Tag Archives: Tanya Vyhovsky

Steven Heffernan is a Sad Excuse for a Man, and a Worse Excuse for a Senator

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Addison County Sen. Steven Heffernan, seen here being endorsed by our allegedly “moderate” governor, has done it again. He’s outed himself as a bigot, and is now trying to avoid the political damage that should result. Last time it was bravely ducking out of the Senate chamber when the roll was called for PR.4, which would add an equal protection clause to the state constitution. This time, he’s trying to explain why he’s not an ignorant bigot after making remarks on the Senate floor that were clearly both ignorant and bigoted.

And I do hope somebody asks Phil Scott if he has any second thoughts about the quality of his endorsements. Because Heffernan has revealed himself as an archconservative far away from our political mainstream in general and the politics of normally blue Addison County in particular.

The remarks in question were delivered on the Senate floor last Friday, May 15, and went unreported in the media until top Democrats started raising holy hell about them. Even now there’s been absolutely minimal coverage — an outrageous state of affairs when compared with the brouhaha over much milder remarks made by former senator Sam Douglass. Heffernan’s statements in the official record were far more toxic than anything posted by Douglass on Young Republican message boards.

The only story I’ve seen was tucked at the bottom of VTDigger’s “Daily Briefing” column for today, Wednesday May 20. The piece included Heffernan’s lame effort to explain himself, which beggars credulity. There’s been zero reporting from Seven Days or Vermont Public or even The Addison Independent as of this writing.

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Seems Fair to Conclude that the Legislature’s Sexual Harassment Policy Is a Dismal Failure

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“This has been an open secret for eight years.”

That’s the kicker quote in Lola Duffort’s excellent story for Vermont Public, cataloguing the various ways that former state representative Bob Hooper was a serial creep toward women since at least 2018, including his entire seven-year career in the Vermont House. As I read it, the same thought kept barging to the front of my mind: How in the Hell did it go on for so long?

This is, after all, a chamber whose leadership promises “zero tolerance for sexual harassment, discrimination, or any hostile behavior.” This is a chamber that ranks near the top in terms of female representation. The Speaker of the House has been a woman (Mitzi Johnson, Jill Krowinski) since 2017. In the current biennium, House Democratic caucus leadership consists of seven women and no men.

And yet Bob Hooper’s creeptastic ways were allowed to continue year after year.

I’ve written before, time after time, that the primary goals of the Legislature’s internal policing mechanisms are not punishing the guilty or ensuring a safe work environment, but rather avoiding embarrassment and protecting offenders as much as possible.

It ain’t right, and leadership ought to be ashamed of itself for repeatedly enabling Hooper’s inappropriate, touchy-feely ways.

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‘Tis the Season for Strained Racing Analogies

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Looks like a real contest is developing in the Chittenden Central state Senate district, where three seats will be up for grabs in 2026. The three sitting solons, who seem likely to run for re-election, may find as many as four other names on the Democratic primary ballot next August.

In other words, Donkey Race!

Chittenden-Central is, geographically speaking, the smallest Senate district by a longshot. On a map it resembles Nepal after encontering an old-fashioned laundry mangle. It includes much of northern and central Burlington, the city of Winooski, a bit of Colchester, the city of Essex Junction, and part of the town of Essex. Politically speaking, it may be the most liberal Senate district in the state. The incumbents are Senate President Pro Tem Phil Baruth, listed on the ballot as a D/P, Democratic Sen. Martine Laroque Gulick, and P/D Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky.

So who’s running? Glad you asked.

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“This Broke the Democratic Caucuses”

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First, the obligatory note about Famous Quotes. They’re all a lie, apparently.

This one is either an “Afghan Proverb” or it was said by Benjamin Hooks or John C. Maxwell or James M. Kouzas, take your choice. I’m just surprised it hasn’t been attributed to the Grand Champions of “I Didn’t Actually Say That”: Abraham Lincoln, Albert Einstein, and Yogi Berra.

Whoever said it, it applies here. The Democratic leadership of the House and Senate played a very dangerous game when they jammed through H.454, the “education reform” bill that’s all about squeezing the public education system and protecting the interests of Vermont’s big private schools. Yeah, they won. They got their grand bargain with Gov. Phil Scott. But at what cost?

It’s almost unheard of for a major bill to pass a legislative body with most of the majority lawmakers voting “No,” and that’s exactly what happened here. Virtually all the Republicans voted in lockstep with the governor, while most Democrats in the House and Senate spurned their leadership and rvoted against H.454.

There’s a reason such a maneuver is almost unheard of, and it’s expressed in my headline. “This broke the Democratic caucuses” is what one majority lawmaker told me, and added that House and Senate leaders “are isolated and insulated from their caucuses.”

Need I say that this is an unhealthy situation, and that it bodes ill for the 2026 session and the November elections? Need I add that leadership needs to put in some serious time mending fences? They should, but based on past performance I have little confidence that they will.

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Let’s Take a Moment to Marvel at the Dispassionate Reasoning of Vermont Conservatives

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Thankfully, the tide appears to be ebbing on the Great Statehouse Trans PANIC! of 2025. It’s been days since the Vermont Daily Chronicle could gin up any fresh angles on the ridiculous story. Which, as a reminder, featured a group of Christian conservatives whining — inaccurately — that their free speech rights had been trampled by a handful of trans folk dancing around a Statehouse meeting room. As we previously noted, there is no First Amendment right to deliver speech in a given location or on a given medium.

But before we consign this fiasco to the dustbin of history, we should take note of two particularly ridiculous attempts to exploit this mildest of contretemps. First, a tiny extremist “parental rights” group unwittingly exposing the absurdity of its own claims. And second, the head of the Vermont Republican Party claiming that state lawmakers have a solemn duty to maintain a perfect attendance record.

This will involve a bit of exposure to the rantings of SPEAKVT, a group of far-right rabble-rousers in the Essex-Westford school district. The group’s president Marie Tiemann put out a statement about the March 12 “detransitioning” event sponsored by SPEAKVT and the Vermont Family Alliance. Funny thing, her statement is kind of a self-own.

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The Business Elites Expand Their Portfolio, and Other Notes from the 9/1 Campaign Finance Filings

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Well, those Burlington-area business types have slightly expanded their playing field as they try to weaken the Legislature’s ability to override gubernatorial vetoes. They’d backed a handful of centrist Democratic challengers to Dem/Prog incumbents (most notably Stewart Ledbetter and Elizabeth Brown*, only to see them all go down to defeat. (A similar effort was made by Brattleboro businessfolk in support of an unsuccessful challenge to Rep. Emilie Kornheiser.) They also backed some Republican hopefuls with a chance to knock off Democratic incumbents in November including LG candidate John Rodgers, two state reps running for Senate, Pat Brennan and Scott Beck, and the uncle-and-nephew tag team of Leland and Rep. Michael Morgan, running in a two-seat House district currently split between the two parties.

*We’d previously noted that Brown spent an appalling $35 per vote. It was actually $35.42, for those keeping score at home.

And now that same bunch of Vermont-scale plutocrats is throwing their weight, in the form of four-figure donations, behind Rep. Chris Mattos, running for Senate in the Chittenden North district currently repped by Sen. Irene Wrenner, and Steven Heffernan, Republican Senate candidate in Addison County. (A district that, according to Matthew Vigneau, solid Twitter follow and bigger election nerd than I, hasn’t elected a Republican to the Senate since the year 2000. Which was the year of the great civil-unions backlash that saw Republicans win in multiple unexpected locations, so grain of salt required.)

I haven’t come across any similarly blessed Republican candidates for House, but I didn’t do an exhaustive search. Then again, perhaps these low-grade plutocrats have decided (as have I) that the House is a lost cause for the Republicans.

So who’s giving how much to whom?

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The Best Senator Money Can Buy

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I guess Stewart Ledbetter is serious about this midlife crisis “running for office” thing. Because of all the campaign finance filings submitted by yesterday’s deadline, the former WPTZ anchor slash cromulent host of “Vermont This Week” reported a truly eye-popping $49,189 in donations — the vast majority in increments of more than $100.

And if there was any doubt about his centrist leanings, a perusal of his donor list would drown all uncertainty under a tsunami of conservative and business community cash. The Big Boys want to see Ledbetter in the Senate.

Where do I even begin? How about this: Ledbetter got big-dollar gifts from a total of 51 people. The average donation from each? A smidge under $900. And heck, if you roll in the 50 small donors, the average single donation to Ledbetter for Senate was a hefty $477.12.

He’s rollin’ in it. Can he buy a Senate seat? It remains to be seen, but he’s sure as hell trying.

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Penny for Your Thoughts, Madam Secretary

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I only have one question about two state senators filing a lawsuit over the appointment of Zoie Saunders as interim education secretary after her nomination for the permanent job was rejected by the Senate.

Why only two senators?

Well, I do have another question: What must Saunders be thinking? If I were to guess, it’d be something along the lines of “How did I get myself into this?”

She quit a job she’d barely started in an area that had been her home for years and moved her family a thousand miles north, just to be used as a political shield by the Scott administration and see her reputation dragged over the coals. And this legal challenge could prevent her from serving at all.

My sympathy is limited because she’s a grown-up who made her own choices and she freely accepted a job that she’s unqualified for, but there is a human being in the middle of this uncomfortable mess.

Now, back to the first question: Why did only two senators sign onto the lawsuit?

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I Think I Know Why This Man Is Smiling

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For all of Gov. Phil Scott’s tough talk about the budget and how tight we’ve got to be with our money, you might not guess that he and his top officials are due to get some very healthy raises in the new fiscal year.

The Pay Act, H.889, has been floating serenely through the Legislature to little to no public notice. The House has passed it, and I don’t doubt the Senate will follow along before adjournment. I hadn’t heard a peep about it until Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky tweeted this the other day:

Yep, that’s right, 6.4% pay raises for the governor and all his appointees.

To be fair (if only for a moment), that figure is exactly what state employees are getting in their collectively-bargained contracts. But you know, it might have occurred to the governor and his tight-fisted apparatchiks that a voluntary gesture of self-discipline might be in order. You know, in light of the fact that we allegedly can’t afford to provide enough shelter for our homeless population.

Especially the governor himself. Especially when, as Sen. Vyhovsky pointed out, the Pay Act would make him the second highest paid governor in the country.

That’s right. Humble ol’ Gov. Phil Scott is pulling down a top-of-the-heap salary for leading our brave little state. Emphasis on “little,” because if we compared state budgets and governors’ salaries, Scott would lead the pack by a country mile.

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The Progressives Have a Retention Problem

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Latest from the developing 2024 campaign in Burlington: Not one, but two Progressive city councilors will not seek re-election. The departures of Zoraya Hightower and Joe Magee will leave only two incumbent Progressives: Gene Bergman, elected in 2022*, and Melo Grant, elected last March.

Yep, the most tenured Progressive councilor will have been in office for only two years.

Not that they’ll lose a whole lot of seniority. Hightower is currently the senior Prog, and she’s only been in office since 2020. And that’s the thing: the Vermont Progressive Party has a severe retention issue — not only in Burlington, but in the Statehouse as well. The result is a party spinning its wheels and having to work very hard just to not lose any ground.

*Note: Bergman may have been elected fairly recently, but he’s been around Burlington politics for a long time and, in fact, served on what was then the Board of Aldermen in the late 80s to early 90s.

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