Tag Archives: Phil Scott

Whistling Past the Elephant in the China Shop (UPDATED)

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Update. Within 24 hours of this post going live, the governor announced his first (and so far only) concrete response to the Trump presidency: an interagency task force to assess the potentiial impacts of Trump tariffs on goods imported from Canada and Mexico. Must have been a complete coincidence, right?

You might think that the deliberately shambolic start of the second Trump presidency would have been a major topic at Gov. Phil Scott’s January 30 press conference. After all, in a very short period of time Trump has issued a blizzard of executive orders, many of dubious legality and/or constitutionality, that are designed to radically recast or possibly euthanize the federal government. The one most directly pertinent to governing the state of Vermont was Trump’s since-withdrawn threat to put an immediate halt to a wide range of federal payments. (The threatened imposition of tariffs on Canadian imports would have had a profound effect on Vermont, but they hadn’t been bruited as of January 30 and have since been put on hold.)

You might think the specter of Trump would have dominated Scott’s presser, but you’d be wrong. The topic of the day was, shocker, “affordability,” especially with regard to Scott’s housing plan and his extremely modest tax reduction plan. Which, at $13.5 million, would average out to a scant $20 a year for every Vermonter.

(Of course, it wouldn’t be distributed evenly. The three elements of his plan are (1) an expansion of the Democrats’ child tax credit, (2) an end to state taxation of military pensions, and (3) an end to state taxation of Social Security benefits. The latter two, aimed largely at retirees, seems an odd way to address Vermont’s demographic challenges. Our biggest demographic shortfall is in mid-career adults, who are mainly too old to benefit from a tax credit on young children and not old enough to benefit from the other two provisions.)

Neither Scott nor his officials voluntarily addressed how Trump setting fire to the federal government might impact Vermont. None of the assembled reporters asked a single question about it until the 44-minute mark in a 47-minute presser. Almost an afterthought, then. But Scott’s response was highly informative — for what he didn’t say, more than for what he did.

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Kicking the Can All the Way to 2050

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We already knew Gov. Phil Scott has called for a full-scale retreat from fighting climate change. But in his January 30 press conference, he made it clear he not only wants to eliminate any mandatory emissions reduction targets this side of 2050, avoid any potential legal challenge over the state’s failure to meet 2025 or 2030 targets, extract all the teeth from the Climate Action Council, implement a much more permissive measuring stick for emissions, and weaken the Renewable Energy Standard, but he overtly stated he wants no further action at all for another two years.

Yep. He had already tasked his officials with devising a plan to meet the 2050 emissions targets. But in his presser, he specified the delivery date for that plan.

December of 2026.

Sure, let’s put a freeze on climate policy while his administration takes its sweet damn time coming up with a 25-year plan — and finalizes it after the next election. When Scott might well be on his way out of the corner office. If this term is his last, this marvelous two-year effort is bound for the dustbin of history.

But really, the point is not to create an actionable blueprint. It’s to take himself off the hook for climate action anytime soon.

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The Brave, the Bold, and The Bleh

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Our brand new lieutenant governor has yet to learn the fine art of sitting within camera range during a big event. During Gov. Phil Scott’s budget address Tuesday, John Rodgers spent most of his time looking bored, which isn’t a great thing when he’s supposedly cheerleading for his fellow Republican,.

In fairness to Rodgers, it wasn’t the most inspiring of occasions. Scott’s much-touted budget address was kind of a tepid affair. The freshly reinforced Republican ranks in the House and Senate gave the governor some hoots and whistles as he entered and departed, but only managed a pair of half-hearted standing ovations during the speech.

I guess we shouldn’t expect anything different after eight years of this guy. But he and his minions have been talking a lot about bold action in 2025. And while there were bits of bravery peeking out here and there — like pushing his fairly radical public school reorganization plan and officially calling for a full retreat on climate action* — there was a hell of a lot more incrementalism. A whole bunch of initiatives with teeny-tiny price tags (on the scale of a $9 billion dollar budget), many more in $2-3 million range than anything truly impactful.

*”Brave” and “stupid” are not mutually exclusive.

There was also one huge omission. Scott never once mentioned the threat posed by Donald Trump to the federal funding that pays for so much of what state government does. He didn’t address any contingency planning or possible budgetary adjustments. It was a glaring omission on the very day when VTDigger reported that Team Scott “is trying to understand the potentially sweeping statewide impact” of Trump’s broad freeze on federal spending.

Maybe that’s because many of Vermont’s new Republican lawmakers are diehard Trumpers, and Scott might have gotten an unfortunate reaction from his “friends” if he said anything that even hinted at criticism of Trump’s scorched-earth approach to governance.

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Gentlefolk, Start Your Engines

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It’s been two and a half months since Election Day, which means I’m way behind the Political Observer curve in terms of looking ahead to the next election.

Or perhaps the 2028 election, depending on when Gov. Phil Scott decides to retire undefeated. Because until that happens, there won’t be a serious contest for the Democratic nomination — and when it happens, we’re going to see a political stampede the likes of which we haven’t seen since Jim Douglas’ retirement in 2010 touched off a five-way contest in the Dem primary.

If you think it’s Way Too EarlyTM for such talk, well, let me tell you, the engines have been revving for some time now. Recent examples: Former Burlington mayor Miro Weinberger’s emergence as the public face of Let’s Build Homes, a nominally bipartisan slash nonpartisan organization promoting the cause described in its name; and the obligatory tongue bath given to Lt. Gov. John Rodgers in the cover story of last week’s Seven Days, which touted the notion that this crusty, ornery Son of the SoilTM was suddenly transformed into gubernatorial timber by his extremely narrow plurality victory over David Zuckerman. Which I don’t buy, but hey, I’ve been wrong before.

In reality, the race to succeed Scott began at least two years ago and maybe four, when Mike Pieciak left his post in the, ahem, Scott administration to run for treasurer and immediately succeeded his predecessor Beth Pearce as the person most likely to get a standing ovation at party meetings. Pieciak’s been fundraising far beyond his minuscule needs ever since, and the only plausible explanation is that he’s preparing to run for governor as soon as Scott steps aside.

A more pointed signal of Pieciak’s intent could be seen in his November 19 campaign finance report: a $3,000 payment made on November 6 to Silver Strategies, LLC.

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The Unbearable Weirdness of Being Attorney General

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Over the years, I have written some unkind things about the last two Vermont Attorneys General, Bill Sorrell and TJ Donovan. I can’t say I regret anything in particular. But in light of recent events, it must be said that some of their actions have less to do with political timidity or personal fecklessness and more to do with the inherent weirdness of the office itself.

Our current Attorney General, Charity Clark, has been all over the news this week. She joined other AGs in challenging the Trump administration order ending birthright citizenship. She announced a multi-billion-dollar settlement of a lawsuit against the Sacklers and other bigwigs of Big Pharma responsible for an epidemic of substance use disorder. Strong stuff.

At the same time, her office was before the Vermont Supreme Court defending Gov. Phil Scott’s appointment of Zoie Saunders as interim education secretary. Yes, a Democratic AG was taking the side of a Republican governor in a lawsuit filed by a Democrat and a Progressive.

Because she had no choice. Clark, like Donovan and Sorrell before her, can act like a progressive firebrand outside of Vermont, but she must defend the status quo within the state. It’s literally in her job description: She is the people’s lawyer, yet she also represents the state. And when those two notions are in conflict, her duty to the state comes first.

Here’s another encapsulation of the weirdness. Clark is pursuing a suit (originally filed by Donovan) against fossil fuel producers for knowingly contributing to global warming. But Clark would represent the state in a suit filed by the Conservation Law Foundation over the state’s failure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. She’d be arguing against climate action. Not because she’s an environmental hypocrite, but because she is legally bound to represent the state in court.

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Scott to Drowning Man: “A Rising Tide Lifts All Boats”

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When pondering a title for this post, I was tempted to borrow one of the most famous headlines ever written: the New York Daily News’ encapsulation of then-president Gerald Ford’s refusal to consider a federal bailout for New York City, which was then at risk of bankruptcy. But this post is about Vermont’s homelessness crisis and people are literally dying for lack of shelter, so I chose a slightly less on-the-nose title than “Scott to Homeless: Drop Dead.”

The point remains. People are going without shelter, people are dying, people are suffering, and Gov. Phil Scott doesn’t care. At least he doesn’t care enough to actually do anything about it. After setting up two Potemkin village “family shelters” capable of housing 17 whole families, the Scott administration has done nothing further to increase shelter capacity or give aid to the helping agencies that are doing their absolute best to keep people from freezing.

The governor has had time to put together significant new proposals on the public education system and on housing, which is to his credit, but there has been no similar effort for the homeless.

Meanwhile, we’re in the middle of another cold snap with nighttime temperatures well below freezing and daytime temps being frigid enough to pose a danger to human life.

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Blowin’ Smoke on the Clean Heat Standard

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For the better part of a year, Gov. Phil Scott has been blasting the Clean Heat Standard by claiming it could cost Vermonters a billion dollars or more. It became a big part of the Republicans’ campaign to blast legislative Democrats for making Vermont unaffordable.

Well, about that. Last week, the Public Utility Commission — whose members were appointed by Scott and who have collectively been doing their best to block or slow the growth of renewable energy in Vermont — came out with a radically lower cost estimate. According to the PUC, the Clean Heat Standard would likely raise the cost of oil by less than a dime a gallon in 2026 and could – emphasis on could – increase oil costs by another 45 cents by 2035. A possibility, and that’s all it is, for an increase far lower than Scott’s beloved $4 a gallon.

Gee, that’s inconvenient. You mean the governor and his party have been blowing smoke about the Clean Heat Standard all along? Just for the sake of politics? Shocked, I am shocked.

Equallly shocked I am that the PUC manufactured, out of thin air and whole cloth, a substitute rationale for killing the CHS.

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Turnover at the Top of the Vermont Democratic Party, Again

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Last week, VTDigger reported that Jim Dandeneau will resign next month as executive director of the Vermont Democratic Party, the top paid staff position. Well, now I can report that David Glidden is also resigning next month as chair of the VDP, its top unpaid position.

Glidden told me his resignation will take effect on February 22, when the party’s state committee will meet to elect his successor. “With Jim exiting, it made sense for the party to have a transition and give the new team a long runway [to 2026],” Glidden said.

The departures were probably inevitable following the Democrats’ historic losses in the legislative elections, although Glidden downplayed any link. “There were bigger issues outside of the party structure that impacted the election,” Glidden said. “The core party functions were decently successful. It was just a really tough environment.”

You can’t really blame Glidden or Dandeneau for the Democratic Legislature’s failure to communicate its successes or find a way to message the property tax situation, Gov. Phil Scott’s effective anti-tax campaigning, or the VDP’s failure to field slash support a competitive gubernatorial candidate, which meant there was no one on a platform prominent enough to counter the governor’s attacks. But there were signs of trouble in the VDP’s finances, and party leaders are responsible for that.

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Seven Days Accepts Conservative Cash to Investigate the Democratic Legislature

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This is a terrible idea.

Seven Days publisher Paula Routly used her latest column to trumpet a new journalistic venture. Or should I say “misadventure”?

The basic concept isn’t a bad one. The paper is hiring a reporter to conduct a series called “Ways and Means” examining how effectively the Vermont Legislature is doing its job. That’s a subject worthy of exploration, although it’s also true that legislative bodies are, by their very nature, clunky and inefficient. You want maximum effectiveness? Get yourself a king or a dictator. And the Vermont Legislature is part-time and has virtually no paid staff, so it lacks the resources to be as effective as it could be.

But that’s not the bad part. The bad part is how the project is being funded. Routly describes the money as coming from “two Vermont philanthropists” who are former politicians “from opposite sides of the aisle.”

Their names? Bruce Lisman and Paul Ralston. Close observers of Vermont politics may already be rolling their eyes.

Lisman is a former Wall Street tycoon and dyed-in-the-wool Republican who once ran against Phil Scott in the Republican primary. He is one of the top Republican donors in the state, a prominent member of the unofficial club I call The Barons of Burlington. He and his buddies did their level best to eliminate the Democratic supermajorities last year.

Ralston, founder and owner of the Vermont Coffee Company, did serve two terms in the House as a Democrat but (1) even during his tenure he was known as a renegade centrist who thought he was the smartest guy in the room and (2) he hasn’t identified with the party since he left the Statehouse in 2015. More recently he has been politically independent and deeply critical of the Democratic Legislature. Details will follow. But let’s get this on the record right now: What we have here is two wealthy men who oppose Democratic politicians and policies, buying a series of reports designed to highlight the Democratic Legislature’s flaws and failures. There will be no corresponding examination of the Republican Scott administration.

Lisman and Ralston won’t have editorial input. But they’ve established the playing field and the terms of engagement. They are buying coverage that will almost certainly favor their political beliefs. Routly’s whitewash doesn’t hide the fact that this deal is a gross violation of journalistic standards and a real shocker coming from what used to be Vermont’s alternative newspaper.

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All in All, Not a Bad Speech

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At the end of my previous post, I looked ahead to Gov. Phil Scott’s inaugural address (which I mistakenly dubbed “State of the State,” sorry) with these words: “We’ll see how much actual ‘coming to the table’ he does, and how much kicking the Legislature he indulges in.”

And now we know. The governor was sworn in and delivered his speech on Thursday afternoon. There was some definite kicking, to be sure. There was also a broad outline of an agenda that emphasized his usual talking points. But the final section of the speech was pure uplift. After ticking off the challenges we face, Scott listed some positive accomplishments not directly tied to anything partisan.

The first one, in fact, was a barely concealed slap at his fellow Republican, Donald Trump. “We’ve received over 1,000 refugees in the last three years and will continue,” Scott said, prompting one of two standing ovations that brought the entire chamber to its feet. (“Entire” as best I could tell watching the livestream, that is.)

His point was that Vermonters can tackle challenges and get hard things done. I may not completely share that optimism, but it was a positive, collaborative message.

At least for today it was. Scott’s budget address two weeks from now will contain the details of his 2025 agenda, and you know where the devil is.

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