MONTPELIER – As Vermont’s 2019 legislative session winds to a close, Democrats are pushing back against President Trump’s claims that they are the “do-nothing party.” Despite having passed no legislation around their stated priorities, Democratic leadership insists that they have still been doing a lot of somethings.
“In-fighting and procrastination is not nothing,” shot back Senate President Pro Tem Tim Ashe (P/D-Chittenden). “When the president calls us a do-nothing party, people are going to imagine we are just sitting around staring out the window at passing deer or something. But we’re not. We’re arguing amongst ourselves, debating loudly with each other, and alienating potential allies. You call that nothing?”
Ashe has support, on this one issue only, from House Speaker Mitzi Johnson (D-South Hero), who also takes offense at the suggestion that Democrats don’t do anything.
“Delaying is a thing,” Johnson claimed. “Wavering is a thing. Creating chaos and confusion is a thing. Fighting with reporters is a thing. We do a lot of things! Is pass effective legislation one of them? Maybe not. But it isn’t like we aren’t working hard here.”
Johnson, recently outed as 0% male and 100% female by a VTDigger investigation, says that VT Democrats are actually doing too much, which is why they are currently on week 19 of an 18 week session.
“Will we need to go on to week twenty?” she asked. “I don’t know. Maybe. It’s all the stuff we do. It takes time. We could have done nothing in eighteen weeks, but something? Something takes longer than nothing. And that’s what we’re doing. Something.”
Image Credits: VTDigger.
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