Category Archives: Vermont State Senate

Here’s where we find out how clueless the State Senate really is

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Following last week’s profession of innocence by alleged sex criminal Norm McAllister, the head of the Senate’s Republican caucus is taking action. And encountering resistance that reflects the Senate’s insularity and overweening self-regard.

Paul Heintz has the deets, as he often does. Senate Minority Leader Joe Benning wrote a letter to McAllister, upbraiding him for taking back a promise to resign if his case wasn’t wrapped up by November, and warning that if McAllister fails to do so, Benning would file a resolution seeking his ouster.

Benning is no fool. He realizes exactly how bad it would be if McAllister is still a sitting Senator when the Legislature reconvenes. And even worse if he actually shows up for work.

This being the Senate, things aren’t so simple. Benning got some immediate blowback from Sen. Peg Flory, who trotted out the old “innocent until proven guilty” canard (discussed below) in support of Good Ol’ Norm. There was some back-and-forth between the two, thoroughly documented in Heintz’ piece, and then it was brought to a halt by Sen. Dustin Degree’s suggestion that the Republican caucus should discuss this out of the public eye.

Transparency, anyone?

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And now, the next phase of the “Get Rid of Norm” campaign begins

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Yesterday, prosecutors and defense in the Senator Norm McAllister Incredibly Gross and Offensive Sexual Exploitation case got together and released the “discovery stipulation,” or in English, the projected timeline for a trial.

And as VTDigger’s Morgan True reports, it’s scheduled to take place “smack in the middle of the 2016 legislative session.”

Bwahahahahaha.

Wouldn’t that be fun? If McAllister remains determined to hold on to his seat, he’d have cameras following him everywhere he goes in the Statehouse, and following him back and forth to the courthouse, and reporters asking all sorts of embarrassing questions of fellow lawmakers (“Hey, Senator Mullin, got a minute? I want to ask about your old roomie.”), especially Republicans, and especially Franklin County Republicans.

Of course, legal experts say that delays are virtually inevitable, so the likely outcome is that the trial will happen sometime later next year. Buzzkill. Even so, the cameras and reporters will be swarming.

But with the legal schedule set, Republicans will redouble their efforts to convince McAllister to deliver the face-saving resignation they all desperately want. As Senate Minority Leader Joe Benning told me last month, once the discovery stipulation is revealed, “the process will be clear and Norm will have to face it.”

That is the hope, anyway.

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What do you do with a Senator like that?

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There's a face only a mother, or someone behind on their rent, could love.

There’s a face only a mother, or someone behind on their rent, could love.

The disgraced and [ALLEGEDLY] disgraceful Norm McAllister continues to, ahem, “serve” the people of Franklin County as one of their two state senators. Some of his constituents are circulating petitions asking him to resign; many people, including Your Obedient Serpent, have called for the Senate to DO SOMETHING in spite of its convenient state of adjournment; and those same people have wondered why Republicans are so curiously circumspect about their [ALLEGEDLY] disgraceful brother in arms.

So I got a call from Joe Benning, Senate Minority Leader, seeking to explain the Senate and VTGOP side of things. He made some very good points, both politically and institutionally.

The political

First of all, he noted, “Everyone in the Republican Party I’ve talked to hopes that he will see that the difficulties before him are too great” for him to continue in office. And although the VTGOP’s efforts have been almost entirely behind the scenes,

It’s not like anyone is sticking their heads in the sand. …I’ve had two conversations with him and let him know my concerns. There are people in the county and state parties who are having ongoing conversations. He’s mulling over those conversations.

Benning hopes that McAllister will realize that he’s politically isolated, and facing a process likely to take “a year or more.” In other words, beyond the 2016 legislative session and well into the campaign. There’s a nightmare scenario for the Republican Party.

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Our sclerotic Senate

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In my most recent rant about the State Senate, our most dysfunctional and ego-driven deliberative body, I tossed out a back-of-the-envelope figgerin’ of the Senate’s electoral stasis:

A quick overview of our 30 senators shows at least 26 who are virtual locks for re-election as long as they want to run. And one of the other four is Norm McAllister, who would have been number 27 if only he could have kept it in his pants.

That, I should note, is a generous calculation. You could just as easily argue that if all the sitting Senators ran for re-election in 2016, McAllister is the only one who’d be seriously vulnerable. Almost all the districts lean heavily to the left or to the right. That’s a bad thing, and helps create a Senate that’s full of overinflated egos and smothered in a sense of entitlement.

In case you think I’m overstating the political reality of the Senate, I thought I’d run down the list. In alphabetical order by county:

Addison. Democrats Claire Ayer and Chris Bray romped to re-election in 2014, with no Republicans even bothering to try.

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Sometimes, “Throw The Bastards Out” seems like the best option

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Well, the reaction has been fast, furious, and predictable. Legislative leaders are, for the most part, decidedly cool to the idea of an independent Ethics Commission. This, in spite of a legislative session that saw, in the words of VTDigger’s Anne Galloway, “one outrage followed another in the waning days.”

Still, State Rep. David Deen, chair of the secretive House Ethics Panel, managed to pull a Sergeant Schultz:

“I think putting something like this in place when we seemingly don’t have a major problem I’m aware of makes me wonder, are you stimulating complaints? Are you creating a problem where one doesn’t exist?”

“Seemingly don’t have a major problem”? I think I owe an apology to Sergeant Schultz.

And then there was the chair of the Senate Government Operations Committee, the gatekeeper for potential ethics reform:

When Sen. Jeannette White, D-Windham, heard about the plan, her first response was “No, no, no, that’s not going to happen.”

Good grief.

It’s things like this that make me believe we’d be better off if we fired all 30 state senators and replaced them with Vermonters chosen by lottery.

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Another closed door in the People’s House

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Constant readers of this blog (Hi, Mom!) will recall that earlier this month, I wrote a letter to the House Ethics Panel asking for a review of Rep. Adam Greshin’s actions regarding H.40, the RESET bill. For less constant readers, my complaint centered on this: Greshin authored an amendment to H.40 stripping away an increase in funding for Efficiency Vermont. (EV had already gotten Public Service Board approval; until this year, legislative review was a mere formality.) He also aggressively lobbied the House and Senate for his amendment.

EV gets its money through a surcharge on utility bills. As co-owner of the Sugarbush Resort, a voracious consumer of electricity ($2 million/year), Greshin stood to gain considerably if his amendment passed.

Well, the Ethics Panel has responded. And as expected, it was a whitewash. Greshin, so they say, did nothing wrong.

I’ll get to the substance of its decision in my next post. First, though, I need to address the process.

Between sending my letter and receiving the Panel’s reply, I didn’t hear anything about it. During the roughly one week between receiving my letter and drafting its ruling, the Panel conducted a review with help from Legislative Counsel. It also met with the House Energy and Natural Resources Committee, and with Greshin himself. (Correction: The panel met with counsel to the House Energy and Natural Resources Committee, but not with the Committee itself.)

None of those meetings were noticed publicly. I was not informed. I was not given the opportunity to be a party to the proceedings.

It seems that the House Ethics Panel has a closed-door policy.

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Things I learned at the Statehouse (or, My First Listicle!)

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I’ve been blogging about Vermont politics for almost three and a half years (first at Green Mountain Daily and then here), but this was the first year I spent considerable time observing the Legislature at work. In previous years, I’d dropped in here and there, but I became an irregular regular this time around.

In addition to following the fates of particular bills, I also took away some overall lessons. Many of them actually positive. And here they are, in no particular order.

— Our lawmakers work pretty hard. They get paid a pittance, and spend lots and lots of hours under the Dome. Seemingly endless hearings and debates, having to actually read and understand legislation: I wouldn’t have the patience for it. And their attendance record is shockingly good. Many of them have real jobs and/or travel long distances to Montpelier; on any given day, almost all of them are there.

— There’s always plenty of partisan rhetoric flying around, but people who disagree on the issues work surprisingly well together. This is especially true in committees, where a small group of folks work collaboratively, and cooperatively. It’s not all peaches and cream, but there were times when I was watching a committee debate and it was hard to tell which lawmaker came from which party.

Not that they were selling out; just that they were more interested in getting stuff done than in scoring political points.

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Laff line of the year: two strong nominees

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As it usually is, the Vermont Legislature was not exactly a wellspring of humor. Especially in the tense, action-packed closing days. But adjournment brought a couple of classics, albeit of the unintentional variety, from two of Vermont’s finest unintentional funnymen: John Campbell and Peter Galbraith.

First up, Mr. Pro Tem told VTDigger:

“Sometimes it’s tough to be a leader and a statesman.”

To which my immediate thought was, “How the hell would YOU know?”

My second was that good ol’ country song:

Oh Lord, it’s hard to be humble
When I’m perfect in every way
I can’t wait to look in the mirror
‘Cause I get better looking each day.

I tell ya, for an accomplished politician, Campbell has the worst case of foot-in-mouth disease I’ve ever seen. The over/under on Erika Wolffing facepalms during this session must have been somewhere in the three dozen range.

Next up, the formerly Slummin’ Solon, Peter Galbraith. It was almost exactly a year ago that The Most Hated Man in the Senate announced he would not run for re-election, and instead devote himself to a vaguely-described Middle Eastern peace venture.

He may well be doing so, but he seems to find plenty of time to unleash Words of Wisdom about Vermont politics.

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2015 Legislature: Triumph of the B-sides

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When I look back on this session of the Legislature, a strange thing keeps happening: over and over again, I’m reminded of a significant bill, and my reaction is “Oh yeah, that.”

RESET bill? Oh yeah, that.

Child protection? Oh yeah, that.

The gun bill? Oh yeah, that.

Consumer protection, including limits on rent-to-own stores? Oh yeah, that.

Same-day voter registration? Oh yeah, that.

Economic development? Oh yeah, that.

The legislative agenda was so top-heavy with high-profile issues — the budget, taxes, education, Lake Champlain — that a lot of normally headline-making issues flew more or less under the radar. Or were quickly dealt with and forgotten.

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Slippery, short-tempered and fumbling: just another day for John Campbell

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There are two important takeaways from this afternoon’s kerfuffle outside the office of Senate President Pro Tem John Campbell. Most of the attention, including mine, is on his closed-door meeting with the entire Senate Natural Resources Committee and his confused rationalization for banning the media. Campbell actually blocked the doorway, twice, as Seven Days’ Paul Heintz and WCAX-TV’s Kyle Midura tried to gain entry.

The closed-meeting aspect certainly deserves more scrutiny, maybe even a court challenge; but we shouldn’t lose sight of the equally offensive substance of the meeting. That involved Campbell’s attempt to single-handedly amend — or possibly derail — a major piece of energy legislation known as the RESET bill.

The House had passed the thing. It had gotten through Senate committees with minor changes, and reached the final stage (third reading) on the Senate floor. And then, at the last minute, Campbell bigfoots the whole process. Legislative rules required that the bill pass the Senate today (Thursday) in order to be considered by the House on Saturday, when it’s scheduled to adjourn. If the Senate passes the bill Friday, which seemingly depends on Campbell’s good graces, the House would have to agree by a three-quarters majority to suspend its rules in order to vote on the bill.

So there’s a chance this very important bill won’t pass, and it’s all thanks to your Senate President Pro Tem.

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