Tag Archives: John Campbell

A little lip service for the electorate, please

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A lot of concern is being expressed these days over the Norm McAllister case. The disgraced Senator frets over the fairness of any legislative proceeding against him. A fellow Senator says he should be allowed to stay in office until the criminal proceedings are completed, no matter how long it takes. The head of his caucus frets about McAllister’s presence derailing the legislative session. The Senate President Pro Tem frets about establishing a precedent for dealing with the unprecedented: a sitting Senator accused of multiple sex crimes. The Senate Secretary tries to devise a process that’s true to the Legislature’s rules — and tosses a grenade in the direction of Vermont’s media corps:

You can’t do it just on what you guys are printing in the newspaper.

Yeah, how dare we print stuff in the newspaper.

Anyway. Notice anything missing?

Well, I’ll tell you. Nobody, except little ol’ me and some of my regular commenters, is talking about the voters of Franklin County, who have to suffer McAllister’s continued presence as their duly elected representative, or the people of Vermont, who have to suffer an accused sex criminal’s presence in the Legislature.

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Bruce Lisman: unclear on the difference between transparency and opacity

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Hoo boy. VPR’s Peter Hirschfeld got himself some red-hot sound bites from our newest gubernatorial candidate, Bruce Lisman.

Hirschfeld discovered that an out-of-state right-wing “opposition research firm” named Jackson Alvarez “was fishing for information on Lt. Gov. Phil Scott, including transportation contracts on which his company, Dubois Construction, had bid.”

Hmm. Who could possibly be searching for skeletons in Phil Scott’s closets? His potential Republican opponent, Bruce Lisman?

Well, Hirschfeld put the question to the retired Wall Street wizard. And the reply was an amazing display of political fumblemouth.

“Yes, it’s possible. We haven’t contracted for anything,” Lisman said Tuesday.

Whuh?

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Paid sick leave: everybody’s binky for 2016

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It’s been a years-long battle to enact a paid sick leave law in Vermont. The issue came close in 2015, passing the House but failing to survive the Senate. Next year? Bet on it sailing through.

As Seven Days’ Terri Hallenbeck reports, top Democrats (with the consicuous exception of Senate President Pro Tem John Campbell, a PSL skeptic) held a news conference Wednesday at Hen of the Wood Restaurant* to announce that PSL legislation would be on top of their agenda for 2016.

*Nice work if you can get it.

The move was not at all political, no sirree. Just ask declared gubernatorial candidate, House Speaker Shap Smith:

Smith dismissed his political ambitions as a factor Wednesday. “The election has nothing to with it,” he said. “It’s the right thing to do.”

Regardless, Smith will be up against other Democratic candidates who support the concept. If he’s able guide the bill into law in 2016, that success will give him a boost in a Democratic primary race where the issue is likely to resonate.

Yup.

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First Look: Brandon Who?, candidate for Lieutenant Governor

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The Candidate, against the obligatory Vermont landscape.

The Candidate, in the obligatory Vermont landscape setting.

Last Saturday, after the Democratic State Committee meeting, I got the chance to sit down with Brandon Riker, who is (I think) the only declared candidate for Lieutenant Governor of Vermont. (See campaign website here.)

The 28-year-old Marlboro resident made waves on July 15, when he reported a campaign warchest of over $100,000. Granted, 90% of that came from himself and his family, but it made a statement of serious intent.

Quick impression: he’s energetic, full of ideas, and wants to make a difference. Whether that and a self-financed campaign will get him anywhere is another question. For him, unlike most candidates, raising the money was the simple part. Now he has to make a name for himself in Democratic circles, build an organization, attract support across the state, and almost certainly fend off some better-known Democrats in what promises to be a lively Lite-Gov primary.

Riker may be young, and may never have run for office before, but he cites more than a decade of political experience:

I’ve campaigned for progressive causes since I was 16 years old. John Kerry, Barack Obama, Jon Tester [in Montana], Mark Begich [in Alaska]. I’ve wanted to work on the hard races — the ones critical for Democratic control. It’s been 14 years since a Democrat was Lieutenant Governor, and we haven’t mounted a serious challenge in years.

Which is true, but probably won’t be true in 2016. With incumbent Phil Scott persistently hinting at a run for governor, top Democrats are sniffing opportunity. We’ve heard names like Senate President Pro Tem John Campbell and Senate Majority Leader Philip Baruth, among others, as possible candidates (as well as Senate Minority Leader Joe Benning on the Republican side). That would seem to put Riker at a huge disadvantage in terms of name recognition and established credibility among Democratic voters and donors.

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Welcome aboard, Governor

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Seemingly out of nowhere today, Governor Shumlin threw his support behind the idea of an independent state Ethics Commission. The idea’s gotten a lot of push in recent months, thanks to a string of public-sector embarrassments including (but not limited to) Attorney General Bill Sorrell’s squicky relationships with big national law firms, Senate President Pro Tem John Campbell’s landing a state job after he’d lobbied for its creation, the revelation that longtime lawmaker Norm McAllister is (allegedly) a felony-class sleazeball, and most recently, Brent Raymond’s overnight transformation from EB-5 regulator to EB-5 project manager.

So congratulations, Governor, for finally seeing the bright, glaring, blinding light.

His spokesperson Scott Coriell claims, according to VTDigger, that “Wednesday was the first time, to his knowledge, that the governor had been asked whether he supports such a commission.”

That might be true in the narrowest of senses. But until now, Shumlin has been down on the general idea of tougher ethics standards, insisting that we’re all good Vermonters, we all know each other, and we’re above this sort of tawdry behavior. But hey, better late than never.

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Procedural excuses for avoiding a moral imperative

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Despite the widespread pleas of responsible politicians (almost) everywhere, Norm McAllister continues to represent the good people of Franklin County in the State Senate. And I have to confess that I hadn’t considered how it would feel to be represented by that fetid pile of [ALLEGED] human excrement, until I read about a petition drive calling for his resignation.

Weston/McAllisterWhich made me realize that if I lived in his district, I’d want him the hell out of office ASAP. Even when the legislature is out of session, there is still business being done. McAllister is a pariah. He’s avoiding public events, he’s been stripped of his committee assignments, and as for “constituent service,” well, who in state government is returning his calls? Who, in their right mind, is depending on Norm McAllister for “constituent service”?

The people of Franklin County are (a) underrepresented, and (b) forced to bear the stigma of having McAllister as their Senator. If I lived there, you bet I’d sign that petition.

McAllister, for those just joining us, was arrested on the Statehouse grounds and charged with a whole bunch of skeevy sex crimes. As soon as the details broke, McAllister immediately lost every friend he might have had in Montpelier; but he refused to resign, and the legislature adjourned eight days laer without taking any action.

And now, Profiles In Courage, they are hiding behind process.

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Like it or not, the Vermont Legislature needs to address ethics

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Secretary of State Jim Condos is making a welcome, and timely, push for an independent State Ethics Commission. In a press release issued this morning, he also called for “a clear law regarding ethics, conflicts of interest, and financial disclosure for our elected officials.”

This really shouldn’t be an issue; we are one of only three states without such a body. And in a year that’s already seen Attorney General Bill Sorrell facing an independent investigation, a sitting Senator arrested on felony charges on the Statehouse grounds, significant questions about the Senate President Pro Tem, and a secretive House Ethics Panel with a very permissive interpretation of “ethics,” you’d think we could dispense with the old “We’re Vermonters, we do the right thing, we don’t need an ethics law” argument.

I mean, if anybody still believes that, they’re whistling past the graveyard.

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Another closed door in the People’s House

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Constant readers of this blog (Hi, Mom!) will recall that earlier this month, I wrote a letter to the House Ethics Panel asking for a review of Rep. Adam Greshin’s actions regarding H.40, the RESET bill. For less constant readers, my complaint centered on this: Greshin authored an amendment to H.40 stripping away an increase in funding for Efficiency Vermont. (EV had already gotten Public Service Board approval; until this year, legislative review was a mere formality.) He also aggressively lobbied the House and Senate for his amendment.

EV gets its money through a surcharge on utility bills. As co-owner of the Sugarbush Resort, a voracious consumer of electricity ($2 million/year), Greshin stood to gain considerably if his amendment passed.

Well, the Ethics Panel has responded. And as expected, it was a whitewash. Greshin, so they say, did nothing wrong.

I’ll get to the substance of its decision in my next post. First, though, I need to address the process.

Between sending my letter and receiving the Panel’s reply, I didn’t hear anything about it. During the roughly one week between receiving my letter and drafting its ruling, the Panel conducted a review with help from Legislative Counsel. It also met with the House Energy and Natural Resources Committee, and with Greshin himself. (Correction: The panel met with counsel to the House Energy and Natural Resources Committee, but not with the Committee itself.)

None of those meetings were noticed publicly. I was not informed. I was not given the opportunity to be a party to the proceedings.

It seems that the House Ethics Panel has a closed-door policy.

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Laff line of the year: two strong nominees

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As it usually is, the Vermont Legislature was not exactly a wellspring of humor. Especially in the tense, action-packed closing days. But adjournment brought a couple of classics, albeit of the unintentional variety, from two of Vermont’s finest unintentional funnymen: John Campbell and Peter Galbraith.

First up, Mr. Pro Tem told VTDigger:

“Sometimes it’s tough to be a leader and a statesman.”

To which my immediate thought was, “How the hell would YOU know?”

My second was that good ol’ country song:

Oh Lord, it’s hard to be humble
When I’m perfect in every way
I can’t wait to look in the mirror
‘Cause I get better looking each day.

I tell ya, for an accomplished politician, Campbell has the worst case of foot-in-mouth disease I’ve ever seen. The over/under on Erika Wolffing facepalms during this session must have been somewhere in the three dozen range.

Next up, the formerly Slummin’ Solon, Peter Galbraith. It was almost exactly a year ago that The Most Hated Man in the Senate announced he would not run for re-election, and instead devote himself to a vaguely-described Middle Eastern peace venture.

He may well be doing so, but he seems to find plenty of time to unleash Words of Wisdom about Vermont politics.

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Shumlin Gets Ass Handed To Him

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Smile, though your heart is breaking...

Smile, though your heart is breaking…

The three top Democratic leaders stood shoulder-to-shoulder, smiled, and proclaimed their unity behind an agreement on taxes and health care. They praised each other and the Legislature for working hard and working together. “Everyone has given a little,” Governor Shumlin said.

Well, almost.

After a week of harsh rhetoric about how “Montpelier” (meaning his own party) had produced a tax plan that he “hated,” he accepted a slightly modified version with nothing more than a fig leaf of additional spending cuts.

After days of harsh rhetoric about how capping income tax deductions would be “a big mistake,” Shumlin accepted a deal with a slightly less restrictive cap than the Legislature had been poised to enact.

The legislature “has given a little.” Shumlin gave a LOT.

Which belies his extreme rhetoric about a plan that was very similar to the one he accepted today, and characterized as “fiscally responsible” and “ensur[ing] that we continue to grow this economy.”

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