( – promoted by odum)

Right before Thanksgiving, I saw a Caledonian Record editorial that I wanted to share, but never got around to. Now that it looks like a new sex offender law is on a fast track, it’s worth visiting this months’-old editorial. The whole thing can be found HERE, but I offer some choice quotes:

We find ourselves sharing in the concern the Vermont American Civil Liberties Union has with new sex crime legislation.

On behalf of the Vermont ACLU, Allen Gilbert questions a proposal by the Vermont Senate Judiciary Committee, which has been working on legislation to rewrite criminal law dealing with sex crimes and sex offenders.

The proposal would change the law to require the collection of DNA samples from people arraigned on felony crimes, instead of just those convicted of felonies.

The editor goes on to explain that an arraignment is a very low bar to meet, charges may be dropped or reduced, and an arraignment contains nothing approaching proof of guilt. The question of what would happen to a person’s DNA if they did not end up getting convicted is a central concern of the editorial.  

We see this week that a sex offender law is going to move quickly. It is unclear to me whether “DNA at arraignment” is contained in the legislation. I imagine the arguments on the other side are that a DNA sample may be necessary to get a conviction and that a DNA sample is not all that an invasive procedure anyways.

The provisions, according to  WCAX

Lawmakers came up with a new sex offender bill that would:

expand the DNA database

call for new prevention programs in schools

ban deferred sentences for sex offenders

eliminate pretrial depositions of child victims

and give prosecutors the option of a 25-year mandatory minimum sentence for sex crimes on kids under 16 years old

From Fox44, HERE’S Senator Dick Sears, Judiciary Committee chair,  outlining the bill’s prospects:

“Then the bill will move from my committee over to the Appropriations, hopefully a very short time there, then it goes over to the House, then I hope to have it on the governor’s desk by Town Meeting Day,” Sears said.

The bill would allow prosecutors to file a new charge that carries a mandatory, 25-year minimum prison sentence.  Sears calls it a responsible bill.

“I don’t see much of a problem in the senate and quite frankly I’ve had good response from most folks in the house I’ve spoken with,” Sears said.

So there you have it. Anyone know if this “DNA on arraignment” provision is included in the bill? Is there a good place online to find the specifics of a VT bill, like we have THOMAS at the federal level?

And then there is the issue of how much civil libertarians want to give on this issue. There appears to be strong bipartisan support for reform. But I long thought that fixing Corrections was step one. Much like when the gun control supporters want to enact restrictions after a tragedy, the mantra from the NRA is “enforce existing law.” It appears that in the Brooke Bennett case, that did not happen. Living in Randolph, I completely understand the desire to “do something” and  I am glad this did not end up getting crammed through right before an election. Hopefully, the bill on the table right now is a thoughtful reform effort, but I do know even if it’s not, it will be tough to oppose.

I’d like to close with the ending of the Caledonian Record editorial, because I love it when the rhetoric of the anti-government libertarian Right sounds so, oh I dont know, progressive?

While our nation sleeps the sleep of apathy, indifference and blissful ignorance, citizens are having their rights stripped from them at an accelerating speed. Vermonters already accept the state requirement that, following an initial arraignment in court and a not guilty plea, defendants are required to go to the police station and provide fingerprints.

Parents voluntarily line up Saturday mornings to provide police with the fingerprints of their children. While, as the police claim, the fingerprints may help identify a missing child, those same fingerprints will be stored in a huge database maintained by Big Brother, on file for life.

One of the Bush presidency’s shameful legacies will be its disregard for the Constitution and its contempt for an individual’s right to a presumption of innocence.

Our rights are a scarce commodity and diminish every year. Vermonters must not allow our government to further erode our sacred freedoms.

Full disclosure: I used to deliver Caledonian Record as a kid growing up in St. J.  

I just saw this in Blurt, the Seven Days blog.

Cathy Resmer just posted it, along with the Stuck in Vermont video that Eva Sollberger did about Peter last summer. 

Many Vermont bloggers look at Peter as a kind of godfather. He did the kind of journalism that we aspire to: irreverent, insightful analysis, personal perspective and voice, and a commitment to progressive values. While he was writing it, his Inside Track column was weekly required reading for everyone who wanted to understand what was going on in Vermont politics and government.

We'll miss him.

( – promoted by odum)

A follow-up to BP’s diary from January 2 (“Burlington Free Press: Does the full Hoover for Douglas”).  

Particular attention grabbers – Lake Champlain Regional Chamber of Commerce Tom Torti calls for elimination of the Departments of Labor and Economic Development, as well as a tax decrease for the wealthiest one percent.

http://www.burlingtonfreepress…

Jon Margolis sums it up on his terrific blog, Vermont News Guy:

http://www.vermontnewsguy.com/…

The Freeps has certainly met its Republican-esque, free market, the-rich-are-getting-screwed quota for the week.

Bernie’s office just called and I got 2 tickets to the inauguration!!!

My aunt and I have been planning to go for a long time, but in the last month I had decided not to go unless I got tickets, so now I’m going again!

I have lots of questions and no answers. LOL.

Who’s going from Vermont? Anyone else from GMD? Are a lot of Vermonters going (hundreds? thousands?)? Will we all be sitting together? Is there a “Vermont” event or ball to attend? Will anyone be blogging the event here on GMD?

How are people getting there? I’d rather not drive, but will if I have to, but what do I do once I get down there? Is there a place to park outside DC and take the Metro in? Is that what we’re supposed to do?

Where are people staying? My aunt was SUPPOSED to book us a hotel room before the election, but never did! She has a friend who lives somewhere in the DC area that we can stay at, but it would be so much better to stay in the city…Is that an option? I’ve heard there’s no hotel rooms left.

Basiclly I’m clueless except that I know I have tickets waiting for me at Bernie’s office in DC. Any additional info would be greatly appreciated!

Many of you are well aware of the notion of “corporate personhood”, namely the idea that corporations have the same rights as us lowly humans. Unfortunately, unlike us peoplefolk, they're not subject to the death penalty, and can live much longer than us people , too. They have the rights, but not the responsibilities. Must be nice, eh?

The real injustice about corporate personhood is it's based on a legal misinterpretation of an 1886 Supreme Court Case. It was in the court clerk's headnotes regarding the case, not in the actual ruling. Essentially, it's bunk (lots of history at the wikipedia entry here).

By now, some of you are aware of the Change.org website (not to be confused with change.gov, the Obama transition website). It's a social entrepreneurship venture set up to help organize and raise money for various progressive causes. Their extensive website is set up sort of like a news/blog hybrid. One of their current projects see what new ideas that people would like to see coming from the Obama administration. There's been several rounds of voting, and in the last round, “Ending corporate personhood” is #9. They've got some sort of media blitz planned right before the inauguration to hopefully draw more attention to the top 10 issues. From the site:

On January 16, Change.org and the Case Foundation are co-hosting an event at the National Press Club in Washington, DC to announce the top 10 rated ideas and then launch a national campaign behind each idea and mobilize the collective energy of the millions of members of Change.org, MySpace, and partner organizations to ensure that each winning idea gets the full consideration of the Obama Administration and Members of Congress.

Now, of course, one never really knows what effect these things can have, but if you're interested, you can vote for the “end corporate personhood” here. It can't hurt.

Sources report that Secretary of State Deb Markowitz is in the race for Governor in 2010 as well, setting the stage for a high-profile primary – which is just what the Doctor ordered to gin up energy, interest, and organization, frankly.

And on the Racine front: Former Governor Phil Hoff hosted a meeting for Racine at his home in Burlington over the weekend with 20-25 supporters in attendance (including at least one person engaged in the blogs/new media). A source who was there indicated Racine talked “about the Vermont economy and how the Douglas Administration has mishandled it, and his focus will be on bettering the economic circumstances of Vermonters – and that includes figuring out ways to protect low-income, senior and disabled Vermonters.”

Wow. What a difference a year makes.

The night sky: a 41 minute, 57 second exposure:

Clicking on the image gets you to a larger version with some details (camera settings, etc).  To get a larger version, click here

It looks like whatever illness kept all the potential Dem candidates for Governor and Lt. Governor hiding for so long in the ’08 cycle has been fought off. This email is making the rounds of Democratic County Chairs in the state:

Dear County Chairs,

As Doug Racine starts his campaign for governor, he would first like to get around and visit all the county committees and the rank and file Democrats. I told Doug I would help him set up some of these appointments.

Please let me know when your next county committee meeting is. Doug would like to come and visit and engage in a conversation on issues and on the 2010 governor’s race.

Thanks.

-mary sullivan

Racine, of course, is the only candidate who has ever given Douglas a run for his money in a gubernatorial contest – losing by a mere 2.5 percent (and that was with a strong third candidate in Con Hogan pulling 9.7%, as well as an unsanctioned Progressive – Michael Badamo – who pulled 0.6%). Douglas is clearly stronger now, but so is Racine after his own political rebirth. The former Lieutenant Governor pulls terrific numbers in the more conservative Chittenden County burbs that always end up kicking our statewide candidates’ asses against Douglas and Dubie – stronger numbers than he even had in the old days.

And having Mary Sullivan on his side sure doesn’t hurt. There are factions and divisions within the Democratic Party in Vermont, but Sullivan’s long history with the institution and its players at every level make her not simply a “faction-straddler,” but likely the faction-straddler. In the Democratic Party, everybody likes Mary, and that likely makes her unique in the VDP (scratch that – I’m hearing email complaints about her after writing that. Ah, Democrats..).

One can make the case that Markowitz, Spaulding, Shumlin or Dunne (and others) could defeat Douglas, but in each of those cases, there is an element of faith built into the case. Racine remains the only potential candidate for whom the case can be made with math. That’s not to say its a perfectly linear equation, but the numbers are there historically to make the case for a Racine candidacy, as I made in more detail a year ago.

And as a numbers guy myself, that gets me feeling pretty good. More analysis on this tomorrow.

(I like it! – promoted by JulieWaters)

There is at least one idea that I have not heard among the options discussed for closing the budget gap. Namely, increased resources for enforcement at the Tax Department.

A recent report (Univ. of Michigan & IRS analyst) estimated that people earning between $500,000 and $1 million failed to report 21% of their income.

http://www.bus.umich.edu/otpr/…

If this is true in VT, it would represent $147 million in unreported income just from this group. The yield on this level of income is about 5.6% so we could be losing as much as $8.2 million per year (not counting loses from those with even higher incomes).

For perspective, an earlier IRS report using the same data estimated the federal “tax gap” at $345 billion (the difference between taxes owed and taxes paid). National Research Program Individual Income Tax Reporting Compliance Study for 2001

http://www.irs.gov/newsroom/ar…

I’ve heard other states have achieved solid rates of return on increased funding for enforcement. Shouldn’t we do the same? It has to be better than cutting programs for kids & elders.

And I would love to hear the Governor tell us why this wouldn’t be appropriate / affordable / necessary. C’mon Jim, tell us why we can’t do this.

Breaking news from NBC, AP, and the Times: Bill Richardson has informed Barack Obama that he’s withdrawing his name as the nominee to be Obama’s Secretary of Commerce.

It seems almost inevitable that issues will crop up with at least one nominee, as well vetted as they seem to be. Up to now the consensus has been that Obama’s been handling the transition perfectly, or pretty close. Now this comes up.

I’m sorry to hear this. I’ve always liked Bill Richardson, and I disagreed with people who were ridiculing him as the “resume candidate” during his brief presidential run. Maybe it’s just me, but I didn’t see anything wrong with running on the basis of a record as strong as Richardson’s. Not that I ever thought he had a chance.

Apparently it has to do with a pay to play investigation into the business dealings between some company and the state of New Mexico. Naturally Richardson says there has been no wrongdoing.

I hope he’s right.