Legislators streamed back to the Statehouse today, like students headed straight into final exams, fresh from being admonished by their parents about their grades.
And just like at a typical school, some of them grumbled. There were more than a few snide comments about the governor's accusations that they hadn't been working hard. And there was some resistance to the whole idea of meeting Friday's crossover deadline for getting bills out of committee.
In a meeting of Senate committee chairs and vice chairs, some complained that everybody's gotten away with blowing crossover deadlines in the past, that in other years they've received House bills in the last weeks of the session that had been sitting around for a year and a half.
Senate President Pro Tem Peter Shumlin played the role of the teacher. "We've definitely got to make crossover," he told them. "We've got the governor beating on us for not doing anything."
Legislators are not all in agreement on the work they are doing. In Senate and House caucus meetings today, there were questions about the bills in the works that target education spending, and whether that's really going to provide Vermonters with the property tax relief they're expecting.
Shumlin warned Senate Democrats in their caucus that if they have ideas, now's the time to share them with the committees, then it'll be time to get behind their colleagues' work. "Let's not get on the floor and not be one big happy family," he said.
He also warned that some people's expectations might be too high. "Vermonters who expect a 20, 30 or 40 percent reduction in their property taxes are going to be disappointed," he said. "There's going to be no ticker tape parade for us on property taxes."
- Terri Hallenbeck
