Tag Archives: Chris Pearson

Toward a more Progressive Senate

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I welcome Chris Pearson’s entry into the race for State Senate from Chittenden County. The Progressive state rep is the Progs’ sharpest policy voice in the House, and he should be a formidable candidate for Senate.

For those just joining us, the Chittenden County district elects six Senators, and it’s usually a free ride for incumbents. This time, two of the six seats will be voluntarily vacated; David Zuckerman is running for Lite-Gov, and Helen Riehle (appointed to fill out Diane Snelling’s term) is not running for a full term.

The openings are sure to attract a strong Democratic field, while Republicans are desperately searching for someone who might retain Snelling’s position. Searching in vain, methinks.

But the race on the left will be lively. It’ll be interesting to see how Pearson will fare in fundraising — I suspect he’ll do quite well. He’ll certainly have better name recognition than the Democratic non-incumbents.

And should he win, there is the potential for a real shift in Senatorial power.

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Is there a fight brewing over the Enterprise Fund?

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Earlier today, VTDigger broke the news that the state Emergency Board (four top lawmakers plus the Governor) had met on very (VERY) short notice to approve two state grants from the Enterprise Fund: $1 million to GlobalFoundries and $200,000 to BHS Composites. And I commented that this is the kind of thing that makes some see the Governor as a slippery dealmaker.

Well, here’s something you didn’t know. TheVPO has learned, as they say, that 50 state lawmakers wrote a letter to the Emergency Board asking it to postpone action on the grants.

The plea fell mostly on deaf ears, as the Board approved the grant on a 3-1 vote.

One of the letter’s signatories was Rep. Chris Pearson (P-Burlington). Via email, he explained the reasoning:

It was my hope that we could consider using the money to help fill the [FY 2017] budget gap or, more urgently, the [FY 2016] budget adjustment challenge.

The letter was written before the EB’s agenda had been publicly warned — which happened only yesterday afternoon. Pearson adds:

Now that it’s clear the money was for Global Foundries it’s puzzling how a company that was given $1.4 billion to take over the plant could find $1 million much of a game changer.

You and me both, but more on that in a moment. First, the political ramifications of this letter.

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A child’s treasury of thoughts about David Zuckerman

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Hey Dave, I went to the Burlington Winter Market on Saturday. Bought some of your fine veggies, but you weren’t there. Presumably spending a happy Saturday at the Senate Dems’ Convocation of Cowards. Maybe next time.

Anyway, organic farmer and state senator Dave Zuckerman is now a candidate for Lieutenant Governor, running in the Democratic primary and seeking the Progressive nomination as well. I didn’t attend his kickoff event last Thursday; but here are a few thoughts on Zuckerman and the Lite-Gov race.

— The most interesting participant in Thursday’s festivities, per media reports, was Senate Minority Leader Phil Baruth, who gave a hearty endorsement — “come hell or high water” — of the Prog/Dem Zuckerman. This was a big surprise to me; given the level of Dem>Prog antipathy up Burlington way, I assumed that area Democrats would stand behind Kesha Ram. Without regard to quality; just on the basis of not wanting to help a Progressive win.

Baruth’s stated reasoning boiled down to “I trust him,” a phrase he repeated at least three times. So, he doesn’t trust Kesha Ram?

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The Progressives are kinda screwed

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Whiter the Progressive Party? I don’t know; there isn’t a clear path forward, and obstacles litter the landscape. They’ve gained strength in the legislature, mainly by running candidates on the P/D or D/P tickets; but they’ve just about reached the limits of that tactic, and may have hit a glass ceiling.

The Progs are anxious to make a splash in 2016, having sat out the last three gubernatorial elections in order to give Peter Shumlin a better shot at creating a single-payer health care system, hahaha. His abandonment of that goal, barely a month after his third re-election victory, plus the Dems’ habit of triangulating to the center on a host of issues, has left the Progs in a bitter mood. They’re itchin’ for a fight, and would especially like to field a credible candidate for governor.

That’s looking increasingly unrealistic. For starters, nobody seems to want to run.

This is an unintended side-effect of the Prog/Dem strategy, which has put several Progs in positions of legislative influence. Examples: Tim Ashe chairs the Senate Finance Committee; Anthony Pollina has a bully pulpit in the Senate; organic farmer David Zuckerman is vice chair of the Senate Agriculture Committee; and Chris Pearson is vice chair of the House Health Care Committee. One could argue that the Progs have been granted more influence than their sheer numbers would warrant. Or, in the words of Lyndon Johnson, the Democrats saw it’s better to have the Progs inside the tent pissing out, than outside the tent pissing in.

And indeed, it’d be hard to give up that level of influence to make a long-odds, short-funded bid for higher office.

Compounding the difficulty is that any high-profile Progressive would likely depend on public financing. That was a difficult enough pursuit in previous years (just ask Dean Corren or John Bauer). Now, it seems to have become completely untenable.

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Voter registration: I want this too

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So in addition to advocating restoration of the full Voting Rights Act and calling for at least 20 days of early voting nationwide, Hillary Clinton also called for automatic voter registration for every citizen.

Yes, please. I want this too.

Until reading about her speech, I’d forgotten that I wrote about this very issue in mid-March, when Oregon’s governor signed a universal-registration bill into law.

As you may recall, a universal registration measure (H.458) was introduced in Vermont this year by Rep. Chris Pearson.

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Missed it by that much

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Anne Donahue had a clever plan.

Notice I say “clever,” not “smart.” The Donahue amendment was a last-ditch attempt to derail H.98, the bill that would end the philosophical exemption for childhood vaccinations.

The amendment would have combined the philosophical and religious exemptions, and put more obstacles in the way of those seeking an exemption: reading educational materials, watching a video, having an in-person consultation with a health care practitioner. Donahue argued that these obstacles would achieve the goal of raising immunization rates without sacrificing parental choice.

It was clever because it played on lawmakers’ fears of taking a definitive stand, fears that are always amplified when there’s a loud and focused opposition.

It wasn’t smart because it would have done nothing to raise immunization rates.

I can say that with confidence because if the House had adopted the amendment, it would have been at odds with the Senate. With the Legislature careening toward adjournment and many pressing issues still unresolved, it’s a virtual certainty that H.98 would have been quietly shelved.

Of course, Donahue had to know that.

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Glass half full, glass half empty

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There are two ways of looking at the 2015 legislative session so far. Well, two if you’re on the left-of-center side of the political equation. The right, I suppose, is probably in full Ted Cruz “The World Is On Fire” mode.

You can look at it like Progressive Rep. Chris Pearson during last week’s House budget debate, lamenting big cuts to human services: “There have been program cuts every year since I joined the legislature in 2006.”

The glass is half empty. If you’re a liberal or progressive Vermonter, it seems like we’ve been in constant retreat since Peter Shumlin took office. And it got worse after the November election, with conventional wisdom telling us that Republican gains were due to Democratic overreach, the governor abandoning single-payer health care, and Democrats scurrying to the center.

Then there’s the glass-half-full approach. House Ways and Means Committee chair Janet Ancel noted that this year’s tax bill represented the biggest one-year revenue increase in all her years on the committee. And Health Care Committee chair BIll Lippert had this phlegmatic reaction to the rapid diminution of the health care reform bill:

We knew when we put that together it was robust. That was our job, to articulate priorities and how to get there. But I think in the context of the $35 million that was raised on the floor [in the tax bill], and $8 million for the lake [Champlain], if we were so fortunate as to have $20 million for health care, that’s a pretty big appetite for raising revenue in one year. So I would be pleased to have that much dedicated to health care in a year that’s as financially difficult as this.

And, the unspoken corollary: “I won’t be surprised if we get less than $20 million.”

Which leads back to my previous post, “Peter Shumlin: Defender of Liberalism.” If the House is stripping most or all the funding from health care initiatives, we’ll have to depend on the Governor’s political muscle — if he still has any — to get it back.

Anyway, which way do you see it: glass half full or glass half empty?

The current situation has echoes throughout the five-plus-year tenure of Gov. Shumlin. He’s delivered some good stuff, more than many liberals are willing to admit, while keeping the ship afloat in tough budgetary times. Plus, he’s been swimming against three powerful tides: a sluggish recovery which has yet to benefit the middle or working classes, a tax system that has failed to keep up with our changing economy, and the effort to fully fund public-sector pension plans that were revenue-starved by previous administrations. (Lookin’ at you, Tom Pelham.)

On the other hand, many of Shumlin’s promises have been curtailed or abandoned — most notably single payer health care, the issue that arguably won him the 2010 Democratic primary and hence the governorship. Plus, liberal expectations were inflated, fairly or not, possibly both, by the size of the Democratic majority. Shumlin and legislative Democrats never seemed to realize how much political capital they had; and now, much of it is gone, unspent.

And on the other other hand, it’s not as if the last five years have been without accomplishment. And it’s not as if this legislative session will be a failure if we don’t get significant movement on health care reform.

It’ll just kinda feel like one.

A simple way to broaden voter participation — Updated

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(Note: See update below. Secretary of State Jim Condos supports the legislation but notes that some software issues need to be resolved first.)

We in America have some weird attitudes toward voting. It’s fundamental to our democracy, universally cherished as a touchstone of our putative exceptionalism. However…

— Voting is not a Constitutional right, as it clearly should be.

— We lag badly behind most other democracies in voter turnout.

— We seem to be more worried about keeping “the wrong people” from voting than about removing barriers to participation.

— When push comes to shove, we put a higher value on tradition than on access.

A lot of this is the Republican fear that they’d lose ground if more people voted. (And they value winning more than access.) But disdain for our body politic isn’t a conservative monopoly, and removing barriers to voting just isn’t a compelling issue for some reason, even after blatant offenses like the 2000 Presidential election and long lines at urban polling places.

You might think that Vermont would be leading the way on voter access, as it does on many other causes. But no; the state of Oregon is way out in front. Seventeen years ago, Oregon became the first state to hold all its elections with mail-in ballots. And now, it’s become the first state to implement automatic voter registration. 

Under the legislation, every adult citizen in Oregon who has interacted with the Driver and Motor Vehicle Services Division since 2013 but hasn’t registered to vote will receive a ballot in the mail at least 20 days before the next statewide election. The measure is expected to add about 300,000 new voters to the rolls.

That’s nice.

Would it surprise you to know that a similar measure is pending before the Vermont Legislature — but is likely to die in committee without a whimper?

House Bill 458 would establish automatic voter registration through driver’s license applications. It was introduced by Rep. Chris Pearson (P-Socialist Hotbed).

And then?………

Oddly, It was referred to the House Transportation Committee. I realize it touches on the Department of Motor Vehicles, but as a question of policy and law it’s clearly in the purview of Government Operations. Shuffling it off to Transportation seems, at best, a careless thing to do, and at worst, a way to send it to legislative Siberia. Does that sound harsh? Overly conspiratorial? Well, ask the man.

No further action is scheduled. Of course, we’re already past the crossover point for non-fiscal legislation, so it couldn’t be adopted until 2016 in any case. But is there reason to expect action next time around? If so, great. If not, why not?

Can anyone offer a convincing reason to oppose H.458? I haven’t heard one yet.

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UPDATE. Secretary of State Jim Condos posted a comment to my original post, noting that he supports the idea of automatic registration (as well as same-day registration), but something needs to be cleared up first. From ThinkProgress: 

Condos said he’s currently working with Vermont’s [Department of Motor Vehicles] on upgrading their technology so that such a policy might be possible in the future, which he said would “benefit democracy in general as it will, most likely, increase voter turnout.”

If DMV software was the motivation for shunting H.458 to the Transportation Committee, the move makes a lot more sense. I take Condos’ conditional endorsement as a very positive sign, and hope the software issues can be cleared up and the bill can advance in the next session. Of course, with software, you never know.

Dean Corren puts the pedal to the metal

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The Secretary of State’s office has been blizzarded by Mass Media spending reports from the Dean Corren campaign in the past eight days, representing a strong home-stretch advertising blitz for Phil Scott’s challenger.

Since October 20, Corren has reported spending a total of $60,961, with almost two-thirds of the money going to TV advertising. Going into the campaign, Corren had a fixed budget of $200,000 because once he opted for public financing, he couldn’t take any further donations.

The rundown:

  • $38,980 for TV (broadcast and cable)
  • $8,095 for radio
  • $5,387 for newspapers
  • $4,000 for campaign consultancy by State Rep. Chris Pearson’s firm
  • $2,385 for graphic design work
  • $1,542 for online advertising
  • $572 for printing (The campaign had done a lot more printing earlier in the season.)

All in all, it’s a nice healthy push. Earlier, I’d wondered if Corren was hoarding his money too long. Now, I think he was right to keep his powder dry until the campaign’s closing days. Most voters don’t pay much attention until right before the election. Except for those who don’t pay any attention at all.

Also, the recent TV ads have good production values and strong messaging. I don’t know that it’s enough to knock off Phil Scott, but full credit to the Corren team for a sound strategy.

Profiles in Courage, Lieutenant Governor Edition

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Fresh in from the Twitterverse:

Hmm.

To make this even worse, the debate is in Barre. Not like he had a long way to go. In the words of fellow Tweeter Shay Totten, “I always thought Phil was a fast driver.”

I guess he can drive slow when given the proper motivation. LIke a capable challenger waiting to engage him on the issues.