Holding Democrats Accountable
By Rob Roper

A series of telephone surveys gauging voter's opinions about how some legislators voted on key issues is causing Democrats to scramble. The great frustration shared by Republicans and a majority of independents is the way Democrats tend to campaign as moderate, center-right candidates who are pro-jobs and anti-taxes. Then they get elected, and vote like far-left ideologues.

When what one says is totally inconsistent with what one does, naturally the last thing these legislative radicals in moderates' clothing want anyone doing is poking around their voting records and spreading the word about what they actually did in their constituents' name.

I don't recall anyone (with the possible exception of Progressive Rep. David Zuckerman) campaigning with promises to increase taxes during the recession, grow government in the face of declining revenues, and put us on the path to a $208 million budget deficit by 2010 (which, according to CNBC, is now the seventh worst budget gap in the nation). But, this is, of course, exactly what the Democrat "supermajority" did.

Nobody campaigned in 2008 on the promise to legalize same sex marriage in 2009. When the legislative session began the issue wasn't even listed by the Democrat leadership as one of their top seven priorities for the year. But, the Democrat "supermajority" took it up - chaos, acrimony and all -- and passed it anyway, economic crisis be damned.

These politicians need to be held accountable, and voters need to know what's really going on.

Therefore, the Vermont Republican Party called every household in the districts of Megan Smith (Mendon, Killington, Bridgewater, Chittenden), Bob South (St. Johnsbury), Chip Conquest (Newbury, Groton, Topsham), and Kristy Spengler (Colchester) and asked voters whether or not they agree or disagree with these Democrats on their votes in favor of overriding the governor's budget veto, increasing the gas tax, increasing electric rates, removing the cost containment caps on state-funded pre-k programs, and refusing to cut their own legislative pay by 5%.

In a nutshell, we're finding that Vermonters don't agree. Not at all.

The calls have been a tremendous success, provoking some highly entertaining conspiracy theories on the left wing blog, greenmountaindaily.com (clue as to who's behind the calls, guys... listen to the disclaimer!), and generating some excellent responses of support in local papers. (See this letter to the editor calling out Megan Smith, and the comments that follow here, as well as this editorial in the Caledonian Record in regard to Bob South's voting record here.

If you would like to help us call more of these politicians onto the carpet, hold them accountable for their votes, and refuse to let them get away with saying one thing on the campaign trail while doing another in Montpelier, please make an online donation to the VTGOP today.  In an ideal world, we'd survey every district in Vermont. With your help, we can make that happen. Thank you!

Rob Roper is the current Chairman of the Vermont Republican Party