Dear Constituents –

The week of May 18 began our 19th week in the Statehouse.  For taxpayers who are counting, Vermont lawmakers are authorized for 18 weeks of service, excluding the week of Town Meeting, when legislators are not receiving any compensation. As we head into overtime, I remind readers that it costs over $300,000 per week to keep the wheels turning in the Statehouse.  As of this writing, none of the “must pass” bills have passed; they are in Committees of Conference. They all involve money, and they are all interrelated with the Education Transformation bill.  In my opinion, the work stalled on these bills early in the session, with committees spinning their wheels and instead taking up other issues that were perhaps “good to address” but not “necessary to pass” because this was the politically easier path. However, the Governor has issued a challenge to the Legislature to produce results that Vermont taxpayers can live with, and it is my hope that the Committees of Conference will do the hard work and take a stand on Education Transformation and its related fiscal impacts.

Additionally, in my opinion, much of the issue is that the Legislature has too many bills to consider.  This biennium, there were upwards of 1200 bills introduced across the House and Senate; that is far too many for committees to do their due diligence on the majority of them, and the ones that were taken up often were for a particular political reason, while others, perhaps more practical in nature, wilted on the walls. Each bill is estimated to cost $1000 from start to finish. Vermont currently has no limit on the number or type of bills that are introduced to the General Assembly. Across the country, 21 states restrict the number of bills that are introduced, from 5 per year per member in Colorado to 35 per member per biennium in California, with a caveat in some states that excludes in that number any local or obsolete law bills, or committee bills. I have also read that in a few states, there may be further restrictions on freshman legislator bill introductions and some even requiring bi-partisan sponsors.  This is something that I think a small state like Vermont would benefit from implementing, as I have seen a number of bills that haven’t been properly vetted due to the sheer number of bills, and bills that are so one-sided that they would never be taken up off the wall. It’s an interesting concept worth considering.

On the House Floor, we spent hours hearing amendments to bills sent back to us from the Senate and proposed amendments of our own to bills we were sending to them. These bills can be found by day in each House and Senate Journal on the General Assembly website.

In the House Government Operations & Military Affairs Committee, we passed out ten bills for consideration of the full House, many of those bills we had seen previously that were amended by the Senate and sent back to us. There will be more to follow next week.             

Stay well,

Rep Lisa Hango, Franklin-5