Tag Archives: Ethan Allen Institute

Is the Ethan Allen Institute… Dead?

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Anyone noticed the lack of activity lately from the Ethan Allen Institute? What used to be the closest thing to an idea factory for Vermont conservatism has all but fallen off the map.

Turns out, it’s not your imagination. Here’s how inactive the Institute has been — and for how long.

Its website lists former Senate candidate Jack McMullen as chair of its board. I reached out to McMullen, who told me he resigned as chair in… wait for it… September of 2023.

Yep, more than two years ago, and nobody has bothered to update the website on something as important as the Institute’s top officeholder.

Other evidence of inactivity: The Institute’s website doesn’t list any paid staff. The most recent post on the Institute’s Facebook page is dated March 2023. There’s been only one entry on the Institute’s “Blog” page since January 2024, when longtime EAI stalwart John McClaughry (still listed as the Institute’s vice president, for all that’s worth) announced the end of his long-running series of biweekly commentaries on the page. The Institute has yet to file an IRS 990 form for 2024, which was due in October. And, of course, they’re still listing McMullen as chair more than two years after he resigned.

“[The Institute is] in a dormant stage,” McMullen told me. The cause, he asserted, is the ongoing litigation involving Myers Mermel, who served as president of the Institute for 10 months before being ousted by the board in, ahem, September of 2023. (Also in September 2023, as reported at the time by VTDigger: The State Policy Network, a national organization of state-level conservative think tanks, suspended Ethan Allen Institute’s affiliate status. Currently, SPN’s website lists no affiliation with any Vermont organization.)

Mermel, now owner of WDEV Radio, filed suit for wrongful termination after his dismissal. According to McMullen, the action is still making its way through the courts. “Litigation is very expensive,” McMullen noted, “Representation is costly.”

That’s as may be, but you’d think an organization with deep roots and a well-connected board would be able to walk and chew gum at the same time. The lawsuit can’t possibly be the only issue.

This situation came to my attention a few weeks ago when Common Sense Radio ended its long run as the conservative-branded hour on WDEV Radio. The Institute had paid for the airtime for years, but chose not to renew its contract according to Mermel. (He otherwise declined to comment on the record.) The time slot is now in the hands of the Vermont Daily Chronicle’s Guy Page.

My view: The increasingly radical nature of conservative politics may have sidelined the Institute, whose stock in trade was old-fashioned fiscal conservatism and free-market capitalism. I rarely (if ever) agreed with McClaughry or any of the Institute’s other commentators, but they never engaged in conspiratorialism or Trumpian authoritarianism and I respect them for that.

McMullen still has hopes for the Institute’s future. “I think they could revive if they get through the litigation,” he said. I hope they do. There was little to no common ground between the Institute and me, but it was a credible voice in Vermont politics. There’s a hole in our discourse where the Institute used to be.

A Bit of a Kerfuffle at the Ethan Allen Institute

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Hey everybody, meet Myers Mermel, the new president of the Ethan Allen Institute.

For those unfamiliar, EAI is Vermont’s most prominent conservative “think tank,” best known for such influential operations as the seldom-heard Common Sense Radio and a steady supply of seldom-read opinion pieces. It was headed for many years by former vagabond John McClaughry, who remains a prolific writer of those opinion pieces. After he stepped out of leadership in 2013, former VTGOP chief Rob Roper took the reins. Roper retired last March, and was replaced by serially unsuccessful political candidate Meg Hansen.

Well, Hansen didn’t even last a year. She’s been ousted in an apparently messy process that culminated last night in Mermel’s razor-thin election to the presidency. The vote of the EAI board was reportedly five for Mermel, four for Hansen, and two abstaining.

Here I must pause to delineate established fact from informed hearsay. Mermel has confirmed he is now EAI’s president. He would not otherwise comment. Everything else I’m about to write comes from a single anonymous source, because official mouths are firmly zippered shut chez EAI.

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Look What I Found in the Ol’ Mailbox

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I must infer that the Ethan Allen Institute is hurting for money. How else to explain the fact that an EAI fundraising plea ended up in my mailbox? And yes, it was addressed to me personally, not to “Occupant.”

The hardy-har-har political “cartoon” above was part of the solicitation. It poses the ludicrous proposition that the Black Lives Matter movement, Extinction Rebellion, Antifa and the 1619 Project all spring from the poisoned well of Marxism.

Uh-huh.

BLM and Extinction Rebellion are nonviolent protest movements. “Antifa” is basically a right-wing boogeyman; it’s decidedly not an organization, let alone one capable of overthrowing the global political order. And for God’s sake, the 1619 Project was conducted by the New York Times. Which is, need I remind you, a for-profit corporation.

No Marxists there, except in the fevered imagination of EAI President Rob Roper, who signed this thing.

So let’s take a look at the rest of the thing. The letter begins with a dire warning:

The nation and Vermont are at a tipping point. We have to decide if we are going to maintain the Constitutional freedoms set in place by our founders — the ideas and principles that made us the greatest country in the world — or abandon them for a path toward socialism, speech codes, and McCarthyite blacklisting of citizens who expreess anything other trhan obedience to a single-party agenda.

Referring to the Democratic Party, presumably. Which is hogwash. The party, nationally and in Vermont, is a broad coalition that can barely agree on a common agenda, let alone threaten the overthrow of the American way of life. Nothing the Democrats espouse would pave the way for socialism. Nothing would impose speech codes or a “McCarthyite blacklist.”

Which, need I remind you, was a Republican invention.

I realize you have to grab the reader’s attention with fiery rhetoric, but this is deliberate pandering to the Trump/tea party/Proud Boys wing of the conservative movement.

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Sweeping It Under the Rug, VTGOP Style

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In the category of “No good deed goes unpunished,” we find Shayne Spence, former Ethan Allen Institute minion and wannabe filmmaker, who’s now running for House as a “Progressive Republican” in a district currently served by two Democrats.

Desperate times call for desperate measures, I suppose. But that’s not why he’s the subject of tonight’s sermon.

This morning, Spence put out a Twitter thread about his attempt to put an anti-racism resolution on the Vermont Republican Party’s agenda for its state committee meeting this Saturday morning.

(Said meeting, by the way, is being held at the Hilltop Inn in Berlin. Yep, an in-person meeting. Smart. I wonder if attendees will wear masks and maintain social distancing, hahaha.)

Spence’s resolution would commit the party “to the necessary work of confronting racism in all its forms,” including self-examination and endorsement of anti-racist policies in law enforcement, criminal justice, education, and economic policy. By Trump-era Republican standards, it’s a pretty ambitious statement. One might question whether Spence is sincere in this effort or if he’s trying to substantiate his belated conversion to “Progressive Republicanism.” But it did take some courage to write and promote this. He deserves credit.

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Disclaimer over here, boss?

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Recently, an opinion piece by the doughty and redoubtable John McClaughry made the rounds. It appeared in some newspaper op-ed pages, and in the Commentary column of VTDigger.

And it involved a significant, undisclosed, conflict of interest.

McClaughry’s missive was a big sloppy wet kiss on the feet of Charles Koch, one of the infamous Koch brothers. McClaughry regurgitated a few nuggets of wisdom from Koch’s recent book, Good Profit. The book is a self-serving explication of why the Koch brothers are fine, principled businessmen with a strong focus on customer service and an aversion to big gummint.

Except when they can profit from it, of course. Curiously, one Kochbit highlighted by McClaughry concerns Koch Industries’ production of ethanol, which is almost entirely a creation of government subsidy. McClaughry writes with evident approval:

… out of principle, Koch opposes the present government mandate to blend ethanol into gasoline as a political scheme that produces “bad profit.”

Which has not prevented Koch Industries from continuing to enrich itself with this alleged “bad profit.” But somehow McClaughry overlooks the evident hypocrisy and praises Koch for a principle he never acts upon.

But I digress. The point isn’t that McClaughry has blessed the world with a few hundred words of free-market rhetoric, but that his own conflict of interest was not disclosed by VTDigger.

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The mass exodus myth

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Vermont faces a demographic challenge. Our population is stagnant and getting older. We have fewer school-age kids, which drives up the per-pupil cost. We have fewer young adults to invigorate the workforce and pay forward the costs of retirement and health care for older Vermonters.

That is true. But there’s a popular myth about why that’s true. Take it away, Ethan Allen Institute’s Rob Roper:

The fact of the matter is that Vermont’s progressive tax, regulatory, healthcare, land use, and energy policies are driving up the cost of living, and driving our young, educated workforce out of the state. Who wants to work or start a business or put down roots in a state that punishes success and whose guiding governing principle is to redistribute what you earn to someone else?

The assumption beneath the thickets of dogma: young people are fleeing Vermont. And that’s not true.

Here’s the truth. Young adults are highly mobile. Many of them do leave Vermont. However, an almost equal number move in. (More on this in a moment.)

So why do we have so many fewer people aged, say, zero to 35?

Because, for a long time now, Vermont has had very low birthrates. The average female Vermonter has about 1.5 children during her lifetime. Replacement level is 2.1. This has been true long enough that we are losing ground in the younger demographics.

That’s it. Not regulation or taxes or education costs or business climate or cost of living or Peter Shumlin’s nose. Simple and straightforward: not enough babies.

And now let’s see some actual figures, as opposed to conservative wishful thinking, on whether people are actually fleeing Vermont.

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Climate change follies

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You’ve got to hand it to David Sunderland, chair of the VTGOP. When he gets hold of a notion, he just doesn’t let go. No matter how stupid the notion may be.

Today’s exhibit: Not content with a series of inflammatory press releases against the carbon tax, which is not on the Legislature’s agenda, nor will it be anytime soon, Sunderland has launched a new website aimed specifically at the carbon tax. Which is not on the agenda, nor will it be anytime soon.

But brave Dave won’t let the facts get in his way on this, any more than the scientific consensus on climate change has penetrated his brain. The website depicts a doomsday scenario for Vermont, and the Demcrats as the evil villains plotting the state’s demise.

Well, as Hillary Clinton told one of the House Benghazi Committee bozos, “I’m sorry that it doesn’t fit your narrative. I can only tell you what the facts were.”

Turning the page… more developments on the Climate Change Debate saga.

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The hardest working man in the charity racket

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This isn’t new news, but a correspondent has alerted me to some amusing details regarding the Ethan Allen Institute, a.k.a. the Vermont outlet of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). Specifically, EAI’s required annual filing with the IRS for 2014.

EAI, for those blessedly unaware, produces modest quantities of free-market puffery. And it proudly states as a matter of sacred principle, right there in its IRS Form 990-EZ, “We don’t receive — nor would we accept — government funding or support.”

Which is true except for EAI’s tax-deductible status, which is definitely a tangible form of government support.

Now, you might be dismayed at the thought of your tax dollars effectively underwriting EAI’s “educational activities,” but you can take some comfort in knowing how hard those guys are working for your money. Because according to page 2 of its filing, EAI President Rob Roper is working an average of 80 hours per week. His salary: a paltry $50,000.

On an hourly basis, the poor guy’s making less than Bernie Sanders minimum wage!

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Ethan Allen Institute: Follow the Money

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Back on March 25, the Senate Natural Resources and Energy Committee held a public hearing on S.R.7, the “climate change resolution.” The only witness who stood in opposition was Vermont’s favorite crank, John McClaughry, founder and former President (now Vice President) of the Ethan Allen Institute.

You're being watched, Mr. McClaughry.

You’re being watched, Mr. McClaughry.

During his testimony, he said S.R.7 was part of a campaign by national climate advocacy groups “to put the skeptics on the defensive” and serve as a fundraising tool. By passing this resolution, he said, the Legislature would act as a “pawn” of those national groups.

Okay, well, since he brought up the idea of a national campaign and national organizations influencing Vermont politics, resolution sponsor Sen. Brian Campion asked him about the Ethan Allen Inistitute’s ties to the Koch brothers and their national network. McClaughry acknowledged a $50,000 grant from the Cato Institute “six years ago,” and he noted Cato’s ties to the Kochs. But otherwise?

I have never been aware that we got any money from the Koch Brothers or the Koch Foundation or Koch Industries, anything like that. And I’ve never had communication from any of those people urging me to, or urging our organization to fight against the climate change advocates. Never.

He went on to deny receiving funds from the State Policy Network, an umbrella organization with strong ties to the Kochs. SPN provides guidance and funding to free-market “think tanks” in each of the 50 states.

There’s a small problem and a big problem with McClaughry’s professions of independence.

The small problem: According to IRS filings, SPN gave EAI $24,930 in 2013.

I’ve been told, second-hand, that McClaughry later wrote to Campion apologizing for his misstatement. If I find out more about that, I’ll let you know.

That kinda-sorta takes care of the small problem. But it fails to address the big problem, which is:

Between 1998 and 2013, EAI received at least $572,260 from out-of-state donors with ties to the Koch brothers’ sprawling network of right-wing foundations. This network is designed to limit public disclosure and provide tax breaks for “charitable donations” that promote the political interests of wealthy conservatives. The network is also designed to give donors plausible deniability by laundering their donations while still giving them control over how their money is used.

Over the past ten years, EAI’s annual revenues have fluctuated between $132,000 and $201,000. So $572,280 is a whole lot of money by EAI standards.

My figures come from Conservative Transparency, a database that ” tracks the flow of money among conservative donors, advocacy groups, political committees, and candidates.”

It’s likely that EAI has received even more money from national conservative organizations, but legal disclosure standards are woefully weak. From the Conservative Transparency website:

Although most nonprofit organizations are required by law to report their outgoing grants to the Internal Revenue Service, they do not have to disclose the sources of their funding. As a result, the transactions in Conservative Transparency are based on information reported by the donors and exclude “dark money” raised by the recipients from unknown donors that are not in the database. The totals in each recipient’s “financial record” are based on a review of the recipient’s publicly available tax documents filed with the IRS.

CT lists 36 donations to EAI from out-of-state conservative groups between 1998 and 2013 (the most recent year for which filings are available), totaling $572,280. A lot of that money came, indirectly, from the Kochs, their organizations, and their fellow members of this broad conservative network.

These donations came from a handful of national foundations, all with strong alliances to the Kochs and their nonprofit empire. This network is designed to provide an appearance of independence, but there’s no doubt that the Ethan Allen Institute is in the Kochs’ orbit.

Here’s a list of EAI benefactors, with dollar figures from Conservative Transparency and descriptions from Sourcewatch.org.

Donors Capital Fund: $298,500. DCF and a related entity, DonorsTrust, “create separate accounts for individual donors, and the donors then recommend disbursements from the accounts to different non-profits. They cloak the identity of the original mystery donors because the funds are then distributed in the name of DT or DCF.

“The Koch brothers and other ultra-wealthy industrial ideologues appear to be cloaking an untold amount of their donations to conservative political outlets through DT and DCF.” One of Charles Koch’s big funds has given “only to Donors Capital Fund since 2005.”

The modus operandi of DCF provides plausible deniability to EAI and other recipients; they can assert with a straight face that they don’t get money from the Kochs. But they do benefit from the largesse of a money-laundering operation created by, and generously funded by, the Kochs.

The Roe Foundation: $95,000. Private foundation started by the late Thomas Roe, former chairman of the State Policy Network, a key cog in the Koch machine. (See below.) His foundation “continues to provide financial support to free-market policy groups across the country.”

The Jaquelin Hume Foundation. $63,000. The Foundation “‘supports free-market solutions to education reform’ and funds many conservative and libertarian organizations.” It has strong ties to the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and the State Policy Network.

The Cato Institute: $50,000. A “libertarian think tank founded by Charles Koch and funded by the Koch brothers.” Over the years, “the Koch family has donated more than $30 million to the organization.”

The State Policy Network. $24,930. SPN “has franchised, funded, and fostered… a web of right-wing ‘think tanks’ in every state across the country. It is an $83 million right-wing empire as of the 2011 funding documents from SPN itself and each of its state ‘think tank’ members.” SPN had its origins in the 1980s, but dramatically stepped up its activities in 1998.

“Fueled by robust funding from right-wing funders including the Koch brothers… SPN has grown rapidly in recent years. There were 12 original think tanks when SPN was founded. In 2013, there were 64 SPN member think tanks in all 50 states.”

Although SPN insists its members are “fiercely independent,” The New Yorker’s Jane Mayer has reported that SPN head Tracie Sharp “compared the organization’s model to that of IKEA.” Like IKEA, SPN “would provide the raw materials along with the services needed to assemble the products. …’Pick what you need,’ she said, ‘and customize it for what works best for you.’

“…  Sharp ‘also acknowledged privately that the organization’s often anonymous donors frequently shape the agenda. ‘The grants are driven by donor intent’ ..  [and] often ‘the donors have a very specific idea of what they want to happen.'”

The Chase Foundation of Virginia. $24,830. “the private foundation of investor Derwood Chase.” It gave nearly $900,000 to right-wing groups in 2011 alone. Its beneficiaries have included many of SPN’s state-based organizations.

The JM Foundation. $15,000. According to its own website, it was created by Jeremiah Milbank, who “was an ardent believer in individual liberty, limited government, and free markets.” It lists its top activity as “supporting education and research that fosters market-based policy solutions, especially at state think tanks.” Like, for instance, the Ethan Allen Institute and its SPN cohorts.

That’s it. The Ethan Allen Institute may be able to deny knowingly receiving money from the Kochs, but there’s no doubt that it is significantly dependent on out-of-state “foundations” with very strong Koch ties, and with Koch dollars providing much of their lifeblood.

Last time I wrote about EAI, I mentioned a Tweet that accused me of lying about its ties to the Kochs. I expect I’ll get an apology about the time Hell freezes over.

Let’s go to the 990

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Okay, so I spent part of Monday (maybe five, ten minutes all told) in a slow-motion Tweetchat with the fine folks at the Ethan Allen Institute. At one point, whoever Tweets on behalf of EAI accused me of lying about its connection with the Koch empire. And I pointed out that it wasn’t a lie, just a mistake.

Then came the following exchange:

Dunno what they mean by “solution” there, but the whole Tweet is kind of inartful. Anyway, @EAIVT asked if I had consulted its IRS Form 990, the annual filing required of nonprofit organizations.

Well, I hadn’t checked the 990 because I knew it was irrelevant to my assertion. Nonprofits aren’t required to disclose revenue sources, so nothing in EAI’s form would prove or disprove any Koch connection.

But hey, I’m open to suggestion, so I found EAI’s latest 990 — for tax year 2013 — as posted by the journalistic nonprofit ProPublica. (Where you can find the last several years’ worth, in fact.)

And as I thought, there’s no information about where the money comes from. But there are some interesting numbers to be found, and here’s a sampling.

In 2013, EAI took in $140,690 in “contributions, gifts, grants and similar amounts received,” plus another $60,000 in membership dues. Add in a bit here and there, and EAI revenue was $201,018.

Not bad, not bad. There’s no further information about the sources of that $201, 018, nothing to prove or disprove any financial dependence on the Kochs or the State Policy Network or other out-of-state corporate interests.

Unfortunately, EAI was a deficit spender in 2013. It racked up expenses of $224,290. Fortunately, it began the year with a positive balance of $43,021, so it ended the year in the black.

Yay!

On to Part III, “Statement of Program Service Accomplishments,” a.k.a. EAI’s nonprofit fig leaf. The IRS requires a list of the organization’s three primary programs. Here’s the EAI list:

— $72,200 for “Two daily radio programs on WDEV Radio Vermont.” This includes John McClaughry’s Daily Diatribe (I think that’s what they call it); and the hour-long “Common Sense Radio,” which causes massive tuneout at the end of the Mark Johnson Show every weekday at 11.

Well, now we know why the folks at WDEV put up with that drivel. They are well paid to put up with that drivel. And they get a better deal than we do; thanks to EAI’s tax-exempt status, we are all paying, indirectly, for the glories of “Common Sense Radio.”

— $44,205 for something called the Energy Education Project, which “promotes intelligent energy choices in Vermont through a daily blog, a website and educational events.” Gee, I’d never heard of this endeavor before. So I searched for “Energy Education Project Vermont,” and there it was.

However, it hasn’t been updated in a very long time. The top item on its homepage is entitled “Entergy Announces That Vermont Yankee Will Close in October 2014.” Checking the Google, I see that Entergy made that announcement in August of 2013.

Pretty sad, for EAI’s number-two Service Accomplishment.

— $47,000 for a variety of programs, not a single entry. These include the montlhly Ethan Allen Letter; a series of opinion pieces offered gratis to Vermont media outlets; “public meetings and educational seminars”; and a transparency website jointly maintained with the Public Assets Institute. Now there’s an odd couple.

On to Part IV, a list of officers and key employees. Oh boy, salary disclosure!

EAI President Rob Roper pulled down $50,000 last year, slightly under Vermont’s median income. Hey look, he’s middle class!

Vice President John McClaughry made $24,000 and his wife Anne made $18,000 as Secretary/Treasurer, plus another $5500 combined for “Health benefits, contributions to employee benefit plans, and deferred compensation.”

Bill Sayre, member of the Board of Directors, made $9600, presumably for hosting Common Sense Radio. None of the other directors (Wendy Wilton, Jack McMullen, Catherine Clark, John Cueman, Milt Eaton) was paid.

Finally, the caboose on EAI’s very short gravy train is occupied by Shayne Spence, who was paid $6000 to serve as “Outreach Coordinator.” I don’t know whether this includes the compensation he received as a Koch Summer Fellow in 2013, but that’s a thing that exists.

I’ll skip over several boring pages, which brings me to Schedule A, Part III, which lists total “Public Support” for the five preceding years. During that time, EAI took in a total of $784,910. The totals for 2009 through 2013 go:

$151,775; $155,225; $171,565; $105,345; and $201,000.

Don’t know what happened in 2012, but there you are. In addition to the “public support,” EAI has made a few hundred bucks every year from “interest, dividends” and other non-donor sources.

Well, that was fun. It did nothing to illuminate the sources of EAI’s money or to settle the question of whether it has financial ties to the State Policy Network and other Koch- and Koch-like operations, or whether its ties are purely ideological.

Too bad, as I wrote earlier: we really need more transparency in the nonprofit world. If EAI could show that it really is a home-grown organization that gets the bulk of its financing from Vermonters, that would lend it some credibility.