…even if the candidate turns out to be one of them (a legislator)?

Since Jim Douglas has been in office, the Dems in the legislature have had a poor track record of providing basic support to their candidates for Governor. Many stayed as far away from Peter Clavelle as they could – in many cases refusing to even endorse him. Scudder Parker had his number one issue – health care – pulled out from under him during the Catamount Health discussions that couldn’t have been better timed and crafted to undermine him if they’d been planned that way. The teamwork and coordination typical of other states in this has been trumped by a terrified me-firstism that gets, frankly, a little pathetic.

This year could be the biggest fail of all, though, because the legislature understands that it has a responsibility, not to support that candidate in a partisan manner, but to recognize the need to act in good faith with the voters by promoting good government and a fair, functional electoral system.

They understand it, but may not act.

I’m talking, again, about the bill to move the Primary election to an earlier date. An action that would recognize that the current date is so close to the General, it is nearly impossible for a challenger to emerge from a tough primary and have the time and resources to turn on a dime and put up a meaningful November contest. Political parties are thereby motivated to quash primary challenges and anoint a winner who can get started running against the incumbent ASAP. All of this is obviously anti-democratic and amounts to an incumbent protection racket. It’s also bad government in that the state has been sued over its handling of federal reporting deadlines that are arguably impractical to meet given the increased burden placed on the Secretary of State in such a short period.

In other words, fixing this is legislators’ jobs – unrelated to partisan concerns. And yet, even under this non-partisan, good-government scenario, the majority may choose to follow tradition and stick it to their candidate.

According to Barlow, the bill to be voted out of Senate today will likely be amended to change the date of the altered primary from the second week in August to the fourth. In other words, the Senate would vote to move the Primary up by a paltry 3 weeks. Good grief. It should be June for pity’s sake. And folks can’t handle the second week in August?

Senator Jeanette White, Chair of Senat Government Operations, says “Some people felt that the second week in August was too early”. What are their concerns? Apparently legislators’ esoteric fretting about moving the filing deadline too close to the legislative session.

In other words, it is – once again – all about the legislators comfort level. Ask recent gubernatorial challengers how they feel about legislators’ comfort level.

At our activist meeting before the session, moving the primary emerged as the groups number one priority. If it doesn’t happen because legislators put an archaic sense of symmetry over what is best for Vermont, that’s not going to go over well. If that’s just a lame excuse, and legislators are simply afraid of enacting what should be a no-brainer of an improvement to our election system, that’ll go over even worse.

For a little context, here were the dates of other states’ primary elections in 2008.