Editor’s note: This commentary is by state Sen. Bob Hartwell, a Democrat who represents the Bennington District in the Vermont Senate. He did not seek re-election.
[I]t is clear that the issues raised in my earlier article “What Senate Democrats Must Do” were the issues voters cared about, including outrageous property taxes, sloppy health care implementation and bad energy policies, among others. The absence of a plan to freeze property taxes, the continued inability to make Vermont Health Connect work in a respectable fashion and this summer’s “Solar Tour” have taken a severe toll.
In another substantive area, Vermont has lost its environmental leadership in the U.S. due to a terribly misguided obsession with industrial renewables pushed on the administration and enabled by a compliant Legislature no longer seriously committed to the natural environment. Reckless energy siting with no meaningful standards along with a willingness to compromise prime agricultural soils (as with a poorly conceived proposal in Randolph at I-89, Exit 4 that would require a change in law in order to destroy prime agricultural soils), refusal to support meaningful forest fragmentation legislation clearly needed in the estimation of the Department of Forest, Parks and Recreation are examples of policy going in the wrong direction; the Legislature not only failed on these issues but could not even ban oil-laden single-use plastic bags that cause litter and interfere with the single-stream waste management system, the honor going instead to Gov. Jerry Brown. (Hopefully, some sense will be obtained regarding Vermont’s failed bottle deposit law after Massachusetts voters appropriately defeated Ballot Question 2 rejecting bottle bill expansion in a 73-27 percent landslide.) There is even the foolish suggestion that the state treasurer be directed to divest the state of energy securities even though these are the companies doing the most important energy research and even though such direction could impair the state’s fiduciary obligation to its beneficiaries. These are simply more examples of misdirection and confusion with which many Vermonters have lost patience.
The voters obviously are not happy with the path in which Vermont is now headed; if there is not significant shift in direction, there will be a major realignment of power in Vermont in 2016. The governor was an easy target and it is hard to imagine that some were surprised at the result; however, the Democratic legislative majority bears significant responsibility for the result. If it does not take serious action to work to change direction, it will be the next target of voter ire.
Given this state of affairs, the Senate must determine to assist to affect good policy and not play the role of enabler when policy proposals come from the administration but rather work with the administration to make changes that will impact the broader goal in a positive way. This can be accomplished, first, by recognizing the nonsense of announcing the length of the session in advance so that an administration will know almost to the day when it can be rid of the Legislature. Contrary to the belief of legislative leaders, Vermonters do not believe the shorter the session the better; Vermonters respect a Legislature that completes its job no matter the length of the session, one, for example, that does not leave knowing full well that budgetary shortfalls are imminent.
The Legislature needs to convene in the odd year perhaps between Labor Day and Thanksgiving to engage exclusively in legislative oversight. From this session better legislative proposals will evolve and more constructive and helpful responses will be offered to the administration.
The Legislature must determine that the House and Senate are not well coordinated with a foolish crossover rule that allows one chamber, more often the House, to wait to the last minute to pass important legislation over to the Senate as if it is the job of the other body to act as a rubber stamp.
The administration needs new staff capable of addressing process issues and who will be direct and absolutely candid with the governor, secretaries and commissioners. It is clear current staff are unlikely to be able to perform accordingly.
Further, the Committee on Committees, which appoints senators to standing committees, must do everything it can to assure that ill-informed ideologues, inattentive to detail, are not appointed committee chairs; what is needed are collaborators who are leaders in determination of committee priorities and managing these priorities. It must select Senate committee chairs who are attentive to detail, not those who have failed on these requirements in the past and not those who are burdened with extremist ideological positions which, among other things, have contributed to the current energy siting mess rapidly making Vermont a beacon to the world as to how not to make energy policy.
If both the administration and the Legislature determine to continue on their respective courses they will be replaced by the voters. Time is short to take drastic action on the property tax probably by outlawing it as a funding mechanism, by adoption of a statewide labor contract, by requiring that the number of employees bear some meaningful relationship to the number of students which, right now, is obviously not the case. There is little time left politically for the Legislature to correct its massive default on this issue.
It must determine how much the proposed health care delivery system will cost, and the administration must agree it will engage in no more obfuscation with regard to the cost. At this point, it will be better to come to a consensus between the two branches working together because, up until now on this topic, senators have been enablers rather than helpers to the administration. Only then can a rational decision be made as to whether or not to continue.
The Legislature must pass tough siting standards and end the intolerable hypocrisy of asking all other developers to go through comprehensive permitting while allowing renewable developers, many of them on public assistance, to destroy Vermont’s natural environment, increase its carbon footprint and, sadly to very a considerable extent already, ruin its scenic attributes.
These are the substantive issues which did so much damage to the administration in this election and which will do so to the Legislature before long if proper corrective action is not taken. There are others, including the poor business climate and real estate market caused by government excesses including excessive and, to some extent, poorly directed spending. In any event, failure to take serious action within the administration AND within the Legislature will result in serious erosion of the influence of the Democratic Party for a long time to come.
There are also process issues relating to the manner in which the administration relates to the Legislature and the Legislature to the administration. Both have done a poor job at communication and, therefore, at working out their differences, a disservice to all Vermonters. Much work must be done to change manners of communication, to assure transparency and, therefore, to restore trust which has become impaired particularly over the past two years. The Legislature needs presenters at legislative orientation who understand that the landscape is radically different than it was two years ago and who can express the difference to new members in an informed and constructive manner.
The administration needs new staff capable of addressing process issues and who will be direct and absolutely candid with the governor, secretaries and commissioners. It is clear current staff are unlikely to be able to perform accordingly. In this vein, the governor’s suggestion that he is “ahead of the voters” as an explanation for the election debacle does not inspire confidence in a deeply mistrusting electorate and will never be acceptable to most Vermonters.
There is little time left to repair the damage; however, it can be repaired with all hands on deck working out their differences by addressing those issues mismanaged so far and by remembering at all times whom they work for.
