Author Archives: John S. Walters

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About John S. Walters

Writer, editor, sometime radio personality, author of "Roads Less Traveled: Visionary New England Lives."

Like it or not, the Vermont Legislature needs to address ethics

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Secretary of State Jim Condos is making a welcome, and timely, push for an independent State Ethics Commission. In a press release issued this morning, he also called for “a clear law regarding ethics, conflicts of interest, and financial disclosure for our elected officials.”

This really shouldn’t be an issue; we are one of only three states without such a body. And in a year that’s already seen Attorney General Bill Sorrell facing an independent investigation, a sitting Senator arrested on felony charges on the Statehouse grounds, significant questions about the Senate President Pro Tem, and a secretive House Ethics Panel with a very permissive interpretation of “ethics,” you’d think we could dispense with the old “We’re Vermonters, we do the right thing, we don’t need an ethics law” argument.

I mean, if anybody still believes that, they’re whistling past the graveyard.

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Apology and retraction re: Sunderland essay

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Over the weekend, I posted a piece noting that VTGOP chair David Sunderland had sent out an opinion piece castigating H.361, the education reform bill, even though it was the result of Democratic/Republican cooperation and enacted with bipartisan support (and opposition).

My mistake, and my apologies to Sunderland and to VPO readers. He did not write the essay in question — although he did send it out to the VTGOP’s email list. That’s a little surprising given broad Republican support for the bill, but it’s not nearly as strange as it would have been if he’d written the piece.

The essay was actually an Editorial that appeared in the May 27 Times Argus. I first saw it in the VTGOP email blast, and jumped to a conclusion. My fault.

I’m updating the original post with a link to this retraction. I don’t want to delete the post because that would be, IMO, dishonest.

Thanks to Robert Maynard of True North Reports for pointing out my mistake. Sorry I didn’t believe you the first time, Robert.

Vermont Health Connect: a very conditional victory

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So the Governor and a full brace of minions came out Monday morning to announce that Vermont Health Connect had met the first of his two deadlines, or milestones, or benchmarks: the implementation of a change of circumstance feature.

This, after VHC was taken offline for the weekend to install upgrades, a move that prompted premature glee among reform opponents like State Rep. Heidi Scheuermann.

Yeah, not so much.

But the declaration of victory, though sounded loud and clear, came with a handful of asterisks. The Vermont Press Bureau’s Neal Goswami:

The upgrade, which is still being phased in by the administration, will allow customer service representatives to make changes to consumers’ accounts in an automated way.

“Still being phased in.” Got it. And…

“It means that we now have the capability, the tool, to be able to change your circumstance when things change for your insurance. And the outcome of that, as we get it up and running, will be a much smoother system that has been evading us since we launched,” Shumlin said.

“… as we get it up and running…” Hmm.

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Shumlin’s mental health care system still kind of a mess

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Very interesting article by VTDigger’s Morgan True, which will get buried under today’s good news about Vermont Health Connect. The story details a plan to build a 16-bed secure inpatient facility for the severely mentally ill.

This specific plan comes from Northeast Kingdom Human Services, which proposes the hospital as part of a multipurpose “social service campus” in the distant hamlet of Bloomfield, pop. 262. How distant? It’s more than an hour northeast of Saint Johnsbury.

That seems like a bad idea for a number of reasons. It’s awfully far away from any sizeable hospital; proximity to a full-scale medical center is considered prudent for a secure inpatient facility. It’s a hell of a drive for the vast majority of those wanting to visit a patient. And there’s the problem of attracting qualified staff to such a remote locale.

This may be nothing more than a fever dream by NKHS; the state is nosing around for a new facility but has made no commitments to the Kingdom. But it does point out something I hadn’t realized: the administration is again looking to expand the system because it is still overstressed.

It’s almost a year since the new hospital in Berlin opened its doors, and there are still severely mentally ill patients waiting in emergency rooms for days at a time because there aren’t enough secure beds. And the state faces a looming, if somewhat unofficial, deadline to close a “temporary” seven-bed facility in Middlesex by 2018. Continue reading →

Lookin’ for love in at least one wrong place

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Update: Looks like he’s done a bit of spring cleaning. “Simple Pickup” has been removed from Fiske’s Facebook page. Let it never be said that theVPO doesn’t have influence!

Update II: Rep. Fiske has responded in the Comments. I’ve attached his response to the end of this post.

Just like all hip and with-it 21st Century Vermonters, State Rep. Larry Fiske has a Facebook page. The Franklin County Republican has posted 22 “Likes” on his page. Most of them are just what you’d expect from a Republican, if you’ll excuse the stereotype: sports teams, fellow Republicans, local businesses. Ethan Allen Institute, natch. Former local news anchor Bridget Shanahan.

And whoa, what’s this?

“Simple Pickup.”

That’s odd. Let’s see what we’ve got here.

Simple Pickup proclaims itself “the foremost company in the world teaching on dating and relationships.”

Our mission is to ensure that all people — men and women — achieve their romantic goals.

“Men and women.” How equitable. Unfortunately, their method for ensuring that “all people… achieve their romantic goals” is to teach young men how to be pickup artists.

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VTGOP chair throws his own people under the bus

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UPDATE: I was mistaken when I wrote this post. The opinion piece was not written by Sunderland; it was a Times Argus editorial. See this new post for details.

Vermont Republican Party chair David Sunderland, having been eerily quiet during the bulk of this year’s legislative session, is now throwing around boilerplate press releases and opinion pieces like there’s no tomorrow.

A recent missive, published in the May 27 Times Argus, castigates H.361, the education reform bill, as “a mess of a bill,” a “coercive regime,” the result of a “panicked” legislature. He claims the bill “will raise property taxes” (nonsense) and introduce inequity to what he called the “painstaking and thorough quest” that resulted in the adoption of Act 60 in 1997.

Which is funny in itself, because Republicans have been loudly beating the drum for repeal of Act 60 and its 2003 amendment, Act 68. Sunderland may be too young to recall that Act 68 was adopted because of severe problems with Act 60. But hey, if he views the halcyon days of Act 60 through rose-colored glasses, that’s his right. Of course, he may be completely alone in his nostalgia.

But that’s not the real story here. The most significant, nay stunning, aspect of his essay is that H.361 was a bipartisan bill. It was a cooperative effort of Democrats and Republicans in the House Education Committee, and it passed the Legislature with substantial Republican support. In the House, 23 Republicans — almost half the caucus — voted for H.361, including House Minority Leader Don Turner and Assistant Leader Brian Savage.

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The political significance of the state [bleep] chair

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First it was Seven Days, and now it’s VTDigger, reporting on State Rep. Bob Helm’s hidden-camera appearance in a TV report about the American Legislative Exchange Council. ALEC is the organization that spreads conservative policy ideas and provides sample legislation to Republican lawmakers nationwide.

Helm was attending an ALEC conference when he was buttonholed by someone he didn’t know was a TV reporter. He told her he was “the state [bleep], the state chair of ALEC,” and acknowledged that lobbyists had helped pay the freight for him and numerous other lawmakers.

The reporting raises questions of ethics and influence-peddling; but to this Political Observer, the most interesting aspect is the growing influence of ALEC in Vermont Republican circles.

Helm boasted to VTDigger that “he has ‘revved up’ the ALEC chapter in Vermont and has boosted the number of members to 20, up from four just a few years ago.”

I’d love to see that membership list. I’ve heard, for instance, that Burlington Rep. Kurt Wright, who tries very hard to position himself as a moderate, is an ALEC member. That may or may not be true, but Wright did push very hard in this year’s session for a bill banning teacher strikes — an idea that’s been promoted by ALEC in other states.

But the bigger point is, 20 may not seem like a lot, but it’s a substantial fraction of the Republican legislative caucus.

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If this was the start of Phil Scott’s gubernatorial campaign, he’s got some work to do

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Vermont’s Master of Inoffensive Centrism, Lt. Gov. Phil Scott, made some news today. After years of speculation that sooner or later he’d run for the top job, he took a small tentative step in that direction. Speaking on VPR’s Vermont Edition:

I’m certainly considering it, but I’m a far, a long ways from making that decision.

Well, that’s about as undramatic as a first step could be. But he didn’t stop there.

I think it’s something that you have to really internalize and you have to base your decision less on ego and less on the ability to win and make sure that it’s something that you think you should do for the benefit of all Vermont, ah, all Vermonters. So, you know, I have a long way to go before making that decision, but again, I’m considering, and I should, ah, I know I have to make a decision by the end of the year.

Color me unimpressed. Scott filled the airwaves with words for a solid minute without actually saying much of anything.

It was typical of the entire interview, which was surprisingly inept for a politician as practiced, and seemingly comfortable in his own skin, as Phil Scott. I got the sense that this was a big milestone for him: his first as a potential leader staking out positions of his own instead of depending on the easy personal charm that’s made him a good fit for his current post.

He seemed ill at ease in the new role.

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Win Smith’s 47% Moment

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What’s this in my inbox? Why, it’s a heart-rending tale from the desk of Win Smith, co-owner of the Sugarbush ski resort and president of the Vermont Business Roundtable. And former Merrill Lynch executive. And reportedly a member of a secret Wall Street society described as “‘”a sort of one-percenter’s Friars Club’ whose annual dinners are filled with elitist, sexist and homophobic humor.”

(Bruce Lisman’s also a member, but I digress.)

Smith’s business partner in Sugarbush is, of course, State Rep. Adam Greshin, who wrote and lobbied for an amendment that forestalls a significant increase in Sugarbush’s sizable utility bills. And was, dubiously and privately, cleared by the House Ethics Panel.

Smith’s essay is being distributed to Vermont news outlets; I’m sure it will shortly be cluttering up your local paper’s content-hungry Op-Ed page. It’s a pretty amazing piece of work, managing to be both politically and literarily obnoxious. It’s a subtle retelling of stale conservative myths about poverty and government. You know the stuff: welfare mothers with Cadillacs, poor folks lulled into dependency by public-sector largesse, and the myth that “47% of Americans pay no taxes” and therefore have no stake in responsible government.

Smith begins with the sad story of “a childhood friend of mine” whose mother expressed her love by serving “large portions of tasty food.”

Unfortunately, Mom’s generosity had deadly results.

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Nobody’s figured out how to make this economy work

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Vermont Republicans are fond of slamming the Shumlin Economy, cherrypicking statistics that make the Governor’s record look bad. They criticize his policies as crippling to economic growth and middle-class prosperity. (And now that Bernie Sanders is running for President, they try to blame all the ills of the last three decades on him, even though he hasn’t been running the place and would clearly have adopted very different policies if he had been. Protip to Republicans: correlation is not causation.)

And yes, in spite of very low unemployment, it’s inarguable that the recovery has been slow and spotty for most Vermonters. Their purchasing power has remained stagnant. But this isn’t just a Vermont phenomenon, and if you look at other states with conservative governments, they’re failing at least as badly as we are.

Last Friday, Talking Points Memo posted a piece about how four Republican governors are seeing their presidential aspirations undercut by severe budget problems back home — problems attributable to the failure of their policies to hotwire their economies.

The basic concept is as cartoonish as when it was first sketched on a napkin by Arthur Laffer: cut taxes and the economy will flourish. Revenues will rise, as government takes a smaller slice of a growing pie. Business, freed of its public-sector shackles, will lead us into a prosperous future.

Trouble is, it doesn’t work. In Louisiana, WIsconsin, Ohio and New Jersey, Republican tax-cutting policies have failed: all four states have sluggish economies and huge budget shortfalls. It’s worse on both sides than anything Peter Shumlin has inflicted on the state of Vermont.

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