Tag Archives: Heather Chase

A Curious Candidacy in the Windsor Senate Primary (Updated)

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This, friends and neighbors, is Ben Brickner, Democratic candidate for state Senate in the Windsor district.

Practically oozes Vermontitude, doesn’t it? Appropriately faded ballcap, fleece quarter-zip, jeans, rurally appropriate dog, outdoorsy backdrop. Touch of gray in the close-cropped beard. His campaign website leans heavily on his service as chair of the Pomfret selectboard. Cool.

But looky here. This is also Ben Brickner.

Tempting to offer a remark about the Hair Club for Men, but that would be mean. So let’s get to the heart of the matter. The bespoke-suited Ben Brickner is a partner in the New York City law firm Person Ferdinand who specializes in “corporate finance, securities, and capital markets transactions,” according to the Pierson website. Pierson is headquartered in NYC but has 18 offices around the United States plus an outpost in London. Kind of a big deal.

You won’t see a hint of that in any of his campaign materials, nor in a flattering story about his candidacy in The Mountain Times.

What’s more, Brickner’s July 1 campaign finance filing is a real eye-opener. He has raised a stunning $65,000 so far, including 18 maximum individual contributions of $1,940 plus another seven gifts of $1,000 or more.

That would have been virtually unprecedented for any state Senate race until 2024, when the Barons of Burlington threw their weight behind several Republican candidates for Senate and, well, Stewart Ledbetter. But I doubt there’s ever been any candidate for any office in Windsor County who’s raised anywhere near $65,000.

If you live in the Windsor district, you should expect a flood of mailings from Team Ben before the August primary. He spent only $12,000 as of July 1, so he’s got more than $50,000 burning a hole in his pocket.

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Just a Reminder That the State’s Ethics Regime Serves Officials’ Interests, Not the Public’s

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The Legislature never wanted to establish a process for governing official ethics. It took years for lawmakers to enact an embarrassingly threadbare State Ethics Commission, which has since improved somewhat but still conducts its business in secret. The House and Senate were essentially forced to create ethics panels of their own in the wake of the Norm McAllister scandal. Of course, they did the absolute minimum: The panels are black boxes, operating entirely out of public view — as I found out first-hand when I became the first person to file an ethics complaint. The House Ethics Panel considered my complaint behind closed doors and dismissed it. I never heard a peep until after the panel had completed its “work.”

When the House and Senate created the state commission and their respective panels, their first concern was avoiding embarrassment for officials. This remains the operative principle today, as we see in the case of Rep. Mary Morrissey repeatedly dumping cups of water into Rep. Jim Carroll’s tote bag — so repeatedly that it drove Carroll to distraction and affected his mental health.

This follows the pre-primary disclosure that Lt. Gov. David Zuckerman was the subject of an ethics process of sorts, over actions that caused discomfort among multiple female lawmakers. This happened a year and a half ago, and we would never have heard of it at all except that the lawmaker who filed an ethics complaint against Zuckerman, Rep. Heather Chase, went public with the matter shortly before the primary because she believed the voters ought to know before they cast their ballots.

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