The legislature has gone home after passing a historic education reform bill. At the end of the day, most of the drama played out in conference committee, but the floor debates still featured impassioned pleas from supporters and opponents alike. Despite attempts by progressive legislators in both chambers to reject the conference committee compromise, the education reform bill passed handedly in the House and eked out passage in the Senate.

It is clear that the House does not want voters involved in setting school budgets. It has always been sort of implicit in this bill, but House members said it explicitly in debates this week: they do not envision a future system where local voters weigh in on their school budgets in any meaningful way.

This week's legislative update isn't much of an actual update. That's because the conference committee charged with finding a path forward on education reform (H.454) did not meet at all this week. And, yes, the Legislature went home in order give this same committee time to work out a compromise...

The Legislature worked late last night, finally concluding that an education reform deal was out of reach. They are coming back in a couple weeks to (hopefully) finish the job.

The most significant event in Montpelier this week is the one that almost didn't happen... Sensing that the education reform bill (H.454) was going to have some challenges on the Senate floor, we issued an action alert on Monday. Those concerns turned out to be well-founded when Senate leadership announced on Tuesday that they were pulling the bill back from the floor.

We have a bunch of new bill reviews for you this week, including BOTH the House and Senate's versions of the housing bills and healthcare payment reform.

We are mixing up our format a little bit this week (let us know what you think!). But don't worry, we are still bringing you in-depth coverage on a wide range of topics.

The most important update (in our view) is that the bill dealing with the Ethics Commission's oversight authority passed a key vote in the Senate this week. The Senate's version would delay the implementation of the Ethics Commission's new powers for two years. While we are still disappointed in this outcome, it is better than the House Version which would have removed independent oversight of the Legislative and Judicial branches of state government permanently.

Major initiatives in areas such as education, housing, and health care are nearing the finish line this week as key committee votes take shape. Most notably, the Senate Education Committee advanced the education reform bill in a key vote on Friday. While there is much work left to do, the Senate version (so far) seems better than the House's and the vote keeps the effort on track to kick off the reform process this year.

I testified this week in the Senate Government Operations Committee, urging them not to close the door on independent oversight for the Legislative and Judicial branches of State government. As I am sure you are aware, the House passed a bill that would remove a requirement that these two branches consult with the statewide Ethics Commission; this is a concerning step backwards in the progress we have made in the last decade around Vermont ethics reform.

There was lots of activity this week across multiple fronts as legislators push to get their priorities across the finish line before the end of the session, which is rapidly approaching. Legislative leaders have already indicated that they expect to come back in late May for a veto session, so they are currently targeting the second weekend in May for adjournment; this effectively gives Committees two weeks to get bills back to the floor, if they are to pass this year.