Is the end of the session coming into sight? Depends on how all the budget battles go, but in the meantime:

• Good news! S.117 – the bill to move the Primary election to the second Tuesday in August – should see Senate action on Tuesday. House Gov Ops Chair Sweaney is reportedly eager to move on it.
• Terrific stuff from Rep. Bob South of St. Johnsbury. He, “along with other Representatives and Senators from Caledonia County will hold a press conference Monday, April 20 at 12 noon at the Northeast Regional Correctional Facility in St. Johnsbury.  Rep. South will discuss a bill he is introducing in the House of Representatives next week to protect the St. Johnsbury facility from closure.  He will be joined by workers at the facility, local law enforcement and members of the community.” (from a Press release). Regardless of the feelings of folks on this particular facility, I’d love to see more of this kind of local, aggressively district-focused legislating and media engagement/messaging. This is being a good representative and a smart politician. Hope to see other Reps following suit with this sort of thing.
• Take a listen. Anybody know this guy?:

*** Update by Christian***

• Activism gone bad. Not sure if you heard about this “up north” but Sally Shaw of the New England Coalition (a Brattleboro anti-nuke advocacy group) threw compost at Vermont Yankee VP Michael Colomb. Bob Audette of the Brattleboro Reformer.
  

  ” It wasn’t just invectives that flew from mouths of the anti-nuclear activists at Thursday’s Nuclear Regulatory Commission meeting in Brattleboro.

  One activist also threw compost at Vermont Yankee’s site vice president Michael Colomb.

  “You folks have no idea what to do with spent fuel or radioactive waste,” said Sally Shaw, of Gill, Mass.

  Carrying a bag to the front of the conference room, she threw a handful of “spent food” at Colomb and other Entergy executives before depositing handfuls of compost on a table where NRC officials sat.

  “That’s really good quality compost,” she said.

  The NRC was in Brattleboro to discuss Yankee’s 2008 annual assessment, in which the agency stated the nuclear power plant was operated “in a manner that preserved public health and safety and fully met all cornerstone objectives.”

  
  Shaw is the former executive director of the NEC. This was unprofessional and in poor taste. I heard some Windham County legislators are NOT happy about Shaw’s actions. To read more of the story click here.

• Big story that flew under the radar. Not sure if you heard but the Public Service Board approved the Deerfield Wind Project. Seventeen new windmills will be built in Searsburg and Readsboro and each of them will be 409 feet high and generate approximately 36 MW of electricity. The 17 new windmills will join the other 12 windmills on-site owned by Green Mountain Power. Once complete, it will be Vermont’s largest wind facility. To read more click here.

   

Suggestion by Julie

As much as I never expected myself to say this, we may be able to learn something from Texas (h/t Daily Kos):

House members virtually wiped out Gov. Rick Perry’s office budget Friday in order to help veterans and the mentally ill.

With little debate, the House on a voice vote approved erasing 96 percent of the nearly $24 million that budget writers had recommended for Perry’s office operation over the next two years.

Oh, and this is incredibly cool.

Sometimes I’m just flabbergasted. Y’know, I’m not one of these folks who think that simply being a Republican is a sign of poor character. I know plenty of very decent people with beliefs I find abhorrent – they’re just misguided. You can tell through their words and deeds that there’s more to them then screwed-up perspectives or unfortunate Gramscian hegemony.

Which is why things like this just leave be babbling like an idiot. I just can’t believe it. I saw a roundabout reference in the comments in kestrel’s heartfelt post below. I got a bad feeling and went searching…

So anyway, I found this in the coverage:

“I want to respect their privacy, their wishes as to how to structure an opportunity for Vermonters to properly thank Capt. Phillips,” Douglas said Thursday at his weekly news conference in Montpelier. “But I also made it clear to them that there has to be some opportunity because so many people across this state are excited about having him as a fellow Vermonter. They’re so proud of what he accomplished and the example that he set.”

OMG! WTF? I just… what can you… I mean…. holy crap…

Is he just badly socialized? Is he really that self-centered? He “want(s) to respect their privacy” but only to the point that it doesn’t interfere with his own PR???? Vermonters of all people aren’t going to demand an opportunity for a photo-op public event if the family doesn’t want it. Who does he think he is to “make it clear” to this man and his family that they have to put on a publicity show whether they like it or not?

Just how – by any definition or understanding of the term – is that “respecting” this man and his family????

It had been barely 24 hours since the traditional media widely announced that a bill was in the Senate to move Vermont’s primary earlier in the year before Hallenbeck all but pronounced it DOA:

A bill to move the state’s primary elections from September to August is lingering on the Senate calendar. Moldering, you could say…

…Based on the bill’s lack of movement, I wouldn’t bet on any changes for 2010.

Geez. We’re talking one day. That’s a rapid-fire news narrative, there…

Still, the fact is that any bill that only emerges this late in the session (post-“crossover”) has the deck stacked against it. That’s not to say its dead, but it depends on who’s supporting it.

And Hallenbeck’s assertion that its the bill’s division of support on partisan lines that is making its future uncertain seems weird. Given this governor, this bill was always going to divide on partisan lines (despite the fact that moving the primary is not just a question of improving democracy, but of better government). This idea – whether its coming from Hallenbeck, or whether she’s simply reporting what she’s been told – is akin to someone saying they decided not to complete their shower because they got wet as soon as they stepped in. It was…er… kinda always part of the deal.

So who’d like to see the bill pass? At least three – possibly four members of the Senate leadership may well jump into a primary themselves, so that’s some powerful backing. Our current primary calendar is nothing more than an incumbent protection racket, but on the other hand – if Republicans are hoping for a high-profile, expensive gubernatorial primary to divide the Dems, moving the primary will virtually guarantee a contest. Win-win, eh?

What about the House? Word is that House Gov Ops Chair Donna Sweaney would also like to see the date changed and is in fact “eager” to move on it – as would others in the caucus. And the House may be our opportunity to put June back on the table.

So while reports of its demise are clearly premature, it clearly isn’t healthy either, simply as a matter of timing and placement. I encourage everyone to contact their Senators and Representatives supporting this change. Here’s a link to the House contact page, and here’s the Senate. You can also call the Sergeant at Arms at the Statehouse and leave a message). In fact, we should pull out the stops.

Not passing this change at this point would be a real dereliction of duty and, quite frankly, an act of cowardice. To this point, this legislature has not been showing cowardice at all. With so much at stake, this would hardly be the time to start.

Vermont had (I believe) two manifestations of the national right wing anti-tax/anti-Obama/anti-Democrat “tea party” demonstration on April 15th (tax day). I walked by at the beginning of the Montpelier event and took some video.

It was a good size demonstration. Not the biggest I’ve seen and not the smallest. Unlike a lot of others, I always thought there’d be a decent turnout (in Vermont, at any rate), but this was a full on good turnout.

Unfortunately, it got stranger after I’d taken the video. When I walked by later, John McLaughry was speaking to the crowd. It’s weird to hear a whole crowd of people start booing at the phrase “universal health care” (no, not “socialized medicine” or “government-run health-care” … simply universal. The very idea of everybody being covered stirred anger.). Unlike most right wing gatherings, these folks (as you can see from some of the signs) were definitely that flavor of hard right that embraces a large degree of selfishness, resentment, and me-first/me-only-ism. I was told a bit later from another passerby that some blatantly anti-gay comments were being said over the loudspeaker, but I can’t confirm that first hand.

At any rate, this was a crowd of the hardcores, with very little effort made to hide that (although a couple explicitly anti-Democrat signs seemed to disappear when I tried to get closer to get a better picture of them, which was strange… did somebody want them to seem non-partisan? As you can see in the video, the Republican Party had a table there, fer pity’s sake.)

Could a meaningful, functional primary election system be on the way? Long-murmured attempts to move the primaries earlier in the year are now out in the open. From the Free Press:

A contested primary raises concerns that once a single candidate is chosen, there is little time or money left to wage a campaign against the candidate of the opposing party.

Shumlin, leader of the Senate, said in a meeting of Senate Democrats this week, “Let’s get the bill out.”

Predictably, the Republicans are lining up against it, as a dysfunctional primary system benefits incumbents – like Jim Douglas – at the expense of giving opponents a fair shot and voters a fair choice. It’s so painful:

“I just frankly am not at all in favor of lengthening the time, the pain, the cost,” Sen. Randy Brock, R-Franklin, said of the election season.

It’s so weird:

The August date also drew discussion. “It’s a weird time to have an election,” said Sen. William Doyle, R-Washington.

August seems woefully inadequate, though. Talk about a half-solution. Clearly, to allow two complete election processes (which the primary and general elections should be in order to avoid short-circuiting democracy) the primary should move to June (or at the very least July), unfortunately…

The committee considered a June primary, but committee Chairman Jeanette White, D-Windham, said that would force candidates, including those for the Legislature, to file petitions in April, before the legislative session is over and before they’re ready to make a decision on running.

Arg. Oh well… I suppose the glass is half full.

Steve Metcalf, former longtime Chair of the Orange County Democratic Committee and current Superintendent of the Montpelier School system, announced yesterday to members of the community that he has what has been labeled “inoperable and incurable” bile duct cancer and has been given from a few months to eighteen months to live, depending on how he responds to chemotherapy.

Steve’s family has been steeped in Vermont politics behind the scenes over the years. His children have been active – particularly Ben who, among other things, was a staffer for Howard Dean’s Presidential campaign. His ex-wife is a former Chair of the State Democratic committee.

Steve is a truly great guy, and I’m sure I speak for many in wishing him the best as he fights this thing. In the letter he sent to the community, he indicated his intent to “beat these crazy odds.” Those of us who have had loved ones stricken by cancer (or have had to cope with it ourselves) know how truly unpredictable it can be, so hang in there. If anybody can beat it, Steve, I’m sure you can.

Here's a link to my write-up of this week's historic vote for the Guardian (UK) "Comment is Free" website (fortunately for my bank account, they didn't actually get it  for "free"…). I'd excerpt, but we have plenty on the issue already… I encourage commenters to stop by, though, as there are a few unpleasant responses.

Also: Michael Corcoran has a featured article for The Nation on the issue with similar themes, but more depth than in my li'l feel-good piece. A great read (even if he hadn't quoted me… am I being too self-promotional today? Cuz there's one more…).

And a final note, Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post just named GMD Vermont's best political blog. Woo-hoo! 

From the coverage of yesterday:

Steve Cable of Rutland, a founder of the group Vermont Renewal, said same-sex marriage opponents across the state are “blood shooting out of their eyes mad” about the veto override vote…

“This isn’t about moving on,” Cable said. “This is about getting even.”

Forget “religious right” or “evangelical wing of the Republican Party,” I believe Mr. Cable (who himself is about to slip back into obscurity) has just offered us a new term for his demographic: the Blood-shooting-out-of-their-eyes Right. Nice imagery.