Anyone can make a mistake.
We all should value and support the efforts of anyone who wants to create community news - particularly volunteers working for a good cause. Those hours are long and often thankless, but the benefit to the community is incalculable.
But questions about the two pages in the October issue of The Vernon Newspaper have sparked a controversy in the Windham-1 House race between Richard Davis of Guilford and Mike Hebert of Vernon.
Davis contends that the monthly newsletter, published by the town of Vernon and mailed free to all Vernon households, ran a two-page ad for Hebert's campaign but did not identify the material as a paid political announcement. He charges that this violates state campaign and financial disclosure laws.
The two pages were not identified as paid advertising. The material was not boxed and was formatted in such a way that caused legitimate confusion as to whether the ad was intended as editorial copy. When Davis came by the Commons office last week, neither he nor three members of the newspaper's editorial staff could figure out conclusively if those two pages were intended as news copy or if they were campaign advertising.
And Davis said he couldn't get a straight answer from the editor, Christiane Howe, who, according to his account, hung up on him without telling him that it was a matter that he should take up with Hebert's campaign, not the newsletter.
Howe later confirmed that Hebert indeed paid for the ad. All politics aside, it comes as a huge relief that these two pages do not represent a town-sanctioned unsigned editorial in a municipally produced newsletter mailed to all households in town.
But even so, the ad raises interesting issues, both about the legalities and about the responsibilities, the process, and the nature of such small-town publications.
While Hebert admitted the information was inadvertently left off the ad, he downplayed the mistake. “I think the people in Guilford and Vernon want to hear the issues, not that somebody inadvertently left a disclaimer off a piece of paper,” he told the Brattleboro Reformer last week.
But that is an issue, at least on some level.
Secretary of State Deb Markowitz told The Commons that it's not unusual for candidates to forget to include that information in their advertising. “That being said, the law requires that a candidate must do so, mostly to protect those who are running for office from anonymous attacks,” she added.
According to state statute, “All electioneering communications shall contain the name and address of the person, political committee, or campaign who or which paid for the communication. The communication shall clearly designate the name of the candidate, party, or political committee by or on whose behalf the same is published or broadcast.” The penalty for not following this statute is a fine of no more than $150.
Davis said he has sent a letter to the Attorney General's office, who enforces the election statutes. “The damage that this may have done to my campaign cannot be measured or undone, but if your office makes it clear that a campaign disclosure law was violated, that will clarify the issue for potential voters,” he wrote.
He has a point. The ad listed the qualifications of both candidates and where they stood on the issues. As is only natural in a political ad, the list of qualifications contained very little about Davis, and quite a bit about Hebert. It leaves the impression to the casual reader that Davis is less qualified.
A correction, or the opportunity for Davis and his campaign to buy space to run their own ad, would do little good, since the next issue of the newspaper would come out too late to make a difference. And an apology rings hollow, for the damage has been done to Davis' campaign. While Hebert is correct - this absolutely should not distract from larger issues - the burst of public dialogue can only be good in helping citizens identify the two pages in question as advertising and consider the source - positively or negatively - with the full context in mind.
The ad also raises bigger questions - not just for The Vernon Newspaper, but also for other small, municipal or charitable volunteer newsletters.
Small newsletters - often casually written and as subjective as their writers wish - begin to go down a slippery slope when their content, whether news or advertising, veers into politics, particularly at a time when even small campaigns, even in Vermont, veer into polarizing language.
Unless those volunteer newsletters have the staff with the professional expertise to ensure that they and their advertisers are complying with laws - not just for political ads, but other advertising like rentals and employment - political advertising should be left out of the mix, if for no other reason than to avoid dragging volunteers into political dustups like last week's.
And that hardly creates the community cohesion and spirit volunteers work so hard to create.