Although it seems that the legislature is still just getting started, the deadline for drafting requests to legislative council by House members was January 31 st with a bill introduction deadline of February 28 th. Already over 200 bills have been introduced, the vast majority of which will never be acted upon.

Although this has been a quiet week for the VBA under the golden dome, some new bills, two of which are reminiscent of last session, may be of general interest to you. The first, S. 63 (and its House counterpart H. 44) would allow a mentally competent person diagnosed with less than six months to live to request a prescription which, if taken, would hasten the dying process. Here’s where you can read the Senate bill: http://www.leg.state.vt.us/docs/legdoc.cfm?URL=/docs/2008/bills/intro/S-063.htm

The House bill is found at: http://www.leg.state.vt.us/docs/legdoc.cfm?URL=/docs/2008/bills/intro/H-044.HTM

You may remember this issue as “death with dignity” during the last session; that has been replaced with “patient-directed dying”.

Also making a return is the debate over civil commitment of sexually violent predators. After the standoff between the House Judiciary Committee and the Administration at the end of the 2005 session, the legislature did pass an extensive revision to criminal sentencing in 2006. The new civil commitment proposal is found here: http://www.leg.state.vt.us/docs/legdoc.cfm?URL=/docs/2008/bills/intro/H-172.htm

Finally, three members of the House Judiciary Committee, Reps. Pellett, Flory, and Marek introduced H. 180, a bill that would require that the attorney general, deputy and assistant attorneys general, state’s attorneys and deputy state’s attorneys be attorneys admitted to practice before the supreme court of Vermont. Here’s a link to the bill: http://www.leg.state.vt.us/docs/legdoc.cfm?URL=/docs/2008/bills/intro/H-180.htm

The Judicial Retention Committee is holding its organizational meeting this week and setting a schedule for interviews with the judges whose terms expire on March 31 st. Here is the committee’s schedule for 2006:

Tues. 2/6/07 First Committee meeting with Judges:
5:00 p.m. Room 10
Group 1 – District Judges
Hon. James Crucitti
Hon. Ben Joseph
Hon. M. Patricia Zimmerman

Tues. 2/13/07 First Committee meeting with Judges:
5:00 p.m. Room 10
Group 2 – Superior Judges
Hon. William Cohen
Hon. Matthew Katz
Hon. M. Katherine Manley

Thurs. 2/15/07 Public Hearing
6:00 – 9:00 p.m. Room 11
Tues. 2/20/07 Follow up Comm. Meeting with Judges Group 1
5:00 p.m. Room 10

Thurs. 2/22/07 Follow up Comm. meeting with Judges Group 2
7:00 p.m. Room 11

Tues. 2/27/07 Comm. Meeting to deliberate and vote
5:00 p.m. Room 10

Thurs. 3/15/07 Joint Assembly

Two bills of interest introduced Wednesday are: H. 197, a bill which would increase the jurisdictional limit of small claims courts from $3500 to $5000 and H. 203 which increases the amount of an estate to which a surviving spouse is entitled from $25,000 to $50,000 when decedent dies without a will.

Our Business Association Law Section is at work on a couple of initiatives that will soon be introduced in the House. The proposed changes (here quoting from a memo to Legislative Council) do the following: “update and clarify provisions affecting the description in corporate charters on share attributes; update and clarify current provisions concerning permissible types of consideration for the issuance of shares; update and clarify provisions related to option agreements and the issuance of options; reduce the minimum number of required directors and increase flexibility with respect to the holders of the offices of president and secretary; and add clarifying language concerning transactions involving conflicts of interest”.

Since I will be attending the ABA Mid Year Meeting I will not be reporting to you next week. Look for my next update on February 16 th. Thanks for reading.

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