Progressive Republicans: When That Was a Thing

How GOP reformers challenged the rules and
overthrew Vermont's political establishment

We hear it every day. "America is in peril."  But this particular wording was part of the Republican Party’s 1936 national platform. 

Eighty years ago, the basic pitch was not so different: Unless Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his “Socialist” New Deal could be stopped the country was doomed. Yet, when the votes were counted that November, FDR was re-elected with the biggest Electoral College margin in a century. Only three states elected Republican governors.

One of the holdouts was Vermont, reliably Republican for more than 70 years. On the other hand, the state's new governor represented the Party’s progressive wing. 

By the 1930s George Aiken had built a loyal following as an author, horticulturalist, lecturer, and legislator. After five years in the state House of Representatives, he became lieutenant governor in 1935. But the Democrats were gaining ground in Vermont during the Great Depression, and Governor Charles Smith was a less-than-charismatic 68-year-old. Seeing an opportunity, Aiken broke the Republicans’ unwritten rotation system and challenged Smith after just one term. Organizing young Republicans, he barnstormed the state, and reached out to progressive Democrats like Burlington’s former Mayor James Burke.

On the other hand, Aiken criticized some aspects of the New Deal, and issued dire warnings about “the visible and invisible government in Washington, whose thoughts and actions are so alien to the free-thinking people of Vermont and of the nation; whose policy for the last four years has been one of debt and destruction.”

In some respects he was a limited government conservative, charging that an overreaching President was after “more and more control of all of us and our possessions and resources, public and private.” Another tried-and-true theme. On the other hand, he accepted the money that flowed from New Deal programs, supported Social Security and conservation efforts, and later, as a US Senator, was a key author of the Food Stamp program, which benefited both the poor and farmers. As one of few successful Republican governors in the 1930s Aiken called for changes in the national party.

By 1937 he was being talked about as a possible candidate for President, a push orchestrated by the publicity director of the National Republican Committee, Leo Casey, also a Vermonter. At a Lincoln’s Day dinner organized by the National Republican Club in 1938 Aiken spoke to the nation over the radio, the mass medium of its day. He shocked some Republicans with his assertion that Lincoln “would be ashamed of his party’s leadership today.” 

Two years later Wendell Wilkie won the Republican nod and went down to defeat as Roosevelt won a third term. But Aiken had a plan -- to move from governor to US senator.

He was close to one of the current  senators, Ernest Gibson, Sr., a respected long-term leader of Vermont's progressive movement, as well as Gibson’s son, who became Vermont Secretary of State soon after finishing law school. When Ernest Senior died in office in 1940 – he had been representing Vermont in Congress since 1923 – Governor Aiken appointed Gibson Junior to complete his father’s term. It was the beginning of an alliance that became known as the Aiken-Gibson Wing, liberal Republicans united by a moderate philosophy and distaste for the Party’s "big business" wing, the Proctor faction.

In Washington, Gibson Junior struck up a friendship with a Missouri Senator, Harry Truman, and irritated conservatives back home with his support of the New Deal. According to historian Samuel Hand, he was ultimately just keeping “the seat warm until Aiken mounted his own candidacy” for the Senate. By the time World War II was declared, Gibson had enlisted in the Army. Aiken meanwhile won the Republican nomination to replace him, beginning an illustrious 36-year run as US Senator.

But then, in 1943, something unpredictable happened: Gibson became a war hero in the South Pacific. His achievement was magnified by the national publication of a dramatic photo displaying his wounds. By the time he returned home he was a celebrity and a political inevitability.

In 1944, another Proctor, the third since 1878, became Vermont governor. Mortimer Proctor’s family had been a dominant political force in the state for half a century. Like Republicans before him, he had risen through the legislature and moved directly from Lieutenant Governor to the top state job. In following this path he was obeying the unwritten “mountain rule,” a geographical approach to power sharing in which the office of governor alternated every four years between the east and west sides of the state. With the winner always a Republican, it was a way to avoid factionalism and promote “orderly” succession.

But Gibson said it was time to end this “rule of succession.” Instead, he challenged Proctor as leader of a do-nothing “old guard.” Once Mortimer Proctor went down in the primary, effectively ending the family’s political dynasty, the general election was a breeze. Gibson not only won the support of most Republicans but also many GIs, populists, renegade Democrats and the state’s poor.

Delivering on his promises was a bit more difficult, since conservatives still controlled the state legislature. He did manage to increase human services, establish a minimum wage and a pension plan for teachers, and push through the graduated income tax. He also became “father” of the State Police – to the chagrin of county sheriffs. But success was illusive in areas such as public health and welfare.

Before most mainstream politicians, Gibson recognized that public health would inevitably be one of state government’s biggest responsibilities. Aiken liked his thinking and brought some of his ideas to Congress. But rank-and-file Republicans never bought into the agenda, and many resented the idea that state government’s role should expand to include things like public health and subsidized services for the poor. 

By 1949 Gibson was disillusioned and accepted appointment to a federal judgeship by his old friend, and now President, Harry Truman. Aiken remained in the US Senate until 1975, where he won respect as an independent thinker and fought for energy projects that brought more affordable hydropower to Vermont.

In the midst of the Vietnam War, a myth developed that Aiken had said the US should declare victory and bring the troops home. What he actually said was that the nation “could well declare unilaterally.” The US had “won” the war, he argued – as it turned out, erroneously – because its forces were “in control of most of the field and no potential enemy is in a position to establish its authority over South Vietnam."

He knew it was a far-fetched proposal, but offered this ironic defense: “Nothing else has worked."

The Campaign Was Just a Beginning

In the 1970s and 1980s, I was part of the movement in Burlington that put progressives in power. But things clearly changed over the years. In any case, local leaders of the Progressive Party united behind Steve Goodkind for mayor in 2015, so the question became whether to run anyway. I waited and listened for months – and basically heard nothing.

What I mean is, nothing of consequence about the fast-tracking of various projects developing across the city – from the threat of another commercial center replacing a North End mobile home neighborhood to the looming, intensive development of 33 acres of irreplaceable open space owned by the financially-strapped Burlington College.

Nothing too about troubling, proposed zoning changes and gentrification plans in the South End that threatened to drive out the innovators and artists who make the city special, and certainly nothing about low-key planning for a downtown mall makeover and another major hotel, this one right at the water’s edge. That project, hidden under the label “adaptive reuse and infill,” was reluctantly acknowledged on page 108 of a 113-page pitch known as PlanBTV. 

On these issues and more, Progressives and their candidate were silent.

As a result, supporters urged me to reconsider, and more than that, they took to the streets and public events to see how others felt and collect signatures to place my name on the ballot as an Independent Candidate. 

After that, the debate changed -- from narrow infighting between the Democratic and Progressive candidates to a sustained and substantive discussion about growth, gentrification and what kind of community we want in the future. During that campaign, I shared insights and lessons learned from over 40 years. More important, I shared what I was hearing – about outrageous housing costs and unmet neighborhood needs, preserving open space and raising local wages, resisting privatization and increasing participation and real accountability. In that sense, our campaign for preservation and change succeeded early, altering the debate and public perceptions before the election. 

In the near future, I warned, decisions will be made that change Burlington for generations. With a developer in charge, the city is on an express train to gentrification. But as a result of our efforts more people began to realize that there is an alternative: to challenge complacency and question the rush to redevelop, to find sustainable solutions based on community values and balanced priorities, and to open up local debate on the big decisions ahead.

As I often said, we can’t just build our way out of problems. We need solutions that balance efficiency and growth with democracy and fairness, and create positive outcomes for all of us.  And to find them we need to ask more questions, get more answers and more people involved, to reclaim the right to make informed choices – the essence of democracy. But that means more openness, access, and accountability than we have been seeing.

Burlington is high on numerous best-of lists. But that doesn’t mean we are exempt from the problems affecting the rest of the country – things like growing economic inequality, profiling, prejudice and discrimination, climate change, and the impacts of militarism – the latter most evident locally in the expected arrival of F-35s at the airport. It’s not too late to stop this boondoggle from making parts of Burlington, South Burlington, and Winooski virtually uninhabitable.

It’s also important to understand that Burlington has seen an increase in greenhouse gas emissions in recent years. Yet current redevelopment plans will make matters worse. Climate change is real, and so is our basic inter-dependence. What we do matters, here and globally. So, before we give downtown, the waterfront or other neighborhoods a gentrified makeover that increases traffic -- and further drives up rents, we need to rethink our infrastructure and transportation system – to anticipate and adapt to the resource and climate-related challenges ahead.

A new local agenda is taking shape, and with it new priorities and a list of needed policy changes. The outcome of the race didn’t change that reality. For example, three decades ago we had a 1 percent vacancy rate and people spent half their income on housing. Unfortunately, those figures haven’t changed. It's time to try something new.

Once Burlington was known as a buttoned up, extremely white business town. Today more than 25 percent of public school students come from other cultures, races, and countries. It's time to look at the city and the world differently.

The problem isn’t government. But government is only part of the solution. The community, businesses and independent contractors, students, teachers, artists, and all the 21st century knowledge workers — they need to be heard, and both their success and well-being need to be higher priorities. The goal is engagement – how to cultivate and grow it as well as we attend to the tax base.

In the 1970s Burlington residents were told that if the Southern Connector and a waterfront hotel, civic center and condos weren’t built very soon, the economy would go “down the tubes.” It obviously didn’t happen. They also wanted kiosks on Church Street and thought mass transit and bike paths were irrelevant fantasies. 

Now we are told that there is no alternative to leveraging public assets and infrastructure to spur as much growth as possible. But what kind, how much, and at what cost? Do we really want to look like the eastern version of Vale, Colorado? Or do do we want to slow down and set some reasonable limits? The answer has become clear: There’s no need for a fire sale. We can do better than that.

But how? By opening up, redefining what is possible and deciding what we want – and don’t want– including whether we need some basic standards for large private partners, and also by talking frankly – about the values and resources we hope to preserve, and the policies and approaches we need to change. That's the work ahead, and the process has just begun.

(Statement released 3/21/2015)

Reimagine Burlington

New Spot To Be Released Tonight; Campaign raises $12,000, Sets $18,000 Goal

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, 2/17/15 – Tonight at 10 p.m. the Greg Guma for Mayor campaign will release a second video spot. Called “Reimagine Burlington,” it uses animation to explain Greg’s vision for the city. It will initially be available on the Internet, and possibly as a broadcast television spot next week.

To date, the campaign has raised almost $12,000 and expects to receive at least $6,000 more before the end of the month. To date, approximately $7,500 has been spent, with $6,300 more approved by the committee so far for expenses in the coming weeks. As required by state law, the campaign treasurer will soon file a formal report with the state.

The voiceover text for the new spot says:

"Imagine a city where people power means more than money and local needs beat outside interests. On March 3 Burlington has a choice -- give in to developers or reclaim the city and work together for a sustainable future.

"Greg Guma wants to open the doors of City Hall. He'll fight for affordability, fairness, and responsible growth. He'll fund neighborhood projects, explain choices in plain English, and push for more voices in decisions that matter.

"Greg Guma for Mayor. Reimagine Burlington."