After four years of radio silence, never once speaking to her home-state press, Darcie Johnston emerged from the dank underbelly of the Trump Administration to give a three-minute interview with WCAX’s Darren Perron. During which a tear or three ran down her copious cheek.
(Trigger Warning: This post is going to be kind of mean. All I can say is, she deserves every bit of it.)
Johnston has just concluded an undistinguished four years as a Trump administration political appointee. She was fairly high up in the Department of Health and Human services. And she was deeply involved in the administration’s disastrous handling of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Perron caught her at a vulnerable time, a few hours after she witnessed Trump’s farewell at Andrews Air Force Base. Yep, she was one of the lucky few hundred at the thinly-attended soiree.
Since her chat with Perron was such a rare event, here’s an annotated transcript of her remarks about her tenure in Washington.
No sooner did I drop a post featuring five different stories about Vermont’s uneasy relationship with racial issues, than two more appeared in our media.
From the Bennington Banner, yet another unfortunate comment from a frequent offender on this subject. (No, not Kevin Hoyt.)
From VTDigger, Vermont’s racial equity director issues a damning new report.
The latter is the more impactful, but first let’s pick the low-hanging fruit.
UVM’s Designated Racism Detector, Prof. Stephanie Seguino, reported on racial disparities in Bennington traffic stops. Surprise, surprise, she found that Bennington cops were much more likely to pull you over if you’re black — a perpetual issue for the town’s police department.
The kicker was a quote from town manager Stuart Hurd, a steadfast denier that the P.D. has any racial issues whatsoever.
“Unfortunately the updated study may not have changed its analytics, continues to use census data that does not take into account people traveling in and out of Vermont on a regular basis, and continues to disregard the fact that many departments were incorrectly filling in the information requested on the ticket (no training had been provided by the state when the tickets changed).”
Since then, it’s been almost completely worn away.
There’s been a cluster of news items this week that point in the same direction: Vermonters are really uncomfortable with racial issues. To wit:
Rutland Aldermen split on a resolution condemning the attempted insurrection at the U.S. Capitol
Barre Council puts divisive flag measure on Town Meeting ballot
Business owners of color feel unwelcome in the Chamber of Commerce
House Republicans introduce a bill that would prohibit public schools from flying the “Black Lives Matter” flag
The Vermont Senate’s first woman of color says Vermont has a retention problem with people of color rather than a recruitment problem.
First, we go to Rutland, a city with a habit of shooting itself in the foot. This week, Aldermen worked themselves into a tizzy — and ultimately held a tie vote — on a measure condemning the events of January 6 and blaming President Trump for triggering the riot. A couple of racist or racist-adjacent Aldermen led the charge against it.
Tom DePoy offered a substitute resolution to condemn the Capitol riot, but also the Black Lives Matter movement. Apparently he thought of this as a way to unify the community. It was voted down by the panel. Paul Clifford, who has a history of racist social media posts, voted against the original resolution. Sam Gerusso courageously walked away from his computer before the vote, saying “I shut off my camera and volume and went and used the restroom, got the mail, checked on my wife.”
Room rater! Best: Campion, okay background but great lighting. Honorable mention: Helen Mango; the pot lights give a delightful UFO vibe. Worst: Tie between Thomas “Total Eclipse Of The” Chittenden and Andrew “Blank Slate” Perchlik. C’mon, buy a poster or something!
Last year, the Vermont Legislature put off many unpleasant decisions by creating study committees. Well, one of them has come back to roost, and it brings a passel of bad news.
I’m talking about the Select Committee on the Future of Higher Education in Vermont, because the longer the name, the better the work product. The SCFHEV was tasked with studying the money-starved Vermont State College System and charting a path to sustainability. It issued a preliminary report in early December. That document was presented to the Senate Education Committee Tuesday afternoon. (The preliminary report can be downloaded from Senate Ed’s website. The panel’s final report will come out in April, with some changes likely and a lot more detail assured.)
The high points, if that’s what they are: The system needs dramatic restructuring to cut costs; even so it needs a much larger ongoing commitment from state government; and it also has to cut tuition rates, which are staggeringly high compared to public institutions in other states.
Well, that’s quite a lot.
The path ahead is long and arduous. It will involve multiple committees in the House and Senate, discussion of politically unpopular cutbacks, a search for funding at a time when demands for state money are everywhere, and scrounging for legislative time in what’s likely to be the most demanding session in years. Like I said, a big heavy lift.
Best: Gov. Scott, great lighting, busy but effective background. Worst: Pretty much everybody else.Extra demerits for “Redshift” Cummings and “Tiny” Hooper.
Vermont’s Emergency Board, an obscure but highly influential entity, held its twice-yearly meeting Tuesday afternoon to receive an updated revenue forecast from state economists Tom Kavet and Jeffrey Carr. Or, as the governor dubbed it, “The Tom and Jeff Show.” (The E-Board includes Gov. Phil Scott and the chairs of the Legislature’s four “money commitees” — House and Senate Appropriations, House Ways & Means, and Senate Finance. All of whom are women, it should be noted.)
Their report is posted as a downloadable file on the Legislative Joint Fiscal Office website. It’s recommended reading; it’s full of economic information beyond the basic tax projections. Video of the E-Board meeting available here.
Considering the pandemic and all, the news is astonishingly good. The new outlook for FY2021 predicts a very slight dropoff in total revenue, about $20M in all. That’s peanuts compared to earlier dire predictions. For FY2022, which begins in July, the new forecast predicts $77M in additional revenue. Carr and Kavet also predict a big increase in revenues for FY2023.
(Now, if you’re concerned about the federal deficit, it’s not all good news. Since 2018, deficit spending has gone from 105 percent of GDP to 135 percent. Covid relief is one driver of the increase; the other is the Trump tax cuts of 2017.)
How can this be? One simple explanation: A tsunami of federal recovery funds. And with Democratic control of the presidency and Congress, Carr and Kavet expect at least one more big infusion. (President-elect Biden has proposed a $1.9 trillion relief package.) So far, federal relief funds to Vermont account for a stunning 20 percent of the state’s gross domestic product.
“Without the federal money, I’d be declaring a five-alarm fire on Vermont’s economy,” said Carr. “We’re all Keynesians now. If we throw enough money at a problem, we can mitigate the damage in the aggregate.”
Don’t know if it was the heavy security or the heavy snow that deterred the diehard Trumpers on Sunday, but the expected rally didn’t materialize. Now we have to worry about Inauguration Day, when the police will once again be out in force outside and inside the Statehouse.
That won’t be the end of it, of course. Whether the “Stop the Steal” crowd shows up on Wednesday or not, there’s still a lot of folks who think the election was rigged, and they’re angry about it. Most will be peaceful, but it only takes one. There will be an ongoing threat, which means heightened security around government buildings.
That means the Statehouse, as we knew and loved it, is a thing of the past. We’ve long been proud of the openness of The People’s House; the ability of anyone to just walk into the building or into a committee hearing or hobnob with legislators in the cafeteria, the governor and lieutenant governor holding open coffee hours for all comers. It’s just charming to be able to walk the halls and stumble across lawmakers and officeholders and public officials of every rank, and have casual conversations with them all.
It’s a certainty that there will be painful discussions about Statehouse security before lawmakers adjourn for the year. Out of an abundance of caution, new measures will be taken.
Ready for metal detectors at the entrances? A substantially augmented Capitol Police force, probably with body armor and guns? State troopers on hand during legislative work days? A tactical team on site? A lot more locked doors? Security checkpoints outside the House and Senate chambers? Limited or no access to all the hearing rooms unless you’re on the witness list? I mean, those committee meetings get really crowded and each room has only a single exit. Imagine being trapped in there with an armed wingnut.
Wait, I’m not finished. And I haven’t even gotten to the pandemic yet.
At the end of last week, we got a sizeable Friday newsdump from an unusual source: State Treasurer Beth Pearce. In a report on the state’s public pension funds, she called for new limits on pensions for state employees and teachers. It was duly reported, first by VPR and then by VTDigger, but neither story captured the significance of Pearce’s pivot.
This is, in my view, the single biggest position shift by a top Democratic officeholder since Peter Shumlin abandoned single-payer health care in 2014. That move brought Shumlin’s political career to an ignoble conclusion, since he’d staked his governorship on delivering single-payer. I doubt that Pearce will have to slink off into the darkness, but she might not get the rapturous receptions at party functions that she’s gotten used to.
The pension plans don’t have enough funds to pay promised benefits because, through most of Howard Dean’s governorship and about half of Jim Douglas’, the state consistently shorted its annual contribution. Many have called for a shift from defined-benefit to a 401K-style defined-contribution plan. The former promises definite retirement benefits; the latter only promises to contribute money to the plan. Actual benefits depend on the health of the pension fund.
Pearce had been a champion of retaining defined-benefit. She’s an expert at public finance, so her view has carried a lot of weight. Now, she has abandoned that position. She still supports defined-benefit plans… but she has effectively changed her definition of the term. That’s a big, hairy deal. It puts legislative Democrats under pressure to go along with pension cuts — and that threatens to drive a wedge between the Vermont Democratic Party and two of its biggest supporters: the Vermont State Employees Association and the Vermont National Education Association.
I can’t say I blame her, given her recitation of the facts. But this could touch off a political shitstorm.
You have to feel a little bit sorry for Deb Billado, chair of the Vermont Republican Party. She’s been working hard for three years now, trying to build a functioning machine out of spare parts and duct tape. But her Trumpian worldview makes her an ineffective advocate for the kind of fiscally conservative, socially moderate organization the VTGOP needs to be.
Now it’s all coming apart, thanks to the January 6 insurrection triggered by President Trump. While Republican Gov. Phil Scott came right out with a call for Trump’s removal from office, Billado issued a statement condemning the violence without mentioning the President at all.
On Tuesday, Billado issued another statement, this one urging people not to take part in a January 17 Statehouse rally in support of Trump. She began, oddly, with this:
It has come to my attention through various vague media reports that there is a rumor of some kind of protest planned at the capitol building in Montpelier this weekend.
Best: Durfee, meh background but great lighting, sharp business apparel. Worst: Tie between The Invisible Mattos and Breakfastin’ Jim Masland.
A major study of Vermont’s entire tax system, two years in the making, had its debut Friday morning before the House Ways & Means Committee. The panel recommended wide-ranging reforms, each of which would be a very heavy political lift. These include shifting education funding from property tax to income tax, eliminating virtually all exclusions from the state sales tax (which would mean a lowering of the tax rate), imposing an annual registration fee on electric vehicles to replace lost gas-tax revenue in the coming transition to electric transportation, and replacement of the Telephone Personal Property Tax with a comprehensive levy on all telecommunications.
The Tax Structure Commission’s report was labeled a “draft.” It wasn’t made clear how much work remains, and how many changes might be made, before a “final” report is released. (The report can be accessed through the Ways & Means website.)
Commission member Deb Brighton began with a cheery reminder of the typical fate of tax-reform panels. “Every five years or so, the Legislature decides it wants a fresh, hard look at taxation,” she noted. Left unsaid was the fact that these reports are usually consigned to a dusty shelf, because real tax reform means a whole lot of sacred cows get whacked. In light of this SIsyphean history, one can easily conclude that this report is also destined for the dustbin of history.
The most recent tax panel, the Blue Ribbon Tax Structure Commission, delivered its report in 2011. Many of the TSc’s bullet points are strikingly similar to the BRTSC’s. The earlier panel’s fate was partly a matter of realpolitik, but each commission, coincidentally, faces competition from a natural disaster. The Blue Ribbon report was issued less than eight months before Tropical Storm Irene devastated Vermont. The new report, need I say, comes in the middle of a pandemic and resultant economic devastation.
Any tax reform is a complicated, time-consuming process. When it has to compete with a natural disaster, it has almost no chance of getting through. Not that this report is doomed. Just that I’m not sanguine about its chances, even though reform is badly needed.
Best room: Karen Dolan, effective minimalist backdrop and good facial lighting. Worst: Tie between Marcia Martel and Linda Joy Sullivan. Bad lighting, odd backdrop, and up-the-nostril camera positioning.
The House committee that oversees the state prison system got its first look today at a devastating report on the Chittenden Regional Correctional Facility, a.k.a. the state women’s prison.
The report by the law firm Downs, Rachlin and Martin was commissioned following a December 2019 investigative piece by Paul Heintz, then working for Seven Days. It unveiled widespread sexual misconduct and drug use between prison staff and inmates. Indeed, at today’s hearing, Acting Corrections Commissioner James Baker credited the Seven Days expose for bringing the issues to light.
The DRM report, released in December, confirmed the substance of Heintz’ story. Today, DRM presented the report to the House Corrections & Institutions Committee. All parties expressed a resolve to fix the problems at the prison, but emphasized that it’s going to take time — and to some degree, progress depend on state investment in personnel, training and facilities, at a time when money is extremely tight in Montpelier.
Jen McDonald, a partner at DRM, said misconduct has occurred “to a significant degree” in recent years; that many incidents are never reported through DOC channels because of “a belief of inaction” on inmate allegations (indeed, DRM staff uncovered many alleged incidents of misconduct that were never officially reported); and that training on sexual harassment is not mandatory — something that came as an unpleasant surprise to McDonald. She also told lawmakers that she was shocked at the antiquated, unsanitary conditions in CRCF, which were not within the scope of DRM’s work.
The Vermont Political Observer. 