[T]he events of the 2015-2016 biennium will make the history books. But in hindsight last year’s legislative vote for governor and inaugural protests seems nearly outshadowed by the historic ouster of Norm McAllister in the Senate last week. It’s hard to tell if that’s a function of the passage of time, or if it signals a change in the way the Statehouse operates.
In any case, this year feels different. It is, after all, a last hurrah for Gov. Peter Shumlin, Lt. Gov. Phil Scott and House Speaker Shap Smith, and the leadership vacuum is already a factor.
It’s doubtful that Shumlin, after losing so much political clout in the last election and battles with the Legislature over the past five years, will be able to insist on getting his way quite so easily. And in the House and Senate, the Democratic caucus will likely be more often split on everything from education reforms to marijuana legislation.
As is always the case in the second half of the biennium, lawmakers are thinking about leaving or re-election. There is little incentive in either case for legislators to stick their necks out on issues they don’t believe have traction back home.
The House has been cohesive because of Smith’s leadership, but as his power inevitably wanes this year, it will be harder for him to galvanize the Dems, who make up the majority, around issues that unite the party. Many are sure to think first about their own prospects for re-election and go rogue on controversial votes. The Senate, on the other hand, has always been squirrelly and unpredictable that way. The alliances in the Green Room are ever shifting.
But despite of, or because of, the politics, just like last year, lawmakers eventually put the drama behind them and get back to work on the nuts and bolts of new legislation that will stand in statute as a testament to the times we live in.
How to keep the cost of education down is a perennial issue, but a spending threshold that the House insisted on last year is causing upheaval on the local level. About a third of schools will hit the cap and representatives are under pressure to lift the threshold or ditch it altogether.
Just how much pressure representatives are under is hard to say. An inside source says the House has not been barraged with emails and letters from constituents begging for relief from the cap. The governor, however, has elevated the issue to crisis proportions and has said lawmakers must repeal the limits on school spending right away so towns can budget for schools before votes are scheduled on Town Meeting Day. The Senate, too, is all about repeal right now.
How the House, the Fifth Floor and the Senate resolve the issue is anyone’s guess (can you say tweak?), but Rep. Dave Sharpe and others on the House Education Committee are adamant that something has to be done now to curb the spiraling property taxes for education at a time when student enrollments continue to decline statewide.
The Senate was originally going to forge ahead with a vote on repeal this week, but thought better of the idea after the weekend when they couldn’t get their colleagues in the House to agree. In this particular power struggle between the governor’s office, the Senate and the House, it looks like the representatives have won, at least temporarily. The “tweak” to Act 46 (a slight increase in the threshold) will be hammered out in the House this week and the Senate will wait for word. “Immediate action” could mean votes on the floor next week.
A privacy rights bill is on a fast track in the Senate where it is expected to pass easily. S.155, is the first electronic privacy protection bill the Legislature has considered. Sen. Dick Sears says it strikes a balance between protecting the privacy rights of individuals and giving law enforcement access to information needed for investigations. Allen Gilbert, the executive director of the Vermont chapter of the ACLU, says the legislation gives police too much power to snoop on Vermonters. S.155 goes to the floor of the Senate on Wednesday.
Senate Judiciary has already moved on to marijuana and has two weeks to sort out the legal issues associated with legalizing the popular illicit drug. Hearings will be held next week, and on Jan. 29, the bill moves on to rounds with four other committees in the Senate. Word is, if the bill gets to the House in April, where there is not a robust base of interest and leadership on the issue, there will be too little time for the legislation to make it over the finish line.
A host of other bills will be taken up this week. Here are a few we will be tracking:
- The House Appropriations Committee is grinding through the $88.9 million budget adjustment act and will have a bill out at the end of this week or early next.
- An ethics commission is under consideration in House Government Operations.
- Lawmakers will hear from the Shumlin administration and the Green Mountain Care Board on an agreement with the federal government to create an “all-payer waiver,” which would funnel all funds for health care — insurance, Medicaid and Medicare — into one pot.
- The House Fish and Wildlife Committee will take up a bill that would ban the purchase and sale of ivory in Vermont.
