Tag Archives: Dick Mazza

The curious incident of the Prog in the night-time — UPDATED

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UPDATE: The Senator in question has spoken to WCAX. Details below, after the jump.

So here’s a heartening piece of party unity: the elective officeholders of the Progressive Party got together this week and enthusiastically endorsed Bernie Sanders for President.

The gang’s all there, from the four Progs on Burlington City Council, Robert Millar of Winooski City Council, the Party’s seven members of the House, State Auditor Doug Hoffer, and both of the Progs’ state senators.

Wait, what did I just say?

“…both of the Progs’ state senators.”

Hey, aren’t there three of ’em? I thought so.

Well, there’s Anthony Pollina… and David Zuckerman…

Hmm. Where’s Triangulatin’ Tim Ashe, the most nakedly ambitious of all the Progs?

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The Legislature’s vote for governor will not be close

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The Man Alone, Scott Milne, briefly emerged from his hidey-hole a few days ago to tell the Associated Press’ Dave Gram that his chances of being elected governor “are getting better on a weekly basis, if not a daily basis.”

Curious thing to say, with less than a week until the vote. Speaking calendrically, there ain’t no more “weekly” left. But if you think that’s a bit confusing, wait till you read what he told VTDigger’s Anne Galloway: 

Milne said on Sunday his “chances are improving.” When asked how many lawmakers support his candidacy, he said his statement was “non-mathematical.”

“I’m not counting votes, and if I was, I don’t think I’d have close to 91,” Milne said. He said he could get 25 or 100 votes, but “more likely I’m going to lose, I don’t really know.”

Scott Milne, the lone constant in an ever-changing world.

Scott Milne, the Man From Another Dimension.

I make that a quintuple spinaroonie: up, down, down, up, down. Whatever happens, he’ll be both disappointed and vindicated, I guess.

Anyway, if he thinks he’s gaining ground, he’s wrong. The Legislature’s vote will not be close. Gov. Shumlin will win, with perhaps a handful of Democrats crossing party lines to vote for Milne.

At this point, the cynical among you might be saying, “Hey, didn’t you predict an easy win for Shumlin in November?”

Yup, me and every other pundit and politico in Vermont. But I feel confident enough to tiptoe out on a limb once again. The Legislative vote is a whole different animal than the general election.

In November, a whole lot of liberals and card-carrying Democrats voted for someone other than Shumlin or simply left their ballots blank. There’s substantial evidence that the Democratic vote was far smaller in the gubernatorial race than elsewhere. It was easy to cast a protest vote when “everybody knew” that Shumlin would win. I certainly believed that Shumlin didn’t really need my vote. After the results came in, a liberal friend who voted for Milne swore never to cast a protest vote again.

The ironic but unmistakable conclusion: if people had thought the race was close, Shumlin would have done better. To put it another way, if voters had thought they might actually elect Scott Milne, he wouldn’t have done so well.

In the legislative vote for governor, there’s no kidding around. When you’re one out of 200,000, you can tell yourself your vote doesn’t count that much. When you’re one of 180, you really can’t. Each lawmaker is going to take the vote seriously.

And while leadership insists they aren’t twisting any arms, party discipline does — rightly — play a role. Parties are based on some sense of shared purpose and loyalty, which is why I’ve been so harsh on John Campbell and Dick Mazza for their open support of Lt. Gov. Phil Scott.

When push comes to shove, and all the cards are on the table, how many Democrats are really going to vote for the other guy? Even if the ballot is secret, it wouldn’t be hard to figure out who voted which way. I expect Milne to get a modest number of Democratic votes, but no more than that.

Besides party loyalty, there’s also Vermonters’ tendency to stick with the familiar. Shumlin may have lost a lot of voters, he may have cost some lawmakers their seats, he may have turned his back on his signature policy proposal, but he’s still “Our Guy.” If the Senate Democratic Caucus gave near-unanimous support to Our Guys John Campbell and Dick Mazza, how many would abandon Peter Shumlin, who’s another one of Our Guys?

There’s also this: Just about everybody in the Statehouse knows that Scott Milne would be a disaster as governor. Well, at best he’d be a two-year placeholder. At worst, Legislative leadership would work around him. But nobody except Scott Milne wants Scott Milne to be governor.

Including all the Republicans who’ll vote for him on Thursday. I’ve written this before and it continues to be true: do you ever see Milne and the top Republicans together? Do you see any mention of “Governor Milne” when Republicans talk about their plans?

Is Milne involved at all in Phil Scott’s little “pitch session” with business leaders on Wednesday?

Nope, nope, and nope.

If the Republicans believed that Milne had the remotest chance of winning, they’d have him out front at every VTGOP event. But they don’t, in spite of their utterances to the contrary, so he remains The Invisible Man.

And on Thursday, he will formally become the losing candidate for governor. As he should be.

(And if I’m wrong, I will cheerfully fess up.)

Plus c’est la même chose, plus c’est la même chose

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If you’d been harboring any faint hopes for change in the State Senate leadership, you were quite reliably disappointed by Saturday’s Democratic caucus.

With only the tiniest hint of dissent, the status quo was maintained in Our Most Stagnant Deliberative Body. John Campbell? Yep, President Pro Tem again, along with Phil Baruth as majority leader, Claire Ayer as whip, and… the earth would tremble and the skies would be rent asunder if they failed to re-elect Dick Mazza as “third member” on the organizationally influential Committee on Committees, where he will rejoin the Phil Scott Fan Club with Campbell and Scott himself.

Maybe someday there’ll be a real Democrat on that panel.

Seven Days’ Paul Heintz, ever the pot-stirrer, introduced me to Mazza before the caucus convened. And the Eternal Member gave me a hearty greeting, making it clear that he knew what I’ve written about him and that it didn’t make a damn bit of difference. Baseball players used to refer to beat reporters as “flies,” and that’s how Mazza sees me: a fly buzzing around his shit. Didn’t even bother to flick me away.

So the fix was in. There were no competing nominees for any of the four posts, and there was only the slightest bit of dissent: Anthony Pollina voted “no” for Campbell and Mazza without explanation. Afterward, he spoke to Heintz:

“I would like to see the ability for more people to be involved in leadership, quite frankly, and I think that it would be more healthy for the caucus to have some conversation about who’s going to be the leader, and we don’t seem to have that conversation.”

Yeah, we certainly don’t. The organizational meeting was a hearty session of hands-around-the-campfire, we’re-all-friends-here. Any ill feelings were kept resolutely in check. In fact, there was one moment of unintentional gallows humor, when a senator who I didn’t recognize* nominated Mazza for “third member” by praising the past work of the Committee on Committees; he said that everyone had been happy with the committee assignments made by the CoC.

*Subsequently ID’d as Tim Ashe, putative Prog/Dem and studious ass-kisser to the Senate power structure. Gah. 

Somehow, Ginny Lyons and Ann Cummings didn’t scoff loudly. Both veteran lawmakers were screwed out of committee chairmanships by the CoC last time around. Lyons was replaced on Natural Resources by climate change skeptic Bob Hartwell, and Cummings was removed from Finance, presumably because she had the temerity to stage a brief challenge to Campbell’s leadership in 2012.

The CoC’s smackdown had its intended effect, as no one rose to challenge the same-old, same-old. The Three Kings will soon return to their secret undisclosed location to dole out the committee goodies. We’ll see if they behave themselves this time — but only after the fact, since Campbell has declared that the CoC is not subject to open meetings law. Paul Heintz, last February:

When Seven Days happened upon its three members — Lt. Gov Phil Scott, Senate President Pro Tem John Campbell (D-Windsor) and Sen. Dick Mazza (D-Grand Isle) — convening to discuss the matter last Thursday in Scott’s Statehouse office, Campbell declared, “It’s not a public meeting.”

“My understanding,” he elaborated, “is it’s a private, deliberative meeting of one of the committees of the Senate and therefore, you know, not open to the public.”

“So committees can just close the doors when they’re deliberating?” Seven Days asked.

“I believe this one, yeah,” Campbell said. “My opinion is that.”

Following that dismal exchange, the CoC held a closed-door confab with Senate Secretary John Bloomer and chief legislative counsel Luke Martland, who then produced a convenient bit of legal mumbo-jumbo to cover Campbell’s backside. When asked why Senate rules, which strictly limit closed committee meetings, don’t apply to the CoC, this laughable exchange took place:

Said Bloomer, “This, in my opinion, doesn’t apply because these are standing committees. The Committee on Committees has no function to take evidence.”

Added Campbell, “The Committee on Committees is totally different. It’s kind of a misnomer using that name, ‘committee.’”

The Committee on Committees isn’t a committee, eh?

Pardon me if I feel completely justified in my cynicism about the CoC.

Let me somewhat belatedly make clear that I have no beef with Ayer or Baruth, aside from their willingness to be part of a leadership team with an inconsistent record for upholding the principles (and candidates) of the Democratic Party. Baruth offered a tepid explanation for the lack of change, telling me that it was going to be a difficult session, so continuity of leadership would be a positive.

“We can’t change captains now,” said the First Mate. “The Exxon Valdez is in trouble.”

Campbell introduced his new aide, former Shumlin Administration functionary Erica Wolffing, fresh off her gig at the Democratic Governors Association.  And he made brief reference to his poor performance as Pro Tem in 2011, which led to Cummings’ challenge and the hiring of Rebecca Ramos as his top aide/nanny. Wolffing will now fill that role, helping him lift that big heavy gavel, and she’ll probably be very good. She’s likely to keep communication lines open between Campbell and the administration, and help keep things running smoothly in the Senate chamber.

After his re-election, Campbell gave a short speech laying out the top four priorities for the coming session, which he said would be “one of the most difficult bienniums in decades.” Which, he added, means “there’s a chance the work we do will be historic.”

Mm. The Hindenburg was historic.

Three of Campbell’s Big Four priorities were predictable:

— Health care. Trying to overcome his past public skepticism about single payer, he promised a full and open consideration of Shumlin’s plan. “We have an obligation to the administration to hear what they have to say, and to the public to deal with the rising cost of health care.”

There’s also that social-justice part of it, but Campbell didn’t mention that.

— The budget. He said the likely $100 million deficit was “not pie in the sky,” and lawmakers will have to look closely at revenues and state functions, prioritize services, and look for efficiencies and duplications. By funding too many “good ideas,” he said, “we’ve spread ourselves very thin.” He called for a tight focus on “what is our obligation to business and to citizens,” as opposed to what we’d like to do. (Yes, he said “business” first.)

In short, No New Taxes. And don’t expect any new money for anything.

— Education funding and governance. “We will have to look at what we need to educate our kids, and what we don’t.”

The fourth priority was a bit surprising:

— Lake Champlain, which he first called an “economic driver” and then called it “iconic.” Priorities.  “It’s not just because the EPA has said we must act; we have an obligation.” What that means remains to be seen, with all the talk of cutting government and focusing on the essentials and no new spending. It was nice to hear Campbell put Champlain at the top of the list, but I suspect we’re not going to get much more than lip service or possibly tokenism.

It’s looking like a dispiriting biennium for liberals. The Senate remains safely in the death grip of The Usual Suspects, now armed with what they see as an electoral mandate to cut and cut and cut. Shumlin himself, in remarks to the House and Senate caucuses, made it clear that his response to his near-defeat will be a predictable tack to the center. (More on that in an upcoming post.)

And so we beat on, boats against the current and all that.

A slight but perceptible bend in the glass ceiling

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The House and Senate Democrats will caucus tomorrow (Saturday) in Montpelier to choose their nominees for leadership positions. It’s been radio silence on the Senate side, which I take as a bad sign, but some news has come out of the House.

And for gender equity fans, the news is good.

As you may recall, Vermont does very well on gender equity in the House, less well in the Senate, and very poorly in statewide elective office and Congressional seats. Like, for instance, we’ve never sent a woman to Congress. Which is, well, shameful.

Back to the House, where Shap Smith will return as Speaker; but the new House Majority Leader, according to Seven Days’ Paul Heintz, will be Sarah Copeland Hanzas of Bradford. What’s even better for equity’s sake is that the other candidate for the post was also female: Kesha Ram of Burlington. Having two women in line for the House’s number-2 slot is a very good sign.

Ram dropped out, per Heintz, citing the need for geographic balance. She will apparently fill a new post, “caucus election chair,” which is being created to sharpen Democratic messaging and lend a hand to House candidates.

Those developments, plus Kate Webb returning as Whip, mean that women will be heavily represented on the House leadership team. And whenever Shap gets tired of herding cats, the next Speaker may well be a woman.

Over in the Old Farts’ Club, er, I mean the Senate, I’m not feeling the gender-equity love. I’d be very happy to be proven wrong, but I’m expecting the leadership in Vermont’s Most Stagnant Deliberative Body to remain pretty much the same.

I love my little gavel, but this job is sooooo hard.

I love my little gavel, but this job is sooooo hard.

By all accounts, John Campbell will keep the job as President Pro Tem in spite of the fact that he isn’t very effective unless he has a nanny to keep him in line. After the disastrous 2012 session, he hired Rebecca Ramos as his chief of staff, and things improved. She’s now a lobbyist, and according (again) to Paul Heintz, Erika Wolffing will take the job.

Wolffing was a Shumlin administration fixture who went to the Democratic Governors Association when Shumlin became its chair. Now that Shumlin is out at the DGA, Wolffling will reportedly become the hand that rocks Campbell’s cradle.

Which leaves me wondering why we let him hang around when he (a) apparently can’t handle the job without a lot of help and (b) openly supported Republican Phil Scott and seized every opportunity to shit on Dean Corren. But maybe that’s just me.

I’m sure the status quo will remain in the Phil Scott Fan Club, er, I mean, the Committee on Committees, the body that makes all the committee assignments. Phil Scott himself is a member by law, as is Campbell. The third, elected by the full Senate, is, was, and ever shall be Dick Mazza, a putative Democrat who was extremely vociferous in his support for Phil Scott.

Which leaves me wondering why, when the Dems have a nearly 2-1 majority, we have to settle for nominal Democrats on that very powerful committee.

The Democratic caucus will see some change with the none-too-soon departures of Bob Hartwell and Peter Galbraith, but I’d be surprised to see much happen with the leadership. It’d be nice, but I ain’t holding my breath.

Finally, for those who think I’m too mean to Mr. Campbell, here’s a little tidbit from last March. Campbell had stuck his foot in his mouth by openly doubting the prospects for single payer health care and talking about pursuing some alternative plan. (Bear in mind that Shumlin was still riding high at that point.) This reportedly enraged the governor. And a few days later, Campbell appeared on WDEV”s Mark Johnson Show and tried to walk back his earlier statement.

It was a complete fiasco. At one point Johnson asked him this question: “You dropped something of a bombshell this week that you want to start pursuing an alternative to the Shumlin health care plan. Why?”

And here, really and truly, was his answer in all its obfuscatory glory.

First of all, I guess it’s a question of how you define what my “bombshell” is. I think some people have taken it to mean what they really, what they want to hear from what I said. And basically, my, uh, my position is this, is that we are headed right now as far as the Legislature, we are going to be focusing on making sure that we have a publicly-financed, universal access to health care in this state, and that’s known as Green Mountain Care. As far as I’m concerned, I consider it Green Mountain Care, it’s a universal access program. Um, um, I charged my, in fact we spoke about it here on this program at the beginning, I think at the beginning of the session, how I had asked all of my committees with jurisdiction to start doing their due diligence under Act 48, which was the, back in 2011, which actually started Green Mountain Care or our, ah, our, ah, move to that.  And so what I did was, I asked each one of the committees that would have jurisdiction, which were five of those committees, and they were to um look and see what exactly is in Act 48 and can we actually achieve what our goal is?

And if they found things that um, through their, uh, their research and through taking testimony, that could either change this into a direction and put us in a direction that we were going to uh have this Green Mountain Care would be sustainable, then I wanted to hear about it and I thought that’s really what the Senate is doing now. So uh the fact of the matter, uh, I believe there was a statement was, um, regarding the funding, and whether or not I believed that, I think I said that, uh, the $2.2 billion dollar package that’s been put on there right now, I said I do not think that that was sustainable or viable in this, uh, current legislative — uh, Legislature. And I stand by that.

And what it, what I’m talking about in that, and people always take that $2.2 billion dollar figure, and they believe that that’s all new money. And it’s not new money. What it is is partially savings that would be found, uh, by way of not having the premiums, um, by cost savings, and so I stand by the fact is that once we find out what this financing package is, which would also first identify what the product is gonna be, um, if we do not have sufficient — if that money, um, is new money, then there’s gonna be a problem. But if we show, and we’re able to demonstrate that the money in that $2.2 billion is currently already in the system, and that Vermonters are already paying, uh, and on top of that, that we find those costs for any new money that’s — cost savings for any new money that’s coming in, then we’re, we have, I think, ahh, what we envision, all of us envision, that is to make sure that every Vermonter has full access, or access to. uh, uh, to great health care here in the state.

Good God almighty. What a statesman.

Fear and Loathing in the State Senate

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Really well-reported piece by VTDigger’s Laura Krantz on the fact that more Democratic state senators have endorsed Republican Lt. Gov. Phil Scott than his Prog/Dem challenger Dean Corren. (Current tally is 7 Scott, 5 Corren, and 9 hiding under their desks. Including fellow Prog/Dem Tim Ashe, who should be ashamed of himself.)

The thesis, as provided by Prog/Dem Dave Zuckerman, is that Senators are afraid to cross the entrenched Senate leadership, particularly the three-man Committee on Committees. (And I do mean “man.”) The Committee has one pivotal function: making committee assignments, including chairmanships. The Committee, by law, consists of (1) the Lieutenant Governor, (2) the Senate President Pro Tem, and (3) one other Senator, chosen by the entire Senate.

The Three Wise Guys, plus Peter Galbraith's good side. Photo borrowed from the collection of Paul "Shutterbug" Heintz.

The Three Wise Guys, plus Peter Galbraith’s good side. Photo borrowed from the collection of Paul “Shutterbug” Heintz.

#1 is Phil Scott. #2 is John Campbell, a self-described Democrat who loudly supports Scott. #3 is the apparently untouchable Dick Mazza, a nominal Democrat who openly supports Scott, hosted a Scott fundraiser, and made a hefty donation to Scott’s campaign. (And who, earlier this week, delivered a gratuitous slap to Governor Shumlin at a ceremonial event. The balls on that guy.)

As Zuckerman put it:

“The maneuvering for committee assignments is a big deal … and all three members have publicly supported Scott,” Zuckerman said. One senator told him he or she was not endorsing anyone because of committee assignments, Zuckerman said.

Loyal readers (Hi, Mom) know that I’m no fan of the State Senate’s entrenched power structure and its impenetrable air of clubbiness. I am particularly not a fan of John Campbell, who brings a unique combination of arrogance and passivity to the role.

But boy-o-boy, he’s full of fire when it comes to Dean Corren, who maybe spat in Campbell’s oatmeal in the State House cafeteria.

Campbell called Corren a “one-issue candidate” and disingenuous for seeking the Democratic nomination for lieutenant governor even though he had hard feelings for Democrats when he served in the House from 1993 to 2000.

Yeah, well, Corren has campaigned strongly and consistently on at least FOUR issues — health care, climate change, renewable energy, and encouraging entrepreneurialism — so Campbell is wrong there. As for things Corren said more than 15 years ago, Jeezum, can’t a guy learn from his mistakes?  Nobody batted an eye over Vince Illuzzi’s campaign for Attorney General, in spite of an extremely spotty ethics record in the 80s and 90s.

Back to the main point, which is fear of being banished to the Committee on Mumblety-Peg and Other Childhood Pastimes. No one is admitting to a fear-based endorsement (or non-endorsement), but several Senators offered Krantz some truly unconvincing reasons for their stands on the Lite-Gov race.

Ginny Lyons is not endorsing. She says it’s because she “believes in a two-party system.”

“As much as we support the Progressive concepts and ideas, when you’ve got three people running it splits parties up,” she said.

Yeah, except in this race, you don’t HAVE three people running. In fact, you have a candidate who won the Democratic primary fair and square, and won the endorsement of the state party committee, which you’d think would be as interested as Ginny Lyons in maintaining Democratic primacy.

Of course, Lyons has first-hand experience with the Committee on Committees: she chaired the Natural Resources Committee for an entire decade, but was removed without explanation in 2012 in favor of Good Old Boy Bob Hartwell. Now she’d like to win back her former post, but she’ll have to earn the favor of Campbell, Mazzas and Scott to do so.

Michael Sirotkin, the Senate’s junior member, begged off because he is “too fixated on his own race to endorse.” As if it would occupy more than five minutes to make an endorsement.

The same excuse sounds even more transparent coming from Jeanette “I’m focusing on my race” White, whose re-election is a virtual certainty because there are no Republicans or Progressives on the ballot in her district. 

Profiles in courage.

Oh, and Peter “The Slummin’ Solon” Galbraith, still firing shots on his way out the door, slammed Corren for not being a Democrat (as though Galbraith was any kind of example of party loyalty):

“If you’re not going to run as a Democrat, you’re not going to get the Democratic endorsement,” he said.

Well, actually, Pete, he IS running as a Democrat, and he DID get the Democratic endorsement. He just didn’t get yours. And besides, didn’t you just endorse Republican Roger Allbee for a Democratic nomination in your district? That didn’t seem to bother you.

As a liberal who wants to see small-P progressive policies,and wants the Democrats to use their well-earned political muscle to move the state to the left (just as George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan used their muscle to move the nation to the right), the State Senate’s combination of stasis, timidity, and self-satisfaction makes me ill.

There are plenty of good people in that chamber, I know for a fact. But the institution as a whole needs to be turned upside down and shaken until all the junk falls out. We should begin by dumping Dick Mazza from the Committee on Committees, and while we’re at it, finding a new President Pro Tem.

 

 

You can put it on the board: Dean Corren will be the Democratic nominee

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Notwithstanding efforts by certain determined Phil-o-philiacs, the extant signs and portents indicate that Progressive Dean Corren will win the Democratic nomination for Lieutenant Governor, and will appear on the November ballot as a Prog/Dem. A fashionable outfit these days, no?

To recap: Corren had actively sought support from the Democratic State Committee and campaigned for write-in votes in yesterday’s primary. Counterpunching were some supporters of incumbent Republican Phil Scott; they urged Democratic write-in votes for Scott.

No official count will come until Tuesday, but everything I’m hearing points to a fairly easy Corren win. There are counts from a few scattered communities, all with lopsided Corren totals. There’s the feeling among top Democrats not named John Campbell or Dick Mazza, that Corren’s won the thing. And there’s this from a Corren banner ad on Green Mountain Daily:

There were thousands of write-in votes so we won’t know the official outcome for a few days, but it looks good.

Which is about as close as a candidate can come to shouting “Whoopee!” before the count is official.

Assuming all this holds true, and I’m bettin’ it does, the next step will be securing an endorsement from the Democratic State Committee. And that also looks to be in the bag. He got a very positive reception at the DSC’s last meeting, but there was no move to endorse before the primary. If Corren does indeed win the vote, the state committee is almost certain to go along. Personally, I’d strip out the conditional: he will get the state committee endorsement.

He may not get a lot of tangible support beyond that, however. Because Corren qualified for public financing, he can’t accept additional donations — and that seems to include participation in the statewide Coordinated Campaign. But Corren has the means to run a competitive campaign on his own. And the most important thing, by far, is securing the Democratic line on the November ballot. You can put it on the board: he’s done it.

Yes, it got worse for Vermont Republicans. Except Phil.

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Notes and musings from the August 18 campaign finance report filings…

— Governor Shumlin is in cruise control. His campaign raised another $67,000 this time, and spent only $11,000. He has almost $1.13 million in the bank.

— Scott Milne continues to falter. He raised $22,370 this time, compared to $20,000 last time. That pace won’t get him anywhere near his stated goal of $200,000. And his total was again buoyed considerably by the Boies family: $2K from a Christopher Boies, $2K from daddy Boies’ law firm, and $2K from an LLC whose address is the same as the daddy Boies law firm. For those keeping track, the collective Boieses have donated $16,000 of Milne’s total of $42K. He also raised $2K from Altour International, a high-end travel agency based in New York. His biggest in-state donor was the Wayside Restaurant, which donated $2K. That’s a lot of ham and eggs.

Milne spent $28,000 in the past month, of which more than $18K went to campaign manager Brent Burns’ consulting firm.

— The alleged Republican upstart, Libertarian Dan Feliciano, reported raising $13,000. Sounds decent, but $10K of that came from Dan himself. He had only a handful of other donors — notably getting $200 from Republican Treasurer Mark “Little Snell” Snelling. There’s no sign of a Feliciano bandwagon to be found in his finance report.

— The Vermont Republican Party is still in the doldrums, raising $2,420 in the past month.

— The only Republican doing really well is Lieutenant Governor Phil Scott who, challenged by Progressive Dean Corren’s public financing, put his fundraising operation into high gear and pulled in $52,000 in the past month. He didn’t spend a whole lot, and has $120,000 in cash on hand. He got plenty of cash from construction firms (his line of work) and from some of his turncoat friends in the Senate Democratic majority — a total of $2500 from Dick and Dorothy Mazza, and $200 from “Bobby Star,” who I believe is actually State Sen. Bobby Starr.

Scott’s doing well for himself, but to judge from the latest reports, he ain’t lifting a finger for his beloved VTGOP.

— Vermonters First, which spent a million Broughton Bucks in 2012, is still in hibernation. Raised zero, spent $25 for a bank account.

— Lenore Broughton did open her checkbook for a few Republican candidates and gave $2K to the Common Sense Leadership PAC. Said PAC didn’t raise any other money but managed to spend $3500 on consultants. Namely $2K to Shayne Spence, a staffer at the Ethan Allen Institute, and $1500 to Elizabeth Metraux who is apparently the PR person for Vermont PBS.

— Republicrat Senate hopeful Roger Allbee pulled in a decent $4760 this time around for a grand total of $6K. His total take included a nice $1,000 donation from soon-to-be-ex-Senator Peter Galbraith. The Slummin’ Solon, who has publicly endorsed Allbee, was nonetheless chosen to moderate one of the four Windham County Democratic Senatorial candidate forums, a curious move to be sure. (During that debate, he reportedly got into an argument with fellow Senator Jeanette White. Not very statesmanlike or diplomatic, Petey.)

— Celebrity tidbit: The aforementioned Senator White can brag of a $100 donation from Mr. Tom Bodett. Leavin’ the light on for ya!

Once again, it’s time to grab the State Senate by the ankles, flip it upside down, and give it a damn good shake

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The inevitable has occurred. The final member of the State Senate’s “Two Dicks and a John Club” has publicly endorsed Phil Scott’s bid for re-election as Lieutenant Governor. For those just joining us, that’s three of the most powerful Senate Democrats endorsing a Republican for a statewide office. An office which is largely ceremonial, but it does come with a spot on the three-member Senate Rules Committee and the ability to cast tiebreaking votes in the Senate.

The latest Dick to join the party is Sears of Bennington, following (as usual) in the well-worn footsteps of Dick “The Immovable Object” Mazza and Senate Penitent Pro Tem John Campbell.  The latter declared their true and abiding Phil-o-philia at an event in the garage where Mazza keeps his Corvette collection. Man of the people, is he.

Sears cited sound political principle for abandoning his party: “I’ve known Phil for 14 years, we’ve worked well together in the Senate.”

Well, Kum Ba Ya.

But that’s not all. Sears also rolls out the VTGOP’s endlessly reiterated campaign stand: “Restore Balance to Montpelier.”

“There’s little likelihood that Republicans will take over control of the House or Senate, and little likelihood they’ll be taking over the governor’s office,” Sears said. “I think it’s important for Vermont to have some balance, somebody who stands up and says, ‘I think we ought to look at it a different way.’”

Progressive Dean Corren, who’s seeking the Democratic nomination, would look at things in a different way himself, but I suspect that Sears would rather see that “different way” be Republican rather than Progressive. Or, more to the point, he’d rather see it coming from his bosom buddy Phil Scott. 

Myself, I’m not persuaded that a Lieutenant Governor will make a crucial difference in the balance of power. But he might make a key difference on a crucial vote or two, such as single-payer health care. Aside from breaking ties, Phil Scott has about as much power as top Democrats are willing to let him have. And pretty much the only occasion when the Senate is tied is when the Democrats fail to get their shit together.

And really, if Dick Sears is that interested in a bit of partisan balance, I suggest that he win re-election, immediately resign from the Senate, and urge the Governor to replace him with a Republican. A real, honest Republican, instead of a Democrat who ditches the party that nurtured him and helped elect him when he has to choose between his party and his friends.

Everybody loves good ol’ Phil

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I think I’ve identified the source of Lake Champlain’s outbreak of blue-green algae: last week’s party in Senator Dick Mazza’s Corvette-laden “garage” on behalf of Lieutenant Governor Phil Scott. Enough horseshit was generated to feed an algae bloom for months.

I’m sorry I missed it. Guess my invitation got lost in the mail. Fortunately, the Freeploid’s Nancy Remsen was there, and made the Mazza Tov the centerpiece of her Phil Scott profile in the Sunday paper. From her account, I extract a few gems…

The Republican lieutenant governor glad-handed Republicans, Democrats, lobbyists and business leaders…

I guess Good Ol’ Phil won’t be a supporter of VPIRG’s campaign finance reform agenda. Just a guess.

“It is great to see such a bipartisan crowd,” [former Governor Jim] Douglas observed. He wasn’t surprised, he said, noting, “Phil Scott is the kind of Vermonter who doesn’t worry about someone’s party label.”

Immediately thereafter, Douglas revealed himself to be the kind of Vermonter who DOES worry about party labels:

Douglas urged the crowd to help re-elect Scott to “make sure we don’t have lopsided government.”

As I have observed before, should we be electing people based on affirmative action? Or should the onus be on Republicans to craft a message that actually resonates with the Vermont electorate?

Oh wait, here comes Senate Penitent Pro Tem John Campbell, who was on hand to offer his almost-not-quite-nudge-nudge-wink-wink non-endorsement.

“I’m here to support a friend,” Senate President Pro Tempore John Campbell, D-Windsor, said as he stood near Scott in the Corvette showroom. Campbell qualified his support, saying, “I’m not raising funds for Phil.”

Isn’t that nice. I guess I shouldn’t think of this as treason.

No, I guess not, because as Campbell says, he’d support a real actual Democrat for Lieutenant Governor, but he won’t support Progressive Dean Corren even if he wins the Democratic nomination. Campbell just can’t overlook Corren’s long-ago “bashing” of Democrats, even though today’s Corren has definitively foresworn any and all Dem-bashing, promises to work hand-in-hand with Democrats, and is much more politically aligned with Governor Shumlin than is Phil Scott. But I guess Campbell, like Jim Douglas, is unfortunately obsessed with party labels.

Also on hand, making excuses for their Phil-anthropy, were State Senator Dick McCormack and Burlington Democrat Ed Adrian. McCormack “acknowledged that his views on many issues are probably closer to Corren’s, ‘but what I’ve done with Phil really counts for a lot.'”

Awwwww, how thweet. As for Adrian, well, he offered his own variation on the VTGOP’s affirmative action theme: keep Phil around as the token Republican.

If Democrats occupy every position of power, they are just going to fight among themselves. What is wrong with having a moderate, token Republican who would frankly be considered a Democrat elsewhere in the country?

Sorry, Ed, color me unconvinced. What’s wrong with having a “token Republican” in the Lieutenant Governor’s office is that, as a member of the Senate Rules Committee and the tiebreaking vote on legislation, he could become a significant roadblock in the push for single-payer health care and campaign finance reform. And I am unmoved by the fact that Scott would be considered a Democrat in West Virginia or Nebraska. It’s like Roger Allbee running for a Democratic Senate seat in Windham County: he may be a liberal Republican and he might make a really good Senator from, oh, Rutland County or the Northeast Kingdom, but he’s too centrist for the Windham electorate. Same with Scott: he’d be a fine Lite-Gov if it were entirely a ceremonial position, and he’d be a breath of fresh air in Montana or Wyoming, but as Lieutenant Governor of Vermont he’s a potential obstacle to Governor Shumlin’s top priority. Which is why Shumlin has all but endorsed Dean Corren.

Maybe it’s because I’ve never had the chance to fall under the up-close-and-personal spell of Phil Scott’s charms*, but I don’t get the Scott fetishism among so many of our Democratic officeholders. It’s reminding me quite a bit of the Vince Illuzzi fetishism of two years ago. Nobody gave Doug Hoffer much of a chance because he was a Progressive, and a rather abrasive one at that, while Everybody Loved Vince.

*Maybe it’s his private-label cologne, a bi-attractant blend of pleasing moderation with rich, manly undertones of racing fuel and asphalt. 

Except when it came Election Day, it turned out that the inside-the-Dome crowd didn’t represent the electorate as a whole. I’m hoping the same thing happens with Corren, for the sake of single-payer’s prospects in the Senate, and in order to drive another stake into the heart of the old-boys’ network, go-along-get-along atmosphere that beclouds our Most Stagnant Deliberative Body.

It’s time to grab the State Senate by the ankles, flip it upside down, and give it a damn good shake

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Poor, poor Democratic State Senators. They face such a difficult decision.

As VPR’s Bob Kinzel reports, they’ll have to choose between their longtime colleague, Lt. Gov. Phil Scott, and his Progressive challenger Dean Corren. The usually reliable but somewhat clubby Sen. Dick McCormack:

Then the question is who would you cross party lines for? Phil is a friend I’ve worked with for years, work well with. And Dean, the public financing is very admirable I have tended to agree with him on most issues so for a lot of us I think it creates a real dilemma.

Okay, wait. I’ll admit I don’t have a dog in the tired old Dem/Prog slapfights — I wish they’d each get over themselves — but McCormack thinks that supporting a Progressive and supporting a Republican are equally tough? C’mon now, which party is more closely aligned with yours on policy questions? You’re honestly having trouble choosing between the guy who’s in line with your party’s biggest policy priority (single-payer health care) and whose very campaign highlights your party’s concern with money in politics, and the guy whose party is opposed to single-payer and is uninterested in campaign finance reform?

As a nonaligned liberal, allow me to throw up in my mouth a little.

As for throwing up a lot, let’s turn to Senate Penitent Pro Tem John Campbell, who has already endorsed Scott’s candidacy. His knickers are in a knot over the prospect that a non-Democrat could become the Democratic candidate by winning the nomination on primary write-in votes:

“[To] say ‘oh well I’m  going to really run under this Party but then I’m going to try to take the nomination by getting a bunch of people to write in my name. I just think it’s a flaw in the system.”

Er, John. C’mere.  Closer. Yeah, right there.

[flicks Senatorial nose]

A couple of obvious points. First, if you wanted a Democrat to run for Lieutenant Governor, your party should have gone out and FOUND somebody. It’s your own party’s fault that there’s an appealing blank space on the primary ballot. Second, if Corren doesn’t win the Democratic nomination on write-ins, the most likely winner is Phil Freakin’ Scott.

But I guess that wouldn’t outrage Campbell because Phil Scott is a friend of his. In truth, John Campbell has no principle in play; he has a friendship and, as a very conservative Democrat, a profound aversion to Progressives.

Which gets back to the title of this post. Maybe it’s just me, but it makes no sense that a Senate that’s two-thirds Democratic defers so often to Phil Scott and fails so frequently to support solid liberal legislation.

It makes no sense to me that clubby insiders who value friendship over party — John Campbell and Dick Mazza, come on down! — are allowed to occupy such positions of power in the Senate.

So, after the election, could we please have some new leadership? Get rid of that stale air? Pretty please?