Things are getting “off the wall”
2023-03-01
Dear friend,
There's a peculiar institution in Montpelier that is now a linchpin as we arrive at the mid-point of Vermont's 2023 legislative session.
It's the part of how a bill becomes a law that it you could make Pink Floyd jokes about.
I'll leave "The Wall" references for others and say to y'all today -- lace up your Vans. Let's talk about how bills get "off the wall" and why legislators want them to.
In every House and Senate committee room in your State capitol, there is a wall where bills get pinned up. Here's the one in House Environment & Energy committee:
Another brick in the wall
The circle is around H.96, the Affordable Heat Act, the bill I'm hearing most often from Vermonters on.
When a lawmaker introduces a new bill, it gets referred to the relevant committee of jurisdiction.
Bills that have been referred to a committee are tacked up "on the wall" in that committee room. If you have a bill you want to move forward, you want the committee to take it "off the wall." That gives you committee time to come and make the case for your bill. Witnesses are scheduled and testimony is given. The committee discusses the bill and marks it up. Advocates and lobbyists and the media and constituents get activated. If it's a hot topic, lawmakers hear from a lot of people at this stage. If things go well for the bill it gets voted out of committee and continues its adventure.
Hundreds of bills are introduced during each session. Most of those don't make it "off the wall." (Success is often measured for these bills on starting a conversation.)
That brings us to this week. The session started off slow as our 60 out of 180 total (House + Senate) legislators got up to speed, including many new committee chairs. The building has been finding its own cadence after opening up again for the first time after COVID.
The pace has now sped up as we approach the crossover deadline for policy bills, March 17.
For a bill to become a law, both the House and the Senate need to vote "Yes" on it and then the Governor must sign it. If a bill doesn't get off the wall in a committee and then passed on the House floor before crossover, the Senate won't vote on it this year. And vice versa. And it will never reach the Governor's desk.
Since we're in the first year of the 2023-2024 biennium, that still leaves next year for bills to pass. But as pages come off the calendar and deadlines pass, the pressure on legislators to move bills forward increases.
Not all bills are policy bills like H.96 dealt with by policy committees like Environment and Energy. I'm on House Corrections & Institutions -- here's a livestream highlight for the week so far, a review of the state's home detention program.
And here's us this morning working on the FY24-FY25 Capital Bill:
The Happiest Days of our Lives are when HVAC equipment is delivered on schedule.
House Corrections & Institutions is a policy committee, but also, like Appropriations and Transportation, we're also a money committee. We have a proposed two-year budget of $108 million in bonded money, a $62 million proposed General Fund transfer, and a proposed $19 million cash fund expenditure we're marking up.
The crossover deadline for money bills is a little later -- March 24th.
I'll see Halifax, Whitingham, and Wilmington residents on Tuesday, March 7 at Town Meeting.
Back to Affordable Heat, a.k.a. S.5 in the Senate. A lot still needs to happen in the Senate, but I'm assuming it likely they to send this to the House before crossover. Environment & Energy is expected to take it off the wall soon. My initial thoughts on AHA are posted here. I'm registering a lot of both support and concern from residents on this bill, and continuing to study it.
Questions or comments on bills? Please be in touch.