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These are your leadership choices? Seriously?
This article was originally published on Rob Roper’s Substack page Behind The Lines and was republished here with permission
By Rob Roper
Vermont Republicans picked up six seats in the Vermont Senate on November 5, changing the partisan makeup of the chamber from 23-7 to 17-13, the highest percentage the VTGOP has had in over a quarter century. The Republicans succeeded in winning three open seat races and knocking off three Democrat incumbents, two of whom were infamous for their support of radical climate policies and the third largely because she unapologetically supported a bill to double legislators’ salaries – something struggling taxpayers not surprisingly frowned upon.
An unprecedented rise in property taxes certainly played a major role in all of the VTGOP pickups, which also included 18 (potentially twenty pending a revote and a recount) in the House, the highest single season pickup tally for any VT party in a very long time. Nationally, Republicans picked up around fifty legislative seats total (out of 5806 elections), and roughly half of all of them came in Vermont. So, message from Vermont voters to Vermont Democrats: please stop literally everything you are doing. Response from Democrat Senate Caucus to voters based on their recent leadership picks, yeah, go (keeping it clean) pound sand!
The remaining and new members of the Democrat Senate Caucus decided that the best way to respond to their recent shellacking was to re-elect Philip Baruth (D/P, Chittenden) as Senate President Pro Tem (aka Top Dog/Big Cheese). This is the same Baruth whose “leadership” included an authoritarian rant last March following Town Meeting Week telling his colleagues, “You will not receive kudos for your work [on their taxing and spending schemes], you will receive sharp criticism, paid advertising talking about how you’re going to cost Vermonters money that they don’t have.” But, despite the clearly articulated lack of constituent support for this agenda, Baruth instructed, “We are going forward with these bills!” And they did! It did not go well.
But echoing that exact same sentiment eight months and one election later, Baruth laid down the law in his intra-caucus re-election victory speech, “Every bill that comes to you, you may have reasons why you might not want to vote for it. But we’re in a situation where the good of the caucus and the bills that you want to pass out of your committee are going to need you to be a little more amenable to other people’s bills. You’re going to have to stretch sometimes.” In other words, vote for what I tell you to, and pay no attention to your constituents, your conscience, or common sense.
This… is… why… your… party… LOST! But the caucus decided in its infinite tone-deafness to reward this arrogant, elitist jerk with a return to their top leadership post.
It doesn’t end there. Remember when I referenced one of the three ousted incumbents’ support for doubling legislative salaries and benefits? Well, the new Senate Majority Whip is the leading proponent of that policy, Becca White (D-Windsor). This millennial with the maturity level of an eight-year-old and the personality of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory’s Veruca Salt (“I want an Oompa Loompa NOW!”) was caught on camera having a sarcastic hissy fit because her successful efforts to raise taxes on the folks who elected her at crushing rates would not be rewarded with a massive pay raise for herself.
As for the new Majority Leader, Senator Alison Clarkson (D-Windsor) was ousted in favor of Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale (D-Chittenden Southeast). While ousting Clarkson, who is like the flamboyant, life-of-the-party Aunt who shows up at Thanksgiving plastered – entertaining and affable but undenyably bat crazy – makes some sense…. But Ram Hinsdale?
This is the woman who currently chairs the Senate Committee on Economic Development, Housing and General Affairs (emphasis in this context on the word Housing), who made headlines this past September with, “Hinsdale Properties is demanding $500,000 to allow an apartment complex project on Willison Road to go forward (Seven Days, 9/18/24).”
If Baruth and White represent the worst kind of ideologically, out of touch radicals who see politics as a means to wield power over their constituents rather than represent them, Ram Hinsdale represents the worst kind of self-serving corruption. With Vermonters facing a housing availability and affordability crisis, and a developer willing to invest in building 32 units of housing in Williston, the family business of the Senate Housing Committee holds up that project until they can wet their beak for a cool half million. That just doesn’t pass the ethical smell test. This is the person writing state laws regulating housing development? For whose benefit one must ask.
According to VT Digger, “Ram Hinsdale tried to change that tradition [that caucus leaders do not chair committees] on Saturday. In an unusual move, senators voted on a piece of internal guidance that would have allowed caucus leaders [specifically her] to serve as committee chairs, as well. Ram Hinsdale urged her colleagues to vote yes.” Yeah, I’ll bet she did!
According to her bio on the state website, “When not in the legislature, Kesha teaches Structural Inequality and Environmental Justice at Vermont Law & Graduate School. She has also served as co-chair of the Vermont Attorney General’s Immigration Task Force and as a member of the boards of Emerge Vermont, the Main Street Alliance of Vermont, Planned Parenthood of Northern New England, the Regenerative Food Network, and the Vermont Natural Resources Council.” Is this the resume of someone you trust will lead her caucus to meaningful property tax reform, take a tough stance on rising crime, and solve the housing cost/availability crisis? That is, need I say it, a rhetorical question.
Well, that’s the Democrats in the Senate. Will those in the House do any better? They are currently in a leadership fight between the current Speaker of the House Jill Krowinski (D-Burlington) and Laura Sibilia (I-Dover) – a real reverse Sophie’s Choice for sure. Cant’ we get rid of both of them? I’ll analyze that race in my next column. Stay tuned!
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
Thank you Rob, you are acting in lieu of the council of censors in a manner. Appreciated.
What would make one think the ” Progressive DemocRATs ” would get it, they believe everything they do is important, and those against their agenda must be wrong………….. Just look at their leadership and policies …… they don’t get it.
But they will, as Vermonters, will keep turfing these clowns out one at a time, and then they’ll get.
Wake up, people. They don’t care. You are only a taxpayer. They need you, but you don’t need them.
Time to put on the green vests and flood the committee rooms with citizens. There are no more wind turbine projects in Vermont since the yellow vesters showed up in force in 2016 to oppose the renewable cabal. The result of their efforts was the adoption of nighttime noise regulations for wind turbines that protects communities that otherwise would have been targeted.
Our newly elected legislature will need active citizen support if they are to accomplish what the electorate demanded in this unprecedented defeat of the Progressive/Democrat agenda.
We must also require of our governor a louder voice, before, during and after the legislative session. phil scott’s quiet manner isn’t doing the job required. So too, We must work harder to get the truth and straight story out. The articles Rob Roper and other moderate to conservative folks (you included) write contain the information that absolutely needs to be spread. We must help folks become aware of the perils of one-sided reporting, the regurgitation of d/p press releases as “news” and help them find accurate reporting on these issues. Without substantial progress by the increased republican presence in this biennium, 2026 will surely mark a return to a d/p supermajority. History does repeat itself- and quite quickly in Vermont politics.
The face of Senator Baruth on a roll of toilet paper would be a well used product. Time to clean out the bath room.
The cool thing about being a democrat in the Vermont Legislature is that you need not be concerned with representing Vermonters because you already know what is best for them.
So sick of hearing the phrase “the good of the caucus…” from Baruth. What about the good of the citizens? They clearly are not the same thing.
“It should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working class people would find that the working class has abandoned them,” “While the Democratic leadership defends the status quo, the American people are angry and want change. And they’re right.”
bernie sanders, in a social media post Nov. 6 2024.
He continues:
“Will the big money interests and well-paid consultants who control the Democratic Party learn any real lessons from this disastrous campaign?” Sanders asked.
Obviously, baruth, white, ram and the rest of Vermont’s legislative “leadership”
will continue to ignore sanders and their citizens. Hubris- and dollars are the guiding ideals with this bunch.
Further evidence of the breakdown of our citizen legislature representing the interests of constituents was made in a debate between Coester and Balint. The moderator asked Coester about the economy and he responded by saying that Vermonters are struggling every day as communicated while campaigning. Balint responded to the same question by stating that the legislatures has been looking at other Western nations. It do not understand why Vermonters are complaining because Vermont is doing a little better than those nations. These progressive ideologs view Vermont from the lense of global democracy defined by Sustainable Development Goal 10: Reduce Inequities within and Among Nations, which includes health equity, wealth equity and so on. I attended a recent meeting in Cornwall where ousted Chris Bray discussed schools focus on wealth equity.
It is the idiot pathological liberal voters of Crittenden county who didn’t get the message…
Shocking? Well, hardly not. Ram-Hinsdale has long been an aspiring Queen of the Vermont BLOB.
I’m not at all surprised that the Democrats will continue on the path they are on. They don’t care about us and they have already drawn a line in the sand against Republicans. It will be fun when their bills get vetoed and they don’t have the votes to override it. God forbid if they have to play ball.
Philip Baruth (D/P, Chittenden) is prima facia evidence that Vermont’s State government operates as a party-oriented oligarchy, not a democracy or constitutional republic, as defined by the rule of law. There exists an Orwellian ‘Inner Party’ and ‘Outer Party’. The Inner Party has the power – lawless as they are. If anyone wants to see and hear how this fourth estate, the permanent government bureaucratic class, works, watch Tucker Carlson’s interview with former Office of Management and Budget Director, Russel Vought.
https://www.youtube.com/live/vydAb4RR1iI
What is truly concerning is the extent to which the accumulated power these imperial special interest groups have, as they pull the puppet strings on our elected ‘inner party’ officials like Baruth. The special interests are the lobbyists and non-profit organizations who actually spend taxpayer money where it benefits them first, the naked ‘inner party’ emperors second, the ‘outer party’ sycophants third, while the rest of us pay most of our income to them and grovel for table scraps.
Yes. This level of corruption seems extreme. Unfortunately, what we’re learning from folks like Rob Roper is that our government is this corrupt. Furthermore, anyone who levies a ‘conspiracy theory’ accusation on Rob, or you, or me, for voicing this opinion, know this – they are in, or beholden to, the government oligarchy.
Can this ‘deep state’ be stopped? Honestly? I don’t know. Transparency is a prerequisite. And thanks to folks like Rob Roper, we can see the corruption for ourselves. But voters are continually being duped by corrupt, chameleon-like candidates who claim to be recently resurrected fiscal conservatives but who have a long history of progressive big government affiliation. And we don’t have to look very far here in Vermont to see today’s usual suspects.
Watch the Carlson interview with Russel Vought. The importance of having the opportunity to listen to people with this level of experience cannot be overstated.
Do your homework. Watch it! Then think about it!
hope midterms will find more republicans elected to slow this insanity in this small state
Re: VT Senate Democrats didn’t get the message.
They will never get the message because they don’t want to get the message. They are Communists that are trying to change our constitutional republic into a socialist utopia. The only way they will is if we let them. Their agenda is clear and has permeated almost every facet of American life. The only way they will get the message is when they are totally defeated and have no power but as long as they have power, we can expect them to forward their agenda.
The difference between a Welfare State and a Totalitarian State is a matter of time.
“When you see that in order to produce , you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing – when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors – when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don’t protect you against them, but protect them against you – when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice – you may know that your society is doomed“. Ayn Rand
Regardless of what the Vermont Dem/Progs project while circling their wagons even tighter, it’s a noose around their necks. The donkey party is a chaotic mess and the infighting spilling out all over. The Harris campaign allegedly hauls in $1 Billion and ends up $20 million in the hole? The image of the party representing the working class is eroding faster than their coffers. See what they’ve done to their own staffers and it should start resonating with the party line or die folks that they’ve been duped and deceived – no honor among thieves.
Washington Post November 19, 2024:
“DNC layoffs with no severance leave staffers scrambling, union says
“The DNC’s senior leadership has chosen to leave loyal staff scrambling to cover rent, medical expenses and childcare costs,” the union’s statement said.
The cuts were announced starting on Wednesday night and were effective Friday; and DNC leaders did not tell staff how the layoffs were determined or whether additional cuts are planned, according to the union. Those laid off included people who had been with the organization for 40 years, the union said.”
Now would be a great time for the VT Republican Party to capitalize on national energy and destigmatization of conservative values to develop some respectable, young candidates who can actually debate, and not make total asses of themselves— like Mark Coester did in that “debate” with Balint. What an embarrassment. We can do so much better.
What is there about the message that voters sent on Tues 5 Nov, that is so difficult to understand? If the Lefties still hold onto these same Baruthisms, as are being tossed around elsewhere in this production, there will be another blast from the past landing in those hallowed halls holding up the golden dome; and it will not be directed to the Republicans. I leave you to your imagination.
Burlington is in crisis! Police Chief leaving & 2 Deputy Chiefs leaving. Drugs. Homeless people. Housing shortage. The list goes on. Over the top property taxes. One would think that Burlington’s Montpelier rep’s ( think Baruth; Hinsdale, …) would at Least Attempt to Help Solve these Issues. Not so much.