Pretty much on anything. If you go looking, on virtually any issue other than cutting social progrms to balance the budget,you will not find any instance of Dean actually leading on anything else. He always stayed by the sidelines when it came to controversial legislation and ideas, and only came out giving his support once it was very clear that legislation was going to pass, or in two cases, Civil Unions and Progressive Property Taxation, when the Vermont Supreme Court told him what he had to do or else.
Deans record as Governor is pretty much a record of mediocrity. A record of a man without a creative thought in his head. A man with virtually no imagination.
On Civil Unions, he spent almost four years avouding taking a public stance.
Earlier, on a Gay Civil Rights law, he opposed as Lt Governor, but in January of 1992, when the bill had literally dozens of sponsors, and great support (before it was finally brought to the legislature for vote in 1992, because it was presented too late in the legislature in 1991 and so had to wait until the legislature reopened in January) with all but 3 Vermont Senators having agreed to sign it, and well over 60 percent of the Vermont House agreed to sign it, then Dean mentions it in his state of the union address, when having been silent for the entire period prior to the legislation being debated, while he was already governor.
On Universal Health Care, Dean took as his own a comission ordered by his predecessor, Richard Snelling, to examine the possibility of universal health care in Vermont. The results were that Deans idea of simply requiring all businesses (even small mom and pop businesses) To provide insurance for all employees failed without getting a single vote, and Dean threatened to veto the other option the comittee was to look at, single payer:
Vermont
In April 1992 Vermont passed the Vermont Health Care Act of 1992 to ensure universal coverage for state citizens, control healthcare costs via a global budget, implement insurance community rating, reform medical malpractice laws, and place the state's healthcare under one state authority. The legislation did not specify how the state would pay for and achieve universal coverage. This led to development of two state proposals--one backed by a group of 55 legislators for a single-payer plan and one pushed by the governor for an employer mandate.
Although the single-payer plan was not brought to the floor for a vote during the current 1994 session, many predicted it would have been defeated. Additionally, Gov. Howard Dean, MD, had promised to veto it if passed. Dean, the nation's only physician governor, allied with the state's medical community in pushing for reform that was not government run. As Linfield College political scientist Howard M. Leichter describes it: "When Governor Dean speaks, the views of Dr. Dean are never entirely obscured. Dean, for example, shares the distaste of his colleagues for federal micromanagement of medical practices, especially through the much-hated Medicare program."1
http://www.chausa.org/PUBS/PUBSART.ASP?ISSUE=HP9410&ARTICLE=LBut when it came to big business, Dean fought like a mother protecting her children to protect big business:
Who's the Real Howard Dean?
As Vermont governor, the liberal firebrand was a fiscal conservative with close ties to businessConservative Vermont business leaders praise Dean's record and his unceasing efforts to balance the budget, even though Vermont is the only state where a balanced budget is not constitutionally required. Moreover, they argue that the two most liberal policies adopted during Dean's tenure -- the "civil unions" law and a radical revamping of public school financing -- were instigated by Vermont's ultraliberal Supreme Court rather than Dean. "He was not a left-wing wacko," says Bill Stenger, a Republican and president of Jay Peak Resort, who says he supported Dean because of his "fiscally responsible, socially conscious policies."
Business leaders were especially impressed with the way Dean went to bat for them if they got snarled in the state's stringent environmental regulations. When Canada's Husky Injection Molding Systems Ltd. wanted to build a new manufacturing plant on 700 acres of Vermont farmland in the mid-'90s, for instance,
Dean greased the wheels. Husky obtained the necessary permits in near-record time. "He was very hands-on," says an appreciative Dirk Schlimm, the Husky executive in charge of the project.
And when environmentalists tried to limit expansion of snowmaking at ski resorts, "Dean had to show his true colors, and he did -- by insisting on a solution that allowed expanding snowmaking," says Stenger.
IBM (IBM ) by far the state's largest private employer, says it got kid-gloves treatment. "We would meet privately with him three to four times a year to discuss our issues," says John O'Kane, manager for government relations at IBM's Essex Junction plant, "and his secretary of commerce would call me once a week just to see how things were going."
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/03_32/b3845084.htmMonsanto's Legal Thuggery
by Michael Colby Monsanto's legal team began 1998 by taking on the State of Vermont and its attempts to pass a very weak rBGH law that merely required Monsanto to register with the state and make its client list available to state authorities so "rBGH-free" claims could be verified. The company responded by publicly threatening to sue the state and stop selling its products in Vermont if the bill passed. Governor Howard Dean, feeling the lobbying heat from Monsanto and its rBGH-addicted farmers in Vermont, came to Monsanto's defense and pulled the plug on the measure by threatening a veto. The legislature then went on to further soften an already spineless bill by removing the section that required the drug manufacturer's client list. Eventually, after yet another legal threat and a "closed-door" meeting with Governor Dean, Monsanto backed off and let the near-meaningless legislation go into effect.
http://www.adbusters.org/magazine/24/monsanto.htmlConservatives from Vermont are so desparate to see their old pal back in office, that they find it necessary to try to divert the only two liberlathings that occured during Deans tenure as Govenror away from him and "blame" them on the Ultraliberal Vermont Courts.
I find it most amusing. Having searchd Deans actual history as Govenror, one can find nothing that would show that Dean cared at all for the average working citizen, but he went to bat for big business at every opportunity. There is literally no record of Dean ever fighting for any social issues. Ever backiong the little guy. Ever taking a stance on supporting issues that were critical to the many members of our society who are frequently thr targets of the rich and powerful. Dean has never stood for anything but monied interests. Ever.
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