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.