The Vermont Legislature adjourned its biennium Friday night. As WAMC’s North County Bureau Chief Pat Bradley reports, career decisions by other leaders could put the state’s Republican governor in a stronger position.
Both the Senate pro tem and House speaker will not run for re-election, and their traditional end-of-session speeches were mostly emotional remembrances rather than an overview of the session’s work.
Sen. Phil Baruth, a Democrat and Progressive, was sworn in in January 2011. He was majority leader from 2013 to 2017 and in 2023 became the Pro Tem.
“In great part, party has not mattered since I’ve been here and I can say categorically I have never been betrayed by the folks in this chamber regardless of party. How unbelievably rich all of that has made me feel.”
House Speaker Jill Krowinski, a Democrat, announced last Thursday she will not run for reelection. She entered the House in 2012, became majority leader in 2017 and was elected speaker in 2021. She said the work has not been easy, but legislators came together throughout her tenure to pass bills that help Vermonters.
“Serving as Speaker alongside of you has been one of the biggest honors of my life. My favorite memories are the quieter moments most Vermonters never witness: members helping one another through difficult days. They are what makes this place so incredibly special.”
Middlebury College political science professor Bert Johnson said the retirement of the two legislative leaders could put Gov. Phil Scott, who is running for a sixth two-year term, in a stronger position during the next biennium.
“He’s been there for quite some time and whoever is newly installed at the leadership positions in the legislature, they won’t have been in those leadership roles for very long. So this increases the governor’s leverage over the legislature in that sense. It’s not a formal increase in power, but it is a very real informal increase in power just because he’s got that experience.”
Education reform dominated most of the session and ended with a package that supports voluntary school mergers rather than mandatory mergers the Scott administration preferred. During his end-of-session comments, Scott told legislators that the education reform package took important steps forward during the session.
“I didn’t get everything I wanted and neither did you. But that’s the way compromise works and we made progress. On a variety of issues, we moved the conversation from inaction towards change.”
Scott also told legislators Vermonters are relying on the Legislature to continue work on key issues.
“They want to feel safe in their communities. They want to have access to affordable health care. They want to be able to pay their rent or mortgage, have food for the family, put fuel in the furnace and they want to know they can still afford to live in the state they love. And while we’ve made progress over the last two years, they won’t go away with the fall of the gavel. So they must remain our collective focus as we move forward.”
Vermont Public Interest Research Group Executive Director Paul Burns said fiscal matters and education reform were expected to dominate the session. He noted a number of bills were passed addressing a broad range of issues.
“They passed voter protection legislation and they passed a law that the governor did sign that will require AI campaign ads to be disclosed. Another bill requires testing and disclosure for heavy metals in baby food. There’s a prescription drug discount card that will likely be signed by the governor. That’s just a sampling of some of the bills that passed that I think do address affordability, public health and democracy in the state.”
Burns says one of the biggest disappointments was the failure of the House, on the last day of the session, to take up a measure to prohibit any law enforcement from using “facial coverings...that conceals or obscures the facial identity of an individual...”
“There was a disagreement between the House and the Senate about whether the law should apply to federal agents that went to a conference committee that reached agreement in just the final couple of days of the session. But after the conference committee agreed, it appears that the House did not have the votes to suspend the rules to take it up immediately and then time ran out.”
The Vermont Legislature will convene a new biennium in January.
All legislative seats are up for election this fall.
