Eight years of committee records show the same lawmakers chairing the same committees, most of them from three of Vermont’s higher-income counties. Voters had their say Tuesday. The next election happens inside the State House.

by FYIVT.com

Vermont voters have returned a Democratic-Progressive supermajority to Montpelier. But the next consequential elections won’t involve the public at all.

When the new Legislature convenes January 6, lawmakers will choose a House Speaker and a Senate President Pro Tempore. Those choices decide who chairs the committees that handle taxes, spending, housing, land use and most everything else.

FYIVT went through eight years of standing-committee rosters. The record shows a small group of lawmakers holding the same gavels session after session, and an uneven map of where those lawmakers come from. The question now is whether any of that changes.

Who Controls the Committees?

House Speaker Jill Krowinski and Senate President Pro Tem Phil Baruth, both Burlington Democrats, are leaving. Krowinski announced in May she wouldn’t seek reelection.

House Majority Leader Lori Houghton of Essex Junction is the front-runner for Speaker; by August she had lined up the votes she needed. Democrat Kate McCann of Montpelier and Republican Gina Galfetti of Barre Town are also running. Democrat Charlie Kimbell of Woodstock was in the conversation over the summer but conceded Houghton was the likely winner.

In the Senate, Majority Leader Kesha Ram Hinsdale of Shelburne is running for Pro Tem, and Appropriations Chair Andrew Perchlik of Montpelier is in the race too.

Under the House Rules, the Speaker appoints committee members, chairs and vice chairs. In the Senate, a three-member Committee on Committees makes those calls: the lieutenant governor, the Pro Tem and a senator the chamber elects (how it evolved).

Committee chairs schedule hearings, decide who testifies and largely decide which bills get real attention. There are ways to pry a bill loose from a committee that won’t act, but in practice a proposal goes through committee or it goes nowhere.

So January’s leadership votes decide more than who holds the gavel on the floor. They decide which ideas get a hearing.

Eight Years, 99 Chairmanships

FYIVT reviewed House and Senate standing-committee chair assignments for four two-year sessions, 2019–20 through 2025–26.

Those 99 chair terms went to 53 different legislators. Thirty-one of them chaired in more than one session, and together they held 77 of the 99. Twenty-eight of those 31 kept the same committee every time.

Five lawmakers chaired a committee in all four sessions. Five more chaired in three. For several, eight years understates it; they held their gavels before 2019.

The gavels were also concentrated geographically. Chittenden County held 21 chair terms, Washington County 18 and Addison County 14. That’s 53 of 99, about 54%, from three counties that are home to about 42% of Vermont adults.

Rutland and Washington counties each have about 9.3% of the state’s adults. Washington held 18 chair terms. Rutland held one. Franklin held two. Essex and Grand Isle held none.

It’s starker on the four committees that write the taxes and the budget: House Appropriations, House Ways & Means, Senate Appropriations and Senate Finance. Washington County held 8 of their 16 chair terms. Half.

Familiar Names, Familiar Committees

Washington County Democrat Ann Cummings chaired Senate Finance for all eight years. Chittenden County Democrat Ginny Lyons chaired Senate Health and Welfare for all eight. Windsor County Democrat Alice Emmons chaired House Corrections and Institutions for all eight. All three won reelection Tuesday.

Windham County Democrat Emilie Kornheiser, who chaired House Ways & Means the last two sessions, also won reelection. Republican Mike Marcotte of Orleans County chaired House Commerce in all four sessions, so the pattern isn’t confined to one party.

Overall, Democrats and Democrat/Progressives held 88 of the 99 chair terms. Republicans held 11.

The majority normally hands out committee assignments, and experience counts when a committee is wrestling with a complicated bill. Still, the record shows how often the same lawmakers kept control of the same subjects, session after session.

Geography and Household Income

Chittenden, Addison and Washington are also three of Vermont’s four highest-income counties. Grand Isle is the fourth.

The Census Bureau’s 2020–2024 American Community Survey puts median household income at $96,759 in Chittenden (Census QuickFacts), $89,639 in Addison and $83,449 in Washington. Rutland’s median is $68,616. Only Essex County is lower.

Median income doesn’t explain why anyone gets a chairmanship. Party control, seniority, experience and how many eligible lawmakers a county sends all matter, and a county median doesn’t describe every household in it.

But it’s fair to compare where legislative leaders come from with the state they serve. It tells you whose perspective is in the room when the big decisions get made.

Act 181 Shows Why Leadership Matters

You can see what committee power does by following Act 181, Vermont’s 2024 land-use law (H.687).

Representatives Amy Sheldon and Seth Bongartz sponsored it. Sheldon chaired House Environment and Energy. In the Senate, committees chaired by Chris Bray and Kesha Ram Hinsdale shaped it. Gov. Phil Scott vetoed it. On June 17, 2024, lawmakers overrode him, 107–38 in the House and 21–8 in the Senate.

The roll calls tie the bill to the people now in line for leadership. Speaker candidates Houghton and McCann voted to override; Galfetti voted no. Both Pro Tem candidates, Ram Hinsdale and Perchlik, voted to override. So did Cummings, Lyons, Emmons and Kornheiser. Marcotte voted no.

Two years later, after Republican gains and loud public objections, lawmakers went back to the law. Act 152 (S.325), signed June 16, 2026, repealed several pieces of it, including the “road rule” permitting trigger and the Tier 3 framework. The final version passed 28–2 in the Senate.

Whether anyone tries to bring those pieces back in 2027 is unknown.

What is certain is that the new Speaker, the Senate’s leadership and the committee chairs they pick will decide how any such proposal gets referred, heard and moved. The same goes for every effort to repeal, revise or expand a law already on the books.

What Changes in January?

The 2027 committee assignments haven’t been made. No returning chair is guaranteed the old gavel, and new leaders could spread them around differently.

But the record is clear: a fairly small group of legislators chaired the same committees again and again, and three counties held more than half of all standing-committee chair terms.

When lawmakers pick their leaders in January, Vermonters will get the first sign of whether the next Legislature keeps that pattern or changes it.

Follow what those committees take up on Civic Radar.

How we did this. FYIVT compiled the chair of every House and Senate standing committee from the Legislature’s own committee rosters for the 2019–20, 2021–22, 2023–24 and 2025–26 sessions; panels, ethics committees and Rules were left out. Each chair term is one committee for one two-year session, so one legislator can account for several. Committees that were renamed (House Natural Resources, later Environment and Energy, later Environment) count as the same committee. County is the chair’s home town as listed by the Legislature. Dick Sears is counted as 2023–24 Senate Judiciary chair; he died June 1, 2024. Adult shares are 2025 Census Bureau population estimates (age 18+). Override votes are from the Legislature’s roll-call records. Several chairs held their gavels before 2019, so tenure counts here are a floor.