Amid the turmoil and suspense surrounding an inconclusive primary outcome, we can turn to our Vermont delegation for a reminder of how good it feels to all be on the same progressive page. In a joint-press release, Senators Leahy and Sanders, and Rep. Welch announced yesterday that Vermont would be the beneficiary of an injection of federal funding to help some low-income Vermonters achieve energy savings through the use of "smart" metering and installation of thermal and solar hot water systems in their homes. Sen.Leahy is quoted as saying:
Vermont is a national leader in using the Weatherization Program’s stimulus funds for cost and energy savings for low-income households...With our older housing stock and longer winters, these investments are likely to save Vermont families far more than the national average of $400 a year in reduced energy costs.”
To which Sen. Sanders adds:
This federal support will be a major step forward in moving our state toward a greener economy.”
The Vermont Energy Investment Corporation, a non-profit better known to Vermonters as "Efficiency Vermont," will have charge of administering the $700,000. federal investment, which represents reinforcement for an earlier $69. million stimulus from the feds. It should be noted here that the Douglas/Dubie administration has consistently opposed funding of Efficiency Vermont. The projection is that, with the new funding, assistance can be provided to approximately 750 low income households to help them reduce and better utilize their energy consumption so that they can realize cost savings, while Vermont's greater economy and environment benefit at the same time. According to Peter Welch:
This additional $5.7 million award recognizes Vermont’s past successes, while paving the way for future savings.”
Well done, Gentlemen. I dare anyone to characterize this green investment in a cash-strapped population as "pork."
Just when we need a little leavening to lighten the mood during these final days before the primary, the FP served up something today that more than fills the bill. In a front page feature on the three GOP suitors for a waltz with Peter Welch, we learn that John Mitchell is fond of citing Otto von Bismarck and believes the marketplace alone should decide the fate of small family farms. Another contender, Keith Stern has already had three unsuccessful runs for Congress, in which he never garnered more than 1% of the vote. His "bold" ideas include making Social Security recipients work to "earn" their benefits. It's not hard to imagine how this idea will be received, considering the obvious argument that they have already worked to earn those benefits!
But those two guys do not provide the entertainment value of one Paul Beaudry; aka "Bachelor #3." Even the right-leaning Free Press seems a little agog at his temerity:
Beaudry is the most rhetorically flamboyant of the three, using attention-getting language and sometimes making hard-to-prove assertions.
Examples, anyone? Here we go:
He has asserted that Vermont has enough natural gas and oil under its land to eliminate state income taxes and send every resident a yearly check.
On Monday afternoon Edna Fairbanks Williams, a giant in Vermont antipoverty advocacy, died in a car crash. Vermont's large media outlets covered the story, including WCAX, The Rutland Herald, and Vermont Public Radio.
The irony is that probably not one person in ten who saw the coverage had ever heard her name.
Edna's funeral was yesterday, and it was attended by a throng of her admirers, including young and old, people who came in using wheelchairs and crutches, walkers and canes; as well as lawyers, judges, a Supreme Court justice, Vermont's member of Congress, and current and former state officials, lobbyists, and antipoverty activists. In all, a very unlikely collection of mourners for an impoverished, 77-year-old widow.
I wasn't sure I would have anything to add to the powerful remarks from important people who talked about her influence in Vermont public policy and the Legislature, her commitment to helping people every day of her life, or the way the professionals with their impressive educations would routinely defer to her insight and wisdom, but I found that I did have a few recollections that I'll share here.
I first met Edna Fairbanks Williams in 1983 when I came to Vermont to interview at Vermont Legal Aid. She was the President of Legal Aid's Board, and she had chosen to sit in on the staff attorney interviews. This is not a common choice, but it reflected Edna's view of the importance of Legal Aid to the antipoverty struggle. This began many years of working together on issues that affected the tens of thousands of Vermonters living in poverty.
You may remember that back in the 1980's there was a magazine called Vermont Magazine. One year they did a special issue on the Ten Most Influential Vermonters. It included the usual suspects: The head of National Life; probably one or two of those three-hundred dollar an hour lobbyists for the phone company or the electric company; possibly, although he denies it, John Dooley, who was Madeleine Kunin's chief of staff at the time, known as "The Little Governor". Among all these powerful people was Edna Fairbanks Williams, recognized for the power of her dedication, commitment to understanding the issues she was working on, and the eloquence of her advocacy that grew out of her personal experience. Vermont Magazine was probably right: at that time, for that year, Edna was probably one of the ten most influential Vermonters. If you look at her body of work, from the years before this issue through all the years that followed, though, there is no question that Edna's influence was greater than any of the other listed Influential Vermonters.
As I have sat listening to the comments of other people I have heard repeated mentions of people attending the annual Legislative Supper put on by VLIAC, the Vermont Low Income Advocacy Council, every winter. On the night of this particular Legislative Supper people talked about how Edna was able to make it to the supper despite a blinding snowstorm. As I sat there listening, though, I thought there must be something wrong. I was there in many of those VLIAC board meetings when the Legislative Supper was being planned, and I know that Edna would never schedule a Legislative Supper without consulting her omnipresent, and in her eyes infallible, Old Farmer's Almanac. I don't what could have happened on this particular year, but clearly on this one occasion something went wrong.
Finally, some of us recall a time several years ago when Edna had a little difficulty with the town. Her house and yard were so full of auto parts, used furniture, tires, dishes, pots and pans, and other discarded items that she had collected to distribute to people in need that the town had decided to force her to clean it up. She got legal help from one of the attorney members of the Legal Aid board that held the town off, but eventually there was a massive cleanup operation organized for one Saturday in the spring. Friends and volunteers from Legal Aid showed up with our boots and work gloves to help get the situation into some kind of order.
It was hard work because there was so much stuff there, but what made it harder was that whatever you picked up, whether it was a broken car part or a spare cooking pot, if Edna saw you with it she wouldn't let you dispose of it. She always knew "a young guy who's learning to be a mechanic who can use that", or a "young single mother who needs that". Eventually, one person was assigned to keep Edna distracted so that the rest of us could get on with the work of cleaning the place out.
The thing was, that the way Edna went through life, whenever any object, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant, came into her view or into her hand, Edna couldn't help thinking of how it could be put to use helping someone else.
On this occasion of Edna's death, we would all do well to consider this example. If this was how Edna saw the world, how can any of the rest of us justify doing any less?
TheSargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law has isued a scorecard for every member of Congress showing how they voted in 2009 on fifteen key bills in the fight against poverty.
It's not surprising that our Congressional delegation got straight A's, or in the case of Bernie Sanders and Peter Welch, A +.
At a time when there is much to criticize, it's important to recognize the good that our representatives in Congress do.
Vermont's scorecard:
= vote to fight poverty = vote against fighting poverty
A decision announced today by the U.S. Supreme Court opens the floodgates of corporate dollars and influence on our foundering democracy. If yesterday you were among those of us ordinary citizens who were already concerned that U.S. corporations held undue influence on national policy, today you should be in orbit with alarm!
Here's the story as it appears in the Christian Science Monitor.
We have to end privately-financed national campaigns before it is too late to save our democracy. Are you listening Senators Sanders and Leahy? Congressman Welch?
Given that both Sanders and Leahy saw fit to vote against the measure to deny funding to ACORN, I was more than a little puzzled by Peter Welch's decision to support it; so on Sept. 20, I emailed the following to his Congressional mailbox:
I just have to ask you what was your rationale in supporting the measure against funding for ACORN. I'd like to think you have a reason other than the obvious need for a Junior Congressman to follow the leader. So I am writing to give you an opportunity to explain to me why this measure serves the long-term interests of the country and your constituents. You must realize that your vote has just expressed your support for political interference in the normally non-partisan review of projects seeking federal funding.
A couple of days later, I received the following reply:
I'm sure that most readers of this site will find this utterly unacceptable. President Obama ran on a platfom of delivering health care reform, and the fraudulent package he is apparently willing to accept is a betrayal of all of us who worked so hard to put him in office.
If you agree that health care "reform" without even the watered-down public option is no reform at all, please contact your congressional delegation and ask them to oppose any health care package that does not include the public option.
This is the final part of my interview with Peter Welch last Friday.
JD: Now, speaking of challenges, you're fortunate this year not to have a challenge from the right. You said in the Argus/Herald article that might be because people are happy with what you're doing. There's also the reality that they're [the GOP] are in a lot of trouble right now and you're in pretty safe territory, so they have to focus their resources elsewhere. You have a challenge from the left, which I always think is a good idea. Thomas Hermann, running as a Progressive. I was up late last night...
PW: He's working hard, he's a very good guy.
JD: I got the same impression. So, I was up late last night looking into a lot of this, what he says about your record. Iraq, we're going to talk about that, now. He mentions two votes in particular of yours...
PW: Yes, he... this is the Jimmy Leas attack.
JD: I read about this... H.R. 2206. That was the one you originally voted for, when it had the withdrawal timetable but he failed to mention in the article that you voted against it when it came back from the Senate without the timetable.
PW: Yeah, it' s flat out wrong. I've said that I'll use the power of the purse, and I'll support legislation that had a specific objective of bringing the troops home, and that... First of all, the sequence of that is wrong. That's Jimmy, in a way. And everyone is absolutely welcome to challenge my record, but not distort it. Step one, that's what this was, and this was a high point in which Vermont was prominent in fighting back on the war.
JD: And this was in May of 2007, right?
PW: Right. Jim McGovern from Massachusetts – I serve with him on the Rules Committee. He and I sponsored an amendment – and he's close to Pelosi, more than me – but this was our amendment, and we got this agreement from her to put this up for a full vote in the House. And this was a bill that would have required having our troops home, I believe, within six months, I'll have to check it. But it was a date certain to bring our troops home. It's the first time we had a vote to bring our troops home in the five years of the war, it got 171 votes, I believe. It failed, but we got 171 votes. That was me sponsoring it. So, the next vote was on the funding, but it had the timetable in there, okay, of bringing our troops home by a date certain. I voted for that, but that's consistent with what I said I would do, you know. It had the timetable. That passed the House, goes to the Senate, the Senate strips out the timetable, brings it back, and I voted against it. That's the story.
Last Friday, I sat down with Congressman Peter Welch in Burlington for about an hour. We had a conversation that touched upon the current financial mess, Democratic capitulation, Iraq and a few self-reflections. I'll be posting it throughout the next week or so.
JD: The bailout is what's on everybody's mind right now. It's funny, after you voted against the first bailout bill, and I mentioned to some people that I was meeting with you, they told me to tell him “nice job”, and after the second vote, I got a few emails saying “tell him I want to take that back!” It was obviously a difficult vote either way, if you read on GMD, odum kind of took you to task for it.
PW: Yes.
JD: You originally said in the article quoted in the Times Argus, “We're at the point that we have to choose, it's this bill or no bill - no bill is an absolute catastrophe.”, and, well, some of us see this as a false choice. And probably some of this comes from skepticism about the Bush administration, at this point how can you trust anything they say?
PW: Well, first of all, I don't trust anything they say. There was nothing in my final decision that was based on trusting George Bush at all.
JD: Do you trust Hank Paulson?
PW: It's not about trusting him; he's not the ideologue that Bush is, but my vote was not based on the credibility of Paulson. This – whether we like it or not, first of all, it's not surprising that this is happening. Many people who have said that is was reckless for us to allow such deregulation predicted at one point, we'd pay a price for it, because it was a house of cards.
You know, we had an economy that was built on credit, rather than an economy that was built on production, okay? So if you step back, a lot of people who were critical of the bailout, their criticism rightly goes back to the whole house of cards that was constructed and eventually, we didn't know when, it was just a question of when, not whether that house of cards would collapse. And so, I was not surprised.
Some folks raised this WMD question, that was a big deal, with Bush coming in, but there's a fundamental difference.
JD: When you refer to the WMD's, do you refer to the notion that Bush is basically -
PW: ... making it up.
JD: Okay.
PW: But the reality of it is that these things were blowing up all around us – at AIG, Lehman Bros., Bear Sterns, Washington Mutual, Countrywide – Citibank losing 20 billion dollars, with these executives in there with these ripoff salaries and golden parachutes. The evidence of this financial meltdown was real, and these huge firms that made billions of dollars, in effect by running this speculative enterprise, were so excessive that they shot themselves in the head. Lehman Bros. Was borrowing at a 35 to 1 ratio, and as long as the housing market wsa going up, they were fine. Once it flattened and came down, they not only brought down a lot of innocent bondholders including an Arizona teacher's fund, a city in Norway, they destroyed their own business.
So, even the people who had a self-interest in having this continue, they were so reckless that they destroyed their own livelihood. So, I didn't need a lot of evidence that there was a problem, because it was hitting us in the face. What I needed, what was tough on this, there was two things. I was adamantly opposed to in the first bill that the president presented that was a three page bill, giving a total blank check, with literally no oversight and no taxpayer protection. Number two, a challenge and question for any of us, even those of us who have been harsh critics of deregulation, was what practical steps could we take to try to protect the taxpayers, Vermonters, Americans who did not participate in this reckless conduct but were going to suffer from the consequences.
The fact is, we're in uncharted territory, because of this credit crisis, and that's unique to this economic downturn that we have now.
n an experiment that will join emerging technology with direct democracy, U.S. Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vt., will host a telephone town meeting to discuss Vermont's energy concerns at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday.
Residents who wish to participate can call in to ask questions, tell their stories and listen as others discuss how the rising cost of gas and fuel are affecting them.
"The reason we're talking about energy and home heating and gas in particular is because that's the No. 1 issue people are bringing to me," Welch said.
The telephone town hall meeting is an extension of Welch's Congress in Your Community events in which Welch sets up a card table in front of hardware and grocery stores around the state to listen to residents' concerns, said Welch spokesman Andrew Savage.
If you're interested in participating, call 1-866-447-4149 (and use PIN code 13785#) at the meeting time.
Congressman Peter Welch met today with a group of some 100-120 Vermonters to discuss the war in the Aldrich Library in Barre today. Hoo boy, where to begin... Let's just say that it was the most heated confrontation that I've ever personally witnessed between constituents and a politician. Much more below the jump, it's a long one...
A couple of issues near and dear to the hearts of Vermont activists are playing out (or beginning to).
First is the aftermath of Rep. Dennis Kucinich's move to do what so many Vermonters wanted Rep. Peter Welch to do - sort of. As everyone has no doubt heard by now, Kucinich called the impeachment question on the floor of the House (where motions on impeachment are considered privileged and must be addressed). Yay Dennis, except, well - it was a call for the impeachment of Cheney, which seems to me to miss the target politically and ethically. Long past are the bygone days where people on the left wondered whether President Bush was no more than an ineffectual empty suit. Cheney may be his most crude, effective and brazen hatchet man, but he is still a hatchet man - a mere symptom of the problem that is Bush himself.
In any event, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland moved quickly to table the motion, but was stymied by a block of Democrats joined (ultimately, after some vote-switching) by Republicans who thought a public debate over the merits of ditching a vice president whose approval rating is nearly in the single digits would somehow embarass his critics more than his defenders (this is bizarro world, isn't it?). The motion was not tabled, but, after getting the dissident Dems marching to his drum, was then quickly sent by Hoyer to the Judiciary committee where the profoundly disappointing Chair, Rep. John Conyers, will simply stack it to die along with the other Kucinich impeachment resolution gathering cobwebs in that committee.
But the question on everyone's mind is - will Kucinich simply bring it to the floor again (and aim at Bush next time)? By House rules, it remains a privileged motion that must be considered. If Kucinich is serious, he could well bring it to the floor on primetime every day of the session. He's gotten gobs of good feedback on this, so activists are watching and waiting...
Second is Rep. Welch's moment of truth on Iraq funding that is now on on its way.
This could generate a few interesting You Tube moments. From Welch's office:
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is scheduled to testify before the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and Rep. Peter Welch tomorrow.
The hearing, “The State Department and the Iraq War,” will take place Thursday, October 25 at 10 a.m. in 2154 Rayburn House Office Building.
“Secretary Rice has a lot of questions to answer. This Administration must be accountable to Congress and the American people,” said Welch.
The hearing will examine questions regarding the performance of the State Department on several major issues relating to the Iraq war, including the impact of Iraqi corruption and the activities of Blackwater USA. The Committee may also question the secretary regarding allegations of wrongdoing associated with the construction of the new U.S. Embassy Compound in Baghdad, as well as other matters under investigation by the Committee.
There will likely be some interesting and maddening exchanges. Rice will stonewall and belittle, and I'm sure Welch - among others - will be forceful in his questioning.
Then we'll all have to watch closely and see what, if anything, actually comes of the hearing from Waxman, Welch and company.
Neither the GOP nor the Democratic faithful can be doing backflips these days. Tonight is the night of the big Democratic Party Autumn harvest fundraiser at the Old Labor Hall in Barre, where many were hoping to see some sort of great unveiling of a candidate to run against incumbent Governor Jim Douglas. Could still happen, I suppose, but nobody's holding their breath.
In fact what some from the liberal wing of the Party are doing is turning their frustration towards organizing, with reports of progressive Dems quietly having conversations about drafting a candidate themselves, rather than continue feeling humiliated by the lack of one. There are also murmurs of a floor challenge to Chair Ian Carleton during reorganization if no candidate has emerged by then. Tough stuff, but it's clear a lot of folks are choosing activism as an alternative to despair.
But on the other hand, how rough must it be to be a Vermont Republican these days? Sure, Douglas has got the Dem field cowering - but he is an electoral juggernaut who has trounced his last two opponents and has held elective statewide office since time immemorial. Peter Welch, on the other hand, is but a lowly freshman US Representative who has only been on one statewide ballot successfully...
It's encouraging to see elected officials speak in no nonsense language. When we put together the intro to the VDP platform last year (I was on the committee), we tried to be as blunt and unambiguous as possible (emphasis added):
Vermont Democrats believe the rights to health care, food, shelter, clean air and water, education, privacy, justice, peace and equality, the right to organize and of free speech are essential to a robust democracy. These rights are not negotiable.
Based on these principles, we stand against torture, bigotry and discrimination, forced childbirth, corruption, and the establishment of state-sponsored religion or religious doctrine.
Peter Welch is thankfully taking the same tack about torture. Not couching it in terms like "rendition" or speaking of aggresive interrogation, or otherwise suggesting that waterboarding is no different than a happy flume ride and anybody who says otherwise hates freedom (from a Welch press release, emphasis added):
Rep. Peter Welch, a long-time critic of the Bush administration’s torture policies, assembled over 50 members of Congress to join him in a letter to Attorney General designee Michael Mukasey urging he reverse interrogation policies of former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.
The letter, authored by Welch, states that “We are extremely concerned about the revelation of two secret Justice Department memos issued under your predecessor that sanction many of the most severe forms of torture
Let's hope this catches on. Lord knows it goes against the grain for career politicians to speak so indelicately, but Welch is among a growing number that do (see the large number of signers on the letter) and I, for one, am grateful. Symbolic? Yeah, but it still matters.
But at the end of the day, it is so profoundly disheartening that it's become necessary to have a public debate as to whether or not it's okay to torture. Clearly, this society is running very low on honor (full letter below).
Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD), the House Majority Leader, postponed a press conference announcing new reforms of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act after progressive lawmakers banded together and said they would fight any legislation that did not include a set of eight principles on wiretapping that preserve the "rule of law."
"What's most significant is that the Progressive Caucus came together and said to the leadership that all 72 of us require that these provisions be included," said Caroline Fredercikson, Legislative Director for the American Civil Liberties Union. "This changes the dynamic significantly."
Not sure what the bill was going to say, but all the scuttlebutt was bad indeed. Stoller framed it as another capitulation on civil liberties proposed by #2 House Dem Steny Hoyer and Rahm Emanuel designed to protect vulnerable freshman by passing something they didn't want (I suppose with an inferred "you'll thank me for this someday" subtext). Whether the caucus really sank this or not is an open question, but I choose to believe it's the case - if for no other reason than if enough people believe it, it grants the P-Caucus a bit more clout. The text of the letter (again via HuffPo) after the jump.
This, along with the other good news that Welch is the hardest working freshman in the House, leaves him with a mixed grade for the last two weeks after disappointing votes on Iran and the MoveOn kerfuffle. The dude does keep us guessing.
It may surprise some to read this here - but it shouldn't: Congress has no business telling Rush Limbaugh to shut up.
Last week, Senator Leahy and Representative Welch broke with Senator Sanders and brought several flavors of shame to the liberal community under one, all-encompassing umbrella - the vote to rebuke MoveOn. While first and foremost, I find the vote both bizarre and cowardly (for its myopic waste of time on the one hand, and the pointless "Sister Souljah"-style sacrifice of an ally deemed - apparently - disposable on the other), the fact is that it was also an affront to the tradition of free speech in this country. It's true (and important) that the naked attempt by the GOP to frame the anti-war public as crazy and uncivilized (an attempt that was successful only thanks to the assistance of Dems like Leahy and Welch) did not take any action to specifically disallow speech, but such action has a chilling effect nonetheless. As much as I took State Representative Dave Zuckerman to task for sending a chilling message, as an elected lawmaker, by accusing Stewart Ledbetter of "irresponsible journalism" for asking a question he didn't like, the MoveOn rebuke was far worse.
Am I being harsh? Perhaps. Maybe it's just the first expression that came to mind.
If you're a Vermonter, you probably already know about Sen. Leahy caving in to the right-wing noise machine's phony righteous indignation and voting to condemn MoveOn.org's NYT ad that (perish the thought!) General Westmoreland Petraeus might not actually be so on the level in regards to Iraq.
Well, as you now know, the Continuing Resolution that would extend fiscal year 2007 spending at the same levels for 7 weeks into fiscal year 2008 has just passed. And yes, there is Iraq money in there. The MoveOn condemnation was an amendment to that bill. So they stuck it on a must-pass bill, and sadly, Welch and many others didn't attempt to kill the amendment as far as I know. Not good. Welch voted for the bill.
= vote to fight poverty 
= vote against fighting poverty 
