Announcements by politicians
Vermont Senate President Pro Tempore John Campbell appears to have carved out an honorable exception to this ritual. In announcing recently that he will not seek another two-year term representing Windsor County this fall, the Quechee Democrat provided a remarkably candid, and sobering, assessment of the Vermont political landscape at a time when the three most powerful elected officials in state politics are exiting, stage left. Besides Campbell, Gov. Peter Shumlin and House Speaker Shap Smith won’t be back next year.
In media interviews, Campbell, 62, acknowledged that his reasons for departing were partly personal: He needs the money that his new job as executive director of the Vermont Department of State’s Attorneys and Sheriffs will provide — up to $104,000 a year, Valley News news editor John Gregg reports. But he also expressed the frustration he had experienced as leader of the 30-member Vermont Senate, about two-thirds of whose members are fellow Democrats.
“There were achievements,” Campbell told VtDigger, “but still, on those issues that are central to our state’s financial security and for people who want to have their children grow up in this state, I feel like we’ve almost hit a block in the road.” He appears particularly distressed by the lack of progress in addressing two of the state’s most persistent problems, rising property taxes and health care costs, and accepted some responsibility for it. It’s time for other people with other ideas to take their turn trying to solve those problems, the senator said.
Critics have long argued that Campbell’s own leadership style was part of the problem, especially early in his tenure as president pro tempore, a fault he acknowledged at the time and pledged to correct. But there are other forces in play.
The first is that Vermont is functionally a one-party state at present and has been for a while. As a result, it often seems to operate without the counterweight that a vigorous, loyal opposition provides. And when parties have big legislative majorities, as Democrats now do in Vermont, it’s not uncommon for them to fragment in pursuit of individual priorities at the expense of keeping their eye on the ball. Except in times of true crisis, such as Tropical Storm Irene, lawmakers and the executive branch appear to have trouble identifying and focusing on steps that would remedy underlying problems such as high property taxes and health care costs.
That may partly be the case because lawmakers, like most Americans, prefer their solutions to problems to be neat, all-encompassing and tied up with a bow. But intractable problems can rarely be addressed in a single piece of legislation. They require sustained effort over a broad legislative front. Campbell laments that, “We haven’t really made that final breakthrough that’s really changed things.” What would it take to achieve such a breakthrough? A consensus on what the big issues are, a bipartisan agreement on what needs to be done and a sustained commitment to doing it. Campbell correctly notes that state government’s attention seems to shift from legislative session to legislative session, and even from year to year, with little follow-through. Last year’s most pressing problem — opioid addiction, universal health care, school consolidation — tends to get forgotten as new priorities crop up.
It also must be acknowledged that lawmakers’ ability to achieve lasting change is circumscribed by how healthy the economy is and how much revenue it generates. In flush times, problems seem far more susceptible to legislative amelioration than they do when there’s a tussle over every dollar in the budget. It’s not clear that the good economic times are going to roll again anytime soon in Vermont, which means that the big issues are going to have to be addressed in a different way by whoever picks up the leadership mantle with the departure of Montpelier’s big three.