BY LOLA DUFFORT/VTDigger
DUELING SCRAWLED AND scribbled-out messages about abortion are chalked onto a wall outside Planned Parenthood offices in downtown Brattleboro in July. Photo by Kevin O’Connor/VTDigger
VERMONT — The people who knocked on your door telling you not to vote for a constitutional amendment enshrining reproductive rights in Vermont’s constitution? They likely come courtesy of a former Trump aide’s Washington, D.C.-area outfit.
Congressional contests aside, the priciest campaign in Vermont this year is the one for and against the amendment, also known as Prop 5 or Article 22, and a spending blitz continues apace.
A public question committee for Vermonters for Good Government, the group campaigning against Proposal 5, has reported that nearly two-thirds of its spending so far— $210,000 —went to the Blair Group for canvassing services, according to campaign finance disclosures filed Oct. 9 with the Vermont Secretary of State’s Office.
The Virginia-based consulting firm is run by David Blair, a youth organizer for Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign who later served in the former president’s White House press office. (Public question committees, similar to political action committees, are vehicles for spending for or against ballot items.)
The Blair Group advertises soup-to-nuts canvassing programs for conservative campaigns, door-knockers included. In a recruitment ad placed with Student for Life of America, a national anti-abortion group, the firm offers canvassers $1,000 or more—plus lodging, transportation, and food stipends—for a week of knocking on doors.
Matt Strong, executive director of Vermonters for Good Government, acknowledged that the Blair Group had provided both logistical support and canvassers, noting that some left-leaning groups in Vermont also pay personnel to knock on doors.
“There were and are a lot of volunteers who are helping to get out the facts about Article 22 and given the large scope of this effort we decided to borrow a page from (the Vermont Public Interest Research Group) and bring on some professionals to organize the logistics behind the door knocking campaign,” Strong wrote in an email to VTDigger.
In total, the public question committee campaigning against the amendment has spent $319,237. A separate political action committee, or PAC, also registered by Vermonters for Good Government, has spent another $217,133, according to filings submitted Oct. 1. Major line items in the PAC’s most recent reporting period include $45,050 for television ads and $88,162 to SABER Communications, another conservative Virginia-based firm, for postcards, mailings, and solicitation expenses.
The other side is not exactly outgunned—and is also spending heavily inside the Beltway. A public question committee for Vermont for Reproductive Liberty, which is campaigning for the amendment’s passage, reported having spent $518,649, as of its Oct. 9 filing.
The group is spending most heavily on television. TV ad buys placed through GMMB Inc., a Washington, D.C.-based Democratic consulting firm, total $266,330, according to the report.
Another $77,598 paid for online ads, also purchased through GMMB, and $44,200 went to GBAO, a D.C.-based progressive public opinion research firm, for internal polling. The group announced its first 30-second TV spot, “Our Way,” in late September, and followed it with two 15-second spots, which are also running on social media.
A PAC for Vermont for Reproductive Liberty has also spent nearly $200,000 and transferred $372,000 to the group’s public question committee, which has taken over the pro-Prop 5 campaign.
According to previous PAC filings, major donors to Vermonters for Good Government include conservative mega-donors Lenore Broughton ($100,000) and Carol Breuer ($50,000), as well as the Roman Catholic Diocese of Burlington ($50,000).
Big checks for Vermont for Reproductive Liberty have come from Planned Parenthood Vermont Action Fund ($229,341), the American Civil Liberties Union ($100,000), and The Sixteen Thirty Fund ($27,800), a progressive dark money group.
While both the pro- and anti-Prop 5 groups have used a PAC and a public question committee as vehicles to spend on their efforts, Vermonters for Good Government is alleging the other side has done so inappropriately.
Strong has submitted a complaint with the Vermont Attorney General’s office claiming that the Vermont for Reproductive Liberty public question committee (which doesn’t have to disclose its donors) should have registered as a PAC (which does) because it is still raising money.
Strong’s argument rests on the view that a public question committee can only raise money if it does so before the actual public question comes into being as a ballot item.
Sam Donnelly, the campaign manager for Vermont for Reproductive Liberty, said the group hadn’t received a copy of Strong’s complaint. But he said the pro-Prop 5 organization was confident that it “followed Vermont campaign finance law to a T.”
“To the extent that a complaint may have been filed with the Vermont Secretary of State’s office or the Vermont Attorney General’s Office, we would expect it to be dismissed,” he said. Lauren Jandl, a spokesperson for the Attorney General’s office, said Wednesday that the office had received a copy of the complaint and was reviewing it. She declined to comment on its merits.
The amendment is heavily favored to pass. A University of New Hampshire poll commissioned by WCAX found that three-quarters of all respondents, who were surveyed from Sept. 29 to Oct. 3, said they would vote for the measure.
Election Day is Nov. 8, but early voting is underway, and more than 38,000 Vermonters have already cast their ballots as of Tuesday, Oct 10, according to the Secretary of State’s office.
