‘LOOKIT’
A majority of Vermonters support a statewide mask mandate, but the state’s politicians have been less than eager to impose one. Gov. Phil Scott has vowed to veto such a measure. And certain top lawmakers have said they weren’t exactly jumping at the chance to take up the question in their committees.
But then leadership intervened, and take it up they did. In just three days, the Senate Health and Welfare Committee scheduled testimony and drafted a bill.
Sen. Ginny Lyons, D-Chittenden, who chairs the committee, had earlier argued that the slow pace of the General Assembly — and the virus’ breakneck speed — made passing legislation the wrong way to address an ever-evolving public health crisis.
Ironically, she was somewhat vindicated Friday morning as she attempted to wrangle her own committee members into taking a vote that afternoon. She asked them: Could they reconvene quickly — for just five minutes — after the floor session let out?
No, was the emphatic reply from Sen. Ann Cummings, D-Washington. “I’m not ready to make a decision on this in five minutes,” she said.
OK, Lyons said, offering Monday as an alternative.
“What’s the matter with Tuesday?” Cummings replied.
That would miss the committee’s chance to advance the measure to the full Senate as quickly as possible, Lyons answered.
“Lookit: The time for this moving is very short,” the chair added, sounding a bit annoyed.
“This is a public health crisis right now,” agreed Sen. Ruth Hardy, D-Addison. “If we’re going to have any sort of impact with this, we need to move it as quickly as possible.”
The committee did briefly come back after the floor. But not to vote. That would need to wait until Tuesday, Lyons announced.
“It seems to me that we might need a little bit more time,” she said.
— Lola Duffort
IN THE KNOW
The 150-member Vermont House is set to return to the Statehouse in a hybrid fashion next week.
The chamber on Friday greenlit H.R. 14, which will allow House committees to return to in-person work until at least Feb. 1. Lawmakers who want to continue legislating remotely can do so if they check in with their committee chair.
For now, the Senate remains remote until Feb. 25, unless lawmakers in the 30-member chamber take action to change course. The Senate Rules Committee, which is next scheduled to meet Thursday, has decided to revisit the question on a weekly basis.
— Lola Duffort
Legislators are moving forward with a plan to maintain Vermont’s multi-member House districts for the next 10 years — at least for now.
By a 32-90 vote Friday, the House rejected an amendment to the reapportionment bill, H.589, that instead would have advanced a single-member map favored by the tri-partisan Legislative Apportionment Board. Reps. Heidi Scheuermann, R-Stowe, and Casey Toof, R-St. Albans Town, introduced the amendment.
Instead, the House chose to stick with the multi-member district map, as approved earlier this week by the House Government Operations Committee. The House is expected to vote again on the draft plan early next week.
Scheuermann was unable to attend Friday afternoon’s debate on the remote House floor, but Toof read comments on her behalf bemoaning the multi-member map, as well as the House committee’s decision to ignore the Legislative Apportionment Board’s recommendation.
“Frankly, I am surprised this kind of amendment is needed to advance the LAB-approved report and map,” Toof quoted Scheuermann as saying. “It is frustrating, Madame Speaker, that your Government Operations Committee has decided to advance a different map — one that was, in fact, taken up by the LAB twice but was denied by a majority of that board.”
Government operations committee members have tried to make clear that votes on the competing proposals are far from final. In a one-of-a-kind legislative process for the House, redistricting proposals require full approval by the House not once, but twice. In between the two votes, the committee can take testimony from any number of stakeholders and lawmakers, and the map can be edited.
— Sarah Mearhoff
Q&A with Rep. Mari Cordes
Rep. Mari Cordes, D/P-Lincoln can usually multitask. A registered nurse at the University of Vermont Medical Center, Cordes would chat with constituents during her lunch break or catch up with colleagues during her drive to work. But things are hectic at the hospital these days. Omicron sidelined more than 400 of Cordes’ colleagues, and the patients keep coming. The legislative session is also gathering steam.
Q: How does it feel to be a state lawmaker and a nurse right now?
Cordes: Some days are better than others. Some days I feel defeated and hopeless. That, fortunately, happens much less frequently. At my usual state of mind I’m just determined. At the hospital, I work with an incredible team that I’m so grateful for. That makes all the difference in the world. All the nurses and the doctors and the nursing assistant and respiratory therapists — we have each other’s backs.
Q: How do you balance the two roles?
Cordes: Even this year, during this session, I usually won’t work. On the days that we’re in the session, however, I will pick up maybe a four-hour shift from 3 to 7 p.m. on a Friday, for example. And then I will work Saturday, Sunday, Monday, so that I can work at the hospital and I have been picking up those shifts.
Q: Sounds hectic. Do you ever sleep?
Cordes: I have made a concerted effort in the last couple of years to prioritize my sleep. So that means I don’t have a social life. Sometimes I sleep at the hospital actually. Often I sleep in the on-call rooms at the hospital because I have an hour-long commute one way. And so that’s one way I can make sure I get sleep — if I save those two hours by just sleeping at the hospital.
Q: What do you do to relax?
Cordes: I lift weights. … I have dumbbells at home and I have a small bench where I can do leg curls. I have therapeutic bands and an elliptical. And then I go for short walks in the woods — we live out in the woods in a beautiful area with lots of wildlife — and so just being outside in the woods and even our driveway is gorgeous.
— Liora Engel-Smith
IN THE FEED
A backstory on today’s Lightly Chaotic Twitter Exchange Involving A Certain Former Governor:
Politico reported last week that former president Bill Clinton was whipping votes for the Democrats in D.C. — specifically, trying to get Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., to scrap the filibuster for a vote on election reforms.
Friday’s Politico Playbook newsletter reported this:
Clinton also spoke with (Sen. Kyrsten) Sinema recently, according to one of the people familiar with the call, and said afterward, “I don’t know her, but I like her.”
Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, a Democrat, tweeted this a few hours later:
“I don’t know her, but I think she’s a little nuts”
— Riley Robinson
ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL
An emergency room doctor is entering the race to replace retiring U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy.
Dr. Niki Thran, a Warren resident, said she isn’t formally announcing her Senate run until Sunday, but has already created a campaign website and Facebook page.
Thran, a Democrat, said she is running for office to address major issues in the national health care system, such as surprise billing, the opioid epidemic and the Covid-19 pandemic.
—Tiffany Tan
ON THE FIFTH FLOOR
Gov. Phil Scott signed the first of the Legislature’s three pandemic-year municipal meeting bills into law on Friday.
Scott approved S.172, which will allow the state’s 246 municipalities to replace March 2022 town meetings with Covid-safe mailable secret ballots or warm-weather gatherings.
“Unfortunately, the Legislature has missed another opportunity to expand voter access further by expanding automatic mailing of ballots beyond general elections to include school budget votes, local elections and primary elections,” the governor said in a letter to legislators.
Lawmakers, for their part, would prefer Scott stop writing them and instead sign two related bills they just passed: S.223, which suspends requirements for local candidates to file petitions to place their names on March 2022 ballots, and S.222, which temporarily allows municipal governing boards to meet solely online.
— Kevin O’Connor
COVID CORNER
Vermont doesn’t have a date yet for people to sign up for the 150,000 antigen tests leftover from the state’s pilot program, the governor’s office said Friday.
The state released 350,000 tests in round one of its pilot program on Wednesday. All the tests were taken within five hours of the state opening up its signup site, which allows people to input their address and contact information and get two test kits per household — four tests in total — mailed to their address.
Gov. Phil Scott’s spokesperson, Jason Malucci, said via email that another signup opportunity is “likely,” but that the dates are not yet set.
— Erin Petenko
Vermont on Friday reported its second-highest number of people hospitalized for Covid-19 since the beginning of the pandemic.
The Department of Health reported that 100 people were hospitalized for the virus, just missing the record of 101 patients set Monday. That’s compared with an average of 50 to 60 hospitalizations prior to the December holiday season, which set off a dramatic rise in case counts combined with the spread of the Omicron variant.
Twenty-four people were in intensive care units, a decline from 28 on Thursday.
— Erin Petenko
The Covid-19 pandemic has been “evolving right in front of us” and masking guidelines are following suit, UVM Medical Center physician Tim Lahey told the House Committee on Human Services on Thursday.
His personal rule? Any mask is better than nothing, but surgical masks are better than cloth masks. Tighter-fitting masks, such as KN95 and N95, offer the best protection, but they aren’t always necessary.
Surgical masks are Lahey’s go-to for indoor situations, including the grocery store or seeing patients who don’t have Covid, he said. He wears KN95s and N95s in higher-risk situations, such as crowded public spaces where others aren’t wearing a mask, or when he treats Covid-19 patients.
“There’s no data to suggest that any variant is more likely to get through a mask than any other and we think they still work quite well, despite, you know, for instance, Omicron being more transmissible,” he added.
— Liora Engel-Smith
WHAT WE’RE READING
Supreme Court denies Banyai’s appeal, orders Slate Ridge to close (VTDigger)
Top Vermont lawmaker proposes $1,200 child tax credit modeled after the feds (VTDigger)
What Patients Can Learn With Confidence From One Negative Rapid Test (Hint: Very Little) (Kaiser Health News)
