Monthly Archives: April 2016

Your Plug-N-Play guide to writing Phil Scott press releases

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Phil Scott’s press releases are so damn predictable. I’m sure he has a template on file. Anytime there’s a bit of bad economic or business news, no matter how irrelevant to state government, you just plug in the bit of news and add boilerplate language about “affordability” and “bad business climate” and “those scalawags in Montpelier” (by which he means Not Phil Scott, which is itself worth a laugh since he’s been part of Montpelier’s in-crowd for a good fifteen years).

Click “Save” and “Send.” There you go.

The latest cookie-cutter release from the Scott campaign is about the closure of the Manchester-area Chamber of Commerce. That Chamber apparently existed solely as a conduit for health insurance coverage for its members. After the onset of health care reform, it was stripped of that function — and it became apparent that nobody was interested in supporting the Chamber for any other reason.

Does that mean health care reform was a mistake? Of course not. If the Chamber can’t gin up enough money to keep the lights on without being an insurance middleman, then it won’t be missed.

Well, it did serve one purpose in dying: it gave Phil Scott a pretext for firing up his Press Release-O-Meter. A flimsy pretext, but that’s all he needs.

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Foxes Establish Henhouse Access Rules

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Here’s another sign that Vermont’s Founding Fathers may have been drunk when they wrote our Constitution. Which, among other flaws, appears to give the Legislature sole authority over its own ethics.

Today, the Senate Rules Committee showed why that’s such a bad idea. While the Judiciary Committee has been busily slashing a proposed Ethics Commission into a glorified filing cabinet, the Rules Committee has been developing a parallel process for its own members.

Today, the Rules Committee adopted an ethics process for the Senate. And according to Seven Days’ Nancy Remsen, the Senate ethics process is designed, first and foremost, to ensure that its members are protected from public embarrassment. (To clarify: she didn’t say that, I did. But her outline of the procedure allows no other interpretation.)

As I’ve written before, the House Ethics Panel is a sorry-ass excuse for a watchdog. The Senate ethics panel won’t be any better, and may be significantly worse.

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The small-D democratic case for Hillary

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The pressure is growing on the four Vermont superdelegates to drop Hillary Clinton in favor of Bernie Sanders. Well, the voices of the disaffected are growing louder, anyway. I don’t see any sign of a mass movement.

Nor should I. As I’ve explained before, the superdelegate system is a legitimate expression of a party’s legitimate self-interest. No presidential primary season has ever been a pure reflection of the popular vote; the presidential selection system is governed by the parties because their nomination is a prize that is theirs to bestow.

Superdelegates are people who have served the Democratic Party well and loyally. It’s reasonable to argue that they deserve a voice in the presidential selection process.

Which won’t convince Sanders supporters who believe they’re getting screwed. But let’s put it this way:

… by every possible democratic measure, Clinton is winning. She’s winning in states (and territories) won, which isn’t a meaningful margin of victory anyway. She’s winning in the popular vote by 2.4 million votes — more than a third more than Sanders has in total. In part that’s because Sanders is winning lower-turnout caucuses, but it’s mostly because he’s winning smaller states. And she’s winning with both types of delegates.

That’s from Philip Bump of the Washington Post. And the numbers don’t lie: Hillary Clinton has won 2.4 million more votes than Bernie Sanders. Indeed, if there were no superdelegates at all, and the delegates were apportioned based on the vote, Clinton would still have a substantial lead over Sanders. She would still be the clear favorite to win the nomination.

She is The People’s Choice, f’real.

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Last one out of House leadership, turn out the lights

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Welp. Earlier this week, House Democratic caucus stalwart Tim Jerman announced he wouldn’t run for re-election. Today, Tony Klein, longtime chair of the House Natural Resources and Energy Committee, did the same. And since he’s actually my State Rep and I made some comments about Jerman, I’d better do the same for Klein.

Clearly, the Dr. Evil Lookalike Contest will be a wide-open affair in next year’s caucus. Otherwise, the House is losing a staunch advocate for renewable energy. Which, in some people’s eyes, really does make him Dr. Evil. For me, he’s a champion who has worked hard, and mostly quietly, to keep Vermont progressing toward a renewable future.

He told Seven Days’ Terri Hallenbeck that he actually made the decision early this year, but waited until the session was further along before going public. The timing will allow potential candidates to make plans before the late-May filing deadline.

He will have one more Sisyphean task to complete: trying to clean up the hash of an energy siting bill passed by the Senate last week. I bet he’s looking forward to a close examination of that turd. (On that note, he told VTDigger that he hopes to “remain involved in the energy field and the solid waste field.” Yeah, he’s been shoveling the manure for quite a few years now.)

But he’s used to it, and he faces legislative challenges with a smile and the occasional sarcastic remark.

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Erasing the line at the Freeploid

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So I visited the Burlington Free Press’ website, just to see if they had anything new to report.

And there, in the prime spot on the homepage, the location for its biggest story, I saw this:

Screen Shot 2016-04-08 at 5.41.59 PM

Hmm, I thought. Strange time to be putting a feature article about Q Burke on the homepage, After all, the resort has been in the news for all the wrong reasons lately — thanks to Bill Stenger’s continued struggles with state regulators over his EB-5 investment scheme.

And then I thought, well, they’ve got to fill that “Freshies” section somehow, so I guess they’re filling their news hole with a dual-purpose soft feature. Advertiser-friendly, but not outrageous.

But then I clicked on the link and scrolled down through the story. Which is, in fact, a very soft feature about Q Burke. And at the bottom was this note about the writer:

Jessica B. Sechler is marketing manager at Q Burke Mountain Resort.

Aww, jeezus. Really, Free Press? Advertiser-provided content occupying the best real estate on your homepage? Formatted as if it was actual journalism?

I guess their Church/State wall has been reduced to rubble. Hey, advertisers, c’mon down! It’s all for sale at the Burlington Free Press!

Two steps back for legalized pot

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Well, a pair of House committees got out their carving knives and turned S.241, the marijuana-legalization bill, into an unrecognizable mess.

This is a significant setback for legalization. The best hope is that the House passes the bill and then a House/Senate conference committee comes down firmly on the Senate’s side. After that, perhaps the bill could pass muster in the full House. But the outlook is definitely worse than it was a couple days ago.

Earlier this week, House Judiciary Chair Maxine Grad proposed, well, a Bizarro World version of S.241. She slashed out the legalization stuff, opting instead for a mild extension of decriminalization that would allow for personal cultivation of up to two marijuana plants. That idea was specifically rejected by Senate Judiciary Committee chair Dick Sears, the primary gatekeeper on the Senate side.

Oh, and she also attached the House’s favorite Action Evasion Tactic — a study commission! Yay!

That was bad enough. But even that bill couldn’t pass the full committee. After Grad’s version failed on a 5-6 vote, the grow-your-own provision got the ax. The study commission, naturally, was spared. The bill also creates a penalty for driving under the influence if a driver has a BAC of 0.05 or higher PLUS any trace of psychoactive chemicals in their system, plus a new crime of making hash oil from marijuana.

VTDigger’s headline calls it a “hollowed-out pot bill,” and that’s pretty much dead on.

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A useless program gets a little better

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Raise a glass, boys, to Janet Ancel, hardworking chair of the House Ways and Means Committee. For it was she who ignored the express wishes of the Shumlin administration and added some oversight to a program that sorely needs it.

I’m talking Vermont Employment Growth Incentive (VEGI), the slush fund economic development program that gives public funds to private employers promising to grow their workforce. VEGI was up for renewal this year, and the administration wanted a permanent extension (or at least five years) with no strings attached.

What it got instead, thanks largely to Rep. Ancel, was a three-year extension with legislative oversight added. She also inserted a mandated “cost-benefit analysis” to determine whether VEGI is actually accomplishing what it’s supposed to. And yesterday, the full House approved an omnibus economic-development bill including her VEGI provisions. A noteworthy accomplishment, given the administration’s active resistance.

After the jump: the unprovable merit of VEGI. 

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A Bern for the worse

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Straight up, Bernie Sanders was out of line. Dangerously so.

I’m talking about calling Hillary Clinton “not qualified” to be President. Not once, but over and over again.

Yes, he phrased it in terms of his typcal critiques of the Clinton record, but adding “not qualified” is a step too far. That’s a toxic, radioactive term. It crosses the line between criticism and defamation.

And it gives aid and comfort to the enemy. You don’t think conservative attack merchants aren’t already writing the ads, featuring artfully-edited passages from Bernie’s speech? He should know better than to provide them with ready-made cannon fodder.

Bernie claims that Hillary started it. “She has been saying lately that she thinks that I am, quote unquote, ‘not qualified’ to be president,” he told a crowd in Philadelphia last night.

That, right there, is a lie. She never said that, quote-unquote or otherwise.

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A departure not to be overlooked

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A new name has joined the growing list of political departures in Vermont. Last night, Rep. Tim Jerman informed constituents in Essex that he would not seek re-election to the House. He’s been in the House for twelve years, and has been a valued player in the Democratic caucus leadership team.

Nothing dramatic in his announcement; “It’s time to pass the torch,” he wrote in a message to his email list. “We have a strong bench locally to keep us moving forward.”

Tim’s not flashy or self-promoting. He’s what I call a glue guy, one of those people who tries to make the party and the system work better. Those people don’t grab headlines, but they play a crucial role in the political process. The job of the next House Speaker just got a little bit harder.

He’s a vice chair of the Vermont Democratic Party. For the past several years, he has served as the liaison between the House Democratic caucus and the state party executive committee. Myself, I hope he sticks around in his party role; it can use good people like him, people with more principle than ego.

Metapost: theVPO on the air

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On Thursday morning, I’ll be guest hosting “Open Mike” on WDEV Radio. Live broadcast from 9-11 a.m., also live streamed on WDEV’s website.

Should be a great show. In the first hour, I’ll be speaking with David Hall, the Mormon millionaire who wants to create a planned community in Tunbridge, Strafford, Royalton and Sharon that could house up to 20,000 people. As far as I know, this will be his first extensive radio interview since his plans hit the news.

My post on the topic, subtly entitled “The Mormons are Coming! The Mormons are Coming!” elicited a response from Mr. Hall himself, which led to an email exchange and, ultimately, his accepting my invitation to the interview. He has denied some of my more outrageous concerns; according to him, this community is based on ideas from Joseph Smith, but it is not intended as a Mormon outpost. Rather, it would be open to anyone willing to commit to a sustainable, planned community.

Second hour should be lively as well. My guest will be James Lockridge, founder and head of The Big Heavy World Foundation, a Burlington-based nonprofit that promotes Vermont music in a host of ways. He’s had his differences with the Burlington and Vermont arts establishment, which he sees as excessively insular and not supportive of new, bold ideas. I also plan to talk with him about the importance of the arts for (1) our economy and (2) attracting young people to Burlington and Vermont.

WDEV’s at 96.1 FM and 550 AM. The FM signal is strong on the I-89 corridor from Montpelier to Burlington; the AM is pretty strong in all directions. Hope you can join me!