After Sen. Alison Clarkson (D-Windsor) on Thursday pitched her colleagues on legislation designed to protect tenants in Vermont’s 78,000 rental units, two senators argued against it — not on the grounds that the bill would hurt the economy or be ineffective, but because it would affect their personal finances.
The bill, S.163, includes the creation of a statewide database of all rental units, state funding for a new Department of Health staffer to oversee rental housing conditions and a requirement that residential building contractors register with the state in order to reduce home improvement fraud. Clarkson described it as a consumer protection bill.
Sen. Jeanette White (D-Windham) objected to some of the policies. She said a statewide list of rental units would include an apartment in her home that she rents out.
“I do not want my apartment listed,” White said during a debate on the Senate floor. “My apartment is in my house, and I choose who I rent it to.”
Sen. John Rodgers (D-Essex/Orleans), a building contractor, piled on. He said the state already imposes onerous restrictions on him and other contractors, and another would be unfair.
“I see no protections for the contractors” in the bill, Rodgers said during Thursday’s debate.
While both White and Rodgers openly spoke about their personal stakes in the outcome of the bill, neither they nor any other member of the Senate suggested that they might face a conflict of interest. Nor did they state an intent to recuse themselves from voting on the bill.
White and Rodgers aren’t the only ones with skin in the game. According to ethics disclosure forms filed earlier this year and available in a Seven Days database, 12 of the Senate’s 30 members make at least $10,000 a year from rental properties or real estate companies.
According to Senate rules, “No senator shall be permitted to vote upon any question in which he or she is directly or immediately interested.”
In an interview following Thursday’s debate, White argued that there’s nothing wrong with a senator voting on an issue in which he or she has a personal interest. White noted that in Vermont’s citizen legislature, lawmakers often weigh in on bills that affect their nonlegislative professions.
“Everything that we do is a conflict of interest,” she said.
Lawmakers, she argued, are only conflicted when a proposal “would impact you more than anyone in that class of people.”
The Senate rules don’t specifically state that, but the body is also subject to the rules in Mason’s Manual of Legislative Procedure. Questioned about her intent to vote on the bill, White led a reporter to her Senate desk and pulled out a copy of Mason’s Manual, flipping to a page marked by a sticky note. She pointed to an underlined passage.
“The right of members to represent their constituencies is of such major importance that members should be barred from voting on matters of direct personal interest only in clear cases when the matter is particularly personal,” the manual reads.
“Obviously, this rule is not self-enforcing,” the manual states.
According to those rules, White said, there’s no problem with her or the Senate’s other 11 landlords voting on the bill.
“This doesn’t impact me any more than it impacts any other landlord in the state,” she said.
White said the same applies to Rodgers, who wouldn’t be any more affected by the proposal than other Vermont contractors.
Clarkson opted to delay a final vote on the bill Thursday, giving senators more time to consider it, suggest changes and, perhaps, decide whether to recuse themselves.
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12 of the 30 voting on tenants’ rights in the Senate are landlords. Many of these politicians are the same ones working against ethics policies to prevent conflicts of interest. Is there any wonder that people don’t believe their government has their best interest in mind?
Ethics?
They should have rent control especially in Burlington where the slumlords charge as much as they want!
Excellent reporting. Senator White personifies why Vermont will never have any serious ethics legislation or more ethical behavior in the foreseeable future. It also demonstrates why the citizens of Vermont and 78,000 renters have no reason to believe that our alleged public servants in Montpelier will do much to advocate for them. Now you know why the Ethics Commission is an epic fail. Senator White is directly responsible for the poor ethics legislation that created the Ethics Commission which also ensures Vermont will remain virtually dead last in state public integrity rankings nationwide. A failure to recuse in light of such obvious conflicts is a blemish on the people Senate White represents in Windham County who deserve better.
“This doesn’t impact me any more than it impacts any other landlord in the state.”
No, but it affects you more than it affects every renter in the state, who outnumber landlords drastically. Your constituency is not landlords, it’s everyone, and since you are a landlord this “matter is particularly personal” vis a vis your constituency of majority non-landlords.
Some legislators display an astounding disregard for conflicts of interest and a brazen willingness to legislate and vote for their own benefit. Just one of the advantages of elective office!
Sen. White’s rule makes sense if you think about this in a broader context. If ANY personal stake in legislation is a conflict of interest, any car-driving legislator would be conflicted out of voting on a higher gasoline tax or imposing more onerous inspection requirements (maybe only Curt McCormack could vote!) Only men could vote on abortion access legislation. Farmers would be conflicted out of voting on most agriculture bills. Only teetotaling legislators would have the power to bring back happy hour! And on a really basic level, it would impact just about all tax policy for every legislative body in the country, because the legislative class is, by and large, across the board going to be in higher tax brackets than most of their constituents.
Wow so the Senator’s argument is basically that if anything is a conflict of interest, then EVERYTHING would be. How about we just define it like this: “a situation in which a person is in a position to derive personal benefit from actions or decisions made in their official capacity.”
So yes voting on a bill based on your interests as a landlord rather than was is best for the community from a policy standpoint is a conflict of interest. On the Senators maybe could have “worked around” except they already seem to have stated why they’re voting against it.
Thanks for the excellent reporting! Keep up the good work, I think there are probably many more conflicts of interest like this both locally and statewide and I for one would love to see them get more exposure!
It sounds like the Department of Public Health would get one staffer to basically be a code enforcement officer for all rental units in Vermont that exist in towns/citys where they do not already have an office of code enforcement. This is ridiculous. Burlington has over three code enforcement officers and the head of code enforcement as well as multiple administrative staff. This staffer doesn’t have a chance at do in doing a good job covering the whole State. This should be handled locally at the municipal level.
Really great reporting. Id love to see this level of reporting done a lot more around Burlington politics.