Jon Margolis is VTDigger’s political columnist.
[O]n March 22, after subjecting it to the usual procedure – public hearings, committee meetings, amendments, floor debate – the state Senate passed S.169, requiring a 24-hour waiting period before most handgun purchases.
Continuing the usual procedure, S.116 became the responsibility of the House of Representatives, where it was referred to the Judiciary Committee.
Like every other committee in the Vermont Legislature, this one has precious few Republicans. Three of 11, to be precise. Seven of the other eight are Democrats. Selene Colburn of Burlington is a Progressive.
So there should be no problem for the bill. With a few exceptions, it is Republicans who are uneasy about gun restrictions. Most Democrats and Progressives have no problems with them. Considering that this restriction is mild – the original bill proposed a two-day wait for all firearms – it seemed reasonable to assume that it would have little trouble clearing the committee.
But it’s stuck there. The committee has scheduled no vote on the measure, and though committee chair Maxine Grad, D-Moretown, said she planned to take up the bill before the end of the session, talk around the Statehouse suggests that passage might have to wait until next year.
The problem seems to be that House members are hearing from opponents. By all available evidence (polling, recent election results) these opponents don’t represent anything approaching a majority of the voters. But they are articulate and energetic.
Two possible interpretations here: One is, this is how it’s supposed to work. Lawmakers should be attentive to their constituents, even to a minority of their constituents.
The other, often expressed in and around the Capitol’s cafeteria, is that too many of the rookie lawmakers (and there are 36 of them in the House) aren’t accustomed to criticism, and too easily accede to it.
Especially, according to this analysis, those who have not held public office before and those of a certain age.
“It’s the millennials,” said one supporter of the gun sale bill.
As explanations go, this is plausible but flawed. The Judiciary Committee Democrat closest to the description of the nervous newcomer is Nader Hashim, D-Dummerston, a first-term millennial (he’s 30) who never before held public office.
He supports S.169 and would vote it out of committee.
“I think a 24-hour waiting period makes sense,” he said.
But he also said he understands, and has “expressed to the leadership,” his understanding of “a sense of apprehension and hesitancy” from other House members about the bill.
Asked whether those other members were also youngish first-termers, Hashim declined to specify.
“Just other members of the House,” he said, indicating that, newbie though he is, he understands how the game should be played.
His reticence, however, does not disprove the suspicion that there is a generation gap in the Legislature this year, mostly in the House and among Democrats. It didn’t just surface last week. Back in February, a veteran House committee chair was complaining over lunch about how some of the newcomers were “introducing too many bills and think they know everything.”
T’was ever thus. Everywhere, new arrivals, especially younger new arrivals, tend to be impatient and to be convinced they can do it better. Veterans, especially if they are older, tend to think they know what to do and how to do it (because, after all, they’ve been doing it), and that the young whippersnappers are too impatient and headstrong.
The word “whippersnappers” was actually used by one veteran legislator last week to describe some of what the lawmaker called the “really great, energetic” crop of newcomers, who are “going to be fine once they understand the responsibilities of having the majority.”
Those responsibilities, according to the veteran, include understanding that the majority has to govern, and that sometimes an individual member has to vote with the party even at some political risk and even if the member has some qualms about a bill important to the leadership.
If the generation gap is more evident this year, it could be because there are so many newcomers and so few Republicans. In percentages, the 43 Republicans (28.7 percent of the House) barely outstrip the first-termers (24 percent). Without enough Republicans to make it worthwhile to fight with them, the Democratic members have to fight among themselves because human beings have to fight.
Democrats have been having some disagreements over policy, especially about raising the minimum wage (S.23) or creating a paid family/medical leave system (H.107). These debates pit a more liberal faction against a less liberal faction, though the differences often seem more of demeanor than of ideology, meaning the generation gap could be relevant.
Not one of the present or impending disputes is likely to delay the end of the legislative session, expected on or about May 17. Both last year and the year before, adjournment was delayed while the Democratic Legislature and Republican Gov. Phil Scott fought over the budget and the school funding system.
But the state has to have a budget and a school funding system. It does not have to have a law requiring a waiting period for buying a pistol, a higher minimum wage, a paid family leave system, or marijuana stores. All this and more will be argued over, with chances for passage fluctuating for another four weeks. This year, there are no major disagreements over the budget and the school financing system, at least not yet.
As the end nears, the legislative week gets longer and negotiations last into the evenings, folks get grouchy, tempers fray, and some delay is possible. So is a short special session if Scott vetoes the minimum wage or family leave bills and the Democratic leaders think they have the votes to override.
The one issue that comes closest to being a must-pass – finding a way to pay for cleaning up the lakes and rivers – might actually pass, partly thanks to pressure from the federal Environmental Protection Agency.
So far, though, it has not passed either house, there is not much time left, raising the possibility that lawmakers will find an excuse to determine that it can wait until next year. As every generation has learned since generations began, and as even this latest generation of Vermont lawmakers may learn, when something can wait another year, it often does.
