Tag Archives: Phil Scott

Phil Scott Gets Pantsed on a National Stage

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Has Danziger been our cartoonist laureate yet? If not, why not?

Anyway, to business. Recently, Gov. Phil Scott took a flying elbow off the top rope in the opinion section of The Hill, that bastion of conventional wisdom inside the Beltway. It was a complete and utter smackdown from beginning to end. And I’ll stop with the wrestling metaphors now, I think.

The subject was Scott’s return-to-office order for state employees. That’s the one in serious jeopardy thanks to a unanimous ruling by the state Labor Relations Board. That’s the Board whose five members were all nominated and/or vetted by the Scott administration.

Which begs the question, was the return-to-office order a good idea or not?

Enter Dr. Gleb Tsipursky, a widely-published expert on workplace issues in the digital age, dubbed “The Office Whisperer” by The New York Times. He penned (Only in Journalism) an essay published by The Hill on April 14 that ripped the RTO order to shreds. He called the order a “fiasco,” a “blunder,” and “an expensive gamble,” not to mention “a case study in how political theater can collide with labor law, management reality and basic fiscal discipline.”

Ouch!

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A Futile Defense of Act 181

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Democratic lawmakers are in the process of dismantling Act 181, the landmark Act 250 reform measure designed to encourage housing where it makes the most sense while protecting undeveloped land. It’s clear that the Act will be significantly pared back due to (a) political pressure from rural areas and/or (b) garden variety Democratic cowardice in the face of the slightest headwinds.

As they do so, Democrats will be throwing another of their core constituencies under the bus. If they’re willing to ignore the teachers’ union (not to mention principals and school administrators and, well, parents) by pursuing the Act 73 education reform bill, their rewriting of Act 181 is an abandonment of environmental groups. Yep, the Dems to seem to have a tendency to take their strongest supporters for granted. (See also: Women, people of color, LGBTQ+ folk.)

Act 181 was one of the most carefully crafted, inclusive pieces of legislation to come down the pike. It was the product of extensive negotiation and collaboration across the full gamut of interested parties, from environmental groups to developers and business interests. It was meant to strike a delicate balance between development and conservation — a balance that’s now being undone in the Democrats’ retreat.

Act 181 had the added benefit of encouraging development where we need it the most: in settled areas with public services. I don’t know about you, but my definition of “workforce housing” doesn’t involve isolated homes deep in the woods. It means affordable housing where the workers and the jobs are located.

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A Competitive Gubernatorial Primary? Hell, Yeah

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As expected, Aly Richards has declared her candidacy for governor, becoming the second person willing to take on S.S. Phil Scott, the Nimitz class aircraft carrier of #vtpoli. And I am all for it.

Richards is the former head of Let’s Grow Kids, the organization that led the charge for improved child care. She’s currently chair of the University of Vermont Medical Center board, which puts her in kind of an interesting (uncomfortable?) position when it comes to the hot-button health care affordability issue. I mean, considering that UVMMC is widely seen as The Big Bad of Vermont’s cost crisis.

The first to enter the race was Amanda Janoo, an economic policy expert with the Wellbeing Economy Alliance. Each brings a unique and intriguing skill set to the race. I’m not here to compare their resumés or agendas; I just want to cheer the simple fact that two very talented people actually want the Democratic gubernatorial nomination in the same year, a blessing we haven’t enjoyed since 2016.

Conventional wisdom would say a competitive Democratic primary is a resource drain, putting the winner at an even greater disadvantage against a popular incumbent who hasn’t been beaten in literally forever. He’s been in politics since 2000 — amazing for a self-professed non-politician, right? — and his next election defeat will be his first.

But I say, to hell with conventional wisdom. Bring on the primary!

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A Couple More Tidbits from the Phil Scott Presser

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Last week’s edition of Gov. Phil Scott’s weekly bitchfest press conference centered on his opposition to the House’s FY2027 budget, which basically involved the governor defining “compromise” as “forsake your own position and do what I want,” and also featured him continuing to complain angrily about “bias” in a Vermont Labor Relations Board whose members are (1) appointed by himself and (2) bound by law to be “neutral” and “impartial.”

But there were a pair of passages that should not be allowed to fade into the impenetrable murk of Phil Pressers Past. So before we move on to new business (a competitive race for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination, hooray), let’s enter them into the public record.

First, we have Scott reiterating his commitment to nuclear energy, which he’s never actually proposed with any specifics because it’d be politically radioactive (see what I did there). And second, we have Scott claiming that any homeless people who are unsheltered in Vermont are doing so voluntarily. Because sleeping in a car is such an appealing lifestyle?

Let’s start with nukes. “I’ve long been a supporter of nuclear energy,” Scott said. “Even back in my days in the Senate, I voted in opposition to shutting down Vermont Yankee.”

Ah yes, Vermont Yankee, the trouble-prone, mismanaged power plant that left nuclear energy with a permanent black eye to most Vermonters. Yeah, that’s what we need: another Vermont Yankee!

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The Soft Megalomania of Phil Scott

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It’s been quite a while since I forced myself to endure one of Gov. Phil Scott’s weekly press conferences. I know, it ought to be appointment viewing for Your Political Observer, but I’m my own boss here and I feel free to follow my muse and limit the self-sacrifices. Every gubernatorial presser takes a couple nibbles out of my soul.

But after his angry, neo-Trumpian press release about this week’s Vermont Labor Relations Board decision, I felt like I had to see how he’d follow up in his weekly presser.

And boy, did he ever. It was a festival of self-pity and blamecasting. Nothing is his fault; every problem we face is because of the incompetent spendthrifts in the Democratic Legislature.

(After seeing this performance, I’ve upped the odds on whether he will seek another term; if the chances of him running were 95%, they’re now at 99. And it’s gonna be a nasty campaign, although swaddled in his famously avuncular style. He’s got such a collection of receipts to cash in, he’s gonna need at least one more election cycle to clear his cache. Hell, he might stick around out of sheer spite until we’re asked to re-elect Phil Scott’s Head in a Jar in the year 2050.)

It’s the governor as innocent bystander. Which is a real stretch, considering that he is by far the most powerful person in state government. He is the chief of an executive branch with thousands of employees. His appointees run every department and agency. The Legislature, by contrast, consists of everyday people who get paid a pittance and have little to no staff support.

Let’s count ’em, shall we? The leaders of the House and Senate have one full-time staffer apiece. Each chamber has a small central staff to handle operations and paperwork. Each committee has a single staffer. The entire Legislature has two small support operations: the Joint Fiscal Office and the Legislative Counsel. Compare that to the small army of administrators, bureaucrats and line workers at Scott’s beck and call.

He runs the joint. If he can’t find ways to work across the aisle, that’s on him. I realize it’s no fun to face Democratic majorities for nearly a decade. But it’s his job to find common ground with opposition lawmakers who, after all, have as much of a mandate as he does. He has failed to do so, and that’s why so many of our problems have gotten worse during his tenure.

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Tightrope’s Gettin’ Mighty Slick There, Governor

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I haven’t written about last week’s appalling, wasteful, inhumane, dangerous, and just plain stoooooooooooooooooopid ICE action on Dorset Street in South Burlington. You know, the one that endangered countless area residents and students and staff at SoBu High, caused the closure of one of the city’s busiest thoroughfares for hours on end, needlessly endangered children and anti-ICE protesters, and ended up with the detention of people ICE wasn’t looking for in the first place. (Oh, and according to Seven Days, ICE agents showed up at the suspect house WITHOUT A WARRANT, which caused hours of delay while the situation grew tenser and tenser.)

Because, you know, they needed some trophies.

I haven’t written because our news media actually rose to the occasion, offering consistent, detailed coverage of the raid and its aftermath. First prize goes to Seven Days for sticking to the story and providing meaty follow-ups, but multiple outlets put their shoulders to the wheel and kept on pushing in a way we rarely see in our age of diminished newsrooms. But there is one aspect of this sorry misadventure that falls squarely in the purview of this Vermont Political Observer.

Which is, Gov. Phil Scott’s ongoing efforts to walk a tightrope between humanity and the Republican administration in Washington. His contributions are unsatisfying, unedifying, and unlikely to work if the goal is to keep Vermont out of Trump’s crosshairs.

They sure aren’t doing anything to help Vermont’s immigrant communities. Worse, outside of the occasional carefully-worded condemnation, Scott’s government is actively complicit with Trump’s racist, authoritarian crackdown. The stain on our collective conscience is still growing, and Scott bears his share of responsibility for that.

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Where No Democratic Officeholder Has Gone Before

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Meet Amanda Janoo, the first person to declare a Democratic candidacy for governor in 2026. She follows in the lineage of past challengers to Gov. Phil Scott in one very important — and unusual, if not unprecedented — way: No one who has been the Democratic gubernatorial nominee since Peter Shumlin’s last run in 2014, meaning no Phil Scott opponent ever, entered the race while holding elective office as a pure-D Democrat.

And that’s a massive, damning indictment of the Democratic establishment.

Let’s do the rundown.

  • 2016: Sue Minter, former state representative and member of Shumlin’s cabinet, the only Scott challenger who had ever held any elective office as a pure-D Democrat. She’d served three terms as a state representative from Waterbury, ending in 2011.
  • 2018: Christine Hallquist, CEO of the Vermont Electric Cooperative.
  • 2020: Lt. Gov. David Zuckerman, who served as a Progressive/Democrat and got little to no support from the Democratic Party or its donor base.
  • 2022; Brenda Siegel, nonprofit executive and advocate on housing and homelessness policy.
  • 2024: Esther Charlestin, co-chair of the Vermont Commission on Women. (She had served on the nonpartisan Middlebury select board.)

And now Amanda Janoo, who’s had a very impressive career completely outside the realm of partisan politics. She has stepped forward at a time when top-tier and second-tier and bottom-of-the-chili-pot Democrats are nowhere to be seen.

Again, a damning indictment of the party and its (cough) leaders.

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Put on Your Hazmat Suits, We’re Paying Another Visit to Planet Hank

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Now we know exactly how sincere Hank Poitras was in his non-apology for his racist, misogynistic online history. Because what you see above is the chair of the Windham County Republican Committee cackling and sniggering his way through an OnlyFans video depicting a sex act, which he gleefully shared on his YouTube channel in an effort to defeat a candidate for school board in Chester.

Shared, need I add, in apparent violation of OnlyFans’ Acceptable Use Policy.

This story was reported by The Chester Telegraph’s Cynthia Prairie, and no one comes out of it looking good. But the main point for my purposes is, should Hank Poitras occupy a position of influence in the Vermont Republican Party? I cannot see how party chair Paul Dame or Gov. Phil Scott can possibly tolerate his presence.

The details, outlined as briefly as possible because of the very high Ick Factor:

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The Elephant in the Room

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Dearie me. I seem to have triggered a bit of a firestorm in Vermont political circles with last week’s piece about Hank Poitras, the foul-mouthed videographer, podcaster, and (shamefully) chair of the Windham County Republican Committee. (I’d referred to him as chair of the Brattleboro party committee, per The Brattleboro Reformer, but apparently he’s a bigger fish than that.) Poitras is pictured here in one of his own videos, thrusting middle fingers skyward and shouting “Fuck all you liberal motherfuckers!” just like a good Phil Scott Republican. (I think that’s how the governor kicks off his weekly press conferences, but I could be mistaken.)

My post, which featured some of Poitras’ more loathsome on-the-record comments, caused consternation in VTGOP circles and prompted Vermont Public’s Peter Hirschfeld and Lola Duffort (wow, team effort) to produce a very good piece about The Artist Who Styles Himself As “Planet Hank.”

Poitras was scheduled to share a stage with VTGOP chair Paul Dame and Barre Republican Rep. Michael Boutin last Friday evening. After media inquiries, Boutin sought to remove Poitras from the program and then withdraw from the event before changing his mind following “prayer and counsel,” according to Boutin’s Facebook page, where you can watch his brief address to the smallish crowd.

It also seems to have scared Dame away from a personal appearance. He begged off at a very late stage, citing “unexpected family obligations,” and sent along a video message instead. Probably had to walk the dog or summat.

I have to tell you, this is one of the proudest moments of my decade-plus as a Vermont Political Observer.

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I Don’t Think Vermont Republicans Really Want to Share a Stage with Planet Hank

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Warning: This post contains quite a lot of bad, offensive language. It all comes from the subject of the post. I feel that it must be presented in unexpurgated form because it illustrates the mindset of the subject. The worst of the language will be in quote boxes and preceded by trigger warnings.

Hey everybody, get a load of Hank Poitras, d/b/a Planet Hank, video artiste and right-wing provocateur who is scheduled to share a platform on Friday with state Rep. Michael Boutin of Barre and Vermont Republican Party chair Paul Dame.

Poitras is also, apparently, chair of the Brattleboro Republican Committee.

And I’m here to tell you that Vermont Republicans would be well advised to sever all ties with Poitras because he is provably a “misogynistic, narcissistic sociopath,” in the words of New Hampshire progressive videographer “Kyle from the Shire.” That characterization is fully warranted, given the flood of online content produced by Poitras himself. It includes plenty of racist, misogynistic, and hateful material, the kind of stuff that makes disgraced former senator Sam Douglass look like Mr. Rogers by comparison.

Oh, and he also has a criminal record from his time living in New Hampshire.

Best strap yourselves in, folks, because this is going to be a bumpy ride. Complete with trigger warnings.

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