Burlington After Bernie: Paradoxes & Definitions

Progressive Eclipse – Chapter Six

BY THE END of the 1980s, the idea that Vermont progressives might someday run state government was no longer a far-fetched fantasy. But it wasn't a new party that threatened the political establishment. Just one person was poised for power.

Party loyalty had been dropping for more than a decade. Up to 40 percent of Vermont voters considered themselves independents, and many crossed party lines to vote for the most trustworthy, competent or likeable person in a race. Bernie Sanders profited from these realities of electoral life. Like other successful politicians before him, he built a personal network and a brand, and as a result could command attention and win votes without wedding himself to a specific platform or organization.

In 1986, he chose to run for governor – his third race for the office – against Vermont's first female chief executive, Democrat Madeleine Kunin. He did so despite warnings that it was the wrong race at the wrong time. For almost anyone else, it would have been a political disaster. But Sanders managed to attract 15 percent (after claiming that he was running to win) without solid organizational support, and did best in the state’s most conservative region, the Northeast Kingdom. No “alternative” candidate for governor broke his record until Anthony Pollina, also running as an Independent, challenged Republican incumbent Jim Douglas 22 years later.



Gov. Peter Shumlin & US Sen. Bernie Sanders joined forces in 2011 to make Lockheed Martin 
subsidiary Sandia Labs a Vermont energy development partner 

For most of those who worked for Sanders in 1986, it was a difficult experience that underlined his preference for campaigns and power plays over organizing or movement building. But that didn’t stop him from running for US House of Representatives two years later, as he was ending his last term as mayor. Without the backing of a party he raised about $300,000, dominated the debate, eclipsed Democrat Paul Poirier, and came within 3 percent of winning. Although Republican Peter Smith prevailed, Sanders returned to defeat him two years later. He has been in Congress ever since.

In 2006, after the most expensive campaign in Vermont history, Sanders finally made it to the US Senate by defeating businessman Rich Tarrant. Taking no chances, early in that campaign – his third race for the office – he arranged with the Democratic Party to be listed in their primary, then decline the nomination after he won.

The first clear sign he would eventually run for president came on December 10, 2010, when Sanders delivered an 8½-hour speech – called a “mini-filibuster” -- against a bill proposing extension of the Bush-era tax rates. In February 2011, shortly after those remarks were published as a book, a “Draft Bernie Sanders for President” website was established. 

"What I have been saying over and over again," Sanders explained after his 1988 race, "is that it is absolutely outrageous that you have a handful of giant corporations and wealthy individuals who have so much wealth and so much power when most people are not getting a fair shake. And you know what? People accept that message. People understand that. They're not stupid."

When he said that, he’d just handed Vermont Democrats a defeat, briefly raising the possibility that their party might one day be eclipsed. But the real question was whether political parties would be replaced by permanent campaign organizations. Despite rhetoric about the need for a functional alternative to the Republicans and Democrats, Sanders had done little except make himself the de facto leader of whatever emerged.

On the other hand, before Bernie and the “Sanderistas,” Burlington was a cultural backwater run by an aging generation, unresponsive to changing needs. If you attended a City Council meeting with a problem, the first question would often be, "How long have you lived here?" Political competition was the exception; clannish Democrats and compliant Republicans made the rules.

By the 1990s, the Queen City was nationally known for its alternative mystique and livability. Once a provincial town, it had become a cultural hotspot in northern New England, socially conscious and highly charged. Yet the fundamental nature of the change was difficult to pinpoint. Even a clear definition of the word "progressive" was elusive.

At one time a progressive was someone who fought for relief from the devastating impacts of a new industrial order. Early in the 20th century, about 70 years before Sanders’ emergence, Burlington had another self-described progressive mayor, James Burke, an Irish Catholic blacksmith who led a pragmatic reform movement.

In the 1960s, when another political realignment in Vermont led to the election of Democrat Phil Hoff as governor, thus ending a century of Republican rule, the forces behind the man also called themselves progressive. For Hoff and his allies it meant modernized state government, improved schools, and regionalized services.

Twenty years later the definition evolved again, incorporating tax reform, fairness and redistribution of social benefits. The city became more dynamic and open during Sanders’ tenure. The unemployment rate became virtually the lowest in the nation. The cultural forces set loose in the 1980s, with the support of local government, made the city a regional magnet. But there were clouds on the horizon, some new, others gathering after years of neglect. For Burlington, the price of success included traffic jams and high rent, a toxic dump and a landfill crunch, the feminization of poverty and the replacement of local businesses with chain stores.

In a 1989 race for mayor, activist lawyer Sandy Baird issued a damning critique. Running as a Green candidate for mayor, she was challenging Peter Clavelle, the Progressive candidate selected to succeed Sanders at the new party’s caucus. "The past and present administrations of our city are on a collision course with both the natural world and poor people," Baird charged. She later left the Greens and became a Democrat, chairing the party’s City Committee. In the 2009 race for mayor, she backed Kurt Wright, the Republican candidate, against the Progressive incumbent Bob Kiss, Democrat Andy Montroll and Dan Smith, son of Peter Smith, the politician Sanders had defeated in 1990 to win his first race for congress.

For Baird and others, it had been a long, winding political road.

Quality Control & Mixed Messages

Driving up Battery Street in Burlington in 1997, I passed by what looked to me like a private prison. “Unless you belong here, go away,” the façade suggested. After living in New Mexico, where punishment was a growth industry, maybe incarceration was on my mind. In this case, it turned out to be The Residence, a new luxury housing development for Burlington’s more affluent residents.

At least it’s not right on the waterfront, I thought. If people were ready to pay top dollar to live in a building with what looked like guard towers, that’s their business.

Before returning, I’d read a sugary story in The Nation describing the Queen City as a prime example of “what works.” It was partly hype, but I was eager to return to a place where “human scale” still meant something. While I was away, however, the definition had changed.

Burlington remained a great place to live. Ideas like “sustainability” and “quality of life” underpinned many local policies. The city’s Ordinance Committee was considering how to turn complaints about abandoned housing, garbage and other neighborhood nuisances into enforceable law. But did people really want to regulate lawn conditions, I wondered, or confiscate skateboards from unruly kids?

Now in his third term, Mayor Peter Clavelle predicted that Burlington’s road-building era was coming to an end. On the other hand, he also argued that downtown urban renewal was “irreversible” and ought to be completed. In the old days, progressives called it “urban removal,” and would not have been enthusiastic about the arrival of Filene’s and Borders.

Sustainability and national chain stores were hard to reconcile. Borders had already come to downtown (it closed about a decade later). But the country’s second largest bookseller was accused of fierce opposition to unions. In Boston and elsewhere, protests were being led by the United Food and Commercial Workers and IWW, which called for a national boycott.

As a result, having Borders downtown also meant that retail workers could do some organizing. One aspect of the Borders protests was wages; at the time booksellers often made under $6 an hour, a fact that resonated in the campaign to raise Vermont’s minimum wage. The City Council was about to vote on a “prevailing wage” ordinance that would require city contracts to meet an established hourly minimum – not a livable wage (what it actually costs to make ends meet) but at least a start.

Peter Clavelle holds a Press Conference;
at left, columnist Peter Freyne

Since returning to office after a 1993 defeat, Clavelle had become more guarded. His circle of advisors shrank and the Progressive Party no longer called the shots. When the debate began over Filene’s, Terry Bouricius, the original Sanders supporter on the City Council, suggested a supermarket rather than a department store for what remained of the urban renewal area. Other progressives privately questioned the choice. But few were willing to break publicly with their leaders. Despite much talk about sustainability and open dialogue, big decisions were being driven, often quietly, by tax and business imperatives.

Neighborhood associations were upgrading parks and addressing problems that fell through the cracks. But Neighborhood Planning Assemblies, established during the Sanders era, no longer sparked the same interest. In some wards, it was hard to drum up a quorum unless it was time to divvy up Community Development Block Grant money. In short, it was getting tough for a growing, tourist-dependent city to retain small-town quality and broad public involvement. Residents were less engaged, more prickly and, at the same time, quite demanding.

During the winter Traci Sawyers was recruited by Bouricius to run for the City Council. In accepting the challenge she expected to be asked about Filene’s and waterfront development as she knocked on doors in Ward Two. But many people hadn’t even heard about the impending arrival of the new department store and didn’t expect to shop there anyway. They complained instead about noise at “party houses,” run-down buildings owned by absentee landlords, trash spilling into their yards, graffiti, and dog poop. Along with the loss of green space, Sawyers concluded, “The most significant threat to Burlington are these quality of life issues.”

It wasn’t a new problem. For some time, Council President Sharon Bushor had been pushing for a comprehensive program to combat “neighborhood decay.” According to Assistant City Attorney Jessica Oski, the main obstacle was enforcement. Depending on the complaint, that could fall to housing or building inspectors, the Fire Department, or the police.

Some residents blamed students, particularly those attending the University of Vermont. Others pointed to absentee landlords or the city’s failure to enforce existing ordinances. The problem went deeper than enforcement, however. In the end, it was linked to the city’s changing culture and how people defined that phrase – quality of life.

In the 1950s, as the US entered what John Kenneth Gailbraith named the Age of Affluence, “quality of life” emerged as a way to describe a public desire for something beyond an improved standard of living. Democratic presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson circulated it during his 1956 campaign, borrowing the phrase from TV commentator Eric Severeid. It was also used by Arthur Schlesinger to contrast the “quantitative liberalism” of the 1930s New Deal with a growing middle-class desire for “qualitative liberalism.”

In the 1960s, the emerging environmental movement expanded the definition, relating “quality” to issues like pollution. But it was primarily related to the emergence of what Gailbraith called the New Class, a largely professional and educated group that placed a premium on clean, secure, and comfortable surroundings.

Vermont experienced the impact as middle-class families deserted deteriorating urban zones. Drawn by the state’s slower pace, cleaner air and water, and relatively safe communities, many newcomers were willing to accept lower salaries in exchange for a “higher” quality of life. By the 1970s, however, quality control problems were already becoming obvious.

 

Many young people were alienated, suburban sprawl was on the horizon, and Burlington’s “gentrification” was driving up the cost of living. In other words, the Age of Affluence had some adverse side effects.

 

By the end of the 20th Century the state’s largest urban area reached a turning point. While conditions weren’t entirely worse – in fact, some low-income neighborhoods looked better than they once did – attitudes had changed. People now harbored a series of grudges that were approaching critical mass. Sawyers, who moved to Burlington from Boston in the mid-1990s, talked about “an environment of disregard for people.” Clavelle said that nuisances like abandoned cars on front yards were “getting under people’s skin.”

The proposed solution was to consolidate and toughen enforcement, “to change the culture of what’s acceptable,” as Sawyers put it. But that opened up other questions; for example, can you control that type of behavior without imposing restrictive standards? Can you really regulate people into being good citizens? And, is a clean, quiet neighborhood all that “quality of life” is about?

NEXT: Art of the Possible: The Sanders Style

Rhetoric & Reality in the Sanders Era

Progressive Eclipse – Chapter Five

DURING PETER CLAVELLE’S first race for mayor in 1989, a fundraising letter from his predecessor Bernie Sanders offered a list of his administration’s practical accomplishments, ranging from rebuilt streets and sewer reconstruction to property tax alternatives, improved tenants' rights, and public amenities. The list of achievements over eight years also included innovations like the Community Land Trust, a “people-friendly” waterfront, the flourishing arts scene, programs for women and youth, and several Sister City relationships.

Since then, Burlington has ranked as the “greenest” city in the country, the healthiest (according to a Center for Disease Control report), and a great place for beer and early retirement, among other honors. British Airways once dubbed it the “third-funkiest city in the world.”

There were more serious, subtle, and equally vital accomplishments -- changes in perception and policy on issues such as disarmament, intervention, and the local community's role in meeting human needs. Spreading across Vermont throughout the Reagan era, the success of Sanders and local progressives helped to challenge a growing distrust of government. Writing in Monthly Review, Beth Bates concluded in the late 1980s that the administration had successfully "navigated the turgid waters of free-enterprise Reaganomics and spawned a few progressive seeds."

If the measure of success is more fundamental change, however, the verdict isn't so clear. Some attempts were blocked by structural impediments and community divisions. Other initiatives, like alternatives to the automobile and fossil fuels, never made it to the top of the list. And in a few case the proposals couldn’t even be classified as "moving forward" – a popular campaign slogan in the eighties.

During the 2009 mayoral race in which Mayor Bob Kiss won his second term, he and the other candidates were still embracing the same combination of left-liberal rhetoric and cautious practice that characterized Sanders’ time as mayor. Although Kurt Wright talked about leadership and Andy Montroll charged that the city was just “coasting along,” neither challenged the basic assumptions or the social status quo. Montroll suggested that the best course was to focus on “what we have.”

Kiss meanwhile touted the city’s tourist-friendly amenities and the long-term results of urban renewal, even promising to complete the controversial Southern Connector. It was a strange turnabout, as if the “change” Sanders once talked about had transformed into the redevelopment plan first envisioned by the conservative regime he overthrew.

Still, limitations and contradictions were apparent from the start, as the Sanders administration had to deal with legislative resistance, unsympathetic state officials and its own divisions and contradictions on key issues. State government sought to regulate and sometimes overrule local initiatives and changes in city structure. Burlington was bullied into reassessing its Grand List and threatened with the loss of public funds when local officials initially tried to stop the Connector highway from being completed. A 1989 legislative attempt to strip local communities of the power to implement alternatives to the property tax was one episode in a “home rule” struggle that began with Burlington's Gross Receipts Tax.

By the end of the decade, the bottom line on tax matters was that Sanders held the line. The use of fees and cost-saving reforms had postponed increases. But what Sanders’ Progressives also managed to do, some critics charged, was "out-Republican the Republicans."

Initiatives like the Community Land Trust and a municipally-owned telecom service did challenge capitalist assumptions. Others provided benefits but had little impact on underlying inequities. And a few were disappointing and reactive, contradicting the prevailing progressive rhetoric. The Gross Receipts Tax, for example, like a defeated tax on alcohol and cigarettes to fund affordable childcare, was basically regressive, while property reappraisal mainly shifted the burden from businesses to homeowners. The problem, explained Sanders, was that state and federal policies severely limited the local options.

More difficult to explain was Sanders' resistance to requests from the peace movement to support economic conversion of defense plants, or his administration's initial willingness to settle for a waterfront plan that included expensive condominiums and a hotel at the water's edge. These flashpoints raised doubts about Sanders’ priorities and created divisions that endured.

Development presented especially complex challenges. Sanders promised "real change," but conservative opponents accused him of being anti-business while left-wing critics said he was selling out to build the tax base. An underlying limitation was the pro-growth preferences of most people. Thus, it wasn’t surprising that Progressives, Democrats and Republicans agreed on what they called "balanced growth." The result was a development posture based on private negotiations and sometimes questionable deals to extract public benefits – a gentrified waterfront in exchange for public access and amenities, the right to build luxury housing as long as some "affordable" units were also provided.

During Sanders’ four terms as mayor and those of his two successors, limits to growth were rarely set; they shifted with the terms of each development trade-off. Bea Bookchin, a Green leader of the fight to stop a controversial plan for the waterfront, pointed out that Sanders' radical rhetoric often didn’t match his actions. His approach was "that the way to do the best for people is to make the most money possible,” she argued. “The land is being used as a resource, a cash crop." Decades later, criticism by the "open space" movement is similar.

City Hall Peace Demo, 1981

Beginning in 1983, protests at the local General Electric armaments plant also led to arguments on the left. Activists wanted a commitment to peace conversion, Sanders wanted to turn the heat on Congress. The timing was wrong, he said, and activists couldn’t avoid "blaming the workers" for producing rapid-fire Gatling guns. His basic argument was that any protests, particularly those involving civil disobedience, would "force" unionized workers to the right.

It was a dispute over tactics, but the implications went deeper. In trying to limit peace protest tactics and targets, some argued that Sanders was shielding the corporation and the military-industrial complex behind it. His position seemed to conflict with the city's pronouncements and votes on military spending, intervention in Central America, and other international questions. At the least, Sanders' desire to build a union-supported democratic socialist coalition conflicted with the community-based peace and justice movement's opposition to foreign intervention. Among the casualties were some mutual trust and any workers at the plant who lost their jobs as defense contracts for the Gatling gun evaporated.

The relationship between City Hall and the peace movement usually went more smoothly, and the results were noteworthy. Burlington developed, and, to some extent, implemented a series of “foreign policy” initiatives. They emerged through citywide votes on issues like cooperation and exchange with the Soviet Union, opposition to intervention, and people-to-people programs. Designed to change consciousness and challenge anti-Communist logic, over time they did precisely that.

Between 1981 and 1987, Burlington also voted to cut aid to El Salvador, oppose crisis relocation planning for nuclear war, freeze nuclear weapons production, transfer military funds to civilian programs, condemn Nicaraguan Contra aid, and divest from companies doing business with apartheid South Africa. Supporting most efforts of Vermont’s diverse and independent peace movement, Sanders was an effective voice for a different foreign policy.

Did the resolutions, statements, and even diplomatic links with Nicaragua pose any threat to capitalist interests? No. But they contributed to a change in local attitudes, and meshed with the efforts of activists around the state. By the end of the 1980s, most Vermont politicians supported nuclear de-escalation and a non-interventionist foreign policy. Peace and social justice had become "mainstream" issues.

Managing Mixed Messages

The main thrust during the early years of Burlington’s political realignment was economic. Other issues were not ignored. The Sanders administration's record on youth, tenants' right, and women's issues was broad and impressive. Rather it was a matter of priorities. Issues affecting women and the gay community, for example, sometimes had to wait or were addressed as matters of economic justice.

Although the city adopted an anti-discrimination ordinance, Sanders wasn’t willing to carry the banner for gay and lesbian rights, and most reforms related to gender or sexual preference didn’t originate in City Hall. They received at best cautious official support. A striking example was Sanders’ answer when questioned by a local feminist about his support for proposals to prevent job discrimination against gays. "I will not make it a major priority," he said bluntly.

While the Sanders “revolution” did help to widen the terms of debate about discrimination it didn’t offer a clear direction. The same can be said of its impact on taxation and development. These were matters no community could address on its own, even if local preferences were clear.

Despite changes in local demographics and an effective left-leaning vanguard, Burlington hadn’t become some post-industrial Paris Commune. Power remained divided between the "old guard," which continued to dominate the City Council and commissions, and a "new guard" that ran the executive branch. The community was politically balkanized – from the conservative-leaning New North End to the Progressive inner city strongholds and solidly Democratic South End.

A majority of voters supported Sanders in three re-election bids. But that wasn’t because of any socialist sympathies. It was mainly his blunt, anti-establishment style, competent staff, and ability to "get things done." Burlington had a popular leader but not a clear direction. The progressive program, to the extent that it could be defined, was a collection of moderate reforms amplified by defiant rhetoric.

Protest at the Radisson (now Hilton), 1995

In response to victory, Burlington’s “Progressive Coalition” was required to handle power and make critical decisions before it had effectively organized itself or assessed all the possible consequences. Given that, it’s impressive that so many successful projects, programs and enterprises were launched by a loose coalition of activists, officials, staffers, and left-leaning entrepreneurs. Until 1986, the only regular planning of Progressive strategy occurred at an informal Sunday meeting of key administration and elected leaders.

In an internal memo to Progressive Coalition leaders in 1984, David Clavelle and Tim McKenzie, two key organizers, noted that progressives had "been successful in creating effective campaign organizations in some wards, yet unsuccessful in maintaining some form of organization between elections."

In the 1990s Sanders ultimately endorsed the idea of forming a new political party, in Vermont and nationally. But he wasn’t eager to see it happen while he was mayor. Disillusioned by his years as a "minor party" candidate under the Liberty Union banner in 1970s, he’d concluded that America -- and also Burlington – weren’t ready for a party-based alternative to the Republicans and Democrats.

Even after the Progressive Coalition took formal shape, Sanders’ connection to it was ambiguous. Despite the image of Burlington having a "socialist" leader, he never sought office after 1976 as anything but an Independent, and his policy choices were made without submitting them for approval by any outside group. Working with a few Council allies, appointees and confidantes, he could act, as he put it, "boldly." But the atmosphere in City Hall was less than chummy. The boss was a man of gruff speech and limited tact, and supporters not intimate with the small cadre of Sanders “insiders” heard little about administration decisions until after they were made.

It was efficient and sometimes bold, but not very democratic. Thus, by the time the Progressive Coalition was formally launched in 1986, some of those it hoped to attract and represent had drifted away. Leading women activists, while welcoming specific programs, found the "PC" too much of a "boys club." Due to Jesse Jackson’s presidential campaign and the Rainbow Coalition, Democrats who had backed Sanders were returning to the party. Some peace activists found the mayor generally unresponsive, and many Greens concluded that the administration was part of the problem, offering no serious alternatives on emerging ecological threats.

Building a broad-based coalition while holding onto political power was proving difficult. Compounding the problem, coalition leaders were often city officials or staff members; their day-to-day struggles tended to determine the public agenda. If a choice had to be made between the practical and the ideal, between the "winnable" and the "good" fight, the former usually held sway.

NEXT: Life after Bernie