Daily Archives: March 4, 2009

Healthcare is a Human Right!

Healthcare is a major issue in our communities, but we believe that if Vermonters work together we can change the system and the way we think about the issue.

The Workers’ Center has been organizing for months, trying to change what is politically possible in Vermont and declare “Healthcare is a Human Right.”  We have held well-attended hearings all over Vermont, where  folks have shared their horror stories about a system that so leaves so many people behind.

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We hope the campaign will reach a new high point on May 1, outside the State House, when we hold our “call in sick rally” in Montpelier.

The Workers’ Center is asking as many people as possible to sign up to get 10 signatures on a petition that says “I’ll Be There on May 1st” for Healthcare is a Human Right.”

For more information please visit: http://workerscenter.org/node/37

Markowitz Under Way…

( – promoted by odum)

…using the Obama listserv to scout out supporters.

This was an email sent out by Jason Powell to UVM Students for Obama & Vermonters for Obama:

——————–

Hello UVM for Obama!

Some of you may remember me from the campaign, my name is Jason Powell and I’m contacting you with what I personally think is some exciting news: A great Democrat for Governor in Vermont in 2010 – Secretary of State Deb Markowitz www.debforvermont.com.

For over 10 years as Secretary of State, Deb has been running her office with a sense of accountability and responsibility that has served Vermont well (and reminds me a bit of the way our President operates). This is just part of the reason why I’m proudly supporting her, and helping to organize her exploratory campaign for Governor.

We all helped accomplish a tremendous national victory this past November. However, there is still much to accomplish at the state and local level here in Vermont. Please take a minute to visit Deb’s website at www.debforvermont.com, learn a little about who she is (if you don’t know already!), and sign-up to be a part of this growing organization. As we all saw in 2008, change begins at the local level – so let’s get started now!

Oh, and one more thing – you can email Deb directly with advice or support through her website, or at debmarkowitz@gmail.com

Thanks for your time. I hope we can work together again.

Best,

Jason Powell

———————————–

While it excites me to see Democrats organizing early, using other candidates listserv’s for your own work has always bothered me.  But maybe that’s just a pet peeve of mine.

ECFiber in the Wall Street Journal

The Vermont towns, which have a combined population of roughly 55,000, decided to build their own network after failing to convince local phone and cable companies to extend the reach of their services. They partnered with ValleyNet Inc., a local nonprofit group, which in turn hired Mr. Nulty to manage the project. Mr. Nulty, who has done stints at the World Bank and in venture capital and served as chief economist for the Senate Commerce Committee in the late 1970s, has a track record in municipal telecom, having set up a high-speed network for the city of Burlington that went live in 2006.

(The Broadband Hot Potato, Wall Street Journal, 03/04/09)

Overall it seems to be a good article, but I suspect it’s only because the WSJ believes this to be a failing project … I’ll still place my bets on a successful outcome.

VPIRG is wrong about nuclear power

Has anyone on the VPIRG staff passed a semester course in nuclear reactor design as I did in 1957, at Columbia University, operated or directed the operation of a reactor, held uranium in their hands, performed work in a radiation field, or know how to design shielding for radiation? Who amongst you has book above your desk from which you can calculate the decay of fission products? Who amongst you would believe a physics textbook?

I am a “cowboy.” That is a term in the nuclear power industry that refers to those of us that pioneered reactors. I assembled my first nuclear reactor within one year of graduating from Columbia University in 1957. Jim Day, another engineer, and I were handed the drawings and informed that we had been selected to put the S3G reactor together. That reactor was a new design by the Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory of General Electric. The design had never before been assembled. We had to write the assembly procedures. Admiral Rickover interviewed me, standing on top of the reactor, while I supervised the insertion of a fuel assembly. The reactor vessel was not sealed and had been filled with water. Its reactivity was increasing while the fuel was lowered. I was able to calm the nervousness of some workers by being able to talk to Dr. Luce, the reactor core design physicist who was plotting the inverse of neutron multiplication in the core as it assembled. I understood the chart and could say that it was safe. That reactor ran until the early 1990s.

I repeated that assembly three times while assembling the two S4G reactors in the USS Triton, non-instrumented versions of the prototype S3G, including the disassembly and reassembly of one of the reactors. After assembling the two reactors, I directed one shift of the first simultaneous operation of two reactors, in a wooden shack over top of the reactors. The testing ended with switching off the cooling for each reactor at full power.

Following that work, in 1959, I was assigned responsibility for coordinating nuclear work in the shipyard of Electric Boat.

My first task was assembly of the reactor in the USS George Washington, the first vessel that could fire ballistic missiles from underwater. By pre-assembling the S5W reactor head and the control drive mechanisms in a clean room prior to loading the fuel and assembling the reactor, I reduced the time to assemble the reactor from six to two weeks and delivery of the ship by the same four weeks and reduced the reactor assembly cost by fifty percent. Estimated savings to the taxpayers was 19,879 man-hours for each ship of that class, including shift and overtime premiums but not overhead. The last time I read the procedures I had written for the S5W reactor assembly, they were a chapter in a NavShips Manual. Following that assembly, I taught the technique to representatives of the Navy’s Bureau of Ships and the Portsmouth Naval, Newport News, Pascagoula and Mare Island shipyards. This technique was used to assemble all ships of that class of vessels, and then some.

I assembled the USS George Washington reactor and reactors like that one in the USS Patrick Henry and the USS Scorpion and an S1C reactor in the USS Tullibee in a twelve-month span of time. During one of those assemblies, I trained the lead Rolls Royce engineer for the assembly of the reactor in HMS Dreadnaught, England’s first nuclear submarine. Later after I had been senior engineer for the refueling of the USS Skate, an S4W reactor, I taught a course to representatives of the English Admiralty, Vickers-Armstrong and Rolls Royce in refueling techniques. All told, I had on the job, hands-on, de facto custody of nine reactor cores.

Westinghouse contracted my services from Electric Boat to engineer the disassembly of a steam generator from the S1W reactor at the National Reactor Testing Station, west of Idaho Falls. That reactor was the first reactor built to produce power. After spending three days, plotting the radiation levels surrounding the generator to determine where it could be approached, a lead bonder, from A.O. Smith, and I draped it with three and one half tons of lead. It was then moved to an Expended Core Facility and taken apart. No worker received more than the allowed 300 mrem of radiation while disassembling with the exception of one grinder for whom permission was received for twice the allowed weekly exposure, which he received in a little over two minutes. Eight roentgen fields were measured at the face of the inlet tube sheet. I designed the shielding to reduce the radiation to acceptable working levels. While in Idaho, I assisted in the replacement of a fuel cell in the S1W reactor.

Background radiation at the Idaho site measured as high a five milli-roentgens from atmospheric bomb testing in Nevada and the testing of a proposed nuclear airplane engine at a site to the north of where I worked. Sorry about the use of the term roentgen but I am old school. There are a myriad of other tasks I performed involving radiation, contamination, decontamination and the handling of spent and unspent reactor fuel.

Three of the reactors of submarines in the shipyard during the time that I worked there are permanently disappearing into the mud on the bottom of the ocean. Two were the results of accidents and one, without any fuel, was disposed there. To date, neither the U.S. Navy personnel nor independent researchers have reported any release of the contents or other harm to the environment. The U.S. military does lots of things that they do not talk about. I do not know whether independent researchers have investigated the sites or the results if they have. I left the industry in 1969.

Mud is self-encapsulating waste. There is a vast, deep amount on the bottoms of the oceans; far from human inhabited places. As time goes on, the mud deepens until the rock on which it sets sub ducts under a continent. What’s in the mud is sealed from most living things for geological lengths of time. Only a means of inserting our worst wastes is needed.

About 1964, Westinghouse General Electric and Combustion Engineering Corporations were initiating efforts to market the nuclear experience they had obtained from submarine propulsion to the electric utility industry. I concluded that the turnkey style of contracting and subcontracting was not the way to build nuclear reactors because authority and responsibility are too widely distributed. My experience was that very tight organization was the most efficient, responsible and safe way to construct and operate nuclear power plants. That belief has not changed.

Do not conclude, from what is written above, that I had no realization of the danger of that with which I was working. World War II was my childhood. I remember exactly where I was when it was announced that Pearl Harbor was attacked and when Hiroshima was destroyed. I grew up with buckets of sand in every room of my home with which to extinguish incendiary bombs. War over energy supplies is a greater risk than nuclear power. I once stood in a 20 x 20 foot square room in which all of the fuel for a reactor was in racks on the four walls. It was awesome to consider the energy that surrounded me.

I have not turned green. I do not glow in the dark. I am not covered with tumors. I have been contaminated and irradiated. Alcohol and cigarettes have done me more harm than the radiations and contaminations with which I have worked. Work in a chemical plant was more dangerous. At seventy-six, my health is good.

Skiing, chainsaws, wood burning stoves, horses, automobiles, steam power plants, typhoons, earthquakes, meteors and the sun have all killed more people and, most likely, will continue to do so, than nuclear power generation. It is interesting that there is no amount of radiation that is not harmful and, simultaneously, no way to escape this environmental phenomenon. It is naturally in the air, the food, the water and the soil that we breathe, eat, drink and walk on.

It my belief that as a society, we will need every possible source of energy if we are to maintain a lesser style of life than that of today as our numbers as a species increase. One of the ways to reduce our dependence upon centralized power stations is to make every residence and business as self-sufficient with respect to its energy needs, as is possible.

To accomplish this, a self-financing energy authority, a public utility, is needed in Vermont, similar to the New York Throughway Authority. I realize that statement is capitalist heresy. However, I can think of no other way to create the unified command structure to organize the energy future of the Vermont. Private enterprise is too self-serving to perform such a public task at reasonable cost. Vermont can efficiently wire its energy on its own without the middlemen of corporations.

Let me develop this concept. The State of Vermont would own alternate energy sources built to make each residence slightly more than energy sufficient, individually or as close as reasonable, if collectively. The State would purchase excess power produced from the owner of a property, charge the owner for any excess consumed and charge both the owner and ultimate consumers a fee for the amount of power transacted. A small amount of seed money could initiate financial expansion to all of Vermont.

Distributed generation would provide a more reliable, robust power grid throughout the State and reduce the need for large generation facilities, such as Hydro-Quebec and nuclear reactors. Failure, down time for maintenance or disaster would cripple such a network less than current generation and distribution.

The commission should be chartered to make Vermont energy independent. To do that, it should be empowered to finance it operations by levying charges on the purchase and sale of energy, to purchase sources of energy within Vermont and to create new sources of energy. Private enterprises will always fulfill the financial objectives of their management and owners before those of the public. They will shortchange the public for the cost of nuclear decommissioning responsibilities. Maintenance has priority over something out of service.

That does not mean nuclear power should be abandoned. There is no safe energy. The more concentrated energy is the more dangerous it is. It is irrelevant whether it is a horse, a racecar or a power plant.

Vermont should build a second, identical nuclear plant alongside the existing Vermont Yankee. The design is proved. It can be operated safely. The plant should be as identical to the existing plant as is possible to make use of the existing site, design, spare parts, trained operators, licenses, installed supporting facilities, etc. Sales of its power can finance the decommissioning of the current plant. Vermont should not renew the license for the Vernon nuclear power plant to anyone but itself.

VPIRG is wrong about nuclear power. I’ve been there and done that. It can be safer for the environment than combustion even if its power is used only to power the making of other more environmentally better sources of energy.

Keep up your good work. Knowledgeable, skeptical criticism is essential. Criticism driven by fear has no rational value. The key to survival is to never stop asking questions.

BREAKING: US Supreme Court Rules Against Drug Manufacturer in Vermont Case

The original story is here.  The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in favor of Vermont resident Diana Levine in Wyeth v. Levine, Dkt. 06-1249 (3/4/09).  Levine had won her case in Vermont, but drug company Wyeth had appealed the almost $7 million award all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Levine, a musician, had her arm amputated when an anti-nausea drug was improperly administered in her artery, and sued the manufacturer for failing to warn of the risks on the drug’s label. Wyeth claimed that her case was pre-empted by federal law.

Senator Patrick Leahy filed a “friend-of-the-court” brief to a Vermonter Diana Levine’s U.S. Supreme Court case.  Leahy was joined in his “amicus” legal brief, which was filed in August 2008, by 17 members of Congress, including Vermont Senator Bernard Sanders and Vermont Congressman Peter Welch and Senators Edward M. Kennedy, Sheldon Whitehouse, Tom Harkin, Dianne Feinstein, Richard J. Durbin, and Russell D. Feingold, and Representatives Henry A. Waxman, John Conyers, Jr., John D. Dingell,

Frank Pallone, Jr., Bart Stupak, Zoe Lofgren, Linda Sanchez, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, and Maxine Waters.

When an outside party that believes the court’s decision in a specific case may affect its interests files an amicus brief.  Senator Leahy has filed just 10 such briefs in more than 30 years in Congress.  In this case, Wyeth and the Bush administration sought to ascribe to Congress an unfounded intent to displace state tort law.

This nightmare for Diana Levine began in 2000 when she was treated in a Vermont hospital for symptoms associated with migraine headaches.  She was injected with Phenergan, which has been manufactured by Wyeth for almost 50 years and has been used to treat nausea linked to migraine headaches, reactions to pain killers, food poisoning, and a variety of other incidents that cause extensive vomiting.  The drug was injected into Levine’s arm in a manner that caused arterial contact called an IV push.  While there are drugs which are normally administered in this manner in an emergency situation, Wyeth’s own literature noted that this drug could cause a serious infection like gangrene if it is used in an IV push.  While Wyeth has known that there is an incredible risk to an IV push using Phenergan, it failed to revise its warning label to warn of these dangers.

“Levine received two injections of Phenergan in 2002 to treat nausea associated with a migraine headache. The second injection was administered using an intravenous or “IV push” method, which uses a syringe to push the medication directly into the patient’s vein,” according to Bloomburg news.

The drug penetrated Levine’s artery, destroying it and eventually killing much of the tissue in her arm and hand. She underwent two amputations, first losing her right hand and then her arm up to her elbow.  Although Phenergan’s two-page label at the time included a warning about injection into an artery, it didn’t advise not to use the IV push technique.

In his amicus brief, Senator Leahy argued,

“Diana Levine is a successful musician in Vermont, and the tragedy she suffered that has had a profound impact on her career, should have been prevented,” said Leahy.  “A number of recent Supreme Court decisions have stripped protections for every day Americans in favor of shielding large corporations from liability.  The Court’s decision in Ms. Levine’s case could have far-reaching effects on the ability of all Americans to seek justice in their courts when they are injured by a defective pharmaceutical drug.  I hope the Court takes the opportunity to reject the views of Wyeth and of the administration that mere approval from the Food and Drug Administration of a drug label immunizes a drug maker from liability when a consumer is injured or killed.  In over 70 years of enacting and amending the laws governing the regulation of pharmaceutical drugs, Congress never intended this perverse result.”

To me, it is a travesty that Chief Justice Roberts remained on the case even though his most recent financial disclosure form indicates he owns stock in Pfizer, which has announced plans to merge with Wyeth in a $68 Million merger deal.  In my personal opinion, Supreme Court Justices should not be owning stocks.  And, if they do, they should recuse themselves from any cases that come before them involving their portfolio.  It’s no surprise then that Roberts voted against Levine.  Even with that stacked deck Wyeth did not prevail.

According to Bloomburg,

The justices, voting 6-3, said that pharmaceutical companies aren’t shielded from suit by the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of a treatment and its packaging information.

“Congress did not intend FDA oversight to be the exclusive means of ensuring drug safety and effectiveness,” Justice John Paul Stevens wrote for the court.

In his opinion for the court, Stevens left open the possibility that suits might be barred in cases where the FDA explicitly considered and rejected a requirement for stronger warnings.

The ruling is a victory for Diana Levine, 63, a children’s musician who says Wyeth should have warned against the injection method that caused gangrene in her right arm, and Levine’s lawyer, David Frederick, called the ruling a “broad victory for consumers.”

Justices Anthony Kennedy, David Souter, Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Clarence Thomas joined Stevens in the majority. Thomas wrote separately to say the court should have been even more deferential to state laws.

Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia and Samuel Alito dissented. Alito, writing for the three, said state- law product-liability suits would interfere with the federal drug-approval system.

The Bush administration backed the industry, arguing that “jury awards can interfere with the FDA’s work by forcing drugmakers to exaggerate some dangers.”

The case is Wyeth v. Levine, 06-1249.

BREAKING: US Supreme Court Sides Against Drug Manufacturers

The original story is here.  The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in favor of Vermont resident Diana Levine in Wyeth v. Levine.  Levine had won her case in Vermont, but drug company Wyeth had appealed the almost $7 million award all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Levine, a musician, had her arm amputated when an anti-nausea drug was improperly administered in her artery, and sued the manufacturer for failing to warn of the risks on the drug’s label. Wyeth claimed that her case was pre-empted by federal law.

Senator Patrick Leahy filed a “friend-of-the-court” brief to a Vermonter Diana Levine’s U.S. Supreme Court case.  Leahy was joined in his “amicus” legal brief, which was filed in August 2008, by 17 members of Congress, including Vermont Senator Bernard Sanders and Vermont Congressman Peter Welch and Senators Edward M. Kennedy, Sheldon Whitehouse, Tom Harkin, Dianne Feinstein, Richard J. Durbin, and Russell D. Feingold, and Representatives Henry A. Waxman, John Conyers, Jr., John D. Dingell,

Frank Pallone, Jr., Bart Stupak, Zoe Lofgren, Linda Sanchez, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, and Maxine Waters.

When an outside party that believes the court’s decision in a specific case may affect its interests files an amicus brief.  Senator Leahy has filed just 10 such briefs in more than 30 years in Congress.  In this case, Wyeth and the Bush administration sought to ascribe to Congress an unfounded intent to displace state tort law.

This nightmare for Diana Levine began in 2000 when she was treated in a Vermont hospital for symptoms associated with migraine headaches.  She was injected with Phenergan, which has been manufactured by Wyeth for almost 50 years and has been used to treat nausea linked to migraine headaches, reactions to pain killers, food poisoning, and a variety of other incidents that cause extensive vomiting.  The drug was injected into Levine’s arm in a manner that caused arterial contact called an IV push.  While there are drugs which are normally administered in this manner in an emergency situation, Wyeth’s own literature noted that this drug could cause a serious infection like gangrene if it is used in an IV push.  While Wyeth has known that there is an incredible risk to an IV push using Phenergan, it failed to revise its warning label to warn of these dangers.

“Levine received two injections of Phenergan in 2002 to treat nausea associated with a migraine headache. The second injection was administered using an intravenous or “IV push” method, which uses a syringe to push the medication directly into the patient’s vein,” according to Bloomburg news.

The drug penetrated Levine’s artery, destroying it and eventually killing much of the tissue in her arm and hand. She underwent two amputations, first losing her right hand and then her arm up to her elbow.  Although Phenergan’s two-page label at the time included a warning about injection into an artery, it didn’t advise not to use the IV push technique.

In his amicus brief, Senator Leahy argued,

“Diana Levine is a successful musician in Vermont, and the tragedy she suffered that has had a profound impact on her career, should have been prevented,” said Leahy.  “A number of recent Supreme Court decisions have stripped protections for every day Americans in favor of shielding large corporations from liability.  The Court’s decision in Ms. Levine’s case could have far-reaching effects on the ability of all Americans to seek justice in their courts when they are injured by a defective pharmaceutical drug.  I hope the Court takes the opportunity to reject the views of Wyeth and of the administration that mere approval from the Food and Drug Administration of a drug label immunizes a drug maker from liability when a consumer is injured or killed.  In over 70 years of enacting and amending the laws governing the regulation of pharmaceutical drugs, Congress never intended this perverse result.”

To me, it is a travesty that Chief Justice Roberts remained on the case even though his most recent financial disclosure form indicates he owns stock in Pfizer, which has announced plans to merge with Wyeth in a $68 Million merger deal.  In my personal opinion, Supreme Court Justices should not be owning stocks.  And, if they do, they should recuse themselves from any cases that come before them involving there portfolio.  It’s no surprise then that Roberts voted against Levine.  Even with that stacked deck Wyeth did not prevail.

According to Bloomburg,

The justices, voting 6-3, said that pharmaceutical companies aren’t shielded from suit by the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of a treatment and its packaging information.

“Congress did not intend FDA oversight to be the exclusive means of ensuring drug safety and effectiveness,” Justice John Paul Stevens wrote for the court.

In his opinion for the court, Stevens left open the possibility that suits might be barred in cases where the FDA explicitly considered and rejected a requirement for stronger warnings.

The ruling is a victory for Diana Levine, 63, a children’s musician who says Wyeth should have warned against the injection method that caused gangrene in her right arm, and Levine’s lawyer, David Frederick, called the ruling a “broad victory for consumers.”

Justices Anthony Kennedy, David Souter, Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Clarence Thomas joined Stevens in the majority. Thomas wrote separately to say the court should have been even more deferential to state laws.

Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia and Samuel Alito dissented. Alito, writing for the three, said state- law product-liability suits would interfere with the federal drug-approval system.

The Bush administration backed the industry, arguing that “jury awards can interfere with the FDA’s work by forcing drugmakers to exaggerate some dangers.”

The case is Wyeth v. Levine, 06-1249.

IRV Works Extremely Well

(Lotsa numbers for you stat fiends out there. Nice. – promoted by JDRyan)

Cross-posted from Integral Psychosis

Burlington just re-elected Progressive Party mayor Bob Kiss (yes, in Vermont we have a third major Party, for those of you who aren’t from here- they’ve pretty much been in control of Burlington since 1981 and since then the city has won numerous “Most Livable  City”, “Greenest City”, “Healthiest City” (etc, etc) awards, so say what you will, they get results- nationally recognized results).  Congrats certainly to the people up there; “Silent Bob” would certainly have been my choice if I were voting there.

Most impressively, Burlington’s mayoral race was conducted using Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) (also known as preferential voting) as has been their practice since 2006.  So, how’d the system do?  Was the election fair?  Did the candidate with the most support win?

With numbers being supplied by the Burlington Free Press (OK, I know, I shouldn’t consider them a reliable source for anything but fire-starter, but they’ve got the most thorough unofficial numbers I’ve found yet)- we learn that in the third round of IRV Kiss received 4,313 (51.5%) first place votes to Republican Kurt Wright’s 4,061 (48.5).  Vermont law requires 50% + 1 (a majority) to win.  In the initial vote tallies, Wright had 2,951 first place votes to Kiss’ 2,585, Andy Montroll’s (D) 1,497, Dan Smith’s (I) 1,306 and James Simpson’s (Green Party) 35.  That brakes down roughly to 35.2%, 30.8%, 17.8%, 15.6%, .004% respectively.  True, Wright “won” the first round by having the most first place votes, but because by law “winning” the election means having 50%+1 of the people prefer you, it’s clear that no one is the winner, yet.  So Smith and Simpson were eliminated and the votes for them were re-distributed so that in the second round of calculations Montroll did the best by picking up 491 votes from Smith and Simpson supporters (for a total of 1,988 or 23.7%), Kiss gained 396 votes (2,981 total now for 35.6%), Wright gained 343 votes (3,294 or 39.3%).  At this point Wright is still “winning” but has not won, not by a long shot.  So then Montroll’s votes get re-distributed (looking at the number two choice from those ballots that had listed him as number one and looking at the third choice from those ballots that had chosen his number two) (and looking further down the ballot for anyone who chose someone who at this point had already been eliminated).  So in the decisive third round of vote tallies, Kiss picked up 1,332 votes and Wright grabbed 767- respectively totaling 4,313 (51.5%) to 4,061 (48.5%).  For the first time a candidate has over 50% of the votes and is declared winner: congrats, Mr Mayor!

Immediately, Kurt Wright and the right wing mainstream media have picked-up on the bullshit line that IRV has somehow failed the voters because Wright “won” initially but lost as a result of the system’s workings.  Lets be clear and spell it out for Wright, WCAX TV, the Burlington Free Press, and any other’s who want to try this fuzzy line of reasoning: by law (rightfully) a candidate must have over 50% of the vote to “win”.  Obviously with three “left” candidates (Progressive Kiss, Democrat Montroll and Green Simpson) and two “right” candidates (Republican Wright and independent Smith- who I recognize would take exception to being considered “right” but whatever, it’s superfluous to my argument here) (and just not true anyway) the left’s vote was spread thinner and the right  centralized their first-place votes.  In a mere plurality voting system (i.e., who ever has the most first-place votes wins) this would certainly have given Wright the victory.  But this is exactly why IRV is so good, and so important, because this whole exercise demonstrates that if that had been the case- if Wright were elected with that initial 35.2% vote, the new Mayor of Burlington would be someone supported by 48.5% of the people- and not supported by 51.5% of the people.  48.5% to 51.5% is not a democratic victory by any definition.

So Wright and WGOP, er, WCAX can bitch and moan all they want- claiming to be the “winner” with less than 50%+1 of the vote is akin to saying you prefer the winter over the summer because you prefer warm weather.  IRV worked perfectly in service of democracy and the will of the voters.  Now comes the task of getting the rest of our State’s elections to function fairly as well.

Jim Douglas’s War on the Poor Costs Vermont Millions

Jim Douglas, whose Republican slash-and-burn-the-poor approach to every budget issue is an unfortunate reality in Vermont, has managed to force the state to forgo $36 million in Medicaid stimulus funds from the federal government.

Why? Because he insisted last spring that the poor, whose healthcare costs are covered (to the extent that they are covered) should pay more in premiums. Here’s the story, as reported by Nancy Remsen for the Burlington Free Press last weekend (and, btw, I looked for a similar story in the Rutland Herald/Times-Argus and did not find it):

Vermont Returns $36 Million

MONTPELIER – The state learned late this week it must return a $36 million federal stimulus check because the state – for now – is ineligible for this supplemental Medicaid money.

The entire allocation the state has been expecting for this program – $265 million – will be withheld unless the state rolls back a premium increase that took effect last summer.

Federal stimulus dollars come with strings, and the one that tripped up Vermont this week is a prohibition on premium increases in subsidized health care programs retroactive to July 1, 2008.

The Legislature and Douglas administration agreed last year to increase some premiums paid by Vermonters receiving subsidized health care. It was a way to help close a hole in the budget that developed because tax revenues declined.

The premium increase was to start July 1, which is the first day of the new fiscal year. Actual implementation took place July 3, said Finance Commissioner Jim Reardon.

That mere two-day delay has created a problem in the state’s eligibility for federal stimulus dollars. If the change had occurred as scheduled, the state could have kept the check.

“What it means is we are going to return the check we received,” Reardon.

“What we need to do is roll back the premiums” to the pre-July level, Reardon added. “It is a pretty easy fix.”

The Legislature would have to authorize the rollback. House and Senate leaders said Friday they were agreeable.

The premium repeal provisions will be added to the budget adjustment bill, which is scheduled for final action after lawmakers return March 17.

We can’t afford this governor. Let’s move the primary, so more candidates have the time and resources to make their cases to the voting public.

Kiss Wins Burlington (and other Town Meeting Notes)

I’m seeing reports that Bob Kiss (P) won re-election as Burlington’s mayor, in the third round of the IRV (4,313 votes) over Kurt Wright (R- 4061).  Good choice Burlington.  

I’ve also heard that… no, I haven’t heard anything else.  Throw-down your Town Meeting Day results bellow…

Town Meeting Day news–Open Thread

I just got back from Montpelier City Hall.

In Montpelier there were no contested elections, and everybody on the printed ballot won election.

 We had many budget items. The town and school budgets passed handily. Every other item requesting an appropriation for a social service agency passed, except for a new item for the Vermont Youth Symphony, passed. The Youth Symphony item failed by only twenty votes, 898-878. Who says your voted doesn't count?

In addition, the initiative for an advisory vote to close Vermont Yankee when its license expires was adopted by the voters of Montpelier.

In Burlington, Shay Totten is reporting that Bob Kiss has won reelection in the third round of IRV.

Any news to post from your town?