Dear Constituents –

Crossover week in the Legislature is complete. What this means is that all policy bills that are destined for passage this session have been passed out of policy committees and are headed either to the House floor or to a money committee, if they hold an appropriation; those bills have one more week to make it to the floor.

In the General, Housing, and Military Affairs Committee, we took up H.149 (Modernizing National Guard Statutes), H.313 (Omnibus Alcohol Bill), and H.157 (Registration of Residential Construction Contractors) this week. All passed out of Committee favorably after much discussion. I was unable to support H.157, which I see as over-regulation of the “handyman” industry, despite the Committee consensus that this is a consumer protection necessity. I will be interested to see what my counterparts in the Senate do with this bill. On Thursday, we had a welcome break with a presentation from the Dept of Defense State Liaison on government initiatives that arepriorities for supporting military families.

On the House floor, we debated and passed several bills, including S.110, a fast-tracked Unemployment benefits bill using Federal funds that will allow for a seamless extensionwhen PEUC benefits expire next week. Other bills that I supported were relating to criminal defenses based on victim identity (H.128), the use of facial recognition technology by law enforcement in cases involving sexual exploitation of children (H.195), a miscellaneous Agriculture bill (H.420), and one providing for animal cruelty and investigation response and training (H.421). Additionally, bills that passed without my support were relating to emergency relief from abuse orders and relinquishing of firearms (H.133) and changes to the Charter of the City of Montpelier allowing non-citizen voting (H.177). Several bills were postponed until next week to give Committees more time to work on those bills needing to be voted out by crossover.

Throughout the week, I attended various meetings: the National Guard Caucus, where we heard a presentation on Recruitment and Retention in the Guard and discussed military retirement benefits tax exemption bills; the Vermont Early Childhood Day at the Legislature on Zoom, where H.171, an important childcare bill that was passed out of House Human Services, was the topic; the Rural Economic Development Working Group (REDWnG), where members pitched bills in the pipeline that pertain to Rural Vermont communities; and the Women’s Caucus, where the Public Assets Institute issued their annual report on the economic health of women in Vermont.

Please feel welcome to reach out to me on any of these issues at [email protected] or

Www.hangoforhouse.com  Thank you for the opportunity to serve. 

Stay well,

Rep Lisa A Hango