Fits and starts
It can feel like the modern world is a shrine built to the capitalist god that is efficiency.
But Montpelier, it seems, didn’t get the message. The waning days of the Legislature are anything but efficient.
Almost all of the year’s lawmaking is now confined to extended floor sessions, backroom meetings and committees of conference. But those joint Senate and House committees meet in fits and starts. Thursday morning, the six electeds tasked with finding a compromise on the year’s massive education reform bill met for seven minutes. All it took was a whisper in an ear for the group to recess for the better part of an hour. Senators sped to the chamber for an impending roll-call vote.
The education bill, the annual property tax bill, the state budget — they all remain unfinished, and this year, they’re all connected. They’re also all stuck in conference committees, which meet for only tiny fractions of the day.
Those joint committees tend to include only legislative leaders, sometimes the same people on multiple committees. The House Ways and Means chair, Rep. Emilie Kornheiser, D-Brattleboro, is on the education reform and property tax conference committees, not to mention the miscellaneous tax bill committee. Sen. Chris Mattos, R-Chittenden North, is on the education conference committee and the law enforcement masking bill conference. Scheduling conflicts between all the joint bodies delay work further.
If you’re not a chair, vice chair or ranking member, you might have a lot of down time. Idle legislative hands draft the devil’s amendments — or, in the case of Sen. Becca White, D-Windsor, they make origami cranes on the Senate floor. In between business, many lawmakers stopped in the Cedar Creek Room to watch the annual slideshow recapping the session in photos, which runs on a loop with chipper music playing that doesn’t quite fit the mood.
Thursday morning, as reps debated the “eyeball bill” on the House floor, some streamed out of the chamber, lamenting the extended back-and-forth to anyone within earshot.
While it’s easy to overhear legislators’ cynicism and frustration about days like today, most clam up when a reporter asks about their qualms with the legislative process.
Rep. Leanne Harple, D-Glover, said she relishes even the worst days in the Statehouse — a statement that drew thinly veiled disagreement from some of her House Education Committee colleagues. She said her one term as a lawmaker had been the best job she’s ever had, though she acknowledged her more-seasoned colleagues have had more time to sour on it.
As the day wore on, it turned out the biggest news wasn’t about the bills at all.
But even as House Speaker Jill Krowinski made headlines with her own announcement, she first nodded to the year end’s slow pace.
“It’s been a lot of the hurry up and wait, and hurry up and wait,” she told a packed caucus meeting. “I really do think that we can wrap this up tomorrow.”
In the know
House Speaker Krowinski announced Thursday she won’t seek reelection. Almost simultaneously, Gov. Phil Scott filed his reelection paperwork.
Read the full stories on both announcements at VTDigger.org.
— VTD staff
On the move
After it looked as though the bill might not make it to the House floor at all, the House approved a Senate bill Thursday that proposes expanding the type of procedures optometrists — who are not medical doctors — can do. Its passage followed a heated legislative process as one entrenched camp emerged arguing for expanded access to eye care in rural parts of the state and another doubled down on concerns of legislating medical practice and giving optometrists responsibilities beyond their training.
Conversations around the bill, and whether to put it to a floor vote at all, grew acrimonious.
“The process this bill had to endure while deals were made to get this rural access issue to the floor makes me sick,” said Rep. Gina Galfetti, R-Barre Town, when explaining her vote. “I hope the passage of this bill signals a change to this horse-trading policy.”
Rep. Lori Houghton, D-Essex Junction, who sits on the House’s healthcare committee, also highlighted the frustrations of the intensely lobbied path the bill took to the floor in explaining her No vote. “I felt compelled to vote no because members and staff should be able to deliberate in an environment grounded in transparency, professionalism and respectful engagement from all stakeholders,” Houghton said.
Later Thursday afternoon, the Senate approved the House’s changes. If the governor signs this version into law, it would allow optometrists with additional certification to do certain laser procedures, injections and surgeries, like excisions, on people’s eyes starting in July 2028.
— Olivia Gieger
The Senate advanced S.190 along party lines in a narrow roll-call vote Thursday — with 17 senators in favor and 13 opposed. The partisan vote has worked to fuel further speculation that Gov. Scott may veto the bill, which proposes fast-tracking a tool for the Green Mountain Care Board to pull down certain insurers’ payments to hospitals as a percentage of Medicare rates. Members of the governor’s administration have raised concerns about how the bill would result in inequitable cost savings for Vermonters and leave federal money on the table that the state is working to reclaim.
— Olivia Gieger
On the trail
Gerald Malloy, the two-time former Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, is setting his sights on the U.S. House this year. Malloy will face Mark Coester in the GOP primary for Vermont’s sole House seat, the winner of which will all but certainly face Democratic U.S. Rep. Becca Balint in the general election.
— Shaun Robinson
The update you’ve been waiting for
Yesterday, we brought you a breathless retelling of how Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky put up a framed photo of her dog, Laika, in an undisclosed location in the Statehouse. Laika had made a visit to the Senate chamber last week that left hair all over the lieutenant governor’s chair, prompting a surprising amount of cleanup. We can now share that not only was the portrait of the 13-year-old Samoyed discovered promptly on Thursday, it has since been replaced.
Sources say Senate Secretary John Bloomer, whom Vyhovsky called out by name in an interview about her scheme, entered the Senate cloakroom — which has a large collection of framed photos up on its walls — looking furiously for the rogue artwork. Ever eagle-eyed, he soon spotted Vyhovsky’s photo, set above two portraits of Senate leaders from the 1900s.
But he didn’t leave things there. Bloomer left the cloakroom and came back, shortly after, with a photo of his 1-year-old tuxedo cat, Moni. He then slipped that photo into the same fame, placing Moni, rather than Laika, among the many photos of Vermont senators past.
As of Thursday evening, it was still there. Personally, I think this should become a sort of tradition in the Senate. Whose pet should be surreptitiously featured there next?
— Shaun Robinson
