Legislative Update, January 28, 2023

 I’m someone who believes that transparency is a bedrock of our democracy. The fact that any citizen can walk in or out of our state house and in or out of any committee room to see what is happening, really matters.

We both lost and gained with COVID. Having to convert to remote lawmaking was a major loss to interpersonal legislative dynamics. But that conversion also meant the installation of new technology, and now anyone can watch a committee from any part of the state, include archived videos of prior meetings.

Being back in person should mean that, even with the ongoing remote access, we are back to open doors and open access. In theory, we are. Capacity limits are a bit tighter than they used to be. No more allowing small committee rooms with standing room only, becoming winter breeding grounds for winter colds and worse. But the doors are otherwise open.

That was until this past week, when the House Appropriations Committee made a temporary move to a meeting space in the executive office building next door. (It was getting its new committee room, a former large meeting space, spruced up; nothing essential.) That building has restricted access. To get in, you need to have identification on you, and sign in to get a guest pass. Other committees are also planning to use that space at times.

Most people seemed to think it was no big deal. I think it is a big deal, and I made an objection on the House floor. I don’t know that it will make any difference. But when we start taking open public access too lightly, it becomes easy to keep sliding farther away from considering transparency as a bedrock.

***

Another internal debate: now that we’ve learned how handy it can be to participate remotely, should we create some allowances for voting remotely? (In committee only, not on the House floor.) We ended that special COVID authority at the end of last year, but as with workplaces across the country, some folks want to hold onto the new accessibility.

In the past, voting in person was sacrosanct. If you were out sick, you could participate by speakerphone, but you didn’t count as part of a quorum and could not vote. Our Rules Committee (I am a member) is now reconsidering this policy. Suggestions on limits are being debated: COVID-only? A sick child or a childcare or school closure (snow day)? Dangerous travel in a snowstorm? 

The argument for flexibility has some added weight when we consider that we want to encourage more diversity – more younger folks, who are more likely to have kids to worry about – among candidates for office. It was never an issue before because we never had the capacity for visual participation before. If you couldn’t make it for a day, then it meant you couldn’t make it that day.  

The question for me is, just because we can, should we? There is something about seeing people eye-to-eye. There is something to maintaining the gravitas of what we are doing by requiring that you be physically present to vote. We’ll continue the discussion in the Rules Committee and likely vote next week (in person) on whether to do a trial run, and if so, with what limitations.

***

Speaking of diversity, that’s the primary argument behind new efforts to make it more affordable to be a legislator. A bill introduced in the Senate would require that legislators receive full health coverage and childcare reimbursement along with a one-quarter salary for the work done during the off-session (May-Dec.) The current salary and expense stipends add up to about $20,000 for the 16 weeks; there is no health care support at all.

The suggested benefits would exceed what anyone else is guaranteed in their employment and would cost taxpayers a lot of money. On the other hand, other jobs don’t have the issue of ensuring equity in representation in one’s government.

***

The post-COVID crash will start arriving in the next couple of months: the loss of the added federal supports for individuals that have poured in for the past two years. For those who have become accustomed to them, it will come as a hardship. 

Those receiving “3Squares” (our Vermont name for food stamps) have been receiving a supplemental payment each month. The mid-month payment will end when the federal budget cuts it off after March.

In addition, states were told to suspend “redeterminations” for Medicaid during COVID. That’s the annual process of checking that a person is still eligible. That, too, is coming to an end. Even folks who remain fully eligible need to ensure that their address is up to date for Medicaid notices. If you are on a Medicaid plan, and you’ve moved in the past three years you might not get the notices that tell you what you need to do to stay enrolled – and you could get cut off.

Extra emergency housing benefits paid with federal funds are also expiring at the end of March. The governor’s budget has added some $15m in state funds for next year to help the most vulnerable folks (families with children, seniors, and those with disabilities) gain a bit more time and support in finding more permanent housing.

But in the Human Services Committee, we are already beginning to hear the pleas from community organizations for extra help. There will be plenty more as we review the human services budget over the next several weeks.

The Vermont Food Bank is seeing increased demand and higher costs. They testified last week asking for $3m. Home health providers are having payment rates by Medicare cut. Since Medicaid already underpays, those services are facing a severe shortfall – and they are crucial for helping people get out of the hospital or avoid going into hospitals and nursing homes.

Parent-child centers are telling us that without $5m in added funding for salary and other inflationary pressures, they may have to limit their services to struggling families. Senior centers are coping with an aging volunteer corps and rising costs. It costs about $12 per meal they provide, and they are reimbursed about $5.50 each.

The local agencies that provide community services for those with mental health and developmental needs – an area which has faced decades of budget shortfalls and is experiencing unprecedented increases in demand – is receiving no rate increase in this year’s governor’s budget. Not receiving a rate increase amounts to a budget cut in the face of inflationary costs.

Even small programs create tough choices. For the past several years, the Junior League of the Champlain Valley has stepped up with a new volunteer initiative to create a “diaper bank” for families in need; diapers cost some $80/month, we were told, which is a big bite out of a minimum wage salary. The League testified that they can’t maintain the emergency project and its significant growth. It is asking for $380,000 for the state to fund the program. 

Meanwhile, we’re also facing some major new costs over the next several years to build and operate at least three new locked treatment programs for justice-involved juveniles with violent behaviors. We closed the only existing one a few years ago. The numbers will keep growing as we continue the “raise the age” law passed several years ago that converts many young adults into juveniles handled by Family Court, currently up from age 17 to 19 and due to move to 20 this July.

Meanwhile, we are making little progress on rebuilding the state’s workforce, which is contributing to high health care costs and reduced progress on other initiatives. The agency in charge of the weatherization program for low-income homes (saving both heating costs and environmental damage) testified last week that progress has been slowed by the backlog in weatherization workforce capacity.

To understand the scope of the healthcare workforce impact, one has only to look at this year’s budget adjustment request for operating costs of the Vermont Psychiatric Care Hospital. Despite having budgeted for the need for travelling nurses (provided by agencies at three or more times the cost), more were needed than projected, resulting in the need for $11m to be added to the current budget. Despite that, four of its 25 beds currently remain closed because of staffing shortages. For context: the annual budget pre-COVID was about $23m/year, so $11m more is a 50% increase to the operating budget. 

Money has to come from somewhere and ultimately, it is all from our pockets. As we look to balance the budget, I think that addressing existing programs must come before creating new ones. That makes me highly leery of the talk of creating paid family leave programs, super-charging childcare support (beyond the $50m in added support the governor is already proposing) and using fuel tax increases as the mechanism for pushing for a reduction in carbon-fueled heating systems.

Even the governor’s proposed budget, though balanced without new taxes, adds to that pattern. It funds the creation of three new mental health response programs, for example, while cutting the existing ones. To make it worse, those new ones are “pilots” that come “cheap” to us because they receive a significantly higher federal match than the standard one. When that match rate drops in two years, we will have to either close them down or backfill with more state money. 

Closing down is much harder than not starting. We’re already seeing that as COVID funds go away and I don’t think we should be making it worse for the future. 

***

Please reach out anytime to your representatives – me (adonahue@leg.state.vt.us) or Ken Goslant (kgoslant@leg.state.vt.us) at any time. 

Legislative Update, January 15, 2023

Both Rep. Ken Goslant and I did “biweekly” updates last week, so this will be some shorter highlights as we get onto our usual alternating schedule.

The good news of the week is that the long tradition of Farmers Night has returned after a several-year COVID absence. These free performances in the House Chamber every Wednesday evening at 7:30 are a real treat and showcase some of our most talented Vermont performers, including the Vermont Symphony Orchestra. You can find the full schedule (Jan. 18 through April 12) at the bottom right of the legislature’s home page, legislature.vermont.gov

***

Committees are just getting organized, and bills just being submitted, so there’s been no action on the floor yet, but lots of media attention on the agenda for the controlling majority in both House and Senate. These include significant investments in childcare (from general funds); the family leave bill (via payroll tax); and climate change mitigation through home heating mandates (via fuel surcharges.) On top of inflationary pressures and an expected hike in school taxes, these could really add up, so each will require review with an eye to the whole package.

But I recognize that everyone has their own priorities, since I’m introducing a bill that would require new funding: the “65th Birthday Cliff” bill would address the disparity that currently occurs when older Vermonters lose financial assistance for health coverage as they go onto Medicare. Medicare has significant gaps, yet we change the low-income threshold for Medicaid support at that point.

***

The governor’s budget address is scheduled for this Friday, so we’ll be hearing his priorities. We are already reviewing the changes in the current budget he is proposing in the budget adjustment act. One item of concern to me is a $9m appropriation to fast-track construction of a children’s inpatient psychiatric unit at Southwestern Medical Center in Bennington. We do need to act quickly to meet critical mental health needs, but not so quickly that we make major investments that could be misguided.

Those kinds of mistakes can occur when public input is limited. I’m concerned that this would be in Bennington, when the only other hospital for children is in Brattleboro, causing significant challenges for families. We also need to ensure we aren’t investing in the highest, most expensive level of care without adequately funding programs in the community that could prevent a need for hospitalization. 

It’s worth asking why the state be paying to build a unit in a hospital, when all other types of care are part of the hospitals’ own capital investments? The answer is that hospitals get more revenue for care such as surgery while psychiatry loses money. Reforms need to align the actual costs with actual funding, both inpatient and outpatient, and we’ve made little progress on parity for mental health care. It shouldn’t be a surprise that mental health needs are skyrocketing when kids wait months to access child psychiatry.

The legislature has been pushing for steps towards integration of health care for decades, but we almost took a step backwards in our own language in another example of action taken too quickly without input. The Speaker wanted to change jurisdictions of our House committees. One was eliminated to bolster several others, and descriptions of all were revised. Input by the full legislature was limited to seeing the document an hour before the vote on it. Health care was renamed “physical and mental health care” – the lingo of segregation we eschewed a decade ago. I objected with a fair amount of passion and am happy to report that it was re-amended this past week to use our own current statutory language that describes an “integrated and holistic health care system.”

***

Berlin’s leadership took a key step this past week in getting a handle on the level of disruption that has been occurring because of the state paying to house homeless individuals and families at the Hilltop Inn. I had helped in encouraging the state to come to the table and sat in on a meeting with town officials and the police chief, owner representation from the Hilltop, a social service provider and the Commissioner and staff from the Department of Children and Families.

Berlin officials made it clear that they want to support homeless folks, but the minority who are bringing violence and drug issues are creating a huge burden on local police. The Inn’s management hasn’t taken any quick actions, and the town felt more support was needed by the state. It turned out that the Hilltop wasn’t aware that they can have people removed immediately if they are endangering others, but also needed help in getting clear details from the police calls. All the players will now be meeting weekly to see if problems can be resolved quickly when they crop up. I was particularly impressed by the Berlin manager, Vince Conti, in how he steered the discussion to stay on topic and work towards problem-solving.

***

Please reach out any time to Rep. Goslant or me, at KGoslant@leg.state.vt.us or ADonahue@leg.state.vt.us  It is a pleasure to serve you.

Legislative Update, Start of the 2023 Session

 

    Pomp and circumstance can get a bad rap sometimes. “Get over yourselves. Go to work.” Returning to it this week to open the 2023-4 legislative session after missing it in 2021 due to COVID reminded me of why it matters. It emphasizes for all of us the gravitas of what we are doing, representing the people of Vermont -- 150 representatives, 30 senators, a governor, and four other constitutional officers all pledging to uphold the constitution and to do our best together to promote the interests of our state.

The news media may focus on the governor’s inauguration and his inaugural address (his emphasis this year was equal opportunity for our rural areas), but every orchestrated piece of the ceremonies bear meaning. The National Guard escorts honored guests to the well of the House (the center section). This includes all past governors (Howard Dean, Jim Douglas and Peter Shumlin were all there), members of the Vermont Supreme Court, and the incoming state officers. They are Auditor Doug Hoffman, Secretary of State Sarah Copeland-Hansas, Attorney General Charity Clark, and Treasurer Michael Piechak. This year, only one is a returning official (Hoffman), which means a major transition in state leadership.

The Senate files in to its designated seats of honor in the House chambers; the Guard presents the colors; all join in the pledge. The Star-Spangled Banner was sung by none other than François Scarborough Clemmons, best known as Officer Clemmons on Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood and a resident of Vermont (I didn’t know that!) The student chorus from Middlebury Union High School sang “America the Beautiful” and “These Green Mountains.” There were two invocations and one benediction.

Some of the small traditions help carry the sense of weightiness and significance of the events. For example, a committee of six (three Representatives and three Senators) is formally appointed by the presiding officer (the Lieutenant Governor, who like reps and senators were sworn in the day before) to walk out in procession to the Governor’s office and then escort the governor-elect into the House chamber.

As commentator David Moats said later, “It was a grand day when Vermonters could feel pride in the governing institutions of their state, in their leaders, and in the spirit of community that unites people of widely different experiences and viewpoints. It was a day of patriotism in the old-fashioned sense.

“The inescapable contrast was evident to anyone who tuned in to the goings-on under way in the U.S. House of Representatives.”

***

Much of the feel-good will ebb away as we plunge into work and the controversies we will inevitably face. We elected a Republican Governor but a “super-majority” Democratic House and Senate, meaning majorities of more than two-thirds, thus capable of overturning any veto of legislative priorities.

There will be some restraint in the actions of the general assembly, since members know they will face elections in two years and would risk losing seats if they pressed farther left than the state’s voters want. Thus, while the voice of Republicans could theoretically be disregarded altogether, it will not become irrelevant. They will point out excesses and try to mitigate perceived harms.

Perhaps most importantly, they will keep alive the role that I have always believed to be most essential to our democratic process: that it is in the robust debate of different perspectives and the melting pot of ideas that we develop the best paths forward on difficult issues.

That segues directly to a discussion of my committee appointment in the House, which drew some media attention.

For all my previous 20 years in the House, I have had a significant focus on mental health and am well known for that work. I speak above all for those, like me, who have faced the challenges of mental illness. That comes within the context of our overall health care system with its failures and gaps. I have been part of the team working urgently to attempt to address growing costs and the need for equity in access. For the past six years, I have been vice-chair of the House Health Care Committee. Less than two years ago, the Speaker referred to the committee chair and me as her “A-Team” in health care.

Last fall, I took on a vocal, statewide volunteer role speaking out in opposition to passing Article 22, the constitutional amendment on reproductive rights. I’ll not repeat here the long discussion of the differing perspectives and why I believed presenting the opposing view was so important. The amendment was not only a priority of the Democratic majority and the Speaker but was also of great personal importance to her, a former policy director for Planned Parenthood. So, this past week, she punished me by removing my vice-chair position and my health care committee membership altogether.

It did not come as a surprise to me. I knew from the start that there was a political risk to be outspoken on the issue. But I felt compelled to follow my own moral compass and speak out for what I believed in. I heard from others that she was under pressure from allies to demote me. In mid-December, I was told I would be moved to the Commerce Committee, which covers subjects for which I have no background. A few days before the start of the session, that was changed to the Human Services Committee.

What saddened me greatly was not so much the move, but the inability of the Speaker to put core principles of free speech and public debate ahead of differences of opinion. If a person with a position that is contrary to that of the ruling majority can be punished for speaking out publicly, there is a chilling effect on all debate over controversial subjects. Regardless of any specific topic, it bodes poorly for the democratic process. As Voltaire said, “I disagree with what you say, but I defend to death your right to say it.”

The move smacks of the Washington politics that we try so much to hold as a contrast to ourselves. It is not what we sometimes term, “the Vermont way” or what Moats called “the spirit of community that unites people of widely different experiences and viewpoints.”

The Speaker denied her decision was retribution, but her explanations did not hold much water. She told news media that it was a part of her effort to balance committee needs given an unprecedented number of new incoming legislators and the unprecedented number of committee chairs who retired last year and had to be replaced. She noted that those new chairs needed to have their committees balanced between taking in new members and having support from experienced ones. Yet she played that out in my case by flipping me with a 14-year member of the Human Services Committee. Rep. Topper McFaun from Barre Town became vice-chair of Health Care and I took his slot as ranking member of Human Services. Both those committees have first-time chairs, and both of those chairs have worked for years alongside each of us on those committees; we each have developed expertise in the committee subject matters. Topper himself strongly objected to being moved from Human Services.  

I think it was the voters of Northfield and Berlin who represented “the Vermont way.” You overwhelmingly disagreed with my position on Article 22 at roughly the same as the statewide average, 75 percent. And yet you honored me with the top number of votes to return as your representative, significantly ahead of a pro-Article 22 candidate. The message was clear (and some said it directly to me last fall): We do not agree with you on the reproductive liberty issue, but we respect the work you do for our district and state as a whole and will continue to support you. Many specifically referenced my work in mental health.

I won’t stop working on mental health, although my role will be as an advocate rather than a participating member of a legislative committee. I won’t stop working for constituents, or listening to your perspectives, whether they differ from mine or not. And I will put as much energy into my new committee as I did my old, rebuilding my existing knowledge of its subjects of jurisdiction, which include childcare, Reach-Up, services for elders and those with developmental disabilities, neglect and abuse, and related topics.

***

Rep. Ken Goslant, my district-mate, has been reappointed to the Judiciary Committee, where he has now built four years of expertise in its jurisdictional matters.

As we begin this new session, do keep in mind that some of the controversial and high-profile issues that predominate the media are often not the most fundamental matters for the future of our state. The legislature’s largest responsibility is the state budget, which shapes our priorities both in revenue and spending choices. Our future also rests on workforce development, the education of our children, social equity, and climate change resiliency. But whether big or small, please remember that both Ken and I want very much to hear from you when you have concerns or perspectives to share. He can be reached at kgoslant@leg.state.vt.us, and I am at adonahue@leg.state.vt.us

Best for the New Year to all.

Anne

 

For those who may be interested, I’m going to supplement this update with a section of the report that new member Gina Galfetti of Barre Town sent to her constituents, since it covers another first-day event that I had not included, since my updates are already so long. But this is a good summary:

During lunch, at 12:23pm to be precise, we were sent an email giving notice of a Resolution that we were to consider for the afternoon. And this is where things got interesting. In an unprecedented move, the majority party had decided to put a rather weighty item up for our consideration with little prior notice. I say consideration rather generously, for what could 51 new members know, having never engaged in a committee meeting let alone floor debate?

The Resolution H.R. 4 was a complete overhaul of the House’s committee structure. The resolution eliminated long standing committees such as Fish and Wildlife and replaced them with things like “Energy and the Environment” and “Agriculture, Food Resiliency and Forestry.” It also tasked multiple Committees with the same tasks in what is sure to create troubling overlap in the future.  The Resolution proposed to eliminate a number of committee chairmanships and completely alter the makeup of long-standing committees. At a time when 51 new members would have certainly changed the makeup of many committees anyway, and continuity and institutional knowledge would be needed, this Resolution dropped like a bomb on the stability of the House.  

When we returned to the floor, few members — especially first-year members — had any idea what was going on. The Speaker gaveled up into session, and the Resolution was put up to vote. One lone voice of questioning arose, and that was from Representative Anne Donahue of Northfield. Donahue proceeded to question one of the sponsors of the Resolution as to its meaning and scope. The sponsors of the bill scrambled to answer questions and soon Donahue was hushed up without getting any good answers to her questions.

 As Donahue sat shaking her head, the Resolution was passed and business returned to “normal” with the assignments of committees taking place…

2023 Legislative Economic Preview

 Legislative Financial Preview

Rep. Anne Donahue

December 20, 2022

Every December, new and returning legislators get the opportunity to hear a preview of the state’s financial status in anticipation of starting work in January. Our state economist and principal economic advisor, Tom Kavet, shares his best estimates of what the economy is looking like, and what we might be facing in the year ahead. That includes the second half of fiscal year 2023 -- which ends in June -- and fiscal year 2024, which starts this July and will be the budget we construct over the months ahead.

I usually try to send out a summary, but this year, his opening bullet points do a far better job than I could in summing up the situation that led him to open by saying, “Two opposing forces are now colliding and shaping the national and state economics – and affecting state revenues.” 

I’ll start with his concluding point, and then go in order from the top:

- A good start to the fiscal year 2023 revenues, but the second half of the year will be more challenging and fy ’24 could be ugly. 

Here’s why:

- Total [state] revenues through November (General, Transportation and partial Education Funds [referencing the non-property tax portions]) are about 6.5% above targets (about $76 million on a base of about $1.2 billion), with revenues particularly strong in the first quarter of the fiscal year and slower in the second. 

- The revenue strength in the first five months of the fiscal year was concentrated in Personal and Corporate income taxes. With asset prices and corporate profits still at elevated levels, demand remaining resilient and prices rising, income tax liabilities have risen accordingly. 

- Almost all other revenue sources were close to or slightly above year-to-date targets, including the large consumption taxes, with rooms and meals 1.8% above target, motor vehicle purchase and use up 2.3% and sales and use, up 3.2%.

- With one foot still on the gas and the other now slamming on the brakes, federal fiscal and monetary policies are generating opposing forces that will both confuse and control the state economy and revenues in coming years.

- While direct pandemic health effects have receded from prominence, their legacy of vast federal spending, shifting consumer preferences, supply chain disruptions and reduced labor force participation continue to resonate loudly.

- With viral mutations continuing and geo-political instability from war in Europe added to the mix, the outlook continues to be extremely volatile and unpredictable.

- Despite all the current risk, fy 22 and fy 23 revenues to date have benefited from the vast federal spending which has been coursing through the Vermont economy in the past 2 years.

So there you have it: we’re in great shape right now. The words “volatile and unpredictable” are scary ones.

What is the basis for the unpredictability? Here are some of Cavet’s other points, abbreviated:

- The extraordinary federal deficit spending to offset the pandemic blunted its impact but was probably more than what was needed.

- Vermont received a disproportionate share, in excess of $10 billion. [This is due to the “small state minimum” formula.]

- The Inflation Reduction Act may reduce inflation in the long run but includes further spending that will delay any immediate effects.

- We are experiencing the highest inflation in 40 years because of a combination of factors: the spike in consumer demand, plus supply constraints caused by lower labor force participation, bottlenecks in China due to its zero-COVID policy, and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

- Inflation hasn’t impacted spending significantly because of savings that were retained during the pandemic, but now, many are beginning to increase their debt levels again.

- The Fed is trying to reduce demand through interest rate increases and will continue to do so until it believes the economy has slowed to the goal of 2 to 3%.

- However, interest rate increases can’t affect the supply chain issues, and the Fed may overshoot with a rapid drop in consumption… If it does, a recession will be likely.

Of note in terms of Vermont employment: our losses during the pandemic totaled 65.8 thousand jobs, a decline of nearly 21%. Since then, it has recovered 51.9 thousand jobs, still 4.4% below its pre-pandemic peak. It would still need to add about 14 thousand jobs to return to pre-pandemic levels. Yet, our unemployment levels are a record lows in terms of the ability to fill jobs. Our workforce crisis continues. And I just learned that not a penny of the investments my Health Care Committee put towards healthcare workforce development last spring has gotten out the door yet; it’s still caught up in administrative processes.

Those of us in the last legislative session already were being warned that fy 24 could look bad, from a budget perspective. On top of that, there is the issue of the expectations created while we had massively more federal money coming into the budget. It is much harder to give and then take away, than to give a little bit less from the start. As the surplus COVID money ends, no one will remember it was temporary funding for a temporary program; they will say services are being cut.

In addition, the new Democratic super-majority is seeing its veto-proof position as an opportunity to proceed on a number of new initiatives simultaneously: expanded childcare support, additional housing funding, paid family leave, and climate measures. Many of those don’t require an “in-your-face” tax increase. Paid family leave will be employer-employee funded; fuel consumption for heat will be cut through fuel prices, etc – hidden tax increases. I agree with the social good of many of these initiatives but have yet to see where the money will come from. If the economy is not vigorously expanding (and look back at Tom Kavet’s status report), it can only come from new taxes or added economic burdens on individuals. 

The Vermont League of Cities and Towns has a sobering reminder in its annual preview for the year ahead: “In 2020, Vermont ranked second in terms of total state tax burden per capita, and fifth in terms of state and local property tax burden per capita. Thus, how we fund government at the state and local levels – and how the legislature determines its priorities – affect Vermonters in their pocketbooks every day.”

One thing that has been growing at record levels has been housing prices: in Vermont, the past two quarters reflect a highest-ever year-over-year growth. That puts the legislature in the glorious position of being able to cut the education property tax rates. Don’t be fooled by those headlines. The rates can go down because the value of property is up. You will pay the same or more depending upon how much spending goes up (and school boards have inflation to deal with as well) and whether or how much we return the excess taxes we raised this past year – a surplus that will be tempting to spend. But it also means that our crisis in housing affordability will continue to get more severe despite the massive investments already made via COVID funds. 

Health care sustainability and cost growth is also chomping at our heels, exacerbated by the workforce crisis and long pre-dating COVID, yet it seems to have fallen off the radar as an urgent priority. It remains one of mine. Despite the degree of federal control that limits what we can do, there are things we could be doing to chip away at some of the inequities in access. 

One of the “gap” groups that we’ve ignored thus far is those who are dropped from Medicaid when they turn 65 because a higher income threshold goes into effect. As much as we hear the call for “Medicare for all,” Medicare has some large holes and some cost burdens. I think our low-income senior citizens should get the same support that we provide our citizens before they turn 65, instead of dropping some of them off the cliff. 

Last year, we asked for a report on how we might achieve that goal and how much it would cost, and I have a bill underway to put this issue directly on the table for the coming year. This would require unexpected improvement in revenues this year. It would also require that it move in front of the new and expensive priorities that have been added to the legislative wish list for 2023. 

The bottom line in all of this is strengthening economic development as the basis for being able to do more of what we want for our citizens. Despite the experience I’ve built in health care systems over the years, I hope that this year I can move into playing a bigger role in building our workforce and economic stability.

So – a challenging year ahead.

Best to you for the holidays and for the new year around the corner.

***

Please contact me or district-mate Rep. Ken Goslant anytime with questions or concerns. I can be reached at adonahue@leg.state.vt.us, and Ken is at kgoslant@leg.state.vt.us. We both look forward to serving you in the year ahead.

 

House Floor Speech on Prop 5, Feb 8, 2022

 Madam Speaker,

I rise today with no expectations or intent to change the mind of members on their votes. But I hope to convince every person on either side to leave slightly less certain than when they came in.

Eric Metaxas, author of Seven Women and the Secret of Their Greatness, in 2015, said, 

“Each era has the fatal hubris to believe that it has once and for all climbed to the top of the mountain and can see everything as it is, from the highest and most objective vantage point possible.”

We have been certain in the past: 

It was a norm to take land and kill its people; it was a norm to sell people; it was a norm to sterilize those we believed should not be procreating.

None of those actions were taken in the belief of doing wrong.

But people in power make decisions; the onus is thus on us to carefully examine our assumptions.

Our human race, worldwide and for centuries, has been wrestling with the issues of women’s rights to their bodies and abortion, struggling with the difficulty of achieving any kind of a balance.

Roe v Wade reflects on that, citing the long history of differing and changing perspectives and demonstrating why it is so hard.

It is not random chance that such great division has lasted for so long and to such depths of convictions. It is because the issue is, itself, so very hard.

One way to examine our own assumptions is to look to elsewhere in the world, and the laws of other countries, especially those with similar values of pluralism as our own.

Where does the right to reproductive autonomy protect unlimited access to abortion without any limit on gestational age? 

The only nations allowing unrestricted elective abortions at any time are Canada, China, the Netherlands, North Korea, Singapore, and Vietnam. 

Missing from that list are most of those we think of as among the most progressive nations, and in fact, many of them have some mandatory threshold even for the earliest abortions. 

A few examples: 

In Germany, first trimester abortions are only permitted under a condition of mandatory counseling 3 days in advance; they are permitted later in pregnancy only if the pregnancy is found to pose significant danger to the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman. 

But Germany is perhaps not the best example. We would expect great caution after its Nazi history; abortion was severely punished for Aryan women but permitted where the parents were Jewish -- it sharply distinguished between life that was deemed worthy, and what were called, ‘unworthy lives.’ In 1935 the Nazis introduced a ‘eugenic justification’ for abortion in the criminal code, and in 1943 they supplemented [it] with a clause demanding the death penalty for abortion ‘in cases where the vitality of the German people [was] threatened.’

So let’s look at instead to a few other samples: 

Sweden permits abortion on the request of the pregnant woman only until the 18th week. After the 18th week, it requires an evaluation and permission through the National Board of Health and Welfare which must find an exceptional circumstance. None are permitted after viability.

In England, abortion is allowed during the first 24 weeks of pregnancy but those must be for socio-economic or health reasons-- (that limit was reduced from 28 weeks to 24 in 1991 to reflect advances in technology that enable the very premature to survive.) Beyond that, it is only permitted for significant medical reasons.

In Switzerland, abortion is legal during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, upon a condition of counseling, for women who state that they are in distress. It is only legal after 12 weeks for threat of severe physical or psychological damage to the woman.

So if we see this as an easy question – as reproductive rights preeminent in all circumstances -- we stand almost alone against views worldwide and, 

We stand against Roe v Wade

Because, for those who look to Roe v Wade as bedrock: 

It struggled with those choices and did not utterly reject any right of society to prioritize the value of a developing life. 

In finding a role for the right of privacy, it also said, 

“The pregnant woman cannot be isolated in her privacy. She carries an embryo and, later, a fetus, if one accepts the medical definitions of the developing young in the human uterus.”

And it then flatly rejected the argument, quote, “that the woman's right is absolute and that she is entitled to terminate her pregnancy at whatever time, in whatever way, and for whatever reason she alone chooses.”

This proposed constitutional amendment denies balancing.

It locks in a restriction on state interference unless there is a “compelling interest.” That still leaves the decision to the courts if the court deems it a situation where constitutional rights are in conflict, but it becomes the only constitutional right which pre-establishes the standard for how the court must balance rights, giving reproductive autonomy pre-eminence in a way not given to any other right. 

The “compelling interest” and “least restrictive means” language is a test that the courts established for how they weigh competing rights. 

By inserting that language, we prescribe how the court must interpret the constitution. Yet at the same time, we also turn over to the courts a completely new, undefined term to interpret – “reproductive autonomy” – requiring multiple, unforeseeable, court interpretations in the future. 

Although abortion is never directly referenced in the language, we know that in current legislative intent, abortion is the core impetus for this proposal. So, I want to turn to 3 issues within that particular debate:

-- Is a developing embryo or fetus a person, who therefore has rights? 

-- Is the choice of abortion a reproductive health care right, a matter of equity, potentially putting two rights into conflict? 

-- And then, is arguing for one perspective forcing the religion of some, over other people?

First, is this embryo, then fetus, a person?

It is obviously living, and human, not turtle – but the question is when “personhood” attaches to it.

If we divide those -- between human life and having personhood – we are saying some human lives are not fully people. 

Not yet fully persons. 

Where have we heard that before in our history, as a way to dismiss the centrality of equality among human lives, in order to claim the superiority of the rights of one group over the other?

The history of humankind is deeply engrained with the stain of dividing between fit and unfit, those deemed less than fully human.

Our own Supreme Court once allowed Black lives to be counted as less. The Supreme Court also allowed “unfit lives” – Black, poor, indigenous, sexually different, disabled – to be denied the right to procreate, upholding eugenic sterilization laws with the words, 

if I may quote, Madam Speaker, 

“It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind.”

We have always used different labels to distinguish the wanted and the unwanted, so that we keep the unwanted as not fully one of us, not fully persons. 

When a wanted pregnancy ends in a miscarriage, we say, “she lost her baby.” No one says she lost her embryo or her fetus. Because it was wanted, and that defines its humanity as a baby.

Parents now share pictures of their babies in the womb by ultrasound – “look at our baby,” not “look at our embryo” -- yet many recoil at the thought of requiring someone to look at the same photo before deciding to abort. We don’t want that humanity to be visible if it is unwanted.

Do we really want to use being wanted or not to distinguish between two kinds of life in the womb: one a fetus, not a person, and the other a human baby?

Second, is this an issue of health care and reproductive rights?

People biologically have testicles and ovaries for the sole purpose of reproduction. The womb was biologically designed to nurture and protect the embryo that results from joining of sperm and egg. 

It was biologically designed for that purpose inside and as a part of another person’s body. The fact that biology leads to the start of an embryo does not mean it is being compelled on someone. In most cases there is at least implicit consent to the fact that it might happen, even if not intended. Individuals, inherently, do control their reproductive decisions: that right to choose whether to reproduce and create offspring. But once that biological reproduction has already occurred because conception has occurred, that choice has been made. 

Simply because the embryo’s survival depends upon the protection of the womb does not make it the property of, or merely an appendage of the person bearing it. Removing it – which results in its death – is not reasonably defined as health care.

Third: Am I forcing my religion on others by perceiving and arguing for these rights? Roe v Wade doesn’t assert that. It underscores the right of a society – not a religion -- to have an interest in a developing life.

Who I am, and how my conscience is formed, is about my personal integrity in responding to the world. It is not about isolating religion from the rest of my self. A democratic dialogue is about sharing competing perspectives about our world views in trying to reach social consensus. Those perspectives include the ethics, morals, and yes, religion, of any person engaged in it. 

Demanding that people segment out their religion from their selves as criteria for entering public debate is wrong. A component of a person’s belief system is not being imposed on others any more than any majority imposes its perspective on others when it shares its values in the effort to build the values of a society – values ultimately established as laws.

If there is a risk of imposition of values, it is in the refusal to adopt conscience protection for health professionals who believe that participating in abortion violates their ethics or their religious views, telling them they cannot choose a medical profession if they are not willing to participate. 

Not too many years ago we argued for no smoking laws in bars not on public health grounds, but on the rights of a person to choose a profession as bartender without being subjected to tobacco smoke. 

Yet we have refused to protect the right of a person to choose a profession in health care without being compelled to uphold access to abortion. Adopting Proposal 5 without first adopting conscience protection establishes a legislative intent regarding its priorities. Conscience protection will be argued as an unconstitutionally imposed obstacle for some individuals’ decisions on their reproductive autonomy. Even laws that allow for licensing standards or hospital regulations or ethics standards may be found to violate the constitution as obstacles.

I cannot accept that we are not deeply harming society by disregarding life in the womb, and I see no compelling rationale to draw the line between life and human personhood at birth, any more than at the transition from embryo to fetus, or the transition to full cognitive maturity at what we now recognize as not occurring until the mid 20’s. 

That line defining “maturity and responsibility for behavior” has shifted with science… why would we not see shifts over time in the rational recognition of attachment of personhood? Quickening has long been replaced by ultrasound.

But I also cannot contemplate an image of a person in restraints for 9 months, being forced to carry, unwanted, that other person in their womb. It is painful to think that the liberty and dignity to determine one’s own life course could be radically altered by something as potentially unpredictable as the failure of a contraceptive. 

And I believe no compassionate society would ever criminally punish a person who acts on the desperation of feeling trapped by their own body having betrayed and taken control away from them.

So yes, it does make a difference if that other life is being sustained within someone’s body who does not want it there. 

But that doesn’t turn it into being solely about women’s health care or reproductive freedom.  

Refusing the recognition that this contradiction exists is the wrong way to address this hard, hard issue, because it takes it outside of anyone other than the person who is carrying that baby and denies the validity of society having any interest in the liberty and dignity of that other life. 

I have no solution between these colliding realities.

50 years ago as a college freshman when Roe v Wade was decided, I did think it was simple and clear: the murder of a human life, beginning at conception, could never be acceptable. 

It is not simple and clear.

Our world offers no solutions – world views have been in debate for decades, for centuries; views throughout the world remain torn.

I believe that is the core of what is wrong with Proposal 5.

It takes a deeply ethical dilemma that divides good people – all of them good, caring people – and it chooses the most absolute extreme of one side of a debate that has and continues to divide society so passionately and profoundly.

It is out of step with a world that continues to be conflicted. 

It claims the solution as simple: that it is only about reproductive freedom and nothing else.

And it proposes that view to be engraved in our constitution.

Good people have in the past made grievous mistakes and violated human rights -- whether through imperialism or slavery or eugenics. Perspectives of time make us recognize the evil, but in their time they were in accord with their society’s values.  

In its time, colonialism and the massacre of indigenous people was not recognized as wrong, because conquerors had the right to claim new lands and new property rights and to kill for that purpose.

In its time, many leaders of our country did not recognize slavery as a fundamental wrong, because those lives were not recognized with equivalent value or humanity to their own. Slaves could be hunted down and killed because property rights were at stake, and the right to own property is a fundamental right.

In its time, many respected citizens did not recognize eugenics as wrong, because people unfit to reproduce did not have equal rights, and society had a right to prevent unwanted children from being born and being a burden on society. 

Planned Parenthood removed the name of Margaret Sanger, a eugenics supporter, from its New York affiliate building in 2020 with an acknowledgement that it was, 

“both a necessary and overdue step to reckon with our legacy and acknowledge Planned Parenthood’s contributions to historical reproductive harm within communities of color.” 

In other words, the planning of parenthood was part of an agenda to curtail the growth of unwanted groups of people, thereby identified as persons of lesser value.

I cannot justify assigning value, and discriminating, based upon age or degree of dependency on the body of another person any more than upon race, sexual orientation, intellectual acumen, disability, the ability to conquer, political power or color of skin.

It is irresponsible of us to propose an all-or-nothing, extreme perspective to the voters of Vermont. Those who perceive a need to protect Roe v Wade will be forced to go far beyond it, to a far more extreme position.

I will vote no on Proposal 5.

But we are all here today with the intent to do the right thing – to protect human rights. 

To protect human rights.

We simply see those rights under very different lenses.

What will time tell us about decisions we make in our era? 

What will we need to apologize for; be forgiven for; be asked to make reparations for? 

We don’t know. We can’t know.

But we should not have that fatal hubris to believe that we have once and for all climbed to the top of the mountain and can see everything as it is, from the highest and most objective vantage point.

The way any of us see things is not necessarily everything there is.

Let us all have the humility to leave today a slight bit less certain that our perspective can stand the test of time.

Thank you, Madam Speaker

May 15, 2022 End-of-Session Update

 The 2021-22 legislative session ended on Thursday with passage of an $8.3 billion budget. Of that, 2.8 is state general fund revenue, 1.9 is the property tax part of the education fund and 3.5 is federal funding. We also passed two tax bills, one with $40 million in tax relief, and the other, the annual education funding bill, with $20 million in a rate reduction from last year’s surplus and another $15 million reduction resulting from anticipated revenues this year. It was a high stakes week, with two efforts at an override of vetoes by the governor that both failed by a single vote as a result of just a few Democrats who did not support their caucus position. 

This is a summary of the major bills, without as much of my usual commentary, because there were so many. That’s typical of the last week, which is a headlong dash to get bills wrapped up before agreement is reached between House and Senate on the tax and budget bills, which mark the end.

***

Budget

Huge investments were made using the remainder of the federal COVID rescue funds. These included workforce and economic recovery ($19 million in state general funding and $65.5 in federal COVID funds), housing, broadband, water and sewer, and climate initiatives including weatherization and $45 million in grants for municipalities for energy resilience measures.

It was a balanced budget that still allowed for $40 million in tax refunds or credits but included a number of new state positions – some temporary, but many permanent – as well as program increases in the base budget (those that will continue year-after-year, rather than one-time initiatives like the one from COVID funds.) I agreed with many of those key investments, though not all. The community mental health system has been seriously underfunded for years, for example, and we included a crucial eight percent increase for them, at a cost of $26 million. We have to vote on new spending on a one-bill-at-a-time basis, however, without the ability to see the full picture.

What is scary this year is the degree of uncertainty regarding how much we increased budget areas through blending with federal money, enhancing the ability to maximize the money yet muddying the question of what the base budget will look like next year. We delegate to the Appropriations Committee the job of pulling it all together and deciding on how to balance all those issues. When it comes out on an 11-0 tri-partisan vote of committee members, as it did this year, we have to trust in their judgment. I supported the budget; it passed the House on a 133-3 vote.

I did make one plea to my colleagues. We pass multiple bills every year asking for reports to be written – sometimes by a specific agency and other times through creation of a task force or work group. These cost time and money. They are important. We don’t have the time to delve deeply into complex topics; we need to ask for better information and more input. But all too often, a new session begins, and attention has turned elsewhere. The reports don’t result in action. Sometimes they are not even read. “Read them,” I begged.

***

Taxes

I voted against both tax bills, despite the fact that both returned some money to some taxpayers. I don’t think the money was targeted in the right ways.

 The annual yield bill, which sets the property tax rate to fund Vermont's PreK–12 education system, projects an average homestead tax rate of $1.385 which is considerably lower than it was last year. That includes a return of $20 million out of the $95 million that was surplus this year. The surplus was from raising more in taxes than was needed, but we spent $65 million of those surplus taxes instead of returning them.

Most were worthy investments. It creates a new program in our career and technical education centers for building trades. It sets aside $40 million for addressing PCB chemical contaminants in our schools. It also allocates $29 million to expand free school meals to all students regardless of income. Since this is a one-time surplus, we will need new funds to continue it next year. Under review for its future funding is expanding the base for the sales tax. The irony is that the sales tax is our most regressive tax, meaning those with the lowest income use a much higher percent of their total income when they pay this tax on purchases. So lower-income families would be contributing more to pay for meals for higher income kids.

The second tax bill reduced $160 million in surplus revenues by returning some money to some taxpayers. The biggest chunk of that $40 million in tax relief was $32 million for a $1,000 check per child under age six for every family with an income under $125,000 (continuing but with a gradual reduction up to a cap of $175,000.) At the same time, the refundable tax credit for child or dependent care was increased from 50 to 72 percent of the federal level and the earned income tax credit was increased from 36 to 38 percent of the federal. “Refundable” means it is received as a check if the amount is greater than the taxes that were paid in.

Student loan interest will now be deductible for those earning $120,000 or less. The level at which Social Security income will be exempt from taxes was increased from $45,000 to $50,000, followed by partial exemption up until reaching $75,000. A new exemption was created for civil service retirement and military retirement income. Both exempt the first $10,000 of income for those earning $60,000 or less, with a graduated reduction up to an income of $75,000.

Both the Social Security and the military retirement exclusion were considerably less than what many of us had pressed for, and what the governor had asked for, and it continues to place us at a major disadvantage compared to what other states do for older residents and retired military. I voted no, but it passed on a 144-4 based on its many positive aspects.

***

Veto Overrides

The House voted 99-51 to override two vetoes, which was one vote less than the two-thirds majority required. There were slight differences in how legislators voted on each. One bill was a Burlington charter change permitting “no cause” rental terminations; I had voted against the original bill and I voted no on the override.

The other was the Clean Heat bill establishing required reduction in the uses of fossil fuels for heating. I voted against this bill when it came through the House, because the program design and implementation was turned over completely to a state agency without us even knowing what it might cost Vermonters in home heating. The Senate amended the bill to require the agency to bring a proposal back to the legislature and require a new vote after we received and reviewed the details, before any implementation could begin. On that basis I voted to support the bill, and therefore also voted for the (unsuccessful) override.

A bit of an ugly scenario developed because the “swing vote” that lost the override came from a Democrat who had changed his mind just a day prior. He was pressured intensely by his caucus to change his vote through a rarely used special procedure that allows someone who voted “yes” to ask for reconsideration the next day. He held to his vote. If there had been a re-vote, I had already decided I would change my own vote on principle based on the coercion that was used on that member. That would have preserved the original 99-51 vote.

The week before, the governor’s veto was rejected unanimously by both House and Senate after he objected to the compromise bill worked out with union support to reform the state pension program. When the legislature adjourned, we did not set a veto session date, meaning there will be no attempt to override any vetoes of bills from this week. That includes one expected to be vetoed, a controversial proposal to restructure the environmental review process for Act 250 development decisions.

***

Other Big Bills

Workforce: Looking for a degree? Interested in nursing? Now is the time to check into the major expansion in scholarship and loan repayment opportunities. If it’s in a field that Vermont has a particular shortage, a one-year commitment to work in Vermont can be traded for a year of scholarship funding or repayment.

Environment: A number of bills added attention to the environment, but parts were mixed and matched at the last moment. One that survived was the expansion of the current use tax program to include old growth forests that are being conserved. A controversial bill to change how we recycle bottles and expanding the category was passed by the House last year. The Senate finally took it up last week, was divided on the question, and let it die for lack of time.

Housing: Initiatives include $15 million to support the construction of homes that middle income residents can afford. It also includes $4 million to help people repair and upgrade manufactured homes, including down payment assistance for new energy efficient homes. An additional $20 million is aimed at helping owners fix up homes and apartments so that they can be rented and to renovate properties into accessory dwelling units.

Education: The Senate accepted the major revisions to pupil “weighting” that will shift how much education tax must be raised locally. Northfield and Berlin were among the few who will see little change, up or down. The process for towns which want to withdraw from a school district was also rewritten.

Cannabis: As part of approval of various rules for the market that will open in October, the House held firm to its position that edibles and liquid concentrates of greater that 60 percent THC (indicating potency) cannot be sold to the public. There is medical evidence of significantly higher health risks at this level. The Senate had wanted no restrictions to have the Vermont market on par with other nearby states. 

Hunting: Bills passed in the final week on standards against hunting unless for the use of food or pelt, a plan for development of “best practice” for trapping, and planned regulation of using dogs for hunting coyote. An amendment was attached to one on the House floor to make it legal to use noise suppressors when hunting. Most other states permit this, and our “doctor in the House” (his regular job is as an MD) made a passionate plea for protection against hearing loss.

***

Health Care Finale

Two significant bills from my Health Care committee came back from the Senate and were passed in the closing week. One sets limits on the power of prescription benefit managers to control which pharmacies can fill prescriptions (currently they restrict them to pharmacies they own), which will help open up competition and protect independent pharmacies from being shortchanged. 

The other set the parameters for how the Green Mountain Care Board and Agency of Human Services will engage public participation in new efforts to reform health care payment structures. Cost containment seems like a constant uphill battle. Expect major increases in insurance premiums for next year. Insurers are asking the Board for significant rate increase approval, based upon expected hospital rate increases driven by COVID, inflation, and workforce shortages. Also last week: the governor signed our new telehealth bill, setting standards and oversight to allow continued use by out-of-state providers.

***

Tidbits

Last minute rushing inevitably results in at least a few poorly crafted bills. A bill to update liquor tax rules added a definition for what most of us would call “hard cider” – but it defines these alcoholic beverages as “cider.” I know that when I am offered a glass of cider, I assume it’s not fermented. I said on the floor that if I am back next year, my first bill will be to amend it to read, “hard cider.” Afterwards, a liquor department administrator came over to me and thanked me, saying that he – as a person with 15 years of sobriety– couldn’t believe he had missed it. The department hopes to use internal rules to ensure that the labelling of “cider” still makes clear when it has alcohol.

Another bill directed police to collect and send data on all law enforcement “encounters” for compilation in a state database to track gender, race and other characteristics. We do this now for roadside stops. Does “encounter” include responding to a tourist looking for directions, I asked? The amount of new data collection could be massive, and expensive. The reporter of the bill acknowledged that it included no definition of what an “encounter” was. With the help of a colleague, I intercepted the bill in the Senate and convinced the bill sponsor there to drop that component in the bill in exchange for our promise to get House rules suspended to expedite the amended version so that the underlying bill would not die. As rewritten, the commissioner will come back with recommended definitions and feasibility for data collections.

I also reported a resolution to amend our House rules to waive our privilege to ignore the Americans with Disabilities Act. This was essentially a decades-long oversight that only came to light this year. Although we come under the ADA, we have immunity from enforcement within our own body, if we don’t comply. The new rules adopt ADA standards for ourselves.

I also reported a resolution for my committee that came from the Senate affirming protection of access to best-practice health care for transgender youth. It was adopted on an 134-5 roll call. Resolutions like this are symbolic only. This one was driven by restrictions popping up in other states. Symbolic statements can have value but shouldn’t take time and energy away from our real work. It got a bit ridiculous on the last day of the session when we debated a resolution “urging the President and Congress to spearhead a global effort to prevent nuclear war.” Huh? This is part of our job? And they are going to listen to us? 

***

Big changes are afoot for next year. More than half of the chairs of House committees are retiring, including Northfield’s former representative Maxine Grad (from prior to the last redistricting in 2012.) She has served 22 years. Of the six statewide offices, there have been four departures so far. Along with the open US Senate and House seats, it will be an active campaign season. There will also be the two constitutional amendments on the ballot. One eliminates reference to slavery and involuntary servitude. The other protects “reproductive liberty,” aka protects our current abortion law, which allows abortion for any reason up until the moment of birth.

***

All my past updates are available on my blog at representativeannedonahue.blogspot.com. Please contact me or Ken Goslant at any time with comments or input at adonahue@leg.state.vt.us or kgoslant@leg.state.vt.us. It is an honor to represent you.

END OF UPDATE *** END OF UPDATE *** END OF UPDATE

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May 8, 2022 Legislative Update

 

Lots to celebrate last week!

We welcomed Tony and Gail Mariano to the statehouse for a resolution honoring Tony’s amazing record of accomplishments at Norwich. Then Saturday was Green-Up Day, great work, everyone! And Happy Mother’s Day, Sunday.

Unfortunately, it did not also mark the end of our legislative session. We are carrying on finishing the budget and other key bills into at least mid-week.

***

Tough Decisions

We passed a bill in the House last week – I reported it for my committee, which had voted for it unanimously – that may very well hurt some Vermonters with a new price spike in health insurance. We were faced with a choice: how do we place fewer people at risk? Which is the lesser of two evils? Our hands were tied by the failure of the federal government to make a clear decision in one direction or the other about extending the extra subsidies for people who buy their insurance on the health exchange, created as part of the COVID rescue package.

Though I’d be happy to talk directly with anyone interested in an hour-long primer on the difference between merged or unmerged individual and small group markets, I won’t attempt to explain the hows and whys of it all, here. The best I could tell my colleagues on the House floor was that if we guessed wrong, we could still attempt to make up for it next year by finding a way to get a credit to those who were hit with extra costs. We cannot legally bind a future legislature, but those of us who may return can make good on a commitment, I told them.

In the meantime, a vignette on behind-the-scenes-type statehouse action: Our committee agreed with my suggestion that we ask our state insurance regulators to study options for next year to resolve the “merged versus unmerged” dilemma on a more permanent basis. Adding that to the bill with only a few days left in the session would place it at risk of not making deadlines to get it passed, since it would need to go back to the Senate to be taken up there, be accepted and voted on. Procedurally, that can add multiple days.

So, I had 24 hours to get pre-agreement by the members of the Senate Committee of jurisdiction that if we sent it back, they would immediately accept the proposed amendment. I also needed to get agreement from House leaders to use rules suspensions to expedite its journey to the Senate. I dashed around to gather votes and commitments, and 24 hours later we passed the bill, with amendment, in the House and rushed it down the hall; it was ready for Senate action on Monday, with the skids pre-greased for approval.

Suspending our own rules to expedite bills gets common in the crush of the final days, since bills that do not pass will die and have to start from ground zero next year, no matter how much time and how many witnesses were invested in the process. About a decade ago I objected forcefully about rule suspensions that required to vote on long, complex bills without even time to read them, and that drove a new, informal rule (the “24-hour rule,” or sometimes, “the Donahue rule”) that we would not vote to suspend rules with less than 24 hours unless everyone agreed they were comfortable with moving forward. Since a suspension of rules requires a ¾ vote, a minority party can enforce this agreement, but that has never been necessary. It has been respected.

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In Conference

The mega-economic development and workforce bill is very slowly grinding through the process of a conference committee between Senate and House to resolve differences. One subcomponent is a series of healthcare workforce initiatives that originated from my Health Care Committee, so I was assigned as the representative to an unofficial sub-conference committee to hash out those differences with the Senate Health and Welfare Committee. We bartered among our priorities.

From the House side, it was all about addressing the nursing shortage through significantly increasing nursing scholarship and loan repayment funding and providing funds for nurse faculty short-term bonuses. We also designed a “pipeline” program modeled after an initiative at Central Vermont Medical Center that provides funding to backfill staff positions while other staff are paid for classroom hours while advancing their careers – a nursing assistant becoming a registered nurse, for example. All of these include the exchange of a student commitment to work for a year in Vermont in exchange for each year of financial support.

The Senate wanted to add other programs and reduce funding for ours, but we were both held to the same total investment of $11.9 million. As one example of compromises, we agreed to cut our pipeline program from $3 million to $2.5m (they had cut it to $2m) to move money to a Senate program. Although we achieved an agreement, it remains only a recommendation to the conferees on the main bill, so we will have to watch and wait for the outcome.

I did ensure that Norwich was included in access to the faculty funding, along with a capital construction share of $200,000 of the $1 million allocated for nursing simulation lab expansion among nursing programs in Vermont.

***

Being Contrary

The timing wasn’t planned, but I ended up on a minority side of my own party on several important votes last week. One of the strengths I have always seen in the Republican caucus in the Vermont House is that no one is castigated for voting based upon one’s own judgement and principles.

I had voted against the Clean Heat bill last month, and I made my objection clear: while it established a program to transition away from fossil fuels, it turned the actual decision-making over to the Public Utility Commission to implement it. We were voting without even a clue as to what it might cost for Vermonters. It was the same reason I voted against the Climate Solutions Act two years ago. We were delegating our authority – and our responsibility for consequences – to others.

The Senate got the Clean Heat bill and added a requirement that before a single rule for the start of any implementation could be adopted, the rules would have to be provided to the legislature, which would have to authorize action by a new vote. When this bill returned to the House last week, I voted for it. We will be able to fully review the program that is developed and proposed before anything can go into effect. That was not enough reassurance for the Governor, who vetoed it a few days later. So, it will be back before us in the week ahead for another override vote. With a House roll call vote of 87-38, the outcome since not yet clear, since 25 members were not present. An override requires a 2/3^rd majority, meaning 100 votes of the full 150.

***

Overrides

It is proving to be a very busy month for override votes. The Governor vetoed the pension bill, which had been brokered by a negotiating team established last year. The new plan does little to solve structural problems for the long term, probably making some overly optimistic assumptions. But it is still an important step towards addressing a fiscal crisis, so I supported it. In fact, it received unanimous support. The Governor said he vetoed it on principal despite knowing the override was inevitable. And it was, indeed. Not a single person changed their vote based solely on the veto, so the override was also unanimous. Still pending are override votes on the Burlington charter change banning no fault lease terminations and the housing bill that includes a rental housing registry, both of which I voted against.

Another vetoed bill is still drifting on the calendar, where it will remain: a construction contractor registry. Instead of facing the prospect of failing to achieve an override, the majority party embedded the rejected bill into a much-wanted housing bill. But it came with an olive branch. The threshold for requiring registration was moved from projects costing $3,000 to $10,000. I think that is a reasonable consumer protection effort, so I voted yes on it this past week. It will be on the Governor’s desk shortly.

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Tacking Bills On Bills

Near the end of a session, it’s often said that in the disputes between House and Senate versions every bill becomes either a hostage or a Christmas tree. A hostage is a bill the other side wants that is held back until they produce the one you are waiting for. A Christmas tree is a bill that keeps gaining “ornaments” – other bills tacked on that otherwise would be long past deadline, or that the other side has refused to take up.

One environmental bill I supported that came from the Senate had a separate bill attached to it by a House committee last week. That bill had already passed the House, but the Senate had chosen to not take it up. I had opposed that other bill at the time. I think it does damage to our environmental court process and will add considerable cost. I asked for the bill to be divided, but when both parts still passed and were re-combined, I voted against the final version. We have yet to see how the Senate will respond.

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All my past updates are available on my blog at representativeannedonahue.blogspot.com. Please contact me or Ken Goslant at any time with comments or input at adonahue@leg.state.vt.us or kgoslant@leg.state.vt.us. It is an honor to represent you.