Dubie’s spotty attendance record was an issue in past elections,along with his reluctance to debate. As he geared up this past year for his run for the big office you might think he would have made a better effort to show up and set this issue aside.Tune up his image.
However an AP article today explores his recent legislative attendance record: Vermont senators wondered in 2010: Where's Dubie? and shows otherwise.
The first duty listed for Lt.Gov. under the Vermont constitution is presiding over the Senate .The record show him absent for the first fall of the gavel one third of the days the Senate met this year.
Dubie actually missed the opening gavel on 25 of the 60 days the Senate met, according to the daily Senate Journals for the 2010 session. But five of those instances overlapped with times Gov. Jim Douglas was out of state, according to Douglas travel records obtained by the AP on a public records request. The state Constitution bars a lieutenant governor from presiding over the Senate when acting as governor.
Dubie also said he had a deployment as a colonel in the Air Force Reserve earlier this year. His campaign later acknowledged that the deployment came during the Legislature's Town Meeting break, and didn't interfere with his Senate service.
Opinions naturally differ about how much Dubie’s absences actually made. However as senate president pro tempore Peter Shumlin had to do fill in for him at the podium during these periods and could not participate in debates.
This is telling about his priorities ,though he says he’s proud of his one third absence record and says, Senate work is something
“I take pretty seriously.”
Serious by degree? It appears he must take his job as airline pilot and reserve officer seriously and his Lt.Gov position only pretty seriously in terms of being there.
It didn’t go un noticed among legislators of both parties
… legislative aides and one of Dubie's fellow Republicans, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he did not want to be seen criticizing the nominee of his party. “It was definitely a topic of conversation,” the Republican senator said.
How “seriously” would he take the job of governor?
What a clown. He can’t even truthfully explain why he was not around to do his job? Did Douglas strip away his pay for being MIA all that time? What were we paying this guy to do? If a state worker missed as much time as Doobage, they would be investigated and maybe fired. Good for this Gram guy for letting people know about this.