Who knew Gov. Peter Shumlin was so scared of cutting taxes for 73 percent of Vermonters?

Who knew the legislature’s Democratic super-majority was so scared of Shumlin that it wouldn’t dare challenge him to veto such a tax cut?

And who knew it would take just one blustery, fact-free press conference by the governor to scare House Speaker Shap Smith and Senate President Pro Tem John Campbell into submission?... Read more

Politics ain’t no game, but it comes with its fair share of winners and losers. Each Friday on Seven Days’ news and politics blog, Off Message, we try our darnedest to figure out which one’s which. We call it The Scoreboard.

It’s hardly a scientific process, but our goal each week is to provide a handy cheat sheet for those who don’t spend the day monitoring #vtpoli on Twitter or hitting the “refresh” button on our homepage. ... Read more

When the legislature calls it quits in the coming days, most everybody in Montpelier will be ready to declare victory and go home.

None more so than Gov. Peter Shumlin, who’s spent the past four months locked in battle with fellow Democrats over how much money to raise, how to spend it and who should foot the bill. ... Read more

Like moths to a flame, nothing attracts Vermont’s corporate lobbyists to a Statehouse committee room like the threat of an industry tax hike.

So it was no surprise last week to find a standing-room-only crowd crammed into the Senate Finance Committee’s first-floor digs as the panel whittled down a list of potential new taxes in search of $10 million in revenue. ... Read more

Sen. Peter Galbraith (D-Windham) just couldn’t help himself.

Two years into his quest to rid Vermont politics of direct corporate and union contributions to candidates, the former ambassador was on the verge of victory last Wednesday. ... Read more

The smell of spring is in the air — and with it, the smell of compromise in the Statehouse. Or is that just body odor from too many hours in cramped committee rooms?

Either way, legislators are ready to skedaddle out of Montpelier — perhaps as soon as May 11 — and Gov. Peter Shumlin will be happy to show them the door.

“I think we’re getting to that time of the legislative session where we need to start seeing some movement toward the finish line,” says Shumlin’s secretary of administration, Jeb Spaulding.... Read more

Precisely who will foot the bill for any new state spending next year is the question of the moment in Montpelier.

But the real debate isn’t taking place in Statehouse committee rooms — or on the House or Senate floors. Last Thursday afternoon, at least, it was going down in a basement conference room in a locked building at 113 State Street.... Read more

What’s so funny about banning corporate contributions to political candidates?

That’s what Sen. Dave Zuckerman (P/D-Chittenden) was wondering last Thursday night when several colleagues began to chuckle during a roll call vote on a tough new campaign-finance rule. ... Read more

So who’s gonna blink first: House Speaker Shap Smith or Gov. Peter Shumlin?

That’s the question this week as the Vermont House considers $23 million in new taxes cobbled together by Smith’s leadership team and vehemently opposed by the governor.... Read more

On a recent Wednesday in Washington, forecasts of a foot of snow had ground official business to a halt. Across the street from the U.S. Capitol in the lobby of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, a digital sign proclaimed, “There are no hearings today.” But two floors up in an ornate, wood-paneled hearing room, Sen. Patrick Leahy was holding court. Across from the Vermont Democrat sat Attorney General Eric Holder, alone and ready to submit to his biennial grilling by the Senate Judiciary Committee, which Leahy chairs. ... Read more