“Tap trees — not Vermonters.” That was the message that a loose coalition of about 100 people brought to the Statehouse Thursday, on yellow-and-green signs and at a midday press conference, raising a last-minute alarm over legislation they said would make Vermont less affordable.
It was the second such rally in as many weeks. Among the organizers was John Rodgers, a former Democratic state senator from Glover, who told the group packed into the Cedar Creek Room that the Legislature had “forgotten” them.
Several Republican lawmakers were in the room, though Rodgers and other speakers’ discontent seemed largely directed at the Democratic supermajority in both chambers. The group’s push came with, perhaps, a day left before this year’s session comes to an end.
“I’m here to speak for all those who work too hard, for too little, in a state that costs too much to live in,” Rodgers told the crowd, many of whom also held up fliers advertising the Vermont GOP. “Vermonters are feeling tapped by the Legislature and we have no more blood to give.”
While Thursday’s event centered on affordability, it also served as something of a catch-all for people’s discontent with state politics and policies. Speakers referenced the annual education funding bill, which would hold the average projected school property tax increase to 12.5%; but they also panned several environmental and energy bills, and a proposal to outlaw unserialized, untraceable firearms known as “ghost guns.”
Broadly, several speakers said, there is a disconnect between the values of legislative leaders who hail from communities in Chittenden County and those of many rural Vermonters.
Rodgers called out several pieces of legislation he is opposed to: a bill that would require utilities to buy renewable energy at a faster pace, a bill that would make sweeping reforms to Act 250, and a bill that would reform the state’s wildlife management structure.
After he listed each proposal, he led the crowd in a call to Gov. Phil Scott: “Veto!” (Scott has already signaled his opposition to all three of those bills as well as any new tax increases.)
After the rally, James Ehlers — an activist and former gubernatorial candidate — urged the crowd to head down to the Sergeant-at-Arms’ office and draft paper messages to their senators and representatives, which would then be delivered throughout the building that afternoon.
“They’re the ones with the power,” Ehlers said. “We have no choice but to react to what they’re doing to us.”
— Shaun Robinson
In the know
Both the House and the Senate met into the evening on Wednesday and are beginning another evening floor session as this newsletter is being prepared. Lawmakers continue to push to finish their work by Friday, that is, tomorrow, but much remains to be done.
Representatives from the two chambers have already reached agreement on the contours of the budget for the upcoming fiscal year, which begins on July 1, but their members still need to sign off on it. And several high-profile bills remain under negotiation with their final form in play.
Three bills taking up a lot of the brainpower in the building: H.687, this session’s run at encouraging housing construction and Act 250 reform; H.887, the annual bill that sets property tax rates to fund public school budgets and H.121, which has become the vehicle for both broad consumer data privacy measures and those that aim to require social media companies to adjust algorithms to protect youth online.
Read more about the legislative action later this evening and tomorrow at VTDigger.org
— VTD Editor
Vermont’s Democratic delegate to the U.S. House joined a bipartisan coalition on Wednesday to block the ouster of the chamber’s Republican speaker.
U.S. Rep. Becca Balint, D-Vt., voted to table a measure that would have declared the speaker’s office vacant. Had it passed, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., would have been removed, and the body would have been without a leader for the second time in a year.
“Vermonters have had enough of the chaos from the Republicans in the House and need government to truly work for them,” Balint said in a written statement Thursday.
— Paul Heintz
On the move
The Senate’s version of the annual education funding bill, passed Wednesday night, would make a dent in Vermonters’ looming property tax increases but stopped short of changing the system.
By and large, the bill punts tough questions about how to reduce costs in Vermont’s schools. While the House and Senate considered radical reimaginings of education finance — transitioning to a system that pays school districts per student — both chambers backed away from big change this session.
Since the legislation, referred to as the “yield bill,” left the House, a combination of increased revenue to the education fund and decreased school spending has brought down the average projected school property tax increase from 14.2% to 12.5%. That number was projected to be closer to 20% earlier this year.
“We would have liked to make it a lot lower,” Sen. Ann Cummings, D-Washington, who led drafting the Senate’s version of the bill, told her colleagues on Wednesday. But Cummings said her committee, which worked on the bill for about a week, “just haven’t had the time to do our due diligence” on more significant education finance changes.
— Ethan Weinstein
Visit our 2024 Bill tracker for the latest updates on major legislation we are following.
What we’re reading
Vermont opioid deaths decline for the first time since 2019, according to preliminary data, VTDigger
Vermont is planning for a new women’s prison. Critics say it is too big, Vermont Public
Older Vermonters who have given up driving can face isolation, loneliness, Seven Days