Earlier this year, Assistant Majority Leader Tess Taylor left her high-profile post in the Statehouse to take a job with a new single-payer advocacy group. But after only about six months with the Vermont Coalition for Universal Reform, the former Democratic representative from Barre is preparing to depart.
Bram Kleppner, chairman of the board that oversees “Vermont CURE,” said the strategic focus of the organization is shifting, and that the skills for which Taylor was brought on no longer figure so importantly in its mission.
Kleppner, CEO of Danforth-Pewter, says the board initially envisioned heavy involvement in what will be the last election cycle before the Legislature considers a financing plan for a universal, publicly funded health care system.
But political opposition to candidates who support the plan, Kleppner says, never really materialized.
“We were expecting a strong candidate to oppose Gov. Shumlin. We were expecting a wave of strong candidates coming in to run against supporters of (single-payer). So we brought Tess on, obviously because of her deep expertise in the Vermont political process,” Kleppner says. “But it became clear to us after the primaries that that political and legislative opposition that we were expecting really just hadn’t materialized.”
Kleppner says the board soon realized that “the major battleground,” and the place where Vermont CURE should be focusing its efforts, would be on selling the general public on the merits of single-payer.
“And that kind of campaign is not one where Tess has a great deal of experience or expertise,” Kleppner says. “So I think it became clear to the board and to Tess that the job was going to be different than the one that she was interested in and hired for. And we had a series of conversations, and agreed that it probably made sense for us to bring on different leadership.”
Though she’s no longer working as executive director, Kleppner says Taylor will stay on through the end of the elections.
Taylor says she’s pursuing other opportunities, and that she’s thankful to have had the opportunity to work with “really wonderful, smart and dedicated people.”
“I learned a lot,” she said Thursday.
And while she says she still has a “twinge of nostalgia” about her days in the House, Taylor says she doesn’t regret leaving an elected post from which she would have played a key role in the passage of any health care public financing bill that will be considered by the Legislature next year.
Taylor says she remains devoted personally to the single-payer cause, but that she doesn’t anticipate working professionally on the issue again anytime in the near future.
While the focus of the group may be shifting, Kleppner says that Vermont CURE will work in some capacity to influence the outcomes of the very few legislative races the organization thinks it can make a difference.
The organization got off the ground thanks to a $100,000 donation from the American Federation of Teachers. Vermont CURE hasn’t disclosed the amount of sources of contributions since, but Kleppner says the group has received a “small handful of five-figure donations since.”
The group continues to closely with the Montpelier lobbying shop KSE Partners, which has been providing consulting services since its inception.
