The Vermont Legislature has put on an… odd… display to say the least. They’ve set up a dynamic not unlike the one I faced in my High School biology class. At the beginning of the year the students were all told if our grades were higher on the standardized test at the end of the school year than they otherwise would’ve been, that the higher grade would go on the report card for the class. Naturally, after hearing that, I did nothing for the whole year and studied like hell in the last week to walk away with a B for the year, based only on my test performance.
The Vermont legislature has all its eggs in this final week’s basket as well. A good performance on the budget, the education issue and the energy bill will, if not leave them with a stellar grade, at least have the potential to shed them of the “do nothing” label that swings over them like a guillotine and leave them with a passing grade, if barely.
Even if these final bills go really, really well, lefties are bound to be left with a bad taste in their mouths. The impeachment issue (and more significantly the colossol blundering of the handling of the issue, even going back into the last session), the astounding failure of courage on the death with dignity bill, the snail’s pace of the IRV bill; all these things leave the Democratic base feeling taken for granted and disrespected. Rep. Michael Fisher’s victory on the Iraq resolution was the exception to this paradigm, but in retrospect, given the lack of formal support from the caucus and the now well-known clawing and scratching Fisher had to engage in to get his day on the floor (including his agreement to refrain from sponsoring the Impeachment bill, which he had done last session – although he did vote for it, of course), even this victory feels hollow and tokenistic; as if it was supposed to serve as the one and only bone thrown to the left in order to placate us on every other policy issue. And nothing would be more patronizing, if that is the case.
So there’s still a lot of anger and frustration. The dismissals have all felt rather patronizing, and as such, easily personalized. And cracks are showing in the Dem caucus as well. Among Democrats, Symington was in a clear minority on impeachment – even her own leadership team voted for the measure. In the Senate, members of the Dem caucus look to be in open rebellion against Shumlin’s impulsive, unpredictable style.
The point is that nobody is feeling too thrilled about things. And as difficult as it may be for those of us feeling particularly burned to admit, we all do share one very important thing in common:
It is in all of our best interests for this Democratic supermajority to be effective and successful.
How to make that happen and pull it out in a big way for the next biennium is going to be challenging. On the leadership side, Symington and Shumlin are both going to have to lose their respective manifestations of their unfortunate lack of respect for their base. Shumlin needs to learn he can’t simply shine us on, while Symington needs to accept the fact that adults do not like to be chastised and dismissed like children. Obviously there is more that unites the leadership and the base than divides them, but you wouldn’t necessarily know that from the last few months.
And the fact is that, as leaders, S & S bear extra responsibility for making this relationship work. Sure there are screamers on the left who simply want to tear down and have no interest in cooperation, but by refusing to lead with respect for their base, the caucus leaders inadvertently create a leader/power vacuum – and nature abhors a vacuum.
The uneven power dynamic may be about to shift a bit though, with the primary date likely to be moved back into August. This will create a new dynamic on the ground, whereby there will be enough time between the primary and the general elections for the winner of a contested party nomination to have time to make a proper go of it against a Republican challenger. This may well embolden many in the grassroots to consider primary challenges against Dem incumbents who are too conservative for their districts. If such a scenario starts to play out in several districts and is apparent early enough in the year, liberal Democrats will be in a much better position to make demands in the Legislature collectively and individually, as a good third of the Democratic caucus are fairly conservative, and a good half again of them are perhaps more conservative than many in their home districts.
My own pollyanna-esque feeling is that next biennium will have to be better. Last session, the Legislature spun its wheels a bit in the first biennium as well. Still, its reassuring to know that one of the final actions of this biennium may be to make the power of the ballot box that much more effective for next year.