When last we saw “Angry Jack” Lindley, the VTGOP chair was getting all hysterical over the destruction of a single “Brock for Governor” yard sign, laying the blame on Governor Shumlin’s culture of arrogance or something like that. You know, the Guv snaps his fingers and one of those Vermonters mired in his Culture of Dependency runs out and rips up a yard sign. Yeah, that’s the ticket.
Anyway, turns out Jack isn’t just about Teh Crazy; he’s also making a real effort to reach out and make new friends. 14,000 new friends.
(Hat tip to the Vermont Press Bureau for this item, which ran in the Sunday Times Argus, and is not available anywhere online as far as I can tell. For the benefit of those who aren’t print subscribers, I wanted to make sure this item got some exposure.)
Last Spring, AARP launched a petition drive over the GMP/CVPS merger — specifically, its plan to plow $21 million into a weatherization fund rather than returning the money to ratepayers, as had been promised ten years ago when CVPS got a $21 million bailout. AARP asked its members to send postcards to the Public Service Board, urging rejection of the plan. A total of 14,000 postcards were sent.
And now for the unintended consequences.
GOP Chairman Jack Lindley issued a public records request earlier this year seeking access to the more than 14,000 postcards…
… Lindley was granted access to the postcards, and he believes the names and addresses on them will chart a path to GOP victories this fall.
… A team of GOP volunteers has been scanning the postcards with a gadget that renders the relevant information into a digital database.
“Once we have that information, it’s just a matter of reaching out to those voters, letting them know we’re here, and we need them in November,” he said.
There you go. If you sent one of those PSB postcards, congratulations — you’re on the VTGOP’s mailing list!
At first glance, it struck me as a nice little tactical maneuver on Angry Jack’s part. On second thought, I’m not so sure. How many of those 14,000 are going to be happy to get Republican agitprop in their mailboxes, or robocalls on their home phones, or e-mails in their inboxes? And how many of those 14,000 are going to be convinced that the VTGOP is pro-Everyman and anti-corporation? Their overall record doesn’t exactly put them in the Occupy camp, and their opposition to the $21 million proposal was a transparent case of political opportunism rather than adherence to principle; you know that if the same deal was proposed under a Republican administration, the Governor wouldn’t hesitate to sign off on it..The Republicans only pounced on the issue after AARP’s campaign attracted so much attention.
There’s also an ethical question, IMO. When citizens have made an attempt to contact their government on an issue of concern, should they be forced to effectively volunteer themselves for political harvesting? Lindley is technically correct: communications with the PSB are public records. But do we want this to become standard practice?
Yes, as you say ‘public records’ that can be accessed. But should they be. I’d like to see a Dem legislature address this with a law that protects you when you sign ANY petition. I’m sure the Feds spend millions paying geeks to scan activist petitions for links to al Queda (or links to PETA, whatever). In a democracy, we have the Constitutional right to petition our government for a redress of grievances. It does not say in the Constitution that these petitions are to be used by the government against the people. I hope these petitioners raise hell, and, as a member of AARP, I hope they raise hell. Invasions of privacy and government types using public records to hunt for potential friends or enemies is becoming the new job market in this country. What next?–Your name on your ballot for the public record? We should ask the Vt. Republican Party for its mailing lists and how they got the names. But they would say: “No, that’s a ‘private’ Party matter.” Assholes!
I remember how Dubie stonewalled requests for information on his
campaign list building toolpetition exploiting the Brooke Bennett tragedy. Collected at taxpayer expense coordinated from his Lite Gov office, but somehow signatures magically found their way onto Dubie-for-Governor lists later.When open records requests were filed, his office responded with ridiculously high demands for supposed “costs” of producing the documents. I don’t know if the info was ever disgorged.