Tuesday, March 31, 2015
The RGA and the Office of the Attorney General reached a settlement to resolve a four-year-old case. The state had alleged that when the RGA ran political ads in favor of Republican candidate Brian Dubie, the organization failed to register as a political action committee and to file campaign finance reports, and also accepted contributions that exceeded the $2,000 limit.
Dubie lost a close race to Democrat Peter Shumlin. Shumlin has twice since then won reelection.
The RGA also agreed to file amended campaign finance reports within 30 days, and will detail contributions from two people in particular – Skip Vallee and Rich Tarrant.
Attorney General Bill Sorrell said in a statement that the case sends a message about campaign finance law. “It is essential that PACs make the disclosures required under the law. The public should know who is funding the activities of the PACs that seek to influence Vermont voters,” he said.
This is the second settlement between his office and the RGA in the 2010 governor’s race. In 2013, the RGA agreed to pay $30,000 in a case in which Dubie also agreed to pay $20,000. They were accused of violating state campaign finance law by sharing RGA polling data without declaring it as a contribution to Dubie’s campaign.
Tags: Brian Dubie , Republican Governors Association , Peter Shumlin , Bill Sorrell , Image , Web Only
Monday, March 30, 2015
Teachout will discuss her book Corruption in America when she takes the stage Thursday at Vermont Law School. The free event is from 5:30 to 7 p.m. in Chase Community Center at the South Royalton school. (Her father, Peter, teaches constitutional law there; her mother, Mary, is a Vermont Superior Court judge.) She’ll also be signing her book at Barrister’s Book Shop from 3:30-4:30 p.m. that day.
The 43-year-old Teachout, who grew up down the road in Norwich and teaches law at Fordham University, went from relative obscurity to prominence as the bee in Cuomo’s political bonnet during last year’s New York gubernatorial primary.
Tags: Zephyr Teachout , Corruption in America , Andrew Cuomo , Image , Web Only
The North Avenue project met with resistance from neighbors but won approval from the Burlington Development Review Board last December. COTS has now secured 90 percent of the funding for a project expected to cost approximately $6 million, according to Kathy Beyer of the nonprofit Housing Vermont, which is partnering with COTS to develop the site. The future apartments — 10 studios and two one-bedrooms — will likely provide homes for individuals rather than families.
The town of Williston had applied for the federal funding on behalf of COTS.
At the same news conference, Shumlin unveiled a plan to move all homeless families off the streets by 2020.
Tags: Peter Shumlin , homelessness , Committee on Temporary Shelter , Image , Web Only
Friday, March 27, 2015
How much should the state spend to improve access to health care? And how should it raise the money to pay for it?
Two House committees have been paralyzed over those questions for more than a week, while the window for passage begins to close.
Tags: health care , cost sharing , Vermont legislature , Janet Ancel , Bill Lippert , Shap Smith , Image , Web Only
The House passed the $33 million tax bill by a 90 to 53 partisan vote. The $5.5 billion budget bill passed by a voice vote at 6:15 p.m. Both bills go next to the Senate.
The sharpest point Republicans tried to make came late in the afternoon, with a proposal that would have cut only $180,000 from the state budget but struck close to home.
Tags: Vermont legislature , budget bill , tax bill , Image , Web Only
Sakoc was convicted in January of lying to immigration authorities to gain U.S. citizenship. Prosecutors presented evidence they said implicated him in war crimes during the conflict in Bosnia, including a rape and murders. He denied any wrongdoing.
Sakoc is free while awaiting sentencing — and potentially deportation.
Now his lawyers argue that a verdict form filled out by jurors suggests they were not convinced that he committed the war crimes about which he was accused of lying. Instead, they say, jurors found Sakoc lied based on a prosecutor's assertion that he failed to disclose his participation in military and political organizations.
Tags: Edin Sakoc , U.S. District Court , Image , Web Only
Thursday, March 26, 2015
House Speaker Shap Smith (D-Morristown) quelled a revolt Thursday fomented by legislative liberals unhappy with a budget they said cuts too deep and raises too little revenue.
Joining with most rank-and-file Republicans, a group of Progressives and Democrats sought to kill a tax bill that would raise more than $33 million in new revenue. Their goal: to force top Democrats to collect even more in taxes and use the money to stave off budget cuts.
But in an unlikely alliance, House Minority Leader Don Turner (R-Milton) helped Smith and his leadership team drum up enough votes for passage. “They felt they needed some support,” Turner said. “I said, ‘We can talk to some people.’”
Tags: Vermont budget , tax bill , Shap Smith , Image , Web Only
“How can that town clerk be assured you haven’t voted somewhere else that day?” Sen. Dustin Degree (R-Franklin) asked.
The Senate agreed to delay enacting same-day voter registration until 2017, instead of the originally proposed 2016, after complaints from town clerks. Some were worried that it would be easier for voters to get away with fraud. The Vermont Municipal Clerks' & Treasurers' Association agreed to support the bill, however, if it were delayed a year.
Sen. Anthony Pollina (P/D-Washington) argued that the ease of same-day registration in other places increases voter turnout on the order of 12 percent.
Degree contended it wasn’t worth the risk. He noted that some elections in his area have come down to a margin of just a few votes, or ended in a tie. “I think the integrity of our elections is more important than increased participation,” he said.
Julia Michel of the Vermont Public Interest Research Group countered afterward, “We think the biggest fraud is voters who don’t have the chance to vote because this arbitrary voter registration deadline gets in people’s way.”
After another vote in the Senate on Friday, the bill, S.29, heads to the House.
Tags: Vermont Senate , voter registration , voter fraud , Image , Web Only
When Liz Miller joined Gov. Peter Shumlin’s administration in January 2011, she promised to serve two years as his commissioner of public service.
Two years later, she promised another two as his chief of staff.
On Thursday, Shumlin announced that Miller will leave his administration when the legislature adjourns this May. She will be replaced by Darren Springer, who has served as deputy commissioner of the Department of Public Service since March 2013.
Miller said Thursday she has not yet lined up a new job and will wait for her departure to find one. The Burlington attorney previously worked in private practice.
“I enjoyed lawyering,” she said. “I may do that in the future, but I really, truly have not figured out the next step yet.”
Tags: Liz Miller , Darren Springer , Peter Shumlin , state administration , Image , Web Only
Attorney General Bill Sorrell accused Corren Wednesday of violating Vermont's campaign finance law last October when his campaign asked the Vermont Democratic Party to send a mass email on his behalf.
Because Corren had qualified for more than $180,000 in public financing earlier that year, the Progressive/Democrat was barred from soliciting further contributions. Sorrell alleged that the email, asking Democrats to support Corren and attend a campaign rally, amounted to an in-kind contribution.
At a press conference Wednesday afternoon at his Montpelier office, Sorrell said he'd filed suit earlier that day in Vermont Superior Court seeking to force Corren to return the roughly $52,000 in public funds his campaign had yet to spend on October 24, the day the email was sent. The attorney general said he would seek an additional $20,000 in fines for the alleged violation and for Corren's failure to report the expenditure in disclosure filings.
"Our legislature, in putting together this statute... said, 'Listen, if you're going to take the benefit, there are downsides: You have to play by the rules,'" Sorrell said. "And if you're not going to play by the rules, the penalties are significant."
Through a lawyer, John Franco, Corren disputed the allegations.
"This is really just a witch hunt by the attorney general," Franco said Wednesday. "Billy Sorrell wants to send Dean Corren to the gallows."
Tags: Dean Corren , Bill Sorrell , campaign finance , public financing , Image , Web Only