Tuesday, January 13, 2015
Last week, the Vermont State Colleges announced they'd hired Welch's state director, Tricia Coates, as their new director of external affairs. On Tuesday, Secretary of Natural Resources Deb Markowitz introduced Copans to legislators as DEC's new senior policy adviser. He sat in as the House Fish, Wildlife & Water Resources Committee heard from various ANR officials.
Copans replaces Trey Martin, who was promoted last month to deputy ANR secretary. Martin, in turn, replaced Justin Johnson, who is Gov. Peter Shumlin's new secretary of administration.
Tags: Peter Welch , Jon Copans , Tricia Coates , Image , Web Only
Milne says he paid $325, including a $250 late fee, to register as a lobbyist this week. The filing is retroactive to January 2, Milne says, because that’s when he posted an online video in the hopes of persuading lawmakers to vote for him, putting him over $500 in spending.
Milne, a Republican business owner who has never held elected office, came 2,434 votes short of defeating two-term incumbent Democrat Peter Shumlin in November. Because no candidate won more than 50 percent of the vote, the election went to the legislature, which voted last Thursday 110-69 for Shumlin. Leading up to the vote, Milne urged Vermonters to call on their legislators to support for him if they were unhappy with the direction of the state.
That action qualifies as lobbying, according to Assistant Attorney General Michael Duane. Lobbyists who spend $500 or more on their efforts are required to register with the secretary of state’s office, he says.
Tags: Scott MIlne , Peter Shumlin , Vermont Legislature , lobbyist , Image , Web Only
Friday, January 9, 2015
Previous chairs of the Senate's nine other standing committees will stay put in the biennium that began Wednesday.
The decisions were handed down Friday afternoon by the three-member Committee on Committees, which consists of Lt. Gov. Phil Scott, Senate President Pro Tem John Campbell (D-Windsor) and Sen. Dick Mazza (D-Grand Isle).
Tags: Ann Cummings , Chris Bray , Image , Web Only
That should tell you a thing or two about how politically weakened the East Montpelier Democrat finds himself as he settles in to a third two-year term.
Blocking Shumlin's path from the dais of the Vermont House to its front entrance Thursday afternoon was a group of Vermont Workers' Center activists irate over his decision three weeks ago to scrap his long-promised single-payer health care plan. After the governor concluded his inaugural remarks, the protesters sat down in the center aisle and would not leave the House for more than five hours, at which point the Vermont State Police arrested 29 of them.
Left-wing health care advocates weren't the only ones standing in Shumlin's path. Earlier in the day, 69 members of the Vermont legislature took the remarkable step of voting against returning him to office, despite the fact that he won a plurality in last November's election.
Tags: Peter Shumlin , Image , Web Only
The protest, which began with singing and chanting in the halls of the Statehouse, escalated over the course of the two-hour ceremony. After one activist burst onto the balcony of the House chamber, Barre Mayor Thom Lauzon grabbed and attempted to forcibly remove him.
Roughly three dozen people affiliated with the Vermont Workers’ Center refused to leave the chamber for more than five hours, demanding that House Speaker Shap Smith (D-Morristown) schedule public hearings to debate Shumlin’s single-payer plan.
Between 8 and 9 p.m., the Vermont State Police removed the protesters one by one, arresting 29 and charging them with unlawful trespass. Of those, at least seven were also charged with resisting arrest, according to VSP Lt. Garry Scott.
State troopers lifted up several protesters who refused to comply with their instructions to leave the Statehouse, dragging them down the center aisle of the House and out of the chamber. One of them, Sheila Linton of Brattleboro, cried out in apparent pain as two troopers pulled her arms behind her back.
Tags: Peter Shumlin , inauguration , protest , Vermont Workers' Center , Image , Video , Web Only
Thursday, January 8, 2015
In a joint session of the Vermont legislature, 179 lawmakers voted Thursday morning to reelect Democratic Gov. Peter Shumlin to a third term.
By secret ballot, legislators cast 110 votes for Shumlin and 69 for Republican Scott Milne.
Thursday’s vote brought to a close a highly unusual process that began when no candidate cleared the constitutional threshold of 50 percent of the popular vote in last November’s election. That put the final decision in the hands of the legislature, whose members were free to choose from among the top three vote getters: Shumlin, Milne and Libertarian Dan Feliciano.
Though Shumlin edged out Milne 46.4 percent to 45.1 percent in November — a margin of just 2,434 votes — the Pomfret Republican declined to concede the election, a break from recent tradition.
In the days preceding Thursday’s vote, Milne asked Vermonters to call their delegates to urge them to support him. He and Shumlin said they weren't personally lobbying legislators, but both spent time mingling with them in the Statehouse Wednesday.
In a statement released shortly after the vote, Shumlin said he was “so grateful for the opportunity to continue serving this state I love.” He predicted the new legislative session would be “productive” and pledged to “expand our economy, grow jobs and increase affordability.”
Addressing a scrum of reporters immediately after the election, Milne said he was pleased with the way the process played out.
“I think it’s been a good day for Vermont. I was happy to be part of it,” he said. “I think the road that’s led us here has … gotten a lot of people feeling like one person can make a difference.”
Tags: Peter Shumlin , Scott Milne , Vermont legislature , gubernatorial election , Image , Web Only
Wednesday, January 7, 2015
With the bang of a gavel Wednesday morning, the Vermont legislature launched its most anticipated session in years.
Thirty-five new House members and four freshmen senators joined veteran lawmakers in swearing oaths of office. As friends and family members looked on, all 180 legislators — some sporting new haircuts and others wearing old suits — pledged to uphold Vermont’s constitution.
The day of ceremony featured few surprises. Leaders of both chambers — House Speaker Shap Smith (D-Morristown) and Senate President Pro Tem John Campbell (D-Windsor) — won unanimous reelection to their posts. Smith formally announced an overhaul of his committee leadership team that he has been planning and telegraphing for months.
Even as Vermont’s newest class of legislators enjoyed the pomp and circumstance of opening day, many appeared preoccupied by the next day’s business: the unusual election and inauguration of a governor whose identity is not yet known.
Tags: Vermont legislature , Shap Smith , John Campbell , Scott Milne , Peter Shumlin , Image , Web Only
Tuesday, January 6, 2015
“Normally I’d go for the top vote-getter," he says. "I’m going to vote for Washington County."
Doyle says that means he’ll cast his ballot Thursday for Republican Scott Milne, the second-place finisher, instead of Democratic incumbent Peter Shumlin, as he had previously said he would do. Milne narrowly edged out Shumlin in Washington County.
Doyle's change of heart is one among many indications that there is nothing ordinary about the vote legislators will take Thursday to decide who should be governor for the next two years. It comes after Milne declined to concede the November election, in which no candidate received a majority, as required by the state's constitution.
Political ads, normally reserved for autumn, are airing in January. Election laws no longer prevail, though, so there is no requirement to reveal who is paying for the ads. Milne himself was preparing Tuesday to register as a lobbyist, as he has taken an election campaign into uncharted territory. Shumlin, who has said he’s not campaigning because the campaign is over, argues that democracy hinges upon electing the candidate who gets the most votes.
Tags: Peter Shumlin , Scott Milne , Vermont elections , Bill Doyle , Vermont Legislature , Image , Web Only
Thursday, December 18, 2014
On Wednesday afternoon, Shumlin proved them prescient.
In an extraordinary about-face, the man who built his political career on the promise of bringing universal, affordable health insurance to Vermont said that, within the last five days, he had suddenly concluded that doing so would damage the state’s economy.
“It became clear that the risk of economic shock is too high at this time to offer a plan that I can responsibly support for passage in the legislature,” Shumlin told a rapt crowd in a first-floor hearing room of the Statehouse.
His decision to scrap his own, long-promised plan and move forward with more modest reforms, he said, was “the greatest disappointment of my political life, so far.”
No doubt it was equally disappointing to those who took Shumlin at his word when he first ran for governor in 2010 pledging to “get tough things done” like turning single-payer from liberal dream to reality. Or to those who believed him when he said it again two years later during his 2012 race for reelection — or again two years after that.
Tags: health care reform , Peter Shumlin , single-payer health care , Vermont , Image , Web Only
Wednesday, December 17, 2014
In a striking reversal, Gov. Peter Shumlin on Wednesday abandoned his chief policy initiative, saying “now is not the right time” to pursue single-payer health care reform.
Shumlin dropped the political bombshell with no warning Wednesday afternoon at a crowded Statehouse press conference. He said that new cost estimates presented to him last Friday by his health care team made clear that the plan he envisioned was “just not affordable.”
Continuing to fight for single-payer when it would likely hurt Vermont’s economy, he said, “is not good for Vermont and it would not be good for true health care reform.”
Shumlin vowed to pursue more modest measures to slow the growth of health care spending, but his decision to forego a looming battle in the legislature over how to finance his plan marks the end — for now — of a four-year effort to dramatically restructure the state’s health care system.
It also represents a major political blow to a politician who rode to the governorship on the promise of enacting the nation’s first single-payer system. As Shumlin himself said Wednesday, “This is the greatest disappointment of my political life, so far.”
Tags: Peter Shumlin , single-payer health care , Vermont , Image , Web Only