The House and Senate both passed a slimmed-down version of a bill that would make myriad changes to the state’s election procedures Monday — even after the legislation, in a different form, seemed unlikely to advance when legislators last convened in full at the end of May.
Election-related bills are often contentious — “because nobody loves to debate elections more than elected officials,” said Sen. Ruth Hardy, D-Addison, on the Senate floor just before the chamber approved the bill, H.474, Monday morning. Later in the day, the House passed the legislation, too, sending it to Gov. Phil Scott for his consideration.
That outcome was far from certain, though, after Senate President Pro Tempore Phil Baruth, D/P-Chittenden Central, tied the bill’s fate in the Senate to an unrelated Burlington charter change proposal he was sponsoring. (The election bill had cleared the House in March.) Baruth told Rutland Republican Sen. Brian Collamore, who chairs the Senate committee that was reviewing the election bill, not to advance it to the floor unless the charter change advanced out of a House committee.
Fast forward two weeks, and the charter change, which would ban guns from bars and other establishments in the city that serve alcohol, hasn’t moved — but the election bill has.
Among many other measures, the election bill would require more people to file campaign finance disclosure information and prohibit candidates who lose a primary election from running in the general election under another party, or as an independent. It would also require local officials to perform an audit of voter checklists in House and Senate districts that span multiple towns, a direct response to errors that plagued a Bennington County House race last fall.
Before approving the bill, the Senate stripped a number of measures from the bill, though, including a study of using ranked-choice voting for Vermont’s presidential primaries. Collamore said on the floor that, with the bill facing dim prospects last month, he asked the Secretary of State’s Office — a key backer of the bill — for a list of “absolute, must-have provisions” from the many that cleared the House.
The result of that conversation, Collamore told his colleagues, was the “much-thinned” draft legislators approved Monday.
Rep. Matt Birong, a Vergennes Democrat who chairs the House Government Operations and Military Affairs Committee — which was reviewing the Burlington charter change bill — said in an interview Monday that the city’s proposal, and the election bill, were now “politically bifurcated.” Birong, along with Secretary of State Sarah Copeland Hanzas, had previously panned the election bill’s holdup.
Birong added, “the attention it received from the media helped people in the public understand what was going on and helped get this elections bill separated from that political desire,” referring to a VTDigger story late last month on Baruth’s move to link the two measures.
Asked about the legislation Monday afternoon, Baruth said he was “never opposed to the election bill,” but he was frustrated by how the charter change hadn’t moved forward despite getting nearly 90% support at the polls on Town Meeting Day earlier this year.
“I wanted equal consideration given to the voters of Burlington. It became clear that that wasn’t going to happen,” Baruth said in an interview. “But we wanted to make sure (town) clerks had what they needed … and there was still time to do that.”
— Shaun Robinson
In the know
The Vermont Senate passed the year’s landmark education bill late Monday afternoon on a 17-12 vote, a majority built on strong Republican support.
H.454 would entirely transform Vermont’s education funding and governance landscape over several years, consolidating school districts and shifting the balance of power over district budgets from the local to the state level.
The House approved the proposal via a voice vote later in the evening.
Read more about the Senate vote here, and details about the House vote later at VTDigger.org.
— Ethan Weinstein
Toward the end of last week, Gov. Scott signed into law S.69, a bill that aims to make social media platforms safer for minors.
Known as the Kids Code by advocates, the law requires social media companies like Tiktok and Instagram to adjust their design codes for users under 18 by modifying certain algorithms and features to make them less addictive. Under the new law, social media platforms and other web sites will also have to strengthen default privacy settings for young users.
However, it’s likely the law will face headwinds in the courts, where Big Tech lobbying groups have attempted to tank similar regulations passed in other states in a flurry of litigation. Lawmakers have said Vermont’s Kid Code was crafted with those cases in mind and would likely withstand legal scrutiny.
”With ongoing lawsuits in other states, I recognize this new law will likely face a legal challenge,” Scott said in a statement upon signing the bill. “But I’m hopeful with the enactment of this law delayed until January 1, 2027, it will allow enough time to provide clarity and change the law if necessary.”
– Habib Sabet
On the move
The House on Monday passed S.23, a bill that would require certain publishers of images generated using artificial intelligence that depict political candidates to also publish a disclosure stating that the content is fake. These “deepfakes,” as they’re often called, would have to be published within 90 days of an election in order for the disclosure requirement to apply. The bill still needs a final sign-off from the Senate, though, before it would go to Gov. Phil Scott for his consideration.
— Shaun Robinson
Meanwhile, the Senate approved a conference committee report Monday for S.51, which would set out tax credits benefiting low-income families, workers and veterans, as well as retirees and people receiving military pensions. Last month, Senate conferees sided with the House’s version of the bill, leaving out their colleagues’ previous proposal for an unpaid caregiver tax credit — a fact that drew some resentment on the floor Monday.
The package, which is expected to cost about $15 million, will now head to the governor.
— Shaun Robinson
Visit our 2025 bill tracker for the latest updates on major legislation we are following.
Canada-bound
On July Fourth, Rep. Mari Cordes is leaving Vermont for Nova Scotia in a move that also marks her resignation as a representative. “It’s the day of my own independence,” Cordes, D-Bristol, said Monday in a somber, shaky voice.
As a queer person, a senior and a nurse at the University of Vermont Medical Center, Cordes had a whirlwind of personal and political reasons that spurred her decision to resign and relocate, she said.
Read more about her decision to move to Canada here.
— Charlotte Oliver
Correction: A previous version of this newsletter misstated the status of S.23, the bill that would require a disclaimer for artificially-generated media.
