Attorney general candidate Jack McMullen’s attempt to force a court hearing on alleged coordination between Bill Sorrell and a super PAC before Tuesday’s election has been thwarted.
The hearing will be held on Thursday morning, two days after the election, because Chittenden County Superior Court’s schedule is too busy to take the matter up sooner.
McMullen described the hearing as a measure of last resort to force an investigation into Sorrell’s campaign, after Gov. Peter Shumlin and Sorrell failed to initiate a review. Addison County State’s Attorney David Fenster is mulling over an identical request from Jack Lindley, Republican state chair. McMullen asked for the probe after Sorrell decided to review claims of coordination between Vermonters First and Republicans.
The thrust of McMullen’s allegation is that Howard Dean acted as an agent who facilitated coordination between the Sorrell campaign and a super PAC backed by the Democratic Attorneys General Association, by advising both on political strategy at the same time.
Sorrell and Dean have consistently denied any wrongdoing or coordination. McMullen argues, however, that Sorrell showed “willful blindness” to Dean’s consulting with both parties, and the fact that Dean’s communications with the super PAC would result in ads for Sorrell.
This could make the charge of coordination stick, said McMullen, even if Sorrell never directly requested or knew of Dean’s work for the PAC in narrating TV and radio ads.
But Sorrell maintained that he didn’t know that Dean was communicating with the super PAC at all, until after the ads featuring Dean aired. He rejected McMullen’s points about “willful blindness,” saying, “Willful blindness for what? I didn’t even know it was happening!”
“I had no discussion about any communication that he [Dean] might be having with the super PAC association,” said Sorrell.
Sorrell welcomed the news that the hearing would happen after the election. “I’d rather be doing my job or meeting with voters than taking time to fight against a frivolous lawsuit,” he said.
A campaign spending is considered coordinated if a candidate or his political committee intentionally facilitates, solicits, or approves the expenditure.
McMullen has no evidence aside from what’s already documented in public reports, including news reports and state campaign finance filings.
It’s unknown how long a civil judge could take to determine whether the Committee for Justice and Fairness’ spending of $194,000 on political ads for Sorrell was coordinated.
The Attorney General’s Office is mired in a similar prosecution of the Republican Governors Association and Brian Dubie for coordinated spending, filed in December 2011. In that suit, the state alleges that the sharing of confidential polling data worth $93,000 between the RGA and the Dubie campaign helped inform coordinated political advertising from the RGA in favor of Dubie.
The amounts exceeded Vermont’s $2,000 standard contribution limits and its $3,000 spending limits, and were therefore illegal, argues the state.
McMullen said he wouldn’t have authority to initiate a lawsuit even if the hearing determined that there had been coordinated expenditures, because in this instance, the state’s attorney has jurisdiction. The attorney general usually prosecutes violations of campaign finance rules.
In all likelihood, Election Day will be history before anything definitive emerges on this question. Still, McMullen claimed voters will care even after polls close. He believes Sorrell may face resignation or prosecution, if the court determines there’s been coordinated spending.
Sorrell countered: “This process shows what kind of AG he’d be, filing court actions and wasting court time, when he doesn’t have any facts to support his allegation.” He agreed that voters would care about the question of coordination, but added that they’d also care about a candidate filing frivolous lawsuits.
