Legislative leaders sent rank-and-file lawmakers home for two weeks last Friday to give House and Senate negotiators more time to work out a deal on education reform. But one week later, those talks remain in a dysfunctional state of suspended animation.
In this week's edition of the Capitol Recap, 开云体育 reporters Pete Hirschfeld and Lola Duffort discussed where things stand between the two chambers.
This interview was produced for the ear. We highly recommend listening to the audio. We鈥檝e also provided a transcript, which has been edited for length and clarity.
Peter Hirschfeld: Lola, at the outset of this legislative session, I think we both assumed that the tension over this education reform bill would be primarily between the Democratically-controlled legislature and Republican governor Phil Scott. That's not how it's playing out right now.
We got to look at just how badly the relationship between House and Senate leadership has deteriorated last Friday night when the two sides walked away from education reform talks in a pretty dramatic fashion. It's been a week since that very public standoff. Have things improved in the meantime?
Lola Duffort: No, they have not. You know, given the mountain of work ahead for lawmakers, I thought I would be spending the week covering marathon negotiations between the House and the Senate over what formula they should be using to disburse $2 billion in funding to schools, or the role independent schools should play in this new reformed system. Etcetera, etcetera. But instead of talking about those things, the House and the Senate argued about when they should even meet again.
Peter Hirschfeld: Yeah, you and I were able to review some written correspondences that House and Senate leaders exchanged on Wednesday. The house proposed scheduling the first set of talks for next Thursday, which we should note is just a few days before all lawmakers are going to be returning to Montpelier to vote on the bill.
The Senate responded to that proposal with some harshly worded language, saying next Thursday is way too late, that they should be meeting as soon and as often as possible during this interim period. The Senate said delaying talks reduces the chances that they're going to be able to reach a deal on this bill, and they also said that if they wait until late next week to begin these hearings then 鈥� and this is a direct quote here 鈥� "Vermonters would have every reason to believe that we were not taking our work on education transformation seriously." Things do not sound copacetic.
Lola Duffort: No. And then the House's response to that was, you know, 鈥淭hank you. We appreciate your perspective, but we need more time with our number crunchers, and if you think next Thursday is unacceptably late, OK, how's Wednesday?鈥� And the Senate did agree to that, although quite reluctantly.
Peter Hirschfeld: This negotiation, Lola, it's not just about six House and Senate negotiators. They also need a majority of lawmakers in both chambers to get a bill through, and it seems like rank and file lawmakers in both parties aren't exactly prepared to sign off on whatever this conference committee comes up with. People have concerns about the process being used to draft the bill. They also have severe concerns about its substance 鈥� still.
Lola Duffort: What's been remarkable to me about this process is that 鈥� basically at every step of the way 鈥� quite a few people have voted to advance different iterations of this bill, not because they said they believed in the underlying legislation, but because they wanted to keep reform talks going. That's in both parties. And so you know, House and Senate negotiators are supposed to be representing their chambers' positions in negotiations right now, but sometimes it's unclear if those positions even actually reflect what 51% of people in their chambers felt about what they should be doing. And so even if this conference committee strikes a deal 鈥� and that's a huge if 鈥� it's going to be an entirely different task to get a majority in both chambers to sign off.
