Well, that blew up in Senate leadership’s face, thoroughly and decisively.

As reported by Vermont Public’s Lola Duffort, the senior chamber’s version of H.454, the education reform bill, has been indefinitely sidelined due to an embarrassing lack of support. Specifically, support among the Democratic majority. President Pro Term (With Egg On Face) Phil Baruth:

“I made a promise to people in the caucus that I wouldn’t bring a bill that had a little bit of Democratic support and a lot of Republican support, and currently that’s the only way that H.454 would make it through the process.” 

Pardon me if I fail to completely suppress a gleeful chuckle. Baruth and his colleagues put together a Senate Education Committee with three Democrats and three Republicans, including a Democratic chair with deep ties to the state’s approved independent schools, and they barfed out a bill that — surprise, surprise! — was too conservative to pass muster with the majority.

I’ve never led a legislative caucus, majority or otherwise, but this strikes me as a pretty clear case of leadership malpractice: Failing to keep tabs on one’s own caucus regarding the biggest issue of the year, leading to an embarrassing last-minute retreat. And Baruth seems to have no firm backup plan. He talked of possibly proceeding with the more public school-friendly House version of H.454 with maybe some amendments. But he also suggested that the Legislature could just go ahead and adjourn, as if to put him out of his misery.

Which maybe it will. But there’s Gov. Phil Scott threatening to call the Legislature right back into session until they manage to produce an education reform plan. Which he would probably then veto; he isn’t all that hot on the Senate version, and would certainly dislike a House-Senate compromise bill even more.

The way this whole thing has been mismanaged sets up a dynamic that sees the Democrats doing what they all too often do: Giving away some of their bargaining power for no good reason.

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