Cronyism and disloyalty in the State Senate

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So the Democrats (and Prog/Dems) have a supermajority in the Vermont Senate. They rule the roost. And they’re almost certain to retain a big edge next year; even the Republicans are hoping to win no more than two or three seats.

Which makes me wonder why the two Democratic members of a key committee, plus the chair of a very important committee, have endorsed a Republican for one of Vermont’s highest offices, and are likely to get away with this bit of disloyalty.

I’m talking about John Campbell and Dicks Mazza and Sears. The first two sit on the Senate’s Committee on Committees along with their favorite Republican, Lieutenant Governor Phil Scott. Sears chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee. All three have endorsed their buddy Scott and turned their backs on the likely Democratic standard-bearer* and only liberal in the race, Progressive Dean Corren, in spite of the fact that Governor Shumlin has given public support to Corren.

*Corren has to win the Democratic primary as a write-in. He should be able to do that, but it’s no sure thing; Mazza’s openly talking of a write-in campaign for Scott. Which would lead to a goddamn embarrassment for Vermont’s dominant party: a Republican in the #2 spot on its ticket. 

If these men keep their privileged positions, it’ll be a disgrace. And, based on past history, it’ll almost certainly happen.

The Committee on Committees is an obscure bit of Senate hierarchy, with one big exception. Every two years, they select all the chairs and members of all the Senate committees. That is one big moment of muscle-flexing for an otherwise quiescent body.

The three members of the CoC are: the Senate President (Lieutenant Governor), the President Pro Tem, and a Senator elected by the entire Senate. For many years now, Dick Mazza has been rubber-stamped into this position — even though this is far from the first time he’s endorsed a top Republican. He supported Brian Dubie for Governor in 2010, and has backed Phil Scott every time he’s run for Lieutenant Governor.

The lopsided Democratic majority could eject Mazza in a hot minute and instead reward a more faithful member of their party. They could also choose a President Pro Tem who’s more in step with the party’s mainstream. And the new CoC could replace Sears on Judiciary. But, given the hidebound, clubby nature of the Senate, I fully expect that all three will retain their influential positions this fall.

There’s no good reason for this. The explanation, of course, is the mutual respect of Senators and their unwillingness to publicly embarrass a colleague. Which is not a good reason, just a dearly-held rationale in the hearts of our solons.

Campbell, Mazza, and Sears do not deserve to be rewarded for their disloyalty. If there’s anything like party discipline within the one-sided majority, the Senate’s Committee on Committees will get a makeover. And, ideally, somebody else will wield the gavel come January.

But, as I said, I don’t expect it to happen. The Senate’s too damn clubby for that.

(It’s not often these days that Vermont Republicans get to enjoy a laugh at the Dems’ expense. They must be blowing chortle-bubbles in their Scotch glasses over this.)

Republican county committees: part of the solution, or part of the problem?

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As we all know, the Vermont Republican Party has been chronically short of funds for quite a while. Right now, they’re either just above water or actually in the red — at a time when major parties ought to be flush with cash to spend on campaigning.

But as I was poring over Tuesday’s campaign finance report filings, I noticed something that struck me as a little odd. Or more than a little.

While the state party is desperately clipping coupons and searching the sofa cushions for spare change, some of the local and county party organizations seem to be going through quite a bit of cash. And what are they spending it on?

Well, a lot of it goes to food, drink, and entertainment for themselves. Very little seems to go toward party-building or candidate support. In fact, virtually no money has been given to candidates with one exception, listed below.

State Republican leaders have openly talked about their grassroots organizations being in terrible shape, and needing to rebuild at the town and county level in order to compete with the very well-organized Democrats. But some of the GOP’s local branches seem to have the resources; they’re just frittering the dollars away on keeping themselves fat and happy.

The term “circle jerk” comes to mind.

Let’s look at some figures. (All donation totals are for the campaign cycle, not just the most recent period.)

The Barre Town Republican Committee reported raising $7,841 and spending $3,443. Virtually all of that — $3143 — was spent on “meals” at the Elks Club.

The Caledonia County Republican Committee raised $3,675 and spent $3,545 — including $2,050 at the Elks Club.

The Washington County Republican Committee has raised $17,800 and spent $10,870. No sign of gifts to candidates; but they did blow about $2,500 at a single restaurant — an old-fashioned meat-and-potato joint called The Steak House.

The Windsor County Republican Committee raised $6,400 and spent $2,500, almost all of it on food and drink. Including $528 for a Super Bowl party at the Coolidge Hotel in White River Junction.

The Orange County Republican Committee raised $3,150. About $800 went to a spaghetti dinner and a golf tournament. However, they did spend a fair bit of their money on a booth at the Tunbridge Fair and materials to hand out there. That’s a tangible party-building activity — but one of only a few.

The Rutland County Republican Committee has raised $3,020 and spent $2,455, including $805 on a “campaign kickoff dinner.” Most of their other expenses seem reasonable: postage, signs and mailers, advertising.

I will admit, right here and now, that I’ve never been involved in a county or town party committee, and I don’t know what goes on there. Maybe at these gatherings, a lot of folks are writing checks directly to their local politicos or the state GOP. (If they were writing checks to the local organization, it’d show up in the finance reports.) But looking at it from the outside, quite a few of the local Republican committees seem to be burning through decent amounts of money for very little in return — aside from their own satiation.

Are these functioning political machines, or are they Old Boys’ Clubs? It seems an especially pertinent question when the state party is going begging for money and is at a profound disadvantage at the grassroots level.

I could find only one local or county Republican organization that’s carrying substantial weight for the VTGOP, and that’s the Rutland GOPAC. It’s raised nearly $18,000 and spent over $15,000, and the bulk of that spending was on direct support to area candidates for House and Senate. So, good on ya, Rutland GOPAC. Considering GOPAC’s spending and the relatively on-point activity of the Rutland Republican Committee, can it be a coincidence that Rutland is one of the few Republican strongholds in the state?

The rest of the guys maybe need a shakeup. I don’t know how you do that with such an entrenched and tradition-bound bunch of folks. (“Give up our Steak House dinners? Never!”) And again, there may be more to this picture than I’m seeing in black and white. But I think this is part of the VTGOP’s problem. It’ll be a challenge to fix.

A little star power in Windham County

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In one of my campaign-finance day posts, I noted that Democratic State Senate candidate Becca Balint had received a $1,000 donation from a Jane Lynch in Los Angeles, California. And I asked, here and in a Tweet, if that was the “Jane Lynch” from Glee, etc.

Yep:

Screen Shot 2014-07-16 at 11.21.15 PM

Well, hooray for Hollywood!

I’d claim a scoop, except the last time I did that in an obviously facetious way, a humorless commenter raked me over the coals for overhyping myself. So I’ll just leave it at, congratulations to Ms. Balint for having friends in high places — and for having a very successful first fundraising period.

Shumlination

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Might seem like an oxymoron, but a radio guy has created the second-best visual representation of Governor Shumlin’s fundraising power. (VPR’s Taylor Dobbs by name.) It’s a simple bar graph: Shumlin’s money totals are indicated by two impressively erect columns reaching for the sky; Scott Milne’s are two thin smears on the bottom line.

I say “second-best” because the best comes from the legendary cartoon “Bambi Meets Godzilla.”

BambiGodzilla

There are a couple of big takeaways from the size of Shumlin’s warchest: (1) He came into 2014 with enough money to virtually guarantee re-election. He’ll exit 2014 with enough money to virtually guarantee victory in any race he chooses to enter for at least the next four years. And (2) It’s not Lenore Broughton who’s responsible for bringing big money into Vermont politics. It’s Peter Shumlin. And Peter Welch and Patrick Leahy and Bernie Sanders.

Oh, and (3) a very interesting collision is shaping up for the 2015 legislative session, with VPIRG focusing its energy on campaign finance reform and our top Democrats greatly benefiting from the system as it is.

Let’s go deeper, shall we?

First point: Shumlin departed the 2012 campaign having spent only $346,000 to beat Randy Brock. He had a surplus of $915,000. Which meant he started 2014 with basically a million-dollar head start. That’s more than had ever been spent in any state-level campaign in Vermont with, I believe, three exceptions: Jim Douglas in 2008, and Brian Dubie and Peter Shumlin in 2010.

He had a huge lead. And he has continued to raise money. And to spend very little of it. Chances are, he’ll exit 2014 with an even larger kitty — it wouldn’t surprise me if he has $1.5 million in the bank on December 31. If he tries at all, he could make it $2 million or more.

(Scott Milne has talked of Vermonters becoming fatigued by campaigns that cost $2-3 million. Which misses the point because while Shumlin’s campaign might possibly raise that much, it’ll spend only a tiny fraction of that. This will not be anything like a $2 million campaign. It may not even top a half mill.)

Which gives him an even bigger edge next time around, and ensures that he will be a prohibitive favorite for re-election in 2016 and beyond — or, if he decides to run for something else, he will be the prohibitive favorite for that race.

Unless, of course, he has to run against Peter Welch for any Senate seat that might open up between now and 2020. (Safe to assume Shumlin wouldn’t challenge Pat Leahy or Bernie Sanders, right?) Because Welch has even more money on hand, and even less reason to spend any of it.

My conclusion: the only reason Shumlin is raising money at all is to (a) make it prohibitive for anyone to run for Governor as long as he’s in office and (b) block out any potential competition for a future Senate race.

Bringing me to point #2. Lenore Broughton did her best to influence the 2012 election by spending a million bucks on Vermonters First. It was a complete flopperoo, and if her latest finance filing is any indication, she has no plans to repeat the experiment. Her case is incessantly cited by top Democrats as a rationale for campaign finance reform, but she was an outlier. And a failed outlier at that.

The real, structural change to the financing of Vermont politics is that our Governor and our members of Congress have taken fundraising to a whole new level. They are drawing from the bottomless pool of money at the national level, while everyone else in Vermont is still playing at the state level.

This fact hit home for me when I looked at the latest filing from the Coca-Cola Nonpartisan PAC for Good Government. It’s 29 pages long! The typical filing by a state-level PAC is more like five or six pages. In terms of money, it’s the difference between the Vermont Lake Monstera and the New York Yankees. And, to stretch the analogy further, that’s the field Shumlin et al. are playing on.

So if you want to complain about the influx of money into Vermont politics, don’t complain about Lenore Broughton; complain about Peter Shumlin, Pat Leahy, Peter Welch, and yes, Bernie Sanders. No one, Republican, Democrat, or Progressive, could hope to mount a competitive race when the incumbents have such an overwhelming advantage.

Third, VPIRG’s annual summer outreach program is about campaign finance reform. Last summer’s was about GMO foods, and it set the stage for easy passage of a GMO labeling bill this year. If you read the polls, campaign finance reform is a popular cause, just as GMO was. How will Shumlin and the Dems react when VPIRG drums up a groundswell of public support for a ban on contributions by corporations and lobbyists? Should be an interesting legislative battle in the new biennium.

Unlike many of my friends on the left, I don’t see many signs that the money is having a corrupting effect on the Administration. But it sure does look bad, especially when the Governor does something like strongly opposing a tax on soft drinks and then rakes in thousands of dollars from Coca-Cola, as the Burlington Free Press’ Terri Hallenbeck Tweeted today. I will say this: if you believe Shumlin is being corrupted by big money, what about Pat Leahy and Peter Welch? (I’ll give Bernie a pass on corporate donations, since he’s gotten most of his money in small amounts from individuals. But he’s still playing with millions, while most Vermont politicians get by with a few thousand at most.)

The Milne/Boies connection

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Big, important, can’t-miss story at Green Mountain Daily: my colleague BP has explained why an out-of-state family suddenly donated $10,000 to Scott Milne’s gubernatorial campaign — and, as a bonus, revealed Milne’s deep involvement in a high-stakes development project in the Upper Valley. It’s a story that Vermont’s professional media has completely whiffed on.

Milne, reports BP, is one half of B&M Realty and Development. The “B” is David Boies III, son of the David Boies best known for his advocacy on marriage equality.

B&M’s big project is Quechee Highlands, a 168-acre mixed-use development that would be built along I-89 near Exit 1. Reportedly, Milne has already invested $4 million in the deal, which has run into trouble with local and state regulators, and Milne himself has angrily threatened an all-out legal battle. Kind of at odds with his pleasant, moderate image, eh?

The most recent blow to QH was a decision in late May to modify local land-use rules in a way that would force changes to QH. That’s what touched off Milne’s threat — and it’s roughly contemporaneous with his sudden and late decision to run for Governor. Hmm.

Anyway, I highly recommend you click the link and read BP’s story.

The Campaign Finance Report Day That Was: more miscellany

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I’m going to put off a couple items till tomorrow, if you don’t mind: The full impact of Governor Shumiln’s money tsunami, and the Curious Case of the Local Republican Committees. For now, let’s clean out the ol’ inbox.

— If dollars are any indication, the Windham County Democratic Senate primary is definitely taking shape. Incumbent Jeanette White hasn’t submitted a report, which most likely means she raised and spent little or nothing. Okay, so she’s the incumbent. Two other Dem candidates posted relatively meager totals: Joan Bowman and “The Artful Roger” Allbee. The financial powerhouse in the race is Becca Balint, who raised more than $10,000 and spent about $4200. Her many donors include one Jane Lynch of Los Angeles, California, who kicked in a cool grand. Would this be the Jane Lynch of Glee fame? Don’t know.

But most of Balint’s money came from within the county. Which is a sign that the local money is on her side, and she’s off to a sizeable lead over her competition. (Recap: there are two Senate seats in Windham County. Jeanette White’s running for re-election, and Peter Galbraith is, praise the Lord, not. There are four candidates on the Dem primary ballot, fighting for two spots. No Republicans have entered the race, unless you count former Douglas Administration functionary Allbee, who’s running as a Dem.

— As far as I can tell, the most well-endowed (please hold the locker-room yucks) Senate candidate is one Dustin Degree of Franklin County. He’s raised over $15,000, including $6,000 from members of the Vallee family. One notable expense: $1700 to the St. Albans Messenger for what Degree’s filing calls “print adds.” A bit of remedial spelling is in order chez Degree.

— Phil Scott has picked up his fundraising pace, now that he has to deal with the publicly-funded Dean Corren. Our Lieutenant Governor carried forward a $41,000 balance from his yawnfest of a win over Cass Gekas; he’s raised $61,000 and spent a chunk of that, leaving him with a current cash balance of $78,000. He vows that he will match Corren’s $200,000 in public-financing dollars with at least that much of his own. A lot of his contributions, natch, are from corporations and business-friendly PACs.

— Two years after losing to Bill Sorrell in the Democratic primary, TJ Donovan has finally closed out his campaign account. He’s folded virtually all the remaining funds — more than $4,600 — into his campaign for re-election as Chittenden County State’s Attorney. Which is probably $4,599 more than he will need to win. I guess he can always open up a new Attorney General campaign committee and shift the money back over.

— Donovan’s campaign filing for State’s Attorney had one interesting donation: $1,000 from Thom Lauzon, the Republican Mayor of Barre. 

— Lenore Broughton’s colossal waste of money, Vermonters First, looks to be inactive for this season. The SuperPAC is carrying a balance of roughly $3,000, but there was virtually no activity during the most recent reporting period. If Broughton is gearing up for another push, she’s hiding it well. (Oh, and her new Minion of Record is Robert Maynard, best known as a writer for the useless True North Reports. Her former Minion, Tayt Brooks, landed himself a new gig with the conservative movement-building enterprise American Majority.)

— FedEx may be unfriendly to union organizing, but it seems to like Democrats — at least in Vermont. The FedEx PAC gave $4,000 to Governor Shumlin’s campaign, plus $1,000 each to the Vermont Democratic Party and the Dems’ House Campaign Committee. And not a sou for the GOP. Sad.

That’s it for tonight. Tune in tomorrow for the last two big items from filing deadline day. And thanks for reading; this site set a new record for single-day pageviews, and I appreciate the traffic and the implied respect.

My second favorite factoid from campaign finance filing day

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Most, if not all, of Vermont’s counties have Republican Committees. Some of them raise and spend substantial amounts of money (more on that tomorrow, if I’m lucky). Most of the money is local and stays that way.

But Caledonia County’s Republican Committee raised a rather measly $1200 this reporting period.

All from one single donation.

The benefactor: Philip Morris USA.

Question: Why is a global cigarette giant interested in li’l ol’ Caledonia County?

 

My very favorite factoid from the July campaign finance reports

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To judge by his newly-filed campaign spending report, Senator Joe Benning isn’t losing much sleep at night about his bid for re-election. He raised a measly $300, and spent about half of it.

But there’s a fascinating line item on his Expenditures page: $41.22 spent at Ocean State Job Lots for “Parade Candy.”

Okay. Ocean State Job Lots specializes in “closeout and overstock merchandise.” So, Senator Joe was handing out cut-rate goodies to the kids.

And… wait for it… the store is located in Woodsville, NH, just across the border from Wells River, VT.

Not only did Senator Joe pass out cheap seconds to parade-goers, he bought the stuff in New Hampshire — thus avoiding Vermont sales tax.

Update. As you can see below, my little post drew very serious responses from Joe Benning himself and another Northeast Kingdom reader, pointing out that Ocean State is based in Woodsville but also has a store in Saint Johnsbury. And, in fact, Benning did buy his cut-rate candy in Vermont. It was an honest mistake, the product of quickly reading dozens and dozens of finance reports and just as quickly Googling items like Ocean State’s location. My apologies. And thanks for reading.

Scott Milne’s first campaign finance report is in

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Drumroll please…

Milne raised a total of $20,420 so far.

(Apparently he needs a little practice with the form; he reported $20,420 in gifts over $100, and another $20,420 in gifts under $100, for a grand total of, yep, $20,420. Oh,well.)

The fundraising total includes $900 from the candidate or immediate family. And $355 in loans forgiven.

The good news is, he’s only spent $600 so far (printing and T-shirts), so he’s still got some money left.

Odd factoid: Pretty much half of his total comes from a single, out-of-state family: the Boieses. David II, David III, Robin, Mary, and Jonathan Boies gave $2,000 apiece to Milne for Governor. Boies II is the famous lawyer of marriage-equality fame; the others are his wife and children. Go figure.

And only $1800 of his campaign kitty came from Vermont donors. $1200 of that is from people named Milne. Let’s say the candidate has yet to establish broad appeal, shall we?

Odd factoid #2: Virtually all of Milne’s donations came in on the same day: last Friday, July 11. Until then, his campaign had raised a mere $5,100.

Milne fever… catch it!

Early afternoon thoughts on campaign finance filing day

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First, a couple newsworthy Tweets from VPR’s Peter Hirschfeld. He reports that the Scott Milne campaign will report roughly $20,000 in contributions, and that Phil Scott will report about $50,000. Milne’s total is awfully pitiful; Scott’s still got a ways to go to catch up with Dean Corren, who qualifies for up to $200,000 in public financing.

As of 1 p.m., neither candidate had actually filed. Other notes:

— The aforementioned Corren reported just under $20,000 in donations from 862 donors. No single donation is worth more than $50. That’s an impressive show of organization and appeal.

— If you want a snapshot of the relative financial pull of the Democrats and Republicans, take a look at their respective House campaign operations. The Dems have raised a daunting $108,000 for their House campaign kitty and spent almost all of that. Notable on the expense ledger are salaries for two campaign staffers — just for the House campaign. (The Repubs, at last check, had one paid staffer for the entire state party. Might be two.) The Republicans’ House campaign operation has raised a paltry $12,000 and spent about 5K.

— Most of the House Dems’ money has come from two sources: State Representatives financially supporting a joint campaign, and corporations and their PACs. Big bucks from MVP Health Care, the Association of Vermont Credit Unions, the Vermont Realtor PAC, New England Cable and Telecommunications Association, and the Corrections Corporation of America (yuck), among others.

— You know which PAC has taken in more money than the Republicans’ House campaign? The Common Sense Leadership PAC, the brainchild of House Minority Leader Don Turner. He’s raised $26,000 for this cycle and spent $12,000. None of it on donations to House candidates. He has paid $2700 to consultant Shayne Spence, and $900 to Johnston Consulting. Why he’s wasting money on Darcie Johnston’s “expertise” only he can say. Turner raised $10,000 of his money in $2000 increments from two stalwart Republican families: the Vallees and the Pizzagallis.

— In the closely-watched State Senate race in Windham County, Joan Bowman has reported donations totaling $1500. But about three-quarters of that is from herself or her family. Bowman is one of four Democrats running for two Senate nominations in August: the others are incumbent Jeanette White, former Douglas Administration cabinet member “Artful” Roger Allbee, and newcomer Becca Balint. It’ll be interesting to see how much Balint takes in; from the outside, it looks like she and Bowman are in a face-off for the non-White, non-Allbee votes.

— Bill Doyle doesn’t have to lift a finger, and isn’t. He’s sitting on a balance of $6,500 from previous campaigns. He’s raised $100 this year and spent nothing. I think he’s rightly confident.

— Pat McDonald, the former Republican State Rep who’s now running for one of Washington County’s three seats, has racked up a noteworthy $10,000 in donations. She’s spent about half of that.

— Doug Hoffer has raised a modest $4400 and spent most of it. Well, he is essentially unopposed in his bid for a second term as Auditor. The bulk of his spending was in two contributions to the state Democratic organization: $1500 to the party, and $2250 to the Dems’ “coordinated campaign.” I guess Doug’s taking this “Prog running as a Prog/Dem” thing seriously.

— Former Republican Representative Oliver Olsen, on the comeback trail as an Independent, is raking in the cash (by House standards). He’s raised $5,700, and spent almost nothing.

— Who hasn’t been a candidate in four years, but keeps on filing campaign finance reports? Matt Dunne, that’s who. He filed as “not a candidate” and reported a carry-over surplus of $2,856.54.

— Former Democratic State Senator Bill Carris, who resigned for health reasons in 2012 (Eldred French was appointed to fill out his term), has liquidated his campaign funds. He had $9400 on hand, and distributed it to a variety of candidates and the state Democratic Party. Notable gifts: $2000 to Senate President Pro Tem John Campbell, $1000 to French’s re-election campaign, and $1800 to his son William Tracy Carris, who’s also running for a Democratic nomination in Rutland County, which has a total of three Senate seats.

— Perhaps the most active of Republican groups so far, at least in terms of supporting candidates, is the Green Mountain Republican Senatorial Committee, which has raised over $15,000 and given healthy start-up contributions of $1500 each to Senator Kevin Mullin and Senate candidate Brian Cullamore, both of Rutland county; and $1,000 apiece to Senator Norm McAllister and Senate hopefuls Dustin Degree, Pat McDonald, Joy Limoge, and Bob Frenier.

I’ll be watching the filings all afternoon. (What a life.) More updates later. Stay tuned!