Who needs support from the Legislature?

Not Gov. Jim Douglas, according to Gov. Jim Douglas, at least not yet, at least as reported in Sunday’s Free Press. What he has, Douglas claimed, is the support of the people for his plans to control school spending and to alter Act 250.

Because the people will greet his ideas, “warmly,” he said, soon enough the “legislators will come to understand how serious this is.”

How does he know this? He doesn’t, of course. This doesn’t mean he’s wrong. The Democratic leaders of the Legislature who greeted his proposals coolly think the public agrees with them. They don’t know, either.

This assumption and proclamation of public support without the slightest evidence that the assumer/proclaimer in fact has public support is common in Vermont. Not that it’s all that rare elsewhere, but at least in some of those elsewheres assumers and proclaimers can cite some poll numbers. There seems to be relatively little polling here, perhaps because the state is too small to make it worth any polling firm’s while to conduct many surveys.

Polling, to be sure, is not without its flaws, one of which is that pollsters keep measuring the public opinion of issues on which there is no public opinion. One of Douglas’s proposals, for instance, is to replace “de novo” reviews with “on-the-record” reviews when the Environmental Court reviews the Act 250 decisions of district commissions.

Were a pollster to call a random sample of Vermonters and ask respondents whether they favored that change, there is no doubt what a majority would reply: “WHA????”

Of course, the pollster could explain what it all means. But depending on the polling firm’s politics, not to mention its integrity, the explanation could be worded to produce a result favorable to one side or another.  The pollster as disinterested observer/scholar performs a useful service to the public. The pollster as partisan/ideological hack does not.

Absent any polls, it’s close to impossible to know whether Douglas’s conviction that Vermonters agree with him is discerning or delusional. But it does seem likely that he has a slightly better chance to convince people to follow him on the education issue than on his plea for what he and some reporters and headline writers continue to call “permit reform.”

(DIGRESSIONARY NOTE TO REPORTERS/EDITORS/TV AND RADIO NEWS DIRECTORS: HONEST JOURNALISTS CALL NOTHING “REFORM,” DEFINED BY THE DICTIONARY AS “IMPROVEMENT BY ALTERATION.” WHETHER THE ALTERATION IS IMPROVEM ENT OR DEGENERATION IS PRECISELY WHAT IS AT ISSUE.

The reason is that school financing and the property tax that supports so much of it is certainly a situation, and arguably a problem, in Vermont. By almost all standards-cost per pupil, cost per capita, cost per dollar-Vermont spends more on its public schools than most other states. Whether this is a “problem,” at all, or whether Douglas’s proposed solution is the right one, is presumably one of the things the Legislature-and probably the public-will be debating over the next few months.

But it’s highly questionable whether Act 250-the 1972 law that controls large-scale development-is even a situation, much less a problem. Underlying Douglas’s push to change it is an assumption that the law as it stands suppresses economic growth in the state. “We must recognize that a ‘working landscape’ requires Vermonters to be actually working – not simply admiring the view,” he said in his Inaugural speech last week, suggesting that, by stifling enterprise, the law keeps people unemployed.

But not only is there no credible evidence that Act 250 smothers economic growth in Vermont; there is no credible evidence that economic growth is in fact smothered. For years, the state’s economy has grown as fast as-often faster than-the rest of New England. Median income rose steadily, more businesses move into the state than out of it, and unemployment remains well below the national average.

Which is not to say that nothing can be done to get the economy to grow faster. It’s even possible that weakening Act 250 would be a step in that direction. Possible but unlikely. In 2007, more than 99 percent of the 428 Act 250 permits sought by developers were approved, 81 percent of them within four months. Less than two percent of the permits issued on the district level were even appealed to the state Environmental Court.

(OK, these figures come from the Vermont Natural Resources Council, an environmental group, requiring a grain of salt. But while VNRC’s analyses are suspect, its numbers are probably accurate. First, it says it got them from the state’s Natural Resources Board. Second, it would be inane for VNRC to put out bogus figures; it would be caught, and discredited).

Since this examination was made on Sunday, it was not possible to get comment from the other side of the debate, which is basically the real estate and construction industries. But in the past they have pointed out that the law deters some developers from even applying for permits.

Let’s think about that for a minute. You’re a developer with a project that can make you some money. Yes, you have to go through this permit process. But knowing (and if you have half a brain in your head you do know) that the chances of getting the permit are better than 99-to-1, would you (assuming again, that half-a-brain) decide not to apply for it?

Only if you thought there was a good chance you wouldn’t get it. And you would only think that if the project did in fact involve substantial environmental damage.

Which means: That the law seems to be working exactly as intended, stopping projects that would, for instance, destroy wetlands, endanger critical wildlife habitat,  pollute the water, etc.

As intended, and presumably as wished for by the people of the state. Of course, that was in 1972, and perhaps they’ve changed their minds. Absent a poll, we don’t know whether they have, but it seems doubtful.

Tags: Jim Douglas, polling

This entry was posted on Monday, January 12th, 2009 at 6:00 am and is filed under Business & Economy, Energy & Environment, Politics & Elections. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.