The Vermont Democratic Party has filed a complaint against the conservative broadcasting company True North Radio for failing to disclose alleged lobbying activity with the Secretary of State’s Office.
In February, True North Radio — which is affiliated with the conservative blog True North Reports — purchased dozens of spots from WCAX to air advertisements that appear to oppose the Affordable Heat Act, or S.5, just as lawmakers in Montpelier began hashing out details of the bill.
In a complaint filed on Thursday with the offices of the state attorney general and secretary of state, the Democratic Party alleges that True North Radio failed to file lobbying activity disclosures, as required by state law.
In the ad, which is still viewable on YouTube, a narrator says that “the Vermont Senate is debating a bill that could add a 70 cent or more carbon tax to home heating fuels.” In its complaint, the Democratic Party noted that the ad does not name S.5 specifically, but “there was no other bill being debated in the Vermont Senate on the topic of reducing fossil heating fuel use at that time.”
Vermont state lobbying disclosure laws require that an advertisement “intended, designed, or calculated to influence legislative action or to solicit others to influence legislative action” be disclosed within 48 hours of purchase if the ad costs more than $1,000.
According to WCAX’s most recently updated invoices for True North Reports, available through the Federal Communications Commission, True North Radio as of March 26 had purchased 36 spots with the station between Feb. 24 and March 6, totaling $16,185.
At the end of the ad, on-screen text discloses that it was paid for by True North Radio, whose treasurer and director are Lenore Broughton, a famed conservative mega-donor in Vermont.
VTDigger could not reach Broughton by telephone or email on Friday, and an email to True North Reports’ editorial desk went unanswered.
In an emailed response to VTDigger’s request for comment on Friday, Assistant Attorney General Laura Rowntree said the office is still processing the complaint.
Secretary of State Sarah Copeland Hanzas told VTDigger that, with the ad buy totaling more than $1,000, the question before the Attorney General’s Office — who is tasked with enforcing Vermont’s lobbying disclosure laws — is whether the advertisement constitutes lobbying. The Secretary of State’s Office does not have the authority to enforce the law and, as of Friday afternoon, Copeland Hanzas said she had yet to view the ad herself.
“Because this is a fast-breaking situation, and because we don’t do enforcement, we haven’t investigated whether the activities that True North has undertaken constitute lobbying,” Copeland Hanzas said. “But we can say that they are most certainly not currently registered as a lobbyist.”
According to records kept by the Secretary of State’s Office, as of Friday afternoon neither True North Radio nor True North Reports had registered any lobbyists. And Broughton herself is not listed as a lobbyist.
There is, however, a carve-out in Vermont’s lobbying disclosure law — for news outlets.
The statute provides an exception for “a person who owns, publishes, or is employed by any news medium while engaged solely in the acquisition or dissemination of news on behalf of the news medium.”
True North Radio and True North Reports purport to be news outlets, their slogan proclaiming to offer “the other side of Vermont’s news.”
But the Vermont Democratic Party’s complaint alleges that the advertisement contains opinions, not rigorous journalism, and offers a “completely one-sided portrayal of (S.5), making no attempt to alert viewers of the ad to competing perspectives.”
“It lacks all of the hallmarks typically associated with bona fide journalism,” the party alleges in its complaint. “The ad patently falls outside the narrow exception applicable to bona fide news outlets disseminating actual news and is instead clearly ‘intended, designed, and calculated’ to influence legislative action.”
“In the end,” Copeland Hanzas told VTDigger, “Vermonters want to know who is doing the very organized activities to try to sway lawmakers one way or the other, so we certainly hope that anyone who is embarking in lobbying activities is appropriately registering with our office.”
