Legislative
Update
Rep.
Anne Donahue
May 5,
2018
Home
stretch fever has hit: rule suspensions to whip bills through quickly, long
days on the floor, conference committees to work out differences between House
and Senate, and committee time squeezed into random time slots to review
proposals coming back from the Senate.
The
“Donahue rule” [aka, “the 24-hour rule”] remains in effect, an unofficial policy
that started some eight or so years ago after a session where I dug my heels in
over being forced to vote on bills that we were seeing for the first time,
still warm from the printer, rewritten in a conference committee. Since then
the minority party has drawn the line to say that it will not suspend a rule to
move a bill in less than 24 hours unless everyone is comfortable that they have
had time to review and digest it. For many minor bills, it isn’t a problem. For
major ones, the leadership has to plan for adequate timing, because a rules
suspension to move faster than that requires a three-quarters vote, so this is
a requirement we can enforce.
Will we
actually adjourn next Saturday? Will we be back for a veto session? It’s
anyone’s guess right now, as the power-brokers in the House and Senate battle
differences with the Governor. The headliners are the tax bill (and property
taxes), the budget, the minimum wage increase, and paid family leave, but there
are many other issues in contention.
***
Water Clean-Up
It is
our dirty little secret that rather than the pristine mountain streams and
lakes that tourists envision, we have a serious pollution problem that shows up
most blatantly when all those streams flow into Lake Champlain and it blooms
with toxic algae in the summer.
So does
a restaurant and hotel tax increase (on those tourists, along with ourselves)
make sense as a way to address the multi-million dollar federal cleanup
mandate? Raising this money in some fashion is a non-negotiable, as far as I’m
concerned. I don’t think this proposed tax is the best route. I liked the
proposal from Rep. Cynthia Browning to dig into all possible revenue sources
that are directly tied to sources of pollution – but that got knocked when tied
to waiting a year to making a decision.
But
here’s the thing: despite media reports that we voted for the rooms-and-meals
tax, the bill doesn’t put it into effect until 2020. We have funding already in
place until then, but we keep doing temporary measures without establishing a
long-term funding plan. We’ve put it off for several years in a row. So I voted
in support of the bill. I think we need the hammer over our heads. It will push
everyone to work on a better solution, because if we don’t, we’ll be stuck with
this one.
***
Missing Commerce
Twice
last week, we had long floor debates on bills that will have a significant
impact on our business community, but that never went through the Commerce and
Economic Development Committee for review. They just came straight from the
Judiciary Committee.
The
first was a bill that imposes a first-in-the-nation liability to cover medical
monitoring for persons who have been exposed to toxic waste by a chemicals
company, and might develop an illness in the future as a result. The concept
initially sounds reasonable, until you drill into details: “exposure” means
even .001 percent more than routine public exposure; “risk of a related illness”
means .001 percent increased risk than the general public of developing the
disease; and “reasonably necessary” monitoring means that your doctor has
agreed to recommend it.
The cost
will be borne by liability insurers for businesses, and insurance is the
jurisdiction and expertise of the Commerce and Economic Development committee,
not Judiciary. However, a motion to send it there failed 55-64, an unusually
close vote that showed some Democratic support for more careful scrutiny.
There
was a similar debate over a consumer protection bill that creates a presumption
that certain clauses in contracts are unconscionable, and that businesses can
be fined for using them. Currently, courts make these rulings: unconscionable
clauses can result in an entire contract being thrown out in favor of a
consumer. This bill would, in effect, predetermine that some clauses should not
be enforced, regardless of the willingness of a consumer to agree to certain
conditions.
We were
deluged with messages from every sector of our outdoor recreation industry
about the economic impact on waiver agreements for sports that have known
risks. Again, a motion to send the bill for review by the Commerce and Economic
Development Committee failed 57-73, again with the support of some Democrats.
An amendment to specifically exempt the recreation industry – which the
Judiciary Committee had claimed would not be affected by the bill -- failed
72-59.
I voted
against both bills in the form they were being presented.
***
Health Care Mandate
I’m on
the conference committee with the Senate regarding our bill to create an
individual mandate for purchasing health insurance to replace the one no longer
being enforced by the federal government. A requirement that everyone has
coverage is an essential trade-off if health insurance is being required to
cover conditions that you already have when you sign up.
My committee
didn’t include a penalty for not complying, because we wanted a work group to
think this through this very carefully and make recommendations for us for next
year: What exemptions should apply? What should the penalty be?
But we
thought it was essential to put the mandate in place so that people were
forewarned that this was happening. Our insurance experts told us that without
doing at least that, insurance rates for everyone else would increase by two
percent even in the first year (two percent on top of whatever increase was
already occurring due to cost pressures.)
The
Senate supported having a work group, but not the mandate itself. When the
three Senators and three House members met for our first conference, we learned
that the issue is that one of the Senators believes that there has to be a
penalty included right from the start, or it’s worthless.
Do we
come back with a compromise that creates a $25 penalty for the interim? Stand
our ground and risk the bill dying? Conference committees are a surprisingly
formal process of offer and counter-offer. The fate of this bill will be
determined by this negotiating process.
***
Who Is a Child?
Under a
bill we passed this week on juvenile court, a child can be defined as someone
who is 18 or 19 if a judge thinks the case should be heard in Family Court.
(That’s different even from the “youthful offender” status we have for those
18-to-22 years old.) Although the law will exclude violent felonies, I
nonetheless thought we were being a bit inconsistent as policy-makers, given
the level of urgency we’ve been placing on coming up with a new law so that in
the future, someone like 18-year-old Jack Sawyer can be locked up for life.
Though I
supported the Family Court bill, I am introducing an amendment to ensure that
these young adults have the right to have their cases heard in a Criminal Court
if that is what they want. The right to a jury trial is one of the things at
stake. In addition, some may prefer an adult court fine or probation over the
intrusion of having the Department of Children and Families in their lives.
***
DNA Rights
Speaking
of civil rights, the new parentage law has come back from conference committee
with a final, agreed-upon version. It includes requiring that DNA taken from an
uninvolved family member by court order must be destroyed after it is no longer
needed and the case is final.
An
example of this situation would be your brother’s girlfriend suing to establish
paternity of her child after your brother splits town. Under this law, you can
be required to provide a DNA sample to see if there is a family link that might
establish that your brother is the baby’s father.
I was
very concerned about this, and the House Judiciary Committee did accept some of
the protections I proposed, such as the right to a hearing. It refused my
amendment to have the DNA destroyed, and the amendment was defeated on the
House floor by a single vote. I brought the issue to the Senate; they added it
in. Now the House Judiciary Committee has accepted its inclusion.
***
Please stay in
touch as you hear about issues affecting you and to keep me informed about your
views. You can reach me at adonahue@leg.state.vt.us. You can find all of my updates at
representativeannedonahue.blogspot.com. Thank you for the honor of representing
you.
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