It was a loser of a week in Vermont news and politics.
The good news? The gnar-gnar is falling from the sky — and it shall soon be shredded.
Without further ado, here’s The Scoreboard for the week of Friday, February 8:
Winners:
‘Death’ drama — If I had a dollar for every time next week’s physician-assisted suicide vote was rescheduled this week, I could buy all the break-open tickets in the world. No matter the timing, the real drama’s around the vote count.
Unions — The Senate made (kind of) quick work this week of long-debated “Fair Share” legislation forcing certain non-union members to pay agency fees. Here’s the question: Will unions go after freshman Sen. Chris Bray (D-Addison) for sticking his neck out in opposition to the bill?
Gannett — Print advertising revenue and subscription volume continued to drop at the Burlington Free Press mother-ship last quarter, but those new paywalls and subscription price hikes drove circulation revenue up nearly 17 percent over last year. Poynter’s Rick Edmonds is calling Gannett’s strategy “a spectacular success.” Now maybe the Freeps can hire some copy-editors!
Sen. Patrick Leahy’s relevance — Thanks to concurrent Senate Judiciary Committee fights over guns and immigration, Roll Call‘s Meredith Shiner wrote this week that Vermont’s senior senator “might be the most important Senate Democrat outside of Majority Leader Harry Reid.” Also, who’s that guy Leahy was chatting with Monday in this AP pic?
Vermont’s ski industry — Duh. Then again, if Massachusetts, Connecticut and New York are blanketed with even more pow-pow, how are those states’ residents gonna get up here to spend all their money?
Losers after the break…
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