Did You Know? The Snelling Collection - Part 2

The VFC Archives is full of amazing first-person accounts of everyday life in Vermont and New England–past and present. Between 2002 and 2004, on behalf of the Snelling Center for Government, VFC founder Jane Beck interviewed 35 current and former Vermont legislators to explore the culture of Vermont’s citizen legislature and the personal relationships from which this culture emerges, and those interviews are archived in our Snelling Center Collection. Last month we introduced you to this collection; this month, as the election grows near, we hear what four former legislators had to say about what makes a good legislator.

Franklin S. ("Bill") Billings, Jr. was a member of the Vermont House of Representatives in the early 1960's, then went on to serve as the Chief Justice of the Vermont Supreme Court as well as the Chief US District Judge of the US District Court for the District of Vermont from the 1980's to the 2010's. He talks here in a 2004 interview about what makes a good legislator.

Franklin S. ("Bill") Billings, Jr.

Well, I think a good legislator is one that is straightforward and honest with his positions and makes sure that everybody knows them, one that listens to his constituents and handles their problems and tries to, if they have bills that they're interested in, at least, to look at them and explain, and support them, if he supports them, or if not, try to explain and be very straightforward and honest, and not try to play politics. And also to represent all of his constituency and not let politics play a major role.

Robert T. (Bob) Gannett served in both the Vermont House of Representatives and the Vermont Senate, his service spanning four decades from the 1950's to the 1990's. In a 2004 interview, he shares his thoughts about the importance of an effective legislator's view of compromise.

Bob Gannett

I think there has to be willingness to compromise, in the best sense of the word. That however strongly you may feel, you have to recognize that other people have the right to feel strongly the other way and the best possible legislation is when they sit down and recognize that there’s always a solution of some kind and to seek the solution that best arrives, that you want to start feeling that something—it’s important that something be done. There’s a problem of some kind and with that as a premise, then you just have to say, well, there’s a way here and now let’s find it and let’s not worry about how mad we are at each other or how little we think of the other person’s viewpoint. It’s important for society or for the state that a solution be reached and we’ll just do it. But this is where the partisanship that I mentioned earlier seems to be increasing. It makes it difficult sometimes to reach, but I’ve always thought the most important things that get done in the Legislature, they’re done when the two major parties agree.

Mary Ann Carlson served in the Vermont State Senate in the late 1980's and early 1990's. Echoing Bob Gannett's comments about compromise, she shares some thoughts in a 2002 interview on how legislators would compromise with each other, during the time she was in office.

Mary Ann Carlson

And a lot of times you would vote for things and you might be doing it half-hearted, but understanding that it was going to do no harm, and may be good for some constituents, even though you might not believe in it. And, in turn, those areas of legislation that you felt were really important, you then could get people to vote for in that way. And I love the give and take. I loved--when I think back, and I often go back into the Legislature periodically lobbying for the Vermont Natural Resources Council or things that I care about, and I always love seeing the people that I was there with and finding out what’s happening. It was just a real, a really wonderful kind of giving group of people, I think, for the most part.

Edgar May served in both the Vermont House of Representatives and the Senate from 1975 -  1991 as well as serving as the Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee. In a 2002 interview, he talked about the need for effective legislators to have "political courage."

Edgar May

My freshman year I was on the Judiciary Committee. That was a very substantial experience for me. And the power of a citizen Legislature really was dramatically illuminated for me. Suddenly I found myself in a room on a sunny afternoon like this, snow in front of the State House. And eleven people on that committee were going to decide whether men and women convicted of first-degree murder in the State of Vermont were going to live or to die. Eleven of us were going to make a decision that we would bring to the House floor about whether we would reinstate the death penalty. And since the committee process, or the legislative process relies so heavily on committees doing their work, it is more than just eleven people bringing that decision to the floor of the House. It carries much, much more weight. And as I looked around the room it suddenly dawned on me: I was one of the eleven who was going to make that decision. And that’s an awesome power and an awesome responsibility. And I think, again, that illustrates that it is so important that we assure ourselves, as citizens of this little state, that we have diversity in thinking. Diversity in experiences, diversity in outlook. It doesn’t matter what you believe. It matters that your belief and my belief and the other person’s belief, which may all be different, get banged around, mixed up, stirred, and then out will come, hopefully, some consensus. Is it always right? Of course not. Sometimes it’s wrong, but it can be corrected except for the death penalty. But that was a very sobering experience. It put this whole phrase, “public service,” into perspective, both the good part and the really, for lack of a better word, the scary part. You know, it’s not easy to cast a vote on an issue of that magnitude.

Issues on the death penalty, abortion, are very, very difficult to vote. And they’re made more difficult because you know there are people who have real conviction about the other point of view, as opposed to yours. And those are difficult votes. But political courage is not for sale or a dime a dozen. That’s what makes it political courage. It takes a special person, and, hopefully, we elect special persons. You know, I’m talking to you in a community that sent to Washington one of the most courageous United States Senators of the twentieth century: Ralph Flanders. You talk about political courage; Ralph Flanders walked into the Senate of the United States and brought a censure resolution to the floor that effectively ended the career of Joseph McCarthy and ended a tawdry period of our country called McCarthyism. That was courage. Ralph Flanders of little Springfield, Vermont. And, again, it had nothing to do with political party. It had to do with courage. And Vermont’s Legislature gives an individual that opportunity. And tests all of us who are in it.

As we look ahead to upcoming elections, we want to thank those who have served in Vermont's legislature over the years for their hard work and dedication to the role, and we urge everyone to vote.