Senate Democrats Saturday met for the first time since they suffered bruising losses on Election Day, and they say the issue that cost them six seats in the chamber — property taxes — will be at the top of the legislative agenda when they reconvene in January.
Based on a nonbinding vote Saturday, Senate President Pro Tem Phil Baruth is on track to return to the chamber’s top post in 2025. Though last Tuesday marked "the worst election" Baruth said he’s ever been through, he said Democrats at least have a clear message from voters.
“I think this election was uniquely clear in what the message it was sending was — Vermonters want the property tax reduced. Period,” he said.
If there is a message in this election, I believe it was that the voters wanted the governor’s ideas moved to the top of the agenda.Senate President Pro Tem Phil Baruth
Baruth said Democrats will be treating the issue as a public “emergency.” And he said he’ll be devoting legislative resources accordingly.
“I view it as a de facto emergency,” Baruth told his Senate colleagues in a Statehouse meeting room. “The governor isn’t going to issue an emergency order, but I want us to act in the Senate as though he had.”
Baruth said that for the appropriations, finance and education committees, the first week of the session will be devoted to hearing testimony from Republican Gov. Phil Scott and his executive-branch deputies on the issue of education finance reform and property tax relief.
“If there is a message in this election, I believe it was that the voters wanted the governor’s ideas moved to the top of the agenda,” he said. “That is literally what I’m suggesting.”
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Democrats next year will see their numbers shrink from 22 to 16 in the Senate and 105 to 88 in the House. Those losses mean they’ll no longer have the votes to override Scott’s vetoes.
“Given where the votes are now, no one is going home without a Phil Scott approved tax plan,” Baruth said.
And if Democrats are going to have to reach consensus with the governor, Baruth said, then they’ll need to begin that work at the outset of the session.
Washington County Sen. Ann Cummings, the Democratic chair of the Senate Finance Committee, said the approach will force the Scott administration to flesh out its reform plans both for lawmakers and the public.
“The governor has for a number of years gotten away with just saying, 'well the Democrats don’t listen to me,'” Cummings said. “I think the ball is now in his court to help us come up with some real solutions and to use his bully pulpit.”
Senate Democrats are also shaking up their caucus’ leadership team. In an unusual public challenge to a sitting party leader, Chittenden County Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale narrowly ousted Windsor County Sen. Alison Clarkson from her position as Senate majority leader.
Washington County Sen. Andrew Perchlik said his vote for Ram Hinsdale was in no way an indictment of Clarkson’s leadership. But he said the caucus needs to find new and better ways of communicating what it’s doing, and why, to constituents.
“We need to do a job conveying our empathy to the struggles that Vermonters have and the work that we’re doing,” he said. “And I think Kesha is just really good at that.”
Ram Hinsdale said it’s time for lawmakers to intensify their focus on the pocketbook issues that Vermont voters are concerned about most.
“I think what Vermonters really told us is that they’re socially liberal and they’re financially hurting,” she said. “Vermonters want quality, not costs, added to their lives.”
Based on a straw vote Saturday, Chittenden County Sen. Ginny Lyons will be elected in early January to serve as the third member of the powerful Committee on Committees, which determines committee assignments in the Senate. Windsor County Sen. Becca White will serve as majority whip.
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