(Update, 4/24: The Market board has apparently reversed itself and reinstated Pete’s Greens “with the status of a new vendor.” Thanks to Morgan Brown, sharp-eyed observer of all things Montpelier, for spotting the news and reporting it in the Comments. I’m not changing the text of my diary, because (a) I don’t like to do that and (b) I think it’s still a worthwhile story.)

A bit of trouble has broken out at one of the happiest places in central Vermont: the Capital City Farmers Market in Montpelier. At issue is the membership of Pete’s Greens, the groundbreaking farm enterprise headed by Pete Johnson.

It came to my attention at the April 7 Winter Market. Standing outside were two men holding handmade signs and clipboards; they were collecting petition signatures to have Pete’s Greens restored to the Farmers Market. Inside the hall, there were conversations about the banishment of Pete’s for failure to adhere to the Market’s rules.

This was rather a shock. Pete’s is one of the Market’s mainstays, it has been for years, and as an enthusiastic Market customer, I believe that his absence would make the Market a less desirable place to shop.

It turned out that the Market’s board had made the decision sometime over the winter. Pete wasn’t a regular vendor at the Winter Market, so nobody noticed. The Board sent out an item about the decision in a recent e-newsletter, to wit:

The Capital City Farmers Market prides itself on being a producer only market, this means that the person who makes or grows the product is present at the market interacting with the customers.  The market membership votes on rules that all our vendors must follow to participate in the market.  A key rule is for vendors to attend and sell at the market (for at least half of the markets they attend). This key rule is critical to the character of our market and ensures the connection between farmers/vendors and our market’s customers.

When the outdoor market starts in May you may notice Pete’s Greens is not the first vendor at the market’s State Street entrance. After being given ample notice and continuing to neglect his attendance requirement, the five member board has (after much deliberation and consideration) decided to replace Pete’s Greens with two new farmers.    

We wish him well in all his future endeavors.

It seemed rather harsh, and raised a philosophical question: Is this a farmers market, or is it a farmers market? In other words, is the market operated with the customers foremost in mind, or the vendors? This decision appeared to indicate the latter.  

I can see the value in having the vendor attend in person. But I enjoyed such a connection with Pete (when he was there) and his handful of employees (when he wasn’t). I certainly didn’t feel like there was less of a connection when Pete wasn’t there in person. 

The Market does have rules, and they exist for a reason. However, Pete’s is in a category of its own: it’s a business, surely, but it’s a very small business with a mission of promoting local agriculture and localvorism. Pete has enjoyed a measure of success by being creative in developing his business; is he now being punished for his success?

I have heard at least one vendor complaining about the size and scope of Pete’s operation, and even grousing about the community support Pete received in the aftermath of the January 2011 fire that destroyed much of his operation. Which sounded awfully damn churlish to me, not to mention beside the point: it has nothing to do with whether Pete violated Market rules or not.

It has more to do with an attitude I find unpleasantly Pharisaical: an excessive emphasis on purity, self-defined. Pete is too big to be pure; he’s not a local farmer any more. To which I say, Bullshit. Pete is an entrepreneur in the best possible sense, a leader in developing new markets for local food and showing the way for other farmers to increase the profitability of their operations. Pete is not the enemy, folks. He should not be treated like one.

To date, the only media reporting on this story was in last week’s issue of the Montpelier Bridge. (Available online only in .pdf form.) Its report indicated a pretty wide gap between the two sides’ accounts. The Market board, as stated above, says it gave “ample notice” to Pete. His version is very different:

Johnson himself maintains that he has not violated any market rules, because he attended 12 of 23 markets last summer, despite the fact that he was in the middle of rebuilding part of his farm, which was devastated in a fire last January. He said he has written records of attendance for every market.

…”Throughout last summer’s market, for the early part of the season I was not going to many markets because we were getting the farm rebuilt… I had some communication with the market manager about it and she suggested I ask the board for special exemption. I expected it to be denied, and it was… so far latter half of the market season… I went to12 of the 23 summer markets. Nobody asked me if I went to enough. I thought the market was tracking it… I thought it was all set.”

According to the Bridge story, there was to have been a meeting between Pete and the Market board last Wednesday April 18. No word has been forthcoming, although the Market manager now says that the board will meet this week and may have an announcement afterwards. As of right now, Pete’s Greens is absent from the list of vendors on the Market’s website.

I suspect that the board has been on the receiving end of a great deal of displeasure from market customers. The Capital City Farmers Market has rarely, if ever, been a source of controversy, and I doubt that the board was prepared for the consequences of its decision.

Especially if it turned out they were wrong about Pete’s attendance. That’d be embarrassing, no?

(Addendum 4/24: I can think of at least one other Market vendor in Pete’s class — a one-family operation that’s become a small business. And I rarely see the head of that business in attendance at the Market. I wonder how evenly this particular rule is applied.)

Just in case you thought that a major state party couldn’t be any sadder than the Vermont Republicans (what with their tiny minorities in the Legislature, with their highest officeholder ensconced in a ceremonial office, and with their coffers so empty that their Executive Director had to quit because he wasn’t getting paid), comes the kind of news that’d make coffee shoot out your nose if you had the misfortune to be drinking coffee at the time:

Minnesota GOP Facing Eviction After Failure to Pay Rent

Yep, the Minnesota Republicans are $2 million in debt and scrambling to hold on to their office space. The rent hasn’t been paid since August 2011, and the landlord is understandably peeved. The party chairman is hoping to negotiate a deal with said landlord involving a slow payment of back rent and a cheaper lease on smaller quarters.

So exactly how did a Republican Party in a big Midwestern state get so far in debt? A two-and-a-half-year reign of financial terror by a party chairman who massively overspent and underfundraised, and was ousted for his troubles.

The gory details… after the jump.  

According to Minnesota Public Radio,

…former GOP Chairman Tony Sutton awarded hundreds of thousands of dollars in party contracts to state lawmakers, party insiders and attorneys. Sutton resigned Dec. 2 after GOP leaders and delegates started raising questions about the party’s budget.

For now, we won’t ask how the Minnesota GOP decided to put this mook in charge. Instead, we’ll ask how in double-hockey-sticks he went through so much money without anyone noticing. Oh, here’s the answer:

The Republican Party’s bylaws give the party chairman unilateral authority to sign contracts, borrow money and hire staff.

Oh, that’s brilliant. And this from the party of fiscal responsibility, what? A few highlights from Tony Sutton’s trail of tears:

The party’s spending under Sutton included more than $1 million to lawyer Tony Trimble, who unsuccessfully represented the party in recounts for U.S. Senate in 2008 and governor in 2010. …

More than $220,000 went to a public relations firm with close ties to Sutton. Its job was to remake the party’s image, but some party leaders say they never saw the final product.

…The state Republican Party also paid a company that markets medical products more than $10,000 to research whether medical marijuana is effective.

Mr. Sutton, anything to say in your defense?

“I wasn’t handling every invoice; I wasn’t handling every detail,” he said.

Buh…buh…buh… that was your JOB. You had sole responsibility!

Sutton also blames a collapse in small-donor contributions after the 2009 cancellation of a state Political Contribution Refund, which allowed small donors to claim a tax refund of $50. Ahh, so the fiscal health of the Minnesota Republican Party was dependent on… a government handout??? Shocking!

And just how dependent were they?

In 2006 – the last time every member of the Legislature and every constitutional officer were on the ballot – the party collected $1.8 million in donations that were $100 or less. In 2010, the party raised $255 from small donors.

Two hundred and fifty-five dollars. In one entire year, in the entire state of Minnesota. Un-frickin’-believable. And Tony Sutton kept on spending the money. Heckuva job, Brownie!

See, the Vermont Republican Party doesn’t look so bad now, does it?

p.s. Oh, one more thing… and please, put down your coffee before you read on:

He’s head of a political consulting firm called — and I absolutely kid you not — “Winning Strategies, LLC.” You just can’t make this stuff up.

Vermont’s Loudest Economist (TM) Art Woolf chimes in today, on that free-market website named in honor of the strong, vigorous free-market Irish economy. (Yeah, the Irish economy that’s now the Sick Man of Northern Europe. Don’t know if that’s what Art & Co. really aspire to, but never mind.)

He’s promoting an essay by tiresome conservative Walter Russell Mead* about the fatal flaws of President Obama’s health care reform. In which Mr. Mead, naturally, does not mention the substantially worse flaws of the current system.

*Any conservative thinker who dares to triple-name himself is automatically suspected of tiresomeness; the suspicion is confirmed beyond doubt upon reading a few lines of Mr. Mead’s murky prose.

This essay was posted on March 29; I guess Mr. Woolf has been so busy flogging worthless housing studies that he’s fallen behind on his Internet reading. One of the lines that made Art go all tingly:

It is a perverse but very real fact of life that the more complex and rich the system to be regulated, the less the “experts” and the goo-goos have the political power to impose their vision on the regulatory process.

The invocation of “goo-goos” sent me running to Wikipedia, which I’m sure is the reaction Mr. Mead was hoping for. “I’m smarter than you,” he chuckles over a snifter of brandy, “I know obscure political terms from the 19th Century!”

Per Wikipedia, “Goo-goos” is slang for “Good government guys,” originally a group of New York City political reformers who were responsible for the 1894 defeat of the Tammany Hall political machine.

Seems a worthy accomplishment, at odds with Mr. Mead’s connotation of haplessness. However, the term later took on the sense, as Wikipedia puts it, of “a mildly derisive label for high-minded citizens and reformers.”

So good on ya, Wally! You know your archaic political terminology! That Yale education comes in handy, don’t it?

But I digress. My point, to quote Ellen DeGeneres, and I do have one, is that I concur with Mr. Mead’s assessment of the trouble that “experts” get into when they try to understand “complex and rich” systems.

Exhibit A: Art Woolf, attempting to understand the economy and “impose [his] vision” on it. Nothing but trouble there, just like Mr. Mead says.  

(From the Vermont Sierra Club and Nulhegan Abenaki Tribe)

Clik on the below link to download the tribal forest petition:

http://action.sierraclub.org/s…

Green Mountain Community,

Over the past week, nearly 500 people from across Vermont joined you in signing our petition supporting tribal forests. This has been an amazing response, and we are building the momentum we need to get this done.

You signed our petition, and now we need your help to spread the word in your town. Can you download our petition and collect five signatures from your friends, family, and neighbors?

By gathering signatures in your community, you are helping spread and strengthen our campaign throughout the state. These petition signatures will show Governor Shumlin and other decisionmakers that our campaign is a true grassroots movement — built town by town, by people like you.

Tribal forests will benefit all of us in Vermont — especially the Abenaki people who are most in need. These forests will help preserve Vermont’s iconic forests, as well as providing much needed resources for Vermont’s native people. It’s a win-win that protects both our environmental and cultural treasures.

Take a moment today and download our petition. Every signature counts.

Clik on the below link to download the tribal forest petition:

http://action.sierraclub.org/s…

In solidarity,

David Van Deusen

Vermont Sierra Club

A little kerfuffle in the State Senate this week. Specifically, Senate Judiciary Chair Dick Sears is the latest victim of BKS (Bunched Knicker Syndrome) over a comment our friend, fellow blogger, and Senator Philip Baruth posted here.

In case anyone missed it, here's what Philip posted here about marijuana decriminalization and the prescription drug bill (aka “Let the police see your prescription records without a warrant”):

Just so everyone's clear: Joe Benning and I were promised that our MJ decriminalization language would go on another bill — Senator Sears has now made the decision to put a very similar amendment on this one. But Joe and I are very, very much against this bill, and we won't let our decrim language be used as bait — not successfully, anyway. So we plan to vote against this one, convince others to vote against it, and try our best to attach decrim to another bill entirely. Will that work? Who knows. But at least we won't burn in the everlasting fires for encouraging this particular privacy-invading mess. 

Sears responded by attacking Senator Baruth on the floor of the Senate. As reported by Thatcher Moats, Sears read the blog comment (helpful for any senators or readers of the Times Argus or Rutland Herald who might have missed it) and attacked Philip for being part of the loss of decorum in the Vermont Senate.

Are we seeing a loss of decorum, or is it just a few members of the Old Guard who are grumpy that some of the younger members of the body aren't sitting back to let them run things the way they want?

  Oh, and is it just a coincidence that this attack, based on the marijuana issue, came on 4/20? 

 Whatever it is, from where I sit I'm glad to see our goal of electing more and better Democrats embodied by a senator like Philip Baruth.

 Don't back down, Philip! 

 *Correction: I initially misspelled Senator Baruth's first name. Sorry, Philip.

Bernie Sanders announced today that he will oppose an Obama administration reappointment to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Senator Sanders is opposing reappointment of Commissioner Kristine Svinicki, in light of her inaction to implement safety measures based on the lessons learned from Fukushima.

“With Commissioner Svinicki’s vote, the NRC approved Vermont Yankee’s license extension a week after the Fukushima disaster, without even pausing to consider the safety implications for the Vermont plant which shares the same design as the Fukushima reactors that melted down….The Commissioner has not supported full implementation of all post-Fukushima safety reforms recommended by an NRC task force, and has in fact voted to approve licenses for two new nuclear reactors without requiring them to implement these safety reforms.’

Svinicki, whose current term is set to expire on June 30, is a former aide of top Republican lawmakers. She has been a key figure in the embedded culture of industry influence prevailing at the NRC; and has conspicuously bumped horns with NRC Chair Gregory Jackzo in his attempts to mitigate the undermining effect of that culture.

Together with a laundry list of complaints of unethical behavior, such as misrepresentations concerning the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository, Svinicki’s reappointment is of particular concern to Vermonters:

“Commissioner Svinicki also voted in secret to recommend that the Department of Justice side with Entergy in its federal preemption lawsuit against the state of Vermont, despite admitting at a Senate hearing she had not read the seminal 1983 U.S. Supreme Court decision on federal nuclear preemption. The NRC’s job is to ensure safety, not to promote nuclear power.

‘Time to send some election-year letters of protest to the President?

(The below letter, from the Vermont Sierra Club, was today sent to every member of the Vermont Senate, as well as Governor Shumlin and Rep Klein.)

April 19th, 2012

Concerning H468

Vermont Senate,

    The Vermont Chapter of the Sierra Club, representing three thousand members in the Green Mountain State, is very concerned about the fate of the Energy Bill, H 468.  From the start of this process our organization has called for bold and comprehensive moves to make Vermont a leader in renewable energy reliance/production. We have consistently called for achieving the capacity for 90% reliance on renewables by 2025, with a minimum of 25 MW of new community scale renewable electricity, built in Vermont, per year.  We have not been alone in advocating for these numbers.  350 Vermont and the Vermont AFL-CIO have also supported these goals, as have many others.  In fact, the original Senate version of the Energy Bill, S.170 brought forth by Senator Ginny Lyons, gallantly sought to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2025.

    The Sierra Club recognizes that we, as a state, need to move boldly in such a direction if we are to do our part to fight climate change and pollution while creating good green jobs for Vermonters. The vast majority of Vermonters agree with us on these points. As it stands, H 468 does not embody this sense of urgency concerning renewable energy. Instead of 25 MW of new renewables a year, the legislation has called for 10 MW, and seeks to require not 90% renewables, but 35%.  If left unchanged, and un-strengthened these numbers represent significantly less than what the objective situation demands, and even less than what is called for in the Governor’s Comprehensive Energy Plan.

    After witnessing the numerous waves of citizen advocacy from our members, and those of other organizations such as 350 Vermont, VNRC, VPIRG, etc., you must understand the frustration and disappointment our members feel for both the process and the proposed outcome of this legislation.  As an organization, we have worked hard to generate grassroots support for the goals of this legislation. We have heard the repeated statements by our elected leaders, calling for strong energy legislation. We now call for our legislators to stand behind those statements to maintain credibility for our shared goal of making Vermont a renewable energy leader.

    Therefore, we ask that the Energy Bill, H 468 be passed out of committee, and strengthened through amendments from the Senate floor. We need to strengthen the annual standard offer and the requirements of the RPS in the years to come. We urge you to pass this stronger bill, and then work in the interests of Vermonters in the reconciliation process to guarantee that this bill emerge in a final form that is as strong as possible.

    In this election year, the Vermont Sierra Club looks forward to actively supporting legislators, in every county, that work to achieve these important ends on the renewable energy front.  And finally, On May 1st, we will help orchestrate a huge rally in Montpelier, and we hope and expect to share good news regarding this bill at that event.  

Sincerely,

Vermont Chapter of the Sierra Club

Put People and The Planet First!

CC Governor Peter Shumlin, Speaker Shap Smith, Representative Tony Klein    

Cardinal Joseph Bendover in Rome has told our correspondent there that Pope Benedict will be endorsing Mitt Romney for President and urging all American Catholics to “Get with the program.”

Cardinal Bendover added that the Vatican will also be endorsing the Republicans’ WAR ON WOMEN, though not by that name, and that these endorsements are in line with a new Papal Encyclical that will define the Catholic Church’s new approach on the teachings of Jesus.

Cardinal Bendover explained:  “One of the most important and dramatic things Jesus did was to cleanse Mary Magdalene of her Seven Devils.  The same Seven Devils that seem to afflict American women today: The Devil Of Lust and Promiscuity and Perversion, The Devil Of Provocative Dress, The Devil Of Original Thought, The Devil Of Forsaking One’s Proper Station, The Devil Of Coveting A Safe Haven From The Opposite Sex, which the Church defines as Lesbianism, The Devil Of Not Wanting To Bear Children, and, of course, The Devil Of Eating Meat On A Friday.  This last Devil has traditionally been the province of men only, as many in our priesthood will confirm.

“We here at the Vatican,”  Cardinal Bendover continued,  “will seek now to teach good Catholic women, and all women, the simple fact that Jesus was a MAN.  A Man who was nailed to a cross so that, by his sacrifice, all other men throughout the ages will not suffer such a fate.  Especially at the hands of women possessed by The Seven Devils.  A state of affairs now exists in America where many misguided men have actually been nailed to crosses by women and willfully seek to have this crucifixion performed on them again.  That is a perversion and part of The First of The Seven Devils I mentioned.  The new Vatican intervention, recently announced, on some Seven Devils’ activities being practiced by many American nuns is the beginning of this campaign for the Salvation Of Women.”

Cardinal Bendover went on to say that the Catholic Church hopes to work closely with a President Romney in bringing all American women back to Jesus.  “A Salvation Of Women,”  he put it, rather than A War On Women.  And also to encourage those women, once they have abandoned “the evils of birth control,” to marry and bear sons and daughters for the Catholic Church.  “We hope for more sons at first, of course,”  he stated.  “That has always been Church policy.”

When asked why the Catholic Church was endorsing a Mormon, Cardinal Bendover responded that the Mormon Church and the Catholic Church had two historical things in common:  “First is that the Mormons knew what a woman’s Proper Station was, which produced the second thing, which is the bearing of many babies, especially cute little male babies.  And I would say to all young males out there in America, whether Mormon, Catholic, Protestant,  Hebrew, or whatever, that there is a place for you in the Catholic Church, where you will never have to fear being nailed by a woman again.  Thank you.  And God Bless You.  And God Bless The USA.  And the New Orleans Saints.”  

Peter Buknatski

Montpelier, Vt.

(very very ex-Catholic)

Ryan Doyle has now won election to the St. Albans City Council as Ward 5 Alderman, twice.

This time, the margin was so wide that it would seem Joe Luneau has no hope of again overturning the results.  

In fact, it was Mr. Doyle who picked-up considerably more support since the first election.  Despite his best efforts at beating the bushes far and wide for absentee voters…some very much absent…Mr. Luneau garned roughly the same number of votes as he did in the first election.

The incumbent wasn’t about to go down without a fight.  Perhaps sensing that sentiments in Ward 5 were running against him, late yesterday afternoon in the midst of voting, Mr. Luneau’s backers sought a court order in Franklin County Superior Court to allow a group of thirteen defective absentee ballots to be “replaced” with new ballots.

That’s right; not content with having cast an ethical shadow over the whole question of absentee voter rights by admitting to soliciting votes from people no longer living in Ward 5, Mr. Luneau now sought to further stretch the law in order to have defective absentee ballots replaced with new ones.

This is the same Joe Luneau who insisted repeatedly that a new election was necessary in order to reaffirm voter confidence in the integrity of the system.  

Due to the lateness of the request, Judge Robert Mello issued an order allowing for new ballots to be issued to the absentee voters, but specified that, upon completion, these should not be co-mingled with the rest of the ballots, but held until, after due consideration, he could render a decision on the matter.

At this point we can only speculate on why those ballots were deemed “defective,” but it may be significant that the judge cites Title 17, article 2547 in the first line of the order:

§ 2547. Defective ballots

If upon examination by the election officials it shall appear that the early or absentee voter is not legally qualified to vote, or has voted in person, or that the affidavit on any envelope is insufficient, the certificate is not signed, or the voted ballot is not in the voted ballot envelope, or, in the case of a primary vote, the early or absentee voter has failed to return the unvoted portions of the primary ballots, such envelope shall be marked “defective,” and the ballots inside shall not be counted and shall be returned in the unopened envelope to the town clerk in the manner prescribed by section 2590 of this title. The provisions of this section shall be indicated prominently in the early or absentee voter material prepared by the secretary of state. (Added 1977, No. 269 (Adj. Sess.), § 1; amended 1985, No. 196 (Adj. Sess.), § 6; 2001, No. 6, § 11, eff. April 10, 2001

Come what may with those thirteen ballots,  Mr. Doyle’s majority is so overwhelming that it would make no difference to the outcome.

In the wake of all this melodrama, the ethical and legal issues raised in the St. Albans vote have been so significant that Secretary of State Jim Condos has offered to Mayor Liz Gamache, who chairs the Board of Civil Authority, that he will send a team of representatives from his office to walk the BCA through the complexities that have arisen, in order to avoid a future repeat.

Not surprisingly, he reports that his phone was ringing off the hook yesterday as Luneau supporters sought, unsuccessfully, to persuade him that new absentee ballots should be recognized in replacement of the ones deemed “spoiled.”  

This morning, the sun is shining, the birds are singing; and the voters of Ward 5 have delivered a message, loudly and clearly, about the importance of ethics, beyond mere legality, in winning their support.

(An update to the coverage we’ve been providing of this grassroots campaign. – promoted by Jack McCullough)

…it may be “legal,” but it did NOT win the day!

The Ward 5 St. Albans election results are in and Ryan Doyle beat Joe Luneau, 224-147! Seems to be a victory not just for Mr. Doyle, but for ethical election practices in general.

_____________________________________________________________________________

I’ve just gotta say that, if this disgraceful display of bold-faced political amorality doesn’t bring an end to politics as usual in St. Albans, I don’t know what will!  

Today, Sam Hemingway’s painfully detailed exposure of the absentee ballot shenanigans related to tomorrow’s Ward 5 do-over election made this St. Albans resident cringe.  

It came on the heels of some really masterful coverage of the unfolding story by the Messenger’s Michele Monroe.  Last week, the paper published a list of the 100+ voters who have requested absentee ballots for tomorrow’s vote.  Reacting to the list, candidate Ryan Doyle is quoted as being concerned that candidate Joe Luneau is considerably over-reaching in his effort to “get out the vote.”

“Some of these people don’t live in the ward anymore or the city,” Doyle said. “Several of them live in other communities like Colchester and Burlington, and even other states.”

For his part, Mr. Luneau,  who piously demanded the revote to cleanse the process for the sake of voter confidence, seems quite sanguine about the ethics of recruiting non-residents to vote in tomorrow’s election:

Luneau, in an interview last week, acknowledged he has encouraged people to request absentee ballots who he knows are on the checklist but don’t live in Ward 5, a move he said was entirely legal.

“If they’re comfortable voting in this race, I certainly wouldn’t tell them not to do so,” Luneau said. “My focus is to get my supporters out.”

As regular readers of GMD may know, I have been a supporter of planning commissioner Ryan Doyle for Ward 5 alderman; and Ryan Doyle did indeed defeat incumbent Joe Luneau in the close Town Meeting Day vote.

No one was surprised that Mr. Luneau wanted a recount since it was such a close race; but when several subsequent recount efforts never varied from the Doyle win outcome, and no deliberate effort at undermining the process was revealed on investigation, we were very puzzled that a district judge would order a new election.

Of course, as is noted in the Freeps article, the Luneau family is a powerful political machine with significant resources.  Doyle, who was trained as a civil engineer but currently must support himself and his civic volunteer activities on the salary of a factory shift-worker, could not afford to hire an attorney in order to appeal what seemed an unsupported decision on the part of the judge who vacated the election.

This small town election melodrama is playing out as a classic allegory of the power imbalance and wealth bias that is reflected throughout American politics today.  

When Ryan won the election despite Mr. Luneau’s having outspent him roughly four-to-one, I was momentarily buoyed by the notion that the 99% ultimately might also have their day.  That fantasy of equity was quickly disabused when the heavy hand and purse of Luneau influence went about undoing the election.

But I had no idea then how unashamedly unprincipled Mr. Luneau could be!  It’s dumfounding even to a gal from Daley’s Chicago!

That what he is doing isn’t even technically illegal just makes my blood run cold.