Dear Constituents –

The news from the Statehouse this week is that crossover is finally behind us! The Budget “Big Bill” (H.493) has passed to the Senate, along with most of the bills that committees worked on in the first half of the biennium.

Committees devoted this week to hearing a few bill introductions from the Senate and amendments to bills that they were presenting for votes on the House Floor. The House Government Operations & Military Affairs Committee heard amendments to H.474 (miscellaneous changes to elections law) and H.397 (miscellaneous amendments to the statutes governing emergency management and floor response). The bills that subsequently passed to the Senate were stronger for the process, and I appreciate the opportunity for another 139 members (my committee has 11 members) to lay eyes on a bill and offer changes that work for all Vermonters. Members often bemoan the fact that some bills leave committee without being properly vetted, but a legislative committee consists of 5 to11 individuals, and sometimes that offers only a narrow view of the subject matter; once a bill is on the Notice Calendar, many more members “take notice” and read the bill as it came out of committee (which often is drastically different than how it was introduced).  A one-day Notice Calendar gives everyone an equal opportunity to read a bill and formulate questions and suggestions, which could be asked during Floor debate or offered as amendments to the committee.

We also heard an introduction of H.404 (authority over the highways of the Village of Old Bennington), S.59 (amendments to Vermont’s Open Meeting Law), and S.23 (use of synthetic media in elections), otherwise known as “deep fakes”.

The order of business on the House Floor was passing crossover bills to the Senate, a Caucus of the Whole to hear the Budget explanation, and introductions of special constituents, including a representative from Taiwan, a valued trade partner with the US and Vermont. I had the pleasure of introducing representatives from the VT Association of Athletic Trainers and UVM Athletic Medicine, a special interest of mine.  Many of you have heard me speak about the importance of these primary medical providers and the role that they play in schools, clinics, hospital, workplace, and military settings.

At Rural Caucus, the Chair of House Education presented the work that they have done this session on the Education Transformation Plan.  Regretfully, it appears that they will be punting much of this work to a subcommittee to work on in the off-session.  This is a huge disappointment to me, as I was hopeful that by this time in the session, we would have had a plan that the House would have been in agreement on.  My committee was poised to do the work on drawing districts and setting school board elections policy, but that did not come to pass.

The Ways & Means Committee passed out the Yield Bill, which is crucial to setting tax rates. They elected to use $77M proposed by the Governor to buy down this year’s rates, and while a relief to taxpayers, I have serious concerns about the tax cliff we face next year since the work of the Transformation was not advanced this session.

As always, it is an honor to represent my constituents in the Statehouse, and I welcome questions and concerns at [email protected].

Stay well,

Rep Lisa Hango, Franklin-5