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Creating Change Focuses on Coalition Building
GOP House Control Changes Legislative Landscape
Election Results Mixed on Civil Unions
Election Results Mixed on Civil Unions
by Barbara Dozetos
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Governor Howard Dean was declared winner of the Vermont gubernatorial race just a few hours after the polls closed on November 7. The finall tally gave him just over 50 percent of the vote. photo: Barb Dozetos |
Many were looking at this year’s Vermont election as a referendum on the civil union law. If, as pundits say, voters made their decisions based primarily on how they felt about that legislation, the message they sent is unclear.
The incumbent kept the governor’s office, and pro-gay candidates won the state constitutional offices. House and Senate races offered both good and bad news for the law’s supporters, while the first openly gay candidate to be nominated to the US Senate by a major party was unable to unseat his opponent.
Democratic Governor Howard Dean was easily re-elected in spite of the virulently anti-civil union “Take Back Vermont” positions espoused by Republican candidate Ruth Dwyer. Belying this year’s noisier and better-financed campaign, Dwyer fared only slightly better than in her 1998 run against Dean. Progressive Party candidate Anthony Pollina picked up 10 percent of the total vote and considered that a victory for his fledgling party. Combining the Dean and Pollina numbers, 60 percent of Vermonters voted for a pro-civil union candidate. “Vermonters have said that this state should continue to be a place where we judge people by who they are, not what they are,” Dean said in his address to supporters.
The races for Lieutenant Governor, Auditor of Accounts, Secretary of State, and Attorney General were won by vocal civil union supporters from the Democratic Party. Returning Lt. Governor Doug Racine spoke out in favor of same-sex marriage early in 1999, before the state’s supreme court issued its decision in the case that led to the civil union law. As a state senator, Auditor-elect Elizabeth Ready voted in favor of the law and also advocates full marriage rights for same-sex couples. Secretary of State Deborah Markowitz and Attorney General William Sorrell, both supporters of the legislation legally acknowledging gay and lesbian couples, retained their offices with little trouble.
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Edward Flanagan, the first openly gay individual to be nominated by a major party as a candidate for the U.S. Senate, was unsuccessful in his attempt to unseat Vermont's Republican junior Senator James Jeffords. He told his supporters on election night, "The bulldog will return." photo: Barb Dozetos |
Current auditor Democrat Edward Flanagan, the first openly gay person in the country ever elected to a statewide office, lost his bid to become the first openly gay US Senator. “Obviously, the civil union controversy was not what the political doctor would have ordered for my campaign,” said Flanagan after his concession speech, “But there’s no real way to tell how much impact that one issue had on my race.” Flanagan invoked his campaign’s canine mascot when he told the crowd, “The bulldog will be back!”
For civil union supporters, the news is both good and bad in the state legislature. Democrats have retained a one-vote majority in the Senate, but Republicans will lead the House of Representatives in January.
Support of the controversial new law seems to have cost some people their seats in the house and senate, but others may have won because of it. In the Sept. primary, Mark Larson, D-Burlington, defeated one of the few Democrats who voted against civil unions in the House. Larson spoke openly about his support for the law and defeated his Republican opponent in the general election.
Bill Lippert, D-Hinesburg, kept his seat, winning an almost identical level of support as in his last run, but he will be giving up the title of Vermont’s only openly gay state legislator. Robert Dostis, D-Waterbury, won in his first campaign for office and will bring a second out gay voice to the floor of the House.
The strongest repercussion will likely be felt in the change in leadership in the House. The Republicans have taken a majority of seats, so a new Speaker will be elected and the make-up of all committees will change accordingly. “It will be a very sad thing to see the House Judiciary Committee reconfigured,” said the panel’s vice-chair, Bill Lippert. Only two members of the group primarily responsible for writing the civil union law were unsuccessful in their re-election bids.