Legislative Lessons

The legislative summary written by John McClaughry on this page is useful, especially if one keeps in mind that McClaughry is a veteran commentator who serves from the conservative side of the plate. Being generally more conservative than Republican Gov. Jim Douglas, so that he is not afraid to be critical of both Douglas and the Democratic legislature.

McClaughry paints the two year session as a string of defeats, both important and trivial, for Democratic proposals. Those mostly liberal "dreams," he writes, "died in the legislature they controlled." Indeed it is simply remarkable how frequently the Democrats in the legislature were frustrated and sent into disarray by the governor and his team. It was an amazing process to watch, just as a matter of politics, if nothing else.

Those looking forward to the 2008 elections, of course, can take away two lessons from all this. Those who agree with McClaughry can thank their lucky stars that Douglas had the political skills and popular appeal to curb multiple Democratic initiatives that were expensive and sometimes downright quirky (a tax on plastic bags?). They will turn out again for Douglas and will redouble their efforts to end the lopsided Democratic domination in the legislature.

Those of the opposite persuasion can conclude, from the same evidence, that it’s high time to remove a governor who has been a roadblock to progress on any number of issues, sometimes blocking them altogether and sometimes whittling and whittling away until the bills that passed turn out to be only shadows of their early selves. This is certainly the message that outgoing House Speaker Gaye Symington will bring to the hustings this fall, and indications are she’ll sweep up a lot of other Democratic legislators in a bid for pay-back for these two frustrating years.

McClaughry hints also, though, at difficulties she’ll face. The Speaker appeared to waffle on the "think twice" change to school financing—accommodating Gov. Douglas last year and changing her mind this year (at the behest of the teachers’ union?) while causing a rupture with Senate leader Peter Shumlin on the issue. By not providing for a legislative veto session in the face of certain Douglas vetos, she permitted the Democratic agenda to fizzle out in a rather undignified way.

Douglas lost his usually sure footing once or twice, too. In a year of many bad proposals, it was Douglas who came up with the worst of them—the idea of selling the state’s lottery to a private firm. That ranks right up there with Shumlin’s worst idea of the previous year—requiring Vermont Yankee to pay single-handedly for an ambitious new program of energy-retrofitting old houses.

At the end of his column, McClaughry uncharacteristically compliments legislative Democrats for voluntarily scaling back their own proposals this year, in the face of falling revenues.

Vermont over the last biennium has endured about the most severe case of political bi-polar disorder we’ve ever seen; and in truth it’s amazing that anything got done at all. But Douglas and the legislature, despite their loud public differences, have usually demonstrated the discipline to work quietly to pass budgets and provide Vermont with a generally competent government.