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Editor’s note: this article was updated at 5:50 p.m. on April 8.
Sixteen members of the Vermont Senate returned to the Statehouse on Wednesday morning to approve a measure that will allow the chamber to vote remotely during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The lawmakers sat spaced at least 6 feet apart throughout the chamber, wearing masks, while other senators, who could not vote, watched on from their homes across the state via videoconference.
Until Wednesday’s measure was approved, a quorum of Vermont senators was still required to gather in Montpelier to pass legislation out of the chamber.
Senate Minority Leader Joe Benning, R-Caledonia, noted that lawmakers had received criticism from the public for continuing to meet in person during the pandemic, not understanding the procedural restrictions they faced.
The Senate last assembled in the Statehouse two weeks ago to pass emergency Covid-19 measures.
“What they didn’t realize was that our rules require us to meet in person and gathered as one,” Benning said, addressing the chamber. “This resolution is going to change that.”
While the measure will expire at the beginning of the legislative session that begins in 2021, Benning and Senate Majority Leader Becca Balint, D-Windham, said that while the Covid-19 pandemic may subside, it could also flare up again, or return in waves.
If that’s the case, senators may have to extend the remote voting provision into the next legislative session.
“This is a temporary rule,” Balint said. “At some point in the future we may decide that it needs to become a permanent avenue for us … if this becomes the new normal.”
Sen. President Pro Tem Tim Ashe, D/P-Chittenden, said that senators would participate in a “trial run” of the remote voting system on Thursday.
On Friday, the chamber is slated to send several pieces of Covid-19 legislation to the House, including a bill that would place a moratorium on evictions for the duration of the crisis.
They are also poised to pass legislation crafted by the Senate Government Operations committee that includes measures to extend expiration dates for some professional licenses, and loosen regulations for EMS responders.
Another bill backed by the Senate Judiciary Committee would allow for the remote transfer of property deeds, and extend the statute of limitations for civil court cases.
Ashe said the Senate is still in “all Covid-19-related business mode,” and that for now, he expects measures moving forward in the Senate will receive broad, bipartisan support.
But he said that the Senate will soon have to “take up some other business” — though it’s unclear what other measures will resurface as priorities for the Democratically-controlled chamber as the pandemic continues.
“Then we’re going to really see the test of whether technology facilitates the same kind of lively debate that we normally would expect,” he told reporters.
The House also plans to vote soon on a measure that would allow its lawmakers to vote remotely.
Two weeks ago, House members returned to Montpelier to pass a rule change that will allow the chamber to cast virtual votes, if three-quarters of the legislators approve the measure.
The lower chamber has yet to schedule a vote on its remote voting measure. The vote on that measure will not require lawmakers to return to Montpelier, however, and will itself be held remotely.
Aside from policy and procedural changes, lawmakers are also anticipating emergency spending requests from the governor in the near future.
Ashe said that lawmakers in the coming weeks will reassess emergency measures for health care providers that were passed last month.
“We will learn more about the extent to which flexibility we’ve created for the health care industry at this time is working,” he said.
“And I think that might require use to come back and make some revisions to the legislation we passed a few weeks ago.”
Colin Meyn contributed reporting