May 26th 2018 - Primary Candidates Announce

The Special Session Begins

The Special Session began on Wednesday, When will it end? No one knows. The first session on the floor lasted 35 minutes. Four bills were introduced and shunted off to committees, and that was it. Done for the day.

The committees that received the bills worked for the rest of the day and came in on Thursday and Friday as well. The rest of us stayed home and saved the beleaguered Vermont tax payers some money. We meet again this coming Wednesday to see what has been accomplished.

This page on my website explains what a Special Session is and what we are doing. I'll update is fairly regularly.

The Primary Election

May 31st, this coming Thursday, is the deadline for submitting petitions to get a candidate's name on the August primary ballots. There were some interesting turns this week as more Colchester candidates filed their petitions.

Colchester is divided into two voting districts (CH-9-1 and CH-9-2). Here's a map that roughly shows the two districts. One (CH-9-1) is referred to as the The Village. The other is referred to as The Bay. They are each two-seat districts, meaning they each send two representatives to the House. The current Representatives are:

• The Village
• Me. Curt Taylor (Democrat)
• Jim Condon (Democrat)
• The Bay
• Pat Brennan (Republican)
• Maureen Dakin (Democrat)

Both Maureen Dakin and Jim Condon are not seeking re-election. Pat Brennan and myself are. The question, for the last month or so, has been: Who else might run?

The Secretary of State website has a button for downloading a spreadsheet to see who has filed petitions. Currently there are the following for these two districts.

• The Village
• Me (Democrat) FaceBook Page, Website
• Deserae Morin (Republican) FaceBook Page, Website
• The Bay
• Pat Brennan (Republican) 
• Herb Downing (Democrat)
• Sarita Austin (Democrat)
• John Nagel III (Republican)

Unless something changes by Thursday, there will be no real race in my district as both Deserae Morin and myself will be on the November ballot and voters will then send both of us to Montpelier. There will be a real race in November on the Bay Side. Herb Downing is a well known Select Board member and Sarita Austin is a motivated member of the Colchester Planning Commission. As things stand, all four will progress to the November ballot where voters will select any two to represent The Bay.

Guns

It appears that the legislation of gun has inspired several of the candidates to run. All the Republicans on the ballot were strongly apposed to the legislation we passed, and the governor signed into law, during this session. I am not clear where Herb Downing and Sarita Austin stand on this issue.

Next Week

The special session continues and the deadline for candidate petitions arrives. Should be interesting

May 19th 2018 - The Endless Session

A Short Vacation

The Coast of Maine

I'm in Maine for a short vacation. Back in Vermont the political struggles continue. The General Assembly (House and Senate) voted out the budget and the education spending bill last week. We're done. All the governor has to do is sign the bills and Vermont can continue on its merry way into a glorious summer. But the governor has threatened to veto at least one of those bills and bring us back for a special session to work something out. This is basically a threat to shut down the state government. We went through this same thing last year. It's not a good way to do legislation.

The Issue

The big issue seems to be $35 million in the Education Fund (some say it's actually $58 million - depends on what you're counting). The Ed Fund is used to fill all the local school budgets in the state. Predictions of revenue and expenses show it coming up that much short . There's money to plug that hole. The controversy is around just how to do it.

The Ed Funding bill we passed raised the average Homestead Property taxes for the state 2.6 cents for every $100 dollars of property value (from $1.50 to $1.526). That's the average for the state. Colchester's rate will go up more because of local issues. One can argue that the legislature raises taxes in order to plug that $35 million hole. The governor has pledged not to raise taxes so he wants to plug the hole by using one-time money from other sources, essentially buying down the tax rate.

What's wrong with one-time money?

We did this last year and perhaps we have learned. One-time money means you're not identifying a long term revenue source for these funds. One-time money should be used for one-time expenses like an emergency situation or to plug a temporary hole. The trouble is that when you use it to fund school budgets you are funding programs and salaries that will be there again next year and will need plugging then as well. It only delays the problem and perhaps makes it worse.

The Two Sides

The governor's plan is to plug the hole this year and put in place cost saving measures that will reduce next year's budget by enough to cover the cost. He proposed a 5-year plan to do this. Unfortunately the Joint Fiscal Office (JFO) looked into the plan, found some problems and did not respond favorably.

The legislature wants to keep the increase in the property taxes and use the extra money to restore reserves and pay down some of the debt liability in the Teacher Pension Fund. That proposal will save the tax payers $100 million "over time." They say over time because it actually a pretty long time. Like ten or twenty years.

Where we are now?

The governor has called a special session of the General Assembly in order to work out the differences. As of today he has not vetoed the budget or the education funding bill. He only received the bills this week. We've been told to report for work Wednesday, May 23rd at 10:00 am. Thursday and Friday some committees will meet, but most of us will stay home. Then, the week after, we will return to finalize whatever is agreed upon.

Hanging over all of this is the brinkmanship of a state shutdown. The budget and the education funding bill really need to be passed and signed by the governor before July 1st, the beginning of the next fiscal year.

Week 19 - May 7th to May 12th

The Last Week . . . 

A Scrum at the Podium

The House Journal for Saturday, May 12th ends with:

Adjournment

At twelve o'clock and eighteen minutes in the evening, on motion of Rep. Donahue of Northfield, the House adjourned pursuant to the provisions of J.R. 60.

That's 12:18 as in midnight plus eighteen minutes. I was home in Colchester at 1:30 am. The day, the week, the session, the biennium have all ended. During Saturday's work the two most important bills came out of conference committees for approval by both the House and Senate. They were:

• H.911 An act relating to changes in Vermont’s personal income tax and education financing system. 
• H.924 An act relating to making appropriations for the support of government.

Without those two bills the government can't function very well after July 1st, the beginning of the new fiscal year. In addition to that deadline there was the deadline of the week's end, and the session end. By then everyone wanted to go home. Summer is upon us and legislators start thinking about their other priorities: jobs, vacations, kids, wives and such. No one wanted to come back the following week. That's why we worked Monday as well as Saturday.

Suspending Rules

In order for a bill to become law there are a number of steps it has to go through. Some of those steps are designed to slow the process down. It's all part of the rules set up by the General Assemble. But in the last days of the session people want things to move fast so there is a little trick called: "suspending the rules." By voting to suspend the rules, bills can be cranked through the process more quickly. But suspending the rules requires a three-quarters vote. This gives Vermont's Republican minority a little injection of power in the waning days of the session. If the Republican caucus wants some last minute change to a bill or to have a bill killed, they can refuse to suspend the rules and thereby bring the whole process to its usual slow pace and keep the session going into next week.

All this happens behind the scenes. The Speaker and the majority party never requested a suspension of the rules that failed. That would look bad. Instead there are negotiations ahead of time such that it's agreed to suspend before the vote is taken. The vote is just a legal formality. This is why, for a good deal of Friday and Saturday, we had no idea whether we would be ending the session Saturday or not. This is also why there were a number of long recesses while leadership negotiated or while we waited for bills to come back from the Senate. Both the House and Senate suspended rules to facilitate the movement of bills back and forth and out of conference committees.

H.924 Committee of Conference

Late Friday night the committee of conference for the Appropriations bill (H.924) finished their work. Saturday afternoon we heard the details. Saturday night we approved all changes with a remarkable 117 to 14 vote and sent the bill on to the governor. Saturday we also passed the Taxing bill (H.911) 89 to 43 and sent that on as well. At close to midnight the Governor closed the session with a short speech that basically said he would veto those two bills and we would all get together again soon to work it out. We'll see.

Later this week I'll be putting together a website page listing what was accomplished during the session. There has been quite a bit of good work done. For those who are interested in only the bottom line, here it is:

• Spending went up .5%  which is incredible! There are a number of ways to measure growth of spending but no matter how you do it, this looks very good.
• School budgets state-wide went up 1.8% which is also incredible.
• The state-wide average homestead property taxes is $1.526 for each $100 of property value. That's an increase of 2.6 cents over last year (FY18) and a decrease of .1 cent over FY2017.
• The state-wide non-homestead property tax is $1.59 and increase from $1.535.
• The average household income tax rate (income sensitivity) is 2.53%, that's down from last year's 2.55%

Paid Family Leave

When the Paid Family Leave bill first came up early in the session, I voted against it. It came back from the Senate with some changes. Prior to the vote this week, leadership asked me how I would vote and I told them to expect a "No."  In the course of debate and clarification of some of the changes I changed my mind and voted "Yes". Here's a link to my write-up of the bill and my vote.

Weekly Summary

We had a little bit of Capital Bill work at the beginning of the week, but basically, our work was done. For much of the week we we were either on the floor debating and voting or walking around, passing rumors, and/or wasting time. The weather was beautiful, so I was able to take several long walks at mid-day and after the day's work.

• Monday 
• 10:00 in committee for Capital Bill (H.923) review - some behind the scenes negotiating with Senate Institutions.
• 11:30 lunch break
• 1:00 On the floor - Clean Water Bill (H.260)
• 5:20 Committee vote on Capital Bill changes. Approved. We're done with it!
• 6:30 Done for the day
• Tuesday
• 9:00 In Committee for quick vote on H.777 regarding the State Clean Water Revolving Loan fund.
• 10:00 On the floor
• 11:10 Capital Bill approved and on it's way to the Senater
• 11:15 Minimum Wage (S.40)
• 12:00 Caucus on Minimum Wage
• 3:10 start Vote on Minimum Wage - It passed 77 to 69. I voted "No"
• 5:58 Adjourn
• Wednesday
• 10:00 On the floor. with various bills
• 11:26 Recess until 2:30
• 3:00 Back on the floor
• 3:30 I was on a quick conference committee
• 5:18 Recess after complaint of things moving too fast without everyone knowing where we are and seeing what we're voting on
• 6:30 Done
• Thursday
• 9:00 In committee for presentation on battery backup for the State House.
• 10:10 On the floor for various bills
• 11:30 Recess until 1:30
• 2:35 Back for public caucus
• 3:44 On the floor
• 4:00 break 
• 4:23 Done with Misc. Education Bill
• 5:30 Done for the day
• Friday
• 9:30 On the floor
• 10:17 Started Paid Family Leave bill (H.196) 
• 11:45 Roll-call on Paid Family Leave - it passed 90 to 53. I voted "Yes"
• 12:02 Done with Paid Family Leave
• 12:15 Lunch
• 1:33 Back on the floor
• 3:30 Break
• 5:30  Back to the floor
• 7:15 Adjourn for the day
• Saturday
• 1:30 pm - On the floor for recess
• 2:42 Started orders of the day
• Caucus of the whole. Everyone hearing about Budget Bill and Education Funding
• 5:10 Public Democratic caucus
• 5:47 Break for dinner
• 7:02 Back on the floor for S.260 - Clean Water Funding
• H.928 (The Pay Act) - Roll-call on an amendment that would have kept everyone's pay the same in case there was a veto of the Budget. Roll-call vote failed. I voted "No"
• H.696  - Individual Mandate bill making it mandatory that one have health insurance. Roll-call vote pass 116 to 16. I voted "Yes"
• H.911 - Education Tax Bill - Roll-call vote. It passed 89 to 43. I voted "Yes"
• H.924 - The Big Bill - Roll-call vote passed 117 to 14. I voted "Yes"
• 12:00 (About) - Governor called in to address the House and end the session
• 12:18 Adjourn

What's Next

Our work is done. The General Assembly adjourned. However, the governor is expected to veto at least on of the must-pass bills. Leadership says we will not call a veto session, so it will be up to the governor to call a special section to have us prevent a state shut down.

Message from Montpelier - Colchester Sun - May 10th 2018

The End of The Session

Agriculture is gone! The statue, named Agriculture or Ceres, no longer graces the top of the capitol’s golden dome. It wasn’t a pack of thrill crazed youths that swiped her. Blame it instead on the Department of Buildings and General Services (BGS). They parked a crane next to the building and plucked her from her perch as part of a two-year, $1.7 million, dome renovation, new gold leaf and all.

With the recent improvements in the weather, BGS is anxious to continue the project. Except those legislators are still hanging around debating, bargaining and voting on the few remaining bills. Renovations and negotiations may overlap, but this should be the final week of the latter. The session is ending. We’re under pressure.

As always there are two important pieces of legislation yet to pass: the budget and the education funding bill. The budget, referred to as the Big Bill, details how all the money is spent. The education funding bill sets what’s called the Dollar Yields for the various property taxes. Those numbers are the final piece of the formula that exactly determines the property tax rates for all Vermont towns. Last year the governor vetoed both bills. There’s speculation he will do the same this year.

A governor’s veto places a bill, that so proudly passed the House and Senate, into suspended animation. The only way to get it moving again is with a two-thirds over-ride vote in both the House and Senate. That may not be difficult in the Senate where the governor’s party is outnumbered 23 to 7. In the House an over-ride is more difficult. There the governor has 53 members of his party out of the total 150 representatives. There are also seven unpredictable Independents. The veto is a blunt instrument that forces compromise. But it can also push Vermont close to the brink of a dangerous cliff.

What happens if those two bills stay comatose? No Big Bill means there is no way to pay the state’s bills after July 1st when the fiscal year starts. The state can limp along for a while, but it would not be pretty. No education funding bill means those Dollar Yield values are not set. There is a default non-homestead property tax rate, but there is no such default for the homestead rate. In fact, there would be no homestead property tax. Some might cheer, but a $400 million hole in the Education Fund would remain open. Also, not pretty.

So, this week, without the calm guidance of the Goddess of Agriculture to maintain sanity, the powers-that-be in Montpelier begin the bluffs, threats, parries, thrusts, gasps and compromises that seldom bring the session to a graceful conclusion.

Week 18 - May 1st to May 4th

Under Pressure

What's Wrong With This Picture?

No it wasn't some Thrill Crazed Youths that took the statue from the top of the dome. It was the lads from Building and General Services. A couple weeks ago they began the renovations of the Golden Dome: a new statue, new gold leaf and more. It's part of the Capital Bill we worked on last session and costs several million. The problem is that with the weather finally improving they're anxious to get started. And the darn legislators keep hanging around debating bills. There may be some overlap of renovation and negotiation but we're into the final week . . . supposedly.

Minimum Wage

The Minimum Wage bill (S.40) came over from the Senate and is now in House Appropriation after a time in House General, Housing and Military Affairs. I put together a page on my website about it. When I ask constituents about it they generally say "It's complicated." and they're right. There a many potential side effects when you start messing with economics, particularly when you mess with something as complex as wages.

The bill proposes to raise the state minimum wage to $15 and hour over the next six years. It's now $10.50. The legislature's economic wizards sat that Vermont's "livable wage" is $13.03 for a single person working 40 hours per week who has no children and lives in a 2-person household. The federal minimum wage is $7.25. Nationally, wages are going up by about 2.6% a year. At that rate I figure we'll hit a $15/hr minimum wage in 2032. And of course, by then the cost of living will have gone up.

Many of the arguments for and against an increase in the minimum wage are on the website page so I won't go into them here. Suffice it to say that when Leadership asked me how I might vote, I said I could not support it the way it is currently written. The bill seems unable to come out of committee so I suspect there are other Democrats who are having difficulty with it. We hear that the governor will veto it anyway.

Education Funding

Rumors abound on what has, and will, happen with the Education Funding bill (H.911). We sent it over to the Senate back near the end of March. It has been in Senate Appropriations and then Finance since then. It should come to the House, with changes, this coming week. One of those changes is taking out the portion that moves some of the funding from the homestead property tax to a income tax surcharge. That's the part I liked. 

The governor doesn't seem to like this bill either and may veto it depending on what we do with it when it gets back from the Senate. Education funding is always part of the session end games.

The Capital Budget Adjustment Bill

H.923 is the one I've been most involved with. It came back from the Senate this week with some changes. We've been going over those changes in committee, deciding which we agree with and which we don't. There are three options:

• Agree with all the Senate changes. In which case we urge the House to "Concur with the Senate proposal of amendments." Which will send it on to the governor.
• Make some changes ourselves. Then we ask the House to "Concur with Senate proposal of amendments, with further amendments." Sending it back to the Senate with our changes.
• Ask for a conference committee. "Do not concur and request that a committee of conference be formed." Then a couple member of our committee will sit down with a couple members of the Senate Institutions committee and come up with agreements. Those agreements have to be approved by both the House and Senate with an up or down vote, no more amendments.

We're hoping to avoid the committee of conference and just sent the bill back to the Senate with a few changes. Our chair has been talking with the Senate Institutions chair so that any changes will be agreed upon by them. So this is sort of an informal conference committee.

The Big Bill

H.924 is the budget, referred to as "The Big Bill." It's gone back and forth between the House and Senate and is now in a committee of conference with the two Chairs of Appropriations (they are also sisters) working out the differences.  The results should come back to us for a vote this coming week.

Vetoes

Last year the governor vetoed both the budget and the education funding bill. That was no fun. We came back in June for a short veto session. That could well happen this year. 

There are actually two types of Veto Sessions: one called by the Legislature, the other called by the governor.

• Legislature Veto Session - Leadership has already scheduled June 13th for a possible veto session. We can do about anything in a veto session, but generally we just vote to see if the House and Senate can override the veto. It takes a two-thirds vote of each to override.
• Governor's Special Session - If Leadership decides not to call a veto session and just let the vetoes stand, then the governor can, if he wants, call a special session and ask the General Assemble to work on something.

This whole process is confused when the budget is the bill being vetoed. If the governor vetoed a bill on making assault rifles illegal we could skip the veto session and assault rifles would not be illegal. But if the governor vetoes the budget or the ed funding bill then the state government comes to a grinding halt on July 1st when the new fiscal year begins. Those two bills are must pass bills. The government and the public schools do not function without them. All this is a classic battle of the separation of powers between the legislative and executive branch of the state government. Thank god the judiciary doesn't get into it.

Weekly Summary

We're spending a lot of committee time cleaning up the Capital Bill. Floor times are getting longer as the controversial bills are finally coming out of committee.

• Tuesday 
• 10:00 On the floor - S.267 , the "Attempt" bill, mentioned last week, was supposed to come up for consideration. But instead, it was ordered to lie. Its fate is unknown. I suppose there just weren't enough votes to bring it to the floor.
• 11:57 - Break for lunch 
• 12:45 Public caucuses - Discussed minimum wage bill,  H.25 which creates a Domestic Terrorism crime, and S.260 regarding Clean Water funding. 
• 1:50 Back in Committee - to work on Capital Bill adjustment
• 2:00 Secretary of Commerce and Community Development – to talk about use of state building space for maker spaces to enable others to develop products or work remotely.
• 2:30 Commissioner of BGS to talk about maker spaces and remote work places.
• 3:05 Committee vote on Restorative Justice bill H.718. We agreed to the Senate changes.
• 3:15 Back to Capital Bill
• 4:15 On the floor for a couple bill
• 4:52 Adjourned
• Wednesday
• 9:00 - In committee for Capital Bill - Commissioner of BGS is to go over all the projects again.
• 10:10 - Short break
• 10:15 Going over Offender Files bill language with Legislative Counsel. We're close to done with this.
• 10:50 Back to Capital Bill
• 11:07 UVM - Tom Gustafson, Vice President of University Relations and Administration, and Robert Vaughan, Director of Campus Planning, University of Vermont to talk about the couple million we give them for major maintenance projects.
• 11:45 break for lunch - warm sunny day
• 1:00 On the floor -
• 1:36 Prescription Drugs - S.175 allows for the wholesale importation of prescription drugs in order to make them cheaper for Vermonters. This will require a federal waiver which is a bit unlikely. There was a roll-call vote on this. It passed 141 to 2. I voted Yes. There was also a roll-call vote on J.R.H.17 , a joint resolution opposing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed rollback of federal motor vehicle emission standards. It passed 128 to 14. I voted Yes.
• 4:37 Adjourn
• Thursday
• 9:00 In committee for Department of Corrections discussion of the Capital Bill and the use of various facilities throughout the state.
• 9:50 Break
• 10:00 Back in committee for more capital bill discussion
• 12:05 Break
• 1:00 Back in Committee for more capital bill
• 1:30 On the floor
• 2:43 In caucus for S.197. This bill deal with toxic substances. Basically, it gives an individual a slightly greater ability to sue for the cost of health monitoring. It's still a long involved court process, so I voted for it. There was a roll-call vote and it passed 92 to 45 with me voting Yes. It's in the Senate now.
• 6:03 Roll-call on S.105. This bill caused a lot of problems this week. It's about contracts. It's trying to make it so it's not so easy to put some things in those contracts we all agree to by clicking a button or buying a lift ticket. There was a lot of push-back from members thinking it will kill the recreation industry because it relies on waivers. I'm not convinced many of the House members really understood the bill (myself included). The roll-call vote was to move the bill to another committee and essentially kill it. The motion failed 73 to 54 and I voted against moving it, which was a vote to keep it alive.
• 6:00 Vote to approve S.105 for a third reading passed 67 to 56 by divison, which is really pretty close. I vote No this time which was against the party recommendation. I just didn't like parts of it, and wasn't sure I understood the implications.
• 6:37 Adjourn
• Friday
• 9:00 In Committee for discussion of Capital Bill and Agency of Education weanting to give out grants for design of construction changes for schools that merge.
• 10:40 On the floor for S.260 having to do with Clean Water Funding. The bill sets up some fees and taxes to begin in 2020 if no other funding mechanism is put in place.  There's more about it here.
• 1:15 Roll-call vote on S.260. There was actually some interesting parliamentary questions regarding amendments, but the end result was two roll-calls one was an 84 to 55 vote. I voted Yes and then a 92 to 48 vote that passed the bill. I voted Yes. The bill will come up again for third reading.
• 1:28 Break for lunch - during lunch and while the House met on the floor, we were in committee talking more about the capital bill. The chair and vice-chair are about to go negotiate with their counterparts from the Senate and they want to be sure they know how we feel about important part.
• 2:24 Back on the floor - more back and forth on that contract related bill (S.105). Several amendments, divisions and substitute amendments and general confusion. In the end (about 4:50) there was a 72 to 59 roll-call vote that passed the bill.
• 5:05 Adjourn for the week 

Next Week

Next week starts on Monday, though we usually start on Tuesday. We're really trying to get done. The minimum wage bill should come out of committee Monday. Then there's the paid family leave bill to make things interesting later in the week. We'll see.