VTDigger’s post-Mearhoff political “team” has done itself proud in the early days of the new year, publishing not one, but two, articles outlining a fresh outbreak of an old familiar malady of the left — Democrats in Disarray.
Yeah, I’ve seen this movie before, over and over again. The Dems react to an electoral defeat by watering down their agenda and shifting (if not stampeding) to the center. When, in fact, the lesson to be learned from election victories on both sides is that voters reward authenticity — and are unconvinced by carefully titrated policy positions that have been focus-grouped to death. And by “authenticity” I mean everything from Jimmy Carter’s humble populism to Donald Trump’s extravagant disregard for political norms. (Trump may be a phony and a huckster but he’s consistent about it. He is, as he has told us repeatedly, that snake.)
Digger’s Emma Cotton brings us word of a panicky retreat from the Dems’ climate agenda, while the (at least for the moment) sole occupant of the political beat, Shaun Robinson, reports that quite a few House Democrats are prepared to defenestrate Speaker Jill Krowinski in favor of independent Rep. Laura Sibilia. Enough are against Krowinski or undecided that next week’s election for Speaker may be a close affair.
Both are clear and obvious overreactions to the results of the November elections, which saw many a Democrat go down to defeat — but which left the Democrats with a majority in the Senate and nearly a two-thirds majority in the House. To say that they “lost” the election is to avoid the fact that they still rule the Statehouse roost, and would be fully justified in pursuing an ambitious agenda in the new biennium. Even so, many Dems seem to be running scared. Some of their more influential member are, dare I say, sounding a lot like Phil Scott Republicans. And no, that’s not a compliment.
There’s nothing illegal about this. It happens all the time. But this particular instance has a bit of a stench about it.
I’m talking about Sarah Mearhoff’s departure from VTDigger. Mearhoff has been the Statehouse bureau chief for Digger, the lead author of its “Daily Briefing” newsletter and its top political reporter throughout this campaign season. She announced her departure last Friday on the accursed platform once known as Twitter. She did not reveal her next professional destination.
But now we know. Mearhoff is crossing over to the dark side. She’s been hired as director of advocacy and communications for the Associated General Contractors of Vermont.
Chief lobbyist, in other words. For one of the most powerful and connected interest groups in Montpelier. Until December 14, Mearhoff was reporting on the doings of our representatives under the Dome. In less than three weeks, she’ll be trying to influence those same people on behalf of Vermont’s road builders and construction magnates, a.k.a. Phil Scott’s favorite people in the whole world.
Note: This post is deeply flawed and hurtful in ways I did not intend. In making a case against state policy, I used the Menards as symbols — or props, if you prefer — in ways that dishonor their memory and affect their family and friends. I apologize. I’m keeping this post as is, but I have written a follow-up with an apology and further reflections.
Lucas and Tammy Menard may have been the first to die because the State of Vermont didn’t care, but they will not be the last. There are roughly 1,500 people, all of whom were officially classed as “vulnerable” due to age, disability, or other factors, who have been unsheltered by state policy since mid-September. Our leaders put all of them in the most horribly uncertain of circumstances because we could not muster the political will or managerial smarts to provide for these people.
Instead, we were satisfied with a policy that amounts to “culling the herd,” weeding out those too compromised to survive the onset of winter living in a goddamn tent. The Menards’ deaths could be seen as a policy success in that regard. The long, long list of the unsheltered has just been reduced by two, so hey, congratulations?
It’s a situation that would seem to warrant charges of negligent manslaughter against certain politicians and bureaucrats — except for that pesky immunity standard they enjoy for official acts. And if you think accusing Our Betters of willfully committing two felonies is a bridge too far, well, let us turn to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary definition of “manslaughter” as
…resulting from the failure to perform a legal duty expressly required to safeguard human life, from the commission of an unlawful act not amounting to a felony, or from the commission of a lawful act involving a risk of injury or death that is done in an unlawful, reckless, or grossly negligent manner.
Welp, Gov. Phil Scott has revealed himself to be all hat and no cattle when it comes to climate action. As Seven Days’Kevin McCallum reports, our alleged climate fightin’ leader is calling for a full retreat on, you know, doing anything about reducing greenhouse gas emissions. With the exception of furrowed brows and earnest expressions of concern. Per McCallum, here is Phil Scott’s climate agenda:
Kill the clean heat standard
Kill the Global Warming Solutions Act
Ignore our 2025 emissions reduction targets
Ignore our 2030 emissions reduction targets
Effectively put all our eggs in the 2050 basket
That’s one hell of a platform for a guy who claims to believe that climate change is a clear and present threat to humanity’s future.
His argument here, as on every other issue, is affordability. Vermont simply can’t afford to cut emissions or transition to a clean energy future.
A couple things about that. “Affordable” compared to what, exactly? His projections about the unaffordability of energy transition appear to rely on the assumption that fossil fuel prices won’t rise. Anyone who’s played Russian Roulette with the cost of propane or heating oil could testify otherwise.
Putting all his chips on affordability also ignores the impacts of climate change. As we have seen, Vermont is far from safe in this regard. In fact, we have one of the highest totals in the nation of federally-declared disasters since 2011. We don’t have beachfronts or flatlands, but we do have a rugged topography of mountains, hills, and deep valleys. The latter is where (a) most of our people live, and (b) the runoff easily overwhelms our rivers and streams when greenhouse gas-fueled downpours occur. We have yet to experience catastrophic wildfires around here, although the risk has been worryingly high for a good chunk of this year. Just a matter of time.
But Scott’s latest statements should come as no surprise. All he’s done is pull the sheep’s clothing off his inner wolf. In truth, he has been a resulote obstructor of serious climate action since he became governor. (Back in 2021, I called him the biggest obstacle to climate action in Vermont.) Kind of fitting for a guy who’s spent his entire adult life working with fossil fuel-powered machinery.
I circled back to Gov. Phil Scott’s November 13 press conference because I was interested in the coverage of his comments about our burnt orange president-elect. VTDigger reported that Scott was urging people to give Donald Trump a chance:
“For the sake of our country, we need to tamp down the division and fear, and we need to at least give him the opportunity to do better and do the right thing.”
It sounded like the pundit class’ evergreen hopes that any minute now, Trump was about to start acting presidential. But when I listened to Scott’s full remarks, I got quite a different impression. Yes, he urged a wait-and-see attitude, but he was also sharply critical of Trump and rested his hopes more on “those who are coming into power with him” than on the president-elect himself. That’s a bold thing to do with a leader who has a proven capacity for vengeance. I thought it was more than a bit courageous on Scott’s part, actually.
Not so much with his comments on the newly-opened, grossly inadequate, and budget-bustin’ family shelters. On that score, he was deeply disingenuous — and the assembled reporters let him get away with it.
Barring an extremely unlikely vote in the Legislature, we may have seen the last of David Zuckerman on our political stage. Maybe not; he’s only 53 years old, a full generation younger than the guy we just elevated to the White House (and 30 years younger than our senior U.S. Senator). But if we are seeing the end of the Zuckerman experience, it’ll go down as one of the more curious public careers of our time. He is one of the most loved and hated politicians in Vermont.
Zuckerman was 25 years old when he was first elected to the Legislature in 1997. He’s been in office ever since, except for a two-year hiatus from 2021-23. He won 12 consecutive elections, a streak only broken when he took on the undefeated Phil Scott. You don’t compile a record like Zuckerman’s without smarts and talent, which he has in abundance, but there’s also a bit of tone-deafness about him. The latest indicator of this is his dalliance with Ian Diamondstone’s demand that the Legislature return him to office. He doesn’t seem to get that the longer this goes on, the sourer will be the end of his tenure.
Throughout the Phil Scott era, Zuckerman has been the most successful Democratic* politician this side of the Congressional delegation — and yet, many in the Vermont Democratic Party have ached to be rid of him. He’s the most high profile Progressive figure of his day and he has a formidable donor base, but he just got beat by a guy who didn’t even start campaigning until July. He is seen by many as a champion of progressive causes generally and women’s rights specifically, but others see him as untrustworthy if not a little bit squicky.
*Yes, I know he’s a Prog, but he was on the Democratic ticket. We’ll get to that.
It’s still kind of early on Election Night, but I can’t stand watching the national seesaw and the trends in Vermont seem awfully clear. It’s a great night for Gov. Phil Scott and pretty much a disaster for the Democrats.
And Progressives, who are on the verge of losing their most prominent political figure. Lt. Gov. David Zuckerman has been running narrowly but consistently behind former state senator John Rodgers since the polls closed.
But that race pales in importance to the outcome in the House and Senate, where the Dem/Prog supermajorities are bound for the dustbin of history. Republicans are on track to flip at least five Senate seats, so the Dem/Prog caucus is likely to be a couple votes or more shy of a the 20 needed to override a gubernatorial veto. I haven’t done a count in the House, but it sure looks like the Republicans will win enough seats to knock the Dem/Prog majority below the two-thirds mark.
The next biennium will be a whole new ballgame. There will be no more veto overrides. Legislative leaders will have to try to find common ground with the governor if we’re going to take action of any sort on the many challenges we face.
So, why did this happen, and what does it say about Vermont politics moving forward? And why didn’t I see it coming?
The last pre-election round of campaign finance reports is in, not that anyone in the media noticed. To me, the single biggest note is that the Barons of Burlington and their allies are continuing to throw big money at John Rodgers, Republican candidate for lieutenant governor and alleged rural populist. In the first half of October, Rodgers raised $20,250; in the second half, he took in an extraordinary $69,259, almost erasing the cash advantage held by incumbent Prog/Dem David Zuckerman throughout the campaign. Not quite, but almost.
Of that $69,259, a full $58,199 was in increments of $1,000 or more.
That’s more than 83% of Rodgers’ total takings between October 16 and 31.
Son of the soil, my Aunt Fanny.
Here’s another way to slice the bologna. During the period, Rodgers took in a scant $2,560 in gifts of $100 or less. That’s a mere 3.7% of his total.
Which is S.O.P. for Rodgers’ campaign as a whole. He’s raised $212,443 so far, but only $8,809 in gifts of $100 or less. That’s only 4.1% of his total.
After months of inaction that led to a mass unsheltering of close to 1,500 vulnerable Vermonters, the Scott administration today took a step toward addressing the crisis. A step so insultingly small that the governor might as well have slapped a homeless person across the face.
The administration opened two shelters with space for 17 families. That’s 17 out of close to 1,000 unsheltered since mid-September, when new caps on state-paid motel vouchers took effect. For those unprepared for a bit of higher math, that works out to 1.7% of the need. Want another appalling statistic or two? According to the state, 343 children have been unsheltered since mid-September. These shelters will house maybe a couple dozen or so kids. The rest can go hang.
Actually, as of the orchestrated press tour on Friday morning, only one shelter (in WIlliston) had opened for business. Hasty preparations were still underway at the Waterbury Armory and reporters were not allowed to enter, according to VTDigger. The Waterbury space reportedly features partitioned areas for families, with the partitions not reaching the ceiling. The Williston facility looked a bit more inviting.
Aww, look at that admiring gaze. You’d never guess that these two people are on opposite sides of a campaign in its closing stage.
Seriously, it’s bad enough anytime when top Democrats share a platform with Republican Gov. Phil Scott. But one week before Election Day? After months and months of the governor shitting on the Democrats every time he gets a chance?
Look, I realize this was one of those sicky-sweet “We Vermonters Are Special” events in which Our Leaders pay homage to our most cherished myths about ourselves. But did anyone give a thought to the political implications of this? I mean, you can be a True Vermonter and still believe that your party is better than the other one. You can still act like your party might be seriously trying to defeat the person you chose to favor with an admiring gaze.
For those tuning in late, Democratic Secretary of State Sarah Copeland Hanzas held a joint press conference Tuesday with Republican Gov. Phil Scott to talk about election security and the importance of civility in our politics. Great, fine, I agree. Civility is a good thing, and it’s nice anytime any Republican deigns to acknowledge the integrity of our electoral system. But let’s not pretend this isn’t a serious contest in which the other guy is trying to beat the pants off you. Because he is.
Seeing this made me wonder, has Copeland Hanzas ever made an appearance with her party’s actual nominee, Esther Charlestin? And I don’t mean sharing a stage with the entire ticket at the state party convention. I mean an event where you say nice things about her and make a public show of support. Maybe she has, I don’t know. But there’s been damn little from the VDP’s most prominent members, even by their dismal standards of giving lip service to their party’s gubernatorial nominees.
Update. I’ve been told that Copeland Hanzas has, indeed, done her share of campaigning with Charlestin — or perhaps even more. Good on her. I still think it’s unseemly to validate Scott’s image so close to Election Day.
In fact, Copeland Hanzas may have given more aid and comfort to Phil Scott at yesterday’s event than she’s provided for Charlestin through the length of the campaign. The presser got widespread positive coverage in our print, digital and electronic media — definitely more coverage than any event in Charlestin’s campaign. And it underscored Scott’s selling point to non-Republican voters: that he’s an acceptable choice for governor even if he plays for the other team.
It’s almost as if Copeland Hanzas is one of those Democrats who’s biding their time until Scott leaves the stage and wants to be at the front of the line for her party’s nomination the next time she thinks it’s a prize worth possessing. It’s almost as if Copeland Hanzas wants to maintain some kind of relationship with Scott, even as he routinely trashes everyone else in her party — and largely ignores his actual opponent in the race.
It’s almost as if her own political future is more important than her party’s.
That’s harsh, but really now. In taking part in that joint presser, Copeland Hanzas was basically saying “It’s okay to vote for Phil Scott because NICE GUY” when he’s spent the whole campaign showing that He. Is. Not. A. Nice. Guy.
Coincidentally, several hours after the presser, VTDigger published a profile of the governor in which he acknowledged that things are not better in Vermont than they were when he took office — and heaped all the blame on legislative Democrats and the laws they’ve enacted over his vetoes. “After the last two years, the answer is no. We’re moving in the wrong direction,” he said.
So what he’s saying is that Vermont was better off during the pandemic than it is now, and it’s all because of those damn Democrats. That’s the Phil Scott definition of civility, of showing respect to your opposition. And Sarah Copeland Hanzas just took a big ol’ scrubby and did her best to whitewash that guy’s political reputation.
The Vermont Political Observer. 