Secretary of State Sarah Copeland Hanzas’ brand spanking new campaign finance portal is up and running, and boy howdy, is it an improvement on the old system. Much more information readily available, searchable, downloadable. Too bad nobody in the media, with the occasional exception of VTDigger, pays any attention to campaign finance anymore because (a) the entire idea behind campaign finance law is that sunshine disinfects, but that doesn’t work if the cleanup crews are off the clock, and (b) the new system makes the task much easier.

One huge improvement is the ability to track individual donors. Previously, donor records were extremely difficult to work with. Frequent benefactors would have numerous records, each one bearing a slightly different spelling or punctuation of their name or contact information. If I wanted to track, say, ultraconservative megadonor Lenore Broughton, I’d have to open and review literally dozens of files.

Now all I have to do is click on the “Contributions” button and type Broughton’s name into the “Contributor Name” field, and I can see all her donations to Vermont candidates and organizations in one list. So I can report that so far in 2024, Broughton has shoveled a total of $28,420 into Vermont’s political ecosystem. (This doesn’t include her federal activity; she’s given a whopping $82,700 to federal candidates and organizations in 2024. Including such worthies as Speaker Mike Johnson, Sen. Josh Hawley, unsuccessful Senate hopefuls Eric Hovde of Wisconsin and Kari Lake of Arizona, and an org called Black Americans Political Action Committee, which bears a strong smell of astroturf. She also gave $2,000 to Scary Eagle Man Gerald Malloy. Because he was a federal candidate, that donation was reported to the Federal Elections Commission, not the Vermont Secretary of State.)

The system isn’t perfect. I came across one instance where a donor I think of as an adjutant Baron, Robert Lair, had his name misspelled as “Liar,” so one of his donations didn’t appear with the others. Oh well.

But hey, let’s get to the point, shall we? This being the fifth paragraph already.

I’d wanted to use the new system to find out how much the Barons of Burlington spent in their effort to hack away at the Democrats’ Senate majority and remove David Zuckerman from the lieutenant governorship. In the old system, this would have been a nightmare. In the new system it took a fair bit of work, but it was doable.

The bottom line: The Barons spent a lot by Vermont standards, but far from an extraordinary amount for any of them. Take Bruce Lisman (Henny Youngman says “Please”). He spent slightly less than $35,000 on Vermont candidates this year. That’s a hell of a lot for you and me, but spare change for a retired Wall Street mogul whose Last Stand in the 2008 financial collapse earned him a thinly-veiled bit part in the movie “The Big Short.” He can afford 35 G’s. And when he combined his dollars with those of his fellow Barons, who have no trouble writing four-figure checks by the fistful, it was more than enough to help swing an election rightward.

Which is an ominous sign for the future; you’d expect them to repeat the experiment or go even farther in 2026, perhaps taking a big swing at the House or identifying Republican candidates for statewide office who might actually win, unlike the H. Brooke Paiges or Joshua Bechhoefers of the world.

Hey, if it worked for Sen. Sam Douglass (post pending) and Lt. Gov. John “Something Dead” Rodgers, it’s capable of broader application.

The Secretary of State’s new system makes it possible for me to do something I hadn’t tried to do before: Make a list of the Barons. This isn’t necessarily an exhaustive compilation, but it’s pretty damn good.

At the top of the list, dollar-wise, we find the Pizzagallis of Burlington development and property management fame. Between Angelo, James, Jon, Remo and others, the family donated $64,901 to Vermont candidates and causes this year.

Finishing a close second were the Tarrants, whose paterfamilias Richard made a billion-plus in the computer game. He’s best remembered and widely mocked for his unsuccessful 2006 Senate campaign against Bernie Sanders, which included a bit of controversy over whether the man Peter Freyne dubbed “Richie Rich” actually lived in Vermont. Richard and his brood collectively pumped $62,398 into state politics. As with Lisman, that’s sofa cushion change for the Tarrants.

There’s a big dropoff to Lisman at $34,997, and then another gap between Lisman and a bunch of Barons who gave around $20,000 apiece. They are:

• The Ortons of Vermont Country Store fame at $20,601. They aren’t from Chittenden County, but I feel justified in inducting them into the Barons’ auxiliary.
• Bill and Phyllis Bissonette and their property management firm, best known for The Castle That Grease Built, Al’s Frys. They totaled $20,500.
• Just a smidge behind we have the Boardmans (as in Hickok and Boardman), who gave $20,461.
• Next, Frenemy Of The Blog Skip Vallee, his wife Denise, and his fuel business, with a combined total of $18,168.

Now we take another step downward, where we find the Boves, infamous landlords who gave a total of $12,921, followed by another member of the Barons’ auxiliary, Greg Tatro and his Johnson-based construction business, checking in at $10,542.

Dipping below the five-figure mark, we meet George Martin, head of an engineering design firm and donor of $9,461, followed by the Pecors, former owners of the Lake Champlain Ferries, at a cool $9,000. Our third member of the Barons’ auxiliary is the Milne family and their companies, who gave a total of $8,500.

Five more names. The Dubruls of Automaster fame and property owner Charles Brush at $8,000 apiece, entrepreneur Russ Scully at $7,680, realtor Marilyn Larkin at $7,500 and private equity investor James Crook at $7,000.

That’s my list of the Barons. The vast majority hail from the tonier precincts of Chittenden County, and most of ’em are in the construction, development, real estate and property management industries. It’s hard to imagine their interests dovetailing all that well with those of rural Vermont, where most of their chosen candidates reside. Might be a question worth posing to Rodgers or Douglass fellow freshman Sens. Scott Beck, Steven Heffernan and Larry Hart, Sr.

Not all of the Barons’ bucks went to Republicans. There was plenty of support for the failed primary campaigns of Senate candidate Stewart Ledbetter and House hopeful Elizabeth Brown, now doing business as Rodgers’ chief of staff. One actual elected Democrat who earned, in whatever way you might imagine, the Barons’ support was Treasurer Mike Pieciak. Which only cements my belief that Pieciak will run for governor whenever Phil Scott decides to retire, and that he will win the governorship in a walk.

And that he will govern as a centrist slash fiscal conservative. But that’s a story for another time.

I have no doubt that there was at least some measure of coordination in the Barons’ activities. They mostly dealt in identical donations of $1,000. Those donations often flooded the coffers of select campaigns within a few days’ time. And you find the same names over and over again in the campaign finance reports of the same short list of Republican hopefuls. It’s beyond the realm of coincidence.

Will they do it again in 2026? I don’t know why they wouldn’t. Will it work? I’m less certain of that; Republicans rode to victory on a wave of anger over property taxes, including the Barons’ brood plus a whole bunch of House candidates who were badly under-resourced but still managed to win. The common element in the Republican Statehouse sweep is not the Barons, but the anti-tax fervor. A hypothetical 2026 is likely to feature an electorate sick and tired of Donald Trump and the D.C. Republicans, and the Vermont Republican ballot might not have Phil Scott on top.

Still, the Barons leveraged relatively small quantities of political cash into widespread victories. Why not do it again? And in the process, significantly raise the price of admission for legislative candidates?