The dust has settled from the veto override and the new budget passed by the legislature, so I will make a few comments this week about the two-day special session held in early June. A note is also in order regarding the 60 or so other bills passed into law this year, so I will wrap up this session's legislative reports in a next and final update with a summary of some of those actions.

It was amusing to hear some of the media spin on the veto: the first ever veto of a budget by a governor, followed by references for days about the "historic, first-ever" override of a budget veto.

Well, folks...if it was the first veto of a budget, then whatever the legislature did - sustain or override - would also automatically have also been the first.

The disturbing thing about the way the process moved forward is that there was never really an up front vote on the budget that had been vetoed.

The Democratic majority suggested that the vote was a choice between the hard work and carefully constructed budget passed by the legislature, or the governor's budget, which filled the tax revenue shortfall by raising property taxes.

There was no such "governor's budget" being voted on, although the governor had made his own proposals. A vote to sustain the veto was simply a vote to insist upon going back to negotiations to develop a sustainable, balanced budget.

(Ironically, the legislature's budget does include a shift to property taxes. The governor's proposal was contingent upon school spending caps, so there would have been no impact on property taxes; the legislature's has no changes to spending, and increases the tax rate.)

During the debate, a few hints slipped out about a "companion bill" that would be introduced if there was a successful override.

The carefully constructed budget passed by the legislature, it turned out, was not what was actually at issue. A revised budget - yet to be seen publicly - was in the wings as the "real" budget. The override vote was a scam, orchestrated only as a prelude to correcting some of the exact deficiencies that the governor pointed out in his veto; deficiencies that could not have been corrected but for the special veto session.

Those revisions, adopted the next day, were important but minor in the broader scale. The elimination of the capital gains exemption amount was reversed for the sale of family farms (but not other family businesses); those age 70 or older will also get a waiver, but only for the first year of the tax.

Two sales tax holidays for shopping were added for economic stimulus, along with a economic development incentive program.

Although the adjustments to the budget received at least reluctant support from most, there were sharp criticisms about how they were developed.

"This process was anything but open and transparent and has further served to undermine this body's credibility," said Rep. Kurt Wright of Burlington. And from Rep. Heidi Scheuermann of Stowe: "H. 422 simply tries to cover up our failures and I will not be a part of it."

I voted against it for the same reasons.

Ultimately, we passed a budget this year that attempts old methods in addressing radical new problems. We put bandaids on rupturing arteries in the hope they will hold up. We left the fundamental structural problems - the problems identified to us in January by our fiscal consultants - untouched.

There have been many verbal commitments made to use the year ahead to look at some of the system restructuring we need. Those are old promises, but are all that we are now left to rely on.

In the meantime, we received another surprise during the special session: a newly crafted "technical corrections" bill to fix errors made in bills during the final weeks of the session.

One correction was reversal of an amendment in a bill that I had identified and challenged in the final minutes of the regular session in May. It changed the process for taking of private property (eminent domain) for necessary transportation projects to a board hearing, instead of a court one.

It turned out that the Transportation Committee, which had jurisdiction of the subject, had considered the change and rejected it this session, believing it needed more time and testimony to consider. However, instead, it was included by the conference committee in the economic development bill that reached the House floor the last evening of the session.

Another section began with the telltale language, "notwithstanding" existing law. It means we're about to pass a bill that says to ignore what is in current law; this is going to be an exception.

In this case, we were shifting the responsibility for $1.8 billion of the state budget to the off-session joint fiscal committee, made up of the chairs of the various financial committees.

Four years ago, Vermont negotiated a "global commitment" waiver with the federal Medicaid offices. Under its terms, we can use Medicaid money for a wide array of state health programs as long as we stay within a negotiated cap. When we passed the enabling legislation, we directed that any revision or renewal of the waiver needed to have approval of the full legislature, since it involves very significant policy decisions about health care spending priorities.

The current waiver will expire next year...and the deadline for the new application is October, 2009. The application hasn't been prepared yet, and somewhere along the way, the requirement for a legislative sign-off got forgotten.

The solution now that our back was against the wall? Turn yet another authority over to a small group of legislative leadership to act in place of the full body.

Rep. Paul Poirrier (a Democratic just-turned-independent from Barre) and I put forth a fight in objection to this progressive deterioration we are seeing in respect for the role of the full legislature. It was little more than symbolic - it was not really an option to simply drop the successful global commitment funding mechanism - but 21 others joined us in voting against this broad delegation of legislative authority.

I'll close out reports for this year with a round-up of the legislation passed in the final weeks of this session in a final update. I've appreciated the many contacts from constituents this year, and encourage you to stay in touch with your thoughts and concerns. Feel free to call me at 485-6431, email at counterp@tds.net, or write at 148 Donahue Drive, Northfield, 0566