In this week’s Statehouse Headliners, a ban on coyote-hunting competitions passed the Vermont House, Gov. Phil Scott gets into gun control talks, and a pricey carbon tax study advances.
Uncertainty over the legal meaning of the president’s withdrawal from the Paris climate accord will be the topic of a free public lecture hosted Thursday by Vermont Law School.
Guns and more guns was the issue of the day as lawmakers and high school students alike gathered at the Statehouse Thursday to call for new gun restrictions in response to the deadly school shooting in Parkland, Florida.
“If I had gotten any truth with the economic development folks that you’d be increasing our taxes by 24 percent, we would not have made that expansion. We would have invested outside Vermont.”
On Thursday, lawmakers will hear testimony from gun rights groups on why every school in Vermont should have armed personnel at the ready to protect kids from active shooters.
“This is very important for Vermonters to hear and know about,” Turner said. “They are going to see an increase in their income tax if we don’t fix this, and the majority is comfortable with that because they will have that much more money to spend.”
In this week’s Statehouse Headliners, pot legalization may mean more suicide and traffic deaths, a carbon tax would benefit Chittenden County at others’ expense, and all 30 senators sponsor Vermont Equal Rights Amendment.
A ruling by a Vermont Superior Court judge has led to the removal of 13 percent of a small Northeast Kingdom town’s electorate from the voter checklist, a win for plaintiffs who argued that part-time residents are not allowed to vote in Vermont elections.
While state lawmakers in Montpelier are pushing to make a $15 minimum wage mandatory for all businesses, one small Vermont business is showing that successful companies can offer higher wages without government intervention.
The House Government Operations Committee approved a bill Tuesday that imposes severe penalties for sharing Vermont’s voter checklist information with the federal government or other entities for cross-verification or voter registration purposes.
The Ethan Allen Institute hired an economist and former policy director for the Vermont Department of Public Service to crunch numbers and determine what economic impact the ESSEX carbon tax plan will have on the state. The outlook isn’t good for Vermonters.
The House Education Committee is hearing what’s working and what’s not with the state’s pre-K education law, which enables families to seek state payment for 10 hours of pre-K funding for 35 weeks in a year.