Donnybrook Ahead?

Skillful leadership in Montpelier will be needed to keep the 2007 legislative session from becoming a partisan donnybrook.

Gov. Jim Douglas will have to do better than his initial determination, as reported Wednesday, to rerun his proposals on civil commitment and school spending caps.

He ought to scrap civil commitments altogether. The idea of keeping people in jail after their terms have expired is legally repugnant and appears to be an appeal to an O'Reilly-esque "base" which doesn't exist in Vermont. The question of school spending might more profitably be put to a study group of both Republicans and Democrats, as suggested by the Rutland Herald some weeks ago.

If he's going to gain any traction with this overwhelmingly Democratic legislature, Douglas is going to have to craft some new proposals that he can build consensus for.

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House Speaker Gaye Symington will have to keep a hard hold on the reins to keep her enthusiastic majority in check.

A tip-off as to whether she can do so will be whether representatives can force the leadership to re-visit the health care legislation, including the Catamount Plan, that was hammered out over the last two years and which both Symington and Douglas called an innovative and important achievement. To start up this fight all over again is the single most destructive tactic the Democratic majority could take, and yet there is a lot of itching in the trenches for a new health care fight. With a technically veto-proof majority, those in favor of a full-fledged single payer system may think that now's the chance.

The Democrats and Progressives elected in the Herald's readership area certainly feel that way. Asked in a survey whether they thought the Catamount legislation should be strengthened, all of them said yes.

"Catamount doesn't come close to doing enough," said Susan Hatch Davis of Washington.

"Catamount only adds to the patchwork of coverage," said Sandy Haas of Rochester. "The state needs to move to a single payer plan."

Catamount is "only a small first step," said Jim Hutchinson of Randolph.

"Only a modest first step," assessed Patsy French. "I would like to see Vermont keep moving."

A single-payer system ought to be the goal this session, said newly-elected Mark Mitchell of Barnard.

In Windsor-Orange 2, both Jim Masland and Margaret Cheney said that "universal coverage" should be the goal, though Cheney at least said that the first focus should be on implementing this year's legislation.

It would be very surprising if Speaker Symington wants a repeat of last year's bruising health care battle, but it's not certain she can control the situation within her own caucus.

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In the Senate, the election of Peter Shumlin as president pro tem, replacing the consensus-seeking Peter Welch, indicates the Democrats there are also spoiling for a fight with the Republican governor. In electing Shumlin over John Campbell, senators knew they were choosing a more confrontational style of leadership, and Shumlin's first public words confirmed that. He was rebuked by a couple of editorial pages, but he has the support of his troops.