whole i don't know if there's much introduction needed the this happens to be the week after crossover which is the week you have to finish the bills if you want them to go to the other chamber which means you have all these bills came out of committee that you have to take care of and that sort of where we are this week and also the speaker has  wants to have the session over by the end of april which is whatever the from last friday of april is twenty ninth or something and so when you back  things up that's how they sort of come up with crossover is going to be because you have to have time for the bills that we finished to have time to get through the senate and and then do a conference committee as necessary and likewise you have to most importantly is you have to have the budget out of the approach house appropriations committee where it always starts so that the senate has time to do that and you have the time for the conference committee so some years a speaker will set a goal for being done a certain time and then sort of back in the tem back up to see what crossover should be that they could get things done other years it seems to be done a little differently other years of the eight that i've been there where you you sort of have a goal of how much you want to get done the speaker of the in the committee chairs and so you sort of factor forward how long it's going to take to get that those bills done and you pick crossover there crossovers as magical sort of like halfway but it's really not may we have been in session now i think this is our twelve week and so obviously we're not going to be there another which is typically a long day to start going through the entire budget and all the love and members of the appropriation committee have sections of budget that their responsibility for that they research and then they report back to the committee and from that answer questions about it and then they are also responsible for reporting it on the floor  marriage equality came up we did the budget first second reading of the budget and marriage equality on the same day this is how it was schedule and i don't know how you know that was one of those decisions you know they were both ready and everything and it was the the budget was done in the morning and you know there were a lot of people obviously in the state house for  the marriage equality act and they waited around the till geez i don't know what time it was three o'clock when we finally got done and that started on that bill so they got to to  bit but the reason people were there is you know they came early to get a seat because there's not that many flight that was i mean that was the reason they sat around so that's where we are there's the the legislative session this year i mean every every years is a little different but especially in my committee of human services it  as taken a little different approaches here because we were responsible for the bill that restructured mental health care for maters including what the the decision building a new state hospital and that was six weeks maybe of work a little more so you know it's like your first six weeks of the session is devoted to one bill and then you get done with that but there's still you know the  work of sending it to the senate you know and having somebody follow it in the senate because typically what you do is you send somebody down there to answer questions a lot of times  on this type of a bill and then to go through the process of you know forming conference committee and two members to the three house members on the conference committee were from our committee so that you know that means you're without those two members four times so it just had a different feel when you have one thing that sort of dominate which is the one that created the database for for the prescription drugs that are have forming officially called schedule two three and four but these are these are what this is this is some of the things you learn when near doing this you know the f d a has drugs categorized in different schedules they call them and schedule one are illegal or drugs that cannot be purchased heroin for sample is a schedule one drug and the opiates come in schedule two three and four different levels of opiate so there are other drugs of of that type and so those are the you know the ones that are being misused a lot and this this system was created the second year i was in the legislature and this is this is one of those things you know i wish i was still learning about human services i mean there's so many people and and everything and this built bill came up you know and i read it and it just wasn't it wasn't really clear to me what it was you know what they're trying to do and so the second day maybe even the first day the committee chair walk behind my chair to get to her seat she leaned down and she said bill i'm going to ask you to report this bill it's like now one of the things that that helps you with is that you know you've got to pay enough attention so that you could do this but it really did you know you take a different interest when you when you need to know everything about it and it was a i did take a really big interested in  commissioner health in the commissioner of public safety were both in support of the system but sort of from different points of view and our committee decided that if we were going to have this kind of a database it was for medical reasons only and not for the police to use to try and track down drug users or whatever and there noise between the health department you know physicians and people who believe that and people who thought this would be a great tool for law enforcement and we made  we made it very clear that that the law enforcement that have regular access to this information about the prescriptions that you get for them and will but we did have this provision that if the commissioner of health i thought that there was something going on that should be reported to police or if the police had a specific request the two commissioners could could talk to each other personally and ask or give the information but it had to be there at the missioner level and this reporting the bill i also was put on the committee who developed the system and so i took a really big interest in it so this year when it came up again i was interested in and the the request was to a lo enforcement to have access to the database the and you know we just couldn't do this we just from from of variety of different points of view a number one there were still five of us on the committee who had been there when we originally did this in two thousand and six i believe and we remember the scotian and we remember that the fact that we really believe that this is not a system that law enforcement should have this is part of your medical records and this became a big discussion about people who said that prescriptions your prescription is not part of your medical record and so but anyway in the end that we did not put that in in in the house human services committee that gave the there they they were asking for access meaning the in the count like doctors get for the three drug enforcement officers at the state police have we just said no that just we just couldn't do it now the softer the senate obviously the senate can change it i mean i hope that they're not because this is the kind of thing we want to argue but there were some other things that we put into it one of one of the things that we added to it and we are working with with the commissioner of health is to establish a program to turn in all prescriptions drugs for so we had we had heard about what may maine has one were you just pick up an open you put put them in and send it off someplace and  we were going to ask for some some kind of system like that but the commissioner of health was not a fan of that one is and so we sort of changed the wording for to just allow the department of health  develop one that would be available to everybody in vermont because there are few places i guess of them that do have these where you can take you can take the prescription to the fire station or the police station or something once a month for disposal but this is so this is you know one of the little things that happened with bill sometimes you know the add on that are a good add on so i think so that took a bit of time so between those two bills that i mean the other stuff we've done is just i don't know the there have been a few other bills but nothing nothing major so they're a little different that way you have you know you have two committees that might take it up the senate took it up and passed it and they removed the exemption which is called the philosophical exemption and left to read religious exemption and that has been passed and it is in the house now in the health care committee they had a here a public hearing last night and since it is a senate bill you know they're working on it but this week there's been very little time for committees to work but  they will be taking up and i expect it talking to committee members that it probably will be coming out of committee maybe even next week this is this is one of those those bills where you get is is fairly well this you know split pretty much down the middle if you talk to one representative they said you know a little favored this way favor that way but the bottom line this is that the majority of people are hearing that the they're in favor immunization they're just not sure if this is you know if they're not sure if this exemption should be taken away there should be only one of the exemptions taken away if you take both exemptions away is this really i think a tossup right now what will come out of committee but you know i don't know that's that's where it stands but since it's a senate bill well it won't be coming to the floor until at least end of next week probably more likely the following week so but it's interesting that this is the kind of thing where people will when they write to they typically say that they're in favor of immunizations but you know if this is the right thing to do or i would like to be able to get it if there's one i don't want to have for my children or and you know the programs for smoking cessation and other types of help with non smoking and you know the money comes from the back whole settlement fun which i think we're still getting about thirty seven million dollars a year in this fund and that money when the settlement was reached the wrist no requirements as to what states use the money for some states use it for one thing some for another many states do have to back close a sation programs or not some other kind of nonsmoking programs but it typically only part of that and this is been a struggle all along is that the amount of money that from the settlement fund that goes into those programs keep getting reduced even though the success of time to get people to stop smoking if that's the only reason you know my point is you know it doesn't matter why people are willing to stop smoking but if they're willing to you should have a program or so they they this board and advocates for non smoking you know the lung association the heart association smokefree vermont you know  those different programs cancers that association typically come up with request for legislation for certain things and they you know you have only legislators can submit bills so they you know they've asked me frequently to submit it since i'm a part of their board and also the attorney general's office still does a lot of research into smoking and and tobacco issues so you get these requests and entering a bill you know it's nice to have the information available before the session starts to give to your large council to actually write up the hill and get it introduced because the earlier you get in introduce you know the more chance you have didn't get the bill introduced until almost the last day and so one of the things in this the request was dealing with the cigarettes the electronic cigarettes you know they have the little curd tree of nicotine that you inhale through a fake birth that is created and they also have a little tip on it that looks like it's burning so i mean it looks just like a cigarette so one of the things we felt was that this is a perfect way for kids to be introduced to nicotine and if by by using the electronic cigarettes and if they do there's a greater chance that they will start using tobacco at some time so and and yet they were not regulated anyway because they didn't fall under anything like a cigarette because the only thing that made him a cigarette was their name but you know there's no tobacco product in it and cigarettes are defined by the fact that they have to up say with cigars this so one of the things that we did was to mate a cigarette speed defined as a tobacco substitute and then add tobacco substitutes to the things that kids can buy until they're eighteen or you can't buy it to you're eighteen so you know no complaints about this this is a straight for basically a straightforward thing and there are something about buying the cigarettes the internet and fell under that for kids to the same as buying anything on the internet that is age restricted but then one of their request was to was to prohibit the sale of the cigarettes on the internet for anyone so yeah this is one of those things  a list of four or five items that came from the tobacco board along with four or five items from the from the attorney general office that i looked at and just sort of put them all together and gave a ledge called soul to make into a bill did that really think much of it oh my gosh there definitely is a group of people who use the cigarettes because the e mails started coming i mean lots and so and they're not just short ones and they they they appear to be the kind you know where you go on a website and just click that you're going to send this to your legislators on legislator but but they were they were pretty well done because they didn't all start the same way you know it is pretty easy when you read the first paragraph of ten emails and they're all exactly the same but this is where it's coming from well we found out we figured out which website that they were coming from a website for the cigarette users which had a really clever name i don't remember and we went out there and sure enough here here was the thing that is considering banning the cigarette sales on the internet and here is the list of members of the vermont house human services committee click here to send them a note saying that you know how valuable this is to him and constituent you know if it's from somebody from montana i choose not to respond to them if it's from somebody in my district i will respond to if if it looks like you kno you you have a sort of standard response or for a standard letter and if it's definitely a personally written letter you know you respond to what they say but a lot of these have any address on them and now here on the website it said if you are not from vermont do not give your address so it was known that legislators like to respond to constituents that i can't believe us not to case in any state but so one of these little things that you'll get into so we were we were really we meaning the a lot of us on this committee and they were the only ones that were getting on but while that they come in but we were the last two weeks before crossover we were trying to finish a couple little bills and there was a couple bills that we're looking at from other committees and stuff there wasn't much time and i wanted to get this tobacco bill done and so i went to of this bill are your highest priority because we're i have gotten two hours to take testimony so prioritize what is important to you to get it done in two hours no it was an hour one day and then the next day was one when we're going to have committee discussion and so they did we came up with five five sections and contacted  people they came in and testified and this was an example of you know of getting a bill through a committee not the whole thing but you know what what we had is our committee shares the responsibility of reporting the the bill on the floor some committees or some people some people do do it more than others but it's got around and so there's a lot of us and you know a lot of times few times you made do it twice in one year but usually once so we so the chair chose the newest member of the committee who was just appointed this senate so now what will happen is the report of bill will go down to the to the senate if you know when the senate takes it up it will be assigned to the committee and introduces it to them to the senators give some information about it talks about who we heard and stuff and then depending on how much discussion is going to come up a lot of times we'll stay and listen to listen to the discussion and help answer questions you know that we may have have had you know in our committee but you can't assume that just because you pass it in the house that the senate's going to take it up and pass it you know it is a process to chat with the senators and especially the senators on the committee and you know help them see that this is something that is so important to pass last year there was a bill but i can't remember the bill now all i remember is that the senate was working on that well the health committee was working on the shows another bill of ours and was having trouble getting through the committee you know a lot of questions requests for more testimony a busy time of the year when they were having trouble getting a quorum you know in committee and stuff and  they were we were expecting them to pass that bill like well for a couple days it didn't happen and so then they the committee of system sent me a note saying that i should come down at ten o'clock because that's what to do in to search the next bill that i got to know that nope not going to happen and so we broke for lunch and i just happened to walk by their committee room and look in and they said bill to come on in we're ready to take up your bill so yes that's right was i think called the public hearing ok but what but they had chosen the people who were going to speak because they had a limited amount of time so a public a real public hearing this word you know you come in and use anyone can sign up to speak and then they and then they call you when they you know they say they have the hearing for two hours and they're going to give everybody three minutes so they figure you general public that got to speak so there certainly were a lot of people there so well as you know senator schumer's was not a supporter of it and the feeling  is that that committee is three to two so the fact that he did have the hearing you know was definitely a plus now you have hearings like that to try and convince the senators you know the boat one way or the other obviously that's the purpose of it this is so this took a few different turn so  it was pretty well decided that it would be a three to two big against the bill however there is a provision that i only learned about when there were you know when this came up that a committee can vote it ken voted down or not in favor of it but still recommend that it goes before the whole senate for discussion and that's really what was what they're trying to do was to get senator sears to to do that and well the supporters were feeling like this this may happen i certainly can't say if he was really planning to do this or not but they were hopeful so now we get to the senate if it got to the senate so the same thing is what are the votes on the senate well there are some people that felt that it would pass seventeen to thirteen there were some people that thought it would fail sixteen to fourteen or something there were people who thought that it would be if thirty senators were there it would end up in the tie fifteen to fifteen so obviously vote counting is not an exact science and a lot of that is because if you're going around to people and you say are you in favor of death with dignity or how do you feel about it or something it's not like you're in the ballot box where you check yes you are no you're not because this is a come this is a conversation and a lot of times what people will say well i don't know i'm still thinking about it or in other words not a direct answer so what happens is people try to interpret what that means are they in favor of it are they not it in favor of most those people that do this say that if you don't get a direct answer right away yes or no that you can count that as a yes because there's just too much so that's one of the problems of different people and the other thing is you know when you have people going and asking to ask the question differently you know it's not always a direct answer or  if you're doing it you will write up the question and you'll write it out a little different people answer it differently so so that's why that's one of the reasons so the night before  the committee was going to do the vote one of the members had to fall and was taken to the hospital and i think she's still in the hospital it was fairly serious  and so senator serious did not want to take a vote when one of the members wasn't there and that member was a no so it would have been so the feeling was it would have been a tie which is the same as a no anyway so but that was the reason that no vote was was taken so it's doubtful that i mean it's less likely now that it will come up because what this this crossover date is it is the agreed date between the speaker of the house and the president pro tem that a bill has to have passed out of a committee by that date for it to automatically be sent to the other body to be put on the calendar now if for example in this case they didn't take the vote because the senator was there and they took the bill but say this week it was passed that day so what it does then is that the bill still passes out of committee it get sent to the speaker or in this case to the president pro tem and it goes into another committee called the rules committee i think it's the rules committee in both houses and what they do is wouldn't come out of the rules committee that that's just sort of the feeling you don't know that's one of those things so they so that's what happens so there is also a bill in the house that i don't know if a priority bill could have been a priority but one that that we what a lot of people wanted to get to the to the floor and it did get voted out on friday on a bill for the for the rebuilding of the state buildings of waterbury you know that there was a five plants and the governor has chosen plan a modification for two so the institutions committee is working on a bill to set that emotion and they have been working they worked late last night and so let's say they do voted out tonight thursday they voted out it goes on the calendar it gets submitted to the house clerk who puts it on the notice calendar and a bill has to be on the notice calendar for at least one day to give notice to people that we're going to take it up and so that it would be on the notice calendar tomorrow which means it would be a come up for action tuesday since we're not session on mondays so tuesday i think there were twenty three bills that we took and took action odd i don't remember if you might years doing that many in one day it just happened that there was a it seems like the crossover got moved up just a little bit so that you know there were more bills that sort of came out right at the last minute so you know if a bil bills get passed out of the same day you know they all get put on those calendar on the same day and they all get although that's the trite quite true because there were i think four bills three or four that they requested a postponement you know one when it came up for action you request a postponement which you can do but the best thing is to make sure you have chatted with the speaker first so he knows that because you know he's the one that controls calendar and calendars are set up you know usually so we don't have these extra you know so many so tomorrow we will have a third reading of the budget budget i think you know this was the year when we thought there wasn't going to be such a deficit or you know the right project revenues were not going to be so much lower than the previous year until irene came along and i must say i think the appropriations committee did a really good job of that there are there are some people that don't agree with that of course but it's just we that's how it works that amendments to the budget are now introduced on the day of such a three day today people people usually mending something in the budget and then just having a lengthy discussion about certain things you know certain specific things and in them the vote was today was pretty much along party lines on the budget so anything else i hope that i couldn't believe when you know the state that set up in d c they're just happened to be one of these days again has a business like i looked at it yesterday and i shook my head but that's that's the way it goes i never would have guessed that this would have been across the week after cross over when i set that up but one other little thing is we have the house starts each day with a devotional which is either done by a member of the clergy or somebody else one day this week there was an off through that came in and read something from one of her latest books today it was a group of third or fourth graders who the kids wrote songs for mott and so the beach the third grade perform their song and the third grade and the fourth grade for for their silos really good that it was fun page who lives through fifteen really lives in westford but you know what just cross the line and they come to our church and so the two of them that this joint breathing the gamut of what it's done some clergy come in and just you know just speak you know other people prayer you know it's there's no there's no requirement i think  they're they're given that suggested time for which isn't all that long i don't know it's two three minutes i can't remember what the number is but there are those who you know there are some that do it every year and you come in and you know there's about three of them that you come in and you see them so there and they sort of shake your head because you know it's going to be ten minutes long sometimes it's you i mean it doesn't mean it is bad is just right over there over the time that's right so let's do that we have one more step one more night tuesday night i believe in april so we will do that and i looked at that date today even though i hear number and it's like a week and a half before the speaker hopes to adjourn so it'll be it'll be near the end of the session and we can really do a wrap up on what's happening and george georgiou apologize for not being here tonight there is has this school board meeting that he felt he had to tend since their annual meeting this coming up