After ‘tragic’ election loss, Democrats in Vermont Senate oust majority leaders

MONTPELIER — Two and a half weeks after Vermont voters gutted their majority, Senate Democrats met Saturday to reflect on their election losses and chart a new course ahead of the 2025 legislative session. They voted to protect one top leader but sidelined the other.

Saturday’s meeting at the State House was the first time Democratic senators met since what Sen. Becca White, D-Windsor, called “an extraordinarily difficult, tragic election night.” Republican candidates flipped six seats in the Senate, unseating three incumbents and creating a new partisan split in the 17-13 chamber; This was the narrowest margin Democrats have ever had. for almost a quarter of a century.

see a need change routeSaturday’s meeting voted out incumbent majority leader Sen. Alison Clarkson, D-Windsor, who has held the post for four years. They chose Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale, D/P-Chittenden Southeast, to replace him.

All voting on Saturday was done by secret ballot. Democrats elected Ram Hinsdale as their new majority leader by a vote of 9 to 7, with one member abstaining.

In his nominating speech for Ram Hinsdale, Sen. Andrew Perchlik, D/P-Washington, repeated what had already become a common refrain in the room Saturday morning: on the campaign trail, Vermont Democrats have failed to message, communicate and challenge voters. Criticism from his Republican rivals and Gov. Phil Scott, himself a Republican.

“I don’t think there’s anyone in this room better at communicating and messaging,” Perchlik said of Ram Hinsdale.

He also said he would be “honest” about “the criticisms I’ve heard about Senator Ram Hinsdale, and I have, too, that he’s a little bit too successful and ambitious.”

“I think maybe there are positions where you don’t want those traits in a person,” Perchlik said. “But I think we’re talking about electing a political leader who works in politics for a political group, within a political structure, and we want someone who is ambitious.”

With his new leadership position, Ram Hinsdale will likely lose his current position as chairman of the Senate Economic Development, Housing and Public Works Committee; Thanks to this position, he was able to shape important policies in the parliament. That’s because of a long-standing tradition in the Senate, dating back to 1997, that party leaders do not chair policy committees to prevent them from accumulating too much power.

Ram Hinsdale tried to change that tradition on Saturday. In an unusual move, senators voted on an internal directive that would allow party leaders to also serve as committee chairs. Ram Hinsdale urged his colleagues to vote yes.

Ram Hinsdale framed the question as “basic mathematics” in the 30-member chamber, in a speech in which he called on his colleagues to vote ‘yes’.

“We have 17 members on our board. When you take out our new members… you get 14 members of our caucus and you take out the remaining (leadership) positions… you’re left with 11. Eleven Democrats to spread out the leadership roles at each position,” Ram Hinsdale said. “There are 11 committees.”

He concluded that “from a simple mathematical standpoint” continuing the 27-year tradition would be “further lining up our colleagues on the other side of the aisle for a leadership role that frankly oversees our policy agenda.”

Clarkson, who first pressed the caucus for a vote on the issue on Saturday, said it was fair given the 17-13 makeup of the Senate. Already, Sen. Russ Ingalls, R-Essex, chairs the Senate Institutions Committee.

“This is nothing new and there’s nothing new about these numbers,” Clarkson said. “Given the number of Republicans elected, it makes sense to have at least one — we’ve always had at least one Republican seat — and … my guess is there will be a second one as well.”

What’s important for Clarkson, he said, is “strengthening our group and strengthening individual development.” “I think it is important that we improve our leadership in this congress.”

Ultimately, senators voted 9-6, with two abstentions, to defeat the proposed amendment allowing a caucus leader to also serve as committee chair.

Democrats also chose not to make changes at the top of the Senate hierarchy.

Senate President Pro Tempore Phil Baruth, D/P-Chittenden Central, faced no challengers from within the party for his second biennial nomination to lead the Senate. As the Democratic caucus’ nominee, Baruth will be voted on by all 30 members of the Senate on the first day of the 2025 legislative session in January.

However, even at the party meeting, his candidacy could not be achieved unanimously. Fifteen senators voted ‘yes’ on Baruth’s renomination, while two senators abstained. After the vote, Baruth said 15-2 is “a number that we all need to keep in mind going forward, because if we vote 15-2 on the floor, we lose the bill that comes before us.”

While there are 13 Republicans in the House, Baruth stated that the departure of two Democrats from the group would create a 15-15 tie in the field. Republican Lt. Governor-elect John Rodgers would then become such a tiebreaker.

“I understand that I didn’t get a unanimous vote, two people had their reasons,” Baruth said. “You may have reasons for not wanting to vote on every bill that comes to you. But we’re in a situation where, for the good of the meeting and the bills you want to pass through your committee, you have to be a little more attuned to other people’s bills. Sometimes you’ll have to stretch.”

Also on Saturday, Democrats elected White as the new caucus whip with 14 votes in favor and three abstentions. Perchlik, who previously held this position, did not apply for this position again.

Democrats also nominated Sen. Ginny Lyons, D-Chittenden Southeast, as the third member of the powerful three-member Committee on Committees.

This panel, which includes the lieutenant governor and the lieutenant governor, prepares Senate committee assignments and chairs and plays a key role in choreographing the chamber’s policy direction. Sixteen Democratic senators voted in favor of Lyons’ nomination, while one abstained. Lyons faces a vote in the Senate in January before claiming the title.

He would replace retiring Sen. Jane Kitchel, D-Caledonia, who held the post only briefly after the resignation last year of longtime Sen. Dick Mazza, D-Grand Isle.

After electing caucus leaders, senators-elect shared their priorities for the upcoming legislative session with each other. Each listed a familiar list of policy goals; Chief among them was reducing the property tax burden on Vermonters and reforming the state’s education financing structure.

Baruth told his caucus that he views the state’s property tax standoff as a “de facto emergency” and said he plans to treat it that way from the first day of the session. At the beginning of the session, he offered to clarify the agendas of the Senate education, finance and appropriations committees and give the Scott administration a week of testimony to hear solutions from the governor himself.

Baruth said the idea would be to reach an agreement between the Republican administration and the Democratic majority at the beginning of the session rather than at the end. Legislative Democrats, no longer holding a supermajority, will not be able to reliably override Scott’s veto, and so Baruth said, “No one is going to go home without a Phil Scott-approved tax plan.”

“If there is one message in this election, it is that voters want the governor’s ideas to move to the top of the agenda,” Baruth said. “That’s exactly what I recommend.”