Vermont’s Town Meetings: All Talk and No Action

March 3, 2008 | 12 Comments

Vermont’s much-mythologized Town Meeting Day is now upon us and the Vermont media is showering us with its annual puff pieces and odes to the so-called glories of the day. But because of Vermont’s centralized form of government that puts almost all the power in Montpelier, none of the actions taken by a town on its coveted meeting day can go beyond the very short leash the legislature has put them on. That means, for example, that, unless the state legislature passes a bill specifically declaring that towns can take action on an issue like war, nukes or alternative energy, nothing the towns do on these issues matters. They can have, in affect, a nice debate and nothing more.

Many Vermonters would be surprised to know that we actually have less direct control of our town government than our brethren in all our neighboring states. And what about all that talk and folklore about Vermont’s town meetings being bastions of grassroots democracy?

“It’s a myth,” replies Vermont’s Secretary of State, Deb Markowitz, the woman playing the referee between the state legislature and the towns. “It’s a big shock to a lot of people in this state when they realize towns really don’t have much power. They can have a discussion on issues but they can’t enact laws.”

Ironically, the autonomy of local towns took a nosedive after the American Revolution.

“We should not romanticize this historical period,” wrote Ben Grosscup in a pamphlet entitled Vermont Towns vs. Genetic Engineering, a publication of the Institute for Social Ecology in Plainfield. “The newly formed U.S. government eviscerated local autonomy in favor of a centralized republic first by state constitutions drawn up during the Revolutionary War and subsequently by the federal constitution.”

Vermont’s companion states in New England, however, eventually opted for what’s known as a “Home Rule” style of state government that cedes power to the towns. Vermont, on the other hand, adheres to the legal principle known as “Dillon’s Rule,” which severely restricts town autonomy.

The League of Cities and Towns, a nonprofit coalition of Vermont’s local governments, has been trying for years — to no avail — to get the state legislature to adopt a Home Rule style of government. According to the League’s October 2002 newsletter, “the State of Vermont is tied for last in terms of autonomy granted to municipalities.”

Interestingly, it’s been the Republicans in the state legislature who have acted as the primary roadblocks to the efforts to give more power to the local governments — not exactly what you’d expect from those who usually espouse decentralized government.
In fact, the state’s top Republican, Governor Jim Douglas, is also no fan of giving more power to the towns. Despite making folksy references to his decades of service as Middlebury’s town meeting day moderator, Douglas has called attempts by Home Rule advocates to provide more power to the towns as “willy-nilly” changes to Vermont’s way of governing.

But for citizens and town officials looking to maximize local democracy there’s nothing “willy-nilly” about breaking up the near-monopolistic power centered in Montpelier. Advocates of Home Rule point to numerous situations in which the entire state legislature had to be corralled into approving even the most basic local actions.

“Several years ago towns tried to adopt ethics ordinances that would govern the ethical conduct of their local officials,” Markowitz told me in a past interview. “But they couldn’t do it until the state legislature passed a bill granting them that specific right.”

The City of Burlington has also been repeatedly hamstrung by the current system whenever it needs to do something as routine as altering its charter. Again, before they can make a move outside of the narrowly defined powers already granted by Montpelier, they must get in line and work their way through the Vermont Senate and House and then – hopefully – get the governor’s signature.

Nowhere is the lack of citizen empowerment at a local level more apparent than when it comes to citizens’ efforts to bring forth environmental or social issues for town consideration. While it’s relatively easy to get your pet issue on your town meeting’s agenda (all you need is a petition signed by 5% of the town’s eligible voters), your efforts are bound to a mere discussion of the issue or, at best, an advisory statement to the folks holding the real power in Montpelier or Washington.

One of the hottest issues to surface on town meeting agendas in the last couple of years has been the genetically modified organism (GMO) issue. Spearheaded by the folks at the Institute for Social Ecology in years past, dozens of towns passed resolutions calling for the state legislature to either label or ban these controversial foods.

But when anti-GMO activists sought to have their towns ban farmers from growing these foods they learned the hard way about the lack of power at the local level. In Marshfield, for example, the town moderator declared the petition calling for a town “moratorium” on the production of GMO crops “illegal.” Secretary of State Markowitz and the Vermont Constitution she’s forced to interpret supported his opinion.

“The towns can ask the legislature to enact a moratorium,” says Markowitz. “But they can’t enact one on their own.”

Contrast this, for example, with the citizen-based initiatives in Nebraska, Iowa, and Pennsylvania to ban all forms of corporate farming within their townships. Now that’s empowerment.

While discussions and education that ensue at our town meetings are nice, Vermont’s cities and towns deserve the right to take action – just like they did before the Revolution.

[Editor's note: This essay was adapted from my column in Seven Days, "Left Field," published earlier in this century.]

Posted by M. Colby | Filed Under blog, vt media, vt politics