Governor-elect Peter Shumlin has announced that he is appointing Beth Pearce to the position of State Treasurer to fill out Jeb Spaulding’s newly re-elected term. Spaulding is, of course, leaving the position to become the new Secretary of Administration. Pearce is a newcomer to elected office (what an intro, eh?).

Pearce is a strong pick in terms of her qualifications for the position, given that she is Vermont’s current Deputy Treasurer. Before that, she served the same role in the state of Massachusetts.

The huge leg up on influence and future electability for Pearce cannot be overstated. Vermonters are loathe to vote out incumbents, so Pearce will likely own this position for as long as she wants (barring any monumental screwup or a complete bungling of the 2012 election). This also makes Pearce an out-of-nowhere contender for other statewide positions that may come open, from Governor and Lieutenant Governor to US Representative and US Senator.

During the noon press conference, Shumlin also announced the appointment of Michael Clasen (the current Director of Retirement Operations in the Treasurer’s office) to the post of Deputy Administration Secretary. Interestingly, (historically, even) this keeps the gender balance of his overall appointments at 50-50.

During my recent VPR debate on Jim Douglas’s legacy with former Deputy Secretary of the Agency of Natural Resources Sabina Haskell, my opponent – in making her point that environmental issues must be balanced with economic ones (and her message that the outgoing Governor had done a good job in this respect) – referenced the Shumlin transition press conference announcing new ANR appointments Deb Markowitz and David Mears as Secretary and Deputy respectively. She indicated that Shumlin and Markowitz used the same rhetoric themselves.

My response was that both Douglas and Shumlin have public records, and based on those records, I can have a lot more confidence that Shumlin will strike a functional balance in that regard, rather than use the rhetoric as cover for dismantling environmental protections. Still, though, I did notice the preponderance of the “customer service” and “jobs” buzzwords during the appointment of the state’s leading environmental stewards. Here’s the YouTube:

And I wasn’t the only one. John Brabant, an ANR compliance officer (as well as being a Vermont State Employee’s Association Shop Steward) has been an outspoken voice in the Agency for years (some might say a gadfly). Brabant was clearly annoyed by the rhetoric and quickly sent out an email to – well, everybody, including a couple names in the media. Brabant minced no words (after the flip):

Does anyone else find the statements by the incoming administration shocking in regards to what they intend to do with the anti-business ANR culture? If you haven’t already, see video at link to hear statements of Governor-elect Shumlin and Secretary to be Markowitz.

I need to practice my lines when I answer the phone, let me see, uh um…”Hi, thank you for calling sir, this is ANR  Environmental Analyst John Brabant, here to help you get your business plan approved without hassle.  I am here to make sure you get your environmental permits in an expedited fashion and not let that old ANR culture of scrutinizing the impacts of your development proposal against regulatory standards get in the way of you making money and providing us unworthy Vermonters jobs.  If there is anyway I step out of line and ask too much of you in terms of your plans to fill a wetland, trash prime ag soils, push sprawl into the hinterlands, discharge to lakes and streams above NPDES standards, violate the federal CWA or VT Air Pollution Control standards or any other unnecessary, anti-business hurdles, please do let me know so that I can correct my inappropriate behavior.”  

Boy, this is gonna take some work, but I think I will get the hang of it if I try real hard. Yessir!

The email has been in circulation, and as a result of the vigorous eyebrow raising, the Shumlin administration did step back from the rhetoric a bit – but not before the Free Press’s Candy Page found a chorus of concern about the rhetoric within the greater Vermont environmental community.

It’s definitely an interesting, illustrative episode, amounting to a fairly direct sign that the advocacy community is not likely to be resting on its laurels with a Dem at the helm. There will be no collective endorphine coma after the pain of Jim Douglas’s regime passes. Activists will clealry give Peter Shumlin the benefit of the doubt – as well they should – but that will not be likely to equate to a blank check.

Believe it. If you’ve been thinking there have been an awful lot of women’s names in the coverage of Governor-Elect Shumlin’s appointments, you’re not imagining things.

With only a handful of Executive Branch appointments to go, there have so far been 13 women named to these leadership positions in Vermont state government. That’s 13 out of 26 (50% for those of you with counting issues), which represents a net gain of 8 women.

Now that’s cool.

(Crossposted from Huffington Post)

When is a filibuster not a filibuster?

Bernie Sanders’ widely lauded/mocked/viewed-online “filibuster,” of course, didn’t “bust” anything. The eight-hour marathon speech did not prevent Obama’s tax cut compromise (or capitulation, depending on your viewpoint) from passing the Senate. Indeed, from the overwhelming final vote (81-19), it seems that there was never any force on Earth that could have.

The regressive Bush tax structure is now well on the way to becoming the Obama regressive tax structure, and don’t doubt for a moment that the House — not equipped with the rules enabling determined obstructionism by a minority — will pass it as well, despite the anger coming from its progressive wing.

So what was the point of Sanders’ exercise? It did not effect the passage of the cloture motion — that threshold for the parliamentary filibuster so often used by the GOP. And although it looked and sounded like an old school, stand-up-and-talk-it-to-death filibuster, Bernie spoke even before the cloture motion — days before the actual roll call vote on the bill itself. Given that timing, it was clearly never intended to act as a real filibuster. Nor, as some inferred, was it apparently a shot across the bow, demonstrating that Sanders was ready, willing and able to mount the real thing the day of the final vote.

Given the above, there will be plenty of folks who look at it as a cynical exercise designed by the junior Senator of my home state of Vermont to do nothing more than generate a few hurrahs his way from his significant national following. Hardcore grousers who see Washington as one big faux democratic front hiding a “corporatocracy” may even see it as a grand show to distract and divert the opposition.

As the highest profile grouchy liberal blogger in my state, I’m generally among the first to go with the former interpretation (although I’m not so jaded as to go with the latter). The truth is, though, that there are other, at least as valid ways to answer the question of what the “point” of the speech was, if one expands the context a bit beyond the confines of the Senate floor.

As a now middle-aged veteran of campaigns across the country over my entire adult life, I’m hard pressed to imagine the last time I saw progressive morale at such a low point. And it’s hard to get excited about the occasional defiant press release from one relatively liberal Congressperson or another. After all, it’s just too easy to throw a turn-of-phrase bone to a hungry left and keep them on yur good side (even if President Obama can’t even figure that much out).

But a nine hour speech is not easy — not even if one is a lot younger than Senator Sanders. It’s an effort. And one can look at the fact that the Senate vote was a done deal and choose to be cynical about the speech, sure — but one can look at that same inevitability and ask oneself why Sanders would undertake such a marathon at all? Why not just an especially good soundbite for the YouTube crowd that would have avoided the hoarseness and sleep deprivation?

The fact is that Bernie’s filiwhatever-it-was did energize the base. It did give us all a little boost when we needed it. Could that not be enough of a point, given the timing?

I suppose If I chose to, I could look at it as a crass move to get me applauding, or even as an exercise in futility and impotence, but not today. Not this time. This time, I’m looking at the Bernie Rorschach Speech as a Christmas present from Senator Sanders to this exhausted, frustrated, cynical activist.

Happy holidays back atcha, Bernie.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is getting serious, by god. After historic defeats in Congressional elections this November, the trip-c is now turning to a Vermonter to get things done. Robby Mook has been the rising star in the national Democratic electioneering world, running Jeanne Shaheen’s Senatorial campaign next door in NH, and serving as Hillary Clinton’s campaign big dog during the presidential primary. When Clinton needed a win in a nailbiter, battleground state, she’d send in Robby who always deliver (e.g. in Nevada and Indiana). If she coulda cloned him, she would’ve taken the nomination.

Robby is a Norwich native and got his start in politics working for the VT Democratic House Caucus’s PAC back in the late 90’s before becoming the Vermont Democratic Party’s Field Director in 2002, where he was also my officemate. It was there that Robby clearly learned everything he ever needed to know, as his career went meteoric. Either that or he just figured at that point he had to do whatever it took to avoid having to share an office with me again. I mean, I used to sleep in that office. Couldna been the most fragrant of places.

But I digress. Here’s CNN on the DC Mookapalooza:

A former Hillary Clinton campaign staffer, Mook will now run the campaign arm for the House Democrats as they gear up for the 2012 elections. Mook served as the DCCC’s independent expenditure director since May of 2010.

[…] Mook now faces the daunting task of picking up those seats lost during his tenure as the DCCC’s independent expenditure director in the 2010 midterm elections, when the Democrats lost their majority.

“I look forward to putting together another great team at the DCCC and working closely with our Members and candidates to win back the majority for Democrats in 2012,” Mook said.

C’mon. You know you wanna.

Ah, the “new media”: Facebook, YouTube, Twitter… and yes, the dreaded blogs. Never has a bunch of simple software caused so much sturm, drang, und tail-chasing among so many political types.

Going second hand here, as GMD has been dropped from the Shumlin administration’s press release list (looks like we’re back… some sort of snafu), but news reports indicate that the Shumlin administration has made two communications hires: Sue Allen will be returning to the Pavilion as a Special Assistant to the Governor, and Bianca Slota will be the administration’s “Press Secretary.”

A couple of odd things, here. First, vtdigger reports that Slota will only be receiving a $45,000 salary – which is pretty tiny for such a key position. This suggests that Allen will be doing a lot of the heavy lifting usually associated with the titular Press Secretary position. The other odd thing is that Slota will, according to digger, “In addition to day-to-day press responsibilities… focus on new media and web-based communications”

So the administration’s new media professional is a reporter whose experience consists of being a TV reporter on Alaska local news and WCAX in the 5 years since graduating from the University of Maryland.

Y’know, call me crazy, but… I dunno. If you take baking seriously, and you want somebody to work for the biggest bakery in the state, you hire a – you know – baker. Right? If you need somebody to work on your car, you wouldn’t ring a bicycle mechanic, right? Am I off here?

But for its new media position (and a piece of a position at that), the administration goes with yet another legacy reporter, who will have a period of on the job training in a position dozens of people who actually work in the medium could’ve hit the ground running on.

The fact is that the list of obvious folks for such a position is huge: who wouldn’t want Essex Junction blogger Steve Benen, named by Atlantic magazine as one of the nation’s most influential pundits (ahead of such names as Lou Dobbs and Ezra Klein) on your team? Think you can’t peel him away? How about trying David Waldman, aka Kagro X, the former GMD front pager, current blogger for the dKos-sponsored Congress Matters site, and generally the go-to new media person nationally on the intricacies and vagueries of the Washington political process?

Too far removed from day-to-day Vermont governing? Fine. One obvious choice, then, is Cathy Resmer – long-time new media editor for Seven Days. She goes back to the very genesis of the Vermont blogosphere and has done tremendously creative things with the medium. Still pissed at Seven Days over the “ethically challenged” poll, then how about blogger/filmmaker/all-around-new-media-pioneer Bill Simmon of Burlington? Granted, Philip Baruth is starting a new job as a Senator, but how about reporter Christian Avard, who has not only been a blogger for this site, Huffington Post, and Raw Story – but who is also a professional print journalist at the Deerfield Valley News, and before that the late Vermont Guardian? There’s a crossover talent for you. Or how about vtdigger’s Anne Galloway for heaven’s sake?

Look, I’m sure Slota is a wonderful, talented, intelligent person. She’ll probably do fine. This isn’t about her, it’s about the administration that hired her. It’s the equivalent of hiring a novelist to be your print media person – one could say that their experience is related, except that it’s really not. It’s about the people in power still not taking this medium seriously. In hiring someone from outside the new media world as your in-house new media professional, you’re saying one of two things.

First, that you think new media is a trifling thing. Maybe just a bunch of facebook updates that anybody can do. I don’t think that’s what’s going on here, though.

The second, more likely option: you’re hiring for a liaison. An ambassador. Somebody from your world who can travel to the mystic netherworld of new media and speak to the natives. Because new media isn’t something you do, it’s something external to be managed.

And that’s a shame – and a concern. A shame for the missed potential from such a legacy mindset. A concern because although, yes, sites like GMD have given the left a leg up on new media in Vermont, that situation isn’t going to last forever. And you better believe that the right in this state isn’t going to take long to figure out that new media isn’t some cosmic force to be communed with, it’s the new – and will very soon be the dominant – communications medium in America.

In the modern political landscape, you don’t just “liaise” with new media. You do it, you own your piece of it – or you fall behind.

When the dust settles, there is no in-between.

Here’s a link to the big DailyKos petition page, set up to support the holdouts in the Senate and House Democratic caucus who aren’t willing to roll over for Republicans on the tax breaks for the wealthy. Check it out, scroll down, and notice what’s special about it…

That’s right, it’s all Vermont, baby. Under the petition form, the page presents the two public foci for the (genuinely) Democratic (capital “D”) resistance to this capitulation. For the Senate, a YouTube bit from Senator Bernie Sanders – who, in threatening a filibuster, has become the national hero of those saying “enough is enough” to Obama’s insistence that progressives are his enemy, rather than the GOP he has chosen to acquiesce to (again).

For the House, a bit lower is the letter in circulation (first reported here) from Representative Welch, where the generally cool-headed Congressman gets his mad on a bit.

That makes Vermont the absolute heart of the progressive pushback. Kinda brings a tear to the eye, duddinit?

Also makes you wonder if we won’t have two presidents in a row that pointedly avoid Vermont for the duration of their terms…

(Note: Senator Leahy, too, has indicated publicly that he does not like this plan, which has helped lead to the concerns among the pro-“compromise” crowd that they may not have the votes)

I have nothing more than what’s on the webernets about this. Hoping commenters have some more information. Look for a more complete analysis (hopefully) from a GMD front pager with some expertise or knowledge of what’s in play (I hope). In the meantime, here’s from TPM:

The conservative-controlled U.S. Commission on Civil Rights ousted the chairman of the agency’s Vermont State Advisory Committee last week over an October column in which he wrote that the Republican gubernatorial candidate’s “Pure Vermont” slogan “raises the specter of Hilter’s Aryan Nation and the Khmer Rouge, where the purifying agent was genocide.”

The commission voted not to reauthorize the reappointment of Curtiss Reed Jr. as chair of the Vermont SAC, though he had the unanimous support of the rest of the Vermont committee. In an interview with TPM on Tuesday, Reed said his remarks were not intended to imply that former gubernatorial candidate Brian Dubie was a racist.

“‘Pure Vermont’ had a double entendre there that I felt that the Dubie campaign needed to pay attention to and acknowledge,” Reed said. “In no way was I suggesting or stating that Dubie was in any way racist or in any way a bad person, my point was that given the changes of demographics in Vermont, his campaign people chose a poor choice of words to brand him.”

I may have to take this down, but here goes…