Lawmakers wrapped up their biennium Friday evening after signing off on a sweeping education reform package, bidding farewell to departing members and earning praise from Gov. Phil Scott for turning what could have been a legislative showdown into a lesson in the power of compromise.
The Senate and the House both adjourned after spending the day refining and then passing key education, tax reform and budget bills.
Most celebrated the relatively early adjournment: the Senate shortly before 6 p.m., and the House shortly before 8 p.m. In past years, end-of-session discord has pushed lawmakers’ final session past midnight.
But House Speaker Jill Krowinski (D-Burlington), in her final moments wielding the gavel before retiring, praised her colleagues not just for their legislative accomplishments, but for the way they treated one another as they worked through their differences.
“At a time when political discourse across this country seems to reward division, we can show Vermonters that it is possible to govern, and to do so through patience, collaboration and a willingness to listen,” she said.
Scott, too, praised lawmakers for their willingness to work with him even though they disagreed on a great many things, especially on the path forward on education reform.
“I didn’t get everything I wanted and neither did you,” Scott said. “But that’s the way compromise works. We made progress and agreed the status quo is not sustainable.”
The speeches followed the approval of three intertwined bills that had to pass before lawmakers could go home.
The education reform bill, H.955, lays in a path for schools to merge voluntarily, instead of the mandatory framework Scott had preferred.
The “yield bill,” H.949, set the tax rates for next year. Notable features included a decision to spend $105 million toward buying down property taxes all in one year instead of over two. The decision will reduce the average property tax hike next year from 7 percent to 3.5 percent. The bill also lowered the maximum amount a school district can spend per pupil before triggering a tax penalty, a measure meant to ensure belt-tightening until the new education funding formula can take effect.
And finally the $9.4 billion budget, H.951, was nearly 3 percent larger than this year. Highlights include additional funding to support food banks and other services strained by new restrictions on federal benefits, money to help primary care doctors repay loans and $12 million for the University of Vermont to build a new sports stadium.
While there were plenty of congratulations to go around, many were also deeply displeased with how the session ended.
Some of the sharpest critiques were leveled at House Republicans, who refused to suspend rules to allow lawmakers to vote on one of the highest profile bills of the session — one requiring law enforcement agents not to wear masks.
The bill, S.208, has already been stripped of its application to federal agents. But the Republicans’ move prevented even that watered-down bill from coming to a vote.
Minority Leader Rep. Pattie McCoy (R-Poultney) said it made no sense to vote on the bill because Scott was going to veto it anyway. That didn’t sit well with many on the other side of the aisle.
“I know we will lose the vote on S.208, but if we’re going to lose, let’s at least go down fighting for what’s right,” Rep. Leanne Harple (D-Glover) said.
Rep. Troy Headrick (I-Burlington) even called for the adjournment to be postponed until 12:01 a.m. if the mask bill were not taken up. It wasn’t.
When the Senate learned that bill had gotten hung up in the House at the last minute, Sen. Becca White (D-Windsor) was enraged. She called it “profoundly disappointing” that the bill died due to a parliamentary maneuver.
The fact that lawmakers could not pass “a bill that had universal agreement that it’s unacceptable to hide your face when you are detaining someone” was “to end this session on such a low note for our constituents,” White said.
Rep. Kate Logan (P/D-Burlington) also sounded a note of deep disappointment.
“We barely accomplished anything this session,” she said.
That was partly because the governor vetoed important bills, such as one that would have regulated data centers, she said. In other instances, lawmakers held back out of fear of a veto. A House bill to raise taxes on the rich never got out of committee.
Logan blamed Scott for blocking good ideas that she said would have helped the very working class Vermonters he claims to support.
There were a number of moments of levity and camaraderie throughout the day, however.
Rep. Conor Casey (D-Montpelier) recounted some of the pranks he’d played on colleagues during the session, including hanging up an animatronic largemouth bass that broke into song as people passed by the urinals in the men’s bathroom.
He also demanded to know who had left hunks of cheese with “Say Cheese” notes in the desks in his committee room, and threatened, in his lilting Irish brogue, to read James Joyce’s Ulysses from the House floor “if the craven who did this does not come forward by the end of the day.”
Many were saying goodbye to the Statehouse for good, and were heartbroken to be departing. In addition to losing the leaders of both chambers, Krowkinski and Senate President Pro Tempore Phil Baruth (D/P-Chittenden-Central), longtime lawmakers and committee chairs were finishing long careers.
They include Rep. Peter Conlon (D-Cornwall), chair of the House Education Committee; Rep. Amy Sheldon (D–Middlebury), who as chair of the Committee On Environment faced online vitriol for her support of protecting environmentally sensitive areas; Rep. Mike Marcotte (R-Newport), chair of Commerce and Economic Development Committee; and Rep. Anne Donahue (R-Northfield), whom Scott praised for fastidiousness.
Another longtime member, Rep. Molly Burke (D-Brattleboro) gave a moving tribute to the institution she has served for 18 years.
“It is difficult to leave this very special place,” Burke said. “A place of action, excitement, challenge and disappointment. A place of conflict and reconciliation.”
She lamented that, due to security concerns, the Statehouse now has security guards and lawmakers no longer publicly list their home addresses.
“There is a certain sadness about this,” she said. “Yet, we are still a body where friendships can transcend party, where there is room for compromise and collegiality, for humor and respectful disagreement.”
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