By Gov. Peter Shumlin When I came to office in January 2011, I pledged to work every day to help make Vermont a more economically secure place to live, work, and raise a family. Back in 2011 our state still faced serious headwinds from the Great Recession. Vermont had lost nearly 10,000 jobs in the…

By Lee Kahrs, The Reporter One year ago, I wrote my first View From Here column. It was June 2015 and the U.S. Supreme Court, by a vote of 5-4, legally recognized the right of gay and lesbian Americans to marry. In writing that column, I came out to The Reporter readership. It wasn’t a…

By Deb Bucknam Last year Governor Shumlin issued an executive order “banning the box” for applicants for state employment. Last month, he signed a bill ordering that all private employers “ban the box.” Banning the box means that no employer can ask on an employment application if an applicant has a criminal record. In signing…

By Rebecca Holcombe A recent decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals, 4th Circuit, confirmed that transgender students should be able to use the bathroom that is consistent with their gender identity. This is the right decision. I think of a family friend, who spends every day worrying about whether his transgender child will still…

By Lee H. Hamilton If there’s a theme that sets this political season apart, it’s the voters’ utter disdain for most of the people who practice politics. They’re fed up with politicians, they’ve lost faith and confidence in the political “elite,” and they don’t believe that the realm where politicians ply their craft—government—works. The two…

By Lee H. Hamilton I had the good fortune last week to spend some time in Washington, D.C., with about a dozen former members of Congress. As you’d expect, we got to talking about the current Congress. Very quickly it turned out that the same question was troubling all of us: Why is it held…

By Douglas R. Hoffer, Vermont State Auditor The unfortunate situation with the EB-5 program presents an opportunity to reflect on the state’s approach to economic development. Among other responsibilities, the state auditor’s office examines various programs to determine whether they achieve the goals established by the legislature. That is, are we getting our money’s worth? To…

By Maxine Grad and Willem Jewett It may be accurate to observe that Governor Shumlin’s accomplishments during his final legislative session have been modest but it goes a bit too far to cast off the work of the General Assembly as “an uninspired, housekeeping session that was remarkable for how few initiatives lawmakers tackled,” as…

By Rob Roper Vermont Business Magazine (VBM) wrote about some good news for a Vermont economy that has otherwise been pretty moribund for several years. The bright spot is our tech industry. As the VBM article points out, “Vermont’s tech sector makes up a quarter of the state’s workers and 40 percent of its wages,…

By Paul Costello At the Vermont Council on Rural Development (VCRD) we get to work with rural towns throughout Vermont where we rally everyone to pull together, review all the issues before the community, evaluate potential collective action, set priorities, and line up together to advance the economy, attract youth, build senior housing or children’s…

By Jon Margolis, VTDigger.org (Editor’s note: Jon Margolis is VTDigger’s political columnist.) The 2016 session of the Vermont General Assembly did not legalize or decriminalize marijuana. It did not pull the state’s pension fund money out of coal or oil company stocks. It did not establish a commission or an agency or even a part-time…

By George Jaeger Among the most disturbing aspects of this bizarre election season is the absence of any serious discussion of America’s foreign affairs. Endless debates have produced simplistic themes that play to the gut feelings of parts of the electorate. But relatively little attention has been paid to the most critical world issues America…

By Deb Markowitz Every Earth Day, I take time to reflect on the importance of the work we do at the Agency of Natural Resources and how much I appreciate the passion and commitment of our over 600 employees. At ANR, our work to protect the environment is not just a job—it also provides a life…

By Emerson Lynn It breaks the heart to read the Securities and Exchange Commission’s allegations that the Jay Peak “miracle” was a “Ponzi-like” scheme involving the misuse of $200 million in investor funds. It is a story without victors. It’s a story from which we will have to recover. And that will take time. It…

By Job Tate Thankfully, Vermont is no “banana republic”—corruption, conflicts of interest and abuses of power by our elected officials are few and far between; and we continue to have one of the most accessible legislative bodies in the world. However, as the public trust continues to be tested by a mounting stream of either…