News from Montpelier week 11 (2017)

Floor action dominated the early days of the week. House bills are reaching the floor for action or redirection to a finance committee for review. The Transportation Safety bill, H511 was removed from the Notice calendar and sent to the Appropriations committee for review due to a section that has potential fiscal impact. The removal of this bill as well as others for similar reason still left plenty to be debated. Several roll calls were requested for action on bills after heated discussion. Sometimes it was to redirect or amend the bill and sometimes it was to move it on. Approximately twenty bills were passed by the House and are now ready for Senate action.

A special seminar was offered Wednesday morning at eight to introduce the first term legislators to the budget process but it was not restricted, so a few others chose to take advantage of the offer as well. The brief presentation was a tutorial on abbreviations and language in the budget that will be out of Appropriations next week.

Thursday afternoon a joint session with the Senate was held at 4 PM to vote on the retention of a Chief Justice and three Associate Justices of the Supreme Court and ten Superior Court Judges.. The process is initiated by the declaration of the justices and judges that they be retained for another six-year term. Reports were given on behalf of each candidate that included the opinion of the Joint Committee on Judicial Retention. Balloting proceeded for the offices, one ballot for the Superior Court Judges and a separate for the other four, and all, receiving majority of the total votes cast were retained.

Please continue to contact me at bmurphy@leg.state.vt.us, 802-849-6545, or by mail at 7 Lily Rd. The Sergeant at Arms office in the State House will pass on queries as well.