Several lawmakers said they’d spend next week’s Town Meeting Day recess catching up with their constituents. Responsible! But boring!
As the House debated a resolution on remote work Friday, we ambushed a small group of Republican members hanging around outside the chamber doors.
Rep. Pat Brennan, R-Colchester, said he would be taking a shift working the polls on Town Meeting Day.
Rep. Larry Cupoli, R-Rutland City, said he planned to spend 12 hours on Tuesday outside the polls. “I meet and greet every single voter,” he said.
“That’s what he says. He can’t,” jabbed Rep. Jim Harrison, R-Chittenden. “I’ve seen him on the golf course.”
Rep. Ken Goslant, R-Northfield, joked, “I might reintroduce myself to my wife.”
A few minutes later, the House voted to extend remote work in specific Covid-19 situations through the end of 2022. The resolution also extends the possibility of remote work through the 2023-24 biennium should the Rules Committee deem it appropriate.
Under the resolution, a member who wishes to work remotely due to risks from an underlying health condition will need to submit a note from their health care provider to the Speaker of the House.
Rep. George Till, D-Jericho, and Rep. Mari Cordes, D/P-Lincoln, opposed the doctor’s note requirement in remarks they delivered to the House floor via Zoom.
Cordes called it a “paternalistic and parochial approach” that would waste health care resources.
The House ultimately approved the measure, voting 108-17, at the end of a marathon, nearly three-hour floor session. They’re scheduled to return to the Statehouse March 8.
Here’s how a few other politicos plan to spend their break, in no particular order:
Rep. Mike McCarthy, D-St. Albans City, said his dog, Izzy, “will be getting some extra walks” next week.
Rep. Emily Long, D-Newfane, timed a wrist surgery to happen over break, and said she plans to spend the week recuperating.
Lt. Gov. Molly Gray said she hopes to get some rest and spend time with family, and will be spending some time at the polls in Burlington’s South End meeting voters.
Rep. Jana Brown, D-Richmond, said in addition to catching up on work, she’s hoping to get in some skiing or go snowshoeing with her pup, Wilson.
We at Final Reading will also be spending some time with our four-legged friends! Like the Legislature, this newsletter will take a break next week and return to your inbox March 8.
— Riley Robinson
IN THE KNOW
After four years of workshopping, the Senate Government Operations Committee has passed S.155, a bill to replace the state’s Department of Public Safety with an Agency of Public Safety.
Sen. Jeanette White, D-Windham, the primary sponsor of the bill, said at the start of the hearing that S.155 is “a reorganization bill, and it does not solve the other issues of law enforcement that we’re looking at” in other pieces of legislation.
Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale, D-Chittenden, said she was disappointed with the committee’s engagement with the public throughout the hearing process, saying it “was not as meaningful as a lot of people wanted it to be.”
“I still have a lot of concerns not about what is in the bill, but what’s not in the bill after a major reckoning around racial justice and policing in this country,” she said. “I think it could have been a more visionary proposal and bill.”
White said that S.155 “is not the end” of the policing conversation in the Legislature, but questioned whether it “was so bad” in the first place.
“We will continue to do our work and continue to — I don’t want to say change the culture and the policing in Vermont, I want to say continue to work toward ever-improving it,” White said. “It wasn’t in terrible shape before. And I do need to make that clear that we will continue to work on it. But … it isn’t that it was so bad before that. Anyway, I don’t, nevermind.”
— Sarah Mearhoff
The Senate Committee on Natural Resources voted 5-0 on Friday to approve S.148, Vermont’s landmark environmental justice bill, sending it to the Senate floor.
Committee members have been taking testimony for weeks on the bill, first introduced by Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale, D-Chittenden. Vermont is one of few states in the country without such a policy.
The bill would establish an advisory council on environmental justice within the state’s Agency of Natural Resources, require the state to deploy a mapping tool that would measure where environmental burdens are taking place, require state agencies to adopt a community engagement plan, establish a goal that the state spend at least 55% in environmental justice communities and more.
“I appreciate people bringing good thinking and good hearts to the project,” Sen. Chris Bray, D-Addison, told the committee after the vote. “I think we’re in a better position than we were roughly two months ago.”
— Emma Cotton
ON THE MOVE
After more than an hour of discussion and questioning, the Vermont House preliminarily passed H.697, a bill that would allow some landowners to enroll passively managed land in the state’s Current Use program.
Lawmakers voted 83-43 on Friday morning, with 22 members absent. Before passing on the House floor, the bill cleared the House Committees on Natural Resources, Fish and Wildlife and the Committee on Ways and Means. The Committee on Agriculture and Forestry took additional testimony.
The use value appraisal program, also called Current Use, is widely credited with keeping Vermont heavily forested. It began in 1980 and allowed landowners to be taxed based on the value of their undeveloped land, rather than on its value in the marketplace.
— Emma Cotton
The pension reform bill is finally on its way. The Senate Government Operations Committee on Friday voted out legislation that would elaborate in law the pension deal brokered between public sector unions and top lawmakers in a summer task force. The bill next heads to the Senate Appropriations Committee.
Administration officials have yet to weigh in on the deal.
— Lola Duffort
The Senate approved H.654, a bill that extends more flexible health care regulations for another year. The measure relaxes some professional licensing rules for retired and out-of-state health care workers to practice in Vermont.
The bill is now headed for the governor’s desk.
— Riley Robinson
The House Human Services Committee voted out a committee bill that would give the Legislature more oversight over the developmental disabilities services system.
The bill would require the Department of Disabilities, Aging and Independent Living to conduct annual, on-site quality assurance reviews of the designated and specialized services agencies. It would also require DAIL to obtain the General Assembly’s approval before overhauling some aspects of the system, such as payment or case management.
In addition to expanding legislative oversight, the bill also would kick-start a process to develop new housing and residential services options for Vermonters with developmental disabilities. Currently, the system is “heavily reliant” on an adult foster care model, which doesn’t work for everyone, said Kirsten Murphy, executive director of Vermont Developmental Disabilities Council.
Several parents of adults with developmental disabilities have testified before the committee in recent weeks, advocating for alternative housing options.
“It’s been years of us asking for different pieces of this (bill),” Murphy said. “I do credit the families with being the squeaky wheel which got House Human Services — which has hundreds of things to look at — to suddenly, this year, notice this department.”
— Riley Robinson
ON THE FIFTH FLOOR
Nancy Waples’ parents fled the communist revolution in China. She grew up working in her family’s Chinese restaurant in New York City and learned to speak English at age 9.
On Friday, Gov. Phil Scott nominated Waples to the Vermont Supreme Court. If confirmed, she would become the first woman of color to hold a seat on the state’s highest court.
The 61-year-old Hinesburg resident, who has served as a superior court judge since 2015, would fill a spot on the five-member court vacated last fall by former Justice Beth Robinson.
— Alan Keays
IN CONGRESS
Vermont is set to see roughly $200 million from a multibillion-dollar federal initiative to revamp five major land ports between Vermont and Canada, White House and General Services Administration officials announced Friday.
As part of Congress’s Infrastructure Package, the federal government is pouring $3.4 billion into modernization construction projects for 26 land ports on the country’s northern and southern borders in hopes of easing traffic buildup at border crossings and speeding up trade. Five of those ports are in Vermont.
— Sarah Mearhoff
Vermont’s congressional delegation is celebrating President Joe Biden’s historic nomination of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court. If confirmed, Jackson would be the first Black woman to serve on the nation’s highest court.
Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vt., in a Friday tweet heralded Jackson as “thoughtful, experienced, and brilliant.” Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., said in a written statement that she is a nominee with a “strong track record standing up for justice — economic justice, racial justice, social justice, political justice and environmental justice.”
Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., who oversaw hundreds of judicial nominations as the former longtime chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, touted Jackson’s “intellect and impartiality” during her tenure on federal district and circuit courts in Washington, D.C.
— Sarah Mearhoff
ZOOM ROOM
In a Senate Government Operations hearing on S.155, a bill to create an Agency of Public Safety, senators debated how to name a newly created office of community engagement, which will be housed under the agency should the bill pass.
After some back and forth, Sen. Jeanette White, D-Windham, suggested a placeholder name just for the bill text, like “the Office of XXX,” and then allowing the office to name itself.
“XXX has, like, kind of a different meaning,” Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale, D-Chittenden, said.
Heyo!!!
The committee settled on a G-rated name: the Office of Community Collaboration and Empowerment.
— Sarah Mearhoff
WHAT’S FOR LUNCH
On Monday, the cafeteria will serve goulash, Chef Bryant Palmer said.
Though most lawmakers will be gone, the cafeteria will be open next week, except for Tuesday, which is Town Meeting Day.
— Riley Robinson
WHAT WE’RE READING
Café Mamajuana Named Best New Restaurant Semifinalist in James Beard Awards (Seven Days)
More than 40 Vermont municipalities to vote on retail cannabis this Town Meeting Day (VTDigger)
It’s a bear battalion! Hank the Tank turns out to be 3 bears (Associated Press)
