Dems already backing Far-Left-Lori Houghton for Speaker.
by Rob Roper
The November election results are still over two months away, but VPR (I refused to use the ridiculous name Vermont Public, which sounds like a restroom, so maybe it fits after all) is reporting Democrats have already settled on who will be Speaker of the House come January.: Lori Houghton (D-Essex Junction). Well, isn’t that a bit presumptuous on a couple of levels?
One, Houghton is in a contested race to retain her seat, and while incumbents do have an advantage in these races, it is possible she could lose to Republican challengers Brent Boerger or Adam Manley. Two, who says Democrats will retain their majority at all? It’s certainly a tough row for Republicans to hoe. They’d have to at least equal their stunner of 2024 where they picked up nineteen seats and then count on an independent or two to control the chamber. It’s a longshot, but not entirely out of the question.
But let’s bet the odds and say for argument’s sake Houghton does win her election, and the Democrats retain control of the House. Really, Democrats? This is your choice? Because the message it sends is that you’ve learned not a gosh-darned thing over the past two years.
Houghton herself didn’t learn anything after last cycle’s election results, infamously blaming the voters’ ignorance for the Democrats’ historic losses at the ballot box. Asked by WVMT host Kurt Wright what lessons she took from November 5th, Houghton replied, “Vermonters didn’t understand that what we passed will help them.” Call me crazy, I think Vermonters understood exceptionally well that the stuff Houghton et al passed would rob them of their property rights, drive up their electric bills, heating bills, transportation costs, and property taxes. Houghton didn’t – and doesn’t – understand that we understood! Or, I speculate, care.
Houghton replacing the retiring Jill Krowinski (D-Burlington) is just plunking in another Chittenden County focused far-Leftist wed to the same progressive agenda that got Vermont into the countless, unaffordable messes we’re dealing with today — from healthcare to education to public safety to tax burden to general affordability and opportunity. Before becoming Majority Leader, Houghton chaired the Healthcare Committee. Have you seen the state of healthcare in Vermont today? Not a resume item that should inspire confidence.
And just look at her voting record. These are some highlights: Houghton voted to override Governor Scott’s vetoes of the Global Warming Solutions Act, the Clean Heat Carbon Tax TWICE, the Renewable Energy Standard (a friend just texted me that Green Mountain Power is asking for a 7.5 percent rate increase, so thanks for that!), the $100 million per year payroll tax, non-citizen voting, the Burlington “safe injection” site, and, of course, Act 181, the anti-rural land use bill that has become a major focal point of this election.
So, yeah, rallying around Houghton is pretty much the Democrats hocking a loogie into the eye of rural Vermonters.
An assertion further evidenced by the bubbling endorsement she gets in the VPR story from Representative Theresa Wood (D-Waterbury), who, readers might recall, went Senator Alison Clarkson’s comment that rural Vermonters were “cave dwellers” one better by asserting they “weren’t actually real people.” At least cave dwellers are human.
The VPR article incredibly describes Houghton as a “fiscal moderate.” Does the voting record mentioned above represent the actions of a fiscal moderate? Vermont’s budget has increased 62 percent over the last five years, and Houghton has supported every multiple-of-inflation increase. The article also cites an endorsement from Representative Emilie Kornheiser (D-Brattleboro), the Marxist chair of the Ways & Means Committee (yes, she went to Marlboro College to study Marxism) who claimed last year that, “Everything in the General Fund is underfunded.” Everything. Underfunded. In a $9.2 billion budget for a state of 640,000 people. That’s not fiscally moderate. It’s not even sane!
Similarly, Representative Teddy Waszazak (D-Barre City), who made national news for his crony-socialist comments in committee that “It’s our job [as legislators] to make sure the right people [emphasis added] are winning,” gave Houghton the thumbs up. Waszazak’s agenda includes, according to VPR, higher taxes and a paid family and medical leave program (paid for with another payroll tax on top of the new $100 million payroll tax for daycare). And Houghton is “in as good a position as anybody” to get ‘er done.
So, if Vermonters are looking for the kind of political change that is not so Chittenden County centric, lowers taxes, reduces expensive mandates on electricity, heating and transportation fuels, and cuts the cost of health insurance premiums, Lori Houghton is not your cup of tea, unless you’re planning to toss it into the harbor in protest. Nor is any candidate who is backing her for Speaker of the House, which, according to VPR is already a majority of Democrats. We don’t know for sure who all of them are because only a few have gone on the record, so just to be on the safe side, vote Republican every time.
Rob Roper is a freelance writer with 25 years of experience in Vermont politics including three years service as chair of the Vermont Republican Party and nine years as President of the Ethan Allen Institute, Vermont’s free market think tank.