member currently in the House, earning her the title of “dean.” 

For the last 20 years, she’s led the House Corrections and Institutions Committee. She knows things few others do — like how the state has gone about building new prisons in the past. 

In fact, before she joined the committee as vice chair, Emmons said there wasn’t a committee even paying attention to prisons. 

“There was no legislative committee that worked directly with the Department of Corrections, with their policies and their programming and staffing issues, none of that,” she recalled. “I kept pushing and pushing and saying, ‘look, we’ve got a department here in state government that we have no legislative knowledge of.’”

Emmons has seen more change than just her committee’s focus. The general fund is no longer a measly $300 million. No one plays cards in the cardroom anymore. Fewer reporters stake out the Golden Dome.

But there’s something else more disconcerting to her. 

“The biggest change is people don’t build the relationships with each other that they used to,” Emmons said. Issues once hashed out face-to-face now get resolved over email or quick moments in the hallway. A faster pace of work means less time to get to know each other, she said. 

Once upon a time, lawmakers spilled into the Thrush Tavern next door for drinks after work. More people stayed in Montpelier, according to Emmons, and brought their spouses along with them. Nights would extend as lawmakers invited each other over for dinners.

“It’s those connections that just solidify what the General Assembly is,” Emmons said, “and I think now we’ve become too separated because we’re so tied to our cellphone.”  

As a vault of institutional knowledge, Emmons sees it as her responsibility to keep some of the old ways alive. Her advice to newcomers? “To listen, to listen, to listen. And don’t keep talking.”

Much of what Emmons knows she learned from listening, watching committee chairs run a room. She recalled serving with Michael Obuchowski, former House speaker and a previous dean. 

“He said to me, ‘the dean of the house is the conscience.’ And that resonated with me,” she said, “because you’ve seen so much.”

She paused, tears welling in her eyes.

“The thing I’m most proud of is being able to represent my hometown here, and just being able to contribute to the state that I love. Because I’m a Vermonter, and I’ve always wanted to contribute back to my state.”

—Ethan Weinstein

In the know

The Trump administration’s haphazard explanations for slashing thousands of federal jobs have state officials reexamining how they’d review fired federal workers’ claims for unemployment insurance, Michael Harrington, Vermont’s labor commissioner, told lawmakers on Friday.

Harrington told the House Commerce and Economic Development Committee that it could be difficult for the state to determine, based on accounts provided by the feds, whether employees were truly fired for misconduct — which, if true, could make them ineligible to receive support.

CNN reported Thursday that while the Trump administration has said it’s taking aim only at “low-performing” employees or those on probationary status, many of its firing decisions have been more arbitrary and in fact led to some workers being fired who had received strong recent performance reviews. 

“Our team in the (unemployment) division, and myself included, will be ensuring to instruct our staff that they need to take a hard look at these,” Harrington said. “They should not just be relying on what is put on the separation form — they would need additional information to justify that this was, again, a for-cause separation.”

Harrington said he wasn’t aware of a wave of firings impacting most federal workers in Vermont so far. There are about 6,800 federal workers across the state, he said. 

 — Shaun Robinson

Food for thought

As part of his “education transformation” plan, Gov. Phil Scott has put the state’s universal school meals program on the chopping block. According to Scott, nixing the program would help bring down education property taxes. He’s also argued the program is regressive. 

As a line item, universal school meals would cost Vermont about $18.5 million next year, inside the more than $2 billion education fund. To cut it, Scott would need the Legislature’s sign-off. 

Scott has said that if the Legislature is opposed to the repeal, lawmakers need to find an equivalent way to lower property taxes — something that hasn’t yet happened. 

Meanwhile, support for the program appears strong and growing. 

At the Statehouse Thursday, a group of anti-hunger advocates, school officials and lawmakers declared their intent to maintain the free meals initiative. House and Senate Democratic leadership have united in support of universal meals, and some Republicans have joined their colleagues across the aisle. In a straw poll, the House Agriculture, Food Resiliency and Forestry Committee voted unanimously to support the program.

According to advocates who spoke Thursday, the program costs about $30 per Vermonter annually. The Agency of Education says it saves families $1100 per student on the cost of food.

Read more about the debate here. 

—Ethan Weinstein

Corrections section

Yesterday’s newsletter misidentified a speaker testifying before the House Energy and Digital Infrastructure Committee. The speaker was the Agency of Digital Services Secretary Denise Reilly-Hughes.

— VTD Editors