Author Archives: John S. Walters

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About John S. Walters

Writer, editor, sometime radio personality, author of "Roads Less Traveled: Visionary New England Lives."

News You Should View: The Empire Strikes Back

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The response to this feature’s debut was overwhelmingly positive, so here we are again. For those just joining us, every week I’m scanning the news coverage of Vermont and pointing out a bunch of items that might have escaped your attention. These could be news stories, essays, blogposts, podcasts, videos, or what have you.

This week’s subtitle is a reference to the second installment in a series, but also to a story that might turn out to be dramatically impactful — but has barely been covered by our mainstream outlets. Probably a matter of time before our own domestic empire strikes back.

The Statehouse Transgender Kerfuffle. This story began in the Vermont Daily Chronicle, the extremely conservative outlet for right-wing opinion and news of questionable veracity. A recent VDC story has gained traction in the wider conservative media ecosystem, which could lead to significant implications for our relations with the Trump administration.

And here it is. On Wednesday, March 12, the Vermont Family Alliance, a conservative activist group, tried to hold an event in the Statehouse promoting “detransition,” the allegedly growing phenomenon of people who’ve had gender affirming care subsequently deciding to return to their birth gender. Transgender activists disrupted the event, leading Statehouse officials to call a halt to the proceedings. This story has been relentlessly followed up by the Chronicle and been amplified by Fox News and other outlets as an example of the oppressive left trampling the free speech views of conservatives.

It’s a stupid story but if it filters up to the Trump White House, we might find ourselves in the crosshairs just like Maine Gov. Janet Mills or the University of Pennsylvania. I may be writing a full post about this, but I did want to spotlight it in this forum.

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Here’s One Way to Identify the Most Conservative Members of the State Senate

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You may have heard that many sectors of the Vermont economy have been thrown into turmoil by Donald Trump’s ridiculous tariff war with Canada. From tourism to energy to craft beer and spirits to maple products to construction materials (when we’re already in a housing crisis due in large part to high building costs), we have begun feeling the pain from Trump’s Quixotic crusade. (Meaning no disrespect to the Man of La Mancha.)

One small response to the situation has come in the form of a state Senate resolution, S.R.11, “supporting warm and cooperative relations on the part of both the United States and the State of Vermont with Canada and urging President Trump to remove all tariffs that he has imposed against Canadian imports and to refrain from subsequently imposing any new tariffs against Canadian imports.”

Seems like something we can all agree with, no? Even Republican senators can see the harm that threatens their constituents from a trade war with Canada. And indeed, the vast majority of Republicans signed on as co-sponsors, joining all the Democrats and Progressive/Democrat Tanya Vyhovsky. A total of 27 names are attached to S.R.11.

Checking my math real quick, that leaves a mere three senators who haven’t signed on.

The envelope, please…

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Phil Scott’s Continuing Search for an Acceptable Level of Cruelty

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“Governor Nice Guy” is having a bit of a tantrum. The cause: legislative Democrats are making him look bad, and he doesn’t like it.

At issue, naturally, is the General Assistance Emergency Housing program, familiarly known as the motel voucher program. The Legislature passed a Budget Adjustment Act that would have extended winter eligibility rules through the end of June, thus preventing a mass unsheltering when the winter rules expire on April 1. Scott vetoed it, largely because he cannot stand the voucher program and would do absolutely anything to kill it once and for all. Except, you know, proposing an alternative.

Or, as House Appropriations Committee chair Rep. Robin Scheu put it, “We have been asking the Governor for four years to develop a plan to transition away from the hotel/motel program and create a long-term solution to homelessness. For four years we have received nothing from the governor or his administration.”

Anyway. Legislative leadership then made a counter-offer: They’re willing to drop virtually all of their (relatively minimal) spending adds from the BAA if the winter eligibility rules are extended. They say the Department of Children and Families already has enough funds to make that happen.

And ‘Governor Nice Guy” has shown them the back of his hand. Nope, not gonna do it.

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If Only There Was a Comparison in Literature or Film for How Avidly the Legislature Guards Its Autonomy

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In yet another blow against ethics and good government, the House has unanimously approved a bill that would roll back a provision in last year’s ethics reform bill.

You heard right. Unanimously.

And the bill in question was H.1, meaning it was the first piece of legislation to be formally introduced in the House this year.

Priorities, you know.

Per VTDigger, last year’s bill would require the House and Senate’s own ethics panels — you know, the ones that operate as complete black boxes concealed from public view? — to consult with the state Ethics Commission under some circumstances.

The key word being “consult.” No decision-making power or authority would be conferred upon the Commission. But even requiring consultation was a bridge too far for The People’s Representatives. H.1 was drafted to “cure” the “problem” with last year’s legislation. And the House passed it without ever taking a roll call vote. Everybody wanted this thing, but nobody wanted to be on the record.

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Tear Down the Big Soggy Schlong

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It’s not that I don’t keep an eye out for the Bennington Battle Monument when I find myself taking the 279 bypass. And yes, “the 306 foot commemorative shaft” has been a feature of the local landscape for 134 years, and we do love us a long-established structure no matter its innate attractiveness or real-world feasibility. And yes, it does commemorate Vermont’s Revolutionary War-adjacent moment of relevance… although I do have to wonder if the second most phallic public structure in the world* (unofficial status) isn’t just a little bit triggering for some passers-by.

*See below.

But the news that the Monument was made of the wrong kind of stone, leaving its signature tumescence in need of restoration to the tune of at least $40 million? (The story appeared on VTDigger over the weekend, more than a month after it was initially reported by the Vermont Daily Chronicle.) It makes me conclude that we shouldn’t bother saving this Gilded Age tribute to toxic masculinity. I say tear the bloody thing down. Find another way to memorialize the battle if you must. Don’t waste tens of millions of dollars on an edifice that manages to combine ugliness with impracticality.

What could be more impractical than a massive outdoor monument constructed of highly absorbent limestone? In a state known for its granite and marble quarries, no less? The result: the ponderous pecker is sodden with an estimated 66,000 gallons of water. Given that fact, I suppose it’s surprising that it hasn’t already drooped over like a “Before” image in a Cialis ad.

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News You Should View: Possibly a New Regular Feature

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One of my readers had an idea, and I thought I’d try it out. Given Vermont’s sadly diminished and atomized news media, would it be worthwhile to monitor our various news outlets and regularly provide a sampling of worthwhile items that might not have gotten much attention?

I thought about it, and put together a pretty lengthy list of news/commentary outlets in our state. And now I’m giving this thing a test drive. Let me know what you think. In no particular order, here’s a bit of an honor roll of stories from the past week.

Montpelier Council continues to dither over Country Club Road housing. The Barre-Montpelier Times Argus reports that city officials had hoped to gain “nice, clear direction” from City Council over how to redevelop the former Elks Club property east of town. Those hopes were dashed by a Council who ought to remember the old maxim, “The best is the enemy of the good.” Councilors approved a concept plan to build significant new housing on the site two years ago, but still can’t bring themselves to provide anything like nice, clear direction. And you wonder why we have a housing shortage.

Sewer work to clog downtown Montpelier. The Montpelier Bridge reports that a major improvement on a sewer line will hamper traffic on State Street for the next three months or more, starting on St. Patrick’s Day. Merchants, already suffering through a post-epidemic decline in office occupancy and foot traffic, are “concerned about the potential for economic disruption.” For most of the time, traffic on State between Main and Elm will be westbound only. You have been warned.

Milton housing prices through the roof. The Milton Independent reports that local housing supplies are very tight and prices are skyrocketing. The median home price in Milton has hit the $400,000 mark, which means you’d better be making six figures if you want to buy an average home there. And if you want to rent an apartment, make sure you’ve got a job paying at least $30 an hour. One effect: the school district is dealing with far more homeless children than it used to.

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John Rodgers Does Not Give a F***

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Following his surprise victory over David Zuckerman last November. Lt. Gov. John Rodgers was widely seen as the Great White Hope of the Vermont Republican Party, someone capable of succeeding Gov. Phil Scott. I don’t buy it myself; I think he’s more likely to be the next Scott Milne than the next Jim Douglas. someone who enjoys a brush with electoral success but can never repeat it.

And the primary reason for my belief is that John Rodgers simply does not give a fuck.

The first sign of this was his live interview on local TV the morning after Election Night, when he chose to make his initial public appearance as LG-elect looking like he’d just rolled out of bed and stationed himself in front of the camera wearing a decidedly non-gubernatorial white T-shirt.

The most recent sign is this: Back on February 4, I wrote a post entitled “Bad Grammar, Typos, and Plagiarism: Welcome to John Rodgers’ Official Biography.” In the first line of his bio, he is identified as “the 84rd Lt. Governor of Vermont.” That’s right, “84rd.” There followed a cornucopia of misspellings and offenses against the English language. It was an embarrassment, not only to Rodgers but to the state of Vermont.

You’ll never guess how he responded to this revelation.

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Phil Scott’s Two Big Money-Saving Ideas: Unshelter the Homeless, and Take Food from the Mouths of Schoolkids

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The contest for “Stupidest Veto in the History of Phil Scott Vetoes” is a richly competitive one, with numerous contenders for the honors among the [checks notes] 52 vetoes he has unleashed upon Vermont’s normally placid and communitarian political life*. But the next one he threatens to cast may prove to be the winner.

*Obligatory reminder: Scott has racked up 52 vetoes, more than twice as many as any other governor. He long ago surpassed Howard Dean’s second-place total of 21, and Dean served three and a half years longer than Scott. “Governor Nice Guy” indeed.

Scott is now promising to veto H.141, the Budget Adjustment Act, because the Democratic Legislature dared to spend a little more money on sheltering the homeless than he wanted to.

Honestly, why he has such a bug up his butt about the motel voucher program, I don’t know. He’s bound and determined to kill it, willing to go to almost any length to do so. Any length short of, you know, proposing an alternative, which he has never managed to do. Well, there’s permitting reform, which would likely increase the overall housing supply years from now.

It’s almost as big a bug as the one lodged in his rectum over universal school meals. Limiting free meals to schoolkids is, after all, his one and only concrete suggestion for cutting the cost of public education. “Governor Nice Guy” indeed.

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A Thoroughly Predictable Outcome of a Subverted Process

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Many, many, many words were spoken in Tuesday’s confirmation hearing for Education Secretary Zoie Saunders before the Senate Education Committee, most of them by Saunders herself. And then, after nearly two hours of jibber-jabber, her nomination was approved on a 5-1 vote, with Senate Majority Leader Kesha Ram Hinsdale on the short end of the ledger.

The full Senate will have the final say (its vote is scheduled for Thursday), but we all know where this is going. Saunders will be confirmed less than a year after the 2024 Senate rejected her on a lopsided 19-9 margin. Immediately following that vote, Gov. Phil Scott effectively overrode the Senate’s power to advise and consent by installing Saunders as interim secretary. And once the Legislature was safely adjourned for the year, Scott named her permanent secretary. That move was challenged, fruitlessly, in the courts, so she continued to serve. And she will continue into the indefinite future.

I can’t really blame the Education Committee for voting yes. It was a profoundly weird situation, having to confirm a nominee who’s already been in office for almost a full year without major missteps or scandals, at least none that we know about. It’s too long a time to suddenly decide she should be here at all, and too short a time for a true accounting of her tenure. (Nor was there any chance to hear from other witnesses who might have offered alternative views of Saunders’ effectiveness.) In a lengthy opening statement larded with the arcane language of bureaucracy, Saunders ticked off a laundry list of initiatives, every one of which was a work in progress with few if any measurables on offer.

Neither is there any evidence, in this very limited hearing, to kick her out. Ram Hinsdale’s vote was more a token protest than anything; it was clear from the opening stages of the hearing that a majority of the committee would approve Saunders. The only other possible holdout, Sen. Nader Hashim, made it clear in his first statement that he would be voting yes “unless something totally bonkers happens in the next 45 minutes.” Committee chair Sen. Seth Bongartz, the third Democrat on the six-member panel, said almost nothing until the very end of the proceedings, and then he opined that “The governor has the right to appoint the people he wants… unless something egregious emerges.” The fix was in, and had been from the moment the Senate’s Committee on Committees created an Education Committee evenly split between Democrats and Republicans, and brushed aside last session’s vice chair, Sen. Martine Laroque Gulick, in favor of the obviously pliant Bongartz.

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Public School Reform As If the Public Schools Mattered

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The House Education Committee has set aside a fair bit of time this week for discussion of H.454, which sets out Gov. Phil Scott’s education reform plan in a brisk 194 pages. It is to be hoped that the committee’s deliberations will be centered first and foremost on what’s best for Vermont’s public school system. Because nobody else seems to be doing so.

Take the governor, for instance. (Please, says Henny.) He pays lip service to improving education, but his focus is clearly on cost containment. Radically centralizing the system is no guarantee of better quality. (It’s no guarantee of savings, either; the move to statewide negotiation of health insurance for public school personnel hasn’t prevented its cost from skyrocketing.) Doing away with local school districts in favor of five massive regional districts is clearly aimed at cutting administrative costs. And don’t get me started on the provision of H.454 setting minimum class sizes at 15 for grades K-4 and 25 for grades 5-12.

Those are minimums, mind you. What would the average class sizes be? 20 in the lower grades, or 25? 30 in the upper? 35? Cautious administrators will want a margin of error above the state-mandated minimums. And what happens when a school dips below the minimum? Does it close down? Put some crash test dummies in desks and hope no one notices?

Frankly, I wonder why any Republican who represents a rural district — which is the vast majority of Republican lawmakers — could support this plan as written. The class size provision alone would trigger a massive wave of consolidation that would hit rural Vermont especially hard. (Maybe that’s why H.454 has a mere five sponsors while H.16, the Republican bill to repeal the Affordable Heat Act, has 55 and H.62, to repeal the Global Warming Solutions Act, has 29. There hasn’t exactly been a stampede among legislative Republicans to sign on to the governor’s plan.)

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