It’s been less than a week since lawmakers left the Golden Bubble, and the scrutiny of faux pas and ramped up campaign rhetoric have already begun in earnest.
Seven Days reported on Thursday that Republican candidate for governor, Sen. Randy Brock, ran afoul of campaign finance rules last month when he inadvertently sent a fundraising solicitation in the mail to lobbyists.
It’s illegal for candidates to accept — or seek — donations from lobbyists while the Legislature is in session.
It was the second mailing Brock sent out since he announced his candidacy last winter, but it was the first time he’d made the mistake of asking lobbyists for money — unintentionally.
Brock issued a statement:
Our software has a flag that identifies lobbyists and excludes them from solicitations. It appears that there was an error in which the exclusion failed with the mailing house for the solicitation. We have since established additional controls to prevent any future errors. We have also reviewed the entire database to ensure we have properly flagged all Vermont-registered lobbyists. Our disclaimer was designed to provide an additional level of protection to ensure we adhered to the law. We have not and will not accept any such contributions until the session formally ends.
Because of a computer glitch, about 100 lobbyists got the missive, he said. There are about 400 lobbyists registered with the Vermont Secretary of State.
“You don’t want things like this to happen,” Brock said. “All I can say it was a technical glitch, and we’ve taken measures to make sure it won’t happen again.”
Brock told potential donors in the letter that he’s trying to raise $5,000 a day in order to combat Gov. Peter Shumlin’s “risky” policies on health care reform, “illegal aliens” and renewable energy.
“Vermont has become a laboratory for extreme policies,” Brock wrote. “These risky policies are out of step with our neighbors, and in many cases, with the rest of the country.”
The fundraising appeal included a clause — “letter is not intended for any lobbyist or lobbyist employer registered with the State of Vermont” — that Brock says protects his campaign from violating restrictions on solicitations made during the legislative session.
Gov. Peter Shumlin got into hot water last year when it sent out a campaign email that landed in the inboxes of lobbyists.
Jake Perkinson, chair of the Vermont Democratic Party, says that situation was different. The email list included the names of people who had opted in to the automatic update function.
Brock, on the other hand, sent letters to physical addresses for lobbying firms.
“I was quite taken aback that it happened and I’m not sure what the problem was,” Perkinson said.
Wilton launches bid for treasurer
Wendy Wilton, city treasurer of Rutland, who has publicly questioned the financial underpinnings of the Shumlin administration’s plans for a single payer system is running for state treasurer.
Wilton is challenging the incumbent, Democrat Beth Pearce, for the No. 3 post, and she’ll make it official on Monday when she makes the announcement at the Rutland City offices. Gov. Jim Douglas and Mayor Chris Louras are expected to endorse her.
Wilton says she’s running for the constitutional office because she says it’s hard to find “real time accurate information about the state of Vermont’s financial operations” online.
“I know where to look, you have to fish around for it in a couple of different places,” Wilton says. She said the information should be prominently posted because she said “expectations for this level of accountability is going to be much more stringent.”
Another concern? The size of the state’s unfunded liability for teacher and state worker pensions. “The state’s made promises and it’s underfunded the pensions,” Wilton said. “The treasurer is not the policy maker there but the treasurer can be the catalyst for change.”
Wilton, 53, has served as city treasurer for five years and during that time helped to bring Rutland’s finances back into balance. When she came on board the city had to borrow $5 million. That debt is now $2 million, she said.
Wilton, a UVM grad and native Vermonter, has worked in the banking industry as a mortgage loan originator and as an adviser for the Vermont Small Business Development Center.
Pearce, for her part, has never run for office. She was appointed as state treasurer in 2010 by Gov. Peter Shumlin. Her campaign manager, Sam Winship, says she will announce her bid in a few weeks.
Pearce is well-respected in financial circles and has long experience in the field. She served as deputy state treasurer in Massachusetts before she filled the same position for Jeb Spaulding about 10 years ago.
Read Paul Heintz’s profile of Pearce in Seven Days.
Kimbell declines debate with Wilton
The date was set, the event was publicized, but some of the originally invited speakers aren’t coming to a debate in Manchester this Saturday on the Shumlin administration’s health care reform efforts.
Steve Kimbell, commissioner of the Department of Financial Regulation (formerly known as BISCHA), has attended about 50 forums on the subject around the state — three of them in Bennington County — but he has declined to participate in this one, he said, because Wilton has announced her bid as a statewide candidate and plans to use health care as a campaign issue. Kimbell suggested she debate Pearce on the matter. His job, he said, is to participate in substantive debate on the issues — not the politics.
“She’s turned this into a political issue, and I’m not going to play this game,” Kimbell said. “This is Wendy’s doing, she’s changed her identity. If that’s her campaign for treasurer, she’s going to have to do it on the campaign trail.”
In a previous forum in Wells, organized by conservatives who are skeptical of the plan, Kimbell said he was outnumbered by anti-single payer advocates three-to-one. “They didn’t tell me it was going to be that kind of event,” Kimbell said. He was worried about the tenor of the Manchester debate even though Peter Sterling, a health care advocate for low-income Vermonters, would have attended, too. Sterling also backed out.
“It’s not a question of appearing with people who don’t agree with us, it’s question of substantial educational sessions about health care reform,” Kimbell said. “I’m not going to get into the political discussion over this administration’s goals for health care or debate with a candidate for treasurer about dollars and cents.”
Kimbell, who has debated Wilton in the past, says he would have gone to the debate if Wilton had been “uninvited.”
Phil Arbolino, a financial adviser based in Manchester, organized the debate and sent fliers to 600 local businesses.
Arbolino said he “really wanted to show both sides of the issue,” and he thought this was a lost opportunity for Kimbell and Sterling.
“I’m disappointed,” Arbolino said. “I really felt that we here in southwest vermont don’t often get face to face contact from the administration. These things typically happen in Montpelier or Burlington.”
Kimbell, who has made three appearances in Bennington County since last year, said he will be speaking at events in Bennington and Rutland next week.
Wilton, an outspoken critic of single payer, attended a health care forum in Newport last weekend where she announced her candidacy and criticized the Shumlin administration’s proposal to build a single payer health care system that would provide care for all Vermonters.
Wilton told the assembled parties, including a reporter from The Caledonian-Record that the system will result in a $2 billion deficit in five years if the state has to fund it without federal support from a tax credit program under the Affordable Care Act. The U.S. Supreme Court is currently deliberating on the constitutionality of the federal law.
The Shumlin administration is still developing plans for the single-payer system and cost estimates will not be available until January 2013 — after the General Election. The governor’s staff has said the state will use $200 million to $400 million in federal tax credits that will be available through the federal Affordable Care Act.
A report commissioned by the Shumlin administration estimates that a single payer system would generate savings of $1.834 billion by 2020. The Joint Fiscal Office’s savings projection is $553 million for that same period. Steve Kappel, an analyst who worked with Professor William Hsiao a renowned health care economist, is skeptical of Wilton’s numbers.
Read the VTDigger.org analysis.
Arbolino, who describes himself as Republican and a “real fiscal conservative,” says counting on $400 million a year in tax credits is “specious at best,” given the dynamic in Washington.
The Manchester forum is at 10 a.m. on Saturday at the Manchester Elementary School.
Kimbell is participating in two forums held by MVP, a Syracuse, N.Y.-based insurance company, on Wednesday May 16. The first is from 7:30 a.m. to 10 a.m. at Mount Anthony Country Club in Bennington. The second is from noon to 2:30 at the Holiday Inn in Rutland. The panelists include Kimbell, Betsy Bishop, President, Vermont Chamber of Commerce; Frank Fanshawe, MVP’s VP of Corporate Affairs; Mitch Fleischer, President, Fleischer Jacobs Group; Susan Gretkowski, MVP’s Senior Government Affairs Strategist, and Dr. Daniel McCauliffe, Dermatologist, Rutland Skin Center. The panel will discuss: how a single-payer system will change Vermont’s health care market; how a health benefit exchange will impact benefits and employers; how Supreme Court deliberations could impact state efforts; and how cross-border issues will impact coverage and provider reimbursements.
Disclosure: Anne Galloway is moderating the Manchester debate on Saturday.
A Hoffer-Salmon rematch in the making
Doug Hoffer is interested in taking on incumbent state auditor Tom Salmon one more time. Hoffer lost to Salmon in the 2010 election.
Though he says it’s a little premature — Hoffer hasn’t formally announced — he also hasn’t let go of the idea that he is qualified for the job and he believes the auditor’s office “can be more useful.” He’ll be seeking an endorsement for his candidacy from the Democratic State Committee on Saturday.
Hoffer, a policy analyst who worked for former auditor Ed Flanagan, said he’s qualified, experienced and he has “a record of doing work that is evidence-based.
“An auditor who is focussed can add value,” Hoffer said. “I don’t think the present auditor is doing that.”
Salmon, who had previously toyed earlier this year with the idea of running for governor or taking on U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, verified via text on Thursday night that he will be running again.
Salmon beat Hoffer by about 15,000 votes in the last election.
Editor’s note: This story was updated at 5:14 a.m.
Correction: We previously reported that Hoffer worked for KPMG. He says his contract was with Flanagan.
