Category Archives: Education

The South Burlington Whitewash

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There once was a town called Nigella. It was a nondescript little Podunk, located near a larger and more notable community. Its residents were almost entirely white. Its high school sports teams were named, in a more benighted era, the Niggers. Many of the kids would attend games in blackface, and the mascot was a Stepin Fetchit character who danced and hooted when the team scored a touchdown. All innocent fun, and no one in this lily-white town conceived otherwise.

Then came the civil rights era, and the school had a problem on its hands. The nickname was a piece of the town’s history, and nobody wanted to change it. So they dropped the mascot and banned the blackface, claiming the nickname was never intended as a racial slur — merely a light-hearted callback to the town’s real name.

You know where I’m going with this. Last night, the South Burlington School Board voted to keep the “Rebel” nickname, claiming that it had a specific meaning in their community and had nothing whatsoever to do with the Confederacy or slavery.

“It’s what we make of it. It’s something artificial,” said [an SBHS alum]. “I don’t think the intention is to offend anyone or promote racism.”

Sorry, it doesn’t work that way. Words acquire connotations. “Rebel” has other meanings, but its primary connotation is with the wrong side in the Civil War. You know, the one that wanted to keep on owning slaves, and was willing to kill the United States of America in order to do so.

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Sons of the North

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In the aftermath of the June 17 terror attack in a South Carolina church, many people have reawakened to the awful connotations of the Confederate battle flag. The issue has reached South Burlington, whose high school sports teams have been called the Rebels since the school’s founding in 1962. There have been calls to change the name to something that better reflects an increasingly diverse community.

Defenders of the nickname have called the controversy “crazy” and insisted the name “could mean a lot of different things.” One pointed out that Americans were the “rebels” in the Revolutionary War, so maybe that’s what it means.

Well, the Burlington Free Press came up with a creative approach. It sent reporter Haley Dover to leaf through SBHS yearbooks from the 1960s. And what did she find?

Confederate battle flags all over the damn place.

In the school’s first yearbook from 1962, sketches of Civil War era soldiers with their swords and muskets can be found placed among the student photos. The inside cover of the yearbook from 1964 is the image of a fall mountain scene and a Confederate solider holding the southern-rooted flag. Numerous pages throughout the 1960s show the flag hanging behind the basketball team or behind two Key Club members shaking hands. Cheerleaders pose with the banner on the football field.

Obviously, the Rebel nickname was inspired by the Confederacy.

Now, I don’t think anyone at SBHS was overtly racist back then. They were just completely clueless, in what was then a lily-white community and state.

There’s still a lot of that cluelessness around today. Indeed, there’s a prime example in the Free Press article itself.

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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.

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 Speaker did it… in the hallway… with a soft cushion.

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The New Hampshire legislature has a fine old phrase I’ve never heard anywhere else: “Inexpedient to Legislate.” It’s the graveside pronouncement uttered just before a bill disappears from view, perhaps never to be seen again. At least not for a long time. If Vermont had such a phrase, it’d be time to invoke it solemnly over the moldering corpse of H.76, the bill to ban teacher strikes. Neal Goswami of the Vermont Press Bureau:

Democratic leaders are maneuvering to amend a bill slated to hit the House floor Wednesday by replacing language that calls for a ban on teacher strikes and the imposition of labor contracts by school boards with a study.

Ah, the study. The favorite murder weapon of backroom dealmaking. H.76’s primary sponsor, Burlington Republican Kurt Wright, sees the writing on the wall and is not happy.

“I think that it’s time for us to act. This bill has been around for a long time,” Wright said. “We either want to ban strikes and the imposition of contracts or not.”

The answer there is “not,” at least not on H.76’s terms. As outlined earlier, most Democrats see the bill as fundamentally flawed because it sets up a long, drawn-out process for resolving disputes. And the longer the process, the more it benefits the employer. I doubt that Mr. Wright is mollified by Deputy Assistant Majority Leader Tim Jerman’s assurances that the study would be “unfettered.” Hell, the study itself is the fetter, tying up the inexpedient legislation for as long as necessary.

The House vote on H.76, scheduled for Wednesday, could be interesting. Republicans vow to strongly back the bill as it stands, and they might be able to skim off enough Democrats to make things interesting. On the other hand, the Democratic leadership might be wielding soft cushions when lawmakers gather for a vote.

The Curious Case of House Bill 76

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The 2015 legislative session has its share of contentious issues and extended wrangles (partisan and otherwise), but its single biggest mystery may be H. 76, a.k.a. the bill that would ban teacher strikes.

The latest turn came Friday, when the House General, Housing and Military Affairs Committee voted against the bill, three votes to five. All three Republicans voted in favor; the four Democrats and lone Progressive voted no. The bill had earlier passed the House Education Committee, but the Catchall Committee thought otherwise.

The bill goes on to the House floor in any case, but as committee vice-chair Tom Stevens says, his panel’s vote “raises flags, and people will want to listen to why one committee supported it and one committee didn’t.”

But to explore the full dimension of The Curious Case of House Bill 76, we must go back to its origin. It arose in a burst of deep concern over the putative plague of teacher strikes, which Vermont doesn’t have. We have very occasional teacher strikes. People with long memories, or who are looking for excuses to ban strikes, harken back to the Great Hinesburg Debacle of 1985, a truly disputatious strike with long ramifications.

But why did that suddenly provoke a torrent of urgency thirty years later? I haven’t heard a good explanation, especially considering the very full plate in front of the legislature already. When you’ve got Lake Champlain and health care and school funding and a huge budget gap to deal with, why put a stick into a hornet’s nest that isn’t bothering anyone?

Oh well. As originally outlined, the bill would have banned teacher strikes and the imposition of contract terms by school boards, and it would have sent unresolved disputes to binding arbitration. That was acceptable to the Vermont-NEA, and it’s a rare thing for a union to accept disarmament. Even bilateral disarmament. (Correction/redirect: The Vermont-NEA didn’t like the original bill much, but was willing to accept binding arbitration as part of the right deal. Last weekend its position hardened to complete opposition.)

But the school boards didn’t like binding arbitration as the endpoint. They wanted something softer. And the bill came before the House Education Committee with a suspiciously drawn-out process for resolving impasses — a process that could last as long as 18 months.

According to Stevens, the Education Committee took only three hours of testimony and made no amendments whatsoever before passing the bill on a very curious 8-3 vote. Some Democrats joined minority Republicans in the majority. Three Dems, including committee chair Dave Sharpe, voted no.

It’s not that often a bill passes a committee despite the opposition of its chair. It’s also not often that a bill passes with full support of the minority and only partial support from the majority.

The House General Etc. Committee then requested a whack at H. 76, and got it. This panel, which handles labor issues among other things, was looking to put binding arbitration back into the bill, making it equally punitive on both sides. That changed last weekend when the Vermont-NEA withdrew its support for a bill including binding arbitration. “The idea of trying to amend the bill ended right there,” Stevens says. He adds that the curious trajectory of H. 76 turned the union against the original idea:

[The Education Commitee bill] was not written with their input, and because you had no input, the comments that people would make like ‘This will make things better for school boards and unions’ don’t carry any weight because the unions didn’t participate in the conversation.

The union withdrawal also turned H. 76 from a bipartisan measure into a partisan one — and a partisan one with the backing of the minority party. It’s hard to see the full House adopting H. 76 over the Vermont-NEA’s objection, although stranger things have happened.

Which brings me to the central mysteries of H. 76:

— Why was there such a furor about teacher strikes in the first place?

— Why was H. 76 rewritten in haste and hustled through the Education Committee?

Here’s my two cents, and it’s nothing but a semi-informed guess. Legislative leadership knew they were going to pass a school funding and governance bill likely to displease the school boards. Ending teacher strikes was a convenient sop to the boards. But as the education bill evolved to include a fairly tight cap on school spending, the school boards could not have been pleased. Pehaps they wanted more.

This is where the H. 76 rewrite came in, according to me. The Education Committee giveth, and it taketh away. Or in this case, the take thing came first. I can envision backstage negotiations between the school boards and Democratic leaders: If we accept a spending cap, we get a strike ban without binding arbitration.

It’s purely speculative, but it explains a lot. It explains this year’s sudden angst over teacher strikes. It explains why Dave Sharpe allowed a rapidly rewritten bill to sail through his committee despite likely union opposition.

If true, it wasn’t much of a deal for the school boards. Union opposition almost certainly dooms the bill. Although, if you want to spin forward the conspiracy theory, maybe the boards traded away H. 76 in exchange for the substantially toothless spending cap that passed the full House this week.

Have I solved the mystery? I don’t know. A simpler explanation is that the bill just got tossed about in the turbulent seas of the current session, with leadership taking little notice and Sharpe too preoccupied with the big Education Bill to worry much about H. 76.

But my rococo version is a lot more fun.

A pretty darn good day at the Statehouse

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Wednesday was a big day for the legislature’s battle to get through a long and tough agenda. The House passed two huge bills, and the Senate approved a positive step in voter access.

Senate first. After Sen. Dustin Degree lost his repeated efforts to derail, slow down, or cripple the bill, the full Senate approved same-day voter registration on a voice vote.

Degree was pushing a mild form of the Republican “voter fraud” canard. The Bush Administration tried very hard for eight years to find and prosecute cases of vote fraud, and produced an average of less than one case per year. But there was Degree, acknowledging that “Fraud may be minuscule,” but insisting we ought to take steps to prevent this mythical plague upon our land.

If the bill passes the House, it wouldn’t take effect until 2017 because Vermont’s town clerks are creatures of habit who are loath to accept change or take on new responsibilities. They insisted on a two-year delay, and still want to fight for tougher rules. Our Public Servants, first and foremost guarding their own turf.

On to the House, which approved two bills that can be fairly described as “landmark.” Neither bill is perfect, but both represent substantial accomplishments.

The “water bill,” H.35, passed on a 126-10 vote, with only a handful of Republicans saying no. It establishes a Clean Water Fund and provides for $8 million a year in funding. This accomplishment is diminished by the fact that the state HAD to do something, or face the regulatory wrath of the feds. Because Vermont is, and has been for a long time, in violation of the Clean Water Act.

Still, getting almost 95% of lawmakers to support a bill that impinges on large segments of the economy and raises new revenue wasn’t a simple task. After a confirmatory vote Thursday, the bill moves to the Senate.

The education bill passed by a narrow margin, but still substantial: 88-59. This one was a tougher sell because education is near and dear to the hearts of every student, parent, grandparent, and community in the state. And near to the wallets of every taxpayer.

This was vividly on display in Wednesday’s Democratic caucus meeting. After an overview of the water bill drew only a couple of questions, the presentation of the ed bill had Dem lawmakers popping up all over the room. Many were specifically concerned about schools and districts in their own communities.

Any kind of education reform bill is a tough haul. This makes substantial reforms in funding and governance. Generally speaking, it’s a decent effort. I think we do have to do something significant to bend the cost curve, and some form of consolidation is almost inevitable. Student populations are declining, especially in rural areas; tiny schools are in no one’s best interest. Not students, not taxpayers, and not other government initiatives that might benefit if the public-school burden wasn’t so heavy.

Both bills will head for the Senate, which makes me cringe. Based on past experience, you never know what the hell they’re going to do. But maybe they’ll surprise me. There are some good folks in the Senate — definitely two more (Becca Balint, Brian Campion) than there were in years past. The atmosphere and legislative product will greatly benefit from the addition by subtraction of Peter Galbraith, whose voluntary retirement from the Senate was a blessing for us all. We should see a lot less capricious obstructionism, if nothing else.

Hard times still to come, many long days and debates — some dramatic, some tedious. But April First was a good day. No foollin’.

Teacher strike ban in line for a rework — at least

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Among all the contentious issues facing this year’s legislature, one has made a surprising, and enduring, appearance near the top of the list. Everyone seems to have suddenly decided that teacher strikes are a scourge of our system, and must be put to an end.

This, in spite of the fact that teacher strikes are only a little bit more common than hen’s teeth in Vermont. We would seem to have much bigger fish to fry, but apparently not.

Last week, the House Education Committee approved a bill that appeared even-handed at first glance: H.76 would ban teacher strikes, and would also bar school boards from unilaterally imposing contract terms. The bill sped through the committee without so much as a single amendment, passing on an 8-3 vote.

(The four Democrats who voted “yes” along with all four Republicans, for those keeping score, were Sarah Buxton, Kevin “Coach” Christie, Emily Long, and Ann Manwaring. All four hail from districts on or near the Connecticut River, if that means anything.)

The bill is now pending before the House Committee on General, Housing and Military Affairs, which is responsible for labor-related legislation. And members of that committee are not at all happy with H.76 in its current form. They believe the bill is weighted heavily toward the school boards and against the teachers, and they want significant changes.

H.76 was a subject of conversation at Saturday’s Democratic State Committee meeting. Speaker Shap Smith, as I reported previously, said the bill “will not pass the House in its present form.” And Rep. Tom Stevens of Waterbury, a member of the General Etc. Committee, said H.76 is “not a labor-friendly bill,” and that it “has a million problems.”

I caught up with Rep. Stevens afterward, and asked him what’s wrong with H.76.

This bill says that we will get rid of the right to strike and we will get rid of the right to impose a contract by the school boards, and we will replace it with this somewhat drawn-out process, and it could take eighteen months rather than what we have now.

And there’s the rub. Eighteen months is as good as forever in contract talks. Teachers couldn’t be saddled with an imposed contract, but they might have to work for a year or more under a continuation of their old deal.

…if the teachers can’t strike, they go back to work and they don’t get a pay increase, they don’t get a step increase, their health benefits will remain the same. … So they’re taking a very serious financial hit, and yet the school boards are not penalized equally.

As originally introduced, the bill created an even-handedly draconian process for resolving impasses: mandatory binding arbitration. But that language was struck somewhere along the way, and replaced with a potentially lengthy process of fact-finding and mediation.

The bill’s path through the Education Committee, according to Stevens, was awfully quick: “They only took three hours of testimony, and they passed the bill as it stands.” And it moved at warp speed despite the opposition of committee chair David Sharpe, who was one of three “no” votes on the bill. You’d think he could have done more about this if he cared. To be fair, he’s had an awful lot on his plate this session; he might have let this go through to avoid a fight, secure in the knowledge that it could be amended later on.

The General Etc. Committee had already taken up an earlier version of H.76, but now they’ve taken it back. Stevens:

…we had a reintroduction to the bill because it was way different. We took testimony Friday, we’ll probably take more testimony Tuesday, and then we’ll try to figure out from there what we’re going to do. We have several options, but I would say our committee is not disposed to support it as written.

The committee has several options, but not much time; it needs to act by the middle of this week. It could refuse to take up the bill; it could send it through without recommendation, it could vote the bill down — but that wouldn’t necessarily kill the bill, or at least the concept.

It’s possible we could not have a recommendation, and that’s where we would work with leadership to decide what to do with the bill, because we’re pretty certain that if this particular bill doesn’t come out, that this bill will become an amendment on the floor from another party, and then it will be discussed anyway. So spiking it isn’t really a viable option.

If Speaker Smith’s words to the DSC are taken at face value, the Education Committee’s version of H.76 will not pass the House. It could pass in amended form. That seems the most likely outcome; if the original concept was restored — no strikes, no imposition, binding arbitration — then the bill would most likely win House approval. The school boards don’t like that; as one lawmaker put it, “they’d rather have Ebola than binding arbitration.”

But if the bill sets up a dead end for the teachers and a long and winding road for school boards, it would fundamentally alter the power dynamic between unions and boards. And for what? Teacher strikes are rare in Vermont, and almost always brief. Why upset the applecart — and alienate a core Democratic constituency — to fix such a minor problem?

Thankfully, according to Smith and Stevens, it isn’t likely to come to that.

The real lessons of Plasan

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Vermont’s pro-business community couldn’t hardly wait to score a cheap political point (and, as usual, soil the state’s reputation) after Plasan’s announcement that it was relocating to Michigan. Decent interval, bah: we’ve got a boilerplate press release ready to go.

Lt. Gov. Phil Scott did the honors for the VTGOP, offering a quick word of sympathy to Plasan’s workforce and then pivoting to the red meat:

This announcement is yet another clear sign that we in Montpelier must put our full focus on not only protecting, but on growing Vermont’s economy and face the reality that we are competing in a regional, national and global marketplace. We cannot continue to blame “forces beyond our control” for our job losses, but turn the mirror back on ourselves and ask ourselves: “What can we do to change the direction of this trend? How can we make Vermont better?”

The best part is Scott’s dismissal of “forces beyond our control,” when Plasan made it abundantly clear that Vermont’s business climate had nothing to do with its decision, and Vermont couldn’t have done anything to change it. But let’s not let a little inconvenient truth get in the way of a stale talking point.

Former Wall Street supremo Bruce Lisman kept it simple; he made time for one self-congratulatory Tweet, with nary a word of sympathy for the workers.

(The link is to WCAX’s story about the Plasan closing.)

Nice, Bruce. Way to show your concern for the common folk.

Okay, so the Usual Suspects reacted in the usual way: grabbing at any available pretext for regurgitating their political cud. (Please chew with your mouths closed.) But there are lessons we can learn from the departure of Plasan and other industries, and things we should bear in mind.

FIrst, let’s re-examine the unique strengths of Vermont. We do have our share of weaknesses, even if you omit the tired bromides of rightist politicos. So why do so many businesses establish themselves here or move here? Why does anybody stay? Why don’t they all move to Michigan or Texas or Mississippi?

Quality of life must be near the top of the list. Our topflight public school system is a draw. We have some very nice cities and small towns, good places to call home. Low rates of violent crime. Abundant recreation. A market small enough that entrepreneurs can gain a foothold before venturing out into the big time. (Ben & Jerry’s would have had a much harder time starting out in a big state with big distribution systems.)

I’m sure there are others. My point is, before we try to tear down Vermont, let’s figure out what we’re good at, do what we can to make it even better, and market the hell out of it.

Okay, so now: what are our weaknesses?

We should certainly review the items on the VTGOP hit list. If there are ways to smooth regulatory pathways without selling our souls, great. If forms or bureaucratic procedures are cumbersome, simplify them. But there’s no way we can compete with bigger states or other countries on things like taxes and incentives. Vermont can’t come anywhere near the packages being offered by New York state, for instance. We can’t be as low-tax as Florida or as development-friendly as Arizona, nor would I want us to be. That’s why our first priority should be identifying and maximizing our strengths.

Beyond the usual GOP talking points, I see three major areas that are drawbacks for Vermont’s business climate. In no particular order:

— The high cost of post-high school education. It’s the one thing we consistently hear from business owners (as opposed to their political mouthpieces): “We can’t find enough skilled workers. We can’t fill available jobs.”

The cost of attending our public colleges and universities is absurdly high — especially at the community college level. Governor Shumlin has done some incremental things to nibble away at this problem, but has failed to tackle it in a thorough, systemic way.

— Getting around. When Chris Graff wrote his memoir a few years ago, he ranked the top stories in recent Vermont history. His pick for #1: the coming of the interstate freeways. They made it possible to travel and transport goods much more quickly, at least in certain corridors. They brought dramatic change to Vermont — mostly for the good.

But large stretches of Vermont are still remote — or remote enough that it’s a significant competitive disadvantage. The biggest obstacle for places like Bennington and Rutland is the lack of high-speed roadway. The best thing we could do for them is turn U.S. 7 into a freeway. We could also use speedier corridors across central and southern Vermont.

(We pause while liberal readers gasp for breath.)

Also, and just as significantly, we need more public transportation. This is a tough nut to crack in a place with a small, scattered population, but if it was easier to get around Vermont without a car, it’d help convince people to live somewhere besides Chittenden County.

— The lack of housing, for purchase and rental. One of the biggest drags on our economy is the aging demographic. What do young families need? Rental properties and small- to mid-sized houses. Just what we don’t have.

This is one area of regulation that needs to be loosened in a targeted way. We need to do more to encourage affordable housing — by which I don’t just mean Section 8 or mobile homes, I mean houses costing less than $250,000 and enough rental stock to keep rents reasonable. I’d like to see an emphasis on in-fill housing in existing cities and towns. I don’t want to open the regulatory door to more suburban sprawl.

Housing affordability touches on a fundamental problem with our 21st Century economy: wage stagnation in the middle and working classes. Part of the problem with affordability is depressed wages, something that’s beyond the scope of this post. But as long as young people are starting their lives with college debt and low salaries, we need to help them find housing that fits their budgets.

So there you have it. My initial prescription for improving Vermont’s business climate. And it has nothing (much) to do with taxation or regulation.

The drift

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The legislature is about a quarter of the way through its four-month session, and Governor Shumlin’s proposals are falling like tin ducks in a shooting gallery. Lake Champlain tax plan? Dead. Education plan? “A place to start the conversation.” Payroll tax to close the Medicaid gap? Flatlining.

Not that this is terribly surprising; the governor exited the 2014 election with significantly diminished political capital. So much so that when Shumlin unveiled his proposals last month, the question wasn’t so much whether they would pass or not, as whether he meant them seriously in the first place or knew from the start that they were doomed.

(Evidence for the latter: an education plan that did nothing to provide near-term property tax relief. That, at least, was a non-starter.)

Not sure what else he could have done after his near-defeat. He could have taken the George W. Bush approach, pressing on regardless of his mandate-free victory, but that’s not who he is. Shumlin likes to talk bold and act incrementally.

Now he’s added deference to incrementalism, and it’s up to the Legislature to generate some vision. The consensus-seeking, conflict-avoidant Legislature. I’m not holding my breath.

I do expect our lawmakers to do some good work; I just don’t expect them to produce anything truly impactful. And we face a bunch of issues that call for some strong, progressive action.

Take, for example, the House Fish, Wildlife and Water Resources Committee, chaired by one of the good people of the Statehouse, David Deen. The committee has already ditched Shumlin’s proposed tax hikes to help pay for Lake Champlain cleanup. The fertilizer fee’s down the tubes because the farmers didn’t like it; the fee for stormwater runoff from developed sites is as good as dead because it would be “difficult to implement.”

Instead, Deen’s panel is looking at a smorgasbord of tax and fee hikes — more numerous than Shumlin’s plan, and less directly tied to the sources of Champlain pollution. The governor’s plan was simpler and made more sense. The committee’s approach will open the door to Republican charges that the Dems are just raising taxes wherever they can. Deen is considering at least four separate tax or fee increases instead of Shumlin’s two.

More important than the specifics of the Champlain plan, though, is the strong signal it sends: Lawmakers — even those who are solid on policy — are loath to take risks. Or, as Deen himself put it:

“There are some very strong voices in the hall opposed to it. And we are reacting to political reality around here,” the Westminster Democrat said Friday.

This session is looking like a big fat lost opportunity given that this is an off-year, and new programs or reforms would have a year and a half to take root before lawmakers have to run for re-election. Ya think next year’s gonna be any better?

This is a typical duck-and-cover reaction, but it plays right into the Republicans’ hands. Let’s say Phil Scott runs for Governor, as everybody believes he’s going to do. He’s strongly positioned as a centrist willing to consider all ideas. And he’s a nice guy to boot.

If voters have a choice between the Democrats’ fear-based centrist incrementalism with a bias toward inaction and Phil Scott’s natural centrist incrementalism with a bias toward inaction, which one do you think they’re going to choose?

I hope I’m wrong about this. It’s still early in the session, and there’s more than enough time to come up with at least one piece of solid small-p progressivism. But I’m not holding my breath.