[V]ermont lawmakers arrived in Montpelier this year with an ambitious slate of priorities, from rewriting half-century old laws to amending the Constitution.
But with the session rounding the curve into the final stretch, it’s clear that some of those measures have slim chance of reaching the governor’s desk this year.
Seasoned Statehouse observers say it’s not over until the final gavel falls, but time is running out for significant reforms.
Here are some of the proposals that appear to be dead in the first half of the biennium and may be put off until the second half of the biennium, starting next January.
Cutting Vermont’s prison population by 250 inmates
Early in the session, Senate President Pro Tem Tim Ashe said he would push his colleagues in the Senate to enact a series of criminal justice reforms to reduce Vermont’s prison population. He had a specific number in mind: 250 inmates.
Ashe had offered a few suggestions for where to look for potential reforms: furlough, detention, sentencing laws, restorative justice and transitional housing.
But in an interview last month, the Senate leader said it will take more time for the Senate Judiciary Committee to come up with a package of strategies to reduce the prison population. The Legislature needs to have a better understanding of “the different subsets” within the prison population, he said.
Ashe now describes the effort as a “multi-year goal.”
“I think is going to probably require us to do a lot of homework in the off-season and next year will probably be the time for real action,” he said.
Act 250 reform
Lawmakers returned to the Statehouse at the beginning of the year with momentum to reform Vermont’s land use law, Act 250.
In December, a commission that had been tasked with studying the 50-year-old law released a report in which it recommended modifications to promote development in downtown areas, protect forest blocks and further restricting development on mountain ridgelines.
House lawmakers have dedicated time to reviewing the commission’s report and mulling possible changes to Act 250. But modernizing the sweeping law is a large task, and lawmakers said the bulk of the changes will have to wait until at least next year.
“My hope with Act 250 is that we can we can look at the last 50 years of what’s been working and what doesn’t work, and figure out a way to help the help make the law work a little better for Vermonters,” House Speaker Mitzi Johnson said last month.
Four-year terms for governors
Ashe kicked off the year pitching a slew of constitutional changes.
Two proposed amendments — one that would enshrine abortion rights, and another that would remove references to slavery from the Constitution — have strong chances this year of clearing the first of several steps toward ratification.
But another amendment, a proposal to extend gubernatorial terms from two to four years, likely won’t come up until next year.
While the amendment had broad support, with more than a dozen senators sponsoring the measure, Ashe said the other proposed changes to the Constitution took precedence.
“It just didn’t get to the top of the list for this year,” he said.
Vermont and New Hampshire are the only states in the nation with two-year terms for governors. Gov. Phil Scott thinks extending term lengths is a good idea, while other governors are divided on the proposal.
Free college tuition
In the early weeks of the session, a proposal to establish free tuition to public colleges in Vermont — a nonstarter in previous years — began to gain momentum.
S. 38, the “free college” bill, would cover the costs of 30 credits (the equivalent of one year) at the Vermont State Colleges or the University of Vermont for any Vermont resident within two years of their high school graduation.
The proposal comes with an estimated price tag of $8 million in year one and $11.6 million in year two.
The bill didn’t meet the crossover deadline, and consequently doesn’t have a path forward this year. But, Senate Education is actively working on the proposal, and Sen. Phil Baruth, D/P-Chittenden, the committee’s chair, says he will bring the free college tuition bill back next year.
Auditing accountable care organizations
A bid by the state auditor to get more access to records of the state’s accountable care organization — currently Colchester-based OneCare Vermont — doesn’t appear poised to move anywhere fast.
Auditor Doug Hoffer has said he already has authority to audit OneCare, the private entity coordinating the state’s multiyear “all-payer” experiment in health care system reform, in relation to its Medicaid contract with the state. But Hoffer is requesting “expanded access” to records because of the complex structure of the organization and because he expects OneCare to contest some of his requests.
OneCare, which is an LLC and has limited requirements for disclosure, has said the Green Mountain Care Board already “provides continual, rigorous oversight of all aspects of our organization, in addition to federal oversight.” An annual third-party audit of OneCare is submitted to the care board.
Rep. Bill Lippert, D-Hinesburg and chair of House Health Care, said H.181 didn’t move from his committee before crossover in part because he thought the Senate might look at the issue. He also noted that House Health Care has been “otherwise occupied” with a large policy bill addressing the individual mandate, association health plans and other issues.
Lippert said the committee still could take up H.181. But he added, “I think one of the other questions is whether it’s really a necessary bill.”
Ban on new fossil fuel infrastructure
Last week, members of environmental groups presented a petition asking lawmakers to ban the construction of new fossil fuel infrastructure in Vermont. A House proposal is unlikely to move anywhere this session.
H.51 remains in House Energy and Technology, and although lawmakers have heard testimony on the bill, chair Rep. Tim Briglin, D-Thetford, said he doubts the committee will move on it before the end of the session.
Briglin said that while his committee has been working on the legislation, the Senate “has not even started to take this up.” S.66, a parallel bill, remains in Senate Natural Resources, where the committee has been focused on its single use plastics ban and a clean water plan.
When asked if passing the legislation would be a priority next session, Briglin demurred. “This is an issue that is very important for Vermont. I don’t speak for my nine other committee members or the other 149 members in the House,” Briglin said. “I will not move something out of committee that I don’t believe will pass.”
Housing bond
In January, Sen. Michael Sirotkin, D-Chittenden, pledged to make affordable housing a priority this session.
The Economic Development, Housing, and General Affairs chair put together plans for housing bond worth about $38 million, similar to one passed by lawmakers in 2017.
But on Thursday, Sirotkin bowed to pressure from opponents of the bond, including Treasurer Beth Pearce, and settled instead for a study of how other states support housing development.
Pearce testified in March that after a recent state bond rating downgrade, this is not the right time to take on major debt for housing.
But housing advocates see the bond as an important step. Chris Donnelly, communications director for Champlain Housing Trust, said Thursday that Massachusetts last year passed a $1.8 billion housing bond and California a $4 billion housing bond.
“So it’s not as though other places haven’t worked to address this,” Donnelly said. “I understand it’s only a couple years ago that we did the housing bond here, but the problem still persists and we’re just starting to dig ourselves into a hole again.”
Anne Wallace Allen, Lola Duffort, Mike Faher, Xander Landon and Kit Norton contributed to this story.
