Officials in Burlington, Vermont are dismayed that the governor has vetoed a charter change that would allow all-resident voting in the city.
Any charter changes in cities across Vermont that are approved by voters must then be approved by the legislature and governor. Changes to the Burlington city charter revising ranked-choice voting, election boundaries and polling places passed the legislature and were allowed to become law by Governor Phil Scott. But the Republican vetoed a charter change that would have allowed those 18 years or older legally living in the U.S. and claiming Burlington as their primary residence to vote in local elections.
Ward 5 Democrat Ben Traverse serves on the city council’s Charter Change committee.
“Burlington voters considered the issue of all-resident voting a few years ago and narrowly rejected it," recalled Traverse. "But a lot has changed since then. First of all here in Vermont both Montpelier and Burlington’s sister city of Winooski have stood up all-resident voting. And I just think that really over the last five, six years or so we’re looking at voting in a different way. We’re looking at folk’s ability to participate in our democracy in a different way and valuing it in a more important way. So we thought it was time to put the question back to Burlington voters again and by a very wide margin Burlington voters very overwhelmingly voted in favor of the question.”
Governor Scott, who vetoed similar measures for Montpelier and Winooski that were subsequently overridden, said in his veto message: “I am happy to see legal residents who are non-citizens calling Vermont home and participating in the issues affecting their communities. However, the fundamentals of voting should be universal and implemented statewide.”
Burlington Ward 2 Progressive Gene Bergman is livid about the veto and the Scott’s reasoning.
“It’s hypocrisy," said Bergman. "We have in the state of Vermont different ways of making local decisions. We have Town Meetings and we have Australian ballots. I don’t hear the Governor saying he’s going to abolish either the Australian ballot or the Town Meeting because it’s not consistent. It’s hypocrisy. It’s an outrage and it’s anti-democratic.”
Progressive House member Emma Mulvaney-Stanek represents Chittenden-17, which includes the Burlington area. She sponsored the measure to approve Burlington’s charter change.
“Right now Burlington has almost 6 percent of our city population are folks who are not U.S. citizens," noted Mulvaney-Stanek. "These folks have kids in schools. They have been living in Burlington for years. They pay local municipal taxes. They deserve a say in how our local city and schools operate and that’s what H.509 charter change would allow.”
In a statement, Democratic Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger urged an override by the Legislature, noting: “Given...that two other Vermont municipalities have already successfully expanded voting in local elections to all legal residents, and ... the courts have upheld their authority to do so, I do not see the Governor’s concerns about a patchwork approach as a compelling reason to override the desire of a strong majority of Burlington voters.”
Mulvaney-Stanek is fairly confident the legislature will override the governor’s veto.
“Largely because we did so last biennium for the Winooski charter and the language is so very, very similar to the Winooski charter change," the House representative said. "And we also overrode the veto on the Montpelier charter change on this same item. We have more Democrats and Progressives this biennium than last biennium, so I don’t see a problem with this particular bill becoming law by overriding the veto.”
The legislature’s veto session is scheduled to begin on June 20th.
