Vermont Progressive Party wields outsized influence on state politics

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Features » May 3, 2012

Out of the Margins, Into the Fray

The Vermont Progressive Party wields outsized influence on state politics.


BY Steve Early

n this presidential election year, millions of voters find themselves caught, once again, between a Republican rock and a Democratic hard place. Because of the primacy of the two-party system, only major party candidates have the funding, organization and media visibility to be competitive in most federal, state and local elections. As a result, Greens or other minor party standard bearers are almost never elected to public office. (A hundred years ago, things were different when thousands of Socialists successfully ran for municipal office.)

One state where left-leaning voters do have greater choice today – and their own political voice – is Vermont. Thanks to several decades of persistent organizing, the Vermont Progressive Party (VPP) now boasts seven members in the legislature – two senators (out of 30) and five representatives (out of 150) in the House (some of whom affiliate with the Democratic Party as well). Since Vermonters sent the first “Prog” to Montpelier in 1990, 16 have served a total of 48 legislative terms in the state capitol. Progressives have introduced legislation, served on key committees and played a catalytic role in public policy formation.

Despite the VPP’s recent loss of Burlington City Hall, where a Democrat was just elected mayor for the first time since the late 1970s, the party retains three city council seats (out of 14) in Vermont’s largest municipality. Over the years, more than 29 VPP members have served as part of the Progressive bloc on the council. One newly-elected member is Burlington Department of Public Works commissioner Max Tracy, a 25-year-old former student activist at the University of Vermont, long involved in organizing campus workers. He won in the city’s Old North End section by campaigning for living wage jobs, affordable housing, a sustainable transportation system and support for local farmers and gardeners.

In similar fashion, Progressives running in nonpartisan races in small towns serve on local school committees, select boards and community planning bodies. Plus, they turn out on Town Meeting Day to help pass resolutions in favor of issues like tax reform and overturning the Supreme Court’s pro-corporate decision in Citizens United – both the subject of town meeting action in 70 Vermont communities in March. While never formally aligned with the party himself, Vermont’s socialist U.S. senator, Bernie Sanders, has backed some VPP candidates for state and local office, while VPP activists have, in turn, been his most ardent supporters in past statewide races.

Taking a leaf from Sanders’ singular 30-year career – as Burlington mayor, then Vermont’s lone congressman, and now junior senator, the Progressives have distinguished themselves from their Democratic competitors by focusing, in populist fashion, on economic issues. In areas of the state where working-class voters might otherwise be swayed by cultural conservatism or residual rural Republicanism, the VPP has, like Sanders, won elections by campaigning for labor rights, fair taxes and single-payer healthcare far more consistently than the Democrats. The party’s statement of principles has a distinct tinge of Occupy. “Democracy,” it declares, “requires empowering people not only in government but also in the workplace, schools, and in the overall economy. Society’s wealth should not be concentrated in the hands of a few, and a wealthy minority should not control the conditions under which we live.”

Healthy competition

One measure of the Progressive impact on public policy is the preliminary steps that Vermont took last year to create a first-in-the-nation single-payer healthcare system – though this achievement may still be thwarted, due to business opposition during a complicated multi-year implementation process or any intervening loss of Democratic Party control over the legislature or governor’s office.

In coordination with a strong grassroots movement, both Sanders and the VPP continued to make single-payer a central political issue, keeping the pressure on local Democrats. Current Gov. Peter Shumlin’s previous bid for statewide office – a run for lieutenant governor in 2002 – ended in defeat when Progressive Anthony Pollina, a strong single-payer advocate and now a state senator, received 25 percent of the vote.

Determined to avoid that fate again, Shumlin, a millionaire businessman and former Senate president, tacked left on healthcare reform in the 2010 Democratic gubernatorial primary and the general election. He narrowly won the five-way primary and then, with no Prog in the race, defeated Republican Brian Dubie by a 2-percent margin after getting much-needed help from Sanders with last-minute working-class voter turnout. With a Democratic-Progressive majority in both houses of the legislature, Shumlin followed through on his campaign pledge to introduce a single-payer plan and make its passage a top priority of his administration last year.

“We have a homeopathic role in the Vermont body politic,” says Ellen David-Friedman, a former organizer for the Vermont-National Education Association (NEA) and longtime Progressive Party activist. “We’ve managed to create enough of an electoral pole outside of the Democrats to constantly pull them to the left on policy issues, by dispensing an alternative brand of medicine that’s become increasingly popular.”

To maintain its “major party” status under Vermont law, the VPP must field a candidate every two years who garners at least 5 percent of the statewide vote. Progressives rarely perform better in statewide races than Martha Abbott, a tax accountant from Underhill, who received 12 percent in her 2008 campaign for state auditor. To boost its win rate, the party has lately focused on recruiting and supporting viable contenders for legislative seats. “Our strategy of both challenging and working with Democrats … makes us somewhat unique,” says Abbott, who was re-elected VPP chair at a lively party conference in Montpelier in November 2011.

[b[Small is beautiful[/b]

With a population of 626,000 people, Vermont has electoral constituencies small enough for people with progressive ideas to canvass door-to-door, meet nearly every voter and drum up enough campaign contributions to be competitive. House member Chris Pearson, who specializes in tax and budget issues for the VPP, represents one of the state’s larger multi-seat districts; he only had to raise $12,000 for his last election campaign.

Some VPP legislative candidates have, like Pollina, campaigned with the “D/P” label – a form of de facto cross endorsement achieved after running successfully in a Democratic primary. (Six of the seven Progs in the state legislature are D/Ps.) Where possible, other Progressives have also sought Sanders-like accommodations with Democrats in races where a strong general election showing by two left-of-center candidates would guarantee Republican victory. Several VPP legislators, including state Rep. Susan Hatch Davis, actually represent districts where their main competition comes from GOP nominees; local Democrats are, in effect, the “third party.”

The VPP’s politically savvy and flexible approach has helped it struggle against what Executive Director Morgan Daybell calls “the negative perception of third parties in general.” In contrast, local Greens and what’s left of the Liberty Union Party in Vermont – Bernie Sanders’ original political home in the 1970s – have not suffered the fate of most left-wing parties elsewhere (i.e. being presentable but marginal at best, ideologically pure, or just plain eccentric, with little to show, organizationally, for any single-digit share of the vote they garner).

The Progressive Caucus at work

On a recent visit to Montpelier I found Pollina making his presence felt under the gilded dome of the state capitol building. A longtime advocate for farmers, tax justice and campaign finance reform, Pollina joined Sen. Tim Ashe (D/P) in the state Senate two years ago. In the current legislative session, Pollina has been promoting the idea of a state bank, a bill requiring Vermont to “hire and buy local” (when contracting for state services) and a budget-related survey of poverty and income inequality.

Elsewhere in the same building, Rep. Pearson huddled with Reps. Mollie Burke and Sarah Edwards at the weekly meeting where VPP members of the House gather to share information and coordinate legislative strategy. Burke and Edwards are both from the Brattleboro area and are engaged with environmental and public health issues related to decommissioning the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant in their corner of the state.

On this particular mid-March day, Vermont unions, strongly supported by the VPP, were working to overcome Democratic reluctance to grant collective bargaining rights to publicly-funded “early childhood educators” who provide home day care. Hoping to win further organizational endorsements, donations and support – from the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), the Vermont-NEA and Vermont State Employees Association (VSEA) unions, along with the AFL-CIO – the VPP has strongly supported the AFT’s child-care organizing campaign. Progressives have also defended VSEA members against public criticism by Gov. Shumlin during a dispute about state worker contract enforcement last year.

In White River Junction and other communities, Windsor County Party Chair Liz Blum and several elected local VPP officials are now working with the Vermont Workers Center and local Occupy activists to fight contraction of the U.S. Postal Service, which would eliminate several hundred union jobs and adversely affect mail delivery in the state.

As Blum explains, these “cuts would be devastating for elderly, rural and low-income Vermonters who depend on the reliability and affordability of the mail, and for whom the post office functions as a social link. It’s often the place where people interact with neighbors, petition for ballot measures and swap news, the kind of space that’s made small-town Vermont so famously democratic.” Such nonelectoral activity on behalf of a key labor and community cause barely registers on the radar screen of Vermont Democrats.

Vermont State Labor Council Secretary-Treasurer Traven Leyshon, who also serves on the VPP’s state coordinating committee, says, “Local labor leaders are now willing to support Progressive candidates over Democrats – when they’re credible – because of such pro-labor stances.” In some cases, he said, rank-and-filers have had to overrule the safer, more conservative candidate endorsements favored by their own union lobbyists and political directors.

This small insurgency from below, in Vermont’s public sector-oriented labor movement, mirrors the VPP’s own trajectory in state politics. In a fashion that one hopes will not be the exception, Progressives have moved from the margins to Montpelier, from also-ran status to an influential role in state and local government. If there were more Left partying like that in other states, at least one of the two major parties might feel greater pressure to behave better.
 
Vermont Progressive Party Platform:

Vermont Progressive Party Platform
As adopted on November 19, 2011

PREAMBLE: The Vermont Progressive Party offers this platform to preserve and sustain democracy, guarantee inalienable rights, and promote the general welfare of the citizens of the State of Vermont.

Healthcare: VPP Platform
Progressives believe health care is a human right, and support single-payer health care, birth to death, free of private corporate interests (insurance companies), provided through a nonprofit, publicly financed system. We will work to:
•Implement full-spectrum single-payer health care, including preventive and mental health care.
•Establish community health centers to deliver medical and mental healthcare services.
•Subsidize medical school tuition at UVM for students who agree to practice in Vermont after graduation.

Education: VPP Platform
Progressives believe public education is the essential and most inclusive institution in our communities, offering opportunities for all to participate. We will work to:
•Promote a public education system, Pre-K–12, that provides equal and equitable opportunities for all our children.
•Replace the residential education property tax with a progressive income tax.
•Increase the State of Vermont’s share of special-education funding and improve the quality of services offered.
•Reduce postsecondary tuition costs for Vermonters; include free housing at Vermont state colleges for Vermont students.
•Repeal the Federal No Child Left Behind Act with its excessive emphasis on standardized testing.
•Oppose voucher programs, which undercut public education.
•Support educator efforts at fair, constructive, and comprehensive evaluation and review.

Criminal Justice: VPP Platform
Progressives are committed to public safety. We will work to:
•Invest in prevention and anti violence programs.
•Discontinue the failed “war on drugs.”
•Fund drug and alcohol rehabilitation programs.
•Limit incarceration to offenders who pose a threat to public safety.
•Create effective penalties against driving under the influence to ensure public safety.
•Work to provide in-state placements and treatment (rather than out-of-state).
•Advocate for vocational and workplace training for offenders and youth at risk.
•Provide education and literacy support in all corrections settings.

Civil Rights: VPP Platform
Progressives will preserve Vermont’s national leadership as a champion of civil rights, in the tradition of Vermont’s history as the first state to outlaw slavery. Progressives believe our right to personal privacy, guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution, is unconditional. We will work to:
•Support marriage equity for same-sex couples.
•Ensure women’s rights to control their bodies and their choices.
•Establish a Zero-Tolerance standard statewide toward all forms of discrimination and harassment (e.g., sexual) in schools and workplaces.
•Protect the confidentiality of commercial transactions and medical information.
•Restrict the ability of the state, cities, and towns to eavesdrop on private citizens.

Economy: VPP Platform
Progressives believe that a vibrant and sustainable economy is one that recognizes preeminence of the “quality of life” concept and insists on a decent standard of living for all Vermonters. We will work to:
•Establish and guarantee that the minimum wage must be a livable wage.
•Advocate for the rights of workers to unionize and require all state contracts to be awarded only to businesses that pay a livable wage.
•Insist that Vermont contract only with responsible employers that hire local employees.
•Require that state-funded institutions buy products and services from Vermont farms and businesses wherever feasible.
•Promote cooperative, worker-owned, and publicly owned enterprises as an alternative to huge profit-driven multinational corporations.
•Calculate the economic impact resulting from the degradation of Vermont’s natural resources when evaluating the state’s economic development.
•Change from Gross Domestic Product to another measure such as the Genuine Progress Indicator or Gross National Happiness indicator.
•Fight to reverse the doctrine of “corporate personhood.”
•Guarantee employment opportunity at a living wage to all working-age Vermonters.
•Support the concept of a state bank.

Environment: VPP Platform
Progressives believe that Vermont’s natural environment is the foundation of our health, quality of life, and economy. We will work to:
•Protect our water, air, and biodiversity through strict enforcement of existing regulations, the creation of new regulations, and financial incentives that reward responsible stewardship.
•Strengthen effective land-use planning policies (e.g., Act 250, Current Use Program) that support town centers, farming, forestry, and conservation.
•Promote environmentally sound use of Vermont’s natural resources by supporting composting, expanding recycling, reducing hazardous waste, and restoring polluted sites to environmental health.
•Support and develop alternative energy resources and practices, statewide mass transit, and energy-efficiency programs to combat global warming/climate change.
•Create a carbon tax that is used for green projects/alternative energy.

Agriculture: VPP Platform
Progressives know that agriculture, especially family farms, including timber, are essential to Vermont’s economy and cultural heritage. We will work to:
•Support fair-trade prices for Vermont’s farmers and producers.
•Invest in agricultural infrastructure with priority given to locally-owned, farmer-controlled enterprises such as vegetable-, meat-, and dairy-processing plants.
•Support farm- and community-based enterprises with policies that open new markets, including direct sales to consumers.
•Support farmers’ transition to organic and sustainable practices.

Housing: VPP Platform
Progressives believe a safe, affordable place to live is the birthright of every Vermonter. We will work to:
•End homelessness while supporting legal, medical, and financial assistance to the homeless.
•Ensure changes to building regulations resulting in construction of affordable housing.
•Guarantee sufficient funding for Section 8 rental housing to end occupancy waiting periods.
•Protect the rights of renters.
•Reduce the red tape and multiple application forms required to obtain subsidized housing from the Vermont Housing Authority.

Public Participation: VPP Platform
Progressives believe that progress in the face of multi-billion dollar corporate interests requires serious participation by people in our communities, workplaces, and schools between elections. We will work to:
•Organize events in our communities and at the State House to bring out the voices of the people.
•Support town meeting initiatives on vital issues.
•Build coalitions with community, religious, business, union, and student organizations to support legislative initiatives.
 
Vermont Progressive Party Statement of Principles:

Statement of Principles
•The purpose of the Progressive Party is to promote economic, social and environmental justice and sustainability through electoral and other democratic political activities, and to become the majority political party, while protecting minority and individual rights and opportunities.
•Our country, state and localities can reach their highest social and economic aspirations through truly representative democracy.
•All people have a right to equal participation in society.
•Democracy requires empowering people not only in government, but also in the workplace, schools and in the overall economy.
•Society's wealth should not be concentrated in the hands of a few, and a wealthy minority should not control the conditions under which we live.
•Collective organizing is essential for people of low and moderate income to attain economic justice.
•Everyone is entitled to decent work at a living wage in a safe working environment.
•We need to create an economy that is sustainable and reverses the destruction of our global environment.
•The burden of taxes should be shared based on ability to pay.
•Basic needs, including housing, food, health care, education and energy should be affordable to all and not the means for private profit.
•Directing more resources toward the care and development of children is essential to a health and prosperous society.
•Our society's deeply rooted racism and white privilege, whether overt, subtle or institutional, need to be abolished wherever they exist.
•The prevalence of sexism, both overt and subtle, limits and damages us all. More than merely encouraging women to fully participate, we must affirmatively assure their inclusion in all aspects of economic and civil society.
•Seniors and people with disabilities should be able to participate fully in society without economic deprivation or social isolation.
•All people, regardless of sexual orientation, should be able to participate fully in society without interference. We must affirmatively ensure their inclusion in all aspects of society.
•Our society's deeply rooted discrimination against low-income people, whether overt, subtle or institutional, needs to be abolished wherever it exists.
•Consistent with the rights and equality of others, religious and cultural minority groups deserve respect and freedom from governmental interference.
•Community members should be fully integrated into decision-making about the economic destinies of their communities. Those who operate a small business or farm, or are self-employed, must be protected from the overreaching power of mega-corporations.
•Human labor is the key to creation of wealth. We challenge the assumed right to derive vast wealth from ownership or position.
•No nation should exploit the labor or resources of another nation or people.
•Human survival requires the elimination of nuclear weapons and the redirection of military spending to human needs.
 
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