[T]he paid family leave bill, H.196, is facing resistance from the Senate leader, advocates say.
Rep. Sam Young, D-Orleans-Caledonia, said that it is widely known in the Statehouse that Senate President Pro Tem Tim Ashe is the main obstacle to getting the bill to the floor this session.
“It is one of those things that I haven’t confirmed it with Tim, but its something everyone knows … it is not coming up because of the pro tem,” Young said.
Ashe dismissed that claim as gossip.
“The facts somewhat disagree with the fact that I want to kill the bill. The bill was taken up in the committee the first day back after crossover,” he said.
Whether it gets out of committee in time for the bill to be taken up by the full Senate this session is yet to be seen.
In November, Ashe attended a gathering of eight constituents who asked him to make a paid leave bill a priority. They told him personal stories about how their lives had been adversely affected by a lack of access to financial support when they had to leave work to care for family members.
Chelsea Frisbee, 31, of Winooski, who attended the meeting, told Ashe about how her life was changed when her mother was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and given five months to live. She said she was grateful when her employer allowed her to go on unpaid leave, but she struggled financially to care for her mother.
Ashe told Frisbee and other advocates for paid leave that the bill would not be his main focus this session. His priority was to garner enough support to override the governor’s veto of the minimum wage bill, she said.
After listening to their stories, Frisbee said Ashe seemed sympathetic but questioned whether there is broad public support for the bill and suggested that the group go ask the governor about the bill.
Gov. Phil Scott has said he does not support H.196 or the Senate minimum wage bill, S.40.
According to Frisbee, Ashe said he felt that the minimum wage bill would be more beneficial for more Vermonters.
“He said, ‘You know that’s politics,’” Frisbee said. “That was the excuse he fell back on. He said, ‘You have to choose your battles politically,’ and family leave was not his priority right now.”
Young said it doesn’t matter if the governor supports the bill or not, he thinks the Legislature should pass it.
“There are definitely a few of us in the House that want to see us move forward, whether or not it gets the governor’s veto or not, we don’t care, we should pass it,” he said.
After the event, Frisbee followed up with an email asking Ashe if he’d support the bill if the governor did not plan to veto it.
“I was wondering, though — if there was a Democrat in the governor’s office and the same situation, would you advance the paid family leave bill?” she wrote. “Do you believe that it’s important for Vermonters to have this very small, basic safety net and do you support this bill in general?”
Ashe said he would prefer a federal paid leave bill over a state program.
“It would harmonize among all employers, reduce disincentives for multi-state employers to add work in Vermont,” he said.
He went on in the email to say that he generally supports paid family leave, but has an issue with the way it is funded in H.196, which, he said, was funded by a regressive payroll tax.
“I do not like the use of a regressive VT payroll tax to achieve it, though I confess if you ask me what is a better way to fund it I don’t have a ready answer,” he stated in his email to Frisbee.
Senate Majority Leader Becca Balint, D-Windham, who is in the Senate Committee on Economic Development, Housing and General Affairs, where the bill is now, said the accusation that Ashe opposes paid leave is inaccurate.
“He has been supportive of us in doing our committee work around and supportive of the chair,” she said. ”I know that there have been questions asked to his support in the past, but I don’t think that reflects where we are right now.”
Balint said her committee plans to continue taking up the bill and said she could not say at this time whether the bill would make it to the floor.
“It’s my personal hope that it will, but I am not speaking on behalf of the caucus,” she said.
She said that H.196 had the chance to go through committee for a longer amount of time and since the Senate just started looking at the bill, they would need some time as well.
“We’re starting from a different place than the House was last year,” she said. “It’s kind of like it’s starting from scratch here. Certainly in the committee there is a lot of support there are a few things that I think we’ll want to address.”
Balint said there needs to be more discussion around the fact that as it stands right now, the bill only requires employees to buy into the program.
“Many of us would like the employer to have the skin in the game, but we may lose some folks if we do that,” she said.
When and if the bill gets through the Senate Committee on Economic Development, Housing and General Affairs, the bill will have to go through Senate Finance and Senate Appropriations committees before getting to the floor.
Frisbee said that if the Senate does not pick the bill up, they’re missing an opportunity.
“Women are in the public eye more than ever,” she said. “This issue, boiled down, is a women’s economic issue. Women are typically the primary caretakers.”
