By Guy Page
Vermont’s Democratic Attorney General Charity Clark made a personal $250 contribution to the campaign to elect Emma Mulvaney-Stanak as the next mayor of Burlington.
Mulvaney-Stanak, a Progressive currently representing Burlington in the legislature, is running against Democrat Joan Shannon. The Vermont Secretary of State’s campaign finance website shows that on October 17, Clark, a Williston resident, made the $250 contribution.
Clark is not the only Democrat supporting a Progressive over longtime Democrat Shannon. VTDigger reports that last Friday night her campaign held a “Dems for Emma” fundraiser at a local craft brewery.
It’s impossible to say how much of the $70K raised by Mulvaney-Stanak comes from Democrats. Former Democratic lawmaker Mark Larson contributed $450. Former Democratic Windsor County State’s Attorney and drug legalization advocate Robert Sand contributed $200. But most of the better-known names read like a Who’s Who roster of Vermont progressives: for example Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield (co-founders of Ben and Jerry’s), City Councilors Joe Magee and Gene Bergman ($1,120), Robin Lloyd, Terry Bouricius, former lawmakers Selene Colburn and Erhard Mahnke, and Winooski legislator Taylor Small.
Shannon’s $133,000 warchest contributors feature no corresponding high-level Progressives, although renewable power developer David Blittersdorf’s $250 contribution will be kept in mind as Shannon (if she wins) works out her promise to reduce carbon emissions only in economically-sustainable ways. Clark is not listed as a contributor to the Shannon campaign. However, her former boss, previous Attorney General T.J. Donovan, is.
But Clark holds the highest political office of any contributor in either campaign. And although she has a “D” next to her name on the ballot, she has long been passionate about criminal justice reform on behalf of people of color – one of the key planks of the Mulvaney-Stanak campaign. During a 2020 Burr & Burton alumni interview, Clark, then Chief of Staff to AG TJ Donovan, was asked: What kind of law are you most passionate about? She answered:
“I touch a lot of different areas because I’m in a management role, but one area I’d like to highlight is criminal justice reform. Once you start learning about it, you can’t not be passionate about it, because our system is so damaged, and we are doing so much right now to make progress…..The work is about recognizing where our system has disproportionately impacted people of color, and digging in to how to rectify that. It’s about acknowledging that oftentimes people who find themselves interacting with the criminal justice system suffer trauma, addiction, or poverty – or a combination of those things – and trying to create a system that works for everyone. I’m so passionate about this. This is not the reason I went to law school, but I’ve been inspired by my work with the AG’s office to work more on criminal justice reform.”
Statements made by Mulvaney-Stanak and Shannon at a Feb. 7 mayoral campaign debate at City Hall (as reported by Burlington Daily News reporter Paul Bean) show that voters have a real choice to make between the two candidates’ policing priorities – and that Clark’s more closely align with Mulvaney-Stanak’s.
“We have to be honest and acknowledge that harm has happened here in Burlington at the hands of some of the Burlington police, and that has disproportionately impacted black and brown folks,” said Progressive Mulvaney-Stanak. “It is not a safe place to call when you have that erosion of trust, and we have to be honest about this.”
Shannon focused more on restoring the number of police lost in the city’s 2021 ‘defund the police’ initiative, which Shannon voted against and Mulvaney-Stanak has never disavowed.
“The number one concern I hear in our community about are police, is they don’t come when they’re called,” said Shannon. “If we want police to come when they’re called, we need to hire more police officers.”
Discover more from Vermont Daily Chronicle
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Categories: politics
I would expect no different. She may call herself a “Democrat”, but….. Phil Scott calls himself a “Republican”. Bottom line is you can call youself a duck, but if you don’t walk like a duck, you don’t swim like a duck, you don’t quack like a duck, and you don’t look like a duck, you’re probably not a duck. What you in fact are is open for more investigation. (interpetation) I suppose you could be a trans duck ? (something else that aspires to be a duck)
There’s a word that ryhmes with duck… Something I think would apply to how I feel about these people.
“disproportionately impacted black and brown folks?”
From what I’ve seen it’s mostly that category of people from out of state perpetrating the major crimes and equally against white people.
There I said it. It’s time to call a spade a spade.
Just so you are aware that this saying is also NOT Racist (though I didn’t think it applied to a trough):
https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2013/09/19/224183763/is-it-racist-to-call-a-spade-a-spade
luck/// muck ///suck/// buck/// puck/// could brian be more clear as to what he said///
What else would you expect, from Vermont’s so-called liberal progressive DemocRAT AG…………… Scott hired her and we know he’s a leftist at heart or just scared of all the progressives who don’t respect the Governor or his office.
Burlington is already a cesspool, just think if Mulvaney-Stanak gets in, but then again
Burlington hasn’t sunk low enough yet before people wake up.
Vermont is sinking quicker than the Titanic did, and we let it happen, how pathetic !!
Joan Shannon seems pretty good. As for “criminal justice reform”, it’s responsible for a lot of the problems we’re dealing with today.
calamity clark/// working her way up to be governor/// you have to be popular to become governor/// look at all the attention she is getting///
Just more skum from the left
period !! WAKE UP AMERICANS WAKE UP VERMONTERS!!
LOONEY TURNS!!
THAT’S ALL FOLKS!!
Cross contamination of the Democratic Party by the far-leftists is the demise of the party. The moderates are bolting in droves (I bolted a long while ago.) The minorities are bolting in droves. Their platform is based solely on death and dismemberment these days. They support human trafficking via open borders, drug trafficking via open borders, and criminal conduct of epic proportions is excused and condoned. Our Attorney General and her co-conspirators are part and parcel of the end of the Democratic Party. The Biden being the ultimate dentonator. Declared and decreed.
Seems odd to me that an Attorney General is allowed to personally support a political candidate. I mean I’m sure it happens all the time, but isn’t it possible that this is a conflict of interest?
This is the Vermont Socialist Republic. Anything goes!
Any public official that thinks that the laws should be applied differently to people based on skin color, ancestry or supposed status as “historically disadvantaged” should be removed from office. That is racism, pure and simple. The Attorney General is the highest ranking law enforcement officer in Vermont. If a small town police officer so much as uttered the n-word or any of it’s derivatives even privately, they would be considered biased and incapable of carrying out their oath of duty. “Reverse racism” is still racism.