ne has it easy, and one is

running hard, according to

interviews with gay repre-
sentatives Bill Lippert (D.-
Hinesburg) and Robert Dostis (D.-
Waterbury). Lippert. the long-time
legislative veteran. has been in the
legislature for nine years and is run-
ning unopposed. Dostis was first
elected in the civil union/Act 60
backlash election of 2000.
. "I’m exhausted.” admitted
Dostis in a phone interview. “I’m in a
two-member district and there’s only
one Republican running, but he’s
working hard.”

Asked what he’s been hear-
ing on the campaign trail from con-
stituents, Dostis replied, “Mostly I
hear that they’re pleased with my
work. I haven’t pissed anyone off. So
I’m cautiously optimistic. As a fresh-
man legislator. I still have to work
hard for votes, and that means going
out every day. knocking on doors.”

One issue he hears about is
affordable health care. “I’ve got folks
whose kids are in the Dr. Dynasaur
program. but the parents have no
coverage.” said Dostis. Taxes are
another perennial concern. “People
are very upset with how high their

taxes are going. We have to reduce
our reliance on the property tax to
fund education. The block grant is
going up 3 percent a year, but budg-
ets are going up 6 percent a year, and
that throws the added expense back
onto the local property tax.”

He hears almost nothing
about civil union, but thinks Repub-
licans are “working hard to elect
opponents. It’s their secret agenda.”

lfthe election for the gov-
ernor and/or lieutenant governor ends
up in the legislature, the vote, said
Dostis, should be open. “I don’t
believe in the secret ballot” on this
issue, he said. “It could be challeng-
ing for me to decide which way to
vote. I’ll probably look at who gets
the most votes statewide and at how
my district votes. Likely my district
will go for Racine, and that won’t be
a challenge for me. But if the district
went overwhelmingly against, that
would make it very difiicult. I’m
likely to vote with my constituents.”

And, he said, ‘.‘The thing is,
that we have got to get our communi-
ty out there, engaged and voting. We
cannot take this lightly. [Democrats]
must retain the Senate if we’re going
to hold onto civil unions.”

Lippert is relatively
relaxed, thanks to not having opposi-
tion for his seat representing most of
Hinesburg. “I am pleased to have that
be the case,” he said. “I think it’s a
measure of the support I enjoy and
my success in the legislature. Four
years ago against a strong opponent I
won with 60 percent of the vote. Last
election in the backlash, that total
dropped by only one point.”

He is focusing his attention
elsewhere, helping the party and
working to support other Democratic
candidates. “But it’s been very low-
key,” he said of his own campaign-
ing. For the final weeks of the cam-
paign he planned to register voters
and talk to people. “I’m surprised at
how low-key the race is at the guber-
natorial level. I think the intensity of
the politics of two years ago is still
having an impact.”

Asked whether he thinks
there will be a low voter turn out,
Lippert said, “It makes me nervous.
I’m just hoping that our community
will understand that this election is so
important. Out-of-staters don’t under-
stand the significance of this election
because there’s no visible civil union
opposition.

“I think there’s a strategic
decision to keep it quiet, though I
have no hard evidence to support
that. The Republicans have learned
that right wing rhetoric will cost
them the Governor’s office," Lippert
said. “We need to show up, vote, be
very active at the polls.” And. he
concluded, we need to “have one-on-
one conversations with our friends
and neighbors, because they may tip
the balance. Who is in the
Governor's seat is going to be hugely
important for our community and the
state as a whole.”

VCU Endorses Candidates

n other political news, Vermonters
for Civil Unions (VCU) issued a
list of endorsements that at the top of

the ticket held no surprises and
encompassed the entire Democratic
slate: Doug Racine for Governor,
Peter Shumlin for Lieutenant
Governor, Jeb Spaulding for
Treasurer, Deb Markowitz for
Secretary of State, and Elizabeth
Ready for State Auditor.

In the legislative races,
VCU offered no endorsements in a
number of races, and at least one sur-

 

I °“d“P=

ments

prise: for Lamoille County’s single
Senate sent, it endorsed both Susan
Bartlett, the Democratic incumbent,
and Cathy Voyer, the Republican for-
mer Representative. According to
notes provided on the VCU Election
Report web page, the Voyer endorse-
ment reflects Voyer’s participation in
crafting and supporting the original
civil union bill, despite her vote for
H.404, a bill to define marriage in
Vermont as between a man and a
woman. “We remain extremely disap-
pointed by then-Representative
Voyer’s vote on this anti-gay bill,”
concludes the note.

VCU used four criteria to
decide on its endorsements, including
“loyalty,” “electability, strength of
conviction,” and how “the candidate
compare[s] to other contenders run-
ning for the same seat.” “Loyalty”
was determined by the eandidate’s
votes on the civil union bill, and on
two other House bills meant to weak-
en the provision. Details of“strength
of conviction” and the candidate
comparison criteria were not
offered. V

 

as 66

Civil Unions Low Profile Issue

 

BY PAUL OLSEN & EUAN BEAR

n statewide and local campaigns throughout

Vermont this year, civil unions seem to have
taken on the role of the proverbial elephant in
the room. Everyone knows it is there but none
of the statewide candidates is willing to talk
about it.

Two years ago, civil unions played a
key role in Vermont’s election campaigns. A
number of antigay groups, including Take Back
Vermont, Take it to the People (TIP), and
Standing Together and Reclaiming the State
(STARS), were formed to elect candidates
pledged to overturning the landmark law.
Campaigning with an anti-civil union agenda,
Republicans won control ofthe House of
Representatives while Democrats maintained
control of the state Senate, and Vermont Gov.
Howard Dean (D), a civil union supporter, nar-
rowly won reelection.

On the surface, civil unions seem to
be playing a smaller role in 2002. The TIP web
site was updated only in mid-October and the
STARS web site is defunct. While the state
Democratic Party platform says, “We continue
to support Vermont’s Civil Unions law,” the
Republican Party’s platform avoids calls for
outright repeal: “A primary responsibility of
government is to support traditional institutions,
such as family, which are its foundations.”

Candidates for office also suggest that
civil unions have a much lower profile. “Civil

unions is certainly a quieter issue this year than
it was in the last election,” said Anthony
Pollina, the Progressive Party’s nominee for
Lieutenant Governor. “It does come up, but it is
fair to say it doesn’t come up as often. Two
years ago civil union was used quite effectively
as a wedge issue.” Pollina, a civil union sup-
porter, ran for Governor in 2000. _

Republican gubernatorial candidate
Jim Douglas also says civil unions are not a big
issue for the average Vermont voter.
“Interestingly, very few people ask me about
civil unions on the campaign trail,” he said in
an interview. “I don’t think it is prominent on
people’s minds right now.”

The GOP’s candidatefor Lt.
Governor, Brian Dubie, echoed Douglas’s com-
ments. “I have been asked the [civil union]
question once in a public forum," he said on
Vermont Public Radio’s Switchboard program.
"It hasn’t come up.”

Democratic gubernatorial candidate
Doug Racine’s recent fundraising letter to civil
union supporters likewise did not directly
address civil unions or diversity education in
schools, but referred to Vermont “traditions of
human rights” and “access to safe and affirming
schools.” Racine wrote that the campaign will
decide “if we are taken back into a divisive
struggle.”

Pollina attributes the lack of interest
in civil unions to the fact that fears raised dur-
ing the civil union debate in 2000 did not mate-
rialize. “The average folks who may have been
opposed [to civil unions] have begun to see that

it hasn’t really changed their lives, and it hasn’t
really changed the state,” he said. “I do think
that people are focused on the economy.”

But are civil unions really off the
political radar screen in Vermont this year?
Civil union supporters don’t think so.

“Even though the law we passed has
survived the hateful attacks by the Take-
Backers, we’re not out of the woods yet,”
Vermonters for Civil Unions statewide coordi-
nator Henrietta Jordan recently wrote in an
email sent to civil union supporters. “The press
may believe that civil unions is not at issue in
this year’s election, but don’t doubt for a
minute that anti-civil union legislators will try
again as they see they have a majority in both
the House and Senate. In fact, this election may
be more dangerous than the 2000 one, precisely
because there are so many new candidates, and
many ofthem are not saying how they’d vote
on civil unions.”

Pollina agrees with Iordan’s assess-
ment. “I do believe that there is still a hard core
of anti-civil union, almost anti-civil rights, folks
who organize below the radar screen and will
work hard for those candidates who oppose
civil unions particularly in the rural parts of the
state.”

Legislative strategists have suggested

. that there’s no chance the Democrats — viewed

as the pro-civil union party, although there have
been defectors on important votes, and some
Republicans have supported the civil union law
— can take back the House of Representatives
from the Republicans. They are focusing their

in 2002 Campaigns

major effort on maintaining control of the
Senate.

Email sent to energize supporters of
Vermonters for Civil Union from the organiza-
tion’s founders quoted “Take Back Vermont”
founder Tom Wilson’s rallying cry: “The oppor-
tunity this election year presents cannot be
over-estimated. Vermont is Ground Zero in the
culture war. The whole country watches. Ifthe
pro-family movement can take the Vermont
Senate  we send a profound message of hope
to the world: America lives, truth prevails, and
grassroots truth-tellers can turn the tide.”

The pro-civil union political action
committee also quoted a fundraising mailing
from the Rutland-based “Center for American
Cultural Renewal,” asserting. “We can finish
the housecleaning we started two years ago; the
Senate, the Executive, the Judiciary — all need
sweeping out.  We are thrilled with the
chances to take back the Vermont Senate this
year!”

The email went on to suggest that an
anti-civil union House and Senate might pass a
new version of last year’s bill to “repeal and
replace” civil unions, along with Rep. Nancy
Sheltra’s “perennial proposals to censor our
local schools to prevent education promoting
tolerance, including tolerance of sexual minori-
ties.”

Further complicating the picture is the
increasingly likely possibility that the three-way
races for Governor and Lt. Governor might be
decided by the newly seated legislature. V