I’m a little behind the curve this month, but I have one final question to pose before the New Year. It goes out to my fellow Progressive, Tim Ashe:
Why in heaven’s name did you nominate Dick Mazza to yet again chair the all-powerful Committee on Committees?
It certainly couldn’t be because he is so uniquely qualified to make committee assignments.
Appointing Bob Hartwell, a climate change denying Republican to chair the Natural Resources and Energy Committee in 2013 does not speak well of his judgement in such matters.
If certainly couldn’t be a reward for Mazza’s loyalty to the Democratic/Progressive agenda, as he has energetically come out for Brian Dubie, Phil Scott and other Republicans as they challenged Democratic/Progressive hopefuls and incumbents throughout the years.
Mazza has already had more than his share of opportunities to chair the C on C, so it can’t be for reasons of good sportsmanship.
There has been quite a history of speculation on Green Mountain Daily about why Senator Mazza’s persistent disloyalty and ideological peculiarities haven’t already disqualified him, years ago.
You should know that some folks will inevitably see a connection between your inexplicable endorsement of Mazza and your own appointment by the C on C to the
plum post as chairman of the Senate Finance Committee.
So I’m putting it out there for a reasonable explanation.
I hope you have one.
… at the Dem caucus in December, Ashe gave Ginny Lyons and Ann Cummings a kick to the teeth when he put Mazza’s name in nomination. He said that the CoC had done a great job in the past, and that everybody had been happy with their committee assignments.
Good grief. Had he forgotten Lyons’ displacement from Natural Resources and Cummings’ exile from Finance? Or was he knowingly dissing them in his haste to kiss leadership’s ass?
So every dem should get a plum – and everyone else sit in the corner? I don’t think that has been helpful for Vermont.
My Senator complained to me while campaigning this fall that he felt “exiled in his own committee” (Natural Resources) by the replacing of Lyons with Hartwell. He seemed to feel entitled to keeping everything copacetic and whoops–now he has to work well with others (and not just be a comfortable ditto – sounds lazy to me).
We need to work together and get out of this partisan trap. The dominant mood here feels like grade/high school when you’re either IN or OUT. Yech.