Tag Archives: Martin LaLonde

Doing Something: A Follow-Up

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Yesterday’s installment of “Doing Something,” my daily report on Doing Something Every Day in response to Trump’s assault on the government, democratic norms, and the rule of law, was about emails I had written to the chairs of the Vermont House and Senate Judiciary Committees. I suggested that one or both of the panels should hold hearings on how various state agencies and departments cooperate with (or are complicit in, your choice) Trump’s crackdown on people of color who are in the United States legally. I provided a starter list of questions and state agencies that should be included in such hearings.

Credit to both chairs, Sen. Nader Hashim and Rep. Martin LaLonde, for getting back to me within hours. More is likely to come, but I wanted to report back on what I’ve learned so far. Which is that neither of them needed my encouragement to become actively engaged on these issues.

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Doing Something.

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Another daily report on my effort to Do Something Every Day about Donald Trump’s assault on government, free speech, and the rule of law. Today I sent emails to House Judiciary Committee chair Martin LaLonde and Senate Judiciary Committee chair Nader Hashim repeating an idea I explored in my most recent blogpost: That one or both committees hold wide-ranging hearings on the state’s immigration-related relationships with the feds. Cut-and-pasting the message to Sen. Hashim:

Sen. Hashim: 

Hi, John Walters here. Not a constituent, but an interested party. You may have read my most recent blogpost about Gov. Phil Scott’s, shall we say, measured response to the illegal detention of Mohsen Mahdawi. It included a suggestion which I am repeating here because it involves the Senate Judiciary Committee. 

The events surrounding Mr. Mahdawi’s kidnapping and detention raise a number of questions regarding state/federal cooperation beyond the fact that he is being held in a state prison. Cut-and-pasting a passage from the blog, in which I call for a hearing of the House or Senate Judiciary Committees or possibly a joint hearing to raise these questions with appropriate state officials. 

“We know the motorcade that whisked Mr. Mahdawi away had Vermont license plates. What can the DMV say about that? Can it reveal who registered the vehicles? How does it facilitate this unAmerican secrecy? Do state or local police agencies participate in or offer any support to the Trump regime? What rules do sheriff’s departments operate under, if any? How does the Department of Corrections interact with the feds? Are federal agents allowed access to detainees in state prisons? Do they interrogate detainees in state facilities? 

“That’s a starter list of questions. Such a hearing wouldn’t disrupt the system, but it would put useful information on public record and perhaps lead to legislation limiting state interaction with the feds.”

I think this would be a relevant and appropriate legislative response to Mr. Mahdawi’s detention. I hope you agree. 

Thanks and best wishes, 

John Walters

This Is Too Stupid to Merit the Term “Scandal,” But It Cannot Go Unpunished

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Pictured above is state Rep. Mary Morrissey, a longtime (but not at all influential) member of the House who has suddenly been thrust into the spotlight for the most bizarre of reasons.

Per Kevin McCallum of Seven Days, the Bennington Republican has repeatedly dumped cups of water into a tote bag owned by Rep. Jim Carroll, a Bennington Democrat. Well, she allegedly did so, but Carroll has the goods. After finding his stuff thoroughly soaked on several occasions, he set up a small camera across the hall from his bag. And, as McCallum reports, he’s got video that “clearly shows Morrissey leave her Statehouse committee room, walk over to a bag outside Carroll’s committee room and dump a cup of water into it.” And he caught it on camera more than once.

Also, House leadership has already taken at least one action that indicates Morrissey is, in fact, guilty.

No matter what your attitude toward casual profanity might be, the phrase “What the fuck?” cannot help but escape your lips. This is so petty, so pointlessly mean-spirited, that it boggles the mind. Morrissey has served in the Legislature since 1997. Her Legislative bio lists an incredible number of community honors and appointments in Bennington. She is a devout Catholic.

By her biography, you’d think she’d be the last person on Earth to do something like this. But it’s right there on tape.

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Welcome To Another Performance of Retail Theft Kabuki Theater

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Last Friday’s meeting of the House Judiciary Committee was, to the casual observer, devoted to beating the drum for a crackdown on retail theft, the crime formerly known as shoplifting. (Does “retail theft” sound less, I don’t know, recreational than shoplifting? Probably.)

Anyway. There’s precious little evidence to support claims that retail theft is on the rise. The main propagator of this assertion is the National Retail Federation, a lobbying group for the industry that’s been making it easier and easier to steal stuff by cutting staff and instituting self-checkout. The NRF spent years flogging a bogus study that allegedly showed a tsunami of “organized retail crime,” only to retract it last month. Actual crime statistics indicate that “organized” theft accounts for a small fraction of shoplifting. And outside of a handful of major cities, there’s no evidence that retail theft is on the rise at all.

So now the tactics have shifted. We hear much less talk about rampant crime in our malls and downtowns, and more about the “perception” of a problem. People “feel” as though shoplifting is a crisis. Therefore, the argument goes, we must treat it like a crisis.

As a result, House Judiciary is considering an array of crime bills, and it began a scheduled series of hearings on Friday. But if you watched closely, you could detect a bit of nudge-nudge, wink-wink going on. The hearing seemed designed to meet the perception of disorder with the counter-perception of a crackdown than with an actual “tough on crime” offensive.

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Not Quite So Many Scofflaws in High Places As It Seemed

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As expected, I’ve gotten some blowback from my post naming all the state lawmakers who didn’t file campaign finance reports by the March 15 deadline, and still hadn’t as of a couple weeks later.

I’ve heard from five lawmakers in all. One, Sen. Brian Campion, said I’d mistakenly put him on the list, and he was right. Four others (Sen. Phil Baruth, Reps. Seth Chase, Martin LaLonde and Emily Long) said they’d been advised by the Secretary of State’s office that they didn’t need to file.

And yes, they were right.

Here’s the deal. If you ended the 2020 campaign cycle with nothing in the bank and reported that fact at the time, and you have yet to raise or spend $500 or more in this cycle, you don’t have to report until you reach that threshold.

That was, indeed, the case for the four lawmakers named above. It may be true for others as well (and I’ll add their names to the list if they let me know). But I believe their number is fairly small.

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