Thursday, April 30, 2009

Thursday April 30

We’re in the final two weeks of the legislative session and two of our priorities are making slow progress to final passage. The Vermont Trust Code, S. 86, has passed the house and is back in the senate. The house amended the bill soothe senate must concur with the house-passed version, further amend the bill, or refuse to concur. We’re working with the Senate Finance Committee to accept the house language, concur, and send the bill onto the governor for signing.
The estate bill, H. 11, has passed the senate and, as I’ve reported before, the house has refused to concur. Another bill, S. 26 dealing with profits from crime (the so-called “Son of Sam” bill) is moving back from the senate to the house with a further proposal of amendment. OK, so here it gets a bit complicated. The senate passed S. 26; it went to the house. The house, having objected to the assistant judge language in H. 11, refused to concur with the senate’s additions. So the house added the estate language from H. 11 to S. 26 and sent it back to the senate. The senate then did just about the same thing! They added back the assistant judge language to S. 26. So it’s off to conference committee for both bills. Senator Sears yesterday said he wanted the conference committees on both bills, at least on the part of the senate, to have the same membership. I’m sure this will all shake out in the end but, as is always the case at this point in the session, it seems as though nothing will ever go right.
I’ll report back soon.

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