Consider the list in the Sunday Times Argus/Rutland Herald of the “winners” and “losers” of the now-wrapped legislative session. The winners include Healthcare, Groundwater, Emergency Contraception, the Abenaki. In many ways making for an impressive biennium. Consider the complaints from the latest Legislative Update of the VT Chamber of Commerce — an often reflexively obstructionist crowd that serves as a useful reverse barometer:
This past legislative session was characterized by an activist legislature that frequently looked to expand government on the backs of businesses. Cost cutting, fiscal restraint, or a thought to the impact of legislation on job providers rarely seemed to be a part of the natural discussion. In the next six months, the Vermont Chamber will work to bring a voice of moderation to the legislature on election day.
So, with all due kudos to the Legislature, my eye turned towards the Argus/Herald “losers” list (being the chronic glass is half empty sort that I am). Three in particular caught my eye, and led me to an idea:
Instant runoff voting: A study into possibly establishing instant runoff voting in Vermont passed, but actually implementing the method by which voters could choose their leaders by ranking candidates was put off.
Same-day voter registration: Maybe residents will be able to register to vote and complete a ballot at the same time someday, but it won’t be this year, lawmakers said.
Presidential impeachment: Despite a loud and politically charged effort on the parts of Democrats, Progressives and the Green Party, a measure that would have called on the Legislature to urge the House to begin an impeachment investigation against President Bush was sent to its death in the House Judiciary Committee.
There are more for the list, for example the resolution that called for a study of how overseas deployments affect the troops and the ability of the Vermont Guard to respond to emergencies. What you see in these bills are some real (small ‘p’ — let’s just stipulate that small ‘p’ for the rest of this piece, eh?) progressive priorities, which were allowed to fall by the wayside or be squashed — often so as not to ruffle feathers. It’s a bitter pill to swallow for progressives (of both the D and P variety), especially since the showcase accomplishment of the session is a severly watered-down health care law — watered down so much that legislators such as Representatives Fisher, Sharpe and Zuckerman couldn’t even bring themselves to support it.
It’s a familiar and frustrating dynamic. Progressive social change has always entailed “ruffling feathers.” A committment then not to ruffle feathers suggests, therefore, a committment to refrain from progressive social change. Clearly that’s not how many in leadership perceive it themselves, but it’s an inevitable dynamic.
And there will always be reasons to wait one more year. Usually it’s either “we have to be careful to maintain our majority” or “we have to be careful in order to regain our majority.” Clearly leaders are right to be cautious — as we know, elections can turn the power structure rather dramatically. But on the other hand, we must all be vigilant against giving into the rhetoric or the habit of political inertia.
So, to that end, the strongest advice I would make to frustrated progressive legislators is one word: organize. Although there are informal working groups around specific issues as well as a women’s caucus, generally there is no corollary under the Golden Dome to the kind of formalized caucuses of interest that you see in Washington DC. In Washington, by speaking with one voice, the House Progressive Caucus has found that speaking as a bloc, they can often be greater than the sum of their parts (post-2000 elections — where virtually no Democrat or Democratic group has had a say in anything — notwithstanding). A Vermont (p)rogressive Caucus could similarly speak as one voice on important or emblematic progressive issues that come before the Legislature and be in a position of collective power to keep them on the table when they become politically inconvenient.
As small as our Legislature is, it wouldn’t take very many legislators to create an effective force. The obvious list may be the list of co-signers on the very Impeachment motion that was cast into the judicial committee abyss.
In fact, if these particular legislators were to coalesce into such a caucus, the institutional bond between the two parties represented (Democratic and Progressive) that it would forge could only enhance the overall influence of the now-fractured left in Vermont beyond simply the legislative session itself.
Something to think about, anyway.
