Category Archives: Law

Jim Douglas: It gets worse

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As I reported a couple days ago in this space, Jim Douglas’ new memoir includes a passage that accuses Governor Shumlin of public corruption — of giving a seat on the Vermont Supreme Court to Beth Robinson, a political ally, as a reward to her and to an important constituency. Here it is again:

“The Senate leader, who succeeded me in the governorship, was a strong proponent of gay marriage. Since he was nominated by a scant 200 votes in the Democratic primary, their support may well have provided the margin of victory. He later reciprocated by appointing one of the leading lobbyists of the movement to the Vermont Supreme Court.”

The key word there is “reciprocated.” Douglas is saying that there was a quid pro quo — one of the state’s highest offices was bartered away as a political reward.

Well, on September 11, Douglas was a guest on WDEV’s Mark Johnson Show. When Johnson asked him about the passage, Douglas doubled down — claiming that Robinson is unqualified:

With all due respect to the Justice, I think it’s hard for most Vermonters to believe that she would have risen to the top of the pack but for her leadership on that issue.

“With all due respect,” my ass. Jim Douglas is saying that Beth Robinson had no business being chosen to the high court, and that this is so obviously true that “most Vermonters” would have a hard time believing she was nominated on merit.

Johnson, taken aback by this rather bold assertion, asked if Douglas really believed she was appointed because of her work on the marriage equality court case.

She obviously became well known because of that, and, um… [long pause] who knows?

A wonderful piece of passive-aggressive political attack. Johnson asked “What do you base that on?” Douglas offered no evidence; instead he quickly changed the subject.

His comments about Robinson were baseless and mean-spirited. They’re of a piece with his allegation that Shumlin made a corrupt deal to put her on the high court.

Which, I say again, should have been the top headline news out of Douglas’ memoir. I remain stunned that, with the exception of Mark Johnson, no one in the media has mentioned it at all.

 

Well, somebody’s trying to fill all those empty slots

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Last night I was having dinner with The Loyal Spouse, and we were talking about the Vermont Republican Party’s dearth of statewide candidates — no official hopefuls for Attorney General, Auditor, Secretary of State, or Treasurer. I half-jokingly said I was thinking of starting a “Me for AG” write-in campaign — asking my Tens of VPO Readers to consider writing me in for Attorney General on the Republican primary ballot.

I guess somebody out there was listening, because That Very Same Evening, the following showed up in my Twitter feed: Screen Shot 2014-08-05 at 3.57.43 AM

That’s the Burlington Republicans, or whoever does their Tweets, soliciting write-in votes for a Burlington lawyer for Attorney General. The Facebook link is to a newly-established FB page for a group called “RecruitFour.” Its purpose is to find Republicans willing to run for those statewide offices.

Guess this puts the kibosh on my own candidacy. But sorry as I might be to lose a chance at some Fred Tuttle-style low comedy, I’m heartened to see somebody — ANYBODY — step up and try to fill this embarrassing shortfall. It’d be a bad thing, really, if a random collection of write-ins (or a coordinated joke write-in campaign, ahem) were able to snag these precious ballot slots. As much as I revel in Republican misfortune, it is one of our major parties, and it has a role to play in the process. Not really a good thing for democracy if the Republican ticket were to include the likes of Yours Truly, Vermin Supreme, Lobsterman, and Annette Smith.

So far, Recruit Four has gotten all the way up to One. McCormack is a very youthful looking attorney with the law firm of Burak, Anderson & Melloni. According to his bio page on the firm’s website, he got his law degree from Boston University in 2000, and was admitted to the Vermont Bar in 2004.

RecruitFour describes Shane-O-Mac’s view of the AG’s office thusly:

Shane would make a great Vermont Attorney General because he believes this office needs to do more to curb our legislature from entering into unwarranted action that only leads to millions in legal costs–money we cannot afford.

Good old Republican thinking, that. Although I doubt that a Republican AG would get very far with that argument in a one-sidedly Democratic Legislature.

Anyhoo, best of luck to Mr.McCormack and RecruitFour. Even if it does force a premature end to my own political ambitions, it’d be good to have some actual Republicans running on the Republican ticket.