Thursday February 18, 2010

Because the House stayed on the floor engaged in debate there were no afternoon committee hearings. Instead I went to the Senate Appropriations Committee to hear the presentation by the Chief Justice on the 2011 budget. An obviously ill Chief turned down a request from the Chair to return when he was feeling better, saying “this is too important”. He opened his remarks by saying that the 2011 budget request is built on the recommendations of the Commission on Judicial Operation, which he acknowledged was a “hot button politically”. The Chair, Senator Susan Bartlett, assured him that the Senate Judiciary Committee will take the bill up when it comes over from the House. The Chief seemed worried about the outcome, once again repeating that the political opposition is strong. Recognizing that this is the legislature’s call, he said that “if you don’t change the structure you have to pay for it”. The conversation then shifted into openings in the judicial branch; shortage of staff; furloughs; half day closings; judicial vacancies; security contracts, etc. After the late arrival of Senators Sears and Illuzzi, there was a discussion of video conferencing between regional correctional centers and courts, with Senator Illuzzi expressing his disappointment with the time it’s taken to get them in place. Senators Sears and Illuzzi have apparently talked about sharing costs in the northeast counties, apparently by some sort of regionalization of the superior, district, and family courts. There was no further detail or discussion of what that meant. Perhaps they are looking for alternatives to the CJO recommendations. Senator Sears did say that he listened to the probate bar on Monday in Bennington and has reservations about that part of the bill. It seems clear now that the five district probate court is really off the table. What is not clear is what will replace it. Stay tuned. The committee ended the testimony early, without ever giving Justice Dooley the chance to testify on the specifics of the request, saying “let’s wait for the House to act”.
The retention hearing last evening went much better. The follow up meeting with the judges turned into a roundtable discussion about many issues. The committee is always anxious to learn what judges feel about the retention process; how reviewing the survey results helps them become better judges; how can the process be improved; how can the branches of government work together better; how can rotation be improved; how can Vermont improve justice, etc.
I need to correct something I said as recently as yesterday. The deadline for getting H. 470 out of committee is not next Friday, the 26th. in fact, the committee will have until the Friday after the recess, or March 12th. That will certainly help the House Judiciary Committee but will result in the Senate losing a week or work time. Judge Davenport and I sat in with the committee this morning for a shortened session during which they discussed venue and units of a superior court. The committee seems to be tending towards keeping venue as it presently exists and may adopt language offered by the VBA. They also touched on the subject of the number of units and whether they should be legislatively created or created by court rule. The court is advocating the rule approach while the VBA is asking the legislature to create the units which should follow county lines. One committee member suggested that there be 14 units. The issue of staffing those units arose, again. And the committee now needs to deal with the E court as part of a unified superior court if there are 12 or 14 units. How does environmental court fit in if it’s already a statewide court? Obviously there’s much to do; it’s probably a good thing that the House has an extra week. Depending on today’s action calendar, if the committee has time to meet, they will address jurisdiction issues. Legislative counsel is working on another draft of the bill, incorporating changes the committee wants to see for discussion purposes. If they don’t get back to that today I expect it will wait until next Wednesday. In the meantime, House Government Operations took testimony about the retirement system and the incorporation of county employees into the state payroll.
Tomorrow morning I’ll be appearing at the Senate Judiciary Committee for the first time this session introducing two opposing witnesses on S. 279, the non unanimous civil jury bill. Somehow I’ll try to get to House Judiciary to listen to their review of the Senate passed version of H. 533, the military parental rights bill (at 9AM); the new draft of H. 590, the mediation in foreclosure bill (at 11AM); and House Commerce to hear testimony on UCIOA (at 10 AM). Just another day. Thanks for reading.