Final Reading: To the scrap heap

Sen. Brian Campion, D-Bennington, works at his desk at the Statehouse in Montpelier on Wednesday, May 11. Photo by Glenn Russell/VTDigger

Things are quickly ending up on the cutting room floor as lawmakers hustle to adjourn as soon as Thursday.

In an effort to dodge another veto, lawmakers on Wednesday agreed to scrap a long-sought statewide rental registry that had been attached to a $20 million housing bill. The bottle bill, H.175, is likely dead after the Senate failed to garner the votes they needed to suspend their rules and message the bill over to the House on Wednesday. And H.715, the clean heat standard, has no path forward, House Speaker Jill Krowinski, D-Burlington confirmed Wednesday, after the House failed to override Gov. Phil Scott’s veto by a single vote the day before.

Nor is the House setting a veto session, Krowinski said, which means it’ll be up to Scott to call lawmakers back if he decides to wield his veto pen again. (There are certain exceptions: if the governor were to veto the budget, for example, he would be required to set a special session.)

“We’ve reached out across party lines to try to find compromises on these bills,” Krowinski said. “But I think it’s really important for us to wrap up our work.”

The governor, meanwhile, is getting his way on many key demands as the clock winds down. Lawmakers sent an $84.5 million economic development package his way Wednesday that provides most of the money he’d demanded for businesses recovering from the pandemic.

Scott’s press secretary, Jason Maulucci, said the governor was “very happy” with how money bills on the spending side were shaking out, but still frustrated with what lawmakers were leaving out of tax packages. (Scott has said his red lines are a full exemption of military pensions from the state’s income tax and an expanded earned income tax credit.)

Big bills still outstanding on Wednesday afternoon: another housing bill, S.226, Act 250 reforms, the so-called yield bill (which sets education property taxes), and H.510, a tax cut package that includes a new tax credit for Vermont.

The yield bill and the tax credit bill found themselves linked after Senate negotiators told their counterparts in the House that the latter couldn’t be settled until the former was.

The Senate wanted a large chunk of the state’s education fund surplus to go toward remediating polychlorinated biphenyls, better known as PCBs, in school buildings. The House, meanwhile, had initially planned to spend a large portion on tax relief.

Lawmakers worked into the evening on a compromise to both tax bills.

“It’ll be out,” said Sen. Ann Cummings, D-Washington, the chair of the Senate Finance Committee. “Everybody’s back to last and best offer.”

— Lola Duffort and Peter D’Auria

IN THE KNOW

More key lawmakers have announced they won’t seek reelection this year. Among them:

Sen. Chris Pearson, P/D-Chittenden, who was appointed to fill a vacancy in the Vermont House in 2006 and has been on the ballot every two years since. “It’s time for a new chapter,” Pearson said. “I’ve spent most of my 30s and all of my 40s in the Legislature. I’m turning 50 in January and I need to do something different.”
Rep. Bill Lippert, D-Hinesburg, chair of the House Committee on Health Care. Lippert cited his 28-year tenure as a state representative in his decision to retire. “It is time,” he told VTDigger in a text message.
Rep. Kate Webb, D-Shelburne, who has served in the House since 2009 and has chaired the House Committee on Education since 2019. “I’ve been able to participate in some significant conversations about the state of Vermont. And now it’s time to focus on the next stage of my life, which is just basically my family,” she said Wednesday.
Rep. Linda Joy Sullivan, D-Dorset, who is finishing her third term in the House. Sullivan challenged incumbent Doug Hoffer in the 2020 Democratic primary for state auditor, but held her seat. She plans to pursue “several other opportunities, among which include my continuing to serve the public but in a different capacity,” according to the Bennington Banner.
Rep. John Killacky, D-South Burlington, who is finishing his second term. In a VTDigger commentary, he called for higher compensation to encourage diversity in the Legislature, term limits and modernizing “legislative protocols and hierarchies.”

— Lola Duffort, Liora Engel-Smith and Peter D’Auria

YOU’RE INVITED

We’re hosting another debate — and it’s in person this time.

With incumbent Lt. Gov. Molly Gray stepping aside to run for Congress, Vermont’s No. 2 job is wide open. Republican candidates include Sen. Joe Benning, R-Caledonia, and former Rutland City Alderman Gregory Thayer. Democratic candidates include Rep. Charlie Kimbell, D-Woodstock; nonprofit executive Patricia Preston; former Rep. Kitty Toll, D-Danville; and former Lt. Gov. David Zuckerman.

All six are scheduled to take part in the debates on June 15, at the Paramount Theatre in Rutland.

Tickets are free, but limited. You can reserve yours here. It will also be livestreamed, and we’ll share that link closer to the event.

Submit your questions for the candidates here.

— Riley Robinson

ON THE MOVE

The House and Senate have approved a compromise on S.210, one of two bills aimed at solving Vermont’s affordable housing crisis. But facing a likely veto from Gov. Phil Scott, conferees shelved a key provision: a proposed statewide registry of rental properties. Scott vetoed a similar registry last year, and had referred to this year’s proposal as a “poison pill.”

“This bill is so important, we wanted to eliminate a veto excuse,” said one conferee, Rep. Tommy Walz, D-Barre City, as he explained the bill to Democratic colleagues in a House caucus Wednesday afternoon.

Rep. Tom Stevens, D-Waterbury, told VTDigger the conferees sacrificed the registry in the hope of saving something more important to legislators: state-run inspections of rental housing. “I don’t think the governor enthusiastically supports the enforcement, and that was truly important to us,” Stevens said.

Read more here.

— Fred Thys

Earlier in the legislative session, Rep. Felisha Leffler, R-Enosburgh, and Rep. Barbara Rachelson, D/P-Burlington, formed an unlikely team, collaborating on a bill to change Vermont’s civil forfeiture process.

Their bill, H.533, would have given property owners greater legal protection to reclaim property seized by law enforcement.

But at the end of the legislative session, the Senate Judiciary Committee removed all policy changes from the bill. Instead, H.533 now creates a working group to study the forfeiture process.

Sen. Dick Sears, D-Bennington, the chair of the Senate judiciary committee, said state’s attorneys, sheriffs and defense attorneys didn’t agree on the policy changes in the bill, including how to divide the proceeds from seized property.

There were also outstanding policy disagreements among committee members, according to Sears, as the Legislature neared adjournment.

— Riley Robinson

ON THE FIFTH FLOOR

Gov. Phil Scott signed several bills into law Wednesday:

H.266, which mandates Medicaid and large group health insurance coverage for hearing aids;
H.293, which creates the State Youth Council;
H.411, which sets rules for retrieving and use of hunted animals;
S.162, which creates additional employment rights for teachers; and
S.206, which commissions a state plan for addressing Alzheimer’s disease.

Scott also allowed S.197, addressing mental health support services in schools, to go into law without his signature.

— Riley Robinson

IN CONGRESS

As U.S. Senate Democrats teed up a doomed vote to protect abortion access nationwide, Vermont Sens. Patrick Leahy and Bernie Sanders called into question whether the U.S. Supreme Court, and even the Senate, represent the interests of the American public.

Wednesday’s vote came just over one week after news broke of a leaked draft majority U.S. Supreme Court opinion which, should it become official, would overturn decades-old court precedent upholding nationwide abortion protections.

The Women’s Health Protection Act, which failed after a 49-51 procedural vote Wednesday afternoon, would have codified into law federal abortion case precedent set by the landmark Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey decisions of 1973 and 1992, respectively.

Read more here.

— Sarah Mearhoff

ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL

State Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale, D-Chittenden, in her bid for Congress, has won the endorsement of U.S. Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash. Jayapal chairs Congress’s Progressive Caucus.

In a Wednesday statement, Jayapal said Ram Hinsdale “is exactly the kind of fearless progressive leader we need.”

“She’s a fighter and she delivers. She’s consistently been there for labor, for the environment, and for every single justice issue facing America. And I look forward to having the second South Asian American woman in the US House to help me build the bench for even more,” she said.

— Sarah Mearhoff

WHAT’S FOR LUNCH

Thursday’s deli offering will be a Greek-style chicken sandwich. The grill will have “dirty water dogs” (the chef’s description!) with warm sauerkraut. The special is a pulled pork sandwich on a brioche roll. Chef Bryant Palmer said the pork is smoked in-(State)house for 16 hours.

— Riley Robinson