It’s been obvious since January (if not before) that Gov. Phil Scott has adopted a very different tone when it comes to That Man in the White House. It used to be that Scott felt no qualms about openly criticizing Trump. Lately, his approach has been decidedly more circumspect. I used to chalk this up to a new realpolitik in which the November election gave him many more Republican allies in the Legislature, most of whom are avid Trumpers. In response, Scott had to be more careful.
Now? I think Phil Scott is bending the knee, taking the coward’s way out, keeping his head down, sacrificing principle in favor of expediency. He doesn’t want to join the likes of Harvard, UPenn, immigrants, transgender folk, Stephen Colbert, the Washington Commanders, and Rosie O’Donnell in Trump’s crosshairs.
Two points. First, Scott’s transportation secretary refusing to cooperate with Attorney General Charity Clark’s lawsuit over cutbacks in federal funding for electric vehicle infrastructure. Second, his staunch defense of state cooperation with Trump’s immigration regime despite the fact that his own Department of Corrections is having a hard time dealing with the feds’ extraconstitutional thuggery.
Also this: A carefully worded statement from Clark that hints at a broader Trump-avoidant stance by the Scott administration.
Details. As Seven Days’ Kevin McCallum reported a couple weeks ago, a federal judge has ordered the release of millions in EV infrastructure dollars withheld by Trump — but excluded Vermont from the disbursements because Clark failed to provide evidence of “irreparable harm” if the federal money wasn’t unfrozen. And the reason for that failure is the refusal of Transportation Secretary Joe Flynn to cooperate with Clark.
At stake is nearly $17 million for EV infrastructure in Vermont — which happens to be the area where Scott has made the most progress on fighting climate change. Why did Flynn stay out of it? McCallum paraphrases:
There is a real risk the state could lose the [EV] grant funding, [Flynn] acknowledged. But it seemed smarter to focus on ensuring the state receives its share of a larger upcoming round of federal highway funding than to fight over the smaller EV-charging dollars, he said.
The only way those two issues could be linked is if the Trump administration and/or the Republican Congress try to punish states that fought for the EV funds. Flynn’s abstention indicates that the governor is afraid enough of retribution from President Manbaby that he’s willing to forego the best available funding source for EV buildout. Sad!
On to ICE and the state of Vermont. During the legislative session, the Democratic majority was looking for ways to minimize the state’s entanglement with Trump’s immigration and border enforcement efforts. Scott was not a fan. He accused the Dems of getting “caught up with the rhetoric and the outrage” and letting it interfere with the flow of legislative work.
He also argued that it was better to house detainees in Vermont prisons than to have them shunted off to God knows where. Seemed like a good point, and the Legislature basically agreed. But we have discovered, thanks to VTDigger reporter Ethan Weinstein’s exclusive story, that Vermont is, in fact, being used as a way station by the feds. ICE and the Border Patrol have no interest in our feelings about their enforcement regime. They’re just going ahead and doing what they want to do.
Scott must have known this. The internal communications unearthed by Weinstein date back to the early days of Trump’s second term. One key memo, written in early March by the head of the state prison at St. Albans, reports that the feds were “disregarding” Vermont’s distaste for serving, in Weinstein’s words, as “the feds’ hub in the Northeast.”
From which I conclude that Scott was lying to the Legislature and the public about the feds’ use of state prisons. He had to know that Vermont was being used as a cog in Trump’s giant heartless enforcement machine.
As for my third point, in his story on the Clark/Flynn split, McCallum quoted Clark as saying that the Scott administration had “taken a different approach to handling the illegal and unconstitutional actions made by the Trump administration.”
That’s a broad statement. It seems to stretch beyond the EV funding issue. Clark has taken part in lawsuit after lawsuit against Trump’s unconstitutional and/or illegal actions on a variety of fronts. Her statement strongly implies the Scott administration isn’t being helpful.
It’s about as close as Clark can get to directly criticizing the Scott administration because, after all, they are in an attorney-client relationship. She has to abide by the strictures of that relationship. In that context, her words are remarkable for their candor.
Has the Scott administration hamstrung any of Clark’s other efforts to fight back against Trump? From Clark’s words, I can only conclude that it has, although Clark is unlikely to volunteer any such information.
We know two specific instances where Scott and his minions have pursued a policy of appeasement. It’s safe to assume there are more.
