"As Vermont goes, so goes the nation?"

That's the question University of North Carolina professor of history Molly Worthen poses in an op-ed with that headline published in Sunday's New York Times.

Specifically, Worthen ponders the possibility that if Gov. Peter Shumlin succeeds in his quest to provide Vermonters universal, publicly financed health insurance, the rest of the nation will follow the state's lead.

"If the Vermont experiment works, other states will follow," she writes. "American pragmatism will trump ideology."

That ain't exactly the boldest prediction ever made. 

So is the Vermont House screwing with Gov. Peter Shumlin?

A little over a month ago, as you may recall, the governor suddenly found religion on the topic of raising Vermont's minimum wage. Though he and legislative leaders had barely breathed a word on the subject in the preceding months, Shumlin found himself standing beside President Obama at a Connecticut rally in March, calling on Vermont and its neighboring states to raise the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour by 2017.

"It's the right thing to do," Shumin said the next week at a press conference in Montpelier.

The Vermont House, apparently, agreed. And now it wants to raise Shumlin's bet.

UPDATE Thursday 6:30 p.m. 

It's officially over.

The CCTA Board of Commissioners this evening unanimously ratified the
three-year contract that drivers approved this afternoon. Bus service
will resume tomorrow after a two and a half week shutdown.

"We're done," Board Chairman Tom Buckley said. "Lets roll the buses.
It's been a long slog."

But it is clear that hard feelings remain.

The board's approval came after union steward Mike Walker delivered a
passionate statement asking the board to remove all CCTA managers.
Walker told commissioners that drivers had issued a unanimous vote of
no confidence in management today for their "totalitarian, predatory
philosophy ... that is directly responsible for the current toxic
environment."

Walker said the union will be on guard against management retaliation
against drivers in the coming weeks and months.

Updated at 8 p.m.

After 27 years at Vermont Public Television, president and CEO John King is leaving the station.

VPT's board of directors announced Wednesday afternoon that King and the station "have parted ways." The announcement did not indicate whether the decision was mutual.

"VPT is very grateful for John King's many years of service to VPT and the public television industry," board chairwoman Pam Mackenzie said in a written statement. "We wish him nothing but the best in his future endeavors."

King did not immediately return a call seeking comment. Board member Tom Pelletier said Wednesday that the board met Monday behind closed doors. He would not say whether it took any votes at the time and declined to comment "on any employment matters."

Reached after Wednesday’s announcement, Mackenzie said that members of the board “had a meeting with John this afternoon.” Later, other board members briefed VPT’s staff on King’s departure, she said.

“What we wanted to be able to do is to have a conversation with employees before we sent anything out to the media,” Mackenzie said.

Asked several times whether King had left the station voluntarily or was terminated, Mackenzie declined to say. She also would not reveal whether the board held any votes at Monday’s meeting.

“We have parted ways,” she said. “It’s a personnel issue. That’s the information that you’re going to get.”

The board also announced Wednesday that former KeyBank regional president and longtime state official Charlie Smith has been appointed interim president and CEO as the board seeks a permanent replacement.

King's termination follows a long-running internal struggle between the board and its CEO. 

When it rewrote Vermont's campaign finance law in January, the legislature created a new limit on how much money an individual donor could spread throughout a field of candidates. Such donors would be limited to contributing a combined $40,000 to all candidates in a given election cycle and another $40,000 to all political action committees.

"We thought it was important, because it would limit the influence that a single entity would have — which is why we have limits in the first place," said Sen. Jeanette White (D-Windham), who, as chairwoman of the Senate Committee on Government Operations, helped write the law.

But White and her colleagues were well aware that the U.S. Supreme Court could soon declare such aggregate limits unconstitutional, when it decided the pending McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission case. So they inserted a trigger making Vermont's aggregate limits contingent upon the court giving them its blessing.

On Wednesday, the court decidedly did not give them its blessing. By a vote of 5-4, it ruled federal aggregate limits unconstitutional, thereby nixing Vermont's own aggregate limits before they were ever in place. 

Even as members of the Burlington City Council looked forward Monday night, they kept a thoughtful eye on the past. The group bade farewell to its three departing members, debated the merits of naming city parks after financial benefactors and contemplated the fate of a building in which two of the councilors had attended elementary school.

It was the final meeting for councilors Kevin Worden (D-Ward 1),  Paul Decelles (R-Ward 7) and Bryan Aubin (D-Ward 4), all of whom had opted not to run for reelection on Town Meeting Day. Fellow councilors, regardless of party affiliation, praised the three men for their wisdom and levelheaded approach to governance. Incoming councilors Selene Colburne (P-Ward 1), Bianka LeGrande (D-Ward 7) and Kurt Wright (R-Ward 4) will replace them.

Jesse Bridges, Burlington's director of parks and recreation, then presented the council with a proposal for the city's first-ever naming policy for its parks and related programs. Bridges was making good on an agreement reached in September 2013 between the city council and the Parks Foundation of Burlington.

The policy gives “prospective donors the opportunity to name, dedicate, or rename Burlington parks’ assets appropriately in return for significant financial contributions.” Playgrounds, dog parks, tennis courts, and other facilities within a park would also be eligible for naming, as would scholarships, events and other park programs. The parks and recreation director and the Parks Commission would have final say on whether naming requests are granted.

Councilors endorsed the policy with a 9-2 vote, but Sharon Bushor (I-Ward 1) and Max Tracy (P-Ward 2) dissented. Bushor said she was concerned about erasing history; she argued for changing the policy to allow for naming new park assets but to preclude the renaming ones that already have an established identity.