The election of John Grismore, R/D, as Franklin County sheriff apparently prompted some hand-wringing among Franklin County Democrats. Rep. Mike McCarthy, D-St. Albans City, chair of the House Government Operations Committee and a Franklin Democrat himself, has channeled that hand-wringing into a bill that proposes a raft of changes to the state’s election laws, including the elimination of “fusion candidates,” who run under multiple party labels.
Grismore ran as a Republican, but picked up enough write-in votes on Democratic primary ballots last year to go into the general election with an R/D label. A few days after the primary, the sheriff’s office released footage of Grismore, then a deputy, kicking a handcuffed man. Grismore was later charged, and pleaded not guilty, to simple assault.
In the weeks leading up to the general election, this caused an “incredibly fraught” situation for Franklin County Democrats, local party chair Zach Scheffler testified to lawmakers Wednesday morning.
The party asked Grismore to rescind the nomination, Scheffler said, but the candidate declined to do so and ultimately went on to win the general election.
But it’s not just Franklin County Democrats fretting over who gets the party label. Vermont GOP chair Paul Dame told lawmakers that primary contests have grown too open, to the point where parties have lost control of their brand.
Like the Franklin Dems, Vermont GOP leaders point to their own unwelcome party guest. “The obvious example is Liam Madden,” Dame said in an interview. Madden, a staunch critic of the two-party system, won the Republican primary for U.S. House but would not commit to caucus with Republicans should he win the seat.
“I would happily take the Republican label and keep it a two-person race because the label means nothing to me,” Madden said last August. “The actual chance of winning means a lot more.”
So who gets to decide who is really a Democrat or a Republican or a Progressive? Is it the candidate? The voters? The party leadership?
Dame, for one, argued that voters look to party labels as a shorthand for certain political beliefs, and expect the party to conduct some sort of verification, or quality control, over who gets an R on the ballot. He suggested allowing parties to endorse candidates in the primary and designate them on the ballot, to show voters that the candidate aligned with certain beliefs, or at least agreed to caucus with the party.
This committee bill, as written, wouldn’t create such an endorsement process, but it would ban so-called “fusion candidates”: No more P/Ds, D/Ps, D/Rs, etc.
The Vermont Democratic Party was the lone entity to speak up in support of the single-label rule. Jim Dandenau, the party’s executive director, argued a single party label would help provide voters with “clarity.”
But the single-label proposal has created some … unusual political bedfellows among pretty much everyone else. Leadership from the Vermont GOP and the Vermont Progressive Party testified against the proposed fusion-label ban, as did representatives for VPIRG and the AFL-CIO.
They argued that fusion labels gave voters helpful information, defining candidates’ views within a big-tent party label.
Lt. Gov. David Zuckerman, P/D, himself a longtime fusion candidate, also appeared before the committee Wednesday to voice concerns about the bill.
“The more party-focused we make the process, the more polarizing we make the process,” Zuckerman said in an interview following his testimony.
Both Zuckerman and Liz Medina, executive director of the Vermont Labor Council, asked the committee, point blank: Why were they even considering this? Was this even a problem?
“Are people terribly upset?” Zuckerman asked the committee. “Did you hear an uprising from the general public that they’re really angry?”
McCarthy and Rep. Matt Birong, D-Vergennes, both nodded vigorously.
“In Franklin County, absolutely,” McCarthy said.
“It would be like marketing your products from your farm as like, conventionally organic,” Birong told Zuckerman.
“I would actually never do that, nor would any organic farmer,” Zuckerman replied.
Birong agreed that the hypothetical may be splitting semantic hairs, before continuing: “That is what I’ve experienced, is that they don’t really understand the political product that’s in front of them.”
— Riley Robinson
IN THE KNOW
Auditor Doug Hoffer and Tom Kavet, the Legislature’s economist, levied harsh words against proposed modifications to a bill that would reform the state’s corporate incentives program. The state Agency of Commerce and Community Development — which administers the program — is suggesting the changes.
Hoffer told the House Commerce Committee there were “huge red flags” in the agency’s suggested language for the bill, H.10, which would change the way incentives are calculated from a complex economic model to a more streamlined, but potentially less rigorous, per-job basis. Kavet said he had a “plethora” of issues with the proposal.
Fred Kenney, former executive director of the Vermont Economic Progress Council, which awards the incentives, clapped back in his testimony, saying Hoffer and Kavet both “came to the table with an agenda.” He said the new calculation would increase transparency.
Hoffer has been a longtime critic of the program. When legislators asked for the best way to fix some of the longstanding challenges of ensuring state money is well spent, he said simply, “I’d get rid of it.”
— Erin Petenko
ON THE MOVE
About 2,800 unhoused Vermonters are currently living in motels as part of the state’s emergency housing program, and earlier this month, the Vermont House greenlit a spending bill that would keep them there until June 30.
On Wednesday, the Senate’s powerful Appropriations Committee finalized its response. Its draft of this year’s budget adjustment bill, H.145, would extend the program through June as well — but not for all.
The committee also nixed $9.2 million that the House set aside for organic dairy farmers, although members indicated they’d address the farmers’ plight in separate legislation.
The appropriations committee voted unanimously to advance the bill.
— Lola Duffort
ON THE HILL
Mark your calendars: Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel will take the stand before U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and the Senate’s powerful Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee on Wednesday, March 22 at 10 a.m. ET.
As the new chair of the HELP Committee, Sanders has made it clear that he intends to take corporate executives like Bancel to task, holding their feet to the fire in high-profile accountability hearings. According to a Wednesday press release from Sanders’ office, the title of March’s upcoming hearing is, “Taxpayers Paid Billions For It: So Why Would Moderna Consider Quadrupling the Price of the COVID Vaccine?”
“Now, in the midst of a continuing public health crisis and a growing federal deficit, is not the time for Moderna to be quadrupling the price of this vaccine,” Sanders wrote to the pharmaceutical executive in a January letter. “Now is not the time for unacceptable corporate greed.”
Not every corporate executive has accepted Sanders’ cordial invitations. Sanders’ office said in a separate press release on Wednesday that Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz declined the senator’s request that he testify on the company’s response to a nationwide unionization effort at Starbucks stores.
Sanders’ take on Schultz’s negative RSVP? “It is disappointing, but not surprising,” he said.
“Apparently, it is easier for Mr. Schultz to fire workers who are exercising their constitutional right to form unions, and to intimidate others who may be interested in joining a union than to answer questions from elected officials,” Sanders said Wednesday. “If Mr. Schultz believes that a multi-billion dollar corporation like Starbucks can break federal labor law with impunity he is mistaken.”
As chair of the committee, Sanders holds a powerful trump card: He has the authority to subpoena Schultz’s testimony. He doesn’t appear to be afraid to use it.
“As the Chairman of the Senate HELP Committee, I intend to hold Mr. Schultz and Starbucks accountable for their unacceptable behavior and look forward to seeing him before our committee,” Sanders concluded.
— Sarah Mearhoff
In their first bill introduced as Vermont’s new congressional delegation, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vt., and Rep. Becca Balint, D-Vt., are taking the first legislative step in seeking wild and scenic designation for the Northeast Kingdom’s Nulhegan River and Paul Stream.
“We’ve heard from a lot of the folks up there that the wild and scenic designation is flexible in its meaning, but at its core it’s about designating a river that has special, unspoiled environmental qualities,” Welch told VTDigger on Wednesday. “And it’s intended to preserve that and continue to allow for the public use for recreation, scenic beauty and preservation.”
Commissioning a congressional study is most commonly the first step in what can be a yearslong process to achieve the designation, according to the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System, which operates under the federal Bureau of Land Management, National Parks Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and U.S. Forest Service agencies. Dating back to 1968, the system seeks to “preserve certain rivers with outstanding natural, cultural, and recreational values in a free-flowing condition for the enjoyment of present and future generations.”
— Sarah Mearhoff
WHAT WE’RE READING
Vermont’s old churches offer potential for new enterprises — if they’re not demolished first (Seven Days)
Vermont ice fishing deaths highlight safety protocols (Associated Press)