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A years-long debate over whether to update the state's campaign finance laws came to a surprisingly swift close in the Vermont Senate Friday morning. With hardly a word of discussion, the body voted 24 to 3 to send an ambitious, 50-page bill forward to final passage.

"That was kind of the sound of a logjam breaking," said Vermont Public Interest Research Group executive director Paul Burns.

That's not to say it was an easy lift.

The bill was almost derailed several times — including as recently as Thursday evening, when Democrats meeting in caucus debated whether to strip out a previously passed amendment banning corporate contributions to candidates. Two weeks before, the bill had been abruptly pulled from the floor after senators unexpectedly approved that amendment by a 21 to 8 margin. 

But in the end, the ban on direct corporate contributions remained intact, potentially dramatically changing the way private industry seeks to influence Vermont elections.

"I'm pleasantly surprised, given the tortured history of the bill," said Sen. Peter Galbraith (D-Windham), whose two-year quest to ban such contributions has irritated the hell out of many of his colleagues. "I think it sends a very clear signal that Vermont wants to ... have clean elections."

(Pictured above: Galbraith)

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Their goal was to resolve internal differences privately before a long-stalled campaign finance bill reemerges on the Senate floor Friday. But as Senate Democrats and Progressives met Thursday afternoon in a basement conference room near the Statehouse, a pitched debate erupted instead.

With tempers flaring over matters both philosophical and procedural, the group of 18 senators had to call in Senate Secretary John Bloomer (pictured standing at right) to explain how they should revisit legislation pulled abruptly from the floor late last month.

The crux of the issue is this: Two weeks ago, the Senate voted 21-8 to amend a comprehensive campaign finance bill to bar direct corporate contributions to political candidates. But before that and another amendment could be fully attached to the underlying bill, Senate President Pro Tem John Campbell (D-Windsor) ordered it to lie. 

In other words, he sent it to legislative purgatory.

In the weeks since, Campbell and the bill's author, Sen. Jeanette White (D-Windham) have been working behind the scenes to tweak it in order to resolve a bevy of concerns raised during the floor debate. As VTDigger's Nat Rudarakanchana reported earlier this week, those changes were incorporated into a substitute version of the bill, which was approved Tuesday by the Senate Government Operations Committee.

Oddly, though, despite the fact that more than two-thirds of the Senate had voted in favor of banning corporate contributions, the committee stripped that particular provision from its substitute bill.

That had supporters of the ban fuming at Thursday's meeting. Chief among them was Sen. Peter Galbraith (D-Windham), who wrote the corporate contribution amendment.

In this week's issue of Seven Days...

• On the cover: Vermont ACLU director Allen Gilbert is sounding the alarm about government intrusion. Is anyone listening?
• A small elementary school near the Canadian border bucks the achievement gap trend. What can other districts learn from the success of Montgomery's impoverished students?
• Rolling Stone reporter Matt Taibbi has issued several scathing reports on the perilous state of the financial industry. He's in Burlington for a town meeting event on too-big-to-fail banks with Sen. Bernie Sanders on Friday night.
• A bill in the House would offer Vermont student athletes greater protections from the effects of head injuries.
• Gun control efforts are dead at the state level, but Burlington isn't backing down from its push to ban assault rifles and high-capacity ammunition clips. Mayor Miro Weinberger even appeared in a PSA with other pro-gun control mayors.
• In Fair Game: Senate Democrats are regularly meeting outside the Statehouse in secret. Innocent strategy sessions, or violations of Vermont's open-meeting law?

Read these stories and more in print, online or on the Seven Days app.

Here's what's happening in Vermont news and politics this week. Got a newsworthy event for next week's calendar? Email by Friday to submit.

Monday, April 8

• Burlington City Council. Shannon v. Paul. Round two. The gloves come off 5:30 p.m. at City Hall Auditorium.
• After that, at 7 p.m., a newly appointed panel tries to succeed where the Burlington City Council failed by avoiding a lawsuit and completing a mandatory redistricting of the city's seven wards. At Burlington High School. Channel 17 will carry both meetings live.
• At 7:30 p.m., VTDigger.org presents a talk by Dan Gillmor, columnist for the Guardian, a former Vermont Press Bureau reporter and an expert on new media. Alumni Auditorium at Champlain College. 

Rest of the week after the break...

While you nurse an Easter candy hangover, here's what's happening in Vermont news and politics this week. Got a newsworthy event for next week's calendar? Email by Friday to submit.

Monday, April 1

• At 7:10 a.m., House Minority Leader Don Turner is on "Charlie + Ernie + Lisa in the Morning" - WMVT 620 AM. At 8:10 a.m., the guest is Burlington Police Chief Mike Schirling.
• Congressman Peter Welch will confab with renewable- energy execs in Williston today to announce legislation on funding clean-energy projects. 12:45 p.m. at AllEarth Renewables.
• Showdown at the Burlington City Council: Joan Shannon vs. Karen Paul for all the marbles. 7 p.m. Mayor Miro Weinberger also delivers a state-of-the-city address.

Rest of the week after the break...

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Wikipedia user Aleks (Creative Commons)

Image of industrial hemp production in France

Five years later, federal law hasn’t changed, but that isn’t stopping some Vermont legislators and lobbyists from reviving the hemp bill. S. 157, which passed on a voice vote in the Senate yesterday and now heads to the House, strips out some of the language and restrictions that proponents say too closely conflated hemp with its controversial cousin marijuana. More significantly, though, the updated bill would allow the Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food and Markets to begin issuing permits to raise hemp without any change in federal law.

Even with a state permit in hand, farmers would run the risk of federal prosecution for growing hemp. Their property could be seized, and they could lose federal aid under the Farm Bill. But Robb Kidd, an organizer with Rural Vermont who is pushing hard for hemp production in the state, says that hasn’t dissuaded a few farmers from telling him they’d be lined up on day one for their permits.

“There are folks out there who will take the risk,” says Kidd.

Who won and lost the week in Vermont news and politics? Behold, a special Good Friday edition of The Scoreboard, for the week ending March 29:

Winners:

Wind — First it was a moratorium. Then it bolstered local control. Now it's just a study. Sure, anti-wind legislation passed the Senate this week, but only after its teeth were knocked out. Now look for the House to further defang it.

Gov. Peter Shumlin and House Speaker Shap Smith — In their escalating tax fight, both men win. By railing against the House's broad-based tax hikes, Shumlin looks like a fiscal conservative outside the Statehouse. Inside the building, Smith gets credit for standing up to Shumlin and opposing the governor's own proposed tax hike on working Vermonters. Runner-up losers: Shumlin, Smith and the Democratic Party, because other than people who read this blog, most Vermonters just hear a bunch of Dems arguing over how much to raise their taxes.

VPR's Kirk Carapezza — For shamelessly goading Shumlin into providing a little more color at Wednesday's weekly presser. Color he got.

Pot jokes — They didn't quite hot-box the Statehouse, but House Judiciary Committee members got to sample — or at least eyeball — a couple baggies of kind bud Thursday as the po-po educated them on what an ounce of pot looks like. As if they didn't already know!

Queen City partisanship — It's still looking like Democrats v. Everybody Else in the looming April Fool's Burlington City Council presidency showdown, as 7D's Kevin Kelley reported this week. But as Kelley asks, who would want the job?!

AP's Dave Gram — Oops! Turns out an administration official may have uttered that much-disputed $2 million figure after all, as the Burlington Free Press' Terri Hallenbeck discovered early this week.

Heady Topper & Switchback — After four rounds of voting, the Waterbury and Burlington brews are facing off in the finals of (SHAMELESS PLUG!) Seven Days' 2013 Vermont Brew Bracket, sponsored by Three Penny Taproom (think they'll give me a free Edward next time I'm in there for dropping their name?). Drink — I mean, vote — early and often.

Losers and ties after the jump...

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How much does Gov. Peter Shumlin hate on the Vermont House's tax bill?

So much so that he'd rather kill himself than sign it. 

No, seriously. That's how he put it Wednesday when asked at his weekly press conference by Vermont Public Radio's Kirk Carapezza, "Exactly how much do you not like it?"

"Exactly very much," Shumlin responded.

"Can you give us an analogy?" Carapezza pressed, surely looking for that perfect soundbite for this evening's local All Things Considered newscast.

"Sure," Shumlin said, pausing for a moment. "If you told me that I had to jump from a window, I would go for the highest building that I could possibly find to jump to make sure that I wasn't here to see that tax package become law."

As we noted in this week's Fair Game, Shumlin's, um, strong distaste for the House's proposed $23 million tax increase stems from his longstanding desire to avoid raising so-called "broad-based" taxes. 

Shumlin elaborated on that distaste during Wednesday's Statehouse press conference, saying, "I do not believe we should raise income taxes on hardworking Vermonters, sales taxes on hardworking Vermonters and meals taxes on hardworking Vermonters. And the irony is, we don't need to! This is entirely unnecessary in my judgment."

He also pushed back on the notion that the House's tax plan is more progressive than his own, though theirs includes an income tax increase on high-income Vermonters, while his mostly hits low-income taxpayers.

"As I've mentioned before, Vermont already has a very progressive income tax," he said. "You know, we ask right now a very small portion of taxpayers — I'd be happy to show you the chart — to pay... a huge chunk of Vermont's income tax."

But if you keep gouging the rich, he argued, you'll end up with fewer and fewer wealthy people to tax.

Who won and lost the week in Vermont news and politics? 

Here's the Scoreboard for the week of Friday, March 22:

Winners:

Big Wind — The Senate's decision to put off until next week a vote on whether to subject renewable energy projects to Act 250 regulation suggests that anti-wind folks don't have the votes to pass S.30.

Vermont's 2002 congressional delegation — Ten years ago this week, the U.S. invaded Iraq with the permission of 77 members of the Senate and 297 members of the House. The only congressional delegation to unanimously oppose the use of force in Iraq in October 2002? Vermont's. Ten years later, Sen. Patrick Leahy, former senator Jim Jeffords and then-congressman Bernie Sanders are looking pretty wise.

Your car — House passes transportation bill, ensuring that roads will be paved and bridges fixed. Runner-up loser: Your wallet, 'cuz guess who's paying for it at the pump!

Burlington Free Press and Gov. Peter Shumlin — The gov signed legislation Wednesday allowing judges to force public employees who steal from their employers to forfeit some or all of their pensions. The new law stems from Freeps' public-records maestro Mike Donoghue's big scoop last year uncovering ex-state trooper Jim Deeghan's rampant time-sheet-padding.

The dead — Because cadavers have rights too, obvz.

Publicity stunts — Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger's week at Burlington High School prompted important coverage of pressing educational issues. Or at least of Weinberger himself.

Rufus — The Seven Days office dog gets overdue press coverage as NECN's Jack Thurston discovers what slackers we are here at 7D HQ.

Losers after the break...

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March madness has hit Montpelier.

As she sat in committee yesterday, Rep. Heidi Scheuermann (R-Stowe) was eyeing her NCAA tournament bracket alongside a list of potential revenue sources legislators are considering to plug the state's budget gap.

Then it dawned on her: It's as tough right now to figure out what the legislature will wind up taxing as it is to predict who'll make the Final Four.

"It's madness! Really, I was just thinking it's madness," Scheuermann says. "It's like we're playing darts. We'll try this and then we'll try this."

And so, another bracket was born.

This morning Scheuermann slipped copies of her "Vermont March Madness Tax Bracketology" in every mailbox in the Statehouse. Throughout the day, legislators have been spotted filling them out.