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July 2008
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Candid Assessment -- Where the Candidates Stand on Our Issues
by Mary Elizabeth Fratini
with additional reporting by Carrie Chandler
Governor - Jim Douglas
 Governor James Douglas is a career politician, elected to office shortly after graduating from Middlebury College, with a talent for remembering the right name for the right face even after the shortest of introductions. And as a two-term Republican governor seeking re-election in George Bush’s least favorite state (one of only two he’s never visited as president), Douglas is also a political anomaly that proves devilishly difficult to detangle.
Here is the Cliff Notes version:
On Choice – pro-choice, but also pro-parental notification, and declined to comment on the Child Custody Protection Act .
On Energy – supports moving toward renewable energy, and considers nuclear energy renewable, but opposes commercial wind power in Vermont.
On Transportation and Development – supports affordable housing by suggesting the use of state-owned lands for development; would consider a commuter rail line between Franklin and Chittenden counties, but supports the Circumferential Highway to decrease traffic between Essex and Burlington.
On Agriculture – opposes Farmer Protection Act as divisive to the agricultural community holding a press conference on an atypically large (for Vermont) conventional dairy farm.
“Well, my priorities are different, frankly,” Douglas said, when asked to comment on his positions relative to the National Republican Party. “That’s why I think it’s really important for Republicans to have representation that is more mainstream, more reflective of the values of this state.”
So who is Jim Douglas, what does he really think, and why?
Choice and Gender
“I absolutely support a woman’s right to choose and have for as long as I have been in public office,” Douglas said, surprised that it was still a question, let alone the first question of our interview in his office on the fifth floor of the Pavilion Building in Montpelier. “It seems to me that that very difficult decision is one that ought to be made by a woman with the advice of her physician or other professional as she deems fit.” He also added that parental notification seems a “reasonable policy choice” in the case of a minor and that judicial bypass options are sufficient for situations where “the family situation is not ideal.”
However, in a follow-up interview by email, Douglas declined to comment on the overwhelming opposition by the medical community to parental notification, the lack of similar government mandates for related reproductive services, or new federal restrictions prohibiting anyone other than a parent or legal guardian from transporting a minor across state lines to access abortion in some circumstances.
In our follow-up, Douglas also didn’t answer questions about civil unions, gay marriage, the gender identity bill, or lack of diversity in his appointments to the Human Rights Commission. A recent profile by In Newsweekly, however, summarized his stance on LGBT issues: “Douglas opposes gay marriage and civil unions, declined to issue a proclamation recognizing Vermont’s Pride Day celebration, and vetoed H.865, legislation banning discrimination on the basis of gender identity or expression in the state.” In that interview, Douglas also said that, “I regret the categorization discussion in terms of appointments. The purpose is to appoint people who have judgment, are fair, and who can interpret and apply the law equitably.”
Agriculture
On agriculture, Douglas is quick to cite his family’s connection to farming in Addison County, including his in-laws’ installation of a methane digester 26 years ago, “before there were any subsidies,” he noted. However, Secretary of Agriculture Steve Kerr’s opposition to the Farmer Protection Act this year, tepid implementation of the Farmers Right to Know Act (a GMO-seed labeling law), and support for a statewide Premises ID registration program have helped to increase divisions between Vermont farmers of different sizes and production methods, and all have either the outright or implied support of Douglas.
“I’m not sure [the Farmer Protection Act] protects any farmer, frankly,” Douglas said of his vetoing the bill, which would have held the patent holders of GMOs liable for any damages to farmers in Vermont over a certain amount. “I think we ought to give the farmer the choice as to whether he or she uses GE [genetically-engineered] seeds.”
Douglas also supported the proposed implementation of the Premises ID program in Vermont, which requires all livestock owners to register their location and type of animals with the state every two years, ostensibly to help trace back potential disease outbreaks. “I think it can be done in a non-burdensome or intrusive way,” Douglas said, while specifying that he does not think Vermont should incorporate the other two elements from the National Animal Identification System – namely, animal identification or movement tracking. “Who knows what the future holds, but at this point I think Premises ID is adequate,” he said.
Energy and Environment
The issue on which it is most difficult to discern Douglas’ motives, intentions, and beliefs is the environment and Vermont’s energy future. He signed five bills addressing global warming this session, was the first of the New England governors and Eastern Canadian premiers to sign on to the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, moved Vermont further into compliance with the California emissions standards through the Pavley Agreement, opposes the proposed tire burning at the International Paper Plant in Ticonderoga, NY and joined other Northeastern governors in a lawsuit to force the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act.
“It’s important to have tough but reasonable standards about air quality at the national level,” Douglas said. “Air particles don’t stop at state lines, so you have to have national leadership and also international leadership. I feel very strongly about that and Vermonters do, too.”
His vision of Vermont’s future energy portfolio, however, can be confusing. Douglas has said for several years now that he supports wind power, but only on a “Vermont scale,” which he said means the size and number of turbines. “I think having turbines power homes, businesses, and state facilities is entirely appropriate,” he said. “But I think industrial size turbines […] and all the infrastructure required to construct and maintain them is not consistent with Vermont’s tradition of maintaining the natural beauty of our ridgelines.”
While people might support wind power in the abstract, Douglas says – Senator Bill Doyle’s (R-Washington) annual town meeting day survey this year, for example, indicated that 65 percent of Vermonters support building commercial wind farms – he maintains that “if you drill down and get site-specific it changes. Talk about right behind your home or your neighborhood or your viewshed and people get less enthusiastic.”
Douglas also takes issue with the way some advocates characterize the decisions facing the state in the next few years regarding energy purchased from the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant in Vernon and HydroQuebec.
“Some talk about how we are going to lose 70 percent of our power in six years. Well, no. Our license expires at Yankee and our contracts begin to expire with HydroQuebec, but I don’t presume that those won’t be part of our energy future; it’s just a matter of relicensure and renegotiating the contracts,” he said.
He also supports expanding “cow power” (generating electricity by burning methane from manure), net metering, small solar, and biofuels. “We should pursue those alternatives,” he said. “They’ll be incremental in terms of amount of power they provide, but I don’t see the demand for power diminishing.”
Douglas wouldn’t comment directly whether he supports extending Vermont Yankee’s operation beyond its current license, saying, “I don’t want to get ahead of the process. The company has filed for license extension and the Public Service Department, on behalf of my administration, hasn’t weighed in formally one way or the other.”
But he did add that, “I think it is fair to say that the nuclear power plant in Vernon has provided us with inexpensive, reliable, renewable, emission-free power for more than a third of a century. [Obviously] safety is the most important consideration and we still have the waste disposal challenge to solve on a national basis, but it’s been a good, reliable source of power for us.”
Development
In addition to the controversy accompanying his two vetoes this session, Douglas also ruffled some feathers with a proposal to tap a portion of government-owned property for development as a way to ease the housing crunch. “I think there are parcels the state and municipalities own that could be made available for residential development. The price of land is a major component of the cost of a home and if we can make it available at little or no cost it might bring the cost of a home down,” he continued. “We need a lot more housing stock; I hear from a lot of employers that the cost of housing is major competitive disadvantage when they are seeking employees to move to Vermont.”
Douglas did support the downtown growth centers legislation in part for its potential to encourage more residential development. “In a rural area or downtowns, we need to provide more housing units than we are right now for our population,” he said. “It’s estimated that we will need an additional 20,000 homes over the next five years or so; we build on average about 900 a year, so we are behind.”
Campaigns
Some people have questioned why Douglas has put off any gubernatorial debates until the fall, when he participated in so many during his inaugural race in 2004 (although opponent Scudder Parker has not made this an issue). “We faced the first gubernatorial transition in over a dozen years, so it was important for Vermonters to see the candidates, to think about their qualifications and credentials,” Douglas explained, “I think Vermonters understand that an incumbent governor can’t spend the majority of his term in political campaign mode.”
Douglas said that he has asked his campaign manager to urge groups planning debates to combine their efforts. “I think it is not a good use of my time, or any candidate’s time, to have a small audience with no media coverage and that’s what some of them were,” he said. “I think it is better to have a smaller number of well-attended and well-publicized debates than a large number of little ones.”
Only one debate in the last election focused on women’s issues, sponsored by a consortium of organizations including the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, the Vermont Network Against Domestic Abuse and Sexual Assault, UVM’s Women’s Center, and Planned Parenthood of Northern New England. It is also the only gubernatorial debate that Douglas did not attend. He refused to explain why, to commit to a similar event if held this year, or answer two questions from the original debate. Thus, we don’t know if he supports sending incarcerated women out of state if their numbers increase beyond our capacity, maintaining the welfare requirements of 30 hours per week, or allowing education and skill-building programs to be included in that requirement.
Conclusion
The answer to our original question: Who is Jim Douglas? We just don’t know. He is a polished and pleasant politician and there is a sense that, if he would step out of that shell, there is an intelligent person with whom you would like to converse, even if you ultimately disagree. But unfortunately, that rarely happens, unless he gets irritated, which is not often.
The problem is not whether Douglas does or does not support wind power, or choice, or any specific issue, but that it’s not always clear why he’s chosen a particular stance. And it’s difficult to escape the uneasy sense of exceptionally canny political opportunism, or the sense that there is a less friendly logic driving the continuing discrepancy between what he says he thinks, and what we’ve watched him do.
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