I don’t know exactly when it happened, but the administration of Governor Nice Guy has developed a habit of lying. I know, I know, some of you are saying “So, what’s new, John?” But this isn’t just run-of-the-mill fudging the truth. It’s more like easily checkable whoppers emerging from the fifth floor and associated precincts with disturbing frequency.

We first take you back to mid-December, on the eve of a session in which the Legislature was set to consider a bill banning neonicotinoid pesticides. The Agency of Agriculture issued a report boasting that the number of honeybee colonies in Vermont had risen by 43% between 2016 and 2023.

Great news, right? Colony collapse might not be a problem anymore. Maybe we don’t need the ban after all.

Except that Vermont beekeepers completely disagreed. They say the report lumped together stationary and migratory hives. The latter are imported from elsewhere for the warm months. That 43% increase is due to a dramatic rise in migratory hives. Vermont’s own bees are still in trouble.

The beekeepers (the ones who, y’know, keep the bees) appear to have a point, and it sure looks like the administration fudged the figures to try to derail the ban. And now, as the bill inches forward, the admin has rolled out another fib: An Agriculture official told lawmakers that seed companies might refuse to sell in Vermont if the ban becomes law.

Except, as Vermont Public reported, New York and Quebec have both banned neonicotinoids. It’d be as easy as pie for distributors to send Vermont the same seeds they’re already selling just across our borders.

This week has brought us not one, not two, but three stories of the administration taking liberties with the truth. First, the Vermont ACLU has accused Health Commissioner Dr. Mark Levine of an “egregious” violation of state law. Levine is the nonvoting chair of the Opioid Settlement Advisory Committee, which makes recommendations on how to spend money Vermont receives from legal settlements with opioid manufacturers.

It seems the panel called for spending $2.6 million on overdose prevention centers and Levine, acting completely on his own without telling the Committee, dropped that recommendation entirely. The ACLU calls this “an unlawful usurpation of the Committee’s harm reduction mandate.” And a pretty ballsy usurpation at that.

The next two aren’t exactly lies; they’re more like willful and needless escalations in rhetoric that seem unmoored from reality. First, Scott has been pounding the table for get-tough measures in response to public perception of increases in crime. But even as he continues to rail against progressive justice reform, he submitted a budget that cuts nine prosecutorial positions from state’s attorneys’ offices.

At a time when the justice system is already straining under a backlog. Of more than 15,000 cases.

I don’t know how Scott thinks this is going to work. If the Legislature does what he says and toughens our criminal laws, the burden on prosecutors and the judiciary is only going to increase. If he was really serious about crime, he’d find the money for prosecutors and give the judiciary a badly needed boost.

Second, Scott is threatening to veto a pair of Act 250 reform measures taking shape in the Legislature. Per VTDigger, he “call[ed] one an ‘economic disaster’ and sa[id] the other would ‘put Vermonters in jeopardy of violating laws they don’t even know exist.'”

Harsh words. Which seem really inappropriate considering that the bills are the product of cooperation between developers and environmental advocates. Digger reports that the two groups “are more united now than any time in recent memory” on issues that usually divide them in ways that make Act 250 reform unachievable. You’d think Scott might be willing to accept something that’s acceptable to developers instead of dropping turds in the punchbowl.

One more reminder. This time last year, the Legislature was happily going along with Scott’s insistence that the motel voucher program had to end on schedule in June 2023. Lawmakers did so based on assurances from administration officials that things were under control and the transition away from vouchers could proceed smoothly.

Which turned out to be utterly false.

As a result, Legislature and administration had to cobble together a last-minute voucher extension that (a) created tremendous uncertainty for voucher clients, (b) failed to provide shelter for hundreds of Vermonters, and (c) is a terrible way to make policy.

Which is why, when those same officials went before lawmakers with half-baked, inadequate plans for ending the voucher program this spring, their testimony was met with something akin to open contempt. Remember when DCF Commissioner Chris Winters presented those plans to the House Human Services Committee?

“I’m trying to figure out how to be polite,” [committee chair Theresa Wood] began. “We recognize that money is not unlimited, but we think it’s not responsible for us to consider implementing what you proposed. I think that’s exactly what you expected to hear from us.”

That’s what happens when you don’t play straight with the Legislature. You might just find they’ve stopped believing you.

It might not impact Scott’s apparently unshakable image with the electorate. But it ain’t no way to govern the state.