The Vermont Legislature is getting ready to kick off the 2021 session with almost all of the pomp and circumstance occurring remotely.
Even as late as Monday, some of the moving parts of the Wednesday opening of the 2021 session were still developing.
Once lawmakers are sworn in and settle into their jobs, the primary focus of this session is expected to be the state’s continued response to the coronavirus pandemic.
“We are trying to make it a normal first day of session, except that we are on Zoom,” said Democratic state Rep. Jill Krowinski, the presumptive incoming speaker of the House. “All of the same traditions will be happening.”
The House will be governing remotely for at least all of January and February, she said.
The Senate will also be meeting remotely, but Lt. Gov.-elect Molly Gray will be sworn into office Thursday in the Senate chamber.
Gray said she would then preside over her first session from the podium in the Senate chamber while senators will be attending remotely.
Republican Gov. Phil Scott will be sworn in for his third term on Thursday and he is then scheduled to give his inaugural address.
Last week, Scott said he would lay out his priorities for the session during his inaugural address.
Krowinski is expected to be elected speaker on Wednesday.
Among some of the specific issues that will be addressed include ensuring everyone has access to broadband internet service. Broadband access is still a challenge for people in many parts of Vermont who are trying to work from home during the pandemic or whose children are trying to go to school from home.
Some families are struggling with affordable and accessible child care and some people are facing housing challenges.
State Sen. Randy Brock, a Republican who is the incoming minority leader in the 30-member body, said he sees broadband as a key issue for the 2021 legislature as well.
But he sees the most significant issue facing the lawmakers as uncertainty — about the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, about the financial challenge facing the state of Vermont and the state’s cities and towns, and about what assistance, if any, will be provided to the states by Congress.
The details are still being worked out about the $900 billion stimulus package passed by Congress late last month. It did not include money for direct help to state and local governments.
In New Hampshire, the House will meet Wednesday in a parking lot to carry out its first session of 2021, an official in the House speaker’s office confirmed Monday — despite objections from Democrats raised last week.
The 400-member House will hold its Convening Day in Lot A of the University of New Hampshire campus in Durham, with the proceedings broadcast into members’ cars via a loudspeaker outside and an FM radio feed.
The 24-member state Senate will be meeting and voting remotely.
Last week, several Democratic lawmakers said that the car meeting plan would be a problem for people with disabilities. Three representatives released letters they had written to acting-House Speaker Sherman Packard requesting accommodations to allow them to participate remotely due to disabilities. Some said that sitting that long in cars would be painful; others said that they had been avoiding gatherings of lawmakers to avoid COVID-19.
But on Monday, the speaker’s office repeated its position that without a change in the chamber’s rules to allow convening remotely, the meetings must go ahead in person.
“Without a rule change the New Hampshire House cannot meet remotely, either wholly or in part,” House Chief of Staff Aaron Goulette said in a statement. “Because of this, an accommodation for members to vote remotely on January 6th is unfortunately not possible.”
Instead, Goulette, added, “We are working to identify reasonable onsite accommodation needs with members.”
The Legislature’s director of the General Court Administrative Office, who oversees the compliance of the Legislature with the Americans with Disabilities Act, is working with members individually to find arrangements, Goulette said.
—Associated Press and
Concord Monitor