From a press release today out of Welch’s office:

In order to stimulate the economy and meet pressing infrastructure needs, the Vermont congressional delegation is seeking to waive the state and local match requirement for all federally-funded highway, transit and rail projects through September 2009.

The move would give Vermont and other states facing tight budgets a much-needed boost to improve roads and bridges, support public transit agencies and upgrade rail lines at no additional cost to the federal government.

Transportation officials have reported that because of growing budget deficits at the state and local level, many ready-to-go projects simply cannot move forward without untying the strings of the required match. Under the Safe, Accountable, Flexible and Efficient Transportation Equity Act, states are typically required to meet a 10 or 20 percent match for federally funded projects.

This seems like a very good idea, and a sound way to ramp up infrastructure repair with no extra budgetary impact at the federal level and a potentially significant impact on reducing state budgets at a time when they are in crisis. Two birds with one stone, and those could be big, big birds for a small state like Vermont. Would love to see some numbers on just how many projects at what dollar value could be impacted.

Very nice 3 Musketeers moment, guys. Kudos.

(That’s two candy bars mentioned in the last paragraph….I must be craving sugar)

UPDATE: Apparently the idea was mentioned on VPR did a full news item on Bartlett’s idea on Nov. 14 a couple weeks back, where Rep. Welch gave credit to recognized and supported State Senator Susan Bartlett’s  (D-Lamoille) for the original idea and pledged to take it to Washington.

• Obamawatch: On the one hand…. From NYT:
  

  In the Democrats’ weekly radio address, Mr. Obama said he would direct his economic team to craft a two-year stimulus plan with the goal of saving or creating 2.5 million jobs. He said it would be “a plan big enough to meet the challenges we face.”

  Mr. Obama said he hoped to sign the stimulus package into law soon after taking office on Jan. 20. He is already coordinating efforts with Democratic leaders in Congress, who have said they will begin work next month.

  Advisers to Mr. Obama say they want to use the economic crisis as an opportunity to act on many of the issues he emphasized in his campaign, including cutting taxes for lower- and middle-class workers, addressing neglected public infrastructure projects like roads and schools, and creating “green jobs” through business incentives for energy alternatives and environmentally friendly technologies.

  Sounds excellent.

• On the other…. From Sirota:
  

  In my column last week, I praised the Obama team for suggesting they see the political and policy danger of backing President Bush’s proposed NAFTA expansion into Colombia – a country with one of the worst human rights records in the world. But now I see this little tidbit from Inside U.S. Trade:
  

  House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel (D-NY) in a wide-ranging interview yesterday (Nov. 20) expressed optimism that President-elect Barack Obama will support passage of the Colombia and Panama free trade agreements during his time in office…
  
  “I did not talk directly with the president-elect over Colombia, but everything that I heard from those people that [are] talking with him, [is] that he thought he could handle that and get it passed during his administration,” Rangel said.

  Rangel is the chairman of the committee that oversees trade, so this can’t be chalked up to uninformed speculation – this is likely real, though by no means concrete (and perhaps flavored by Rangel’s wishful thinking). Team Obama knows 70 new Democratic members were elected on explicitly anti-NAFTA themes, they know Obama campaigned throughout the industrial Midwest promising to change our trade policy; and they know that in the third presidential debate Obama explicitly reiterated his opposition to the Colombia Free Trade Agreement.

  They’re going to have to weigh all that against the pressure they’re feeling from their corporate donors to pass this NAFTA expansion.

  Sounds sucky. Interesting mix of signals, eh? But we knew our work was just beginning, right? Stay tuned and stay loud.

• On less weighty matters…. No Speaker-race news, but just try and say “Shap Smith” ten times really fast.

First a response to some of your emails I received last night. Yup, I saw the announcement on Blurt about a “why can’t the Progs and Dems get along” panel on December 4th. The short answer to your questions is: who knows? I invited Shay Totten and Cathy Resmer to the much-discussed meeting on the 6th in Montpelier, but heard no response. Dunno if this counts as one or not. They’re so funny about us over there.

In any event, to those who are planning on attending on the 6th, ours is a very different goal and approach, so I encourage you (if you have time) to do both, as the 7 Days event could inform our nuts and bolts, outside-the-box strategizing. While the D-vs-P thing is an important part of the puzzle, it is not the only thing keeping us from winning as much, and functioning as well, as we should be.

Our topic is, I think, the broader question of how do we get our act together and WIN. And the meeting on the 6th, again, is a more intimate planning session between Dems and Dem stakeholders in new media, as well as usual suspects and constituency groups that want to break out of some ruts – especially before they get worse (and there are disturbing signs about what’s coming without some serious changes). So here’s a proposed agenda (subject to adjustments from the comments) for the meeting, on Saturday December 6th, 1PM-3PM, Montpelier Police Department Meeting Room:

I. Introductions. 5 mins.

II. The lay of the land The current conditions of the Democratic, Progressive and Republican Parties. 20 mins.

III. Discussion: Avoiding the candidate vacuum of the last cycle. Do we need new faces if we can’t get the old ones off the dime? How do we find them? 25 mins.

IV. Discussion: Getting the left to stop fighting itself (at least long enough to get elected). Does there need to be an independent authority that can talk to the Ds and Ps? What about legislation: IRV? A runoff election? Enabling running in multiple primaries? 40 mins.

V. Wrap-Up & Initial Goals: How to move from the theoretical to the practical? Planning for another meeting (or working group) for the purpose of putting together some sort of workplan to continue the discussion and put some of our ideas into play. 20 mins.

Again, this is going to be a small working group rather than a forum, but if you’re interested, please email me, as you should definitely participate. It’s shaping up to be a fantastic (and even a little unexpected) group with (so far) manageable numbers conducive to a brainstorming session. Over the next couple weeks, we’ll be breaking out the agenda items into pre-discussion diaries to set the stage.

Action:

Vermont state Sen. John Campbell says he’s going to introduce a gay marriage bill when the Legislature convenes in January.

Reaction:

If a same-sex marriage bill does gain traction in the Vermont Legislature, (Vermont anti-gay activist Craig) Benson said he and other groups will have an active presence at the Statehouse during the 2009 session.

“We’ve been pretty encouraged by what has been happening on the national scene,” he said.

More reaction:

Gov. Jim Douglas says he will oppose a bill to allow same-sex couples to marry in Vermont.

And more reaction:

Vermont Senate Majority Leader John Campbell…says he received a call at the Statehouse Wednesday by a woman who threatened to blow up his house.

Time to wake up and smell the history, folks. Dead-ender Benson is no doubt thrilled at the possibility this might make him relevant again and restore the hate-filled, fist pounding fan club that showered so much attention on him during the ugly civil unions battle. Douglas is clearly gleeful at the prospect of casting Democrats as irrelevant for being concerned about human dignity while he casual stomps all over it out of political convenience and smiles.

As far as I’m concerned, the fight to consign people like these two into the dustbin of history as the rest of society moves forward into a better world can’t come soon enough. Let’s get to it.

This is a pretty cool thing – especially now that its not simply a one-shot deal. Might merit some talking up nationally as a model for others. Here are the stats from last night’s call:

Telephone Town Hall statistics:

• Total participants: 6,029
• Average length of call: 18 minutes
• Number of questions answered: 19
• Callers who participated for 20-40 minutes: nearly 1,000

Reportedly, the questions were virtually 100% about economic concerns. No surprise there.

My medium-range anger in the past few days turned into medium range depression, so its probably time to bump up the pick-me-up-diary for therapeutic reasons.

So, here’s the good news:

• Universal Health Care is, at least, now an explicit goal. From dKos:
  

  According to CNN’s Ed Henry, Tom Daschle will serve not just as Secretary of Health and Human Services, but will also be the administration’s point person on the push for a universal health care plan.

• Closing the gulag and a return to due process. From Huffpo:
  

  President-elect Obama’s advisers are crafting plans to close the Guantanamo Bay prison and prosecute terrorism suspects in the U.S.

• The words of Eric Holder, Obama’s pick for Attorney General. Via WaPo:
  

  “Our government authorized the use torture, approved of secret electronic surveillance against American citizens, secretly detained American citizens without due process of law, denied the writ of habeas corpus to hundreds of accused enemy combatants, and authorized the use of procedures that violate both international law and the United States Constitution.

  “Now, I do not question the motives of patriotism of those responsible for these policies. But this does nothing to mitigate the fact that these steps were wrong when they were initiated and they are wrong today

And of course, there’s the matter of Supreme Court appointments and not having to look forward to going to war with Iran.

There. Feeling a little better. Of course, that could be the wine, too…

Some are feeling pretty good about the early moves from the Obama proto-administration. From Jim Gerghaty at National Review Online:

All That Hard Work By Liberals This Year Is Finally Paying Off

So Joe Lieberman is keeping his chairmanship of the Homeland Security Committee on the say so of 42 Senate Democrats AND President Obama; his Secretary of State might be Iraq War supporter and preconditionless-summit opponent Hillary Clinton; no one will be prosecuted for waterboarding, Bush’s guy John Brennan may take over at CIA and Bush’s man Robert Gates may stay on as Defense Secretary.

I don’t know how the liberals feel, but so far the Obama administration rocks.

Sigh. And I was working on a checklist of the cool things Obama looks to be doing. Maybe next week I’ll feel more up to it.

Representatives Mark Larson (D-Burlington), Carolyn Partridge (D-Windham) and Shap Smith (D-Morrisville) are reportedly the last three in the race for Speaker of the Vermont House of Representatives. The early money has been on Larson who has put together a lot of support (including likely Majority Leader and current Assistant Majority Leader Floyd Nease of Johnson), but Smith has been working hard to close the gap, reaching out to the caucus proper as well as interested stakeholders beyond the caucus. Counting him out at this point would be a mistake. From the outside looking in, it would seem that the odds are longer on Partridge, but many of the votes will come down to personal relationships, so its always hard to say.

Here is some policy info on the candidates. LCV ratings are: Larson – 100% last session and 96% lifetime. Partridge – 90% last session and 89% lifetime. Smith – 70% last session and 80% lifetime.

VPIRG scorecard results from last session: Larson – 100%, Partridge – 80%, Smith – 80%.

And for those interested in reverse barometers, here’s their results on the Vermont Chamber of Commerce scorecard (the one used by Republicans in campaign materials across the state): Larson – 33%, Partridge – 18%, Smith – 30%.

Hey, I like ’em all. We’ll find out on the 6th.

Howard Dean is 60 today, and those of us in the national netroots owe him a mighty big piece of birthday cake, as does the whole nation. He has, of course, recently announced that he will be stepping aside as DNC Chair and bowing to the tradition of a Democratic President putting one of his own people in there. As his legacy, he has transformed the Democratic Party priorities and infrastructure through his much-maligned and now much-lauded 50-state strategy – which went a long way to turning the nation so blue in the latest election.

What to do next? Well, Dean has made it clear he’s eyeing the possibilities created by the incoming Obama administration, particularly the Health and Human Services job, which would seem like an obvious fit.

But as has been the pattern with Dean’s presence as a national political force, those in power might not be feeling so grateful. From Politico on Friday:

Democratic National Chairman Howard Dean is not a serious contender to be secretary of health and human services in the new Obama administration, sources said.

Dean’s name has appeared on short lists for the Cabinet post circulating throughout Washington, based largely on his party chairmanship and career as a doctor. Dean also passed health care reforms while governor of Vermont. And his allies said the Obama transition team has had some informal discussions with him about the job.

But the chief attributes President-elect Barack Obama is seeking in his HHS secretary will be an ability to work with members of Congress and shepherd reform legislation through the House and Senate.

That job description has turned out to be a particularly ill-suited one for Dean, given his partisan background and lack of congressional experience, sources inside and outside the transition offices say.

Odd, isn’t it? The lack of Hill experience isn’t being cited as a disqualifier for Obama supporters such as Janet Napolitano. And as far as the “partisan” thing goes… c’mon. As Markos points out:

Boy, I hope Rahm Emanuel doesn’t get a position in the administration, given that he was chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and spent a chunk of the last four years helping thin the ranks of Republicans in the House (and did a nice job of it, too!).

Oh, wait…

If Obama wants someone like Daschle to head up Health and Human Services because Daschle has Hill experience, that’s one thing. But if the standard is now “partisanship”, then Rahm better resign ASAP, because there are few dudes more partisan in Washington than Rahm.

Could there be something else in play? Hmmm…?

In 2006, Dean clashed sharply with incoming White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel over how to allocate party resources during the midterm elections.

Dean held firm on funding state party offices as part of his 50-state strategy at a time when Emanuel, an Illinois congressman who then headed the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, wanted to see more cash to help House candidates.

A compromise was reached, but resentment lingers in some corners, sources said.

If this report is true, and its all about nothing more than the usual suspects who have Obama’s ear using the opportunity to curb Dean, I have little doubt that you’re going to see the netroots from coast to coast raise holy hell.

• Burlington mayor’s race in motion…: City Councilor Ed Adrian will not be running against Progressive Incumbent Mayor Bob Kiss, who is seen as vulnerable after such bumps in the road as repeated difficulties with elections logistics, as well as widespread frustration with Chief Accounting Officer Jonathan Leopold, who many see as some sort of Rasputin to Kiss’s Czar. Adrian said in an email:
  

  This decision has not been made lightly, however it has been made that much easier in that I am confident that the only other announced Democrat in the race, Andy Montroll will be striving towards many of the same goals that I planned to work on.  I will be working vigorously on Andy’s campaign and hope you will join me in that pursuit.  

  It is also evident to me that were I to start down a similar path in the future, there are a number of bridges I need to build, as well as, some that I need to work on repairing.  Over the months and years to come, it is my intention to reach out to those who share similar ideological interests, even if our partisan allegiances differ.  

  Of course, word was that Montroll was contemplating a run as an Independent rather than face a caucus battle… guess now we’ll never know, as the longtime D will have the Party field to himself regardless.

• Uhhhh… yeah. I wanna be a part of that. The secessionists had their convention, featuring Lynette Clark of the Alaska Independence Party (who received recent national coverage following her associations with and enthusiasm for Sarah Palin’s ascendence) waxing macho about carrying a loaded colt everywhere she goes. For those who may be curious, SVR founder (and one-time blogger-stalker) Thomas Naylor coined a new bumper sticker for the group:
  

  Naylor calls secession a “radical act of rebellion grounded in anger and fear. We got on the map in Vermont because of the anger.

  Sounds… swell.

• Final time and place for the new media/grassroots activist meeting on Saturday the 6th: So as to accommodate some folks who also want to pop in on the Democratic House caucus that same day (where the new leadership team will likely be chosen), Saturday’s meeting will be at 1 PM in the meeting room at the Montpelier Police Building. Email me for directions.

  And to all those who have RSVP’d:, sorry I haven’t responded yet… swamped… you’ll hear back from me very soon. Looks like its going to be a great group, well equipped to brainstorm ways to get out of our progressive (li’l p) ruts. Keep an eye on this space for more info.