I was recently at a conference with legislators from around the country. Beyond policy discussions, we talk about what each other’s legislature looks like. There is a wide variety across the country. For instance, many states budget on a two year cycle and have shorter off year sessions. Oftentimes, legislators are shocked to find out Vermont legislators have no staff, no office, no benefits and low pay. Another topic of conversation is how many legislators are in each assemb

Happy Fourth! It is quite hard to get a sense of what the Legislature does and its impact on Vermonters. You hear about the education reform bills, some health care bills and the high profile vetoes, but there is a lot more that happens in the State House, much of it routine, non-partisan and important in different ways. So, to give you a sense of our output you can scan the list of bills that were recently passed into law. If you want more information about a particular la

I have gotten thoughtful feedback that I should not be critical of Democratic leadership or Governor Scott. That I should play it safe, especially in an election year. This is most likely good political advice. However, I do not consider myself a politician – but rather a public servant – and I feel like the folks in this district want honest, independent minded analysis. I am not always right, and neither are the Governor nor party leaders. My commitment to you is to provide

Hi, Today is download day. Below is a list of the major bills worked on this session with brief boilerplate descriptions. I will editorialize about some of these bills in the coming months. I hope you find this useful. You can read the bills by searching the number here: https://legislature.vermont.gov/ Please be in touch with any questions or concerns. Best, Chris Agriculture, Food Resiliency, & Forestry H.739 bans the use of paraquat, a highly toxic herbicide linke

I hope you are enjoying this beautiful summer weather we are having. My youngest daughter graduated from college and moved into her first apartment over the weekend. Last night I went to an art opening at the West River Coffee Barn for Bev Foster, my daughter’s kindergarten teacher at Flood Brook those many years ago. Life keeps circling and rolling… I want to continue with my theme of exploring complexity and trade-offs. Bear with me as I try to take you inside the journey

Well, we finally made it out of Montpelier! The legislature passed the education transformation bill after weeks of negotiations. It is an improvement over last year’s education bill and it will, by design, be revisited for years to come as reports, contingencies and on-the-ground realities reveal the best path forward. I will be letting you know about many of the bills that passed, and a few that didn’t, over the coming weeks. For now, I want to take a big picture view and m

Happy Memorial Day, Busy times in the statehouse! We spent last week ploughing through many bills that came over from the Senate and various conference committees. We are going to adjourn, for sure, this coming week. The main holdup has been the education bill. The Senate, House and the Administration have been sorting out a compromise which we will see on Tuesday. The primary point of contention has been the Governor’s demand for forced mergers, which neither body has the

Happy Mother's Day! ACT 181 Well, the big news last week was the House passing S325, the bill that repeals the controversial elements of Act 181. (Act 181 is the bill that reformed Act 250, our signature land use bill from decades ago.) Balancing smart development, property rights and conservation is an ongoing high wire dance. But clearly, with 181, the legislature went too far and S325 was needed. The original bill that came from the Senate consisted of just a delay in th

Happy Green Up Day, Many House committees are in a lull while we wait for the Senate to finish work on their Education and Yield (setting property tax rates) Bills. These two, along with the budget, will all get negotiated in conference committees at the end of the session, and they are all intertwined. The Governor has threatened repeatedly to veto the budget if the legislature does not pass an education bill that he wants. Stay tuned for all the end of session development

Greetings, Education and the Budget We are in a weird limbo right now. My committee work is mellow while the big bills are being worked on in key committees, mostly in the Senate. This year the budget is tied to the education reform bill because the Gov has been threatening to veto the budget if we don’t give him what he wants for an Ed bill. (Here is a 4 minute audio breakdown of the situation from VPR). Not having a budget by the start of the fiscal year – July 1 – woul

Greetings! Due to the widespread concern about the potential impacts of Act 181 (the reform of Act 250) I will be holding a discussion/Q&A on Sunday April 19th at 3pm at the New American Grill in Londonderry. Please join us. What is Act 181? And what are people concerned about? Act 181 was passed in 2024. It is both a housing bill and a conservation bill. It was a long overdue overhaul of the important, but flawed, Act 250 which is largely responsible for the preservat

Greetings! Quick update on Education – the House Ed Committee finally got a bill out. It was a rough road with many disagreements, but it looks like they got to a decent place. We need to digest the bill, H955, to assess the impact on our district. Please keep in mind that the bill still needs to go through Ways and Means and Appropriations before getting voted on by the House and then it goes to the Senate where changes are highly likely and it is not clear whether the Gov

Greetings! It was quite a week in the statehouse! Instead of being in our committees, we were in the main chamber debating and voting on the dozens of bills that had passed out of the various committees in the previous weeks. We tackled the big bills – the budget, the yield bill (which sets the property tax rate) and the Transportation bill – along with many other important bills. Most bills passed with little contention but others got diverted into long tangential discus

Greetings! This is the time in the session when we get to see all the good work that has been quietly happening in Committee rooms come to fruition. It is gratifying and encouraging to get to learn more about these bills and the solutions they present to solve problems in Vermont. I will give you a rundown of a few to give you a flavor of what your legislature has been up to. (Keep in mind - these bills passed the House but still need to go to the Senate and be signed by th

Greetings! Last week was crossover week - the time when House bills need to go to the Senate and vice versa. So it was quite busy with committees voting out lots of the bills they have been working on all session. Most of these bills are not controversial and were voted out unanimously. There is a lot of good, collaborative work being done by the legislature that you will likely never hear about. For instance, in my committee we passed a bill that will govern how data cente

Greetings! Its been a busy couple of months in Montpelier, although the jury is still out on how much we can get across the finish line. “Crossover” is next week – meaning the House has to finish bills to get over to the Senate and vice versa. Obviously, the big focus is on continuing the education and funding reform we started last session. This is all still up in the air. Stay tuned. Health Care is also a priority. See below for reports written by the Committees. As a remin

On Monday I had the opportunity to sit down with Andrew McKeever from GNAT along with my friend Representative Chris Pritchard to discuss the legislative session so far. If you want our unvarnished take, watch it here. EDUCATION These last couple of weeks the Education Committee has been plugging along hearing testimony and not agreeing on much. On the one hand, there is a general sentiment that we need to do something to stabilize property taxes, on the other hand there is

“It’s Deja Vu all over again!” That’s what Yogi Berra said after Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris hit back-to-back home runs. The Deja Vu of undermining and scapegoating school choice has returned to the statehouse in a big way. Act 73, which passed last session, is the structure for education reform in Vermont. It reduced the number of independent schools to 18 in the entire state, including the traditional “historic academies” like Burr and Burton. Not content to stop there,

FEDERAL OVERREACH I explained my vote on House Resolution 12 last week by quoting Thomas Jefferson — ‘In questions of power, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the constitution.’ HR12 was the House’s response to the Federal Government’s actions in Minneapolis, and in support of Governor Scott’s excellent statement which began, “Enough … it’s not acceptable for American citizens to be killed by federal agents for exercis

Hello, This week the Governor presented his budget for next year. Money will be the main topic of the session as Covid era funds are gone and there are significant pressures on the Education, Transportation and General Funds, in addition to uncertainty and diminished support coming from Washington. On Thursday our President announced an audit of 14 blue states, including VT, to assess their use of federal funds – this does not bode well for Vermont as 36% of our budget is Fed