Updated at 8:36 p.m.
Democratic leaders expressed frustration on Thursday with how Gov. Phil Scott has gone about appointing people to fill vacant seats in the legislature. They argued that Scott has ignored the preferences of the Vermont Democratic Party and taken his sweet time appointing Dems compared to the speed with which he’s filled Republican seats.
Gubernatorial appointments of legislative vacancies rarely make news. That changed on Thursday after Scott, a Republican, announced he had appointed Kevin Scully, a retired Burlington police chief, to replace Burlington Democrat Bob Hooper in the House.
Hooper, a retired state worker and union leader who had represented the New North End since 2019, stepped down last month after colleagues found that he engaged in a yearslong pattern of inappropriate behavior toward women.
The governor has broad authority to appoint whomever he chooses to serve out the remaining term of a lawmaker who resigns, but it is customary to reappoint someone from the same party.
Party officials submit lists of possible replacements, but the governor does not have to choose from the list. In this case, he didn’t.
A local party committee submitted three names: Amy Bielawski-Branch, a mental health clinician; Jim Holway, president of Vermont Kin as Parents; and Elizabeth Krumholz, a former member of the Burlington Planning Commission.
Not only did Scott not pick anyone from them, he didn’t even interview any, according to Liam O’Sullivan, House campaign director for the Vermont House Democrats.
“The local district committee did their job, meeting and putting forward three qualified members of the community in a timely manner. The Governor chose to ignore them,” O’Sullivan said in a press release. “Governor Scott is sending a clear message to Vermont communities: your voices don’t matter.”
It’s not clear how Scott settled on Scully, whom he praised in a press release.
“Kevin Scully has spent his life dedicated to public service and the Burlington community. I am thankful for his willingness to step up once again for his neighbors and fill this vacancy through the end of the session,” Scott said.
Scully was police chief from 1986 to 1998. After he retired, Scully worked for a funeral home and the Catholic Diocese of Burlington. Scully won’t hold the seat for long, as elections are coming up in November and he doesn’t plan to run again, according to Dustin Degree, a spokesperson for Scott. He called Scully a “mainstream Democrat” who was “highly recommended.”
“All three candidates forwarded by the partisan committee — from a process that some in Burlington have questioned — indicated their desire to run for reelection,” Degree said in an email. “Rep. Scully has indicated his intentions are to serve out the term, allowing the other three candidates a fair playing field in this summer’s Democratic primary.”
O’Sullivan said he has no issue with Scully personally, but rather with the appointment process.
He’s not the only one.
Former Burlington city councilor Ali Dieng applied to the four-person committee, known as the Regional District Committee, to be one of the party’s recommendations. But Dieng, who served as an independent on the council and caucused with Dems, was denied.
In an opinion piece published by VTDigger, Dieng wrote that he was more than qualified. Committee members, though, told him they had a “feeling” he was more of an independent than a loyal Democrat. Dieng said he planned to apply directly to the governor for appointment to the seat. It’s not clear if he did or not.
House Democrats also complained that Scott was taking longer to fill Democratic appointments than Republican ones. They noted that for three Democratic seats, Scott took 31, 36 and 93 days to fill them, compared to four Republican seats that he took zero, four, five and 39 days to fill.
“This is not a coincidence — it is a pattern,” said Rep. Lori Houghton (D-Essex Junction), House majority leader. “When Democratic lawmakers step down, communities are left waiting. When Republicans do, appointments come swiftly.”
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