Friday, March 27, 2015
The House passed the $33 million tax bill by a 90 to 53 partisan vote. The $5.5 billion budget bill passed by a voice vote at 6:15 p.m. Both bills go next to the Senate.
The sharpest point Republicans tried to make came late in the afternoon, with a proposal that would have cut only $180,000 from the state budget but struck close to home.
Tags: Vermont legislature , budget bill , tax bill , Image , Web Only
Thursday, March 26, 2015
House Speaker Shap Smith (D-Morristown) quelled a revolt Thursday fomented by legislative liberals unhappy with a budget they said cuts too deep and raises too little revenue.
Joining with most rank-and-file Republicans, a group of Progressives and Democrats sought to kill a tax bill that would raise more than $33 million in new revenue. Their goal: to force top Democrats to collect even more in taxes and use the money to stave off budget cuts.
But in an unlikely alliance, House Minority Leader Don Turner (R-Milton) helped Smith and his leadership team drum up enough votes for passage. “They felt they needed some support,” Turner said. “I said, ‘We can talk to some people.’”
Tags: Vermont budget , tax bill , Shap Smith , Image , Web Only
“How can that town clerk be assured you haven’t voted somewhere else that day?” Sen. Dustin Degree (R-Franklin) asked.
The Senate agreed to delay enacting same-day voter registration until 2017, instead of the originally proposed 2016, after complaints from town clerks. Some were worried that it would be easier for voters to get away with fraud. The Vermont Municipal Clerks' & Treasurers' Association agreed to support the bill, however, if it were delayed a year.
Sen. Anthony Pollina (P/D-Washington) argued that the ease of same-day registration in other places increases voter turnout on the order of 12 percent.
Degree contended it wasn’t worth the risk. He noted that some elections in his area have come down to a margin of just a few votes, or ended in a tie. “I think the integrity of our elections is more important than increased participation,” he said.
Julia Michel of the Vermont Public Interest Research Group countered afterward, “We think the biggest fraud is voters who don’t have the chance to vote because this arbitrary voter registration deadline gets in people’s way.”
After another vote in the Senate on Friday, the bill, S.29, heads to the House.
Tags: Vermont Senate , voter registration , voter fraud , Image , Web Only
When Liz Miller joined Gov. Peter Shumlin’s administration in January 2011, she promised to serve two years as his commissioner of public service.
Two years later, she promised another two as his chief of staff.
On Thursday, Shumlin announced that Miller will leave his administration when the legislature adjourns this May. She will be replaced by Darren Springer, who has served as deputy commissioner of the Department of Public Service since March 2013.
Miller said Thursday she has not yet lined up a new job and will wait for her departure to find one. The Burlington attorney previously worked in private practice.
“I enjoyed lawyering,” she said. “I may do that in the future, but I really, truly have not figured out the next step yet.”
Tags: Liz Miller , Darren Springer , Peter Shumlin , state administration , Image , Web Only
Wednesday, March 25, 2015
If they stick together, they can join most of the House Republicans and independents to defeat the tax bill, which would give them leverage over the future of the tax and budget bills, members argued. “This is our first chance to make a statement,” said Rep. Chris Pearson (P- Burlington), a member of the legislature's Working Vermonters' Caucus.
And House Speaker Shap Smith (D-Morristown) knew the threat was real. He took a walk down to the caucus' noontime meeting. “I know that people have real concerns about the budget,” Smith told the caucus. “I want people to understand there are a lot of things that we’re doing that are good in that budget.”
In front of this group — about 25 Progressives and liberal Democrats upset that the budget cuts $53 million from state programs and includes $10.8 million in personnel savings — Smith emphasized that the budget is actually growing. The general fund budget is up 4.8 percent, he noted. That’s a number he would undoubtedly downplay if he’d been talking to Republicans. Instead, he was trying to sell this crowd on the fact that despite all the talk of cuts, the budget merely curbs the level of increase.
Tags: Vermont legislature , Shap Smith , Chris Pearson , Johannah Donovan , taxes , Image , Web Only
So seemed to be the message Wednesday out of the Vermont Senate, which voted 20 to 8 in favor of new restrictions on who can bear arms.
The legislation, up for final passage Thursday, does not go nearly as far as gun-control activists had hoped earlier this year. It does not, for instance, require those who purchase guns through private sales to undergo background checks. Rather, it bars certain convicted criminals from possessing firearms, and it forces the state to report the names of potentially violent, mentally ill Vermonters to a federal database.
Nevertheless, Wednesday's lopsided, tri-partisan vote demonstrated that despite intense opposition from gun rights supporters, legislators appear willing to take on the politically fraught issue.
Tags: Guns , firearms , Vermont Senate , National Instant Criminal Background Check System , Dick Sears , John Rodgers , Joe Benning , Image , Web Only
Tuesday, March 24, 2015
A bill pending in the Senate would have allowed them to, by enacting same-day voter registration in 2016. But faced with opposition from some town clerks, key senators decided Tuesday to push that date to 2017.
"Town clerks earn a fair amount of deference because they run the world at home," said Sen. Chris Bray (D-Addison), a member of the Senate Government Operations Committee. Clerks have raised concerns about potential voter fraud and an increased election-day workload, particularly in a heavy-turnout, presidential-election year.
Though the committee previously approved the 2016 start date, one of its members, Sen. Brian Collamore (R-Rutland) said Tuesday he would introduce an amendment to delay its enactment by a year. Committee chair Jeanette White (D-Windham) said she would support the move.
"At least this amendment meets the needs of a ton of town clerks out there," White said.
Tags: Senator , Vermont elections , Bernie Sanders , presidential campaign , Jim Condos , same-day voter registration , Image , Web Only
Monday, March 23, 2015
“Good work, team,” committee chair Mitzi Johnson (D-Grand Isle) said just after the committee voted 11-0 to send the budget plan to the full House.
That body is likely to be more divided when the bill comes up for debate on the floor Thursday and Friday. Republicans say it depends too heavily on new taxes. Progressives argue it would cut too many programs. The $5.5 billion overall budget plan contains a 1.4 percent increase over this year's budget. The $1.5 billion general fund would be up 4.8 percent.
The budget bill includes a last-minute deal that could temporarily stave off the Shumlin administration’s proposed closure of two of the state’s four emergency call centers. The bill would provide $425,000 in funding for all four centers through September 15 to give local and state officials time to work out an alternative. The budget then would cut off funding for two centers to save nearly $1.3 million, Johnson said.
The bill offers no solution to the standoff between the Shumlin administration and state workers over the governor’s proposal to seek $10.8 million in personnel savings. The House budget also depends on that savings.
Tags: Vermont legislature , state budget , Rep. Mitzi Johnson , Rep. Don Turner , Image , Web Only
They were.
"I noticed that a lot of things that are illegal in Washington, D.C., are allowed here," Sterrett says.
Occupying a corner table in the Statehouse cafeteria most days, he observed, was the head of the Vermont Democratic House Campaign, a political action committee run by House leaders and devoted to electing Democratic legislators. The staffer, Katherine Levasseur, sets up shop in the morning, works from her laptop and entertains visits from top lawmakers.
House Speaker Shap Smith (D-Morristown) drops by her corner table. So does House Majority Leader Sarah Copeland Hanzas (D-Bradford), Rep. Tim Jerman (D-Essex), Rep. Kesha Ram (D-Burlington) and Rep. Jill Krowinski (D-Burlington) — all members of the House leadership team.
"That stood out to me as something I'd never see in Washington," Sterrett says. "In Washington, you have an absolute ban on campaign work and fundraising efforts in any public buildings. And that does not seem to be the case in the legislature."
Tags: Katherine Levasseur , Montpeculiar , Image , Web Only
Friday, March 20, 2015
The legislation passed more than two years after former representative Mike Fisher, a Lincoln Democrat, proposed the idea. He was frustrated at the time that the soda industry had bought newspaper advertisements targeting him and others who supported a tax on sugar-sweetened beverages, but wouldn't disclose how much it had spent on the ads.
The tax was defeated that year and Fisher himself was defeated in November 2014.
Under current law, lobbyists and those who hire them must report just three times a year to the secretary of state's office how much they spend trying to influence lawmakers. Because only one of those dates falls during the four-month legislative session, it is impossible to know the true cost of a lobbying campaign until the fight is over.
The Senate bill changes that in two ways. First, lobbyists and their employers would have to file disclosure forms six times a year — including monthly during the legislative session. Second, they would have to report within 48 hours when they spend more than $1,000 on ads meant to influence the legislative debate. Such ads would have to clearly state the names of the top three entities financing them.
Tags: Vermont campaign finance , Michael Sirotkin , Vermont Public Interest Research Group , Image , Web Only