Tag: Vermont

CNN's Don Lemon spoke to Vermont democrat Christine Hallquist, who CNN projects will become the first transgender gubernatorial nominee for a major political party.

On the same night that Alexandria won, Ben Jealous took on the Democratic establishment in Maryland and became the Democratic gubernatorial nominee. If you look at what Alexandria was talking about, what I talk about, what other progressives talk about, by and large, they are very popular, not only among people who consider themselves Democrats or progressives but the American people as a whole. When we talk about pay equity for women, the American people overwhelmingly support that. The ideas we are talking about make sense in every state of the country. That’s what we’ve got to do.” Then they come out and vote, and progressives and Democrats win. When you don’t have a program that appeals to working people and ideas that get people excited, when you have low voter turnout, that’s the Republicans’ dream. A lot of people in Democratic Socialists of America advocate supporting candidates in Democratic primaries, as they did for your 2016 run and with Ocasio-Cortez, but also believe it’s necessary to build a more radical, independent power base outside of the Democratic Party. We have been trying, with some success, to not only open the doors of the Democratic Party to working people and young people, but change the party’s rules as well. There are a lot of ways that we are making progress, not only by electing progressives, but by changing rules — by trying to open the doors and bring people in. When you do that, people will do not only well in politics and win elections, but it will improve life in the United States of America.

Since he campaigned here in his losing bid for the presidency two years ago, Bernie Sanders’s brand of politics has surged in the Pittsburgh area. It tells me that when candidates run on a progressive agenda, when they mount strong grassroots campaigns involving in this case hundreds of people, there's no way they're going to lose," Mr. Sanders told the Post-Gazette in an interview Thursday. When the Vermont senator and Democratic Socialist visits Pittsburgh this Sunday to attend a teachers’ union conference and rally with lieutenant governor candidate John Fetterman, he’ll likely ride in on a wave of momentum from the area’s leftward shift in politics, but come equipped with a message of urgency: that in the age of Donald Trump, candidates must fight even harder for the Democratic Socialist ideals of health care for all, raising the minimum wage and reforming the criminal justice system. Tom Wolf against the Republican ticket of Scott Wagner and Jeff Bartos. He said the Braddock Mayor is aware of the difficulties facing the average worker, including that real wages are declining despite low unemployment. "I think John is cognizant of all that, and is a candidate for lieutenant governor who is going to do his best not only to fight for working families, but to bring them into the political process through grassroots organizing," Mr. Sanders said, "and that is exactly what we need all over the country." The recent successes of DSA-backed state House candidates Summer Lee and Sara Innamorato serve as validation, Mr. Sanders said, that the “political revolution,” as he calls it, is picking up steam across the country. He said he was told they would both be attending this Sunday’s rally. Republicans, on the other hand, have sought to link Democratic candidates to the Democratic Socialist message, saying that the platform is unrealistic, unaffordable and disconnected from real working class Americans. Mr. Sanders said he will start his remarks by thanking teachers for making sacrifices and standing up for education, but also promote the ideas of making Pre-K universal and college more affordable.

Senator Sanders spoke for nearly an hour with Washington Post national political correspondent James Hohmann on a number of topics and answered Twitter questions. Their initial conversation focused on this week’s primary results and the influence he and the organization that sprang from his presidential campaign — called Our Revolution – has had on politics. “The chairman of the DNC Tom Perez endorsed Andrew Cuomo, who’s locked in a pretty competitive primary with Cynthia Nixon. When you have the head of the DNC, and I’ve worked OK with Perez on some areas, but to endorse one candidate over the other is not what the chair of the DNC should be doing. And when I ran in 2016, three million people in New York state were ineligible to vote. Sanders immediately noted that he “hated” that term and then renewed his vow to prevent cuts in Social Security and Medicare. In my state of Vermont, you’ve got elderly people who are trying to get by on $12 or $13,000 a year Social Security. Sanders, who turns 77 in September, responded he would decide whether he will run “at the appropriate time.” “Number one, 2018, as I have said many times, is the most important midterm election in my lifetime and I’m going to do everything that I can to see that we end one party rule here in Washington where the Republicans, right-wing extremist Republicans control the Senate, the House, and the White House. And then I’m focusing on the important issues that need to be discussed. Believe me, there will be more than enough candidates, I’m quite confident, running for president and at the appropriate time, I will make that decision as to whether I do it or not.

In a packed committee room on Friday, the House Committee on Government Operations heard testimony about a bill to limit the influence of corporations on Vermont politics. The bill would rewrite Vermont campaign laws to ensure “only an individual, a political committee, or a political party may make a contribution to a candidate or a political party.” Pollina said in an interview on Friday that Vermont’s campaign finance laws need to be updated continually, to ensure that “the voices of citizens are still heard.” “Because Vermont is a small state, people believe big money doesn’t have that much influence,” Pollina said, citing expenditures by the beverage industry to oppose the tax on soft drinks as an example of “big corporate” money’s influence in the state. In its current form, S.120 leaves intact existing limitations on single-source campaign contributions, which are $1,000 for state representatives and local officials, $1,500 for state senators and $4,000 for state officials like the governor and state treasurer. Political action committees that raise or spend $1,000 or more on Vermont politics are required to register with the Vermont secretary of state. Eleanor Spottswood, providing testimony from the Vermont attorney general’s office, said that while the attorney general is legally responsible for prosecuting violations of campaign finance laws, the onus of reporting violations falls on citizens. He pointed out that were a corporation to donate money to a national PAC, which then gave money to a Vermont PAC, Vermonters would have no way of identifying the original corporate source of the money listed in the Vermont PAC’s campaign finance reports. “So if somebody chooses to take money from a political action committee or a party, why shouldn’t they have the requirement to do the digging to find out where that money truly came from?” Winters said public financing of political campaigns is the secretary of state-endorsed answer for reducing the reach of corporate money in campaigns. ” Pollina, the bill’s sponsor, said Vermont may not be ready for extensive campaign public finance reform. He also acknowledged that some may feel the bill doesn’t go far enough. The committee will also take testimony on H.828, a bill sponsored by committee members Gannon and Townsend that would strengthen disclosure rules, requiring candidates, individuals and other organizations who pay for social media ads to identify themselves.