Editor’s note: Digger Dirt is a column on Vermont politics and government.
Doug Racine, Peter Shumlin and Susan Bartlett have hit a fundraising roadblock: The three Democratic state senators (out of a total of five Democratic gubernatorial primary candidates) are barred from soliciting or accepting money from a lucrative source of campaign funding — Statehouse lobbyists and the employers of lobbyists — until after June 9 when the state legislature formally adjourns.
And in a campaign season with a Democratic primary race that looks more like scrum than a head-to-head race, every dollar, and every day between now and Aug. 24 – the date of the primary — counts. A three-week fund-raising delay could play a role in determining who breaks out of the pack first.
Kevin Ellis, one of the founding partners of Kimbell, Sherman and Ellis, a Montpelier lobbying firm, predicts the delay will give the Republican candidate for governor, Brian Dubie, who doesn’t face a primary challenger, another advantage going into the General Election.
The Democrats will have a “tall mountain to climb” after the primary if they want to catch up with Dubie who will have the bucks to run TV ads before and after the primary.
“Everybody says it’s early,” Ellis said. “People have been saying it’s early for a long time. It’s going be June then July and August and people are going on vacation, not watching news, not writing checks and then there is the primary. The day after the primary, the winner better be on TV.”
The token veto session
Though lawmakers said good-bye to the Statehouse on Wednesday night, in theory they have to come back to Montpelier if the governor decides to veto any bill. Sources say it’s unlikely that legislators would return for an override session, but they are obliged under the law to hold a token session in the event of a veto, according to Don Milne, the Clerk of the Vermont House.
Gov. Jim Douglas, and his staff, are mulling over vetoes on three pieces of new legislation. The biggies, according to David Corriell, his press secretary, include S.88, a health care bill (he doesn’t like the provision requiring doctors who receive free drug samples to disclose gifts from pharmaceutical companies) and a current use bill that would impose a $128 one-time fee on all landowners who are participating in the conservation tax break program. Corriell says his boss has concerns about H.66, the school consolidation incentive bill, too, because of its potential impact on the Education Fund. And then there are the surprises administration officials may find as they comb through the hundreds of pages of legislation passed by the Vermont House and Senate over the last few weeks. “Every now and then there is an unintentional mistake in a bill we don’t foresee as a problem that needs to be addressed,” Corriell wrote in an e-mail.
A veto would trigger the June 9 token session. If Douglas decides in the next week or so not to veto any bills, the session will end sooner.
A day late and a dollar short?
The adjournment delay doesn’t only affect the fundraising efforts of Racine, Shumlin, Bartlett and other lawmakers running for office – it also partially applies to elected officials as well.
Brian Dubie, the lieutenant governor and the only Republican candidate, and Deb Markowitz, Secretary of State and a Democratic candidate for governor, can accept money from lobbyists and the entities that hire lobbyists — such as hospitals, power companies, corporations, universities and nonprofit organizations — they are merely prohibited from soliciting funds under the state’s campaign finance law.
That discrepancy gives Dubie and Markowitz a three-week head start over the other three contenders.
Matt Dunne, on the other hand, who is a former lawmaker, can solicit and accept funding from either type of contributor — pretty much whenever he wants, though his campaign manager, Kevin O’Holleran said “We haven’t made targeting those contributions a part of our campaign whatsoever.”
Though none of the candidates wanted to shout to the mountaintops that they will be looking for handouts from lobbyists — who from a public perception standpoint are on a par with used car salesmen and lawyers — there’s little doubt that candidates will. In a race that’s about as crowded as the Kentucky Derby starting line, the Democrats don’t have a choice but to ask the groups that employ lobbyists to watch and shape the action at the Statehouse to contribute to their coffers.
That said, five of the campaign managers I talked with (Dubie’s campaign manager, Cory Bliss, and yours truly didn’t manage to connect over the phone) emphasized that the delay isn’t going to hurt their fundraising strategies.
Paul Tencher, Markowitz’s campaign manager, said relying on lobbyists for money “is not a fundraising strategy we’re banking on.” (Though he didn’t say whether tapping lobbyists’ employers would be part of that plan.)
“We have nearly 2,000 donors in Vermont and our average donation is $65,” Tencher said. “We’re not going to make out from the inside Montpelier gang.”
Alexandra MacLean, Shumlin’s campaign manager, said the fundraising delay isn’t going to hamper the Windham County Democrat’s campaign.
Racine hasn’t changed his game plan because of the potential veto session. “You never know when the session is going to end,” said Amy Shollenberter, Racine’s campaign manager. “Our plan was always flexible. It would have been easier if (adjournment) had been earlier, but that’s the way it is.”
Bartlett isn’t worried about the fundraising delay “at all,” according to John Bauer, her campaign manager. “Lobbyists are a potential point of support, but they’re by far and away not the only source. If we can’t raise money from lobbyists, then no one else can. It’s still early as far as most people are concerned – over half of the voters haven’t made up their minds.”
There are 428 registered lobbyists in the state of Vermont, and they represent a who’s who of moneyed and upper middle class Vermonters: accountants, engineers, physicians, retailers, dentists, lawyers, bankers, general contractors, manufacturers and corporate executives.
Lobbyists who frequent the marble-floored halls of the Golden Bubble also represent powerful corporations, some of which are based in-state, and others that have an interest in Vermont. Here’s a short list: Green Mountain Power, Central Vermont Public Service, Vermont Ski Area Associations, Corrections Corporation of America, Entergy, National Rifle Association, Pfizer, Inc., IBM, National Life Group, Verizon Wireless, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Vermont, Goodrich Corporation, Novartis Pharmaceutical Corporation, American Express, CVS, Walmart, Johnson and Johnson, and Altria.
Though these groups lobby in Vermont, it’s hard to say to what extent they’d finance gubernatorial campaigns – that’s because of the current ice-out for legislative candidates and because of the disclosure schedule. The last time candidates were required to reveal how much they had raised was July 15, 2009; they won’t have to submit statements to the Secretary of State’s office again until July 15, 2010. After that, they have to report monthly through the campaign season.
Vermont law sets the limit for contributions from entities and individuals at $1,000, but a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision threw out all caps on campaign funding.
Race comes down to money and people on the ground
So how is the fundraising/field work going? It depends on who you ask.
Though Dubie’s campaign manager wasn’t available for comment on Saturday, it would appear the lieutenant governor has moved aggressively into new media. He has procured feel-good ads on Yahoo and Facebook and a new ad on the New York Times web site that questions Vermont’s anti-business reputation, which Markowitz brought attention to last week. On Monday, according the Burlington Free Press, he will launches a video campaign titled “Pure Vermont.” (See the video teaser at the end of this post.)
Dubie has the edge in new media, according to Ellis, and whether the New York Times ad is the right marketing pitch at the right time, in some ways, doesn’t matter.
“It’s fashionable for people to say Brian Dubie is an aw-shucks kind of guy,” Ellis said. “This (the New York Time ad) shows he’s willing to hire somebody who is going to take him into new media, and whether it works or not he’s out front on it and that’s good for him and bad for others.”
Of the Democrats, Markowitz appears to be out front on fundraising. Last year, she raised more than $200,000, and she recently garnered support from Emily’s List, which funds the political campaigns of women running for office. Tencher said Markowitz has four full-time staffers on the ground.
Bartlett, according to John Bauer, her campaign manager, has been taking a break since the end of the legislative session. Though that depends on how you define “break.” Bartlett was on the campaign trail yesterday at two events and will be attending meet-and-greets through the weekend on the heels of several very long weeks at the Statehouse. Bartlett, chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, ushered through the budget, which included the Challenges for Change government restructuring plan.
Racine was also engrossed in his work in his Senate work and only started his campaign tour in the last few days. He recently named Amy Shollenberger, his field director, as his campaign manager. He also has a second full-time staffer who handles fundraising and field work. Shollenberger described the Racine campaign as a “tightly run ship” that relies on about 50 volunteers.
“We’re running on a grassroots campaign,” Shollenberger said.
Shumlin, who serves as the Senate President Pro Tem, has been preoccupied with the leading the Legislature through a difficult session. He recently announced Alexandra MacLean as his campaign manager, and he formally launches his campaign tour until May 24th at events in Burlington and Putney.
Dunne’s campaign was the first to go on the offensive. Last week he challenged his contenders to fill out a congressional financial disclosure form as an added measure of transparency (it requires a listing of assets and investments), though it doesn’t look like any of them will meet his May 17 deadline. O’Holleran said the move was designed to make the campaigns more transparent.
It was also a line of attack. Dunne accused Markowitz of failing to improve the state’s arguably weak open government laws, and a tit for tat ensued between the two campaigns (Tencher says Dunne didn’t advance legislation strengthening the public record and meeting laws when he served as a lawmaker).
Dunne is now on the trail full-time — he took a leave of absence from his day job at Google on Friday.
