…should resign. If he does so soon, Burlington could even elect a mayor in a required special election using IRV, before the legislature would approve the charter change just passed by voters.

I’m not a Burlington resident, so he aint my mayor. But as of this week, the turmoil surrounding this mayor has started to impact me – and that impact is only going to get worse.

Here’s what I’m talking about. Politically, there have been several problems with the pro-IRV effort in Burlington. It was poorly organized. It didn’t seem to take the election seriously. And then there’s the ongoing oozing condescension issue of proponents refusing to respectfully acknowledge and address wavering voters concerns – even other liberal voters. That right there is just so many flavors of self-defeating dumb, I can’t emphasize it enough. Kurt Wright was largely correct when he said “Now, they want to talk about having a fuller understanding and trying to educate and re-educate the public but you know what? What people reject WAS a system where you need to educate and re-educate the public..” Too many supporters openly scoffed at the challenge that perspective created.

But despite all those dynamics, IRV did pass in the first place – and it wasn’t about to be challenged. What tipped the scales in this case was an angry electorate determined to express what little power and control they felt they had in the face of a city hall openly contemptuous of rules, transparency, dissent, and possibly legality – and a city council that vascillated between disinterested passivity and ineffectual noisemaking.

But mainly it was focused at Bob Kiss. Anger at Kiss is what really tipped the scales against IRV. No one disputes that – except, apparently, for Bob Kiss, who still – still – will not accept any responsibility. And every time he refuses to offer even the slightest degree of humility or introspection one might expect – he makes it all worse.

And now he’s dragged IRV down with him.

 

What that means is that all of us in Vermont who have a stake in IRV and other progressive policies have a stake in this. If not for the Mayor’s  intransigence, Burlington would still have IRV. Period. Even some of his fellows in the Progressive Party have tentatively begun criticizing him in public – and for the Progressive Party institution, that’s nothing short of a revolutionary act.

And now that there’s a glimmer of hope for the publicly owned Burlington Telecom, Kiss’s refusal to make changes will likely put the nail in its coffin as well. When half of my prediction – that an anonymous donor would step up to bail it out – came true, it did so in a way I didn’t mean at all. The donor was not anonymous, or Progressive Party connected, it was a group of investors that included BT visionary Tim Nulty and former Kiss nemesis Andy Montroll, who will bail out the utility if they are given the reins. After reading this excellent, comprehensive history of BT from 7 Days’ Kevin Kelley this week, I can’t imagine anything better for renewing the sense of enthusiasm and mission among BT employees – thus reinvigorating the entire operation.

But it already seems clear that Kiss & Jonathan Leopold’s pride will not allow them to consider the option. At some level, one wonders if they’ve taken a “if we can’t have it, no one can” attitude.

So I imagine another progressive accomplishment will soon go down in flames.

Look, I understand that Mayor Kiss is a nice guy with a good heart. Everybody says so. And my own personal judgment of a person always comes down to whether or not their heart is in the right place, and I have no doubt whatsoever that Kiss’s is. But he has some problems in this office. As I see it, those problems are not simply impacting Burlingtonians anymore.

The first step is supposed to be to acknowledge you have a problem. Kiss won’t even take step one. Whatever other issues there are of governance and the running of City Hall aside (and there are many kicking around that the public hasn’t even heard about – at least from what’s reaching my ears – and believe me, we’re looking into them), Bob Kiss has started setting back progressive policies by decades. If he cares more about those policies than his own pride, if he’s not willing to completely change his tune and approach, he should do the honorable thing and step down before he leads us all back into the Dark Ages.

As the issue has been coming up a lot lately (and its never dormant for too long), I figured a reminder of the laws regarding the reprinting of (cutting and pasting) text that is copyright-protected, and this site’s policy in those regards, was in order.

Unless you’re satirizing (making a “transformative” use), it is not considered “fair use” to reprint in toto a news piece, or any other copyright-protected article on the web. It’s a violation of law.

The proper approach if you want to reference a copyright-protected piece is to use an excerpt, cleanly separated and identified as an excerpt, and a link to the original piece. It doesn’t hurt to include one’s own commentary contextualizing the excerpt.

If you don’t know if an article is protected under copyright, assume it is. It probably is, in fact.

Please be aware that diaries or comments that break copyright laws could get GMD into trouble, and are therefore subject to deletion with-or-without notice. Blogs can be – and are – sued for this. We’re not trying to create any hurt feelings, but we really have no wiggle room on this. Violations of copyright law will come down just as soon as one of the front pagers is near an internet-connected computer.

Future deletions will include a link to this diary. For more information on what is considered fair use, click here. For more information on copyright law in general, click here.

Here are links to the diaries that contain the responses to the GMD issue questionnaire sent to the five candidates for the Democratic Party’s gubernatorial primary in 2010.

All five candidates (Senator Susan Bartlett, Matt Dunne, Secretary of State Deb Markowitz, Senator Doug Racine and Senate President Pro Tempore Peter Shumlin) answered the extensive questionnaire in full.

• Part 1 (Energy, Jobs & Economy)
• Part 2 (Permitting, Agriculture, Health Care, Education)
• Part 3 (Social Services, Responsible Government/Miscellaneous)
• Part 4 (2010 election process/dynamics)

The mojometers took a brief holiday allowing for the focus on Vermont Yankee and the buildup to the Senate vote, but now they’re back, subjective and impulsive as ever (but hopefully a little less wordy, although we’re not off to a very good start, eh?).

We’ve got a little time to make up for, but we’ll keep it brief nonetheless. Below the fold, if you will…

Peter Shumlin. He shoots, he scores. It’s not simply the Senate VY vote that puts the Shumster high in mojo land, its the magnitude of the win. After Entergy’s media push and Susan Bartlett’s pushback threatened to scuttle the vote, Shumlin didn’t just deliver the votes, he absolutely clobbered the bill. Don’t think rank and file Dems didn’t take notice.

Nevertheless, the Senator from Windham isn’t quite pegging the meter, as all those comments, cartoons and jabs about this Yankee stuff just being about politics were clearly striking nerves. Whether primary voters will remember, whether they’ll care, or whether it proves to be a genuine weak spot will remain to be seen.

Deb Markowitz. Markowitz gets a big boost from the WCAX head to head polls as the only Dem prospect who polled ahead of Brian Dubie. Margin of error? Sure, but so what? And an additional “so what” to the fact that a close analysis suggests that it may largely be due to higher name recognition, the fact is, that poll was primary gold for her and her campaign is pushing the point to reinvigorate what was looking like a little campaign stagnation. And the GOP continues to help her with that message with yet another feeble press attack that seems to send the message that she’s the candidate they’re really afraid of (and boy, do I mean feeble. Rather than bother with it, here’s the link.) All of this pretty much overwhelms the negative of not doing as well in the primary poll leaked to GMD as it would seem she should at this stage.

Doug Racine. Racine backs off a bit from “hot” status, as he played only a supporting role in the all-consuming Yankee saga, but stays well into positive territory because of his second-strongest (with all the margin-of-error caveats) showing on the CAX poll – and particularly the fact that that leaked primary poll still suggests he’s the one to beat among the rank and file Dems.

Matt Dunne. By all rights, Dunne should be neutral at best, given his being left on the outside of the Senate’s Yankee battle. But he did yeoman’s work keeping his name in the mix as much as humanly possible (including being a presence on site during the vote), and his follow-up supporter emails had a strong grassrootsy, adovcatey energy about them. Most important, though, is that both the WCAX poll and the leaked primary poll make it mathematically clear that Dunne is a player in this game, which should quiet any remaining skeptics.

Susan Bartlett. I won’t rehash the “what was she thinking” diaries. Suffice to say, Bartlett’s approach to the Yankee issue have gone over about as well with the primary crowd as one would think, at least in the case of those that I’ve heard from. The only question is whether her last minute 180 for the final vote, along with her uniquely well-spoken and press-repeated floor statement, did more to keep her out of the primary icebox than the appearence of a high-pressure flip-flop. I’m gonna bet that it did, and keep her out of ice cold territory.

---

Brian Dubie. This VY vote really seemed to leave Dubie out in the cold. He had nothing to contribute during the discussion (when he wasn’t hiding from it entirely) and seemed like a confused observer during the Senate vote, while his Democratic rivals were trying to outdo themselves in looking like gubernatorial material.

Dubie has been spending his time addressing sympathetic, GOP oriented crowds and not really saying much, and a look at his rejiggered campaign website under “issues” adds to the feeling that this is a guy who wants to stay as far away from the issues as possible.

In fact, the totality of his “issues” page is the most simplistic of GOP repetition: tax cuts, roll back the social safety net (he comes right out and says that, even, which is kind of amazing) and deregulate everything.

Given that last one, its no wonder that he hid from the Yankee debate, given that you couldn’t have a better poster child for the need for government oversight of big business than Entergy.

Arg. So much for trying to be less wordy.

Sunday we tend to be a bit more laid back around here, so I thought I’d use up some front page real estate to promote some talented friends of mine.

First a poem from my (now award-winning) friend Samantha Kolber whose work can be seen at this blog and this blog:

With the wind at my back, the points of yellow stars always point to you

as if the punt in the bottle coaxes the wine from the neck.

Sometimes your mind won’t stop, not even for

a moment, not even to take in the shift in color in a cloud at sunset.

They say the whole is greater than the sum

but I wonder if greater is better…or worse.

The sky that just sits above your head as an offering:

some silence is peaceful while others are awkward, drinking

wine the color of crimson and blood, like oceans after

a feed, rolling through folds of a tapestry more colorful than you can possibly weave.

Ruled by ways we can’t understand, the not knowing a weight on our shoulders,

and maybe, just maybe, all that came before, is all that will come to be.

Here’s a bit from my friends Laurie Rose Griffith and Peter Mealy, who perform out of Fredericksburg VA, and have won a few awards of their own (Laurie is one of my oldest and best friends). Look for ’em on itunes.

GMD Contributing Editor Caoimhin Laochdha was hospitalized this week after experiencing a pulmonary embolism. Scary stuff indeed, but Caoimhin has already been released from the ICU and is currently trying to convince his doctors that it was only a case of the 24-hour-pulmonary-embolism and that they should let him return home so he can get back to his favorite pasttime of injecting coagulated blood into his femoral vein (although the doctors are suggesting a new hobby might be in order, given the circumstances).

In any event, I’m sure I speak for all of us when I say how relieved I am that he’s okay. You may not see a lot of Caoimhin on the front page, but he is a real pillar of this site and does a tremendous amount behind the scenes. In all honesty, I don’t think I’d have it in me to still be doing this blogging business without him.

So get well soon, and next time you feel like getting ill, try something less scary, like a skin rash. At least something that doesn’t include “sudden death” as a possible complication. Sheesh.

This should be the nail in the coffin of the attempt to repeal IRV in Burlington (not saying it will be, just saying it should be). From a press release:

Mr. (Andy) Montroll, who was the Democratic nominee for mayor in 2009, added, “We shouldn’t measure our rules based on who wins and who loses in any one election. I support a fair election system that upholds the principle of majority rule. The 40% winner system proposed by Question 5 violates that principle. Please join me in voting no on Question 5.”

Montroll also noted, “I see benefits to both instant runoff voting and to delayed runoff voting; but regardless, we need to support the 50% requirement in our elections for mayor.”

Montroll, of course, is the candidate that really got screwed by IRV’s “perverse outcome” (which even IRV dogmatics are slowly starting to acknowledge as real). By any other measure, its Montroll, not Kurt Wright, who would’ve won.

IRV opponents have clearly overreached by petitioning for a return to the 40% threshold for winning the mayor’s race, rather than the more obviously fair 50%. IRV is superior in all measurable ways to a plurality vote, and even (though not as dramatically) to a traditional runoff, but proponents wanted their 40%, which could potentially allow a Republican like Wright to slip by the majority. This means, frankly, that the IRV vs. traditional runoff debate (or Condorcet, or whatever) shouldn’t even be on the table for discussion. This is simply about majority rule.

Interesting times at the Statehouse today, eh? Another session where something BIG happens. I could get used to this. Here are some quick post-game thoughts:

Creepiest moment: Newly appointed Senator Peg Flory (who droned on endlessly – possibly more than all her colleagues combined – in a quixotic quest to derail the Senate’s decision) was, of course, a member of the House until recently. As such, she kept mistakenly referring to Senate President Brian Dubie as “Speaker.” At one point, she apologized referring to her time “in the other body,” to which Dubie responded (and if this isn’t the exact quote, it’s pretty close) that “we’re glad to have you in our body.” Yeeg.

Biggest WTF moment: When the amendment that exemplified Senator Bartlett’s much-maligned attempt earlier in the week to scuttle this week’s vote was voted on, Bartlett voted against it. She also gave the most effective speech in support of a “no” vote on the final roll call.

It was an odd end to far and away the oddest political choice I’ve ever seen a candidate for high office make. Will it be enough to put her back into the game, or is the campaign damage already done?

What is it with Bobby Starr? That guy is the Ben Nelson of Vermont politics.

Best moment besides the vote: This definitely belonged to Chittenden Senator Tim Ashe, even if it did drag things out a bit needlessly. After Senator Flory introduced her “amendment” that would would have called for a second reactor to by built (dropping the name “Obama” every other word), Ashe noted in response that after being repeatedly lectured by Flory that (in her view) the vote on the bill represented a “rush to judgment,” how on Earth could her then asking the Senate to – out of the blue and with no hearings or discussion – call for a whole freaking new nuclear power plant pass the straight face test?

Well! No more Mister Nice Guy, I guess: Right out of the gate, Widely regarded nice guy Senator Phil Scott of Washington not only dismissed any questions about his stance, he took on a brand new identy as nasty partisan firebrand. He wasted no time getting on the record insulting President Pro Tem Shumlin by nakedly accusing him of playing politics and reaching for a particularly lame vehicle for his condemnation in an accusation that Shumlin had short circuited the normal rules committee process by polling members, rather than convening a formal vote. Shumlin countered that this was part of the way it works, giving back better than he got in the dig department.

The whole thing simply ended up reflecting badly on committeeman Mullin (R-Rutland) who ended the discussion by feebly promising Scott he would never allow himself to be so polled again. One had the sense he didn’t want Scott to ground him.

But Scott persisted in angry partisan warrior mode throughout, even tongue-lashing the body after the vote for trying “score political points.” Scott is, of course, running for Lieutenant Governor and was obviously all about scoring some political points himself to get through the GOP primary. Who knows, maybe he’ll go the full tea-bag before this is done.

Interesting sidenote: the Senate pages were bringing pink slips with the constituent phone calls regarding the vote to the various senators. Scott had an exceptionally large pile – probably dozens. From what I saw, every time he received one he just tossed it, still folded closed, into the pile with the others. I don’t think he bothered to read a single one. Real man o’ the people, there.

Bonus prize: Nobody was talking about Jim Douglas today. In the past his presence has drifted over important legislative decision-making moments like really nasty flatulence. Today, he was the lamest of ducks. He didn’t matter a whit, or perhaps a whiff.

Gubernatorial candidate Deb Markowitz last October:

“To resolve this deficit it’s likely everyone will have to give something. We may need to reduce (unemployment) benefits and we may need to rquire [sic] employers to pay in a little more to get us through – hopefully there will be additional money coming from Washington to help out.”

Gubernatorial candidate Deb Markowitz last Saturday at a candidate forum sponsored by the Vermont Grocers’ Association and the Vermont Retailers Association:

On the issue of unemployment taxes, Markowitz said she rejects current legislative proposals that seek to replenish the bankrupt fund through a combination of higher taxes on businesses and decreased payments to beneficiaries.

“This is not a time we want to take money from people who are unemployed or raise taxes on businesses,” Markowitz said.

She said borrowing from the federal government – which would result in heavy penalties for businesses and potentially large interest payments from the General Fund – is preferable to current proposals. Once the state regains its economic footing, she said, “we can revisit how not to get in this situation ever again.”

Things are looking up. Man I love primaries.

From a Bartlett campaign press release/email:

Why are we rushing to a vote on Vermont Yankee?

Holding a vote on Wednesday means we will ignore the thoughtful, methodical process we already have in place to consider the facts.  It means that 30 people instead of 180 people will make a statement.  It’s more political theater than making good public policy.  If we really want Vermont Yankee closed, we should make the decision as an entire legislature.

It’s the oddest example of “have your cake and eat it too” political rhetoric I’ve seen. She repeats in the release that she opposes relicensing – but she then opposes the opportunity to vote on that conviction? Or will she vote against the relicense after all? She doesn’t explicitly say that she won’t.

For a candidate who seemed to be building a reputation as a no-BS straight-talker, this uncoordinated press release seems pretty self-destructive.

Setting aside for a moment the fact that Bartlett is apparently parroting Entergy’s lines about “rushing” a vote (and thereby empowering them – especially if she is successful), her reasoning is a scrambled mess on its face, and I’m not just referring to the strange message that the legislature should function in some sort of mass joint session, rather than through the normal, centuries-old procedure of one body acting on legislation and sending it to the other. The cognitive dissonance runs deeper than that:

This vote is being pushed through without the benefit of two reports due in the next six weeks.  One is a forecast on the economic impact of Vermont Yankee from the Joint Fiscal Office; the other is the “vertical audit” on reliability that we asked for.  These are important studies that should be considered before taking a vote.

I have watched closely as Entergy has made one mistake after another.  From where I sit, the place is a mess.  Entergy has lied under oath.  They said they don’t have underground pipes carrying nuclear material and now those pipes are leaking. I really don’t think there is much Entergy can do to regain my confidence or that of most Vermonters.

[…] I am on record as wanting to close Vermont Yankee in 2012.  Their behavior in the past few months has only confirmed my opinion.  This isn’t about my vote, it’s about doing the job right.

So she’s made up her mind? So much for this process she seems to be defending, then. In fact, by pushing for more process, she is implicitly suggesting that she jumps to premature conclusions. Is that a good quality in a Governor?

On the other hand, she could be suggesting that she doesn’t jump to conclusions at all, and that she has enough information and has heard enough evidence to conclude the plant must be closed. In that case, she casts herself as a champion of bureacratic red tape and busy work, as this “process” she is defending is simply process for its own sake. Is that a good quality in a Governor?

Or perhaps we’re just to conclude that this intellectual disconnect is a sign that she’s simply trying to pander to everyone on both sides simultaneously. Is that what we’re looking for in a Governor?

There is no possible way to slice this that leaves Bartlett looking good to anyone. If this is a political calculation, its a poor one that’s liable to leave an impression of weakness and a lack of conviction in the face of a powerful corporate bully. If it’s a straight-up opinion, it just leaves an impression of confusion.

In any event, one wonders if, when we look back on this period, this press release will be remembered as the epitaph for her campaign. That would be a real shame.

At the very least, she’s going to find she needs to make up even more primary ground after this move.