Vermont Law And Government

Provision is made for the following "frame of government" under the Constitution of the State of Vermont: the executive branch, the legislative branch, and the judicial branch. All members of the executive and legislative branch serve two year terms including the governor and senators. There are no term limits for any office.

The current governor of Vermont is Jim Douglas, who assumed office in 2003. The offices of the Governor of Vermont are located at The Pavilion in Montpelier, the state capital.

Vermonters elect a state governor and lieutenant governor on separate tickets. For example, when Republican Governor Richard Snelling died in office in 1991, the Democratic Lieutenant Governor Howard Dean succeeded him for the remainder of that term. In addition to the Governor and Lieutenant Governor, Vermonters elect four other officials on a statewide ballot: Secretary of State, State Treasurer, Vermont Auditor of Accounts, and Attorney General.

There are three types of incorporated municipalities in Vermont, towns, cities and villages. As in the other New England states, towns are the basic unit of municipal government. Cities are independent of and equivalent to towns. Villages are included in towns but assume responsibility for some municipal services within their boundaries, usually water, sewage and sometimes local roads. Incorporated villages are not found in any of the other New England states.

Like most of New England, there is slight provision for autonomous county government. Counties and county seats are merely convenient repositories for various government services such as County and State Courts, with several elected officers such as a State's Attorney and Sheriff. All county services are directly funded by the State of Vermont.

Vermont's state legislature is the Vermont General Assembly, a bicameral body composed of the Vermont House of Representatives (the lower house) and the Vermont Senate (the upper house) meet at the Vermont State House. The Senate is composed of 30 state senators, while the House of Representatives has 150 members.

The Vermont Supreme Court is the state supreme court, made up of five justices who serve six year terms. Superior courts in the state are made up of eight judges serving a term of six years. Appointments to the state supreme court, superior court, and district courts are made by the governor, from a list of names submitted by the state's Judicial Nominating Committee and then are confirmed by the Senate. At the end of each six year term, the General Assembly votes by joint ballot (each member, senator or representative, getting one vote) on whether to retain the judge or justice (known as a judicial retention vote). Judges on lower courts are elected on a partisan ballot. The Vermont Constitution spells out the process of judicial appointment and retention in Chapter 2, Sections 32 through 35, 50 and 51. [37]

Vermont is one of twelve states that have no death penalty statute. After 1930, there were four executions, the last two being in 1954. Capital punishment was effectively abolished in practice in 1964, with the statutes being completely removed in 1987. State law allows children as young as ten years to be tried as adults, the lowest age limit currently specified by any of the 50 states. The Vermont prison system is administered by Vermont Department of Corrections[38]. There are about 2,200 inmates as of May 2007.[39] There are nine prisons in Vermont:

• Caledonia Community Work Camp
• Chittenden Regional Correctional Facility
• Dale Women's Facility
• Marble Valley Regional Correctional Facility
• Northern State Correctional Facility, Newport
• Northwest State Correctional Facility
• Southeast State Correctional Facility
• Southern State Correctional Facility
• St. Johnsbury Regional Correctional Facility
• Windsor Women's Correctional Facility

An unusual feature of Vermont Courts are two side Side Judges for county courts, who are elected as officers of the court and participate in non-legal decisions by the court, such as guilt or innocence or voting in tort cases. In addition to their judicial duties, the two Side Judges serve as administrators of the County government. They appoint the County clerk, Treasurer and Auditor, County Road commissioners, Notaries Public and care for the County Court House plus care and maintenance of any other county-owned property.

The Vermont Constitution outlines and guarantees broad rights for its citizens. Even in the eighteenth century it was seen as being among the most far-reaching in the new world and in Europe, and it predated the Bill of Rights by a dozen years. The Constitution's first chapter, "Declaration of the Rights of the Inhabitants of The State of Vermont" prohibits slavery, indentured servitude, and allowed for universal suffrage for men, regardless of property ownership. The Declaration of Rights set in place broad protections of religious freedom and conscience while erecting a strong firewall between church and state by prohibiting establishment or promotion of any faith by the government or compulsion to worship. The "Declaration of the Rights of the Inhabitants of The State of Vermont" is believed to have been a model for France's Déclaration universelle sur des droits de l'homme (Universal Declaration of the Rights of Man).

Vermont is represented in the U.S. Senate by Patrick Leahy, a Democrat, and Bernie Sanders, an independent, caucusing with the Democrats. Vermont made history with Sanders's election as the first Democratic Socialist to be elected to the Senate. Sanders has served as Vermont's sole US Representative from 1991-2007 and also served as mayor of Burlington (Vermont's largest city) from 1981-1988. In the U.S. House of Representatives, Vermont's single congressional district is represented by Peter Welch, a Democrat. Among Vermont's distinguished public servants, U.S. Senator Winston Prouty (R) gained national prominence as an early critic of Senator Joseph McCarthy. Upon his departure from the Republican Party, Senator Jeffords cited the late Senator Prouty, a member of Vermont's most prominent political family, for the latter's legendary spirit of independence. George Aiken (R), who served as senator from 1941 until 1975, was equally prominent; he is perhaps best known for his proposal that the United States declare victory in Vietnam and leave.

The age of consent in Vermont is 16.

Vermont is one of only two states in the Union to allow any adult to carry a concealed firearm without any sort of permit.

Vermont is one of four states (along with Alaska, Hawaii, and Maine) to have prohibited all billboards from view of highway rights-of-way by law, except for signs on the contiguous property of the business location.

Public nudity is legal in Vermont, though not disrobing in public.[40]

Vermont is an Alcoholic beverage control state. Beer and wine may be sold in local grocery stores unless the town in which it is located has voted "dry" at their town meeting. Only state licensed establishments may sell stronger alcoholic beverages in bottles. The quantity of these stores is limited. Prices are set by the state. The state directly controls the licensing of establishments that sell alcoholic beverages by the drink.

As a result of statutory benefits like Dr. Dynasaur, Vermont, with 9.5% of the population with no medical insurance, has the second best coverage in the country, as of 2004.[41]

Vermonters are known for their political independence. Vermont is one of the few states that was an independent republic. It has sometimes voted contrarian in national elections. Notably, Vermont is the only state to have voted for a presidential candidate from the Anti-Masonic Party, and Vermont and Maine were the only states to vote against Franklin D. Roosevelt in his second election.

Vermont's unique history and history of independent political thought has led to movements for the establishment of the Second Vermont Republic and other plans advocating secession.[42] In 2007, about 13% of Vermont's population supported Vermont's withdrawal from the Republic. That is almost double the amount from 2005, which was 8%.[43][44]

The Vermont government maintains a proactive stance regarding the environment, social services, and prevention of urbanization. Legislators have recently tended to vote liberal on social issues, and moderate to conservative on fiscal issues.

Republicans dominated Vermont politics from the party's founding in 1854 until the mid-1970s. This likely owes more to the state's abolitionist history and later to their tendency towards fiscal conservatism than to social conservatism.

Prior to the 1960s, rural interests dominated the legislature. As a result, cities, particularly the older sections of Burlington and Winooski, were neglected and fell into decay. People began to move out to newer suburbs.

In the meantime, many people had moved in from out of state. Much of this emigration included the arrival of more liberal political influences of the urban areas of New York and New England in Vermont.[45]

After the legislature was redistricted under one-person, one-vote, it passed legislation to accommodate these new arrivals. This legislation was the Land Use and Development Law (Act 250) in 1970. The law, which was the first of its kind in the nation, created nine District Environmental Commissions consisting of private citizens, appointed by the Governor, who must approve land development and subdivision plans that would have a significant impact on the state's environment and many small communities.

As a result of Act 250, Vermont was the last state to get a Wal-Mart (there are four, as of December 2006, but only one was a newly-built big box), is currently the only state without a Lowe's or Target (as of December 2006), and it remains the only state without a McDonald's restaurant or big box store within the city limits of the capital.

Another case involves the recent controversy over the adoption of civil unions, an institution which grants same-sex couples nearly all the rights and privileges of marriage. In Baker v. Vermont (1999), the Vermont Supreme Court ruled that, under the Constitution of Vermont, the state must either allow same-sex marriage or provide a separate but equal status for them. The state legislature chose the second option by creating the institution of civil union; the bill was passed by the legislature and signed into law by Governor Howard Dean.

Vermont is the home state of the only current member of the United States Congress who does not associate with a political party: Senator Bernie Sanders.

In the early 1960s many progressive Vermont Republicans and newcomers to the state helped bolster the state's small Democratic Party. Until 1992, Vermont had supported a Democrat for president only once since the party's founding—in Lyndon Johnson's 1964 landslide victory against Barry Goldwater. In 1992, it supported Democrat Bill Clinton for president and has voted for Democrats in every presidential election since. Vermont gave John Kerry his fourth largest margin of victory in 2004. He won the state's popular vote by 20 percentage points over incumbent George W. Bush, taking almost 59% of the vote. Essex County in the state's northeastern section was the only county to vote for Bush.

On the other hand, Republican Governor Douglas won all counties but Windham in the 2006 election. Vermonters are frequent ticket-splitters.[46]

In 2007, when confronted with an allegedly liberal issue, assisted suicide for the terminally ill, the Democratically controlled House of Representatives rejected the measure by a vote of 82-63.[47]

Minor parties flourish. Rules which eliminate smaller parties from the ballot in most states do not exist in Vermont. As a result, voters often have extensive choices for general elections.

A political issue has been Act 60 which balances taxation for education funding. This has resulted in the town of Killington trying to secede from Vermont and join New Hampshire due to what the locals say is an unfair tax burden.[48][49]

A movement favors separating Vermont from the U.S. or make it the 11th province of Canada. Some suggest the state should join Canada due to its liberal policies as opposed to remaining with the U.S. [50][51]

Property taxes are levied by towns based on fair market appraisal. Rates vary from .97% on homesteaded property in Ferdinand, Essex County, to 2.72% on nonresidents property in Barre City.[52] Statewide towns average 1.77% to 1.82% tax rate. To equitably support education, some towns are required by Act 60 to send some of their collected taxes to be redistributed to school districts lacking adequate support.[53]

Money from state lotteries supply 2% of the annual expenditures for education.[54][55]

Like most of New England, Vermont has a weak, nearly non-existent, county government. The next effective governmental level below state government are municipalities. Most of these are towns. Here are a description of town offices.