This story was originally published on Rob Roper’s Substack Behind The Lines and was republished here with permission.
By Rob Roper
It makes perfect sense that someone would challenge the current Speaker of the House, Jill Krowinski (D-Burlington), after the election debacle the Vermont Democrats just suffered as the result of her leadership. As Speaker, Krowinski sets the agenda in the House, and as party leader demands lockstep loyalty to that agenda from the Democrat House caucus. The caucus obliged over the past biennium, voting for Krowinski’s priority legislation such as the Clean Heat Standard, the Renewable Energy Standard, and a number of other climate alarmist policies – overriding veto after veto — while ignoring rising crime, a housing crisis, and the property tax time bomb that exploded in 2024.
That loyalty given to Krowinski – born of fear or fealty or genuine agreement — did not end well as voters handed Vermont Republicans at least an eighteen-seat gain in the House (with two races still to be determined), the most decisive victory for any party in over a quarter century.
Krowinski is a typical denizen of the Leftist Burlington Bubble. Her entire adult life has been spent as a political actor/activist with a resume that includes one job at Planned Parenthood and a bunch of board positions for organizations like Emerge Vermont (the leftwing women’s candidate recruitment outfit), the Vermont Poverty Council, and delegate for the American Council of Young Political Leaders in the Philippines…. Exactly zero private sector experience.
So, yes, get rid of her. Fine by me. But replace her with Laura Sibilia (I-Dover)?
Now, over the past nearly two years since starting Behind the Lines, I have written often about Laura Sibilia. It’s not because I have any particular animosity toward her – every personal interaction I’ve had with her has been pleasant enough – but almost every time I see a really bad idea percolating under the Golden Dome and rush to investigate who’s behind it, well, guess who I inevitably find right there in the thick of things. And not in a good way!
Here are Laura Sibilia’s Greatest Legislative Hits from the past three or four years:
The Clean Heat Standard. Next to maybe property taxes, the biggest reason Democrats got the poop kicked out them on November 5th was their support for The Clean Heat Standard carbon tax on home heating fuels. Who was the lead advocate for this bill in the House, shepherded it through the Energy & Environment Committee, squashed any discussion of what the costs and impact of the bill would be, and even served as lead presenter of the bill on the floor and as its chief defender during the successful override of Governor Scott’s veto? Laura Sibilia.
Act 127 – An act relating to improving student equity. Speaking of Property Taxes, perhaps the largest contributing factor under the control of the legislature that led to the unprecedented explosion of cost to taxpayers was Act 127, the pupil weighting bill. Not only did this bill inherently jack up school spending, but it was also so poorly thought out and badly crafted that it required an emergency revision, removing a major tax-cap provision that encouraged some towns to spend even more. The panicked need to change the law during the local budgeting process led to chaos as well as increased costs and corresponding property taxes. Who was this bill’s biggest cheerleader in the House? Laura Sibilia.
The Renewable Energy Standard. This is the law, again passed over Governor Scott’s veto, that will raise Vermonters electric bills over the next ten years by an additional and unnecessary $450 million to $1 billion depending upon whose numbers you believe. It forces Vermont utilities to buy electricity from renewable energy companies owned or controlled by big political donors to Vermont political causes. Watching this bill move through its summer study committee, through the house and senate, and into law was among the most nauseating, corrupt instances of sausage making I’ve witnessed in over twenty years of carful observation of Vermont politics. Who was the lead sponsor of the bill? Laura Sibilia.
Broadband. Back in 2021, when schools were closed due to Covid and many students had to resort to things like driving to the local McDonalds parking lot to access WIFI to “attend” class and do their work, the Vermont legislature had an opportunity to quickly and efficiently get high speed internet to tens of thousands or rural Vermont households by utilizing Starlink technology. (The same Starlink technology that successfully provided internet service to war torn Ukraine and was just utilized by North Carolina in the emergencies following Hurricane Hellene.) But when this opportunity came before her committee, Laura Sibilia put her foot down, saying, “I have less than zero interest in facilitating or seeing the state facilitate that.” (VTDigger, 3/7/21). Instead, she preferred a heavily bureaucratic solution that would cost multiple times more money and take – best case scenario – the better part of a decade to complete. It’s been a disaster.
School Choice. Vermont has, where it exists, the most dynamic and successful school choice system in the nation via our “tuitioning” policy. It has given rise to the most respected and effective schools in the state, such as St. Johnsbury Academy, Burr & Burton, Sharon Academy, and The Long Trail School to name but a few. We need more of this, especially as we face crises in both cost and quality of our k-12 education system. Who is a leading opponent of school choice in the State House? Laura Sibila.
This year, Sibila sponsored H.634 – An act relating to school closures and the designation of a public school to serve as the public school of the district. I wrote about it at length in “My Constituents Want School Choice and Must Be Stopped!” Beyond the policy disagreement here, the really offensive aspect of this is she is actively opposing the desires of the people she is supposed to be representing. (Check out the video in the article.)
This is a record of bad ideas even more poorly executed. And one last point I’ll make about Sibilia is that she gives Kamala Harris a run for her money on who can create the wildest word salads. She will provide non-answers to straightforward questions by spewing streams of hollow jargon and buzzwords, or in some cases just words. (For a good example, please see, “House Passes Renewable Energy Standard Amidst Cloud of Baloney.”) These verbal smokescreens are employed to the detriment of clarity and transparency, which is ironic given that she is running for Speaker on the basis of her being a “prolific communicator.” Prolific maybe.
So, free advice to Republicans House members here…. Run your own candidate for Speaker. Don’t back either of these two. Put forward a candidate who will run on and articulate the agenda that just propelled you all to a historic victory: No Clean Heat Standard (plus repeal the lawsuit provision and unrealistic target dates in the Global Warming Solutions Act), and cut property taxes (ALL taxes) now. Even if that candidate loses, you will have made your case — lived up to your promises — to the voters.
Don’t put your stamp of approval on any Speaker who does not clearly and publicly agree with your agenda. You would only be providing cover for moving forward with policies you opposed in your campaigns. If the Democrats want to re-elect Krowinski, let them live with day-to-day reality and public relations nightmare that come with that decision. If they want to tear apart their caucus to elect the Independent Sibilia, let them do it. From a policy perspective, there not a bit of difference between the two. I know there’s going to be a lot of backroom horse-trading involved here regarding committee assignments, etc., but please, watch out for the wagon you hitch those horses to.
Rob Roper is a freelance writer with 20 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.
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Categories: Commentary
I heard today that Jay Hooper might run for speaker. Any truth in that?
that would be amazing, perhaps Governor Scott could weigh in on who he’d like to work with……..
Sibilia ran unopposed and of the Dover voters that cast ballots, about 25% either did not vote her race or wrote in another candidate. If one in four people who actually voted did not vote for her in an uncontested race, it seems likely that a Republican candidate could beat her in the next election. Don’t know why she runs as an Independent when her views are in line with the ultra-left wing of the Dems.
Re: “Don’t know why she runs as an Independent…”
It seems to be a trend – here in Vermont especially. Extensive and classic cases of wolves changing into sheep’s clothing. Just look at all of the prog/dems migrating from their party under the claim that the their prog/dem party left them. Not likely. Make no mistake. These folks are still prog/dems.
‘A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.’ W.S.
“Trust but verify.” Russian proverb cited by R.R.
The local voters probably still remember her schoolyard-style bullying from a few years ago. A local and vocal Republican spray painted a slogan on the road. The night before, some ignorant racists spray painted anti-Semitic graffiti in a neighboring town. She made every effort to connect the racist graffiti to the local, vocal Republican.
That she claims to be an Independent will voting in lockstep with the Democrats is pathetic. It’s no surprise to me that so many locals withheld their vote.
While Sibilia runs as an Independent she is really a far left Progressive similar to Krowinski. Both of these people share responsibillity for the drubbing the super majority took at the hands of the voters. Those Democrat house members who hung on to their seats might be less than enthusiastic about voting for either one of them.
On the other hand, they may look favorably at a well-respected Republican whose integrity, intelligence and committment to the job is without peer in the house. Anne Donahue comes to mind as a good choice.
There is precedent for such an outcome. Tim O’Connor, a Democrat, served 3 terms as speaker under a Republican majority house in the 1970s, winning a majority of the votes twice and with no opposition in his second term. He easily beat Jim Douglas in his final term. He was respected by his peers. Those were good times to be a Representative in Vermont.
Wondering what someone could do to encourage/facilitate things for a positive outcome. Should we contact all of the republican house members and urge them to jump on this issue? Or is it just understood that our legislature is probably already aware of the importance of this, and constituents don’t really play a role here?
Question: Anne Donahue ran as an independent this time? Not that that’s a bad thing. Just curious as if I am thinking of the same person mentioned above.
There is a large influx of new legislators this year. There will almost certainly be a shift toward the center as Republicans have increased their power while Democrats, still in the majority but licking their wounds, will be forced to negotiate with the Governor and their Republican colleagues. A respected member with a long track record of excellence such as Donahue could be expected to organize the house for the best possible bipartisan outcomes, such as assigning Democrat and Republican committee chairs in proportion to their numbers in the House and appointing members to committees according to their expertise, but not creating conflicts of interest. The problems to be solved are enormous and will require hard decisions. An experienced lawmaker will help guide the newly elected to be productive. There will be no room for left or right extreme agendas.
This comes across as Tweedledum vs Tweedledee.
These two women remind me of two bicycle tires that PICKPOCKETPOWELL has inflated with two hundred pounds of air and the outcome does not look good.
Out of the frying pan,…………hopefully someone with integrity and common sense will step up.
It’s like deciding on Biden vs Harris. Both are controlled by higher forces anyhow, in this case the VTNEA and VSEA…
Re: Krowinski vs. Sibilia for Speaker = Commiecrat vs Commiecrat for Speaker.
We will never know good government in Vermont because the people that keep putting these Communists in office are too stupid to know that they themselves are Communists.
I don’t think they’re stupid. They are common grifters, snake-oil salesmen. As P. T. Barnum and others have said… ‘there’s a sucker born every minute, and some have remained suckers all their lives’. If anyone is stupid, we are, … for not figuring out how to stop our legislators and special interest lobbyists from robbing us.
I think their goal was and always has been to keep us all so busy earning our money and paying the bills that we didn’t have the time to keep an eye on them. It’s the same game DC plays against us. The bills they pass consist of hundreds of pages. How could we possibly know what they are doing? Then we have the press that goes along either due to laziness or bias and we’re screwed again. Now, someone list here all the items that we aren’t taxed on other than food or clothing. Has anyone seen the size of the VT Statutes annotated and the revisions and corrections? And, we can’t claim ignorance of the law as a defense. Combine this with the VT media censorship and advocacy of all things progressive and the answer is easy. It’s all by design!
Ms. Sibilia acting as if she can go to Montpelier to “fix” the problems she helped create is a rather stunning admission of an over inflated ego. Whomever gets the speakers chair is going to have to undo this mess created by making state government larger and larger and delivering declining results. Add into the mix the amount of monies that are soon to stop flowing from Washington. When the people under the dome and the many paper pushers in all those buildings in Waterbury realize the party is over, it is not going to be pretty.
The assumption that whomever the house speaker may be actually wants to undo anything- certainly doesnt apply to either krowinski or sibilia. These two are part of Vermont’s political “blob” and will continue on with the marxist policies they covet.
Vermont voters broke the “supermajority” for the next two years, forcing the majority to at least consult the minority to move legislation. It is a small win- and one that in the past has evaporated quickly- as the majority shifts tactics and becomes a “supermajority” again.
I’m not going to hold my breath. But there is at least one benefit to ending the super-majority. Governor Scott and Lt. Governor Rodgers can now show us their true stripes. They should veto any bill that increases our taxes for a start. Just level fund everything and watch what happens. Vermonters will, first and foremost, quickly learn who the real conservatives are. Then voters can continue the process of ‘primarying’ big spenders and electing competent leadership in their place.
Here’s my challenge to Scott, Rodgers, and our new conservative legislators; I don’t think you have the nerve or intellectual wherewithal to do what must be done. Go ahead. Make my day.
This is a direct quote from Rep. Sibilia: verbatim ” it is imperative to address issues in harmony with the majority perspectives of our constituents”. Yet Mr. Ropers’ article has highlighted the bills supported or sponsored by Representative Sibilia that have overwhelming opposition from her constituents, indeed statewide. So which do we believe? Actions or words?