News analysis and photos by Alison Despathy
Despite the intensity, serendipity is often the way of the Vermont State House. You easily find the person you are looking for, have a completely unexpected, insightful conversation or land in the right place at the right time without even trying.
As soon as I walked into the statehouse last Wednesday, I found myself in the Cedar Creek Room just as the House Republicans’ press conference began.
Minority leader Representative McCoy (R- Rutland-1) began the conversation with a dire warning to Vermonters about the increasing affordability crisis we face due to compromised legislation that the supermajority is moving through. It is not just one bill, it is multiple bills with no end in sight — a dangerous pattern — that is resulting in even more economic burden and hardship.
Vermonters are living it and the Governor has been very vocal and actively helping to inform Vermonters. The Republican legislators are trying hard to thwart the trend and spread the word.
Some of the press were there. They heard the details. They asked questions. I thought the guts of the press conference would be covered. It wasn’t, or barely was. VTDigger published an article with brief coverage consistent with – IMHO – an establishment propaganda machine allowed a small degree of controlled opposition but certainly not real accountability and unbiased reporting. It is common to see such compromised coverage of an event such as a Republican press conference – or none at all.
[Editor’s interjection: I was next door in the governor’s ceremonial office listening to Amanda Shangraw’s gripping plea for tax relief for small businesses. Many thanks for Alison covering this simultaneous event.]
Regardless, the Republicans were prepared with example after example of the supermajority’s already imposed economic burdens on the people and their plans to make it even more difficult to afford to live in Vermont.
Representative Gina Galfetti (R-Washington-Orange) called out the reality that Republicans face.
“The super majority refuses to work with the Scott Administration and House Republicans. More affordable solutions that are offered gain no traction when they come from the perceived wrong side and who loses? Vermonters. Vermonters who are crying out for relief from the cost of reckless spending.”
Galfetti explained the danger of the Renewable Energy Standard (H.289) recently passed by the House that was, she said, “Written by and for the utilities and special interest groups like VPIRG. These are the groups that will benefit from its passage. While once again Vermonters will be forced to pay in the form of higher electric bills as the cost will be passed on to ratepayers.”
She discussed the Department of Public Service’s Renewable Energy Standard (RES) option would have secured zero carbon emissions by 2030 (using existing regional nuclear power) and costing hundreds of millions of dollars less. The state’s RES had undergone a comprehensive public process including statewide polling, focus groups, advisory groups, webinars, newsletters and regional events. Yet it was ignored by the supermajority.
The recently passed RES lacks any robust public process and brings yet more financial burden to Vermonters in the form of higher electric bills.
Representative Mark Higley (R-Orleans-Lamoille) focused the growing economic burden of adding one mandated expense after another.
“We should be considering the cumulative effect of our actions and mandates on Vermonters… Last year we passed the so-called “Affordable heat Act” which would add $.70 or more to a gallon of heating fuel,” Higley said.
The Affordable Heat Act, with its taxes imposed on the thermal sector and heating fuel, is in the design phase. If voted through next year, it adds to this laundry list of economic devastation.
With an over $200 million dollar property tax increase coming through. a payroll tax on its way, higher costs for basic expenses due to inflation, Higley mapped out the big picture spending issue and what is on the horizon if the supermajority gets their way.
“Take for instance following California’s Clean Car standards, starting in 2026 requiring dealers to have 35% of electric vehicles and hybrids on their lots and selling no new internal combustion engine vehicles by 2035. Add to this an analysis of a cap and trade proposal for gas and diesel in this year”s transportation bill.”
Clearly, the supermajority is now after the transportation sector and is also proposing another new tax for gas and diesel.
California Clean Car standards were adopted by Vermont in 2022. If Vermont moves this forward, it could result in heavy top down control of car dealers and car buyers. How much will Vermonters be squeezed to buy an electric vehicle if dealers are coerced to have cars on their lots that Vermonters may not even want or may not even be practical? Couple this with a tax on fuel intended to force sales of electric vehicles, and the affordability crisis just got exponentially worse.
Currently Maine is pushing back hard on this California style social engineering. There is even a campaign entitled, My Car My Choice which is designed to educate the people and help prevent California’s electric car rules from taking hold in Maine.
An FAQ on the My Car My Choice site answers an important question: exactly how will California (and therefore Maine, Vermont and other alligned states) enforce EV purchasing?
“Does the new policy mandate which vehicle I purchase?
“Not exactly, the new rule will mandate a percentage of vehicles (cars, SUVs and pickup trucks) delivered into the state by manufacturers to the dealers. Meaning, fewer internal combustion engine cars/trucks (gas or diesel), and many more electric vehicles. 43% of new cars sold in Maine must be Zero Emission Vehicles (ZEVs) by model year 2027, 82% by model year 2032, and 100% by 2035.”
Representative Ashley Bartley (R- Franklin-1) spoke next about the housing issue and the failure of the supermajority to pass meaningful legislation to help the housing crisis, she stated,
“We commenced this session with a shared commitment to tackle the housing crisis within our state. It’s important to emphasize that no genuine housing legislation will be advancing from the House during this session….today the House will deliberate on H.687, touted as a housing bill, although it is fundamentally not. I would even argue that it constitutes an anti-housing bill.”
H.687 passed the House on Thursday with heavy debate and a glimpse at a supermajority fracture on this topic of housing and Act 250 which led to an emergency Democratic caucus in the middle of the floor session.
Representative Scott Beck (R- St. Johnsbury) also shared some numbers and they are not pretty.
He stated, “In the last 10 years, personal income tax receipts in the state of Vermont have grown 54%, sales tax receipts have grown 65% and property taxes have increased by 53%. Corporate income tax has nearly tripled in the last 10 years.”
With all of this in mind, Beck explained, “We’re being told that we still don’t have enough money. Clearly we do not have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem.”
Fortunately there is a way to stop this affordability crisis. Besides working to elect legislators that will not support these continued increases in taxes, fees and cost of living for Vermonters, Representative Higley discussed his bills which would put the brakes on the impulsive energy legislation currently driving many of these increased costs.
“H.74 would repeal the 23 member Vermont Climate Council and the Climate Action Plan (CAP) and revert to goals in the Comprehensive Energy Plan (CEP). It would remove a provision that, any person may sue and a prevailing plaintiff shall be awarded reasonable costs and attorney’s fees, when not meeting our bench marks in the CAP.
“Since adoption of the GWSA in 2020, we have been through a pandemic, embroiled in two wars, which has effected fuel costs, and overall high inflation, all effecting affordability issues for all Vermonters. This shortsighted effort to electrify with prescriptive remedies, doesn’t allow for innovation of options for the future. It also doesn’t allow us the option to realistically look at what Vermonters can afford, especially when added to the everyday costs of inflation on items like food, utilities, health care, gas and diesel, insurances and the list goes on.”
Higley and several Republicans also have Bill H.73 which would effectively prohibit Vermont from using California’s Clean Air Act waiver to set motor vehicle standards thus keeping my car, my choice alive and well in Vermont.
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Categories: Legislation, News Analysis
Alison, thank you for this report. Can you list all of these Republicans individually, including their districts, so we can support them in coming elections and encourage them to speak out more often?
I’d think that any Republican running for office in Vermont needs to answer: “Do you think the 2020 election was rigged?” before they get my vote and many others votes, personally
Re: “Do you think the 2020 election was rigged?”
Hmmm. Interesting question.
I’m not running for office, but I’ll throw in my two cents anyway.
Was the election rigged? Was it stolen? Was it the fairest and most secure election in history?
IMHO the election was ‘rigged’ because the Secretary of State and the legislature failed to provide a secure and verifiable election process. Never mind that Mark Zuckerberg, operating through one of his NGOs, facilitated the process by donating about $1 to various Town Clerks for every registered voter. At least that’s the clear case here in Vermont.
Ballots are mailed to every ‘registered’ voter, even though we can’t verify that the voter rolls are accurate and updated as they should be. We also know that voters on the checklist are deemed to have been ‘verified’ if a ballot is duly cast in their name – even when we can’t verify that the ballot was submitted by the voter it was mailed to in the first place.
Therefore, we know the voter checklist becomes less and less accurate with every election using this flawed process. That’s the definition of a ‘rigged’ election, because the process is flawed, and the administrators and legislators charged with providing a verifiable election are, knowingly, not doing so.
Thus, we can also reasonably deduce that the election was not the fairest and most secure… again, by definition, because there’s no way to prove it.
Similarly, there’s no way to prove whether or not the election was stolen. Or, if it was stolen, by whom.
Do I think the election was rigged? No, I don’t. I KNOW the election was rigged. Was it rigged in Vermont? Who cares? Why would the elites waste resources where it’s unnecessary to do so? Why expose themselves? Unfortunately, Vermont as a whole would vote for Chairman Mao if he had a (D) after his name.
The real issue is the other states, and especially the “swing states”. To borrow a Chuck Schumer phrase, those states were rigged “Eight ways from Sunday”. Ignoring State Constitutions as to how elections were supposed to be held… Counting “ballots” weeks after Election Day…. Counting un-postmarked ballots…. Stuffing “collection boxes”… Stopping counting because “it was getting late” or “a water main broke”… Counting pristine ballots that were clearly run off a printer… Pulling cases full of “ballots” out from under tables when “no one was looking” (oops!)… Keeping Republican election monitors so far away from the actual “ballots” that they couldn’t see anything… And let’s not forget the old tried and true dead people voting and paying people to vote “the right way”.
We’d all like to think differently, but Vermont didn’t matter. It was “in the bag” and will be for the foreseeable future. You don’t send smokejumpers to Iowa when the fire’s is Idaho. Get it?
I think we should also request a list of republicans that signed on with jill Scott and Patty McCoy to remove Trump from office early selling americans out to the destruction that they couldn’t wait to get started by the Biden crime family.
If we’re going to support republicans we need to support conservative republicans not traitors that stab us in the back
We are never going to get republicans in the state of vermont to get out and vote for people that are stabbing them in the back.
“The super majority refuses to work with the Scott Administration and House Republicans”. Whenever and wherever the Democrats are in the minority they scream for bipartisanship.
Vermont has always been known as a cheap place for special interests to buy legislation (or legislators), either more directly through lobbying or by this style of indirect, phony advocacy. The demo-prog legislators do the bidding of the VNRC, VPIRG, CLF and other eco-lobbyists by imposing expensive, inconvenient and generally ineffective policies (like their attempt to double the drink container deposit and expand it to more products). The lobbying organizations then put it in their promotional material that “your contribution went to strengthen Vermont’s ……. laws, see how effective we are at saving the planet?” And then their donors send them more money. It’s a vicious cycle. The social services expansion organizations like the Public Assets Institute use the same tactics. The way to end it is to stop voting for these jackass legislators and stop donating money to these groups that hate decent, productive, responsible people and use us as pawns for their globalist aspirations. Our pathetic political situation could be reversed in ONE election cycle but your typical Vermont democrat is so obsessed with toeing the woke line and with virtue signaling that they do it even in the privacy and anonymity of the voting booth.
Thank you all for standing up for all our people – looking strong and purposed and unified! You all speak with one bold salient voice. We are proud of you for all your hard work and hope for your sound to resonate loud and clear!
The logic in these brainiacs minds amount to the same as McDonald’s handing out paper straws for their drinks. Their corporate master minds want to show the libs here how they are saving the oceans from plastic straws that all come from Asia.
To stop one or two suicidal people from killing themselves with a firearm, the brainiacs imposed a waiting period of 3 days before a person can take home a firearm they just bought. I ordered a rifle from a dealer that took 2 weeks to get to the Vermont dealer. After I filled out the form 4473 for the background check and paid the transfer fee to the VT dealer, I had to wait three days before I could pick up the rifle and take it home to add to the rifles I already have. The normal healthy people have to relinquish their freedom for the few instead of searching for and funding mental health issues as to why so many people want to kill themselves.
More craziness, instead of treating drug dependency they create places to inject poison and they call it safely. Everything progressives touch turns to, you know what. They never solve problem, they just create more. You would think that people would start to realize that progressives have ruined almost everything in this state. This is the idiot apocalypse that I’ve heard others talk about. I’ve had enough. I’m not going to live where all my freedom is stolen from me by carpetbaggers and grifters. I will be planning me escape.
Now this is what Vermont needs, more elected officials standing up and speaking for Vermonters, my question is when will people wake up and see that our inflated tax dollars are being wasted on liberal projects………………………………..
With liberals running the show, Vermont is doomed, the GOP needs to keep standing up and show the progressive spending nonsense, it needs to be displayed front & center every day !!