Sugaring Off: Vermont Politics and History, Plain and Simple

The ranks of Senate Democrats were diminished at their caucus in Montpelier yesterday as the denizens of the green chamber gathered to elect their leadership for the next legislative session. The meeting comes on the heels of a disastrous election in which the party lost six seats in the Senate and twenty in the House.

Incumbent President Pro Tempore Phil Baruth of Burlington received a nearly unanimous nomination to continue in his present post. Majority Leader Alison Clarkson of Woodstock narrowly lost to a challenge from Kesha Ram Hinsdale, the chair of the Senate’s Housing Committee, by a 9-7 vote. Senator Becca White of Hartford was elected the caucus’s new whip, replacing Senator Andy Perchlik of Marshfield who did not seek re-election to the job. Perchlik no doubt hopes to take the gavel of the Appropriations Committee in the new session following the retirement of current chair, Jane Kitchel.

The caucus also nominated Senator Ginny Lyons of Williston to serve as the third member of the all-important Committee on Committees. This committee, made up of the Lieutenant Governor, President Pro Tempore, and the Third Member™, determines which senators serve on and chair which committees. The dynamic between incoming Lt. Gov. John Rodgers, Baruth, and Lyons will be an interesting one to watch, and no doubt very different from the trio of Baruth, LG David Zuckerman, and the late Sen. Dick Mazza that made committee assignments at the start of the last biennium.

House Democrats are also set to meet soon to pick a new leadership team. Majority Leader Emily Long of Newfane and Majority Whip Kathleen James of Manchester are not seeking to return to those roles, and the leading candidates to replace them are Reps. Lori Houghton and Karen Dolan, respectively, both of Essex Junction. Speaker Jill Krowinski of Burlington is favored to win her party’s renomination, but the outcome of her battle against independent Rep. Laura Sibilia of Dover is still very much in doubt.

Whatever happens in the speakership race, the new Democratic leadership teams in both chambers will be much more Chittenden County-centric. Part of that is probably due to the fact that the number of Democrats from outside Chittenden County is now much smaller – Democrats now have just one legislator each in Rutland, Caledonia, and Orleans Counties and are completely shut out of Franklin County for the first time in modern political history. Assistant Majority Leader Will Notte of Rutland and former Whip Mike McCarthy of St. Albans (who would have been a strong contender for Majority Leader) lost re-election.

I try to keep my personal takes out of my coverage on here. However, after an election where everyone’s takeaway seems to be that Vermonters are hurting and frustrated with a legislature that they view as increasingly out of touch with “Real Vermont,” stacking leadership with people from the largest and wealthiest county might not be the best look. Don’t get me wrong, Ram Hinsdale, Lyons, Houghton, and Dolan are all seasoned and competent legislators and I’m sure they’ll fulfill their duties with aplomb.

However, as someone from Chittenden County, we experience statewide issues in a different way than communities in the rest of the state do. This geographic imbalance might cause some optics or messaging issues down the road. I don’t think anybody votes based on who the Third Member™ or House Majority Whip is, to be sure, but if the issue with the Democrats’ campaign in 2024 was a failure to communicate effectively with Vermonters outside the Burlington-Montpelier corridor, I don’t think having 6/7 top positions filled by people from Chittenden County is the best first step towards fixing that. It will be important for the new leadership teams in both chambers to stay in touch with their members and get out on the road to have conversations with Vermonters in places where the VDP got shellacked or barely held on on Election Day if they want to expand their majorities in 2026.

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