Monthly Archives: May 2024

DIspatches from an Alternate Earth

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Been having long, weird dreams lately. Last night, I had written a big, expansive rock opera that involved a multitude of performers and was getting its premiere performance. The night before, President Lincoln and Congress were enacting a series of reform bills aimed at improving the war effort. Now I seem to be dreaming of a world where Vermont Republicans are reacting to the Donald Trump verdict with surprising adherence to principle…

Montpelier, Vt. — Following the unanimous conviction of Donald Trump on 34 felony charges, leaders of the Vermont Republican Party are distancing themselves from their party’s putative nominee.

Gov. Phil Scott, who has long refused to support Trump, went a step further today. “The verdict ought to disqualify Donald Trump as our party’s nominee,” he said in a statement released by his office. “If the Republican Convention persists in nominating him, I will have to consider leaving the party and running for re-election as an independent. I cannot see myself sharing a ticket with that man.”

Other party figures didn’t go quite so far, but were unsparing in their reactions to the verdict.

Paul Dame, VTGOP chair, noted that “On our website, we proudly say the VTGOP ’embraces the principles of the United States and Vermont Constitutions. Our platform is built on the foundations of those documents.’ To be true to our core beliefs, we must abide by the legitimate processes of the legal system. Unfortunately, our convention delegates are pledged to Trump, but I would urge them to limit their support to the bare minimum and make no public statements on behalf of the Trump campaign. This is a dark day for the Grand Old Party.”

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Darkness on the Edge of the Capitol Complex

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A good piece of political journalism will accomplish two things: It will explain what’s been happening and give you a peek at what’s ahead. VTDigger’s Sarah Mearhoff accomplished both in her recent look back at the 2024 legislative session, specifically the bitter divide between Gov. Phil Scott and the Dem/Prog supermajorities. It’s obvious that the rarely healthy relationship took a measurable turn for the worse in 2024.

The best bit — the Rosetta Stone that explains it all — goes back to the very end of the 2023 session, when the Legislature overrode six Scott vetoes. That’s a huge number. Overrides have been extremely rare throughout Vermont history. I haven’t done a deep dive, but I’ll bet that six is the all-time record for a single year. Scott comms director Rebecca Kelley called the veto session “eye-opening,” and Senate President Pro Tem Phil Baruth believes that was when the governor changed course:

“I think at that point, they had their own existential moment where they said, ‘We have to get super aggressive and go after these people,’” Baruth said.

Longtime Statehouse lobbyist Rebecca Ramos noted the “breakdown in communication” this year and added there was “just not a lot of interest in repairing it.”

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Turn On the Light and Yep, Cockroaches

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Alison Novak, Seven Days’ education reporter and one of the brightest lights in Vermont journalism, has produced another scoop worthy of your attention. She reports that identical “Just Say No” signs have appeared in at least three Chittenden County communities where school budgets were up for vote: Essex, Milton, and South Burlington. The signs bear the imprimatur, in teeny-tiny print, of “CCGOP,” a.k.a. the Chittenden County Republican Committee.

It’s not illegal for an outside political group to try to influence local school votes, but it’s highly unusual. The CCGOP’s reaction to Novak’s inquiry was telling; some ducked and covered, while others offered what the reporter called “confusing — and sometimes conflicting — accounts,” as if they’d gotten caught with hands in the cookie jar. In fact, Milton’s own Republican Rep. Chris Taylor said he was “dismayed” by the signs, and found them “counterproductive” to civil discourse around the budget.

And when you take a closer look at the parties involved, well, let’s just say some familiar faces were on the list.

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The Most Compelling Race Is For the Least Compelling Prize

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With all due respect to John Nance Garner, seen above conducting one of the essential duties of the Vice Presidency, the #2 spot in an executive branch is the appendix of the American political system. Garner called accepting the VP nomination “the worst damn fool mistake I ever made.” Harry Truman said the vice president “is about as useful as a cow’s fifth teat.” Our first VP, John Adams, called it “the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived.”

And yet, here in Vermont, we’re seeing a relative land rush for our equivalent of the vice presidency. There will be, mirabile dictu, contested primaries for lieutenant governor on the Democratic and Republican ballots in August. Despite the hollowness of the actual office, the two primaries and the general election to follow offer a rare hint of intrigue in what promises to be a suspense-free campaign season as far as the statewide ballot is concerned.

I’ve covered the Democratic contest previously. But now we have two announced candidates on the Republican side, an embarrassment of riches for a party that has given multiple nominations to H. Brooke Paige in recent years. Rutland accountant, January 6 field trip organizer, and multiple-time loser Gregory Thayer has been in the race for months, not that anyone has noticed. He has now been joined by former Democratic state senator John Rodgers, last seen biffing his re-election bid to the Senate by failing to get his nominating petitions in on time.

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The Uncle I Never Knew

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Meet Morris Henry Wilson, a Michigan boy who enlisted in the Navy at the age of 15 — he told them he was older — and went missing on a submarine that never finished its maiden voyage in the fall of 1943.

Morris was one of my mother’s older brothers. It was a big, troubled, poor family in rural Michigan, a good situation to get away from if you got the chance. He took the chance. My mom never spoke much about Morris, nor did I ever ask her siblings about him. So I can’t tell you anything about his life before enlisting. In honor of Memorial Day, I’ll share what I know about the very brief remainder of his life. Which is pretty much entirely from official records.

By World War II standards, his death was random and inconsequential. He didn’t die in an act of heroism, unless you think the idea of a 15-year-old going to war is pretty damn heroic. I wouldn’t disagree. He died far from any active theater. The cause of his sub’s sinking has never been fully established; the most likely cause was friendly fire. Or it may have hit a German mine near Panama. Either way, the sub was never found and all 77 aboard were presumed dead.

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What Will the State Senate Be In 2025?

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Time for some way-too-early speculation about what kind of state Senate we will have in the new biennium. To date, Sens. Jane Kitchel, Bobby Starr, Dick McCormack and Brian Campion have announced they are not seeking re-election. Sen. Dick Mazza resigned last month for health reasons, which brings us to five senior solons — in terms of lifespan and/or tenure — who won’t be there next January.

Disclaimer: The following post is based entirely on my own observations. There is not a lick of insider information at play. I do NOT have sources in Senate leadership.

By my math, the five retirees have lived a combined 372 years (average “only” 74.4 years, thanks to that 53-year-old whipper-snapper Campion, PULL UP YER PANTS young man) and legislative service totaling 158 years. That’s right, one hundred and fifty-eight, more than 31 years apiece under the Golden Dome. Also, three of the five are committee chairs.

This round of departures follows the seismic 2022 election season, when 10 senators — fully one-third of the chamber — did not return. That means fully half of the 2025 Senate will have, at most, two years of experience. In 2020, four senators stepped away (three by choice; John Rodgers came a cropper thanks to his own inattentiveness to the niceties of candidate filing law), which means that 19 members of the new Senate will have no more than four years of experience.

This, in a body that values age and seniority above all else, and normally consigns junior members to purely decorative status. It’s gonna be interesting.

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When She Was Good, She Was Very, Very Good…

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Amongst all the encomiums that accompanied Sen. Jane Kitchel’s retirement announcement (“most influential legislator,” “tireless work ethic,” “encyclopedic” knowledge of state government and, of course, “legendary“), this comment from Senate President Pro Tem Phil Baruth stuck out at me:

“I have adopted a two-word mantra as President Pro Tem, and it has served me well: ‘Ask Jane.’”

To which my first thought was, “Well, there’s your problem.”

It’s not that Kitchel doesn’t deserve praise on her way out the door. She has served the state for a long time with notable distinction. It will, indeed, be difficult to replace her. The Senate is in for an adjustment period.

But adjust it will. No one is irreplaceable. No one is truly encyclopedic in their knowledge of anything. And Kitchel’s biggest problem was that she thought she knew even more than she did, and she acted accordingly.

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So What Did Howard Dean Mean by “Scorched Earth”? (Updated With MORE Phil Scott Fails)

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On Monday, former governor Howard Dean ended his brief dalliance with running against Gov. Phil Scott by explaining that his only path to victory was “a scorched earth, negative attack campaign” out of character with Vermont politics, and that he refused to be the one to inject our system with that kind of vitriol.

Okay, well, at the time it seemed like a hollow, self-serving rationale — more acceptable to a politician’s ego than “The polls showed me way behind” or “I found out I couldn’t raise enough money” or maybe even “Turns out half of Vermont doesn’t even remember me.” But the more I thought about it, the more I wondered:

What would a scorched earth campaign against Phil Scott look like?

Secondary question:

Would it work?

I can think of two potential scenarios; one really doesn’t meet the definition and the other would be doomed to fail. So I’m still wondering if Dean had some brilliantly Machiavellian concept that could bring down Governor Teflon or if he was just bullshitting his way off the stage. I suspect the latter.

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Dean Leaves Dems at the Altar (UPDATED With Another Skedaddle)

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The curtain came down on Howard Dean’s Hamlet act this morning. After a few weeks of something approaching suspense, Dean announced he would not run for governor.

And now here we are, 10 days away from the filing deadline for major party candidates and the only Democrat in the race is Esther Charlestin, who is (1) almost entirely unknown, (2) has never run for public office*, and (3) has shown no signs at all of mounting a serious campaign. Not even an underfunded, scrappy effort like those of the last three Democratic candidates for governor.

*Correction: Charlestin has run for, and won a seat on, the Middlebury selectboard.

Former Burlington mayor Miro Weinberger is still pondering*, but really. If Dean’s internal polling showed him ten points behind incumbent Gov. Phil Scott, what could possibly convince Weinberger to step in? Or anyone else, for that matter?

*Whoops, that didn’t age well. Channel 22/44 anchor Lauren Maloney took to Twitter early this afternoon with news that Weinberger does “not intend to be a candidate for public office this fall.”

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Outta Nowhere

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Political surprise of the week: This guy taking on an incumbent statewide officeholder.

Guy in question is Thomas Renner, deputy mayor of Winooski and newly declared candidate for lieutenant governor. You know, the office currently occupied by David Zuckerman? Yep, that one.

My initial reaction involved the letters W, T, and F. I mean, he’s 34, he’s held office in the ‘Ski for only three years, has never run anywhere else, and he’s getting a late start. The primary is on August 13, but early voting will begin in about six weeks.

Zuckerman, meanwhile, is arguably Vermont’s most successful state-level politician this side of Phil Scott, having served three terms as LG and a total of 18 years before that in the Legislature. The only blot on his escutcheon: a 2020 thumping at the hands of the governor. But losing to Scott is no shame, and he made a nice comeback two years later by retaking the lieutenant governorship.

But there are reasons not to dismiss Mr. Renner out of hand.

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