Vermont’s Town Meetings: All Talk and No Action
March 3, 2008
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.]
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12 Responses to “Vermont’s Town Meetings: All Talk and No Action”
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You sound like Ethan Allen.
You know, Michael, you could do a good article on COUNTERPUNCH called: “Vermont Lite Lefties Go To Work For Bush/Cheney.” Check out the SHIT commentary on GMD attacking the Brattleboro initiative. It’s not just Nader who frightens them. Maybe the think Mike Fisher’s bill is ‘unconstitutional’ also. I love it when liberals use the Constitution to defend War and Injustice. As Sean Connery might have put it: “Ain’t that just like a Liberal; bringing a candle to a WAR!”
Is there any “symbolic gesture bandwagon” you won’t get on, Petey?
Nobody’s ‘frightened’ of Nader, either, any more than they were ‘frightened’ of Second Vermont Republic.
The criticisms of the Brat thing are mostly rooted in the legality and mob rule of it, not to mention the sheer futility in that Bush and Cheney are never going to set foot in Brat anyways.
Well…maybe some folks see that two can play at the illegality game.
Mob rule? Maybe something pissed-off the ‘mob’–like a WAR?
JD: Is there a form of activism that the GMD ninnies don’t denigrate? And, no, voting doesn’t count as activism.
It’s always the same over there: the tactics are wrong, the timing is wrong, the mood is wrong, etc. There must be a pill for your electile dysfunction, no?
Oh yeah, I forgot, it’s called the Obama pill….
Lemme use a Colby diversion on you for a second.Do you people ever bother to see if something will be effective or is the fact that it makes you ‘feel good about yourselves” the only criteria? Does Petey do anything other than rant away nonsensically with the caps lock key on?
Your Obama accusations ring false, my friend That’ s a very tiny few over there. That icebergslim guy with the big bullshit Obama post drops one of those off once per month on just about every blog on the left, so that’ s hardly representative. Not once have you heard me (or odum) buy into this ‘hope’ hype. I think we’re all just more concerned about beating McCain. Sure, it’s only stemming the bleeding, but it beats bleeding to death. We’re just as frustrated as you, we just see it differently (and within that, there’s a big diversity of opinion).
Yeah, tell me what the Brat resolution will actually accomplish? Lemme guess, send another one of those all-too-effective “messages’ we keep hearing about? Is there anything too ridiculous for you or is it basically the more theatrical, the better?
But you’ll all be singing his praises soon enough — and he and his campaign knows it. That’s why he’s taking you for granted and starting his flirtation with the right-wing. He knows you guys will be be rolling over and exposing your bellies no matter what he says come September, October and November. Prove me wrong.
I feel fine about myself. I speak my mind, I vote my values and I’m not scared to send those “messages.” It’s a helleva lot better than duct-taping my mouth and bending over for hope.
You know, there were people like you who had similar opinions about the “theatrical” nature of actions like the Boston Tea Party, the Underground Railroad, and Rosa Parks’ audacity of picking her own seat (Democrats, I believe they called themselves). They were so enamored with being popular that they forgot that popularity isn’t the point. Justice is.
Equating Rosa Parks and the Boston Tea Party with anything that’s going on in Brattleboro.. you’ve jumped the shark, buddy. Or someone needs to prick that swelling head of yours.
But you’ll all be singing his praises soon enough
If he does something good, sure. And realistically, he’ll probably do a some good, and some harm as well. But you’re kidding yourself if you think everyone’s just gonna give him a pass. I’ve been making that criticism about Obamatites for quite some time, my fear that some of em are so enraptured, they’re gonna give him a pass on the bad stuff. And I’ll be right there giving em hell, too.
But once again, you’re dealing with straw men here. You’re continuously carrying on the false pretense that we’re all a bunch of kool-aid drinking Obamatons… Perhaps one or two, but by and large, that’s mostly the Kos kids. I’m not ‘bending over for hope’. I don’t like bending over for the doctor, you think I’m gonna bend over for hope?
I feel fine about myself. I speak my mind, I vote my values and I’m not scared to send those “messages.”
That’s great. So do I. My message right now is “John McCain must be stopped.” I still don’t see what you’re even arguing about. You should really take it out on John Stossel. You probably were enraptured by that big, burly mustache of his, and since then, you’re all torn up and ornery all the time, arguing with the fictional, alternate-universe JD Ryan who mindlessly strokes it for Obama 5 times a day.
Where’s your outrage over Pat Boone’s R & B album? Funny how you shy away from the real problems.
Since you brought it up, I have done a few things since the 60s–why, right here in this very State too. (organizing an event with Michael as a wiling/unwilling/no, now-I’m -willing-again/no/whatever participant–I’ll NEVER, capslocked, forget that, Michael–is beyond activism; it’s martyrdom) As far as ranting, goes, it seems I have some catching up to do.
I detect the tone of censure in your comments, JD. Too bad, and I mean that as a person who has seen real censorship in action, having worked in (for?) the Fouth Estate. If we all thought and spoke and wrote and acted alike, we wouldn’t need alternate media blogs at all–’cept for buyin’ stuff.
Mikey–where’s your link to ebay?
Truly a great disappointment here. But not as bad as disappointments past. Certainly not as bad as what we get from our own country while we’re busy trying to be hip. History weeps.
But fuck it. What the hell do we have to worry about from goddamn History?
Pete, I’d never say you shouldn’t speak out. I just don’ t know what the hell you’re talking about half the time.
Is someone selling Colby on eBay? What’s the ‘buy it now’ price? I need a new poolboy.
[...] Broadsides features an essay about how the power of Town Meetings in Vermont has been curtailed over the years yielding a process that has few teeth when it comes to statewide politics. [...]
[...] Sackett 569, Eric Huber 550 Judy Harp 214-575, Katrina Markowitz 520, …www.dailyfreeman.comVermont??s Town Meetings: All Talk and No Action Vermont??s much-mythologized Town Meeting Day is now upon us and the Vermont media is showering us [...]