Crossover week for policy committees has passed and all stand-alone bills that are likely to move this year have been voted out of their originating committees. Bills still on the wall that did not make the deadline could still be attached to something else later in the session and in some instances, we know there is a similar bill coming from the other chamber. Now the money committees have to do their work before tomorrow to get any bills with an appropriation or affecting the state's revenues out of their committees. Floor sessions have been long as we slog through the dozens of bills that have made it out of committees for us to act on.

In the Judiciary Committee, we passed out many important bills so far this session; S278 a bill that would disallow victim blaming in civil sexual assault cases, S285 a bill that tasks the law enforcement advisory board and Vermont Criminal Justice Council to establish model interrogation policy for all of our police, S150 which requires that people in an accident get the full coverage for medical care that they pay for, and S259 which would require that fossil fuel companies pay to mitigate the damages to Vermont that their products have caused amongst many other bills that have moved out of committee this year.

In Government Operations we have passed out a major flood recovery bill, S310 to improve the state government's response to natural disasters – taking the lessons learned from the catastrophic flooding in 2023 and building a better response to Vermonters in need after a natural disaster. We have also worked on S55 updating Vermont's open meeting law after the lessons of the pandemic, S96 protecting state workers and consumers from poor quality private contracts, and S206 designating Juneteenth as a Vermont State Holiday. As with Judiciary, Government Operations have done much more than these bills in addition to their charter approval responsibilities.

It has been a busy session and I am looking forward to seeing what comes over from the house and continuing to work to build a stronger and more resilient Vermont for us all.

If there are bills you have been following or have questions about you can reach out anytime, tvyhovsky@leg.state.vt.us or you can join your entire Chittenden Central Senate delegation for an informal discussion about what is on your mind on Saturday 23 March at 12:00pm at Four Quarters Brewery in Winooski. We look forward to seeing you.

Senator Tanya Vyhovsky

Apr 27, 2024, 1 to 4 PM

Apr 29, 2024, 6:30 to 8 PM

Apr 30, 2024, 3 to 4 PM