New Directions for Vermont.

• Author: Mackey, Scott
• Position: Republican gains in State House

The GOP picked up 16 seats in the Vermont House in November and elected the first Republican speaker in 15 years; he vows to bring a new openness to the chamber.

Opening day of Vermont's 2001 session was memorable for Representative Richard Westman.

Westman is one of a handful of Republicans who has served in the legislature continuously since 1984, the last time a Republican speaker gaveled the House into session. "It seems like an entire lifetime has passed since we ran things around here," he says, "It feels great to be back."

The election of Walter Freed as speaker ended a long string of disappointments for Vermont House Republicans. Once a solidly Republican state, Vermont did not elect its first Democratic speaker until 1975. Since then, however, Democrats have run the show for all but four years. House Republicans have watched helplessly since 1985, as a strong and organized House Democratic party implemented its agenda with remarkable success. And while control of the Senate flipped back and forth over the past 15 years, the Democrats had a lock on the speaker's office and Republican House members were on the bench the entire time.

Vermont House elections are about as close to true democracy as one can get in this country. In true New England fashion, each member represents about 4,000 citizens, and campaign expenditures are measured in the hundreds, not hundreds of thousands, of dollars. Most candidates go door-to-door to every household in their districts. Races generally are won and lost on personalities, so recruiting popular local candidates is usually enough to win local races. Statewide issues rarely play a major role in the outcome.

In a year when the status quo prevailed in legislative elections in most states, Vermont Republicans picked up 16 House seats in the 2000 elections, the largest gain by either party in any legislative chamber in the country. How Vermont Republicans bucked national trends to take control of the House highlights some of the challenges Speaker Freed will face in putting a Republican stamp on the legislature.

THE HOT-BUTTON ISSUES

Two statewide issues dominated the debate and shifted the traditional emphasis from local issues to statewide issues. Much as Newt Gingrich led the Republican takeover of the U.S. House in 1994 by injecting national themes into congressional races, most Republican House candidates--especially those challenging incumbents--campaigned on two issues: "civil unions" for gay couples and a new statewide property tax that equalized funding for school districts.

"Civil unions" is the law passed last year that grants gay couples many of the same rights and privileges as marriage. The education funding law, Act 60, was approved in 1997, but became a bigger political issue as transitional provisions expired and the law's property tax sharing provisions kicked in. The civil unions issue energized conservative voters, while the property tax issue combined disgruntled taxpayers from property rich "gold towns" and rural citizens who feared losing local control over property taxes and schools.

The Republican message--that too much power and control is being taken from local governments and citizens and centralized in the State House--reverberated with voters in the House races. Even...