Tuesday, September 4, 2018
"This is the most incomplete, most partisan and least transparent vetting for any Supreme Court nominee I have ever seen," said Leahy, a former chair of the committee who has taken part in 19 confirmation hearings. "And I’ve seen more than anyone else in the Senate."
Even before the current chair, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), could introduce Kavanaugh, a federal appeals court judge, Democratic members interrupted the proceedings to demand their postponement. One by one, they talked over Grassley — criticizing him for failing to request some of Kavanaugh's records and for allowing others to be kept confidential.
As protesters shouted from the gallery, Leahy interjected to ask, "What are we trying to hide? What are we hiding? What's being hidden?"
Tags: Brett Kavanaugh , Patrick Leahy , Chuck Grassley , John Cornyn , U.S. Senate , U.S. Supreme Court , Vermont , Senator , Image , Web Only
Friday, August 31, 2018
A Jericho woman snapped selfies of Air Force Two under the careful watch of snipers and plainclothes United States Secret Service officers standing conspicuously inside the airport’s perimeter fence. The amateur photographer sheepishly described herself as a Pence supporter, though she declined an interview.
There was no media scrum or large crowd of waving supporters to greet Pence, who landed shortly after 1:30 p.m. Within a few minutes, his motorcade of about 15 SUVs, including Vermont State Police vehicles, slipped through the airport fence and drove away.
Tags: Mike Pence , Vermont , Hubbardton , Burlington International Airport , Phil Scott , Air Force Two , Lake Hortonia , Image , Web Only
Friday, August 24, 2018
The Republican nominee for six statewide offices in Vermont dropped out of five of them Friday, according to the Secretary of State's Office.
In last week's GOP primary, Washington resident and perennial candidate H. Brooke Paige won the nominations for U.S. Senate, U.S. House, secretary of state, attorney general, state treasurer and state auditor. But on Friday, he formally withdrew from all but the secretary of state's race, according to elections director Will Senning.
Paige said he’d chosen to continue challenging Democratic Secretary of State Jim Condos because he was frustrated with the state’s electoral system. “They’re the people in charge of this chaos,” Paige said.
The candidate's decision scrambles Vermont's general election ballot and could lead to new opponents for top statewide officeholders, including Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vt.). According to state law, the Vermont Republican Party now has seven days to replace Paige in the contests.
Tags: Senator , H. Brooke Paige , Bernie Sanders , Peter Welch , Jack Moulton , Jim Condos , Election 2018 , Statewide 2018 , Image , Web Only
Wednesday, August 22, 2018
Vermont's senior senator made the assertion in a brief interview with Seven Days Wednesday afternoon, immediately after addressing the president's mounting legal problems on the floor of the U.S. Senate. "The clouds of criminal conduct surrounding those close to the president are darkening," he said in those remarks.
Leahy was referring to two major developments that came a day earlier: former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort's conviction on eight counts of tax and bank fraud, and former Trump attorney Michael Cohen's guilty pleas on eight counts of tax evasion, bank fraud and campaign finance violations. During Cohen's appearance Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, he said he'd made illegal payments to two women "in coordination with and at the direction of a candidate for federal office," referring to Trump.
Tags: Senator , Donald Trump , Michael Cohen , Paul Manafort , Patrick Leahy , Bernie Sanders , Peter Welch , Image , Web Only
Tuesday, August 21, 2018
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has officially turned down the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate, according to the Vermont Secretary of State's Office.
Sanders, who took home nearly 91 percent of the vote in last week's Democratic primary, informed the state last Friday that he would decline the nomination, according to elections director Will Senning. Neither the candidate nor the Secretary of State's Office announced the move at the time, though it hardly comes as a surprise.
Tags: Senator , Bernie Sanders , Democratic nomination , Vermont Democratic Party , Image , Web Only
Kavanaugh spent the early 2000s as a lawyer, and later staff secretary, for president George W. Bush's administration.
“There was a lot of discussion at the time of detainee and torture policy as well as a specialized wiretapping policy,” Leahy said. “I wanted to know how much he was involved in it, because all of these things have been discredited since.”
White House lawyer Don McGahn also attended Leahy's meeting with Kavanaugh, and initially he refused to allow the senator to meet alone with the judicial nominee.
“[McGahn] said, ‘Well, they don’t do one-on-one meetings,’” Leahy recounted. “I said, ‘I’ve been here for 19 Supreme Court nominees, 17 since I’ve been on the Judiciary Committee. I always have a one-on-one meeting.’”
Tags: Patrick Leahy , senator , Brett Kavanaugh , U.S. Supreme Court , nominee , Donald Trump , Vermont , judiciary , Image , Web Only
Monday, July 23, 2018
The poll, commissioned by Vermont Public Radio and Vermont PBS, is the first conducted by in-state media organizations since the 2016 election. For that reason, according to Castleton University professor Rich Clark, it's difficult to determine how and why Scott's popularity has waxed and waned during his first term.
“This is what we miss by not having some regular polling in the state,” said Clark, who ran the Castleton Polling Institute until the university shut it down in March.
The public media poll surveyed 603 Vermonters on landlines and cell phones between July 6 and July 16. Its margin of error is plus or minus 4 percent, though the margin is greater for sub-groups of data, such as political party affiliation. VPR and Vermont PBS hired Clark to craft the questions and analyze the data; New Jersey-based Braun Research made the calls.
The poll suggests that Scott has little to fear in the August primary. Seventy-two percent of those surveyed had never heard of his sole Republican opponent, Springfield grocer Keith Stern. Among Republican voters, 10 percent said they had a favorable opinion of Stern, while 2 percent said they had an unfavorable opinion.
The four Democratic gubernatorial candidates on the ballot are also largely unknown. Fifty-nine percent said they had never heard of former Vermont Electric Coop CEO Christine Hallquist. More than 70 percent were unfamiliar with her primary-election rivals: Southern Vermont Dance Festival director Brenda Siegel, Lake Champlain International executive director James Ehlers and 14-year-old Ethan Sonneborn of Bristol.
Tags: Senator , poll , Vermont Public Radio , Vermont PBS , Phil Scott , Christine Hallquist , James Ehlers , Brenda Siegel , Ethan Sonneborn , Peter Welch , Patrick Leahy , Bernie Sanders , minimum wage , marijuana , firearms , gun control , gun legislation , Election 2018 , Image , Web Only
Tuesday, July 10, 2018
“I’ve never seen a president act as though the Supreme Court has to be a wing of the White House instead of an independent branch of government," Leahy said in an interview Tuesday. "And they made it very clear that the president expects it to be.”
Leahy is the longest serving member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which is expected to hold confirmation hearings on the nomination. The full Senate must approve Kavanaugh's nomination before he can replace Justice Anthony Kennedy, who announced his retirement at the end of June.
As special counsel Robert Mueller investigates whether Trump and his campaign were involved with Russian meddling in the 2016 election, Leahy said the independence of federal courts is as important as ever.
“We’ve got the Russia investigation, which is a significant one, and here we’ve got [a nominee] who said that the president should be above the law when they’re president,” Leahy said.
Tags: Patrick Leahy , Brett Kavanaugh , Donald Trump , Supreme Court , Image , Web Only
Friday, July 6, 2018
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) criticized administrators of the University of Vermont Medical Center and called on them to meet face-to-face with hospital nurses during a press conference at his Burlington office on Friday.
More than 1,000 nurses are prepared to strike on July 12 and 13 amid contentious contract negotiations. Nurses are calling for salary parity with the nurses at Champlain Valley Physicians Hospital in Plattsburgh, N.Y., which is a member of the UVM Health Network. The union says the hospital is dangerously understaffed because low salaries create long-term vacancies and high turnover rates.
Tags: Senator , Bernie Sanders , UVMMC , strike , nurses , University of Vermont Medical Center , Image , Web Only
Thursday, June 28, 2018
United States Border Patrol agents have for years established temporary checkpoints along Interstate 91 in southern Vermont to ask motorists about their citizenship and where they’re going. Some are detained for additional questioning. Because the checkpoint is within 100 miles of the Canadian border, federal law allows agents to do that without a warrant.
Federal law gives authorities expanded power near the borders in order to protect national security. But Leahy said in a statement that a range of 100 miles from the border is unreasonable. The new legislation, cosponsored by Sen. Patty Murray (D-Washington), would shrink the that zone from 100 to 25 miles.
"[T]his 100-mile zone is neither limited nor reasonable," Leahy said. "It includes marine borders. At present, it encompasses almost two-thirds of the population of the United States. This includes major cities such as New York, Seattle, Chicago, New Orleans and Los Angeles, even the 'border town' of Richmond, Va., as well as entire states such as Maine, Delaware, and Florida."
Tags: Border Patrol , fourth amendment , customs , Patrick Leahy , Patty Murray , Danielle Rochford , Image , Web Only