Today was the first day both the Senate and House Judiciary Committees began the substantive work of this session. The Senate began taking testimony on S. 1, the technical corrections to judicial restructuring bill. Judge Davenport and Court Administrator Bob Greemore spoke to the inadvertent repeal of 12VSA 2553 and 2555 (appeal de novo to the civil division) and asked the committee to re-enact both sections. There was no objection. The morning ended before my scheduled testimony but I will add more support tomorrow; Judge Belcher is also expected to testimony then. The court had some other technical amendments meant to clarify other parts of last year’s H. 470 that really don’t affect court operations.
Upstairs the House Judiciary Committee spent an hour polling committee members on their priorities and items of interest this session. The most often cited topics were these: child access prevention (CAP) bills which would set penalties for negligent storage of firearms if injury results; decriminalizing small amounts of marijuana; DUI interlock follow up from last year; human trafficking ; civil penalties for abuse of vulnerable adults; repeat DUI offenders; conditional drivers’ licenses; primary enforcement of seatbelts; prescription drug abuse; involuntary medication; bullying; CHINS placement issues; etc.
There was a lot more but that’s a good sampling. There aren’t necessarily bills being drafted yet on all of these topics. I know there will be a bill introducing the Uniform Principal and Income Act as proposed by members of our Probate law Section and the Vermont Bankers’ Association. I expect the committee will do some follow up on the foreclosure mediation law enacted last year.
Thanks for reading.
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