The way Gov. Jim Douglas tells it, the Democrats are “playing politics” with the bill they passed last week moving the date of this year’s primary from September 14 to August 24.

The way the Democrats tell it, Douglas is the one “playing politics” by threatening to veto the bill.

Trusting that the following judgment will not  initiate large-scale loss of faith in American democracy, let’s state the obvious: they’re both right.

The real question is why either side bothers to level this particular charge. Do they really think Vermont’s voters will be shocked that politicians are being political about politics?

That’s what primary elections are: political contests in which voters of each party chose that party’s candidates. Even in Vermont, where there is no party registration and any voter can opt for any party’s ballot, that’s about as political as politics gets.

Not that this contretemps is solely about politics. It is also about obeying a new federal law, about  how the federal bureaucracy will enforce that law,  and about whether servicemen and women stationed overseas will get to vote.

Bringing it right back to politics, because no politician and no party wants to be responsible for – or, worse, blamed for – not taking all reasonable steps to make sure that the folks over there getting shot at on our behalf have a chance to cast their ballots.

A possibility which makes a veto less likely. Only a fool tries to predict whether any chief executive will veto a piece of legislation. So no such prediction will be forthcoming here, merely the observation that a veto would be the politically riskier option for Douglas, even if letting the bill become law bestows a small political advantage on the Democrats in November’s election for governor

Last year, Congress passed the Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment Act, (MOVE) The bill has many provisions, but the only one relevant to today’s discussion requires states to mail absentee ballots to Americans living overseas no less than 45 days before the election.

This year, Election Day is November 2, whichis 49 days after September 14. But according to Kathy DeWolfe, the Director of Elections and Campaign Finance at the Secretary of State’s office, “the final results from the canvassing committee don’t come until the Tuesday following.”

That’s 42 days, which does not meet the requirements of federal law.

Oh, well, said the Democrats, much as we hate to tinker with tradition and the status quo, we’ll just have to move the primary forward.

Fooling no one. A primary three weeks earlier means a general election campaign three weeks longer, helpful for a party with five candidates running in its primary for governor. The more time the winner has to campaign against Lt. Gov. Brian Dubie, unopposed for the Republican nomination, the better for the Democrat.

Fooling exactly as many, Douglas and the Republicans opposed moving the primary. Federal law, they said, provides an alternative. The state can seek a waiver from the Federal Voting Assistance Program.

Indeed it can. But don’t bet on the FVAP granting that waiver.

“Congress has already said what they’d accept,” said Bob Carey, FVAP’s director. “States have to provide overseas voters the opportunity to cast their ballots on time. The waiver provision is to let states prove they have an alternative method to provide that opportunity.”

The burden of proof, Carey said, is on the state to show that it would present “an undue hardship” for it to meet the 45-day requirement, “and undue hardship is a pretty high legal bar.”

If that bar cannot be cleared,  Carey said,  “I’d recommend you change your primary date.”

Again, predictions are risky, but it’s hard to see how Vermont could possibly jump that high. Neither, “we’ve always held our primaries in September,” nor “turnout will be lower in August,” true though both may be, would seem to rise to the “undue hardship” level.

Neither does “it’s not as good for Brian Dubie.”

Without either a date change or a waiver, Vermont risks being sued by the U.S. Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division.

There’s a headline the incumbent party wouldn’t want to see in, say, early October: “Justice Dept. Sues Vermont Over Voting Rights Violations.”

Even worse might be: “VT Guardsmen in Afghanistan charge they got their ballots too late.”

Neither is impossible. Carey made clear the feds are determined to enforce the law, and that if anything 45 days isn’t enough time for the ballots to make their round trip.

“The single greatest cause of voting failure in the military is ballots not sent out in time,” he said.

That’s why the prudent course for Douglas might be to sign the bill. In addition, the waiver would only apply to this year. Unless the primary date is changed, the state would have to go through the entire process again in 2012.

Besides, the political advantage and disadvantage of the primary date are highly over-rated. If the five Democrats can avoid slashing each other to smithereens in their primary, and if the nominee is an appealing, capable, candidate, he or she can win a seven-week campaign. If not, he or she can’t win a ten-week campaign. And if Dubie is going to stumble, seven weeks is enough time for the Democrats to try to inspire that stumble.

There are six other states (and the District of Columbia) with September 14 primaries. Hawaii’s is four days later. Minnesota just moved its from September 14 to August. 10.

Carey said so far no state has sought a waiver. But some of them might be able to meet the legal requirement without switching their primary date. Delaware Elections Commissioner Elaine Manlove said , “we are probably barely making it. We can certify  our results on the sixteenth.”

Other states might also be quicker counters than Vermont, which is small, but decentralized, with ballot-counting done at the town level. Some states do it by county, including Delaware, which has only three counties.

It does appear likely, though, that some states will miss the deadline if they don’t move their primaries. If Bob Carey has his way, it appears that they might face some unpleasant consequences.

As previously announced, the News Guy is going to take a vacation. Next new post April 7.

As regular readers know, it is the policy here occasionally to step back, update some matters previously mentioned, correct any errors that need correcting, and respond to various comments and complaints. This is one of those occasions.

But we begin with an announcement: The News Guy is taking next week off.

Actually next week and the following Monday. He does have a life beyond this web site, and will live it, visiting family and wasting a few days in New York City, home to cultural and gustatory opportunities not usually found in Vermont. Posts will resume (after this Friday’s regularly scheduled offering) on Wednesday, April 7.

Now, to the updating. The post on March 8, They’ve Got a Secret, discussed, and essentially attacked, H. 331, a bill to allow the University of Vermont and the State Colleges to guarantee the anonymity of big bucks contributors.

The bill is sort of dead. Officially, in the words of the Legislative web site, it was  “ordered to lie on motion of Senator (Peter) Shumlin,” the Senate leader.

That’s legislative-talk for “dead,” but the “sort of” is required because Shumlin, having ordered it to lie, can order it to wake up, and he may be pressured to do so by Gov. Jim Douglas and the higher education establishment, neither of whom (which) is without clout.

But neither are the state’s news media, whose opposition is obviously what gave the lawmakers second thoughts on a measure that had already passed the House and looked likely to sail through the Senate.

It would be tempting for the News Guy to claim credit. It would also be absurd. Far more influential was an editorial in the Burlington Free Press, testimony by Rutland Herald/Montpelier Times-Argus publisher John Mitchell, coverage by VT Digger, and a most persuasive column by Tom Kearney of the Stowe Reporter and Waterbury Record (reprinted in the Free Press March 16).

Another bill, this one discussed in Corporate Values on March 15 is not dead. . It passed the Senate March 19 and is before the House Committee on Commerce and Economic Development. This is the bill that would allow corporations to define themselves as “for benefit” corporations with other objects in addition to making money written right into their charters.

Not because they don’t want to make money. They do. But the “for benefit” status could allow them to fend off hostile takeover efforts by larger firms offering higher stock prices. Right now, the board of the smaller company would be reluctant to resist because shareholders could sue, arguing that their shares are worth money and nothing else, and that the board was preventing them from maximizing share value.

But if the corporate charter specified that the firm had other basic objectives – supporting local businesses, practicing sustainable agriculture, or the like – its board could resist the takeover on the grounds that the would-be buyer did not share those goals.

Last Friday, after March 19^’s Austrian Delusion had gone to press (no, that’s not the right term; but what is?) the News Guy received more information about Austrian economic and social conditions, thanks to Maria Spalt, the 
Director of Business Development at the Austrian Business Agency in New York.

Austria, as the post said, is where the Burton snowboard company had decided to consolidate some of its manufacturing operations (it also produces snowboards in China), eliminating all production in Vermont, though its headquarters and other functions will remain in the state. The switch will cost 43 Vermonters their jobs, and the news set off ill-informed speculation about Vermont’s “business climate” and whether the company was taking this step to get away from Vermont’s taxes, wages, and regulations.

As the new information makes clear, it is not. Instead, Ms. Spalt provided more evidence to support the post’s contention that businesses do not move to Austria to luxuriate in some free-market paradise of low taxes, minimal regulations, and weak labor unions. In fact, the country seems far closer to a social democratic paradise of widespread entitlements and (at least compared to the U.S.) economic equality.

For instance, according to a report  last month in the Austrian magazine Gewinn, the average salary of corporate CEOs in Austria is just a bit more than 180,000 Euros a year, which comes out to about $250,000. Not a bad living, but far less than American CEOs earn. Yes, most Austrians earn less than most Americans, but the spread between the top and the middle (or the middle and the bottom) income levels is not nearly as big. In 2007, according to Statistics Austria, median individual gross income was €23,613, or not quite $32,000.

That’s only a couple of thousand dollars a year less than the median in Vermont, and slightly more than $3,000 lower than in the U.S. as a whole. Though slightly poorer, the Austrians might be happier. According to the statistics sent by Ms. Spalt, an accounting by World Competitiveness Online concluded that Austria rated second among 57 countries for its “quality of life.” The U.S. was 16^th.

These “quality of life” and “happiness” ratings should be approached with some skepticism. They are based on some assumptions which are not easily quantifiable, and others which are downright subjective. For what it’s worth, though, in a new book called The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always do Better,  epidemiologists Richard Wilkinson and Kate Picket conclude that the country with the highest quality of life and least social dysfunction is Sweden.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spirit_Level:_Why_More_Equal_Societies_Almost_Always_Do_Better.

Ms. Spalt also said almost one fourth of Austrian workers were unionized, twice the rate in the U.S. But she said labor-management relations were more cooperative than confrontational, and strikes were rare.

The Doctor by Luke Fildes

Vermont is healthy, at least compared with the rest of America.

(It is mere coincidence that this appears the morning after the whole of America may – or then again may not – have taken a consequential step toward getting healthier; a topic for another day)

To take just one example, last year’s “America’s Health Ranking” by the United Health  Foundation concluded that Vermont was the healthiest state in the Union, with “a low percentage of children in poverty…, a low prevalence of obesity…, a high rate of high school graduation,…

and ready availability of primary care physicians.”

But nothing is perfect. Even that United Health Care study showed that Vermont had too many binge drinkers and only moderate immunization coverage. Now three new studies reveal a few more possible flaws in Vermont’s health care situation.

And possibly some flaws in health care studies.

Take Cost of Delay, a new report by the Pew Dental Foundation finding that state policies across the country “fail one in five children” when it comes to their dental health. The report gives Vermont a middling grade – a C – leaving the impression that kids across Vermont must have mouthfuls (mouthsfull?) of cavities.

But no. Vermont children have one of the lowest rates of childhood tooth decay in the country, and nowhere else in America does as large a percentage of children receive dental services (though it’s only 57 percent; no state does all that well). Nor does the state suffer from a dentist shortage. Only 2.5 percent of Vermonters live in a “Dental Health Professional Shortage Area,” and the approximate number of dentists needed to remove the “shortage designation” is…one.

So why the mediocre grade? There seem to be two reasons. First, Vermont does not have a “sealant” program in 25 percent of its high-risk schools. In fact, Vermont has no sealant program in any school. Second, the state does not provide fluoridated water to 75 percent of the people served by public water systems.

But Dr. Patrick Rowe, the Oral Health Director at the Vermont Department of Health, said that even without the high school programs, Vermont has a higher rate of sealant use than most other states.

“In Vermont we do a great job with sealants,” said Dr. Rowe, speaking of the “thin plastic coatings… applied to the grooves on the chewing surfaces of the back teeth to protect them from tooth decay,” in the words of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. It’s just that Vermont uses a different technique, Dr. Rowe said, employing a “tooth tutor dental access program” to reach children who haven’t been to the dentist.

Dr. Rowe agreed that Vermont should be doing better on the fluoridation front. “We do fall short of the national measure,” he said. Adding that his agency “tries to work with communities” where there is public opposition to fluoridating the water supply.

Vermont also seems to score relatively well in a scathing report about the treatment of poor pregnant women in America. According to the 101-page Deadly Delivery: The Maternal Health Care Crisis in the USA, a report by Amnesty International, “lifetime risk of maternal deaths (in the U.S.) is greater than in 40 other countries, including virtually all of the industrialized countries.

Here again, Vermont might be considered among the best in a not very impressive bunch. The state’s maternal mortality rate per 100,000 live births is 2.6, even lower than the recommended 3.4 percent, and the second lowest in the country. The study also praises Vermont for requiring employer-based health insurance to cover maternal care and prescription contraceptives, and for not allowing pharmacies to refuse to provide contraceptives.

On the other hand, Vermont does not have a maternal mortality review board, mandatory reporting of maternal deaths, or cultural competency requirements  (sensitivity to different cultures, (ethnicities, non-English speakers) for doctors. More than 12 percent of the women in Vermont are uninsured, more than 10 percent of pregnant women (and 17 percent of nonwhites) received delayed or no pre-natal care, and almost 62 percent of those women were “unable to get care as soon ass desired.”

Amnesty International is an advocacy group, not a disinterested research organization, and some of its statistics are based on the findings of other advocacy groups, such as the National Womens Law Center. But the report also referred to official U.S. Government studies and to findings by the respected Kaiser Family Foundation.

Dr. Donald Swartz, the Health Department’s Chief Medical Director, said he wasn’t sure how Amnesty International came up with Vermont’s good 2.6 maternal deaths per 100,000 figure (it was from the National Womens Law Center) but he didn’t argue with it, either.

“We’ve always been among the very top for infant mortality (which is closely related to maternal mortality), an honor we routinely share with New Hampshire, Maine, Washington, and Minnesota,” he said.

At the state’s low rate, Dr. Swartz said, there wasn’t much left the state could do medically to get any lower. The challenge now, said, is “ is to improve living conditions, the social environment, and economic status to reduce stress to low-income women,” especially non-white low-income women.

Finally, from the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation comes an exhaustive report about the health situation in every single county in the United States.

Once again, Vermont looks pretty good by comparison. In this case, though, it is the differences within the state that are more interesting. Not surprisingly, Chittenden County is the state’s healthiest, and Essex in the Northeast Kingdom the least healthy.

Not surprising because Chittenden is Vermont’s wealthiest county, Essex is least wealthy. And where 45 percent of Chittenden County residents have college degrees, only 15 percent do in Essex County. That could help explain why people in Essex County are more likely to smoke or to be obese.

But as Dr. Swartz pointed out, they are also more likely to have graduated from high school. Ninety-four percent of Essex County residents have high school degrees, compared with 82 percent in Chittenden County, and 78 percent in both Caledonia and Bennington. And perhaps surprisingly, binge drinking was slightly more common in Chittenden County than in Essex or Caledonia..

“The exciting thing about this study is the recognition that tracking disease is not the way to track health,” Dr. Swartz said. “The University of Wisconsin and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation figured out that prevention of disease is really based not on counting diseases and stamping out the causes of diseases. It’s building the social structure that allows people to be healthy.”

The information in the study, he said, could help health policymakers figure out how to build that social structure. “For instance,” he said, “you can take advantage of that 94 percent (of Essex County teenagers) in high school.” It makes them, he said, reachable, and therefore perhaps teachable, about good health habits as well as academics.

Maybe Vermont can become even healthier, at least compared with the rest of America.