Congratulations, I guess? to Paul Dame for his re-election as Vermont Republican Party chair. He overcame a challenge by state Sen. Russ Ingalls in a 50-47 vote at the party’s convention on Saturday.
The margin does not speak of a rousing endorsement for a two-term incumbent. Quite the opposite, in fact. Dame has been in office since 2021, and almost half of the VTGOP’s ruling class wanted him gone? That’s not a positive indicator for Dame’s third term or for the party itself.
Completely absent from the convention, and from the Dame v. Ingalls campaign as a whole, was Gov. Phil Scott. It was a return to his pre-2024 abstention from the Republican political scene, which doesn’t bode well for the party or Dame as we enter a 2026 campaign season likely to be dominated by anti-Trump backlash.
Did the party make the right call? No idea. Ingalls was correct in pointing out that Dame has failed to improve the VTGOP’s dire financial situation, but would the senator have done any better? We’ll never know.
Hey, time for an update on the races for state party chairs! Feel the excitement!
The Vermont Democratic and Republican parties are electing chairs this month. Both races are contested, but that’s where the similarities end. The Democrats are conducting a polite, restrained kind of election, while the Republicans seem to be borrowing heavily from Lord of the Flies.
We’ll do the Republicans first because (a) it’s a lot more entertaining and (b) their election comes first. The VTGOP’s convention is this Saturday the 8th, while the Democrats convene the following Saturday.
Since last I wrote about these contests, incumbent VTGOP Chair Paul Dame has been on one. He’s been campaigning at a furious pace and, ignoring Ronald Reagan’s 11th Commandment, chastising those who dare support the other candidate, state Sen. Russ Ingalls, who hasn’t been shy about firing back.
Next month could bring leadership changes in both of Vermont’s major parties. On the Republican side, November’s election for party chair has produced a spirited contest. The incumbent faces a challenge from a prominent elected official and seems to be in some trouble with party brass.
More on that in a moment, but first, we’ve got breaking news from the Vermont Democratic Party. Jim Ramsey, who was chosen as interim chair last winter following the sudden departure of David Glidden, will not seek election to a full two-year term. When he succeeded Glidden in February, Ramsey delivered stirring remarks to the VDP state committee, castigating Gov. Phil Scott’s “harmful policies,” calling for the party to field “a competitive candidate” to run for governor in 2026, and concluding “Let’s go to work, and let’s win.”
Well, if any of that comes to pass, Ramsey won’t be around to see it. Here’s how he explained his decision in an email to this observer:
Over the course of the past few months, my work commitments outside of the VDP have been increasing, and much of it is occurring away from Vermont, particularly in Washington, DC. This is expected to continue at least through 2026 and into 2027. As a result, my wife and I will soon be moving there on a full-time basis, and my role as VDP Chair will end when my term expires next month.
Not great news for the party, which has struggled for years to find good leaders and keep them in place. There’s been a lot of turnover in the unpaid position of party chair and the paid staff position of executive director. Now they’ll be breaking in a new chair with the 2026 campaign season just around the corner.
When Ramsey was chosen as interim chair, there was another hopeful in the running: former state senator turned podcaster Andy Julow. Would he be interested in another run? Magic 8-Ball says “Ask Again Later.”
When state Sen. Russ Ingalls, a conservative Republican, bought a bunch of Northeast Kingdom radio stations earlier this year, he indulged in some high-toned blather about emphasizing local information and keeping politics out of the product.
Well, now we know how thatturned out.
As VTDigger’s Shaun Robinson reports, Ingalls has raised some ire among liberal listeners by getting rid of newscasts from major network broadcasters and the Associated Press and replacing them with, you guessed it, Fox News.
And that’s the way our capitalist media system works, isn’t it? He who pays the piper calls the tune. Ingalls is well within his rights to air whatever kind of newscasts he wants. (Thanks, it must be said, to Ronald Reagan’s deep-sixing of the Fairness Doctrine, which required broadcasters to fairly represent all points of view from the birth of electronic media until its repeal in 1987.)
Actually, when I first scanned the headline, I thought he’d replaced the stations’ entire programming with far-right conservative talk. He hasn’t. He’s decided to air Fox News in the brief window devoted to news at the top of each hour. Which usually amounts to no more than a couple minutes of news along with plenty of advertisements.
Point being, if you depend on commercial radio newscasts to keep you informed, it’s kind of like making Lunchables the foundation of your diet.
So I don’t have much of a beef with Ingalls’ decision. I do have trouble, and plenty of it, with his comments about the situation. Which reveal him to be a tunnel-visioned ideologue with no patience for criticism of himself, the country, or its current (you should pardon the expression) leadership. Not to mention his open contempt for constituents who disagree with him.
You may have heard that many sectors of the Vermont economy have been thrown into turmoil by Donald Trump’s ridiculous tariff war with Canada. From tourism to energy to craft beer and spirits to maple products to construction materials (when we’re already in a housing crisis due in large part to high building costs), we have begun feeling the pain from Trump’s Quixotic crusade. (Meaning no disrespect to the Man of La Mancha.)
One small response to the situation has come in the form of a state Senate resolution, S.R.11, “supporting warm and cooperative relations on the part of both the United States and the State of Vermont with Canada and urging President Trump to remove all tariffs that he has imposed against Canadian imports and to refrain from subsequently imposing any new tariffs against Canadian imports.”
Seems like something we can all agree with, no? Even Republican senators can see the harm that threatens their constituents from a trade war with Canada. And indeed, the vast majority of Republicans signed on as co-sponsors, joining all the Democrats and Progressive/Democrat Tanya Vyhovsky. A total of 27 names are attached to S.R.11.
Checking my math real quick, that leaves a mere three senators who haven’t signed on.
Time for some way-too-early speculation about what kind of state Senate we will have in the new biennium. To date, Sens. Jane Kitchel, Bobby Starr, Dick McCormack and Brian Campion have announced they are not seeking re-election. Sen. Dick Mazza resigned last month for health reasons, which brings us to five senior solons — in terms of lifespan and/or tenure — who won’t be there next January.
Disclaimer: The following post is based entirely on my own observations. There is not a lick of insider information at play. I do NOT have sources in Senate leadership.
By my math, the five retirees have lived a combined 372 years (average “only” 74.4 years, thanks to that 53-year-old whipper-snapper Campion, PULL UP YER PANTS young man) and legislative service totaling 158 years. That’s right, one hundred and fifty-eight, more than 31 years apiece under the Golden Dome. Also, three of the five are committee chairs.
This round of departures follows the seismic 2022 election season, when 10 senators — fully one-third of the chamber — did not return. That means fully half of the 2025 Senate will have, at most, two years of experience. In 2020, four senators stepped away (three by choice; John Rodgers came a cropper thanks to his own inattentiveness to the niceties of candidate filing law), which means that 19 members of the new Senate will have no more than four years of experience.
This, in a body that values age and seniority above all else, and normally consigns junior members to purely decorative status. It’s gonna be interesting.
Lookout world, the Young Republicans of Vermont are throwing a “Spring Fling” this Saturday at that most swingin’ of venues, the Elks Lodge in Barre. Wowie zowie.
Oh, but that’s just the beginning. The main attraction is a panel discussion featuring five Republican lawmakers, only two of whom have the slightest claim to the title “young Republican.” The guys who’ll be wearing the Steve Buscemi “How do you do, fellow kids?” costumes are Sen. Russ Ingalls and Reps. Tom Burditt and Patrick Brennan. Scintillating.
The other two panelists are a bit more germane: Reps. Casey Toof and Joe Parsons. Toof at least represents the most vibrant county in Republican politics, Franklin County. But c’mon now, you’re trying to gin up an exciting evening for young conservatives, and this is the best you can do?
But the real kicker is the complete absence of women. I mean, they don’t have a lot to choose from, but no Patricia McCoy? No Ashley Bartley? Think, fellas! Put your minds to it.
Then again, when you see the topic of discussion, you get a sense of how much brain power went into this event. Which is to say, not much.
If there was ever any doubt that the state Senate is a club unto itself, well, a close look at the chamber’s likely reapportionment map will make things perfectly clear.
First, the circumstances: After weeks and weeks of vaguely-defined “discussion,” the committee burped out its map in a 26-minute-long hearing on Thursday. Seriously, before Thursday, the agenda for each of its previous 13 meetings merely said “Committee Discussion.” At least they were open hearings, I guess.
According to VTDigger, the hearing was not warned in advance as required by law, and the map wasn’t made public until after the hearing. A procedural fail to be sure, and a worrying one by a committee chaired by Sen. Jeanette White, who chairs the Senate Government Operations Committee. You know — the one that deals with open meetings and public records laws?
Aside from process flaws, the map itself is problematic in many ways. At virtually every turn, it bows the knee to incumbency — even when doing so is a setback for the Democratic Party. You know, the party that allegedly controls the process?
If this map is enacted, it will be harder for the Democrats to keep their Senate supermajority. It will help Republicans pick up some ground, but maybe not right away; and the new Chittenden County map is the best thing to happen to the Progressive Party since David Zuckerman became lieutenant governor. (It also gives the Republicans a real shot at a Chittenden seat for the first time since Diane Snelling left the chamber.)
The newly created, three-seat Chittenden Central district includes Winooski and part of Burlington. It seems custom-made to give the Progs a real shot at winning all three seats.
Looking at the committee lineup, this may have been a case of Prog/Dem Sen. Chris Pearson pulling one over on sleepy Democrats’ eyes. He was the only member from Chittenden County, which is weird in itself. There were four Dems on the committee: the barely-there Jeanette White, the almost-a-Republican Bobby Starr, everybody’s friend Alison Clarkson, and quiet second-termer Andrew Perchlik. The two Republicans were part-time Vermonter Brian Collamore and the politically savvy Randy Brock. In sheer political terms, Pearson and Brock could run rings around the other five.
Welp, as soon as he was confronted, Sen. Russ Ingalls folded like a lawn chair. Ingalls was taken to task by Senate President Pro Tem Becca Balint for doxxing a middle school teacher… and he immediately turtled.
According to Balint, Ingalls expressed “regret and remorse” and said he would reach out directly to the teacher to make amends “for his poor judgement.”
What a warrior.
I mean, it’s the right thing to do, but he’s abandoning any pretense of principle.
He’s also ducking the media, just like a coward. “Ingalls did not respond to multiple phone calls and messages seeking comment Tuesday,” per VTDigger.
I’m sure he’ll go on being an asshole on social media and in front of friendly audiences, but when forced to confront his own actions, he can’t take the heat.
It goes without saying that state Sen. Russ Ingalls is an asshole. What might not be obvious at first glance is that he’s also a lily-livered coward.
Ingalls has gotten himself into a well-deserved spot of bother by publicly decrying — and doxxing — Sam Carbonetti, a middle school teacher who had the temerity to ask his class to “introduce themselves using their preferred names, pronouns and interests.” A parent, Ben Morley, posted a complaint on Facebook. Ingalls reposted it along with Carbonetti’s email address, so people could complain to the teacher directly.
Carbonetti posted the incident on Twitter, and quickly got an overwhelmingly supportive response. Including a tweet from Senate President Pro Tem Becca Balint, who vowed to look into possible sanctions against Ingalls.
Ingalls is an asshole because he’s so hot and bothered about nothing at all just as he is over critical race theory, about which he is wildly (and willingly) misinformed. It’s “nothing at all” because Carbonetti merely asked his students to identify themselves. He didn’t say anything about L, G, B, T, Q, I, A, or X. Morley and Ingalls made that inference in their own dirty little minds.
The Vermont Political Observer. 