A couple days after our uneventful primary, I roused myself from my Covid-induced stupor long enough to make a guest appearance on The Montpelier Happy Hour*, a weekly podcast co-hosted by journalist/broadcaster Olga Peters and Rep. Emilie Kornheiser, who was fresh off her pasting of a centrist primary challenger. Kornheiser said something that stuck with me. (Which is not unusual.)

* Video here, podcast here.

While campaigning, she asked constituents about their views of Gov. Phil Scott. She was looking for insight into the central mystery of today’s Vermont politics: Why do so many people happily vote for the Republican governor and otherwise elect Democrats up and down the ticket?

The most common response she got: Scott’s calm, reassuring leadership during the Covid epidemic. They still appreciate his even-handed approach, especially in comparison to the nutbag in the White House who talked of injecting bleach and sticking lightbulbs up your fundament. People presumably believe Scott would do the same thing in the next crisis, and that’s comforting.

But here’s the problem. When the times call for a steady hand on the tiller, Scott is that steady hand. When the times call for decisive leadership, Scott is that steady hand.

Vermont faces an array of challenges and crises. He’s been Vermont’s chief executive for seven and a half years now. I dare you to name a single major issue that’s improved substantially since Scott became governor. Instead, we have a perpetual standoff with the Legislature, which is trying to pry the tiller away from his steady hand. He offers much more resistance than direction.

Scott has maintained a passive approach to governance partly because he faces a Democratic Legislature, partly because he’s neither imaginative nor brave. He has a vast quantity of political capital, but he hoards it jealously as if it was the rarest resource on Earth.

I started thinking about this on August 14, the day after the primary, when VTDigger reported that the Green Mountain Care Board had — for the third consecutive year — approved double-digit rate increases for health insurance plans available through Vermont Health Connect. The Board did make some cosmetic cuts to the insurers’ rate requests, but otherwise it confined its actions to vigorous hand-wringing.

Every member of the Board was appointed by Phil Scott. Its purpose is to control health care costs. Its actual work product resembles a speed bump more than a dynamic agency with a mission.

But wait, you might be saying. Didn’t the GMCB recently receive a consultant’s report with recommendations for fixing the system? Why, yes, it did. But the report was commissioned under Act 167, which was drafted in 2022 by the Senate Health & Welfare Committee and passed by the Legislature. (Scott did sign it, hooray.) Yep, it was a legislative initiative. It remains to be seen if the GMCB will follow through.

Our health care system has only gotten worse during Scott’s seven years. Consultant Bruce Hamory made an urgent call for systemic reforms “in the next three to five years,” which means Phil Scott will need to be a central player in the effort. I have my doubts.

Lots of issues to get through, so let’s do a listicle. Tell me which of these has gotten better under Scott, which have been addressed by the Legislature in the absence of executive leadership, and which have been allowed to metastasize.

• The housing shortage (which Hamory cited as a factor in his dire outlook). Scott has argued for his vision of regulatory reform but opposed any public investment. Regarding affordable housing, this simply won’t cut it The Legislature has charted its own course over his veto.
• Homelessness continues to be a humanitarian stain on our B.L.S. The administration has failed to chart a course. The Legislature has been trying to mitigate the disaster. We’re headed for a big rise in unsheltered homelessness this fall, and the admin has backed away from shelter expansion.
• Whether you think public safety is a crisis in real life or a matter of perception — or both — it’s an issue that demands attention. Is it better than it was seven years ago?
• The opioid crisis has gotten substantially worse, thanks in large part to the introduction of new, dangerous drugs. Scott insists that the policy he’s pursued for seven years is working. Really?
• Climate change has elbowed its way onto center stage, thanks to our spate of federally declared disasters. Aside from investing federal Covid relief dollars into electric vehicle incentives and charging, Scott has been an obstacle in fighting climate change and has done little on resiliency besides talking about it. The Legislature has used its supermajority to enact some positive measures over Scott’s resistance.
• Under Scott, the Public Utility Commission has been an obstacle to renewable energy buildout.
• Scott hasn’t been a friend of public education. It seems clear that he’d love to enact a universal school voucher program, but he knows it would be broadly unpopular so he hasn’t even tried. Ditto his constant theme of “Cradle to Career.” He’s been saying it for eight years, going back to his initial run for governor, and he has never, ever come out with an actual plan because it would inevitably mean diluting K-12 in favor of preschool and secondary ed.
• Speaking of secondary ed, our public university system continues to be grossly underresourced. Vermont State University is sagging under the weight of budget cuts and enrollment declines. The University of Vermont has pretty much charted its own course, boosting research programs and out-of-state enrollment to improve the bottom line in the absence of reasonable state funding.
• VSU’s challenges contribute to our workforce shortage, which Scott rails about but has done little to improve. Again, is the situation better now than in 2017? No.
• It’s been well established for years that Vermont’s taxation system needs an overhaul. You can’t blame this all on Scott, because the Legislature is perpetually kicking the can down the road. Deb Brighton of 2021’s Tax Structure Commission noted that “every five years or so” the Legislature decides it needs another study. And then ignores the findings. The governor has done no better. Any real reform, if the Legislature ever gets its shit together, would have to pass over Scott’s cold, dead, steady hand.
• Our corrections system is in need of (a) a change in justice policy to reduce incarceration and (b) major infrastructure improvements. Scott has done nothing on either front, besides float the idea of a privately-built and -owned prison campus. He hasn’t seriously pushed that because he knows it would never pass muster in the Statehouse. The administration has been egregiously slow to address the horrendous, inhumane women’s prison.
• In the absence of legislative push, would Scott have done anything about our underfunded public sector pensions? Besides stumping for cuts in benefits, that is? Nope.

There are other issues, I’m sure. But that’s a pretty long, daunting, and damning list.

The only arguable exceptions — issues on which there’s been measurable progress since 2017 — are rural broadband and a halfway decent effort at cleaning up Lake Champlain. The former was funded by federal Covid relief dollars, and the latter was mandated by a court decision. Which is probably why the Legislature included a provision in the Global Warming Solutions Act allowing for legal action if the state fails to meet emissions reduction targets. They know we will fail if Phil Scott has anything to do about it. Indeed, the governor and his officials have consistently said that the short-term targets aren’t important as long as we hit the 2050 target. Our spate of climate-related disasters would suggest otherwise.

Behind all of this is the Scott administration’s refusal to engage with the Legislature. This is the cause of many vetoes, and it’s a serious impediment to bipartisan policymaking. Ask any legislative leader off the record, and they will express shock at how Team Scott absents itself from Statehouse policy debates. This is a substantial departure from past administrations. Even Jim Douglas, who faced a very combative Democratic majority, continued to engage throughout his governorship.

Phil Scott will be little more than an obstacle to progress as long as his celebrated steady hand remains on the tiller. He will resist legislative efforts to address our challenges and crises. I feel for whoever succeeds him. The next governor will have to deal with the myriad failures of the current occupant. But hey, he led us through the epidemic. So everything’s cool, right?