The last days of Vermont’s legislative session had all the ingredients of a bitter ending.
For months, Republican Gov. Phil Scott and Democratic lawmakers had sparred over the future of the state’s education system, pushing the session weeks into overtime and flirting with a budget fight that threatened to shut down the government.
But when a compromise finally prevailed and adjournment neared late in May, the tone inside the Statehouse shifted. Party leaders did not dwell on the conflict. They lauded their legislative process — and their relationships with one another.
House Speaker Jill Krowinski (D-Burlington), closing out six years leading the chamber and more than a decade in the Statehouse, fought back tears as she told colleagues that “at a time when political discourse across this country seems to reward division, we can show Vermonters that it is possible to govern and to do so through patience, through collaboration and a willingness to listen.”
Scott, who had warned he would veto the budget if lawmakers did not adopt his vision for education reform, didn’t in the end. He said the session showed “how government can work when very different opinions and very different voices come together to listen and learn with respect and civility.”
The speeches were about more than a polite ending to a difficult biennium. After months of friction over one of the state’s most consequential policy debates, they were declarations of faith in a culture that many in Vermont politics believe still sets the state apart.
For more than a year, Seven Days’ “Ways and Means” series has examined how the state’s part-time legislature sometimes succeeds and sometimes stumbles as it attempts to meet the challenges of lawmaking in the 21st century. For this final installment, we look at the noteworthy Statehouse culture — imperfect and threatened as it is.
While Congress lurches from shutdown threats to partisan deadlock and many state legislatures have hardened into winner-take-all battlegrounds, Vermont has largely maintained a governing culture built on personal relationships, bipartisan cooperation and institutional trust. The state’s citizen legislature, small communities and grassroots politics have helped preserve norms that have eroded elsewhere.
Some call this “the Vermont Way,” a phrase popularized by former governor Jim Douglas and later adopted as the title of his memoir. Douglas describes the tradition as rooted in civility, accessibility, local participation and a willingness to compromise in pursuit of practical results.
But Vermont is not walled off from the forces reshaping American politics. The partisan invective that corrodes national politics is crossing into the state as well, carried through unreliable sources of information and a public discourse that favors conflict over compromise.
The question hanging over the Statehouse is whether, or how long, the Vermont way can hold on.
In Good Company
In the weeks leading up to adjournment, lawmakers hung around long after committee hearings ended, as they typically do each year. They lingered in the Statehouse cafeteria, gathered in shared rental houses and filled the restaurants in Montpelier’s downtown, where conversations often stretched well beyond the workday.
That closeness is not incidental. It’s one of the defining features of the citizen legislature’s DNA.
In a small state filled with tightly bound communities, lawmakers run into neighbors at the grocery store, school plays and the transfer station. Douglas, who served as a state representative, secretary of state, treasurer and then as governor from 2003 through 2011, said this familiarity “tempers the rhetoric and vitriol that might otherwise exist.”
Vermont changed dramatically during Douglas’ half-century in politics, shifting from a Republican stronghold in the 1970s to one of the country’s most reliably Democratic states today. In an interview, Douglas, who now is executive-in-residence at Middlebury College, asserted that the governing culture has largely endured. Political opponents in the Green Mountain State, he said, can still accept that “just because someone has a different opinion doesn’t mean that that person is evil or wrong.”
The structure of the state’s part-time citizen legislature reinforces that ethos. Lawmakers have few private spaces and fewer buffers. Many with home districts far from Montpelier share houses or apartments in the capital to avoid long daily commutes while the legislature is in session. That allows unlikely relationships to flourish.
This biennium, for example, a group of early bird Republican lawmakers welcomed Rep. Shawn Sweeney (D-Shelburne) to share breakfast in the Statehouse cafeteria, despite their party differences. The group talked shop, but they also simply enjoyed one another’s company, Sweeney said. The Republicans occasionally teased him — encouraging him to finish the milk from his cereal bowl so he would “have a stronger backbone” — but, Sweeney recalled, it was all in good fun.
Sweeney knows that some colleagues take him to be a “Republican sympathizer” because of the breakfasts. He sees it differently: as one small way to bridge partisan divide.
“Every time that I got up and I went to my committee room, it gave me hope that we can get back to listening to each other, even if we disagree on things,” Sweeney said.
Conflicts between lawmakers are best resolved through conversation, not public confrontation, according to Krowinski, the House speaker.
“Our work here is not dissimilar from the dynamics of family or any other workplace,” Krowinski said.
That culture extends to how power is shared. Democrats and Progressives hold a majority in the legislature. Yet Republicans continue to chair committees in both chambers. The arrangement, which is traditional, is not required by House or Senate rules. In practical terms, it means the majority cedes a margin of influence in favor of institutional trust.
Krowinski and Republican House Minority Leader Rep. Pattie McCoy (R-Poultney) say they base their collaborative relationship on constant communication and share an expectation that lawmakers should act professionally, ethically and with the future of Vermont’s communities in mind.
“It’s really not some secret formula, but I think that is happening less and less in other parts of the country,” Krowinski said. The speaker told Vermont Public that her decision not to seek reelection — a move that caught many by surprise — was driven by a desire to spend more time with her family following the deaths of her mother and a close friend.
Senate President Pro Tempore Sen. Phil Baruth (D/P-Chittenden-Central) said he learned early that personal trust functions as a kind of currency in the Statehouse. He said former Democratic legislator Bobby Starr, who served more than 40 years, offered him simple advice: Keep your word, never lie and remember that everyone is a potential ally — even members of other parties.
There are limits to bipartisan cooperation and politeness. On the campaign trail, Vermont Democrats and Republicans blame each other for legislative failures and missteps.
And the “play nice” spirit doesn’t always prevail, Baruth said. He pointed to contentious political maneuvering around a bill that would have banned the use of masks by federal immigration agents. On the final day of the session, Republican senators used a rarely invoked procedural move to block a vote on the bill despite an earlier agreement struck in a conference committee that reconciled House and Senate differences. Frustrated lawmakers angrily accused one another of not honoring their usual process.
Senate Minority Leader Sen. Scott Beck (R-Caledonia) said the legislature functions best when trust is matched by political balance. After years of Democratic supermajority control that, in his view, sent the legislature “off in the puckerbush,” Republican gains in the 2024 election restored what he sees as a healthier equilibrium with a greater emphasis on consensus building.
Democrats and Progressives still control both chambers of the legislature but lost their veto-proof supermajority amid a statewide backlash over property tax hikes. That forced the majority to temper its ambitions and pursue a more moderate approach to governing.
Despite the adjustment, concern has grown about polarization in Vermont politics.
“Our political discourse here is better than it is in almost any other state or federal arena,” Douglas said, “but not as good as it used to be.”
Part of the problem, according to the former governor, is the changing nature of the citizen legislature’s rhythms. When Douglas was in House leadership in the 1970s, lawmakers adjourned in March. This year, the session stretched nearly into June. The longer the session, he said, the harder it is for working Vermonters to serve and the more legislative service becomes a full-time identity.
Our political discourse here is better than it is in almost any other state or federal arena, but not as good as it used to be.
Jim douglas
Meanwhile, polarizing sources of information, including social media, and declining trust in institutions have ushered more corrosive political behavior into the state.
This year, those influences surfaced during the debate over Act 181, a sweeping overhaul of Vermont’s land-use law intended to accelerate housing construction. Supporters saw it as necessary modernization; critics, particularly in rural communities, warned that it could fundamentally alter the character of small towns.
As opposition to the law grew, online groups urged members of the public to contact Rep. Amy Sheldon (D-Middlebury), who chairs the House Committee on Environment. Sheldon said she was flooded with messages, including veiled threats warning that her “time was up.”
Concerned by the escalating rhetoric, Krowinski and McCoy issued a rare joint statement in May.
“Vermont is a small state, and it is imperative to remember that we are all neighbors trying to make a better future for the next generation,” they wrote. “If we do not change course, and address the decline in civility in our discussions, we will slowly lose the sense of community that is unique to our state.”
Sheldon, who is not running for reelection, said the episode did not drive her decision, which she was considering before the session began. But it signaled to her that harmful political rhetoric from the national scene is “bubbling over into Vermont.”
Her advice to rising lawmakers is to focus on the work in front of them and to remember that the day-to-day practice of governing still depends on patience, attention and the willingness to keep going.
Outside the Lines
When Sen. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) won a seat in the U.S. House in 2006 after serving for decades in the Vermont legislature, he tried to bring a collaborative spirit.
“Frankly, I think the success I’ve had is significantly related to that,” Welch said, alluding to his efforts to bridge partisan divides.
But the culture and rhythms of Montpelier did not easily translate to Washington, D.C. In Vermont, he said, politics rarely felt like a zero-sum game. In Congress, relationships have proven harder to build, and the institution itself no longer encourages them. Lawmakers once moved their families to Washington and spent time together outside work. Today, most return home whenever they can, leaving fewer opportunities for the kind of informal conversations that often lead to bipartisan compromise.
Rep. Becca Balint (D-Vt.) said she noticed the difference almost immediately when she went to D.C. after eight years in the Statehouse.
“The divisions in Congress start in the architecture itself,” she said.
Members of different parties enter committee rooms through separate doors. Staff sit divided by party. Lawmakers often work through lunch rather than gathering informally. The opportunities to build relationships across ideological lines are fewer.
Balint said she has tried to connect with Republicans through bipartisan caucuses and shared activities, including a softball team, but acknowledged that bonds don’t form as easily in D.C. as they did in Montpelier.
Both Balint and Welch said changes in political communication, such as the 24-hour news cycle and the virality of social media, make meaningful discourse about national policy harder to achieve. Increasingly, they note, the same influences are showing up in Vermont.
“I think generally Vermonters often think we are immune from some of the effects of national politics,” Balint said. “This is just not true.”
Just last week, Balint found herself in new-for-Vermont territory when an AI-generated video began circulating on social media featuring a fake version of her. A Republican challenger, Mark Coester, reposted the clip on social media. The distorted video was the first of its kind to draw broad attention since state policy makers passed a law in March prohibiting “deceptive and fraudulent synthetic media” in elections, unless it met a narrow set of criteria and disclosure requirements, including satire.
Balint called the video “fake” and “deceptive” in a fundraising email, warning it was “exactly the kind of thing that can confuse voters and damage our democracy if we don’t call it out right away.”
At the same time, Douglas noted, students have grown more cautious about speaking freely, wary of backlash or ridicule. He teaches at Middlebury College.
For Baruth, who is not running for reelection, the ideal is: Stay open enough to have good-faith disagreements and resist the urge to isolate within party ranks. When he addressed his chamber for the final time last month, his voice caught as he told his colleagues he loved them all more than he could say.
When attention shifted across the hall a few hours later for the House adjournment and the official end of the biennium, that same mix of strain and trust carried into the chamber as Gov. Scott entered to speak.
“Even with all the headwinds, I’m optimistic about our future because I believe Vermonters are practical and independent people who recognize the difference between the partisan politics we see in Washington and the work we need to do here at home,” Scott said. “How we do it and how we treat each other still matters to them, and it still matters to me.”
For now, at least, that tradition is hanging on. And in Vermont, many lawmakers believe it is worth protecting. ➆
The original print version of this article was headlined “‘The Vermont Way’ | Seven Days’ final “Ways & Means” story considers whether the Vermont legislature’s tradition of civility and compromise can endure”
This article appears in June 17 • 2026.