[C]hittenden County’s new senator, Helen Riehle, was sworn in Wednesday while behind the scenes senators scrambled to figure out her committee assignments.
Gov. Peter Shumlin appointed Riehle to fill the seat of Diane Snelling, whom he selected Tuesday to head the state Natural Resources Board. Riehle, a former longtime senator and representative, stated unequivocally she will not run for the Senate in November.
Both Snelling and Riehle are considered moderate Republicans. The other five seats in the Chittenden delegation are held by Democrats.
“It feels almost as if I’d never left,” Riehle said, adding she’d already received emails from advocates on environmental issues.
Wednesday afternoon, the panel in charge of making Senate committee assignments announced that Sen. Richard Westman, R-Lamoille, would take Snelling’s former seat on Appropriations and Riehle would keep Snelling’s seat on Natural Resources.
That leaves a hole on the Finance Committee, where Westman served.
The Committee on Committees, made up of Lt. Gov. Phil Scott, Senate President Pro Tempore John Campbell and Sen. Richard Mazza, put off a decision on replacing Westman. Scott said after the closed-door meeting the committee needed more time to review the options.
Earlier in the day, Mazza grumbled that the governor had “moved fast on this one” and senators had been “caught off guard.” He indicated he was in no hurry to figure out the committee assignments.
“There are a lot of moving parts, and we just found out about this yesterday,” said Mazza, a Grand Isle Democrat.
Sen. Jane Kitchel, D-Caledonia, the chair of Appropriations, said before the Westman announcement that she wanted to see Snelling replaced with another Republican on her seven-member committee, which is otherwise all Democrats.
The Appropriations Committee is still several weeks from finalizing its budget, Kitchel said. The panel is already down a member, she said, because Sen. Dick McCormack, D-Windsor, has been unable to attend meetings because of a medical problem.
Meanwhile, Snelling thanked her colleagues and Chittenden County voters before Riehle was sworn in.
Snelling said she was excited about her new post and had checked out the Natural Resources Board offices in the National Life Group complex. She will chair the nine-member board that oversees the district commissions that review Act 250 applications. The board develops policies around the state’s development control law.
Snelling said she was honored to serve. But she added, “I’ve been here 15 years and I had really started thinking about the next phase of my life” particularly after her mother, Barbara, died last fall. Diane Snelling had been appointed to fill her mother’s Senate seat after she fell ill in 2002.
Barbara Snelling served as lieutenant governor before becoming a state senator. She was married to former Gov. Richard Snelling, who died in office in 1991.
Snelling said the Natural Resources Board job was attractive because she could work on one issue and make more money. Her new post will pay about $100,000 a year.
“I’ve said for many years that we as senators, as legislators, are the dilettantes who oversee the experts and wanting very much to be one of the experts,” Snelling said.
Snelling cited her work on making groundwater a public resource, shoreland protection and getting recognition for the Abenaki as her greatest accomplishments in the Senate.
Riehle, sporting orange in a sea of dark suits, was warmly greeted when she took her seat among the Chittenden delegation.
She will be unable to attend Senate hearings next week because of a prior commitment, but Campbell said that was known before she was appointed.
After the swearing-in, Riehle reiterated she was just a caretaker and would vote in the best interests of Chittenden County.
“Zero chance that I’m going to run,” Riehle said.
