August 4, 2024 | By Cheryl Casey | Correspondent

HUNTINGTON – It was a busy week on the campaign trail for the four candidates vying for the Washington-Chittenden district’s two seats in the State House.

Candidates in the Washington-Chittenden House race meet with voters at the Huntington Public Library on July 30. Seated left to right are: Moderator Landel Cochran, Rep. Tom Stevens and Rep. Theresa Wood, both Waterbury Democrats, Republican Jonathan Griffin of Waterbury, and Democrat Elizabeth Brown of Waterbury. Photo by Lisa Scagliotti

Last Tuesday evening, July 30, Democratic incumbent Reps. Tom Stevens and Theresa Wood joined their challengers, Democrat Elizabeth Brown and Republican Jonathan Griffin, at the Huntington Public Library for the second of two candidate forums organized by the Brown campaign. Three of the four candidates then filed campaign finance disclosures with the Secretary of State’s office on Thursday.

The House district encompasses Waterbury in Washington County and the Chittenden County towns of Huntington and Bolton, and Buel’s Gore. All four candidates are Waterbury residents. Vermont’s state primary election is August 13 and early/absentee voting has been available since early July.

All three Democrats reported a busy month of fundraising in their Aug. 1 filings, with Wood raising the most during this period adding $10,440 to her campaign coffers. She reported $650 in fundraising in her July 1 filing. Stevens raised $10,205 after reporting no activity prior to last month.

Compared with June fundraising, Brown’s efforts slowed this period, showing $4,670 in donations compared to the record-setting $17,355 reported in her July filing. Her campaign has raised a total of $22,025 to date.

The small donor factor

Brown has raised about twice as much as either of the incumbents, but fundraising totals are only part of the picture. There is a difference in the degree to which small donations, defined in Vermont as less than $100, are powering these three campaigns.

According to the most recent filings, 63% of Wood’s donors gave less than $100 each, while Stevens’ small donors make up half of his financial supporters. In contrast, only 15% of Brown’s donors gave in amounts less than $100. Small donations make up 2.15% of Brown’s total fundraising compared to 19.8% for Wood and 14.3% for Stevens.

Running a campaign for elected office is an expensive proposition at any level, and campaign finance experts have been paying attention to the impact of small donor giving in recent years. According to the Brennan Center for Justice, a nonpartisan law and policy institute, “A boom in small donations has transformed recent elections, signaling that millions more people than ever before are engaged in politics through campaign finance.”

The effects of small donations, however, are debated. Some experts contend that the increase in small donors drives an increasingly polarized political landscape. Thomas B. Edsall, a long-time journalist and former professor at Columbia University’s School of Journalism, argued in an opinion piece for The New York Times that “that small donors hold far more ideologically extreme views than those of the average voter.” Edsall cited a 2022 study by Harvard economists and the published work of a number of political scientists to support his concerns that individual giving in small amounts to individual candidates rather than political parties is fueling polarized thinking and partisan animosity.

Writing for the Brennan Center, election law expert Ian Vandewalker disagreed. “All donors, regardless of how much they give, tend to be more partisan and ideological than the average voter. Many small donors give in patterns indistinguishable from those of other classes of donors. And while small donor giving has increased significantly in recent years, big-money spending has grown faster,” he wrote.

In the Washington-Chittenden House race, the numbers show very different levels of reliance on—and perhaps appeals to—small donors. Brown’s campaign is attracting more large donations ($100 or more). Wood and Stevens, on the other hand, count small donors as making up at least half of their contributors so far. All candidates have received large donations from contributors based in and outside of the voting district. Vermont’s campaign finance laws do not require donor information to be provided for contributions less than $100, so the reports cannot tell the geographic distribution of small donors and therefore the extent of in-district support these contributions signal.

Listed donors reflect candidate connections

The reports do illustrate an alignment between the larger campaign contributors and the expertise and experience of each of the Democratic candidates. Brown’s donor list includes real estate investors, contractors, and corporate executives. As previously reported by the Roundabout, a number of those large donors also have documented histories of supporting Republican candidates and talking points.

Stevens and Wood, who each have served multiple terms in the State House, count advocacy groups, policy and communications strategists, and colleagues in state government among their large donors. For example, the Vermont NEA teachers’ union and the state employees union accounted for Stevens’ and Wood’s two largest non-individual reported contributions of $1,120 and $1,000 respectively.

Among Stevens’ donors are current Speaker of the House Jill Krowinski and former House Speaker Shap Smith, state Democratic Party Chair Dorothy Deans, and state Democratic Reps. Joseph Troiano of Hardwick and Emilie Krasnow of Burlington.

*Republican Jonathan Griffin is a first-time candidate. Photo by Lisa Scagliotti*

Wood counts Vermont Attorney General Charity Clark and Democratic state Reps. Krasnow, Sara Coffey of Guilford, Jessica Brumsted of Shelburne, and Tiffany Bluemle of Burlington among her large donors.

Republican candidate Jonathan Griffin has not yet reported any fundraising activity. State campaign finance law requires a candidate to disclose fundraising once a minimum of $500 has been raised. Without a primary contest on the GOP ballot, Griffin has not logged significant campaign fundraising or spending to date.

Candidate spending reflects campaign status

Candidate spending decisions reflect the differences between an incumbent campaign and that of a newcomer to the scene. For example, Brown has spent over $6,000 on website development, graphic design, yard signs, and printing campaign swag—all fundamental elements of a first-time candidate getting their name out to gain voters’ awareness. Her campaign has also put about $9,000 into online advertising and postcard mailings, her report shows. Smaller expenses went toward candidate travel/meals, small fundraising events, and administrative needs. To date, Brown has reported a total of $20,387 in expenditures.

Unlike Brown, incumbents Stevens and Wood aren’t starting from scratch with voters, which is reflected in their respective campaign spending decisions. Neither showed expenses until the July reporting period.

More than half of Stevens’ spending went toward postcards ($2,461), with another $200 dollars going to newspaper advertising. Other expenses went to administrative fees, event and office supplies, and candidate travel/meals, totaling $4,178 so far in his bid for re-election, his finance report shows. Wood, however, only spent $539 through July 31, and that went primarily toward online advertising. Smaller expenses include administrative fees and candidate travel/meals, according to her finance report.

*Fourteen people made up the audience, not counting those attending with the candidates and reporters. Photo by Lisa Scagliotti*

Forum repeats issues, veers from format

The Tuesday night forum in Huntington was attended by 14 people, a much smaller affair than that held in Waterbury on July 14. The moderator was Landel Cochran, Huntington Select Board’s vice-chair and himself a Republican candidate for the state Senate in the Addison district that covers Huntington.

Cochran opened the event by explaining the format which was to mirror that used in Waterbury: five-to-seven minutes for introductory and closing remarks by the candidates bookending a period of public comment and questions. Candidates were asked to hold any responses for their closing statements.

The small group and intimate space inside the library, however, quickly steered the dialog to more of a roundtable once the public comment portion began. With just a few audience comments and questions, the four candidates soon engaged in a discussion.

*Anna Burke reads comments to the candidates. Photo by Lisa Scagliotti*

As in the Waterbury forum, concerns raised revolved around fears that rising costs of child care, housing, and double-digit property tax increases are making Vermont too expensive a place to live.

Among those offering comment was Jennifer Birnn-Fields, Huntington resident and owner of Birnn Chocolates of Vermont based in South Burlington. She sent a letter read by friend Anna Burke describing the difficulties both she and her employees have in finding and affording child care. Birnn-Fields, who has two children under school age with husband Mel Fields, said her youngest child is on multiple wait lists and “some of our employees have had to leave their jobs because they couldn’t find affordable child care and it is more financially viable for them to stay home rather than work just to cover child care expenses.”

*Bruce Hennesey shares comments on running a local agricultural operation. Photo by Lisa Scagliotti*

Bruce Hennessey, who moved his residence and regenerative farming operation, Maple Wind Farm, from Huntington to Richmond a few years ago “due to business and financial reasons'' also spoke after acknowledging “it was really, really hard” for him and his partner Beth Whiting to make the decision to move away from the community. He said that even in the face of severe challenges brought by the recent flooding, his greatest obstacles “have been in housing and attracting workers that want to actually work for us over time. And for farm work, we pay pretty well. We have to, or we just won’t get anybody otherwise.”

The cost of housing in the area, he explained, is simply prohibitive, noting that since the pandemic, many houses “have no business costing what they do, all of a sudden way up in the stratosphere.”

Hennessey added that “I’m really concerned that we’re not focused on finding strategies to be able to afford these programs that we desperately need. When we talk about making hard choices, what are the things we’re gonna cut?” he asked.

Replying to Hennessey’s comments, Stevens noted that he worked for Maple Wind Farm from 2019 until 2023.

Candidates in conversation

For most of the time, however, the four candidates had the floor, with little facilitating from Cochran.

*Rep. Tom Stevens answers a question. Photo by Lisa Scagliotti*

The incumbents took the opportunity to defend their records in the legislature. Stevens, for example, spoke to how school budgets have affected property taxes in ways that the legislature cannot control. “Five cents on your tax rate this year was due to health insurance premiums,” he explained. “We don’t control health insurance prices.”

Stevens pointed out that the legislature managed to reduce the average education tax rate from 20% to 13.8%. He also emphasized that the General Assembly “does not pass a deficit budget. We’re not spending like drunken sailors.”

Reflecting on the influx of federal pandemic-response dollars that Vermont school districts received, Wood noted that those spending decisions happened at the local level and now districts need to adjust as that funding ends. “Honestly the [federal] money that went to schools and the education system wasn’t under the control of the legislature. It was under the control of the local school districts,” she explained.

Wood also doubled down on her support for Vermont Act 76, which addresses childcare and early childhood education. As chair of the House Committee on Human Services, Wood and her committee “intervened and rolled back some of the things that were put in place [by Act 76] after a period of time,” she said, defending legislative efforts to address unintended consequences of the policy for in-home childcare.

*Rep. Theresa Wood addresses the audience. Photo by Lisa Scagliotti*

At one point, Wood even interrupted some of Browns’ remarks about these unintended consequences to clarify that the policy had been put in place “by the [Scott] administration, I want to point out, not by the legislature.”

Wood called Act 76 “strong public policy,” adding, “I’m proud of the bill that we passed.”

Challengers Brown and Griffin, who could not point to policy records in response to voters’ concerns, instead used the forum to tout their personal experiences and respective skill sets to support their candidacies.

Citing her background in banking, finance and strategic planning, Brown argued for the value of “a business mindset” in the State House. “Government is a business, providing service to you for a cost,” she said. Brown elaborated on the comparison with the business world by explaining the importance of evaluating processes to make improvements, “which doesn’t necessarily mean people are losing their jobs. Evaluating process helps identify waste. We do not have an endless trust fund to fund all of these programs,” she remarked.

*First-time Democratic candidate Elizabeth Brown has been the top fundraiser - and spender - in the Washington-Chittenden House race. Photo by Lisa Scagliotti*

“We need equal footing between financial accountability and ideology,” Brown said. “We’ve been a little bit too heavy, I believe, on the ideology side. We are going to outpace our spending. This is the only way that our state is going to remain solvent.”

Referring to the veteran lawmakers at the table, Brown in her final remarks said, “If you’re happy with how things are going, you have two great options.”

Griffin used the analogy of NASA’s decision-making in managing a shuttle launch to explain his approach to the issue of state spending. “There are so many variables,” he explained, “what they’re doing is using continuous course corrections. The most efficient path can’t be achieved by a straight line because everything is moving. They make lots of small course corrections, and that is much more efficient than a launch on a single path, find out that we’re miles off course, and then make a big change to come back [on course].”

He said a similar approach can be taken to keep state government spending on programs on track. “The more efficient path is the one that is continually manipulated and constantly evolving,” he concluded. If elected, he said he would “look at each entity, or agency, and ask for some small course corrections every year” to reduce spending a little bit at a time.

The Aug. 13 primary will determine the two Democratic candidates that will be on the November General Election ballot alongside Griffin. Any independent candidates have until Aug. 8 to register with the Vermont Secretary of State’s office as well.

In addition to candidates for the legislature, the Aug. 13 primary election will establish the November candidates for all statewide elected offices including governor, lieutenant governor, and one U.S. Senate seat.

Below are the Aug. 1 campaign finance disclosure forms filed with the Vermont Secretary of State by Elizabeth Brown, Tom Stevens and Theresa Wood in the Washington-Chittenden House race. Click to enlarge the images.

Elizabeth Brown