Though the 2012 election is 18 months away, it’s apparently not too soon to start lobbing accusations at your opponent, and it’s never, ever too early to raise money. The latter is a never-ending proposition for statewide candidates, particularly those of the gubernatorial persuasion. And the former? Well, let’s just say turnabout is fair play.
A recent dustup that hit all the state’s media outlets it seems (except VTDigger.org — we were deep in health care redux mode at the time), illustrates those campaign principles. The Vermont GOP and the Vermont Democratic Party engaged in tit-for-tat campaign finance violation allegations this week — and both entities now are battling it out in dueling complaints filed with the Attorney General’s office. Suddenly, it feels like the middle of last fall’s gubernatorial campaign season all over again.
State law prohibits legislators and administrative officials from asking lobbyists and special interest groups for money until after the end of the legislative biennium. That means candidates have to wait until next summer to begin hitting up the undue influencers. Both parties accuse governors of the opposite persuasion, former and present, of violating that prohibition.
Pat McDonald, chair of the Vermont GOP, started the fight. On Monday, she took her case to the court of public opinion: She accused Gov. Peter Shumlin, a Democrat, of soliciting contributions from lobbyists via email.
Here’s a sampling from McDonald’s email blast, which was presented in the form of an open letter to Shumlin: “Your (Shumlin’s) email solicitations dated April 6th and April 18th are clear violations of this campaign finance law which has existed for more than a decade. As a seasoned politician, it’s fair to assume you know campaign finance law quite well and there is no excuse for these types of violations.” Read the full letter.
Here’s a link to the Shumlin emails to potential campaign contributors. The two letters in question were appeals to the Democratic base — one was a pitch for support of the universal health care reform bill, H.202; the other celebrated the governor’s testimony before Congress about his efforts to work with unions to reduce the state’s budget.
McDonald’s parting comment in her letter to Shumlin was a subtle reference to the attacks made on his character during the bruising 2010 election. “As governor, you swore an oath to uphold the laws of our state — including those, like this one, that you seem to have ignored.”
Jesse Bragg, the executive director of the Vermont Democratic Party, explained the email letters were inadvertent, the result of members of the public, including lobbyists, randomly signing up for alerts from Shumlin’s campaign website. (Anyone can drop their email address into a form box on the front page of most websites.) Bragg promised to scrub the party’s address list.
On Wednesday, McDonald took her complaint to the Vermont Attorney General William Sorrell in a formal letter.
At that point, the Vermont Democratic Party pounced — it also filed a complaint with Sorrell. Turns out Gov. Jim Douglas had also potentially violated the law in 2009 by doing the same thing — only his solicitations were on paper.
In the March 2, 2009, missive, Douglas made it clear to possible donors that he had “held the line on new gas taxes, payroll taxes, income taxes and others because I know that as the highest-taxed people in the entire country, Vermonters can’t afford any new taxes.”
The letter was sent during session in which the Democrats voted to override the Douglas’ veto of the budget and gay marriage. (It also was the session in which McDonald, then a representative, voted to sustain the governor’s veto on campaign finance reform.)
The Dems cite the same statute the GOP used in its letter to Sorrell: 2 V.S.A. 266. The law prohibits “politicians from using the legislative session as a political fundraising tool and to prevent lobbyists from using contributions to influence public policy or to create the perception of undue influence.” Bragg says the letter was sent directly to at least one registered lobbyist during the legislative session.
“This violation is a very serious matter, particularly because of the nature of the communication,” Bragg wrote in a statement. “While email lists are of an “opt-in” nature by the recipient, the piece attached is direct mail. The list of recipients was intentionally created by the Douglas campaign in order to solicit contributions. This is a clear violation of the law.”
Bragg says the GOP’s claim against the Shumlin for Governor Campaign is “frivolous in comparison.” He also argued that the alleged messages were sent via email communications — the list of recipients was not purposefully created, unlike the letter from Douglas.
The Vermont GOP has apparently settled on a strategy: attack early and often. And the Dems appear to be willing to respond in kind. So begins 2012 campaign season. BTW, the GOP doesn’t have a candidate for the governor’s race yet.
