The measure has yet to come up for a vote before either chamber of the Vermont Legislature, but a statewide mask mandate has “no path forward,” Senate President Pro Tempore Becca Balint, D-Windham, said Wednesday.
Republican Gov. Phil Scott has said for months that he would veto such a bill, but top Democrats nevertheless had said they would take up the subject in the 2022 legislative session.
Key committee chairs in both chambers at the start of the session expressed reluctance about moving forward with such a bill — but legislative leaders insisted that they would. The Senate Health and Welfare Committee took testimony and drafted a bill, although certain members balked when its chair asked for a vote on it last week.
On Wednesday, Balint said she would not press the matter further with lawmakers. She said she had contacted the governor’s office in recent days to see if Scott had changed his mind or would allow the bill to pass into law without his signature. He will not, she said.
Without the necessary votes to override a veto, the pro tem said it was simply not worth it to pursue the bill.
“Going through this performative act that we have already received word he will not support is a waste of a finite amount of resources,” Balint said. Better to spend time digging into whether lawmakers can help find money, for example, to send high-quality masks to schoolchildren, she argued.
The House does not appear eager to force the governor’s hand either. A bill to create an indoor mask mandate has been introduced and forwarded to the House Human Services Committee, but it has yet to receive a hearing. The lead sponsor of that bill, H.537, meanwhile, is not optimistic.
“I am deeply frustrated,” said Rep. Tanya Vyhovsky, P/D-Essex. “We have soaring case counts, hospitalizations and today we crossed the threshold for 500 Vermonters who have died.”
Vyhovsky conceded that the bill’s chances of becoming law, even if passed by lawmakers, is slim given the governor’s promise of a veto. But she argued that’s no reason not to try.
“It is not our job to let the administration set the agenda,” she said. “It is our job to fight for what is best for Vermont.”