Rep. Brian Smith, R-Derby, wants to make it expensive to text and drive. He’s been working on a bill to increase the penalties for distracted driving for the past four years, since he was nearly hit on his motorcycle. Last year, he introduced H.262, which would have increased the penalty for adults from a $100 fine to a $250 fine, plus four points on your license.
For teens, it would have decreased the fine, but assessed five points against their license.
When Smith presented the bill last year, “even law enforcement thought it was harsh,” committee chair Rep. Diane Lanpher, D-Vergennes, said in an interview.
So Smith workshopped it some more, and adjusted the proposal so that a first-time offender could go to a diversion program instead of paying a fine. Given that it’s late in the session, Smith hoped to fold the new penalties into the miscellaneous Department of Motor Vehicles bill, S.280.
But the DMV is not on board, Commissioner Wanda Minoli told lawmakers this morning.
“It doesn’t align with the goals that we’ve been trying to focus on around criminal justice and reduction in fines,” she said.
Smith disagreed that the fines were too steep. The state imposes higher penalties for other violations on and off the road, he said.
“I don’t want her to talk to me about fining people, because the state fines people if you turn around and look cross-eyed at somebody,” Smith said in an interview.
Lanpher declined to stake a position on her colleague’s proposal. “We’ll see where it goes,” she said.
But she noted another speed bump, if you will: The diversion program Smith suggested would cost money to create. And this year’s money bills have already left the station — hopefully with their eyes on the road!
— Riley Robinson
IN THE KNOW
Sen. Alison Clarkson, D-Windsor, presided over the Senate floor Thursday. Lt. Gov. Molly Gray was still home recuperating from Covid-19. Senate President Pro Tempore Becca Balint, D-Windham, was in Washington, D.C., meeting with other LGBTQ congressional candidates endorsed by Equality PAC, according to Balint’s campaign manager Natalie Silver.
— Riley Robinson
ON THE MOVE
The House Committee on Education gave initial approval to a bill that would provide free school meals to Vermont students for the upcoming school year — but leaves future years still in question.
With federal pandemic aid expected to expire at the end of the school year, Vermont lawmakers have been searching for money to pay for breakfast and lunch for school children.
But with Gov. Phil Scott’s administration opposed to any new taxes, House lawmakers had to scale down their ambitions.
On Thursday, the House education committee voted 9-2 to advance S.100, which will use $29 million from an unexpected surplus in the state’s education to pay for meals in the 2022-23 school year — and take that time to search for new revenue sources for the future.
“The work that we’re doing here respected the governor’s request not to bring forth additional revenue sources this year,” Rep. Kate Webb, D-Shelburne, the chair of the House Education Committee, said at a committee hearing on Thursday. “What we are doing is allowing a year for us to actually collect real data.”
The bill must now pass through House committees on Ways and Means and Appropriations before reaching the floor.
— Peter D’Auria
Burlington’s effort to ban “evictions without just cause” took a step forward Thursday, as the state Senate gave initial approval to a measure empowering city officials to more stringently regulate housing.
H.708 is an amendment to the city’s charter that would let city councilors pass an ordinance restricting when landlords can evict a tenant or not renew their lease. The Senate advanced the bill on a voice vote.
— Jack Lyons
Lawmakers in the House have advanced the medical monitoring bill, S.113, which would give Vermonters an explicit right to sue companies if they could demonstrate they’d been impacted by toxic chemical exposure.
A number of residents in Bennington, who have been impacted by widespread PFAS contamination, have long advocated for the bill’s passage.
The measure has already passed the Senate, and similar bills have cleared the Statehouse twice before. Both were vetoed by Gov. Phil Scott, who has cited concerns about potential impacts on the business community.
The House is expected to take a final vote on the measure this week.
— Emma Cotton
The Senate gave preliminary approval to H.629, a bill that would give adult adoptees the right to access their original birth certificate.
While presenting the bill on the floor on Thursday, Sen. Dick Sears, D-Bennington, spoke of his own adoption. Though he was adopted by great parents, Sears said, he’d always wondered about his birth family.
“It wasn’t until I was in my late 50s, early 60s, that I was able to find out anything,” Sears said.
The bill would require the Department for Children and Families to make a “reasonable effort” to contact all people who may be affected by the change to the law.
— Riley Robinson
IN CONGRESS
Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson made history Thursday, becoming the first Black woman confirmed to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court.
The Senate voted 53-47 Thursday afternoon to confirm President Joe Biden’s nominee to the nation’s highest bench. Vice President Kamala Harris smiled as she led the Senate proceeding.
Vermont’s own U.S. Sens. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., have supported Jackson’s nomination since Biden nominated her in February. Both voted “yes” on Thursday.
Leahy played a key role in the confirmation process as the most senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and former chair of the committee. In a floor speech ahead of Thursday’s vote, he celebrated the “long-overdue” and historic nature of Jackson’s confirmation as “a major step forward in our democracy.”
— Sarah Mearhoff
ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL
Cameron McClimans has been hired as the Vermont Democratic Party’s new house campaign director, the party announced Thursday. The position is responsible for fundraising, candidate recruitment and incumbent support for the Vermont House of Representatives going into the 2022 election season.
McClimans previously worked on campaigns in Vermont, Virginia, New Hampshire, New Jersey and Maryland, according to the party. He graduated from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 2017.
— Lola Duffort
Their standard-bearer may have just signed pro-LGBTQ legislation yesterday, but the culture wars remain alive and well in the Vermont Republican Party. State party chair Paul Dame fired off a missive to supporters Thursday railing against H.659, which, according to Dame, would “remove the requirement for parental consent for major life-changing treatments like puberty blockers or ‘other treatments’ without consulting the parent AT ALL.”
“Vermont needs a strong and united Republicans (sic) Party NOW more than EVER to stop this kind of crazy!” Dame continued, before soliciting donations to mount electoral challenges against the bill’s sponsors, including Rep. Tanya Vyhovsky, P/D-Essex.
Hormone blockers allow transgender and gender-nonconforming children and teens to delay the onset of puberty.
Vyhovsky, a clinical social worker who works with children, noted that those “other treatments” alluded to in Dame’s email are explicitly non-surgical interventions.
“I do think that there was a bit of a red herring there, like ‘We’re just gonna let them do whatever they want!’ Which was clearly not the case,” she said.
The bill was informed by her own professional experience, she said, “witnessing the harm that is done when parents refuse to take part in the treatment of their trans child.” And she noted that it is modeled on existing language that allows minors to access hormonal birth control without a parent’s OK.
“If it’s fine for youth to decide that they want hormones to have sex, I would say that it’s fine for youth to decide that, you know, after exhausting attempts to work with their parents, that they can live as they are,” she said.
The bill itself is dead for the session; it never even received a hearing. But hormone blockers are playing a central role in the national GOP’s campaign against transgender rights.
— Lola Duffort
WHAT’S FOR LUNCH
Friday’s cafeteria special will be Andouille sausage and artichoke heart alfredo, said Chef Bryant Palmer. The grill will have chicken parm and the deli will have curry chicken salad — with craisins and raisins, but no grapes.
— Riley Robinson
WHAT’S ON TAP
FRIDAY, APRIL 8
After House floor — House Committee on General, Housing and Military Affairs will take additional testimony on S.226, the housing omnibus bill.
10 a.m. — Senate Health & Welfare to take additional testimony on H.720, which addresses residential programs for adults with developmental disabilities and would increase legislative oversight of the Department of Disabilities, Aging and Independent Living.
3:15 p.m. — Senate Finance to discuss revenue and revenue options.
WHAT WE’RE READING
For Rita Markley, leading COTS has been a calling (VTDigger)
Vermont saw below average snowpack this year. That’s bad news for the drought, and could soon be normal (VPR)
Vermont is opening up applications for cannabis licenses. But banking remains a problem. (VTDigger)
Correction: An earlier version of this edition of Final Reading reported an incorrect roll call vote for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s confirmation in the U.S. Senate.
