State House Spotlight

Dem leader won’t answer question about Trump and Sanctuary State Vermont

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By Guy Page

The House Majority Leader wasn’t willing to answer questions about how the Legislature will handle Trump administration opposition to Vermont’s Sanctuary State status.

At a morning press conference, Rep. Lori Houghton (D-Essex) outlined a detailed plan to keep taxes, health care costs, and housing costs down while also educating students and improving access to health care and housing. But when asked by VDC about the Trump administration plans for Vermont’s illegal immigrant sanctuary status (per a 2017 law), Houghton said in clipped tones, “I’m not going to answer that question.” 

She added that she’s waiting to see what action the Trump administration will take. So is Falko Schilling of the American Civil Liberties of Vermont. In a brief hallway conversation this morning, Schilling said the ACLU – staunch supporter of rights of all immigrants regardless of legal status – will evaluate forthcoming federal policies with consequences in mind: “Where’s the stick?”

Family medical emergency prompted Castleton rep to resign – Republican Chris Brown, elected Nov. 5 to the Castleton seat in the Vermont House of Representatives, resigned abruptly because his wife has a serious medical condition, according to a statement read in the House of Representatives Wednesday morning, Jan. 8. His replacement, financial services professional Zachary Harvey, was sitting in the House chamber. 

9/11 motivated new lawmaker to re-enlist in military – VL Coffin (R-Cavendish, Weathersfield), newly elected House member, won a Bronze Star for outstanding service while serving as a National Guard sergeant in Afghanistan. Sitting in the House gallery today, his proud brother Tom said his big brother was motivated to re-enlist in the Army immediately following the destruction of the Twin Towers on September 11. 

Living in New Jersey at the time, Tom received a call from VL in which he stated in no uncertain terms that no-one is going to get away with flying airplanes into buildings in the United States. He then promptly re-enlisted. 

Media notes – Lt. Gov. (for one more day) David Zuckerman told VDC he will be a regular host on WDEV’s Vermont Viewpoint, the station’s 9-11 AM public affairs call-in show.

With 2024 Bureau Chief Sarah Mearhoff now the government affairs liaison for Associated General Contractors, Ethan Weinstein and Shawn Robinson will share reporting duties for VTDigger.

House committee broken up – The House Environment and Energy Committee chaired by Rep  Amy Sheldon (D-Middlebury) spawned biodiversity bills, passed carbon reduction bills, and was a bottleneck for rural housing growth. Now it’s been divided into two committees. 

Energy and Digital Infrastructure will reprise the former Energy and Technology committee. Its members are:

The members of the Environment Committee are:

Both chairs are Democrats. Campbell is a St. Johnsbury Democrat and pro-weatherization ‘climate hawk.’ Labor, the new vice of the Environment Committee, is a Northeast Kingdom Republican. 

Committee appointments are still in development, with some fully staffed and others not. The list in progress can be seen here. 

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Categories: State House Spotlight

10 replies »

  2. Guy,

    Awesome job. Keep asking that question, ask the Lt. Gov, the Gov…..
    they locked us up, made us wear masks, killed our family members and wouldn’t allow visitation in many cases, they closed businesses……

    Will they be willing to go to jail for this. Keep asking, get some cameras rolling, let the people of Vermont see how they answer.

    lol….

    Ask them all this one.

    Are we a Republic or a democracy and why?

    Shine that light bright……..

    Seriously you are the ONLY non-propaganda statewide publication……..have fun with it.

    • You can give them the questions ahead of time. Then they can’t say it was a gotcha…

  3. The Vermont Legislature will find the federal cash spigot shut off and no “soup” for you Peter, Bernie, and Becca. Considering the UAE and other nations ponying up investment dollars (I wonder what 47 has on them?) these investments will go to red states. The blue states now suffer the consequences of their political action committees, their malfeasance, and foot the large bills coming down the pike with no federal seed filling their hog trough. The Truth is Trump doesn’t have to do anything for the RINOs either, other than watch their Titanic sink and wish them all well. Lawfare warfare about to swing back and round house punch a bunch of shills and despots squarely in the jaw.

    • The problem is that with Trumps quest for revenge against those states not in his favor, what he will do is hurt everyone in places he wants to get back at when the real decisions have been made by a relatively small group of people who are often rich enough and resourced enough to not get hurt.

    • It’s not about revenge – it’s called politics and rewarding supporters and donors. Take off the blinders and you will see the other side does it just the same, if not worse. Who do you think makes up all the boards, commissions and task forces in Vermont? Does it benefit the people? I do pray people snap into reality soon – it’s a matter of life and death for many – see California burning? So go California, so goes the nation.

    • I agree it is not about revenge, but it is not about reward, either. It’s about restoring our republic. The majority of Vermont officials and unelected bureaucrats are anti-American Marxists, as is the case in all blue states.

  4. This immigrant agenda is driven by the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights. This unelected international superpower acts as a show government, stripping the citizens of their rights. Every time you here a politician discuss the treat to democracy. It is important to understand that the definition of democracy has been refined just as the word racist was redefined by the United Nations. The new definition is aligned to the Declaration of Human Rights and is founded in socialism or the socialist contract. The UN refers to equality as a laissez-faire doctrine, meaning associated with capitalism. As a UN member nation, Biden to be incompliance redirected rights from the individual to demographic groups including migrants and focused on decolonization. The decolonization of Western countries is tied to global democracy and not seen from the perspective of any nation. This is why Biden declared America as a white supremacy nation.

    https://www.un.org/en/global-issues/democracy#:~:text=The%20UN%20supports%20democracy%20by,than%20any%20other%20global%20organization.

    • It wasn’t only Biden who referred to us as white supremacists..

      Our governor Phil Scott referred to vermonters as white supremacists and racists Along with his close ally Sen. Joe Benning

      Many of the rinos are in lock step with our governor and that’s scary… Who in their right mind claims a red wave in the state of Vermont when it was a rino wave by people who support our turncoat governor

      We talk about unifying people but Benning divided us as republicans…. he some of us Phil Scott republicans and others Trump republicans…

      For America to succeed we all need to be republicans if that’s what we are.

      I think anyone in America understands today that Donald Trump is the head of the republican party and anyone in the republican party who does not want to help this man make America better is not a republican.

      I don’t care if you like Donald Trump or not he is our president and everyone that claims to be a republican should be helping this man achieve the goals of closing our Southern border to stop the rape and murder of our young ladies and the crime across America that has been brought on by the foolishness of this so-called partisan movement.

      Donald Trump is going to attempt to bring down prices of fuel and food and the cost of goods when he does this it affects every single person in America… Who in their right mind would not be in favor of this man succeeding…

      Well there are plenty of people that I would accuse of not being in their right mind because they cannot bash president Trump enough.

      Anyone in the state of Vermont that can call Phil Scott a Republican has to have a mental disconnect.

      If Phil Scott wants to be the leader he claims he would reach out to president Trump and start offering help to make not only America better but to make the state of Vermont better.

      The problem resides in the fact that Phil Scott has done everything he can to make life in vermont as bad as it can be through his progressive policies.

      Everything that we suffered today has been at the hands of Phil Scott…

      He lied to the very people that he asked to get him elected when he told us he would veto any gun laws in the State of Vermont and then he turned around and made a mockery of us grinning at us with all of his progressive buddies standing behind him while he signed gun bills into law on the state house lawn…

      He wasn’t happy enough just to screw us over he had to make a spectacle of it…

      He has continued that spectacle even up until the last election where he attempted to take down Donald Trump and promote Harris for president…

      Anyone with an ounce of common sense that watched closely what the proposals of Harris and Trump were for America knew there was only one choice and it was Donald Trump if you really wanted to make America safe and affordable again.

      So in our beautiful little state if we really want to make it better, which I do, then we can’t follow the lead of our governor and the rinos that he has gathered in to help him continue his reign of terror on the state of Vermont.

      We can’t be a sanctuary state harboring illegal immigrants and the crime they bring into America and allow our northern border to be open allowing terrorists to cross into the state of Vermont and then claim Scott is doing the best to keep us safe and make things affordable in our state.

      There’s a continued cry for more housing and we never hear who this housing will be for… I was looking at places people are moving ….. Vermont wasn’t in the top 10…as a matter of fact people seem to be moving away from the state of Vermont because they can no longer deal with the lunacy that takes place here.

      My suggestion is that Phil Scott and lieutenant governor Rodgers who ran as a republicans starts to act like republicans.

      The state of Vermont needs to begin to follow what Donald Trump suggests for the rest of the country to make us safe and make us affordable again..

      I am looking forward to what Donald Trump will bring to America when he is inaugurated on January 20th…

      Anyone that truly loves America And wants to succeed will stop the foolishness of calling this president the orange man and any other names that they find disgusting fall in line to get America back on track as soon as possible…

      I just don’t understand where the idea came from that Vermont can pretend to be its own republican party and succeed…

      I think if this continues we need to form a third party that will bring common sense And self responsibility back into the state of Vermont.

      We have one shot to get this right and I hope we don’t screw it up….

  5. Houghton answered in clipped tones? So unlike her. Maybe she needs to visit the former Lt Gov’s office desk drawer if he hasn’t yet cleared it out.