Vermont Legislature

Governor Peter Shumlin signed a group of bills Wednesday designed to crack down on prescription drug abuse and related crimes. But the measures don’t focus on increased penalties for drug abusers, in fact, quite the opposite. Instead, the so-called “Good Samaritan” law makes Vermont just the 13th state in the nation to offer limited immunity from prosecution to people reporting a potentially deadly drug overdose.

Gov. Peter Shumlin is planning to sign a bill that would decriminalize the possession of small amounts of marijuana.

The bill would replace criminal penalties with civil fines similar to a traffic ticket for possession of up to an ounce of marijuana.

The bill signing is scheduled for Thursday afternoon at the Statewide Criminal & Juvenile Justice Training Conference at the Inn at Essex in Essex Junction.

Gov. Peter Shumlin is set to sign a bill that would allow immigrant farmworkers who are in the country illegally to drive in Vermont, with a new type of driver's privilege card.

The bill is designed to allow workers who are in the country illegally but providing crucial labor on Vermont's dairy farms to get a new type of state driver's license.

After fighting about this issue in the final days of the session, the two sides did agree to work together over the summer but some major disagreements have emerged right at the start.

The two sides do agree on one thing. To determine a person’s tax burden, they want to shift from using an individual’s “taxable income,” to what’s known as “adjusted gross income.” This number is larger because it comes before applying a series of deductions. 

A bill allowing terminally ill patients to get medication to end their lives became law on Monday with Gov. Peter Shumlin’s signature.

Although the law takes effect immediately, it may be some time before it’s used. Doctors and hospitals say they’re looking carefully at whether and how to participate.

The signing ceremony in the governor’s Statehouse office was both a celebration and a quiet remembrance for those who worked on the issue but didn’t live long enough to see it through.

Mon 5/20/13 Noon & 7 pm  After laying out his priorities in January, Governor Peter Shumlin saw some of his agenda items approved by the State Legislature and others given scant attention. We speak with Governor about how he assesses the just-completed session – where he thinks he succeeded and where he thinks he failed. And what he hopes to accomplish in the second year of the biennium.

Gov. Peter Shumlin and legislative leaders came into the recent session promising to make combating climate change a top priority.

Lawmakers and the governor said a warming world was the defining crisis of our time. They focused on an effort to make homes more energy efficient.

But the reality has not lived up to the rhetoric.

At a little after 10:20 Tuesday night, House Speaker Shap Smith brought the gavel down on the 2013 Legislative session.

It was a session that was dominated by money issues. The budget was tight and lawmakers rejected Governor Peter Shumlin’s plan to increase spending on child care services by taking money from the state’s earned income tax credit program.

High on the list of “must-pass” bills as the Legislature inched toward adjournment on Tuesday was a plan to finance Vermont’s new health care exchange beginning in January 2015. The estimated annual cost is $18 million.

When the exchange goes into place, it will be financed initially by a continuation of the current assessment on employers that don’t offer coverage to their employees. That assessment is roughly $400 a year for each employee.

Political leaders came into the 2013 session seeming to outdo each other with promises for election finance reform.

They leave Montpelier with the House and Senate in a stalemate over campaign legislation and the bill dead for the year.

Secretary of State Jim Condos, was frustrated by the political gridlock.

“I think the real loser here is Vermont’s citizens and voters in this state, because what this bill is really about was accountability and transparency,” he said.