Dear Constituents –

Reporting from the Statehouse this week is a mixed bag: bills were brought to the floor for a vote and then pulled back, amendments were proposed and withdrawn, bills were recommitted to committee for lack of party support.  It finally feels like the end of a session is upon us… (stay tuned because the rumor is that at the tune of $60,000/day, we will be asked to stay even longer…)

The press and advocacy organizations have kept the public well-informed on the various versions of the Education Transformation bill (H.454) as it makes its way to the Senate.  As of Thursday, the current version was essentially thrown out on the Senate floor due to lack of support. What happens next is anyone’s guess (hence the need to keep legislators at the Statehouse on the taxpayers’ dime, long past the date that we are dismissed in an election year when majority party leaders are anxious to begin campaigning).

We have also heard a lot about the many amendments to this year’s housing bill (S.127). It began as an infrastructure financing/housing bill allowing for a new type of project-based TIFs (called CHIP) for rural areas and evolved into a bill with so many guardrails that no development will be feasible; it was voted out 100-36. Members of the Rural Caucus came back with our own amendment to counteract the damage, which had tripartisan support, but there was so much lobbying and coercing of new members by the majority party that they had to postpone the bill, and when we took it up again, many supporters had flipped their votes, so the amendment failed. Three controversial healthcare bills, H.126, H.266, and H.482, which could be harmful to our community hospitals passed on the House Floor despite opposition from your local delegation.

Again I want to reiterate that the number and speed of bills passing back and forth between chambers at this time of year makes it impossible to report in a timely manner. Readers should continue to reach out to their legislators for real-time updates on any legislation that is of importance or to look them up by number on the General Assembly bill tracker at legislature.vermont.gov. I can be contacted at [email protected]

Stay well,

Rep Lisa Hango, Franklin-5