By Angelo Lynn
Vermonters witnessed as much of a change election as we’ve seen in the past couple of decades, as Republicans gained six seats in the Senate and 18 seats in the House. The headlines blasted the story: Dems’ supermajority in both chambers was busted. And in the surprise outcome of the election, newly minted Republican John Rodgers upset four-term incumbent David Zuckerman to win the lieutenant governor race.
It’s not a bad outcome for Vermont.
With Gov. Scott routinely garnering 70% of the vote, and Democrats maintaining a supermajority in both chambers, neither party was willing to meet in the middle on crucial issues. Scott hasn’t taken the lead on any tough issue, not even proposing a viable budget these past few years, while the Legislature made minor progress on housing issues this past session but has been slow to tackle education funding that was at the heart of huge property tax increases and prompted Republican victories.
With the parties more evenly matched — the House is 91 Democrats to 56 Republicans with three independents, while the Senate is 17 Dems and Progressives to 13 Republicans — and Gov. Scott getting support from Rodgers, the hope is both parties will finally tackle what’s ailing Vermont.
It’s not rocket science. Our demographics are skewed: too many old folks, too few working age adults (25-65), and a shrinking student population… and the trend keeps making it worse. We can’t solve any of the major crises without first solving our affordable housing. So, let’s get to it. There are answers, we just have to put the state’s resources behind the problem and commit to solving it.
As we begin to get a handle on housing, the cost of education and health care are the other crises that must be addressed. Again, the diagnosis is easy: Our expansive infrastructure and services exceed our ability to pay for it. We must reimagine how we can provide better quality service at less cost. That’s going to come with sacrifices, including consolidating schools and health care services, but the time to hem-and-haw about the virtues of consolidation are past: Vermonters said in this election they can’t afford another round of double-digit tax increases and almost everyone agrees.
It’s tempting to suggest that Democrats simply pass the baton. They’ve been taking the heat for being in charge (what’s the governor’s role supposed to be?) for years, so give them a shot at leadership. Switch places with Gov. Scott and sit back and critique his proposals. Would he? Likely not. What was disappointing in the Republican campaigns this fall is that while they opposed higher taxes (like everyone does), they offered no solutions.
Can we expect newly elected Sen. Steve Heffernan to propose ways to lower property taxes and cut school spending? We hope so. Can we expect Gov. Scott, Rodgers and the 18 new Republican House members to create legislation to make housing and health care more affordable? All their campaign ads, fliers and mailers promised to lower taxes and to make Vermont more affordable. Will voters hold them to their word?
But this shouldn’t be about politics, but instead about solving the problems.
What we really want is to see both parties, including the governor’s office, working together to create the best plans possible, and then have Gov. Scott use his political capital to get the public on board.
That leadership is going to be needed if legislators are going to risk their own skins to get behind the tough measures required.
Whether they can collaborate to that degree is what we’ll find out starting in January.
