[A] member of the House Committee on Commerce and Economic Development said he will formally request a new assignment after blowing up at the chair and storming out of a hearing when a bill he supported was declared dead for the year.
Rep. Paul Poirier said he believed he had a commitment from Rep. Bill Botzow, the chair, to move a bill dealing with independent contractors out of committee before adjournment next week.
When Botzow announced Wednesday the bill would not be voted on this year, Poirier said he got angry, told the chair he’d caved to business interests and had not kept his word. Poirier, who abruptly left the hearing, went straight to House Speaker Mitzi Johnson’s office and said he wanted to be taken off Commerce.
On Thursday, Poirier said he would make a formal request to Johnson for a new committee assignment for next year. The Barre representative who has a reputation for feistiness said he had little interest in commerce issues and that the blowup resulted partly because of a previous disagreement with Botzow. For the past dozen years, Poirier had served on Health and Welfare.
Botzow was shaken and disappointed by Poirier’s fit of pique. Botzow said he had not promised the bill would be voted out this year. He said more work and testimony were needed. The chair, a Democrat from Pownal, was concerned that Poirier’s blowup could affect progress on the bill.
Poirier was unapologetic and expressed few regrets, though he said in retrospect he should have talked to the mild-mannered Botzow privately. He said he was frustrated because a deal on a compromise bill was close after many, including himself, worked for years to resolve the issue.
“I just reacted to (Botzow) saying ‘I know people are frustrated’ and I said to Bill, I’ll tell him how frustrated I am,” Poirier said. “I shouldn’t have said it will be a cold day in hell before I come back. That wasn’t very appropriate.”
Poirier, a former majority leader under Speaker Ralph Wright, switched from Democrat to independent several years ago because he believed the Democrats had not done enough for labor.
“Like Ralph used to say, when you started shooting in the crowd, you end up saying things and I was in one of those moods,” Poirier said. “It’s a bill I have a lot of investment in, not just this biennium but in other bienniums and the other thing that was frustrating is this is the closest we came.”
The committee has been working on a bill to clarify when a worker should be designated an employee and when they can be considered an independent contractor. Businesses have been seeking clarity and Poirier said the legislation was the top priority of labor interests, too. The distinction is important because employers have to pay workers compensation and unemployment insurance for employees but not independent contractors.
Under current law, there is a three-prong test and a worker is deemed to be an employee unless they can pass all three requirements, the so-called A-B-C test. The current compromise would loosen the rules and allow authorities to look at the “totality” of a worker’s situation instead of requiring independent contractors to pass all three requirements. In return, Poirier said more enforcement was also included, which labor groups wanted.
Botzow said he did not take Poirier’s attacks personally.
“He’s worked very hard and wants to get it across the finish line. I have great respect for that but you know in that moment I did not see the pathway” for the committee to vote out the bill. He said several committee members, including himself, felt they did not have enough information.
Rep. Jean O’Sullivan, a member of the commerce committee who has helped forge the compromise, said she was disappointed the bill wouldn’t be voted out this year.
“Business, labor unions, they all agreed to the bill. It’s painful,” O’Sullivan, D-Burlington said, ticking off business and labor groups that expressed support. “We had it.”
But, O’Sullivan said, some members of the committee didn’t want to take up the bill this year. She said she was optimistic the coalition could hold until next January. She said she would ask the committee to keep working over the summer and commit to voting out the bill in the first month of next year or, she joked, “death will ensue.”
“This is huge. This is stopping business in the state. The governor wants to promote economic development. This is the biggest piece of it,” O’Sullivan said.
Poirier said waiting until January was a problem because there was momentum for the bill and that next year was an election year where tough issues are harder to resolve. Thursday afternoon, he was working the cafeteria to keep the bill moving forward. Poirier said his goal had been to get the bill out of committee, over to Ways and Means, so that it would have a running start next year.
The issue has yet to be taken up by the Senate and would have to be agreed to by Gov. Phil Scott.
Rep. Mike Marcotte, R-Coventry, said some fellow committee members were “having a hard time getting their head around how that (compromise) would work. There’s a fear it brings more subjectiveness to the process instead of less.”
“I think we’re on that road, but it’s not quite there yet,” he said, adding the committee was looking at federal rules for clarity as well.
“When you think you have a solution, and you start working it out, other things pop in and it kills the solution,” Marcotte said. “We can hurry things out the door just for the sake of saying we passed a bill and our committee has never been one that does anything like that. We’re extremely deliberative.”
Committee members were disappointed that Poirier took umbrage, but said it fit his reputation.
“It’s unfortunate,” Marcotte said. “Not just for the chair but the whole committee to have to go something like that, it gives everybody some heartache, I think, because we all try to work together and Paul has been a productive committee member all along. It’s just too bad that emotions took over.”
Poirier said the dispute was a carryover from a fight he had with Botzow years ago over the merger of Central Vermont Public Service and Green Mountain Power in which Poirier said he didn’t feel he was treated fairly.
“I was frustrated, and anyone that knows me, I’m very outspoken. I’m not afraid to say what I think,” Poirier said, adding “it wasn’t pretty” but that he didn’t think he could resolve the issues with Botzow. Going to another committee, he said, was in everyone’s best interests.
“Your word is your bond in this building. I don’t care if you’re not going to vote with me, but don’t mislead me. And I believed I was purposely misled,” Poirier said.
Speaker Johnson would not comment on his request. “We all lose our cool at times in this building,” Johnson said. “So we’ll see. If this issue were easy to solve, we would have solved it last year or the year before that.”
