This commentary is by Paul Dame, chair of the Vermont GOP.
Last week’s passage of S.5 the Clean Heat Standard was a demonstration of the corruption of the representative process in Montpelier. The vast majority (over 90%) of Democrats chose to listen to their party leadership and their favorite lobbying firms instead of listening to the voices of their constituents in one of the most overwhelming displays of citizen engagement we’ve seen in years.
Paul Dame, chairman of the Vermont GOP
Democrats have become emboldened to not only ignore the voices of the Republican minority, but they have now decided that they do not need to listen to the very voters who elected them to office.
Vermonters do not want to go down this road of severely punishing rural, poor and older Vermonters for heating their homes with the only means available to them. Vermonters do not want to eliminate local family-owned fuel dealers and put 100% of our energy needs in the hands of Quebec’s Gaz Metro, who owns both Green Mountain Power’s electricity company, and Vermont Natural Gas. Vermonters are independent and we want our energy options to be independent too. Vermonters do not want a new expensive program administered by unelected bureaucrats who are unaccountable to voters. Nor do they want a system which favors foreign-owned energy suppliers instead of locally owned distributors.
The fact that House Democrats claim they are taking us down the road slower than the original senate bill does not mitigate the fact that they are taking us in the wrong direction. This policy centralizes more of our energy out of the hands of local operators and into the hands of large foreign-owned corporate conglomerates.
The other aspect of the corruption of the process comes from the fact that this bill could be outright unconstitutional because it is taking away power from the people’s representatives in both the legislature and the Governor’s office, and gives that power to an unelected, unaccountable group of bureaucrats who don’t have to care whether what they are doing is good for the people of Vermont. Ironically Democrats are undermining the principles of democracy and self-rule, instead replacing it with an insulated oligarchy.
One legislator recently said they had received more email and phone calls about S.5 than any other bill in over a decade of service. The people of Vermont are doing their job: telling their representatives not to vote for this bad bill. But one has to ask, why aren’t Democrats in leadership doing their job in listening to people on the one issue they’ve been more outspoken about than anything else before?
The real reason, although they’ll never admit is, is that they think they know better than the people who write to them. The have a fundamentally flawed view of their role in Montpelier. Democrats have gotten into the habit of ignoring voices that disagree with them, calling them racist, homophobic, fascist, and many more. Too many listen only to their own party leadership’s echo chamber and ignore everything outside of. But when they ignore even the people they represent – then the system may be corrupted. I have a more optimistic view that the system isn’t corrupted yet, but some of the people in it may be. And just like a corrupted part of any system, it will need to be replaced.
As a former legislator, I completely understand taking a position because a lobbyist has explained their side to you, and it sounds pretty convincing. But if overwhelming contact from their constituents is not enough to encourage their legislators to think and act independently, voters have to ask themselves “Is there anything that WILL encourage Democrats to do the right thing in the future if they ignore us here?”
Why are the Progressives doing this? Vermond doesn’t have an air quality problem. The AGW crap doesn’t answer the question; short of having its own volcano, nothing Vermont does will matter a whit for its own weather or global temperature. S5 is benefitting someone in some way – and it’s clearly not the common man. What’s their motivation? Pathologic controlling personalities? Or are they Sadists? Que bono?
I was trying to come up with something not already stated here, it’s all true. These liberal blowhards have crushed the state. It is now a legislative dictator police state with the powerless titular head governor. He has his millions, Bernie has his millions, Welch has his millions, Leahy has his millions and the legislature has individuals who have sold out and aligned and connected with the green energy cult. They have determined to steel whatever is left of a once prosperous middle class to control and line their pockets with gold and we get the empty mine shaft.
The voting public majority is the idiot cult too ignorant to see the lies, the media coverups and censorship. The voting public is responsible for this destruction. The republican part is useless. This article be the chairman of the party is more of their nothing burgers. Shannon is right, nothing in the news media to fight back. The commercials on TV are subliminal messages. They make it look like Vermont has racially mixed couples on every corner and same sex couples sharing a product and drug company ads for HIV as well as showing men to be weak and useless. All devised to change the perception of reality.
I was born in Vermont over 6 decades ago and I am disgusted. I can’t afford to stay here and under these conditions I don’t want to. I keep getting letters from the republican party to donate money to their worthlessness. They won’t fight back. I supported Phil Scott not knowing how incompetent he was and is. His nice guy persona is fake. He does nothing to stop the progressive left. We have legislators who have done nothing in real life and they are the most arrogant because they are also fake and know it. They got to where they are by joining the liberal hive mind like good little party soldiers. Jeff is right, Vermont is gone. VTGON, they will eventually destroy what’s left. Every liberal run city and state is a police state full of corruption and crime. That will be Vermont future, almost there now. I’m glad I had an opportunity to grow up and live in the real Vermont.
Dano….yes, “VTGON”…you can take that two ways. One is VT is “Gone”….or, take it as “Get Out Now”…You will be amazed how happy & more prosperous you are when you finally leave….It is money in the bank …it was very hard for us to do it…the majority of my life was in VT….over four decades.. It’s a lot of work & angst to leave, but worth it & had to be done.
We have a true blue Socialist government in Montpelier. They are not even trying to hide it any more. They are running amok. And people, you can blame Paul Dame all you want, but the REAL problem in the Vermont Republican Party is our so-called “Republican” leader Phil Scott. He is a disgrace as a Republican governor. He is a total RINO. He is an appeaser of the left. He will not use his bully pulpit (the Governor’s chair) to stand up for we ordinary people. He sides with and votes with the Democrats about 50 percent of the time. Remember, he voted for Joe Biden and then bragged about it in public. Do you know who Phil Scott reminds me of? Neville Chamberlain. Both were/are too gutless to defend their own people. Both sold their citizens out to the Socialists instead.
Great analogy…Phil Scott is the ignorant, naive, dumb.. Neville Chamberlin pre WW2. Chamberlin thought German leaders were great & honorable guys, and would never invade or start a war. Yeah right. Phil Scott is exact same…his whole modus-operandi is to make all think, write about, and believe that he is really a “nice guy”…and he is not “right wing”…and he is “non-confrontational” (like other BULLY Repubs)…All non confrontational means is that he caves to whatever to the Dems, eventually. His veto means NOTHING with a super majority! Phil only hoists that threat to boost his ego that he is actually “doing something”. HE IS NOT. He’s just a “pablum-pushing-make-nice-& -please-like-me”…..The GOV. of VT is supposed to be the — CEO OF VERMONT. Phil Scott is nothing of that sort. He is a “wimp pulpit”…and does not have the guts to be a real CEO (because many in VT would thus hate him) …. Phil voted for Biden – and he is whole hog about climate change. Therein is the problem, Mr. Pablum… EARTH TO GOV. PHIL….a CEO Gov is NOT A POPULARITY CONTEST- SO YOU CAN BE “liked” . I’ll send ya’ a fiddle – so you can play it like Nero – in Rome back then…. VT burns down similar, in a few years, fiscally.
Kay,
Phil Scott is there to appease the right- to give the right in Vermont *the illusion* that they have representation so that they don’t revolt.
But the cat is outta the bag on this.. as you say, more and more people are connecting the dots now.
Sounds like your being a hypocrite Mr dame. Everything you spewed was to be devisive in one way or another. Do I like this bill no. But one thing is for certain the GOP has no plan no answers to anything whether it be national or local. As long as you get paid by your big business donors you are good. Why don’t you come up with a plan for once
Mr.Dame one of the most important points here that you’ve missed is this:
*The Voters Do Not Trust Or Believe What They Are Being Told”.
The approval ratings for congress, for elections, for basically ALL Government is in the gutter !!
People do not trust our government.
The entire world is now distancing itself from us because THEY Don’t Trust Our Government.
We get it !!
And this situation is a refection of that distrust, this is WHY there is Distrust.
The Left works so hard to divide us.. and keep us all pitted against each other.
What they are not seeing is that their not stop extremism is now putting us all on the same page:
We all agree they need to go !!
Same article same words same comment:
Except for stating the obvious, this is again, Mr. Dame doing nothing. I have seen no commercials on the TV, radio, or over the internet in streaming. Only stuff for what the Dems are pushing. Why no word from the VT GOP. Here’s a guess. They don’t want to spend any money to combat the left as they do lip service only. I see stuff about what they (the dems) want all the time on streaming channels like Pluto and I am amazed that I NEVER see something from the VTGOP. No ads on Sirius, no telling clip during an episode of anything…
But the Dems apparently know what they are doing…. Smearing the airwaves with EV, Abortion , trans, Foster care (in other words “we want your kids” to programs), having their Pac groups and lobbyist dictate policy and where is the VTGOP??… Writing letters to papers that only serve to show they can state the obvious.
I have been to meetings, they are disorganized and in some cases totally uneducated in more than one way in what is happening by the Dems. No, all you do is ignore those who do not give money to people who apparently don’t know how to spend it for the party to be more than it is today or to return it to what it was. You sir need to be replaced. You waste our time. As you have done to me. Would you like me to tell everyone how you sabotaged my attempts to run. No you don’t want them to know how this black man was rejected by the VTGOP w/ a shorter deadline then everyone else. 3 days to be exact. Really shows how you want change. Shows how you really are just about getting your check for your position and making sure any “undesirables” don’t get into the mix, like a good VTGOP who acts like a typical DEM. nuff said.
Wow Shannon, give me more! I was thinking the same thing. Keep speaking up for us,please.
The root cause of the cancer is the RNC and their insiders pulling the strings and controlling the money. There is so much rot in the party and so many know it. As is evident in the direct contrasts of Congressional Republicans like James Comer, Elise Stefanik, and Andy Biggs. They are actually doing the work the People demand. Yet, Republicans like Governors Charlie Baker, Brian Kemp, Chris Sununu, and Panderer-in-Charge Phil Scott are puppets of the regime. The corruption is what everyone is fighting now on the right and the left. Even the Democrats are facing no debates and 10% Joe running for re-election while being under a real criminal investigation. Both parties are being exposed for what they really are – a criminal enterprise – and so many people are waking up to that fact every day.
Melissa, shhh you might wake people up from their comas and they’ll know there is no difference, there is only the Uniparty…..
shhhh….
Speaking the truth…….may it echo off our mountains for all to hear.
Don’t feel bad Shannon, it has nothing to do with your color, you are probably a conservative, you might want to defend the constitution or even heaven forbid DO SOMETHING….
All these actions make you stench in the VTGOP nostril.
They usually prefer to put good citizens up for cannon fodder. There is much backstabbing from within.
Did you have a spine? They really, really don’t like that.
Thanks!
Nothing will change. Liberals use any and all kinds of ‘Saul Alinsky” tactics…and whatever it takes to achieve their agenda’s “end” ….they will do. Period. Then you ask this:
“Is there anything that WILL encourage Democrats to do the right thing in the future…..”
Well, besides a super majority in the Legislature…. the Democrat Progressives have a super MAJORITY of ALL VERMONT VOTERS (and they are brainwashed & indoctrinated). It is impossible to ever see in VT again, a Republican majority Senate, majority in the House or any true conservative Gov.
There is nothing you can do, no matter how many opinion peices you write….VT is toast….a major fiscal crisis in less than four years…by then Dems will have a $10- $11 billion spending budget, for tiny 640,000 people…and they will never, ever save the planet!!…”VTGON”.