Charity Clark stepped down today as Attorney General TJ Donovan’s chief of staff. The remarkably coy announcement of the move said she “has stepped down from her post to explore new opportunities” and would “make an announcement about her plans in the near future.”
Yuh-huh. She’s running for AG. She’s hinted as much, and it’s the most obvious reason for her sudden departure, which (a) apparently took immediate effect and (b) came only four days after Donovan announced he would leave office at the end of his term or possibly before.
I guess it ends all speculation that Clark might be elevated to acting attorney general should Donovan depart before Election Day, thus giving her the kinda-sorta incumbent’s edge. If so, it’s a noble and selfless move.
And it raises questions about Chris Winters, deputy secretary of state, who remains in office nearly three months after he announced his candidacy to succeed his boss, Jim Condos.
If Clark thought it best to resign before she even opened the doors on her campaign, why hasn’t Winters?
The strapping fellow pictured above is Charles Vallee, who died at age 27 this month of long Covid. His obituary says that he “made the lives richer of all he knew,” and I don’t doubt that he did. He seems to have been a remarkable young man.
Vallee was the son of Rodolphe “Skip” Vallee, gas station magnate and generous donor to Republican causes in Vermont and elsewhere. I have poked more than my share of fun at the political stylings of Mr. Vallee, including his deep disdain for Bernie Sanders and his turn as an alleged environmentalist in opposing a Costco gas station that posed a competitive threat to one of his Maplefields outlets, among other things.
Right now, though, it’s time to leave politics at the door. Nobody deserves this. All the sympathy for Skip and his family. This just tears at the heart:
Early this year, Charlie contracted Covid-19, and while weathering the mild respiratory symptoms, he was devastated by a host of Long Covid symptoms so severe that he ultimately had to reject a further deployment and, in the end, take a leave of absence from work. It was in this state, that Charlie left us on May 3.
There’s a whole lot of suffering in that handful of words, for Charlie himself and for those around him. I can’t imagine what these months have been like for the Vallees. Just a few years ago, Skip fought for his own life against cancer. I hope his recovery left him with the strength to endure the loss of his son.
Charlie was exactly the sort of person who’s supposed to be impervious to Covid. He was young and healthy. His initial illness wasn’t that serious, but long Covid got him good and he became one more statistic in Covid’s grim and growing toll.
To their credit, the Vallee family are setting up a special fund in Charlie’s honor, the Charles M. Vallee Foundation for Long Covid Research. They are urging memorial contributions to the fund. Let’s hope the Foundation helps spark a breakthrough in the fight against long Covid. That would at least put a silver lining around his death and the bereavement of those close to him.
Poor, poor, misunderstood Liz Cady. The person who courted controversy with her dog whistles about critical race theory and Black Lives Matter and, lest we forget, brought disgrace on her community by comparing BLM to Nazism, has up and quit. She resigned from the school board after little more than a year in office.
What a trooper.
Of course, it’s pretty much S.O.P. for right-wing culture warriors to screech at the slightest criticism while liberally defaming anyone else. How many January 6 insurrectionists have folded quietly in the face of 45 days in jail or some such? Pretty much all of ’em.
Let’s set aside the offensiveness that Cady tries to erase from her tenure, just for a moment, and simply say this: Democracy is hard. If you want to reform a public body, you’d best be willing to get in the trenches and be prepared for a long battle with an uncertain endpoint. Especially if the others on the body don’t share your views.
Even more so when a slate of like-minded candidates went down to defeat in this spring’s election. Sorry to say it, but the voters have spoken and Cady’s viewpoint did not carry the day. That doesn’t doom her cause to defeat, but it is a definite setback and it made her task that much more difficult. Difficult enough that she turned tail and ran.
And tried to frame herself as martyr and victim in the process. Pathetic.
Well now. One day after Beth Pearce announces she will not seek re-election, along comes Attorney General TJ Donovan to say he’s stepping aside. Might not even finish his term, in fact. Already his top deputy, Charity Clark, has taken to Twitter to announce she’s considering a run to succeed him.
That’s four, count ’em, four, openings out of our six statewide offices, and six out of nine if you include Congressional seats.
Anything you’re not telling us, governor? Auditor Hoffer?
Besides the lieutenant governor vacancy in 2020, it’s been a long time since any Democrat could see a way to move up the ladder. Now, it’s not so much a ladder as a single step onto a boundless plateau. Who’s got next?
Besides Clark, I have no idea. I’d love to see Chittenden County State’s Attorney Sarah Fair George give it a shot, but she seems uninterested. She told VTDigger she will run for re-election instead because she’s more interested in criminal law than in the civil cases that make up the bulk of the AGO’s work. Otherwise, I’m sure there are boatloads of people contemplating a run for AG or Treasurer.
This is going to be one hell of an August primary.
Well, that’s a look at my political crystal ball, hopelessly opaque like a furiously shaken snowglobe. But there are still a few things to say about Mr. Donovan and the odd specifics of his departure.
Our Democratic “leaders” have been studiously avoiding the long-odds task of running for governor against Phil Scott. The Dems have made a habit of this — not only during Scott’s tenure, but also under Jim Douglas. The top Democrats ducked and covered until Douglas decided to step down, and then there was a land rush of suddenly-eager candidates.
For the party that otherwise rules the roost in these parts, it’s a disgraceful history.
But now, finally, in early May for Pete’s sake, we have a Democrat in the race: Brenda Siegel, activist, advocate, two-time candidate for statewide office and, as she likes to say, the only person to beat Scott in the public arena. You may recall the epic sleep-out on the Statehouse steps that shamed the governor into reversing course on emergency housing.
Siegel braved the onset of winter. She stared down the governor. That’s the famously genial guy who never bothered to step outside his office and meet with Siegel and her allies. It’s no surprise that she’s willing to go where no other Democrat is willing to go: into the arena with Phil Scott.
She deserves all the credit in the world for that. And other potential candidates, who are clearly waiting for Scott to retire, deserve their share of scorn.
When Jeb Spaulding became newly-elected governor Peter Shumlin’s top cabinet official in January 2011, his little-known deputy was chosen to serve out the remainder of his term.
That deputy went on to become, arguably, the most popular officeholder in the Vermont Democratic Party. She routinely got loud, sustained ovations at VDP gatherings, and was at the top of many Democrats’ wish lists as a candidate for governor. But she had no interest in being anything other than Treasurer.
And now Beth Pearce has announced her retirement as Treasurer at the end of her term, when she will have served 12 years in the office.
First and foremost, all the luck in the world to Pearce as she battles cancer. Having watched Pearce in action, I have to say cancer has no idea what it’s in for.
Words can barely express how inexplicable this is. Why did Gov. Phil Scott veto the public sector pension deal? Well, I know his stated reasons, but they’re stupid. He has expect an override, so his veto won’t accomplish anything except make him look needlessly obstructionist.
There’s more, a lot more, but let’s take ’em one at a time.
This deal came at the end of a years-long search for common ground on how to make the pensions fiscally sound. Last year, the Legislature set up a committee to recommend a way out of the mess. The panel included members of the Legislature and Scott’s administration, and the unions. It worked diligently for months.
At no point did Scott or any of his officials sound the alarm.
The committee brought its recommendation to the Legislature. It went through the entire process of committee hearing after committee hearing, amendments major and picayune, floor debates and floor votes.
At no point did Scott raise a hand and say the deal was unacceptable.
The votes in the House and Senate were UNANIMOUS. Every single goddamn Republican voted in favor of it.
At no point before the votes did Scott think to warn his legislative allies that he didn’t like the deal. Some of them would have happily voted “No” if they thought he had a problem.
Well, well. On Monday afternoon, we learned that Republican U.S. Senate candidate Christina Nolan would hold an all-star D.C. fundraiser Tuesday night featuring… uh… Mitch McConnell, Bill Barr, and a bunch of other Republicans.
This ought to stick to Nolan like hot tar for the duration of her bid to succeed Patrick Leahy. Nolan, that alleged moderate Republican, is jetting off to our nation’s capital so Mitch Fucking McConnell can raise money for her campaign.
McConnell is the man most responsible for this Supreme Court decision. He is responsible for shackling women to their rapists or abusers and forcing them to choose between giving birth or seeking illegal and likely dangerous off–the-books abortions. He is the man who stole two Supreme Court seats and paved the way for this revolting development.
For those just joining us, McConnell blocked action on President Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland for almost a full year, leaving the seat open for Brett “I Like Beer” Kavanaugh — and then frogmarched Amy Coney Barrett to confirmation in record time before the 2020 election could take that power away from him.
And Nolan is going to take his money, come back to Vermont, and pretend that nothing is wrong? No fucking way.
(Apologies for readers with tender sensibilities, but there are times when nothing but bad language will suffice. This is one of those times. We’re just getting started.)
In the category of “Get your popcorn ready,” no state Senate race is likely to outdo the contest shaping up in the newly-created Chittenden North district, a.k.a. “The Democrats’ Gift to the VTGOP.” The Democratic majority who controlled redistricting managed to create a new district out of Chittenden County that seems to have a pretty strong Republican lean. Chittenden North includes the strongly Republican towns of Milton, Fairfax and Westford, plus most of Essex, whose internal politics are as fraught as a Montague-Capulet family reunion.
The declared candidates are Rep. Leland Morgan (R-Milton) and Democrat Irene Wrenner. In addition, potential candidate Brian Shelden has yet to declare — but he has set up a website for a Senate candidacy and filed a campaign finance report in March detailing more than $4,000 in donations. Those would seem to be rather outsized hints. Shelden is chair of the Essex Democrats and a former candidate for House and Selectboard.
Before we get to the particulars, I must point out the half-hearted job done by VTDigger in its story “2 early contestants join race for new Chittenden North state Senate district.”
Should be “Two,” not “2”, but that’s a detail. The real problem is that the story gave an incomplete and misleading account of Wrenner’s community activism and didn’t discover Shelden’s proto-campaign at all. In addition to missing the Shelden for Senate website, Digger also missed Shelden’s campaign finance filing. This seems to be yet another case of going through the motions on a rote article about a developing campaign. Really, people, if you’re going to produce these pieces, put some effort into them. In the age of The Google, it shouldn’t be that hard.
Back to the race itself. Assuming Shelden is a candidate, the Democratic primary may produce more fireworks than the collective Fourth of July festivities in all of Vermont because Wrenner and Shelden have serious beef.
Meanwhile, Morgan can sit back and chuckle. The makeup of the district seems to give him the edge to start with. And the Democratic primary may splinter the party base; there are plenty of Essexians who support either Wrenner or Shelden and wouldn’t be caught dead voting for the other. (Some of ’em will cross the aisle and vote for Morgan out of spite for the Democratic winner.)
The Vermont Political Observer. 