Tag Archives: Phil Scott

Day Drinkin’ Time

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Got a bad case of climate dysphoria today. It’s about 40 degrees colder than yesterday; Burlington saw new record high temperatures each of the past two days; in less than 24 hours we went from flood watch to gale force winds to freezing cold; and the newly-formed ruts on my dirt road have frozen into fascinatingly unpredictable configurations. It’s like art that can screw up your suspension.

Otherwise, well, there’s very real concern that we’ll have a mass unhousing tomorrow, Governor Nice Guy is turning heel, and Our Leaders don’t seem to have the vision to meet the various crises besetting us on all sides. Meanwhile, I’m sitting in my home office wearing a jacket. Indoors. I can’t imagine what it’s like for the involuntary “campers” our state’s policies have scattered across Vermont.

Oh, and I’m working on a really depressing story about the impact of bigotry in a Vermont town.

So yeah, third cup of coffee so far today. And by “cup,” I mean “22-ounce travel mug.”

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Nikki Haley Organizes Vermont Team

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A few days ago, the Nikki Haley campaign announced the formation of a Vermont State Leadership Team. I didn’t take much notice at the time because it’s not going to make the least bit of difference. Donald Trump is going to steamroll his way to probably all of Vermont’s 17 delegates as he grinds along to his inevitable nomination.

The only things that can stop him are (a) a quick and decisive criminal conviction or (b) a clear and obvious slide into dementia. Haley’s not going to do it, and her newly formed Vermont committee doesn’t have a prayer of carrying her to a primary win.

I wasn’t going to bother covering it at all until a Haley supporter took to The Formerly Robust Platform Formerly Known as Twitter to complain that there had been no coverage of the Vermont announcement. “Shameful that press has not covered this news in Vermont — it’s a big deal,” wrote Court Mattison. “Haley would help win down ballot and bring balance to #montp.”

Well, okay, your wish is my command. But be careful what you wish for.

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Shouldn’t We Be Thinking Big on Housing?

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As the Legislature pursues an actual housing policy in the absence of Gov. Phil Scott, who is focused solely on regulatory reform, there’s my question.

Shouldn’t we be thinking big?

Like “a record-breaking bond issue to jumpstart our supply of affordable housing” big.

Back in 2017 the Legislature and governor approved a $37 million affordable housing bond. In the ensuing two years, then-senator Michael Sirotkin, then chair of the Senate Economic Development Committee, proposed a second bond of $35 million (2019) or $50 million (2020). His efforts fell short, in part because then-treasurer Beth Pearce expressed concern about Vermont’s total indebtedness,

Well, it’s more than time to reopen that question and, honestly, push it as far as we possibly can. I’d aim high, maybe $250 million, and see what I could get. Why not? If we have a housing crisis, shouldn’t the response be proportionate?

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The Administration Does Have a Housing Plan But It’s Incomplete and, So Far, Mainly Hypothetical

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Earlier this week I gave Gov. Phil Scott’s plan to address the housing crisis a failing grade. Today, two of his top officials briefed the House Appropriations Committee on a report (downloadable here) prepared by the administration’s Council on Housing & Homelessness.

It was useful and informative. A lot of good work has been done, and a lot of good ideas are included in the report. Which is not to say I was wrong in my earlier assessment; the report is lacking in two crucial ways.

First, it does little to address our current explosion of homelessness. Its focus is on “prevention,” which seems to mean preventing future unhousings while doing not much for those already without a dependable roof over their heads.

Second, virtually none of it is in Scott’s FY2025 budget, which means that all its recommendations are just that. Recommendations. There’s been no commitment to implementation, not even an actual proposal. That doesn’t mean the report will be memory-holed, but there’s no proof that it won’t be.

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Phil Scott’s Big Fat Housing FAIL

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Hey, remember last fall, when the Scott administration delivered a grim assessment of Vermont’s housing crisis? Top officials outlined a dire situation with shortages in all sectors of the housing market, from shelters and subsidized rentals to single-family homes to top-end residences. In response, the administration convened an informal task force to confront Vermont’s housing crisis. A multiagency group was going to gather once a week throughout the fall to come up with big, comprehensive solutions.

Well, whatever has become of that?

Two things, and only two things, both of which completely fail to meet the moment. First, we have a joke of a temporary shelter expansion that might net a couple hundred beds for a few months. Second, we have a push for regulatory reform.

And… that’s it. No significant public investment in housing. Phil Scott is failing to address the crisis. He is failing to lead on the issue that he himself spotlighted as the state’s biggest challenge.

This has been obvious for a while, but it was hammered home during a brief legislative hearing on Friday afternoon that wasn’t even on the schedule.

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Shock, Dismay Over Completely Predictable Consequence

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Well, it’s looking like the Legislature’s plan for extending the emergency housing program is in danger of falling apart for reasons that were pretty obvious from jump. As I put it at the time, “I’ll be pleasantly surprised if this thing actually works.”

As Carly Berlin, Designated Homelessness Correspondent for both Vermont Public and VTDigger, reports, motel owners are balking at a proposed $75 or $80 per night cap on GA housing vouchers. The former figure is in the House plan; the latter is in the version passed last week by the Senate.

As a reminder, the current average nightly voucher is $132 per night. And that figure was achieved after months and months of bargaining by the state, which was directed by the Legislature to negotiate lower rates for vouchers.

And hey, extra bonus fail points: The new cap would take effect on March 1 — a mere 15 days from now.

That bit hadn’t been reported before. Top marks to Ms. Berlin for catching it.

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Hey, Let’s Take an Early Check on the Republican Ticket and… Oh.

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The Vermont Republican Party has a long record of losing statewide races except when the name “Phil Scott” is on the ballot. Scott is still undefeated for the entirety of his political career going all the way back to 2000, when he rode the anti-civil union wave* into the state Senate. Otherwise, it’s been solid goose eggs for the VTGOP in statewide contests since the Jim Douglas era, if memory serves.

*Seems unbelievable now, but the Republicans nearly swept Washington County’s three Senate seats that year. The late Bill Doyle** finished first, Scott second, and Republican J. Paul Giuliani almost ousted two-term incumbent Democrat Ann Cummings. But we were all much older then, we’re younger than that now.

**Correction: “The late Bill Doyle” is still with us at age 97. My apologies.

Otherwise, the top of the Republican ticket has featured tons of fringey no-hopers with a sprinkling of old-fashioned conservatives. Lately it’s been more of the former, as the far right has seized control of the VTGOP apparatus. And it’s looking like 2024 will be no exception. Not only do we have the soundly defeated Gerald Malloy making another bid for the U.S. Senate, but the even more soundly defeated Gregory Thayer has staked his claim to another bid for lieutenant governor. (The Vegas wise guys have set the over/under on joint campaign appearances featuring Thayer and Scott at… zero.)

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What the Hell is Going On with the Agency of Education?

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It’s been kind of a rough year for the Agency of Education, which would have likely warranted the Only In Journalism term “embattled” by now if there was a healthy Vermont political media ecosystem, which there is decidedly not. The Agency occasionally pops up in the press, and the news is always bad, puzzling, or both. But I have yet to see anything like an answer to the question posed in my headline.

It should have, by now. And here’s why.

The search process for a new education secretary has been going on for close to a full year. It was mid-March 2023 when Dan French, dubbed by Yours Truly “the Inspector Clouseau of the Scott Cabinet,” abruptly skedaddled. Gee, I hope it wasn’t something I said.

Specifically, it was March 17, 2023 (you needn’t ask, but yes, it was a Friday newsdump) “state officials” announced that he would, per VTDigger, “take an unspecified ‘senior leadership role’ at the Council of Chief State School Officers, an organization of state education officials.” His first day at the new gig was April 10, a little more than three weeks after the announcement of his departure from AOE. That’s an awfully quick turnaround for someone in the spheres of upper management. (The “unspecified role” turned out to be Chief Operating Officer, which sounds impressive enough. Doubtless working for a D.C.-based nonprofit is a more tee-time-friendly gig than running a short-staffed agency operating in a political minefield.)

Since then, things have meandered in a way reminiscent of a roadside DUI test. It almost makes you pine for the days when French’s hand was on the tiller.

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Vermont Republicans Seem to be Just Fine with a Mass Unsheltering

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The House Human Services Committee tried its best to devise a solution for our looming, self-induced homelessness crisis. The committee consulted with Scott administration officials to put together a plan that would extend the motel voucher program through June 30 with some major changes. Eligibility would be expanded to include those in the General Assistance program plus the “adverse weather” program that kicks in when temperatures get low, but it would set a questionably realistic $75 per night cap on motel reimbursements. (Motels are currently getting an average of $132 per night.) I don’t think much of the plan, but it was an honest effort to reach consensus and keep people sheltered at least through June 30.

But now the Republicans are saying “No, thanks. We prefer the mass unsheltering.”

Human Services’ plan went to the House Appropriations Committee on Friday. At the end of the day, the committee took a straw poll in its revised version of the FY2024 Budget Adjustment Act, which included the Human Services plan. The informal, nonbinding vote was 12-0.

Fast forward to Monday afternoon, when Approps took its actual vote on the Act. And whaddyaknow, the committee’s four Republicans changed their votes. The BAA still passed by an 8-4 margin, but the Republican switcheroo meant the Act passed on a party line vote with no GOP support. And according to a report by Vermont Public, administration officials are throwing cold water on the Human Services plan.

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Phil Scott Sacrifices a Pinch of His Credibility at the Tomb of Republicanism

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So, our putatively moderate governor went and endorsed the very conservative Nikki Haley for president.

Well, kinda, but not really.

VTDigger reported it as an endorsement; Seven Days cast it as a rebuke of Donald Trump. I have to say Seven Days got it right here. He didn’t say he’d vote for Haley. All he said was that New Hampshire primary voters should choose Haley as the only viable alternative to Trump, in hopes that the November election would offer two candidates “with character and integrity, who respect the rule of law, the rights of all people, and the Constitution.”

That’s a depressingly low bar, but Trump’s dominance of the Republican Party has left Scott in the position of endorsing an ardent anti-choicer, an advocate of building the border wall, cutting taxes for the rich, increasing the age for receiving Social Security, and imposing something stronger than Ron DeSantis’ “don’t say gay” bill, among other things. Not to mention that whole playing footsie with the cause of the Civil War thing.

In short, Haley may be more presentable and less aggressively anti-democratic than Trump, but policy-wise there’s not much distance between her and her former boss. She’s no Phil Scott, that’s for sure.

But Scott, who clings to his partisan identity like a toddler with its favorite plushie, desperately wants the Republican Party to offer something, anything, of value to the American electorate.

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