Overriding concern
Toolbox
Published: June 19, 2007
House Speaker Gaye Symington flirted with the idea of delaying until September a session to vote on overriding Gov. James Douglas' veto of two bills, but she soon learned that postponing the veto override session beyond its originally scheduled date would not work.
Republicans in the Legislature don't want to make her job any easier, and they resisted delaying the override session. That leaves Symington with what she acknowledges to be an "uphill battle" in rounding up the two-thirds vote needed to prevail over the governor at the override session on July 11.
On the Legislature's energy bill, H.520, Douglas has tried to steal the initiative, pushing the Legislature to pass the less controversial sections of the bill, and to take up his proposal for a heating fuels efficiency program. Those actions would be taken in the likely event that the Legislature sustains his veto.
Symington is not so interested in talking about what she might do if the override fails. She is busy talking with members to gather the two-thirds she needs to override.
Nor does she think the governor is serious about the energy-efficiency program he has offered. If he were serious, she said, he would have engaged in a discussion of the program during the legislative session when it was possible for the Legislature to take testimony, weigh alternatives, and act.
The Legislature drew a veto from Douglas because of the method it chose to finance its energy-efficiency program. It planned to establish a program to cut down on the consumption of heating fuels in homes and businesses and to pay for it with a tax on the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant.
The Yankee tax sank the plan. Now Douglas has come up with his own energy-efficiency program, and he is urging the Legislature to act on it.
If the override fails, Plan B for Symington will come in January when the Legislature reconvenes. The Legislature is not prepared in a special session in the middle of the summer to act on a complex proposal like the one Douglas has offered, which has come, not in the 11th hour, but in the 13th.
Douglas has proposed an expansion of the state's weatherization program, calling for loans from banks for energy-efficiency measures, with subsidies based on income. He has also urged the Legislature to pass the portions of the bill promoting alternative energy. The Legislature could probably do the latter in one or two days, but it would need more time before it could be expected to act on Douglas' energy-efficiency plan.
Douglas cannot stymie the Legislature's action, then loft his own plan into the debate after the fact, then pretend that he is the one taking the initiative. The Legislature took the initiative, and now that Douglas has shot down the Legislature's bill, he must accept responsibility for the lack of action.
There were serious grounds for questioning the Legislature's plan, and the legislative leadership did not manage the politics of its proposal with adequate finesse. Now both branches must contend with the reality of divided government.
That reality suggests that when it comes to complex legislation on controversial issues, the Legislature and governor need two years to work out their differences. It happened with health care. Barring a veto override, it appears to be happening with energy.
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