Rep. Matt Birong, D-Vergennes, chair of the House Government Operations and Military Affairs Committee, listens to testimony on a government accountability bill at the Statehouse in Montpelier on Tuesday, February 25, 2025. Photo by Glenn Russell/VTDiggerA House bill that would make sweeping changes to the state’s election laws is facing pushback from the chamber’s Republican leaders, sending the lawmakers who wrote the bill back for possible revisions even after the proposal won bipartisan approval in committee.H.474 passed unanimously out of the House Government Operations and Military Affairs Committee last week — but it’s since sputtered on the floor, with lawmakers twice postponing a full chamber vote as some members have filed amendments to the legislation in recent days. On Thursday, lawmakers voted to delay a second reading of the bill until next Tuesday.One measure included in the nearly 40-page bill would prevent the state’s three major political parties from nominating a candidate for the general election if the party did not run a candidate in the preceding primary election.But top House Republicans Friday afternoon went before House GovOps with a proposal that, among several other changes, would strike that measure from the legislation entirely. The state GOP, notably, used that practice in last year’s election, nominating 21 House candidates who did not appear on the party’s primary ballots to appear on general election ballots against Democrats who previously were not facing a Republican challenger. The state’s Progressive Party, meanwhile, nominated one candidate after the primary.“If there’s a name there, rather than just a blank space, that, to me, is a better process,” said Rep. Mark Higley, R-Lowell, explaining the amendment Friday. Higley is sponsoring the proposal along with Rep. Casey Toof, R-St. Albans Town, and House Minority Leader Pattie McCoy, R-Poultney.House GovOps Chair Matt Birong, D-Vergennes, said in an interview that his committee did not propose nixing the practice in response to last year’s election. Rather, he said the proposal is aimed at preventing a small handful of people — a municipality’s local party committee — from having outsize influence over a key election.The bill also proposes, among many other measures, to increase the vote threshold that certain write-in candidates would have to reach in order to win a party’s primary election (unless they get more votes, anyway, than another candidate whose name is on that party’s ballot.) Since lawmakers want to raise that bar for write-in candidates, Birong argued, they should also allow as many voters as possible to have their say in other situations.Birong said his committee plans to hash out its differences with GOP leaders in the coming days and expects to take up changes to H.474 first thing Tuesday morning — “right before it goes on the floor,” he added.— Shaun RobinsonIn the knowAlmost out of nowhere, the headwinds inhibiting implementation of Vermont’s Raise the Age law shifted — only slightly, and just for a moment. The Senate Judiciary Committee on Friday heard from Liz Ryan, the top juvenile justice official under President Joe Biden. She called for lawmakers to let the first-in-the-nation reform take effect April 1, rather than pause implementation for two years, as the committee was considering. But the committee’s opinion, particularly Senate President Pro Tempore Phil Baruth, D/P-Chittenden Central, shifted following testimony from several DCF staff.Baruth said he’d never heard an agency manager “come in and describe the environment of their department in as, you know, hellish terms as we heard.”“I’ve just lost faith in DCF,” he said. Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky, P/D-Chittenden Central, described the department’s testimony as “about as clear as mud.”So the conversation swung from a two year pause to other alternatives. Perhaps, members debated, they could pass a one year pause, rather than two. The committee’s chair, Sen. Nader Hashim, D-Windham, hinted at a rationale behind the two year delay.“Perhaps we’ll have an administration that actually supports DCF in two years,” Hashim said. “Just a thought.”In a straw poll, the committee voted 4-1 to back a one year delay. Members would return in a couple of hours to vote for real.But later, back in the room, Hashim had changed his mind after talking to House Judiciary Chair Rep. Martin LaLonde, D-South Burlington. “It did not sound like House Judiciary realistically would be able to get this out of their committee with the changes that we proposed,” he said.  “I find it particularly problematic that we’re being held hostage by a poorly-run House committee,” Vyhovsky responded. “That’s not how we make good policy. The committee voted to support the House’s two year pause 3-2, with Baruth and Vyhovsky voting “no.” — Ethan WeinsteinOn the moveTake two: the House has advanced a new version of the annual budget adjustment bill, one week after Gov. Phil Scott vetoed the Legislature’s first take on the midyear spending package. This second pass at the budget adjustment removes spending for affordable housing and flood relief that Scott had disapproved of, citing the need to hold off on state spending amid federal funding uncertainty. But the new bill greenlights a three-month extension for all unhoused Vermonters in the state’s motel voucher program, a move Scott and fellow Republicans strongly oppose.The new budget adjustment bill advanced largely along party lines. At a House Republican caucus right before the vote, Jason Maulucci, Scott’s director of policy development and legislative affairs, made clear that Scott wouldn’t support the new bill if it were to land on his desk.“From our perspective, this bill, in its current form, is a nonstarter,” Maulucci said. “We hope to get to a place where we can all agree between now and April 1.” That’s the date when the motel voucher program’s expanded winter rules will end. Democratic lawmakers are attempting to head off a mass wave of evictions slated to begin that day through the extension in the budget adjustment bill. The Scott administration has suggested significantly narrowing who would be eligible for such an extension to families with kids and people with extreme medical vulnerabilities.Democrats have yet to budge. The bill is slated to get a final vote in the House on Tuesday, and then will head to the Senate. — Carly BerlinUnder state statute, Vermont health care institutions are required to get a certificate of need — effectively, a legal permission slip — anytime they want to build, renovate or buy facilities or obtain medical equipment that are more expensive than certain threshold amounts. But as prices for construction and medical equipment rise, more and more projects require such certificates, tying up health care facilities and state regulators in lengthy and expensive bureaucratic processes. Now lawmakers are seeking to relax those requirements. Last week, Vermont’s House passed a bill, H.96, that would increase the monetary thresholds needed for a certificate of need — a move that supporters say will lower health care costs and make care more accessible to state residents. Read more about the bill, now in the Vermont Senate, here. — Peter D’AuriaVisit our 2025 bill tracker for the latest updates on major legislation we are following. Read the story on VTDigger here: Final Reading: A major House elections bill is hitting some roadblocks. ...read more read less