In my Election Night post, I pointed out the parallels between Vermont’s elections in 2014 and 2024. Both were rebukes of Democratic officeholders; the former, Peter Shumlin; the latter, a couple dozen or so members of the Legislature.
There are parallels, to be sure but they end here: 2014 was largely aimed at Shumlin, while the entire Democratic establishment found itself in the crosshairs this year. And each and every one of them had better be prepared to do some real soul-searching. Because they didn’t see this coming, not at all. They believed the Democratic base was solidly in their corner. Some slippage was expected, but nothing like this.
Behind their misperception of the electorate is a more serious disconnect: Over the last two years, they completely lost touch with the people. They pursued an ambitious legislative agenda and, thanks to House and Senate supermajorities, they enacted an unprecedented number of bills despite gubernatorial objection.
They believed in their agenda. They believed they had a mandate to deliver on the promises of 2022. They believed they were moving Vermont toward a more prosperous and equitable future. One of two things is true: They got the agenda badly wrong, or they completely failed to connect it with the hopes, fears and concerns of the voters, especially outside the cities and suburbs.
Well, there’s a third factor: They made mistakes in crafting legislation. The most impactful was whatever they did to school funding that led to the unintended consequence of substantial property tax hikes for many Vermonters. It’s not easy to make sweeping changes in complex systems. The Legislature has precious few resources of its own, and was operating without any help from Phil Scott’s executive branch.
VTDigger just published an article about the Democrats’ losses in the House including a map of the districts that flipped (credit to Digger data whiz Erin Petenko). It clearly shows that almost all the Dem-to-Repub flips happened in rural Vermont. (There wasn’t a similar map for the Senate, but it would show the same thing: the Dems’ losses were largely in rural districts.
Which underscores the complaints from certain rural lawmakers, most notably independent Rep. Laura Sibilia, now conducting a long-odds campaign for House Speaker. Outgoing Rep. Caleb Elder stepped away from the House and ran a quixotic campaign for state senate due, at least in part, to his frustrations with House leadership’s top-down style.
Such complaints could be seen as sour grapes — or at least they could before Tuesday night. The House majority accomplished quite a lot, and they are right to feel a sense of pride in what they’ve done. Legislative caucuses are not always convivial places. Maintaining discipline, even at the cost of bruised feelings, is a necessary tool in the bag.
But the election results underscore the views of the dissenters. Legislative leadership didn’t just lose Sibilia and Elder and their allies; they lost huge swaths of the electorate.
This is nothing new. Since the late 1960s, the Democrats have been the party of the educated, the urban, and the suburban. The party was transformed in many ways by the ferments of the civil rights movement, the women’s movement, and the Vietnam War. Most of those transformations were positive; the Democrats are better off without the southern segregationists, even if they had an easier path to victory when people like Strom Thurmond and Jesse Helms were Democrats.
But in the process, Democrats forgot how to connect with the “other” Americas. They believe their policies are best for working people and rural residents. They’re not wrong about that, especially compared to the policies of the wealth-dominated Republican Party. (Does anyone really think the Barons of Burlington give the tiniest of damns about the problems of rural Vermont? No, they do not. But they just helped elect a bunch of Republicans who will represent rural Vermont under the golden dome.)
The Democrats have two choices: Drastically change their legislative agenda, or figure out how to convince voters that their agenda will make Vermont a better place to live. They have a good case to make, but this election shows that they’ve failed to make it.
This is not a time for the status quo. This is a time for serious reflection, an infusion of humility, and a new plan for the future. Take your time, Democrats.
The Vermont Political Observer. 
Good god, VPO, if you had an image upload thing here, I’d post my surrender monkey meme for you.
The “super majority”, ie, the solid Democratic/Progressive majority in our General Assembly got a lot of really good shit into law, and now is most definitely NOT the time to find some bullshit reason to search for a route or retreat.
If nothing else, Scott and the rest of his proven rapist, business fraud, and serial liar Trump humpin’ GOP/VTGOP will not be able to repeal anything without a lot of assistance from the Dems – and I don’t think that’s going to happen.
When it comes to providing our grandchildren and their grandchildren a realistic opportunity for a healthy, free, and sustainable future; the last biennium was a huge success that will last far into the future.
This is thoughtful, careful, and thorough. I’m not saying it’s wrong. But at the end of the day, there seems to be a super-basic issue at play here: education is expensive, and somebody has to pay for it. Nobody, apparently, wants to. As the newly-minted GOP legislators will learn soon enough, they don’t have any way to directly influence school budgets. In Vermont, it just doesn’t work that way.
While you don’t address it directly, to my eyes, the biggest substantive change, at the state level, is the student-weighting formula. It ultimately relieves some of the burdens borne in rural districts–and it should.
Scott’s yammering about affordability is meaningless, but oh-so appealing. It seems to promise that people will get to have a rural life they want, but not pay for it, not really. Somehow, somebody else will. It’s the politics of resentment. Which, at every level, gets people elected.
Another thing I’d remind the solons of the Lege is that kicking tough issues to a “Study” and then to another “Study” and then doing little with the results looks like cowardice or indecisiveness. And, I’d also limit the time someone can chair a committee. Some of them seem to have been there since the founding of our republic and appear more interested in the gavel and not service.
Prior to Town Meeting day, all parties realized that the then existing formula for determining taxes on the education side was not going to work, and changes in the rules were made. This was a late decision and created havoc for local school boards, administrations and local elections. But then, after that, nothing more happened to fix the ultimate problem.
At the end of the legislative session, the Democrats knew that due to the education formula, property taxes were going up by double digits, The Governor made a last minute proposal to phase in the significant increase in taxes over multiple years. The Democrats took the position that the Governor came late to the table and that his proposal was not economically a good idea in the longer term. However, the Democrats did not fix the problem. The Governor and Republicans then used this outcome to blame Democrats for the large increase in taxes.
The problem were the rules and formula for education funding which dates back to 2022. Anyone with an understanding of how processes work at the local level could have known what was going to happen. Two years later, the decision makers in Montpelier say – oh my we seem to have a problem. Of course they did – and they knew about it two years earlier.
The formula and rules were not fixed in 2022 or 2023 or 2024. This was the fault of the legislature and the executive branch, and we should spread that fault over all three political parties.
Well, the governor DID come late to the table, and he essentially proposed borrowing against future revenues, which is an irresponsible thing to do. Your formulation that “his proposal was not economically a good idea in the longer term” is about the kindest possible way of describing it.
All true except that our legislators etc are trying to address some of the right problems with the wrong tools. The Clean Heat Standard is trying to build a carbon tax that should have been seen 10 years ago. Today, in the inflation shocked working class, this tax is seen as an imposition because there continues a policy maker delusion that we can stop global heating with virtuous “green” consumption. As the current floods and droughts are proving, we failed to stop the heating.
The big sale needed now is to understand that the climate future is going to degrade rapidly and out sacrifice and pain in adjusting to that is a lot more than we think we can afford. Such taxes have to provide a benefit to the end usersl that is visible.
School taxes skyrocket yearly because we are trapped into a set of insurance and labor agreements whose price continues to rise. Create with those health monies a network of local health care systems where state and local employees must get their services. Turn the taxes into a broad public good.
To do so will require recognition of failed systems we now subsidize like the hyper local school districts, the failing managemint of the UVM system of providers etc etc.
People are wanting reformed thinking not just continuation of failing expensive systems. Much work awaits. Is our legislature up to it?
“Scott’s yammering about affordability is meaningless, but oh-so appealing.”
Very true. It’s a cloak to punish the poor with “austerity” but protecting the wealthy and the high level donors, for it’s all about them.