Some lawmakers are getting restless about the Statehouse’s continued mask mandate, especially now that Vermont has relaxed its statewide mask guidance.
Sen. Joe Benning, R-Caledonia, sponsored a resolution Friday morning to immediately scrap the Legislature’s mask requirement. When Lt. Gov. Molly Gray referred it to committee, Benning tried to suspend the rules to hustle through a vote.
Some of his colleagues were … less than pleased.
“If you are going to ask for a rule suspension on a bill or a resolution, it is customary to let leadership know of such a request,” said Senate President Pro Tempore Becca Balint, D-Windham. “That has not happened this morning.”
Balint urged other senators to block the rules suspension.
Benning jabbed back: “The issue is not a discussion, quite frankly, for leadership.”
Gray and Senate Secretary John Bloomer had their work cut out for them this morning refereeing the procedural minutiae that followed. Could senators debate the motion to suspend rules? Could they debate the substance of the resolution in debating the motion to suspend the rules?
Benning argued that if the resolution was sent to committee, the mandate would linger for weeks before anyone took action.
“We also have been witness to our own colleagues struggling to get through reading legislation on the floor because their glasses are fogging up,” Benning said. “We have to learn how to be courageous.”
The body ultimately rejected Benning’s attempt to force a vote, so it will go to the rules committee after all.
Rep. Heidi Scheuermann, R-Stowe, also rustled up more signatures and sent a second letter to legislative leadership Friday afternoon, after the Joint Rules Committee declined a request to reconsider the mask mandate earlier this week. This second letter goes further, asking Joint Rules to rescind all Covid-19 restrictions at the Statehouse.
This time, some Democrats and an independent signed on to the cause, including Rep. Daniel Noyes, D-Wolcott; Rep. Henry Pearl, D-Danville; Rep. Jay Hooper, D-Randolph; Rep. Laura Sibilia, I-Dover; and Rep. Paul Lefebvre, I-Newark.
— Riley Robinson
IN THE KNOW
ICYMI — actually, we missed it — but it sounds like the Senate may be inclined to give the House’s $50 million child tax credit a haircut. Senate Appropriations Chair Jane Kitchel, D-Caledonia, on Thursday afternoon visited Senate Finance to paint a picture of the “fiscal reality” bearing down on her committee.
The state may temporarily be flush with federal cash, she told the tax-writing committee, but a litany of chronically underfunded state programs are now pleading for more cash — and on an ongoing basis.
“Should we be adding more rooms when our foundations in certain areas are not very stable?” she asked.
Kitchel ultimately gave the panel the maximum she could live with, in terms of a reduction in tax receipts: $40 million.
— Lola Duffort
A seven-member Senate committee in an unannounced hearing Thursday unanimously approved a significant reconfiguration of Vermont’s state Senate districts.
The proposal, which would determine the distribution of Vermont’s 30 senators for the next 10 years, shifts representation from the Northeast Kingdom to Chittenden County and breaks up the latter’s current — and highly unusual — six-member district. Those changes are a result of population shifts measured by the 2020 census as well as a law passed in 2019 prohibiting Senate districts with more than three members.
In Vermont, Senate districts roughly follow county lines, with most represented by one to three at-large members. Each senator should represent as close to 21,436 constituents as possible. Committee members agreed from the start of the redistricting process that they would not consider moving to entirely single-member districts, as was debated at length in the House.
While the Senate proposal garnered unanimous support Thursday from the tri-partisan Senate Reapportionment Committee, politicos on both sides of the ideological spectrum outside of the Statehouse expressed concern over it — as well as the process leading to it.
— Sarah Mearhoff
ON THE MOVE
S.4, a bill that would strengthen firearm background checks and ban guns in hospitals, passed a third reading in the House and will head to the governor’s desk.
— Ethan Weinstein
The House advanced H.505 on Friday, a bill that would decrease maximum sentences for drug crimes and establish a board to review existing drug possession legislation.
According to Rep. Martin LaLonde, D-South Burlington, judges have for the most part already been issuing sentences in line with H.505’s suggestions. The bill simply codifies existing practice.
But H.505 would create geographic justice in sentencing, LaLonde said, ensuring residents of certain counties do not experience uniquely harsh punishment.
While the bill reclassifies some felonies as misdemeanors — such as low-quantity heroin possession — it may help combat racial bias in drug arrests and sentencing.
“In Vermont, Black people were over 14 times more likely than white people to be defendants in a felony drug case,” LaLonde said.
H.505 also would establish a Drug Use Standards Advisory Board — an idea first proposed in H.644, a more radical bill that sought to decriminalize small, possession-level quantities of most drugs. The board would determine the benchmark personal use supply of each decriminalized drug and could make recommendations to legislators accordingly as to how to adapt drug policy.
— Ethan Weinstein
The state Senate has advanced a bill that promises to take future action on qualified immunity for police officers, but it fails to eliminate the legal doctrine outright as proponents had hoped.
By voice vote Friday, the Senate approved a substantially amended S.254 on its second reading. One floor vote remains before the bill heads to the House. Sen. Dick Sears, D-Bennington, who championed the bill, told his colleagues on the floor that the bill was stripped down from its original intent after his Senate Judiciary Committee heard extensive testimony against the bill from officials in law enforcement.
“What we come to you with today is a watered-down version. I’m not going to sugarcoat it,” Sears said.
— Sarah Mearhoff
Our editors like this newsletter to go out at a reasonable hour, but I am currently sitting in House Appropriations, where lawmakers are trying to button up the Legislature’s first draft of the state budget. Their work is not quite done yet, although the House Appropriations chair, Rep. Mary Hooper, D-Montpelier, recently observed that it was not quite as late as it could be. Stay tuned!
— Lola Duffort
WHAT’S FOR LUNCH
Chef Bryant Palmer wasn’t quite sure what we’d be having on Monday when I first came to pester him on behalf of you, our very dear reader, but as I, too, was struck by indecision over the yogurt options, inspiration struck: It’ll be chicken quesadillas.
— Lola Duffort
WHAT WE’RE READING
Pandemic Losses Spur NCAA to Set Up Captive Insurance in Vermont (Seven Days)
Environmental groups call on EPA to simplify pollution regulation (VTDigger)
Boves change course, say they won’t evict Winooski tenants (VTDigger)
Correction: An earlier version of this story used the wrong first name for Senate Appropriations Chair Jane Kitchel.
