Legislation

How to watch the Legislature from home

Live streaming, recordings of Senate, House and committee meetings make remote participation possible

by Guy Page

If you can’t visit the State House in person or simply don’t wish to, you can still check in on every hearing, House and Senate session, and committee meeting via Zoom.

Meetings can be watched live or recorded on www.vermont.legislature.gov.

You can also see which bills are scheduled for discussion, and when, and who’s scheduled to testify about them, at the weekly committee schedule published every Monday on the Vermont Legislature website. Some committee chairs also invite witnesses to participate live via Zoom.

The Legislature’s YouTube recordings offer one little-used but invaluable feature: transcripts of the entire meeting. Click on the three dots – … – in the lower right corner to open this feature.

House of Representatives Streaming Links:

House Chamber (all representatives meeting together)

Committees:

House Agriculture, Food Resiliency, and Forestry

House Appropriations

House Commerce and Economic Development

House Corrections and Institutions

House Education

House Environment and Energy

House General and Housing

House Government Operations and Military Affairs

House Health Care

House Human Services

House Judiciary

House Transportation

House Ways and Means

House Rules

Senate streaming links:

Senate Chamber (all senators meeting together)

Committees:

Senate Agriculture

Senate Appropriations

Senate Economic Development, Housing, and General Affairs

Senate Education

Senate Finance

Senate Government Operations

Senate Health and Welfare

Senate Institutions

Senate Judiciary

Senate Natural Resources and Energy

Senate Reapportionment

Senate Transportation

Senate Rules

Keeping track of the Vermont Legislature requires time, skill and, yes, money. If you value this service, please consider becoming a Contributing Reader with a non-tax-deductible, annual voluntary subscription contribution to the crowd-source supported Vermont Daily Chronicle. You can write a check (suggested $108/year) to Vermont Daily Chronicle, P.O. Box 1547, Montpelier VT 05601, or contribute online via PayPal.  

Thank you for participating in citizen advocacy. 

Categories: Legislation

7 replies »

  1. Thank you for exposing us to this incredible resource Guy, I just listened to the presentation of the new members of the newly formed Energy and Environment committee , this will greatly help us understand why some arguments will be made and why they will be debated in one fashion or another .

  2. Thank you, Guy Page, for publishing this resource.

    If anyone is interested to see how the so-called ‘administrative state’ operates in Vermont, and they have a little time on their hands, I strongly recommend they watch the recent videos of both the VT House and VT Senate Education Committees. Education is, by the way, the single most expensive and efficacious aspect of State government.

    While you watch these videos, consider the amount of time and money being invested by the various players. And consider who the ‘players’ are.

    The smallest and least expensive cohort are the legislators themselves. And they are, obviously, the least knowledgeable of the education process, struggling to understand what the various appointed education administrators and consultants are doing and recommending the legislators authorize on our behalf.

    Then viewers should do their best to imagine the extent, in sheer numbers, of these administrators and consultants – never mind the conflict of interest each administrator and consultant brings to the table. Never mind the effect they levy on parents, students, and taxpayers. Never mind the average salary they are paid.

    One of the most interesting videos is yesterday’s (1-12-23) joint House Education and Ways and Means meetings discussing Act 127. This is about how the State arbitrarily changes the actual student enrollment numbers (Average Daily Membership – ADM) to the Equalized Student Enrollment numbers used to allocate education funding to each school district. What you will see is how the State arbitrarily increases the school district enrollments report in district annual budget reports. Don’t try to make sense of their logic. Just try to understand what the term ‘smoke and mirrors’ means.

    Again, many thanks to Guy Page for publishing this resource.

    And God help us as we learn how the sausage is made.

  3. This is a powerful method to determine what is really going on. I watched the W&M committee hearings last year and was alarmed at their ignorance of the CURRENT tax laws. It was excruciating hearing why they want to spend OUR money on so called alleviating child poverty. They are still at it.

  4. Thank you very much, Guy. I remember a day when our legislators were working competently and honorably in our best interest.

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