Category Archives: Government

Just Another Sad Example of Scott Administration Fecklessness

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This isn’t a big deal. It’s not nearly as consequential as the Scott administration’s fumbling (and/or deliberately sabotagey) response to widespread homelessness or its stubborn stay-the-course policy on substance use or its failure to produce a coherent policy on public education or its coddling of subpar administrators. But it’s yet another entry in the big fat ledger of incompetence that the administration is assembling.

I’m talking about Auditor Doug Hoffer’s latest audit (downloadable here), which reviews how the Department of Health’s Food and Lodging Program has been addressing complaints about unsafe or unclean conditions at our state’s hospitality businesses. “Examples include,” his cover letter helpfully enumerates, “complaints alleging bedbug infestations… serving expired food, and handling ready-to-eat food with bare hands.” Hoffer found that the Program often failed to respond promptly to complaints or make sure that offending businesses obeyed improvement orders.

Reminder that the tourism industry is a cornerstone of our economy and public image. It ain’t great if a tourist family comes down with food poisoning or checks into a charming B&B only to find that the beds are full of crawly, bitey things. The Food and Lodging Program is there to safeguard public health and to undergird the state’s tourism industry. Complaints and inspections might be a buzzkill, but they are necessary to ensure that visitors have a positive experience while they’re here.

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Hey Look, Peter Welch Is a “Moderate,” Says So Right There

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The calculus may have changed given the Democratic sweep of Tuesday’s elections, but according to a story published Monday by The Hill, a group of “at least eight moderate Senate Democrats” has been meeting to discuss surrendering to Trump, oops, sorry, my mistake, “finding a deal to end the monthlong government shutdown.”

And one of the eight is our very own Sen. Peter Welch.

Feeling proud? I know you are. I can hardly wait for the Vermont Democratic Party convention on November 15, where I’m sure Welch will deliver a stem-winder of a speech about resisting Trump’s authoritarianism. He’s good at those.

Who knows, if enough Vermont Democrats learn of his complicity in this surrender attempt, maybe some will greet Welch with boos instead of cheers. A man can dream.

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Phil Scott’s Back-to-the-Office Order Is Going to Cost Something, Whether He Wants to Admit It or Not

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There are questions circulating in legislative circles about the potential cost of Gov. Phil Scott’s return-to-office mandate, which takes effect on December 1 and requires at least three days a week of office work for state employees. Questions, but few answers.

Well, my headline gives away the real answer: It will definitely cost some amount of money at a time when the state faces a severe financial pinch due to Trump administration fuckery with federal spending, including a government shutdown that Congressional Republicans are in no hurry to resolve.

The governor couldn’t have foreseen the shutdown when he issued his order in late August. But the current situation would seem to call for reconsideration. Because we don’t know how much it will cost to accommodate state employees returning to office work, but we do know one thing for certain: It’s gonna cost something. And we really can’t afford it right now.

Last week, Agency of Human Services staffers rallied in Waterbury to protest the potential impacts of the back-to-office order. They pointed out that the Agency doesn’t have enough space to accommodate its entire workforce. They pinned the shortfall at 250 desks; later, the administration gave an actual figure of 254. Administration Secretary Sarah Clark suggested it wasn’t so bad because staffers working part-time on-site could share desks! Wow, that’d boost morale. And productivity.

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“A Disturbing Trend of Actions,” You Say

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Fortunately for the delicate balance of democratic government in Vermont, Gov. Phil Scott’s idea of executive overreach isn’t nearly as bad as Donald Trump’s. But that’s kind of like saying the flu is preferable to cancer. You’d rather not get either one, really.

But the governor’s unilateral imposition of new rules for the General Assistance Emergency Housing program prompted a sharp rebuke from the Legislature’s top lawyer. As reported by VTDigger/Vermont Public reporter Carly Berlin, Legislative Counsel director Brynn Hare has deemed Scott’s action “an unconstitutional encroachment on a core function of the Legislature.” Further, she said, his action is “the latest in a disturbing trend of actions by the Administration that flagrantly and unconstitutionally intrude on the authority of the General Assembly.” That trend also includes his appointment of Zoie Saunders as interim Education Secretary after the Senate had rejected her nomination, and his unilateral action authorizing the sale of “Vermont Strong” license plates after the flood of July 2023.

Which is ironic, don’t you think, considering that Scott has been obsessively jealous of the separation of powers when it’s in his interest. He has vetoed a whole bunch of bills on the sole basis that they allegedly intruded on the power of the executive. Well, shoe’s on the other foot now, governor.

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Bad Grammar, Typos, and Plagiarism: Welcome to John Rodgers’ Official Biography

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I happened to visit Lt. Gov. John Rodgers’ official website today, and I couldn’t help but notice that his bio refers to him as “the 84rd Lt. Governor of Vermont.”

Yeah, “84rd.”

Haha, well, everybuddy makes misteaks. I added a line about it to my previous post about Rodgers’ campaign finance misadventures. It’s the little things that make this blog fun.

And then I kept reading, and it kept getting worse. Rodgers’ bio is chock full of misspellings, typos, and bad grammar.

But wait, there’s even more. I now know how that “84rd” thing got in there. Rodgers stole the first line of his official bio hook, line, and “rd” from his predecessor (and 83rd lieutenant governor) David Zuckerman’s official bio.

Now, I trust that if Rodgers has half a brain, he’ll fix his bio right quick. So let’s get the grisly details down for posterity’s sake.

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The Brave, the Bold, and The Bleh

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Our brand new lieutenant governor has yet to learn the fine art of sitting within camera range during a big event. During Gov. Phil Scott’s budget address Tuesday, John Rodgers spent most of his time looking bored, which isn’t a great thing when he’s supposedly cheerleading for his fellow Republican,.

In fairness to Rodgers, it wasn’t the most inspiring of occasions. Scott’s much-touted budget address was kind of a tepid affair. The freshly reinforced Republican ranks in the House and Senate gave the governor some hoots and whistles as he entered and departed, but only managed a pair of half-hearted standing ovations during the speech.

I guess we shouldn’t expect anything different after eight years of this guy. But he and his minions have been talking a lot about bold action in 2025. And while there were bits of bravery peeking out here and there — like pushing his fairly radical public school reorganization plan and officially calling for a full retreat on climate action* — there was a hell of a lot more incrementalism. A whole bunch of initiatives with teeny-tiny price tags (on the scale of a $9 billion dollar budget), many more in $2-3 million range than anything truly impactful.

*”Brave” and “stupid” are not mutually exclusive.

There was also one huge omission. Scott never once mentioned the threat posed by Donald Trump to the federal funding that pays for so much of what state government does. He didn’t address any contingency planning or possible budgetary adjustments. It was a glaring omission on the very day when VTDigger reported that Team Scott “is trying to understand the potentially sweeping statewide impact” of Trump’s broad freeze on federal spending.

Maybe that’s because many of Vermont’s new Republican lawmakers are diehard Trumpers, and Scott might have gotten an unfortunate reaction from his “friends” if he said anything that even hinted at criticism of Trump’s scorched-earth approach to governance.

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The Incredible Lightness of Phil Scott

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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.

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Making Two Lists and Checking ‘Em Once

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Now that the truly historic veto override session is over, it’s time to take stock of my fearless, or possibly feckless, predictions about what bills Gov. Phil Scott would veto and which vetoes would be overridden by the Legislature.

But first, let’s acknowledge a masterful performance by legislative leadership, a phrase that doesn’t often escape my virtual lips. Even with supermajorities, overriding a gubernatorial veto is a nettlesome task. You’ve got to make sure all your people are (a) present, not a small item when dealing with 180-odd individuals (some odder than others), and (b) absolutely unified on every vote, including some toughies.

The House and Senate held a total of 15 override votes in a single day, and they won 13 of ’em including a clean sweep in the House. Just scheduling 15 votes in two chambers on one day is fairly amazing, let alone winning 86.67% of ’em.

As for my performance…

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The Joys of Willful Ignorance

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Phil Scott’s veto pen must be hotter than ol’ No. 14’s engine block at the finish line of Thunder Road because he’s racked up a fresh batch of vetoes this week, bringing his lifetime total over the half-century mark. Yep, he’s now vetoed 52 bills (according to the State Archives’ list of veto messages) including eight this year alone. Reminder that the previous record-holder was Howard Dean with a measly 21. And Dean served 12 years as governor while Scott’s been in the corner office for a mere seven and a half.

(Gubernatorial Trivia Time: Dean first Wielded His Veto PenTM to strike down a bill that would have legalized the sale of sparklers. Yes, really. His letter is a marvel of fearmongering; Dean wrote that sparklers may “appear innocuous,” but are, in fact, “quite dangerous,” burning at temperatures of “between 1600 and 2000 degrees,” and they “caused more than 1,000 emergency room visits” in 1989 alone. Which sounds like a lot, but 300 times as many people go to the ER with dog bites, and I don’t see anyone trying to ban dogs.)

We eagerly await the Legislature’s override session on Monday, where seven bills could be on the table. (An override of the eighth, a ban on flavored tobacco and vapes, failed in the Senate in April.) I’ll give you my back-of-the-envelope rundown of likely overrides in a tick, but first I’d like to point out three vetoes where the governor happily displayed his ignorance of the subject matter and of the process that went into the bills.

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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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