The case, which was scheduled to go to trial in December, dates to 2014, when Corren, running as a Democrat and Progressive, made a failed bid to unseat then-lieutenant governor Phil Scott.
Corren received about $180,000 in public money for his campaign. When accepting public financing in Vermont, candidates agree not to solicit contributions from outside sources.
Sorrell alleged that Corren violated the law when he asked the Democratic Party to email its 19,000-person subscriber list touting his candidacy. Sorrell sued Corren in state court, seeking to have him pay $72,000 in penalties.
The email itself has been valued at $255, the figure Corren will now pay in the settlement.
Corren in turn sued Sorrell in federal court, seeking a ruling that the email did not represent a campaign contribution. Corren also claimed that certain aspects of Vermont’s campaign rules governing public financing are illegal. A federal judge dismissed that case in 2016, but Corren has appealed to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York City.
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Glad that this saga is finally over, and that the AG’s office is done skewering Dean Corren for using the public financing system. Now we need to create a funding source for this system so more candidates can use it.
Glad to be rid of the Eternal General
Terrific news. Adam Salem is right. Now let’s ask our legislature to both strengthen public financing and to pass rules–as permitted in a 2011 case by the US Supreme Court–preventing a member of the legislature or a member of a selectboard from voting on a matter when such an amount of electioneering money was spent on that member’s election by a person or corporation that has a pecuniary interest in the matter that a reasonable person would find that the independence of judgment of that member would be impaired. Taking those two steps, strengthening public financing and strengthening conflict of interest rules for elected officials, would finally put a stop to corrupting private election financing. See the article in the Vermont Bar Journal, “How Vermont Can Respond to Citizens United,” https://www.vtbar.org/UserFiles/Files/Even…