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Apparently, MacLean didn't keep one.

But given Shumlin's 92 percent rating by the group, it ain't hard to figure out how the pro-gun gov filled it out.

Yesterday, we got our hands on a blank copy of the 25-question survey distributed to Vermont state lawmakers in July (it's posted below). The comprehensive questionnaire touches on everything from safety locks to the expired assault weapons ban to the so-called "gun show loophole." The phrasing of several of the questions is, shall we say, loaded.

Here's an example:

10. In 1994, Congress imposed a ten-year ban on the manufacture, for sale to private individuals, of various semi-automatic firearms it termed "assault weapons," and of ammunition magazines capable of holding more than ten rounds of ammunition, which primarily affected handguns designed for self-defense. Congress' subsequent study of the ban, as well as state and local law enforcement agency reports, showed that contrary to the ban's supporters' claims, the guns and magazines had never been used in more than about 1-2% of violent crime. Since the ban expired in 2004, the numbers of these firearms and magazines owned have risen to all-time highs and violent crime has fallen to a 35-year low. Would you support state legislation restricting the possession, ownership, purchase, sale, and/or transfer of semi-automatic firearms and/or limits on the capacity of magazines designed for self-defense?

So how did your lawmakers answer?

Laurie Essig has never shied away from controversy. In fact, there have been plenty of words used over the years to describe the professor of gender studies at Middlebury College  —"controversial," "freethinker," "threatening to the status quo" — but "shy" isn't one of them.

Thus, it wasn't surprising when Essig, who since September has been blogging for Forbes.com in a column called "Love, Inc." (ostensibly about romance and capitalism), wrote a post about last week's mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Within hours, Essig was fired and her post, titled "Speaking the Unspeakable in Newtown," was removed from Forbes' website. Evidently, her read on the mass killings in Newtown, Conn. didn't sit well with Forbes' management.

"I thought this was on my 'beat' since it was about 'parentalism' and also hegemonic masculinity," Essig writes in an email to Seven Days, "but I guess it made someone up top pretty angry. My editor — I don't think it was her — said my blog was being 'sunsetted' (corporate speak for fired) because I had veered off my beat."

Essig goes on to explain that "This is just another form of privileging reproductive subjects in our political discourse, not to mention a certain sort of dominant masculinity that is at the center of heteronormativity. But the real issue — obviously — is I was too left wing for Forbes."

Caroline Howard, Essig's editor at Forbes, didn't reply to an email seeking her comment. Mia Carbonell, who oversees corporate communications for Forbes Media would say only that "Forbes does not comment publicly on personnel issues."

Here is Essig's original December 17 post. (Reprinted with the author's permission.)

In a surprise move, U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) said Wednesday he's turned down a chance to head the Senate's most powerful committee.

Since the death of Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) Monday, Beltway prognosticators (and this lowly Vermont reporter) have assumed Leahy would succeed Inouye as chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, which holds the nation's purse strings. Instead, Leahy announced Wednesday that he'd stay put at the top of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

"Chairing the Judiciary Committee and maintaining my seniority on the Appropriations Committee will allow me to protect both the Constitution and Vermont," Leahy said in a written statement.

According to spokesman David Carle, "It's been a difficult decision, but the choice in the end was clear to him... He'll continue to be able to do as much or more on Appropriations as senior member while chairing the Senate's busiest committee, Judiciary."

Carle noted that, in the next Congress, the Judiciary Committee will be handling everything from potential Supreme Court vacancies to comprehensive immigration reform to the response to last Friday's school shootings in Newtown, Connecticut.

Leahy noted via Twitter Wednesday that his decision to stay put elevates Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) as the first female chair of the Appropriations Committee. Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), who is more senior than Mikulski, apparently opted to remain chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.

Interestingly, Leahy would have been succeeded as the head of the Judiciary Committee by virulently anti-gun Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-Calif.) just before the committee takes up whatever legislation President Obama offers in response to the Newtown shootings. Leahy has been considerably more amenable to gun rights over the years.

Asked if Leahy's decision to eschew Appropriations means he won't be able to secure as much federal funding for Vermont as he might have, Carle said, "He's been able to do that for many, many years in a senior position on Appropriations."

Leahy was sworn in Tuesday as Senate President Pro Tempore, a ceremonial position Inouye also held.

Marc Nadel

• Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger wants to hold more festivals and events, year-round, at Waterfront Park. But some neighbors object to more noise and park closures.
• The quest to bring the F-35 to Vermont has drawn Frank Cioffi, the head of the Greater Burlington Industrial Corporation, out of the shadows.That's him in Marc Nadel's illustration, right.
• The University of Vermont is facing criticism from its own students and faculty for using kill traps to catch beavers in Centennial Woods.
• This week's WTF tackles a pair of questions from commuters: What's up with the sheet-enshrouded bridge in Richmond and the big foam blocks on the Burlington Beltline?
• In Fair Game: Vermont's laws, and its politicians, have a history of being gun-friendly. Will that change in the wake of the Newtown shootings?

Also, one editor's note: the Seven Days office is closed through January 2 for our year-end break. We'll be putting out a double issue on December 26, with no paper on January 2. This blog will be updated less frequently than normal over the break, too. Happy holidays!

Frank Cioffi illustration by Marc Nadel

Could Vermont follow the lead of Colorado and Washington and legalize marijuana?

Don't bet the stash on it. But a handful of lawmakers — including senator-elect David Zuckerman (pictured) — is drafting legislation for the upcoming session to legalize, tax and regulate the green stuff.

Pot reformers in Montpelier have been focused on a more incremental step: decriminalizing marijuana possession in Vermont. But advocates like Zuckerman see the recent votes in Washington and Colorado as giving momentum for legalization — or at least a conversation about it.

Zuckerman, a Progressive/Democrat representing Chittenden County, said he's asked legislative council to draft a legalization bill and was told by the legislature's lawyers that "a handful" of other lawmakers had made the same request. Rep. Susan Hatch Davis (P/D-Washington) is one of them, according to Rep. Chris Pearson (P-Burlington), leader of the House Progressive caucus. The others are unknown because the bill-drafting process is confidential.

Zuckerman doesn't expect legalization — which he prefers to call "regulation and taxation" — to pass this year. But he says it deserves to be part of the broader discussion over drug policy. Employing an agricultural metaphor, the Hinesburg farmer compares his effort to planting seeds that will bear fruit down the line.

The solemn occasion followed the death of 88-year-old Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii), whose 49 years in the Senate made him its second-longest-serving member in history. The Pro Tem's mostly ceremonial baton is now passed to Leahy, who's served a mere 37 years in office.

As one anonymous Twitter user with the handle "@SrWHOfficial" tweeted shortly after Inouye's death, "A Grateful Dead fan will become President Pro Tempore."

So long as President Obama, Vice President Biden and Speaker Boehner stay out of trouble, the real import of Inouye's passing — at least for Vermont — is this: Leahy now becomes the most senior member of the all-powerful Senate Appropriations Committee and, quite likely, its next chairman.

Leahy served for eight years as chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee. Since 2001, he's served as either chairman or ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee — depending on the party in power. But the real golden ring for Leahy has always been the chairmanship of Appropriations, which has tremendous influence over the nation's spending priorities.

For the Green Mountain State, that means even more pork from St. Patrick.

Leahy's spokesman declined to comment Monday night on whether he'd trade Judiciary for Appropriations (senators can chair just one full committee), but Politico reported that Vermont's senior senator "is widely expected" to make the switch. The Wall Street Journal was a little more cautious, noting that Leahy "thoroughly enjoy[s]" heading Judiciary and could decline the promotion.

As we noted last week, the other two members of Vermont's congressional delegation recently got their own promotions.

File photo of Leahy by Andy Bromage.

Here's what's happening in Vermont news and politics this week. Note: The Week Ahead will be on hiatus next week and will return in the new year — if the world doesn't end.

Monday, December 17

• Today's the day when Vermont's three electors convene and formally cast the state's votes for President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden in the Electoral College. The group — Kevin B. Christie of Hartford, Sherry Merrick of Post Mills and William Sander of Jeffersonville — were set to convene at the Statehouse at 10 a.m. Christie will appear on today's "Vermont Edition" on Vermont Public Radio.
• At 2 p.m., Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger presides over a naturalization ceremony for new citizens — in federal bankruptcy court, of all places. Welcome to America!
• At 6 p.m., the Winooski City Council will hear a debriefing from Mayor Michael O'Brien about his recent trip to Florida's Eglin Air Force Base to hear the F-35 fighter jets in person.
• At 7 p.m., the Burlington City Council will take up the citywide ward redistricting plan passed in committee last week that would reduce the number of wards from seven to four, and reduce the number of councilors from 14 to 12. The council also takes up a tar sands resolution sponsored by three Democrats and two Progressives to, among other things, investigate divesting city pension funds from fossil fuel companies that utilize oil extracted from tar sands.

Rest of the week after the break...

Thomas Naylor, founder of the secessionist Second Vermont Republic, died this week after suffering a stroke on Sunday. He was 76. Naylor's friend and ally Rob Williams delivered the news via email on Friday afternoon.

Naylor, a Charlotte resident, founded SVR in 2003. In his Vermont Manifesto, which he self-published the same year, he declared that, "Our nation has truly lost its way. America is no longer a sustainable nation-state economically, politically, socially, militarily or environmentally."

His solution? Secede from the union and create a second Vermont Republic; the first existed from 1777-1791, before Vermont joined the Union.

Secession sounded nuts — until George W. Bush won a second term in 2004. Suddenly, Naylor's quixotic quest began making headlines, and disgruntled liberals started slapping SVR bumper stickers on their cars.

Some of those supporters abandoned the group, however, after an anonymous blogger raised questions about SVR's ties to secessionist groups such as the League of the South, which the Southern Poverty Law Center has deemed a racist hate group. Williams, who founded Vermont Commons, a journal devoted to Vermont independence, was one of them. For his part, Naylor disputed the suggestion that SVR was in any way racist.

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Mobil mogul Skip Vallee is putting his money where his mouth is.

Two days after releasing an online ad attacking Sen. Bernie Sanders' environmental record, the gasoline distributor and retailer has ponied up roughly $1500 to air the ad three times tonight on WCAX-TV.

Vallee says he's spending his own money on the ad in order to "highlight counter-arguments to Bernie's unilateral support for Costco."

Sanders has been hammering Vallee and fellow gasoline distributors for months, alleging they're gouging customers in northwestern Vermont. The senator has also urged environmental regulators to expedite their review of a proposed Costco gas station in Colchester, arguing that increased competition will help drive down prices.

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Vallee, who owns nearly 40 Mobil stations in Vermont — many of them under the Maplefields brand — declined a request for a phone interview Thursday. Reached by email, he wrote, "I challenge Bernie to a VPR debate on the Keystone Pipeline and Lake Champlain cleanup."

Sanders did not respond to that challenge Thursday, but he did push back on Vallee's ad in a written statement:

Charles Steck

Congressman Peter Welch

Vermont's congressional delegation will have new clout on Capitol Hill next term thanks to a couple of promotions bestowed upon the three-member team.

Sen. Bernie Sanders' (I-Vt.) office on Wednesday confirmed earlier reports that he's been named chairman of the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee. That's the first chairmanship Sanders has earned during his more than two decades in Washington.

Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) appointed Sanders to the post after promoting its current chairwoman, Sen. Patty Murray (D-Washington), to head the Senate Budget Committee. Sanders was the next-highest-ranking Democrat-aligned member of the panel not already chairing another committee.

"It is a great honor to be named chairman of the committee, but it is an even greater responsibility," Sanders said in a written statement. "We owe it to the over 22 million brave veterans living in the United States to provide the benefits that they have earned and deserve."

On Thursday, Congressman Peter Welch (D-Vt.) announced that he's reclaimed his old seat on the powerful House Energy and Commerce Committee. Welch was first tapped for the committee in 2009, but was bumped after the 2010 election, when Republicans took over the House and claimed a majority of seats on each panel.

The committee's portfolio is unusually broad: it handles policy relating to health care, energy, the environment, telecommunications, public health and trade. Spokesman Scott Coriell says Welch will particularly focus on making health care more affordable, increasing energy efficiency and curbing climate change.