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Editorial
"Scribblings":
An Occasional Newsletter from the Legislature
 By
Rep. Thomas F. Koch, Barre Town
About 30 years ago, a California
state senator wrote a bill titled What Makes You Think We Read
the Bills? The title says it all—you can pretty well figure out
what was between the covers!
I have been wanting to send
out an end-of-session "Scribblings," but between getting caught up on a
backlog of chores around the house, working in my greenhouse, teaching
a safe boating course, serving as scoutmaster of Barre Troop 95, and a
few other things, I have concluded that won’t happen—at least right away.
However, Rep. Anne Donohue of Northfield sent out her legislative report
this week, and I thought you might find it both interesting and revealing.
What Anne does not report,
out of an excess of modesty, is that she is the one who asked most of the
questions she writes about. Many people in the legislature work hard—nobody
works harder than Anne Donohue. In the almighty rush to adjourn by
last weekend, she actually had the audacity to want to read and understand
the bills she was being asked to vote on! In the process, she irritated
more than a few people. She also uncovered numerous drafting errors
and little nuances that had been inserted in bills while most people were
not looking! The fact that she was slowing down the adjournment process
and aggravating a some people was simply secondary to her desire to be
able to answer a constituent’s question about one bill or another.
With a tip of the hat to
Anne Donohue, I am adding her legislative report to this introduction
so that you might more fully appreciate the old saying, "There are two
things you don’t want to watch being made—sausage and legislation."
May 10, 2009
Legislative Update
Rep. Anne Donahue
The question before the House
is, what did we do to or for Vermonters in the last week of the session?
Since the headline items
will have been well covered before you read this, I’m going to offer a
random list of bullet points of lesser known actions contained within bills
we passed in the final six days:
"A series of new
education mandates, with exemplary, if somewhat lofty, expectations. For
example, any student in grades 5-12 "whose reading proficiency creates
a barrier to the student’s success in school" must receive supplemental
reading instruction."
A new study on the vexing problem
of education funding and costs. (I wonder if there will be any findings
in it about the cost of unfunded state mandates?)
"$131,000 in appropriations
for legislator stipends, travel and meals to serve on summer study and
oversight committees, plus $50,000 for conferences. That is, at least,
a reduction from last year’s combined total of $212,000."
A retroactive increase in the
estate tax, to January of 2009. [The retroactive income tax increase proposed
by the House was dropped, and instead, several other new taxes were raised
and income tax rates were reduced. This means that next year, if the legislature
retroactively restores the current income tax rates as our revenue crisis
continues, you might not even notice.]
"A retroactive posting
statute for being put on the internet as a sex offender which can apply
after you’ve restored your good standing in the community, with no limitations
as to how many decades in the past your crime occurred, as long as you
had not finished probation by 1999."
A new fine of up to $20,000
for employers who make a false statement that results in a lower worker’s
compensation premium. In a last second redraft – in fact, at some time
after the bill conferees had signed their report and the bill was printed
and distributed – the word "knowingly" was removed. Thus it is a strict
liability violation: no intent to defraud needs to be shown.
"Replacement of
the court process with a board hearing to object to the state taking your
land for road construction. You can still appeal to a court; it will just
cost you a second round of representation to get there. This "technicality"
wasn’t mentioned when the 86-page bill in question was presented in the
last hour of the session, and when asked about it, the reporter of the
bill had to ask for a recess to get an answer, explaining that it was something
he wasn’t familiar with because the Senate had added it."
Continuation of special property
tax exemptions worth $60,000 for two health clubs, one in Springfield and
one in Newport. (This is in the name of health care reform.)
"Elimination of
a tax exemption for unrelated business income of nonprofits such as libraries,
fraternal organizations, cemetery associations and religious groups. This
may have sounded more reasonable if we actually had any information about
how many are encompassed by the change, what money is involved, and whether
anyone cared. But it was one of those "no testimony taken" sections of
the tax bill."
A health care bill was passed
on Tuesday that included a study of the medical appropriateness and potential
cost savings of encouraging "therapeutic substitution," whereby physicians
prescribe generic drugs that are in a similar class, although with a different
chemical makeup, than the name brand. A budget section Saturday jumps to
requiring substitution of some of those drugs, speculates that it will
save $500,000 in the Medicaid budget, and directs a study to review for
any "negative outcomes."
"A $14 million hole
in the budget, as passed. Before any veto by the governor. That’s because
despite a lot of political jockeying about protecting state employees against
the governor’s layoff plans, the legislature’s budget assumes $14 million
in savings from the state work force. The governor’s goal was $17 million.
The unresolved negotiations between pay cuts versus RIFs is going to mediation,
but in the meantime, our "balanced" budget of taxes and cuts relies on
$14 million that will either come out of the workforce or out of other
cuts in services."
Tens of millions of other imaginary
cuts that were actually costs "reallocated" to non-general fund budget
areas, or shifted to health care costs, or that were simply revisions that
reduced previous estimates of cost increases.
"A new $750,000
pilot program to "unify existing treatment programs" for substance abuse
in Chittenden County. The proposal was introduced for the first time two
weeks ago. Every penny, of course, comes from existing programs that are
being cut."
Elimination of an optional formula
for retailers collecting sales tax. When I asked about it Saturday, I was
assured it only applied to one narrow tax category, although the committee
member wasn’t sure which one, or with what effect. Since I’ve now had time
to look it up, it’s clear it applies to all sales tax, but I still haven’t
unearthed the why or what.
"An early retirement
offer for state employees that could both save money and prevent layoffs.
The State Treasurer was "uncomfortable" with including this, since there
was insufficient time to consult with the actuary to identify the cost
impact in the future on the retirement fund."
"Brominated flame
retardant" chemicals banned in a Senate add-on to a health care bill. Legislators
received a flood of last minute letters from the Vermont Ambulance Association,
fire organizations and businesses saying that there were no safer or effective
alternatives on the market yet, and a ban will increase fire hazards in
everything from furniture to home wiring to…fire fighter’s equipment.
That is a short starter list
of the dozens of bills or bill sections pasted together and jammed through
to meet the target of ending the session two weeks early, in the laudable
goal of saving tax dollars. Many of them did not need to become law this
year, however, and our lapses in process at times reached breathtaking
new heights.
I usually have high regard
for what the committee process achieves: we cannot all be experts on every
topic, and must rely on one another’s work. When it is an inclusive process
and a public process, it has a decent chance of working.
Last week, however, a Vermont
Yankee decommissioning bill came back from the Senate with radical changes.
It went into the black hole of secret negotiations and arrived on the House
floor with new language that the bill’s other committee members never saw
before it was placed on all of our desks to be taken up for a vote.
A Health Care committee member,
asked about a newly-arrived amendment from the Senate she had just requested
that the House adopt, asked for a recess, explaining that she had only
just seen it herself a few moments before.
This year, I made my objections
known clearly. I voted "no" on every motion to suspend rules to expedite
the process; I was unapologetic about asking questions that I could have
answered for myself if I had been able to look at earlier versions of bills
to identify the changes.
When a bill is taken up "pending
entry in the notice calendar," it means that there is no advance warning
that it was even going to be brought up that day. Errors are common. It
is the way that we repealed two statutes by accident last year, one of
them despite reversing the repeal twice.
The very last bill this year
– the economic development bill – was the one in which the word "knowingly"
was removed, and then the page replaced and the bill recopied. Recopied…but
not distributed; left, without a word said, in a cardboard box on the table
in the well of the House.
I rose to ask about the rumor
I had heard about a replacement page. I was directed to the cardboard box,
and for the first time, the member reporting on the bill disclosed that
there had been a few late wording changes.
But the new copies had the
same document number on every page, and the same time of day written on
the cover. How, I asked the bill’s reporter, could anyone tell if they
were voting on the right version of the bill?
"Turn to page 62 and look
at section 78(c)," I was told. "If it doesn’t have the word ‘knowingly,’
then you have the right copy."
"And how would anyone even
know to ask that?" I said. How could we be getting a bill that was changed
and reprinted after it had already been signed and distributed, without
a change in document number or the listed time of print-out?
"I don’t know how all that
works," answered this long-time veteran of the House.
So we voted on the bill.
The 2008 session is over, at least until we are called back for veto override
votes.
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