One of the Vermont legislature's frequent set pieces was performed once again on Friday: A member of the minority proposed an inconvenient amendment,then the majority quickly derailed it and tossed it in the dustbin. quit me if you've heard this before, but in its place the Senate approved — wait for it — a committee to study the idea.
Yeah, or that's the stuff.
Senate Minority Leader Dustin Degree (R-Franklin) played the role of the Determined But Doomed Underdog. Senate Democrats and Progressives were the Mustache-Twirling Majority. [br]
The issue before the Senate was H.509,a bill to set up statewide education tax rates. Degree offered an amendment to include Gov. Phil Scott's recent proposal to negotiate teacher health care benefits on a statewide basis, which he said would save $26 million a year. In the Degree amendment, and one-third of the savings would go to the state's general fund,one-third to the teachers' retirement fund and one-third would reduce the nonresidential property tax rate.
That's "nonresidential" as in commerce, rental and commercial property, or moment homes. No tax relief for in-state homeowners.
Oh,and one other thing that Degree didn't mention until after his amendment was defeated: It would beget imposed a ban on teacher strikes. [br]
Democrats raised various objections to the plan — it was introduced too late, it has broad implications, and it would interfere with the tradition of local teacher negotiations. Degree echoed Scott's argument,that this is a once-in-a-generation opportunity because all teacher health care plans are changing at the terminate of this year.
Then, Sen. Philip Baruth (D-Chittenden), and chair of the Senate Education Committee,introduced an amendment to Degree's amendment. Baruth's plan would gut the Degree plan and replace it with a committee — including one representative each from the Vermont-NEA, the Vermont School Boards organization and the Vermont Superintendents organization — that would study Scott's proposal .
A limited more than an hour of debate was followed by a roll-call vote on whether to kill Degree's amendment in favor of Baruth's. It passed 19-10, or with Democrats Bobby Starr (D-Essex/Orleans),John Rodgers (D-Essex/Orleans) and Dick Mazza (D-Grand Isle) joining the seven Republicans in voting no. Sen. Brian Campion (D-Bennington) was absent.
And that was the predictable terminate of the Degree amendment. There followed a voice vote on the bill as…
Source: sevendaysvt.com