Calling himself the “transparency governor,” Peter Shumlin on Wednesday identified who he met with privately last Saturday at a Democratic Governors Association retreat in Manchester.

As we reported in this week’s Fair Game, Shumlin and three fellow Democratic governors wined and dined five- and six-figure donors to the partisan electoral organization last weekend at the Equinox Resort and Spa. Between official events, according to lobbyists who attended the gathering, the governors met privately with some of the DGA’s top donors.

Last Thursday, DGA spokesman Danny Kanner claimed that Shumlin “has no scheduled meetings or events between breakfast and dinner on Saturday.” Asked again Monday who Shumlin met with over the weekend, Kanner declined to answer the question.

Seven Days put the question to spokespeople for Shumlin, New Hampshire Gov. Maggie Hassan, Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy and Washington Gov. Jay Inslee. Only the Washingtonian’s office responded.

Inslee’s communications associate, Lisa Harper, said in an email Monday, “The governor’s visit to the DGA this weekend was on his personal time and not an event our office was involved with.” Asked who might be able to answer the question, Harper said her office doesn’t “interface” with the appropriate person and could not provide a name.

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Paul Heintz was part of the Seven Days news team from 2012 to 2020. He served as political editor and wrote the "Fair Game" political column before becoming a staff writer.

3 replies on “Shumlin Discloses Details of Weekend Meetings with DGA Donors”

  1. Well that’s a crock of shit… Shumlin met with the same people Liz did…except Liz didn’t meet with people she went to a speaking program, not private meetings as Shumlin was claiming.
    Shummy… come now, lying to a reporter is essentially lying to the people of VT. And that makes me trust you even less then I did before, which was pretty much zero.
    Then Kanner doesn’t know because he doesn’t run Shumlin, Shumlin’s staff does…yet his staff refers all questions to Kanner… who doesn’t know anything…
    Yup clearly that’s transparency for ya…
    The Legislature should remove Shumlin… let Scott take over.

  2. I maintain that much of the well intentioned campaign finance laws we have enacted not only do not keep money from elections, they force candidates into all manner of deceptive contortions to mask the ugly fact that money is the fuel running our system.
    I’d much rather let the candidates do what they have to do, publish the donor lists and amounts, and let us draw our own conclusions.
    Instead we get all this cloak and dagger, cat and mouse bullshit.

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