Vermont: Governor

Gov. Jim Douglas (R)

Jim Douglas (R) Elected 2002, 3d term up Jan. 2009
Born:	06-21-1951, Springfield, MA
Home:	Middlebury
Education:	Middlebury Col., B.A. 1972
Religion:	Congregationalist
Marital Status:	married (Dorothy)
Elected  Office:	VT House of Reps., 1972-79; Maj. Ldr., 1977-79; VT Secy. of St., 1980-92; VT Treasurer, 1994-2002.
DC Office	109 State St., Montpelier, 5609 802-828-3333 Fax: 802-828-3339 Website: www.vermont.gov/governor
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The key decision that led to Jim Douglas being elected governor of Vermont in 2002 may have been his decision 34 years earlier to attend Middlebury College. Douglas grew up in Longmeadow, Massachusetts, a political junkie and a strong Republican, passing out AuH2O stickers for Barry Goldwater in 1964, at 13. In 1968, he enrolled at Middlebury and almost immediately decided to live in the town; his wife is from Middlebury and they have lived there ever since. Douglas’s college years were a time of campus protests against the Vietnam War, but he became an active Republican and organized a rally for President Richard Nixon in Middlebury in 1970. In 1972, the year he graduated, he ran for state representative from Middlebury and was elected; he was elected majority leader in 1977. In 1979, he lost a race for Speaker and became an aide to Republican Governor Richard Snelling. In between sessions of the legislature he worked as a radio announcer and became executive director of the local United Way. In 1980, he was elected secretary of state and served for 12 years. In 1992, he ran against Senator Patrick Leahy and lost 54%-43%—the closest race Leahy has had since 1980. In 1994, after working for the Porter Medical Center in Middlebury, he spotted an opening for state treasurer and was elected to the first of four terms. The Democratic party produces many gifted political entrepreneurs who win office even in unlikely years and districts; the Republican party has one in Douglas. He has been on the Vermont ballot every two years since 1972, and for most of that time has gotten up before 6 a.m. to commute over the Green Mountains to the tiny state capital of Montpelier.

His opening to run for governor came when Democratic Governor Howard Dean announced on September 5, 2001 that he would not run again. Returned to office every two years—Vermont and New Hampshire are the last two states with two-year gubernatorial terms—he advanced a number of innovative policies which, in the minds of many observers, entitled him to serious consideration as a candidate for president in 2004.

But as Dean was preparing to leave Vermont politics, there was discontent with some of his policies. Not so much civil unions, which he embraced reluctantly (but which have become more popular as time goes on), but over the high property taxes engendered by Act 60, which levied a statewide property tax to provide each school district, the long delays in development caused by the environmental reviews under 30-year-old Act 250 and, most of all, by frequent news of job loss and a rising sense that Vermont has a reputation for being unfriendly to business. Douglas and his Democratic opponent, Lieutenant Governor Douglas Racine, agreed that Act 60 and Act 250 needed some changes; so did Con Hogan, former director of state human services, who started running for the Republican nomination but decided in February to run as an Independent. But there was a clear difference in emphasis. Douglas called for tax cuts, if spending cuts could be achieved, and promised to “create a more business-friendly environment.” He advocated major modification in Act 60. It was “time for a change,” he said, in a state which had had Democratic governors 17 of the last 18 years.

The result was something of an upset. Douglas led Racine 45%-42%, with 10% for Hogan. Under Vermont law, if no candidate receives 50% of the vote, the governor is chosen by a combined vote of the two houses of the legislature. Republicans entered the campaign with a large majority of legislative seats; Racine announced that he would not take his candidacy to the legislature if he won under 50%, while Douglas said he would. Then, contrary to most expectations, Democrats made gains in the legislature and their majority in the Senate was larger than the Republicans’ narrow margin in the House. But Racine kept his word and Douglas became governor.

Douglas’s great success as governor was in getting the legislature to pass in April 2004 a bill revising Act 250—the first major change in 34 years. The five citizen approval boards were abolished and their powers given to a single Environmental Court; opponents of development were no longer given an automatic right to intervene; developers could pay for stormwater runoff by offsetting reductions elsewhere. Douglas did not get the legislature to act on Act 60. He did institute increased tax collection from out-of-state corporations, combined with a 14% cut in the corporate tax rate. Douglas sought state reimportation of prescription drugs from Canada; when the FDA denied that, Vermont in August 2004 became the first state to sue.

Douglas’s opponent in the 2004 election was Peter Clavelle, longtime mayor of Burlington, who got his political start in 1982 as an appointee of Socialist Mayor Bernie Sanders, now Vermont’s junior senator. Clavelle was a longtime member of the left-wing Progressive party; deciding to run as a Democrat after Howard Dean announced his retirement, he arranged that the Progressive nomination would be won by an ally who would decline to run. Clavelle’s major plank was health care. He proposed to use the $90 million the state spends on Medicaid on a universal health care insurance and said it could be paid for by greater efficiencies. To which Douglas said, “It’s a $90 million plan that no one really understands, that its author can’t explain and that they said is free. I think most Vermonters are pretty skeptical of that.” He favored increasing competition by encouraging private insurers to reenter the state, health savings accounts and initiatives for chronic illness and encouraging healthy lifestyles in children. This issue, like renewable energy and smoking in bars (Clavelle favored a statewide ban, Douglas a local option), was a clear-cut conflict between a Republican backing market incentives and a Democrat favoring government decisionmaking. As the campaign went on Clavelle said that voters should back him because of his opposition to the war in Iraq. Douglas won 59%-38%, carrying all but one county. But Democrats increased their margin in the state Senate and replaced a small Republican majority with a large Democratic majority in the House. Douglas’s solid reelection performance made him the Republicans’ best chance for capturing the seat of retiring Senator James Jeffords in 2006 but Douglas announced in May 2005 that he would not run for Senate.

Health care remained a major issue after the election. In 2005, the legislature passed a sweeping plan providing near-universal coverage, paid for in part by a tax on payrolls of businesses that did not offer insurance; Douglas vetoed the measure. But in 2006 the legislature agreed to a more market-oriented version, the Catamount Health plan, that sought to curb health care costs while extending coverage to more uninsured residents and offering new approaches for those with chronic diseases; Douglas signed it. Also in 2006, the legislature and Douglas came to agreement on a plan to fund a college scholarship program. The year before, Douglas had sought to create a $175 million, 15-year college scholarship program funded by tobacco settlement money. The legislature had wanted the money to go toward health care. In the end, the two sides agreed to $5 million in scholarships for current high school seniors and established a commission to determine how to spend another $5 million on that class. 

This pragmatic approach served Douglas well going into the 2006 election. His approval rating was above 60% in the summer. He ran on what he called his “Agenda of Affordability”, which took aim at the increasingly high cost of living in Vermont, and highlighted what he called a Democratic willingness to raise taxes to afford more spending. His Democratic opponent, former state Senator Scudder Parker, struggled to make headway until the fall. Parker got a boost in September after Douglas played a role in scuttling a bill in Congress that would have designated more wilderness in the Green Mountain Forest. Parker criticized Douglas for not doing enough on renewable energy and consistently sought to tie him to President George W. Bush, who, with disapproval ratings over 70% in Vermont, was more unpopular here than just about anywhere else in the nation. “I’m not trying to say Jim equals George,” Parker told the Associated Press. “What I am saying is that Jim has consistently supported Bush administration policies and those policies are coming home to have a direct impact on Vermont’s budget, Vermont’s quality of life.”

Vermont is small enough that a governor facing a competitive reelection can raise and spend less than $1 million and still win. Douglas did just that, winning 56%-41%, again carrying all but one county. He has said he will run for a fourth term in 2008.