Emily Long

The bills that didn’t make the headlines

Supporting veterans, affirming Native American heritage, and protecting tenants’ rights for victims of domestic violence

The end of each legislative session is the appropriate time for increased scrutiny on what the Legislature has and has not accomplished. Given that the focus is predictably on major priority bills, I see the end of session as a time to talk about other successes that deserve attention but are often overlooked.

I serve on the House Committee on General, Housing, and Military Affairs, where we worked on the paid family and medical leave legislation, as well as the minimum wage legislation that came over from the Senate.

While both bills successfully passed out of our committee, it was a disappointment that neither of those bills made it to the governor. We plan to take up that legislation again in January and complete the work we started to support hard-working Vermonters.

Those two major bills absorbed a great deal of our committee time, but they were by no means the only legislation we worked on.

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