The last time a third-party had members elected to the state legislature in Vermont was in 1917, with the election ofJames Lawson of theSocialist Party of America.[9]
The Vermont Progressive Party originated under MayorBernie Sanders as the Independent Coalition during his1981 mayoral campaign and then as the Progressive Coalition during histenure as mayor.
On November 8, 1980, Sanders announced that he would run for mayor ofBurlington, Vermont, in the1981 election and formally announced his campaign on December 16, at a press conference in city hall.[21][22] Sanders had been convinced to run for the mayoralty byRichard Sugarman, an Orthodox Jewish scholar at theUniversity of Vermont, who had shown Sanders a ward-by-ward breakdown of the 1976 gubernatorial election which showed Sanders receiving 12% of the vote in Burlington despite only getting 6% statewide.[23] Sanders defeated incumbent Democratic MayorGordon Paquette by ten votes in the election.[24] Sanders was reelected as mayor in the1983,1985, and1987 elections.[25][26][27]
During his mayoral campaign, Sanders formed the Independent Coalition which according to Richard Sartelle was to bring working people, students, college faculty, union members, and all independent-minded citizens together. Sartelle ran with the support of the Independent Coalition for a seat on the city council from the 4th district, but was defeated by the Republican nominee.[28][29]
TheCitizens Party attempted to have Greg Guma run with their nomination for mayor in 1981, but Guma declined as it would be "difficult to run against another progressive candidate" and the party instead endorsed Sanders.[30][31]Terry Bouricius, a member of the Citizens Party, was elected to the city council from the 2nd district becoming the first member of the party elected to office in Vermont.[31][29]
Following his victory in the 1981 election, Sanders faced difficulties with the city council; this was because 11 of the 13 members of the board of alderman opposing Sanders. The council would oppose measures proposed by Sanders and override his vetoes on legislation.[32] Bouricius and Sadie White were the only members of the city council aligned with Sanders.[33]
During the 1982 elections, Sanders endorsed Citizens nominees Richard Musty and Zoe Breiner, and independent candidate Gary DeCarolis for city council and all of them won causing the council to have five pro-Sanders members, five Republican members, and three Democratic members.[34][35][36] However, the Republicans and Democratic members of the city council united to select Robert Paterson, a Republican, as president of the city council instead of Sadie White, a Sanders supporter, by a vote of eight to five after six ballots and to prevent the pro-Sanders members of the city council from receiving positions. Sanders stated that "Probably the Democrats feel more comfortable dealing with the Republicans than with us".[37]
DeCarolis asked for members of the media to refer to him and other pro-Sanders members of the city council as the Progressive Coalition rather than as just Sanders supporters.[38] An organizational meeting for Progressive Coalition, which was attended by over 100 people, was held on November 10, 1983.[39] The Progressive Coalition was not a political party, but an organization that gave out endorsements.[40]
During the 1984 elections, the Citizens Party only ran one candidate under its name and instead endorsed the Progressive Coalition candidates. Bouricius stated that the Citizens Party was the core of the coalition, but that the coalition was being built broader than the Citizens Party.[41] The Progressive Coalition gained one seat from the Democratic Party during the 1984 city council elections bringing the composition of the city council to six Progressive members, five Republican members, and two Democratic members.[42] The Citizens Party of Vermont disbanded in 1986.[43]
Bouricius was selected to serve as president of the city council after thirty-one ballots and served until 1985. Bouricius was the only member of the Progressive Coalition to serve as president duringSanders' administration.[46][47] After the 1985 elections William Skelton, a Republican member of the city council, was selected to serve as president of the city council against the Progressive-backed Zoe Breiner as Bouricius had dropped out.[48]
The Vermont Progressive Alliance was formed by members of the Progressive Coalition and Rainbow Coalition on May 19, 1990, atMontpelier High School and inspired by theNew Democratic Party. The organization endorsed ten independent candidates for seats in the state legislature in the 1990 election.[49][50]Terry Bouricius andTom Smith, who were endorsed by the organization, were elected to theVermont House of Representatives in the 1990 election becoming the first member of the Progressive Coalition to do so.[51][52][53] The Vermont Organizing Committee was formed by the organization in 1992.[54][55]
The Franklin County Independent Coalition was also formed in 1990, to support Sanders' campaign for a seat in the United States House of Representatives during the1990 election. The organization was founded by independent candidates for seats in the state house and Neil Bean, who was an independent member of theSt. Albans city council and also grew out of Jeff Weaver's campaign for mayor of St. Albans and Jerry Colby's 1988 and 1990 campaigns for a seat in theVermont Senate.[56][57]
The Progressives regained control of the city council in 1994, with five of their members winning and three independents caucusing with them.[58][59] The coalition expanded toBrattleboro, Vermont, with Shoshana Rihn's election to the town's select board in 1998.[60][61] Rihn was sworn in, but was removed from office after a recount reported her losing by two votes.[62]
The coalition started holding caucuses in 25 towns in October 1999, to form a political party.[63] The Vermont Progressive Party was formally created after organizing in sixteen communities[64] and held its first convention on July 9, 2000.[65]Anthony Pollina receive the party's gubernatorial nomination for the2000 election[66] and received 9.6% of the vote,[67] more than the 5% needed for major party status.[68]
Emma Mulvaney-Stanak was the only Progressive member of the 14-member city council following the resignation of Marisa Caldwell in 2010, which was the lowest number for the party since 1981.[69][70] The party ran and received its highest number of candidates, votes, and share of seats in the state house in the 2016 election with seven out of twenty candidates winning with a combined total of 18,954 votes.[71]
David Zuckerman was elected lieutenant governor after he used electoral fusion to receive both the Democratic and Progressive nominations.[72]
Robin Chesnut-Tangerman, the leader of the Progressive caucus in the state house, lost reelection in2020.Mollie Burke andHeather Surprenant did not seek reelection with the Progressive ballot line in the2022 state house elections and solely ran as Democrats.[73] The 2022 elections, in which the party lost two state house and one state senate seat, resulted in the entire Progressive delegation being solely from Chittenden County for the first time since 2004. Zuckerman returned to the lieutenant governorship in theconcurrent election.[74]
The Progressive Party encompasses aprogressive platform. The party's main focus has historically been advocacy for asingle-payer health care system, which supported the implementation ofGreen Mountain Care, a health care program that was pushed by Democratic GovernorPeter Shumlin due to pressure from the Progressive Party. Other major policy platforms are renewable energy programs and a phase-out of nuclear energy, public transportation proposals including one for a high-speed rail system, criminal justice reforms directed at reducing the state's prison population and better protecting convicts' rights, the creation of programs to end homelessness in the state, ending theWar on Drugs and repealingNo Child Left Behind and ending the focus on standardized testing in the school system. The party also has an anti-war stance, advocating for Vermont's national guard to be restricted from engaging in war zones outside the United States, an end to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and opposition to all preemptive wars, strikes, or other offensive or interventionist military actions. The party is very supportive ofLGBT rights and members of the party were involved in the legalization of same-sex marriage in the state.
Economically, the party also calls for converting theminimum wage to aliving wage and having it tied to inflation rates, having the economy focus on small and local businesses, empowerment ofworker cooperatives andpublicly owned companies as democratic alternatives to multi-national corporations and to decentralize the economy, for the strengthening of state law to protect the right to unionize, for implementing a progressive income tax and repealing the Capital Gains Tax Exemption and residential education property tax, and for all trade to be subject to international standards on human rights. The party is also critical of privatization.[75]
The party also has a significant number of its members elected to other local offices in town governments and appointed to serve as town officials. However, in Vermont these elections arenon-partisan and no party name appears before their names on election ballots or during an appointment process.
The current chair of the party's State Committee is State Senator and former Gubernatorial nominee and Congressional candidateAnthony Pollina, and the current vice-chair, Marielle Blais, was first elected in 2019. Secretary Chris Brimmer, also the Chair of the Caledonia County Committee, has served since 2009. The current Treasurer is Robert Millar, who briefly served as Acting Chair in 2001, and Assistant Treasurer Martha Abbott previously served as Treasurer and twice as chair. After being in the position of Acting Chair while the State Committee was not formalized, Heather Riemer served as the party's first chair at its formation as a statewide party in 1999. The position of executive director was added in 2011, and since 2015 has been the party's only paid staff, and has been occupied by Joshua Wronski. Current Treasurer Robert Millar previously served as executive director from 2011 to 2015.[89][90][91]
Chair: Anthony Pollina (2007–2009, 2017–present)
Vice Chair: Marielle Blais (2019–present)
Secretary: John Christopher Brimmer (2009–present)
Treasurer: Robert Millar (2019–present)
Assistant Treasurer: Martha Abbott (2019–present)
Executive Director: Joshua Wronski (2015–present)
Member Organizer: Yvanita Nolan (2023–present)
Senate Caucus Leader: Anthony Pollina (2013–present)
Senate Caucus Whip: Christopher Pearson (2017–present)
House Caucus Leader: Robin Chesnut-Tangerman (2017–present)
House Caucus Whip: Diana Gonzalez (2017–present)
Youth/Student Caucus Leader: Carter Neubieser (2015–present)
^Evans, Bryan; Schmidt, Ingo, eds. (2012).Social democracy after the cold war. Edmonton: AU Press. p. 103.ISBN978-1-926836-88-1.OCLC1015535562.In addition, some notable examples of social democratic third-party success at the subnational level are the Socialist Party in Oklahoma in the 1920s and 1930s, the Non-Partisan League in North Dakota, the Washington Co-operative Commonwealth in Washington State, the Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party, and the currentVermont Progressive Party, which has relationship with the Democratic Party.
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