Monday, May 12, 2014
"I am thinking seriously of a run but will not decide until filing deadline," Scott Milne told Seven Days in an emailed statement.
Milne said he wasn't available for an interview because he's traveling in North Africa, "and cell [service] isn't great — kind of like Vermont, but worse."
Tags: Scott Milne , governor's race , Image , Web Only
Thursday, May 8, 2014
"I think this one of the most exciting times since I've been involved in Vermont and Vermont politics," the Burlington Progressive says. "I think we're on the verge of doing things we've been talking about for many decades — things the people want and the politicians are catching up with."
Corren announced Wednesday that he plans to challenge Republican Lt. Gov. Phil Scott for the state's number two office. He's joining a field that already includes John Bauer, a Democratic Party activist from Jeffersonville, and Marina Brown, a Liberty Union Party candidate from Charleston.
And that may not be all. Top Democrats have been casting about for a better-known alternative to Bauer, and several legislators and administration officials are apparently considering a run.
Tags: Senator , politics , campaigns , Bernie Sanders , Marina Brown , Image , Web Only
Monday, April 21, 2014
That's the main — if not terribly surprising — takeaway from a newly released poll conducted earlier this month by the Castleton Polling Institute on behalf of VTDigger.
The poll, which queried 682 Vermonters over the course of a week, found that 49 percent approve of "the job Peter Shumlin is doing as governor of Vermont," while 40 percent disapprove. Eleven percent said they weren't sure or didn't have an opinion. The poll's margin of error was +/-4 percent.
So what does it mean?
Wednesday, April 16, 2014
Sanders might be the one considering a run for president, but Sen. Patrick Leahy outraises him this quarter.
During the first three months of 2014, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) raised more than $223,000 between his two campaign accounts, according to documents filed this week with the Federal Election Commission. In that same period, Sanders' campaign accounts brought in $114,00, while Congressman Peter Welch's (D-Vt.) took in nearly $105,000.
Of the three, Sanders is still sitting on the biggest pile of cash. The second-term senator has more than $4 million in his reelection campaign account and another $196,000 in his leadership political action committee, called Progressive Voters of America. If he sits out the 2016 presidential race, Sanders won't face another election until 2018.
Tags: Senator , Vermont Congressional delegation , fundraising , campaign finance , PACs , Bernie Sanders , Image , Recommended Reading , Web Only
Tuesday, April 8, 2014
The conditions were ripe to invoke that deal this year. Republican Kurt Wright (Ward 4) said he had rounded up all seven non-Democratic votes: “I had the ability to be elected. The votes were there.”
But on Monday night, Progressive Jane Knodell (Ward 2) — a longtime friend and political ally of Wright’s — nominated Shannon for a third year at the helm, lauding her dedication and fairness. And she, along with the other four Progressives, Independent Sharon Bushor (Ward 1) and Wright himself, joined in to unanimously reelect Shannon. Shannon described Knodell’s remarks as “so very nice and unexpected.”
Why squander the chance to take control of the council — as the agenda setter, the president can hold significant sway — from the majority? After about a week of behind-the-scenes back-and-forth between the Ds and the non-Ds, Wright said he backed down on the condition that the same deal apply next year.
Tags: Mayor Miro Weinberger , Burlington City Council , Old North End , Burlington Telecom , Image , Web Only
Wednesday, April 2, 2014
"We thought it was important, because it would limit the influence that a single entity would have — which is why we have limits in the first place," said Sen. Jeanette White (D-Windham), who, as chairwoman of the Senate Committee on Government Operations, helped write the law.
But White and her colleagues were well aware that the U.S. Supreme Court could soon declare such aggregate limits unconstitutional, when it decided the pending McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission case. So they inserted a trigger making Vermont's aggregate limits contingent upon the court giving them its blessing.
On Wednesday, the court decidedly did not give them its blessing. By a vote of 5-4, it ruled federal aggregate limits unconstitutional, thereby nixing Vermont's own aggregate limits before they were ever in place.
Tags: campaign finance , U.S. Supreme Court , Image , Web Only
Thursday, March 27, 2014
"You know, I'm always hesitant to comment on any of the 180 legislators," the gov said at the Statehouse during his weekly press conference. "You know, they're all great. They're like kids. You don't want to start talking about one, because you hurt the feelings of the other."
Insisting that he "love[s] going out and talking to Vermonters, asking them whether we're on the right track," Shumlin nevertheless said he wouldn't be hitting the campaign trail anytime soon.
"I put off any discussions about what next, who next or why next until Labor Day, or shortly thereafter," he said. "I'd be happy to talk about it after that time, but what I'm going to do, meanwhile, is focus on my job of creating jobs."
Tags: Gov. Peter Shumlin , Rep. Heidi Scheuermann , Image , Web Only
Thursday, March 20, 2014
Helping two of them along in no small way was a familiar name: Lenore Broughton, the conservative donor who’s channeled large donations to conservative candidates and causes through the Vermonters First super PAC. Broughton gave $1,000 apiece to Scot Shumski and David Kirk, successful candidates in Wards 4 and 7, respectively.
Both men stood out among the school board candidate pool for their opposition to the proposed 2015 school budget, and their criticism of the current board as being ineffective stewards of that spending plan. (Tuesday’s campaign finance filings also show Broughton contributed $10,000 to Vermonters First last August. She also gave $1,000 to the Vermont Federation of Sportsmen's Clubs, which advocated, unsuccessfully, for the defeat of the three gun control items on Burlington's Town Meeting Day ballot.)
Broughton made her contributions to Shumski and Kirk on February 25, one day after the last campaign finance filing deadline leading up to Town Meeting Day. Until then, Shumski had largely financed his campaign through loans he took out and donations under $100; Kirk also took out a loan and he received $790 from Shumski in two installments on February 11 and 19 for a joint ad in the North Avenue News. Contributions made after the February 24 deadline aren't disclosed until two weeks after the election.
Shumski, who raised a total of $2,702 and spent an additional $1,000, unseated Bernie O’Rourke by a wide margin — 1,096 to 558. Shumski said he's been friends with Broughton for more than a decade and he welcomed her generosity. Raising a hefty amount of money was necessary, according to Shumski, given the low-profile nature of school board races and the fact that he was taking on a current member of the board.
"A hard and fast rule about incumbents is that it's difficult to unseat them," he said, adding: "No one was doing any articles on me, and no one was shining the spotlight on me."
Tags: Kurt Wright , Miro Weinberger , Partnership for Burlington's Future , Vermonters First , Burlington school board , Image , Web Only
Thursday, March 6, 2014
"What I do wake up every morning feeling is that this country faces more serious problems than at any time since the Great Depression, and there is a horrendous lack of serious political discourse or ideas out there that can address these crises, and that somebody has got to represent the working-class and the middle-class of this country in standing up to the big-money interests who have so much power over the economic and political life of this country," Sanders told the Nation. "So I am prepared to run for president of the United States. I don’t believe that I am the only person out there who can fight this fight, but I am certainly prepared to look seriously at that race."
While stopping short of declaring that he will run, Sanders, an independent who caucuses with the Democrats, openly discussed for the first time what a campaign might look like, acknowledging it would be "unconventional" and rooted (no surprise) in the fight against inequality.
He spoke of the disparate groups he would have to bring together and said he would continue to travel around the country meeting with people in the near future. Most surprisingly, he said he is unsure whether he would run as a Democrat or independent, but discussed that dilemma in some detail.
"I think we’ve got a message that can resonate, that people want to hear, that people need to hear. Time is very important. But I don’t think it makes sense — or that it is necessary — to start a campaign this early," Sanders said.
The author of the piece, John Nichols, is a long-time Sanders chronicler.
As Seven Days noted in a piece last October speculating about Sanders' presidential ambitions the senator has developed a national, small-dollar fundraising network that brought in 146,460 contributions from roughly half as many people during his last six-year election cycle.
Tags: Senator , Bernie Sanders , Image , Recommended Reading , Web Only
Tuesday, March 4, 2014
For the first time in more than a decade, Burlington voters rejected the school budget put before them. There were murmurings, leading up to Town Meeting Day, that the mounting frustration among property tax payers might finally take its toll at the polls.
The speculation proved true: by a margin of nearly 700 voters, the $66.9 million budget proposed for fiscal year 2015 failed.
"I’m disappointed," said Burlington superintendent, Jeanne Collins. "But," she continued, "I feel that’s the democracy in voting. The message to the school district and the school board is that we need to reevaluate our programs and determine what is affordable. It’s important to listen to that message."
The budget itself was proposed to increase by just under 4 percent. But due to other factors in the statewide education finance system, the tax rate for Burlington property owners was forecast to rise almost 10 percent.
Tags: Winooski One , Burlington Electric Department , Moran Plant , Image , Web Only