Politics of Vermont

In 1854, the Vermont delegation, consisting of three congressmen and two senators, vigorously, but unsuccessfully opposed the repeal of the Missouri Compromise in the U.S. Congress.

For nearly 100 years, likely Republican candidates for office in Vermont agreed to abide by the Mountain Rule in the interests of party unity.

Several factors led to the eventual weakening of the Mountain Rule, including: the long time political dispute between the Proctor (conservative) and Aiken–Gibson (liberal) wings of the party; primaries rather than conventions to select nominees; the direct election of U.S.

[2][3] In 1798, the Federalist controlled Vermont General Assembly declined to reelect Democratic-Republican Party judicial officials, including Chief Justice Israel Smith, which was later referred to as the Vergennes Slaughter.

Chittenden attempted to withdraw the third brigade of Vermont's militia from the war on November 10, 1813, but it refused to follow his commands.

[13][14] None of the candidates in the 1835 gubernatorial election received a majority of the popular vote and the legislature was unable to select a winner after thirty-five ballots.

[19] The legislature voiced its opposition to the Missouri Compromise in 1818, stating that "the right to introduce and establish slavery in a free government does not exist".

[23] Slade left the Whigs in protest of the presidential nomination of Zachary Taylor, a slave-owner, and joined the Free Soil Party.

Senator George F. Edmunds proposed the creation of the Electoral Commission to mediate the results of the 1876 presidential election.

[34][35] A primary system was created by the legislature in 1915, ending the previous method of selecting candidates through convention votes.

[39] The U.S. Supreme Court case Reynolds v. Sims forced Vermont to alter its districting in 1965, which benefitted the Democrats.

[54] However, in 2007 Governor Jim Douglas signed a landmark civil rights bill banning discrimination on the basis of gender identity by employers, financial institutions, housing, public accommodations, and other contexts, after it had passed both chambers of the legislature by a veto-proof majority.

[56] Upon his entry into office with the death of his predecessor, Republican Richard A. Snelling in 1991, Governor Howard Dean faced a national economic recession and a $60 million state budget deficit.

Moderate Republican governor, Phil Scott, was re-elected in 2022 with 70% of the vote, despite the strong Democratic showing in other offices.

The Vermont constitution and the courts support the right of a person to walk (fish and hunt) on any unposted, unfenced, land.

[69] Vermont is one of four states, along with Alaska, Hawaii, and Maine,[70] to have prohibited by law all billboards from view of highway rights-of-way, except for signs on the contiguous property of the business location.

The law, which was the first of its kind in the nation, created nine district environmental commissions consisting of private citizens, appointed by the governor, who must approve land development and subdivision plans that would have a significant impact on the state's environment and many small communities.

As of 2015, Vermont is one of eight states along with Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Kansas, Maine, West Virginia, and Wyoming in the Union to allow any adult to carry a concealed firearm without any sort of permit.

[77] In 2010, the state enacted a law requiring that a DNA sample be taken from everyone arraigned on a felony, which is entered into a database controlled by the FBI.

Among them was the town of Killington, which voted 3:1 to secede from Vermont and join New Hampshire due to what the locals say is an unfair tax burden.

In 2009, Vermont passed the strictest law in the nation controlling the marketing of pharmaceutical drugs to doctors, hospitals and other health providers.

The statute makes possession of less than an ounce of the drug punishable by a small fine rather than arrest and possible jail time.

[97][98] By 2018, the state had set a maximum level, for PFAs, of 20 parts per trillion in drinking water total for all of the PFA chemicals.

[109] A line from the law that was especially stood out was that “[o]fficers of government are trustees and servants of the people and it is in the public interest to enable any person to review and criticize their decisions even though such examination may cause inconvenience or embarrassment”.

[110] It goes on to say that everyone has a right to privacy, especially in economic and personal pursuits, and it should be kept private unless there is a specific need of the record to scrutinize the decisions of a government official.

[112][113][114] Much of this immigration included the arrival of more liberal political influences of the urban areas of New York and the rest of New England in Vermont.

As evidence of this, in 1990 Bernie Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist, was elected to Vermont's lone seat in the House as an independent.

(Kerry, from neighboring Massachusetts, also became the first Northern Democrat ever to carry Vermont; Johnson was from Texas, Clinton from Arkansas and Al Gore, triumphant in the Green Mountain State in 2000, from Tennessee.)

[117] Sanders received the highest write-in draft campaign percentage for a statewide presidential candidate in history.

In 2012, the federal district court struck down the state's law giving it a say on whether Vermont Yankee nuclear plant stays open or not.