Vermont Senate
Vermont State Senate | |
---|---|
Vermont General Assembly | |
Type | |
Type | |
Term limits | None |
History | |
New session started | January 4, 2023 |
Leadership | |
Majority Leader | |
Minority Leader | |
Structure | |
Seats | 30 |
Political groups | Majority (23)
Minority (7)
|
Length of term | 2 years |
Authority | Section 7, Legislative Department, Constitution of Vermont |
Salary | $733.04 per week plus per diem during session |
Elections | |
Last election | November 8, 2022 |
Next election | November 5, 2024 |
Redistricting | Legislative control |
Meeting place | |
State Senate Chamber, Vermont State House Montpelier, Vermont, U.S. | |
Website | |
Vermont State Senate |
The Vermont Senate is the upper house of the Vermont General Assembly, the state legislature of the U.S. state of Vermont. The senate consists of 30 members elected from multi-member districts. Each senator represents at least 20,300 citizens. Senators are elected to two-year terms and there is no limit to the number of terms that a senator may serve.
As in other upper houses of state and territorial legislatures and the U.S. Senate, the state senate of Vermont has special functions, such as confirming or rejecting gubernatorial appointments to executive departments, the state cabinet, commissions, and boards, as well as electing members to the Vermont Supreme Court.
The Vermont Senate meets at the Vermont State House in the state capital of Montpelier.
Districting and terms
The 30 senators are elected from 16 single and multi-member senate districts. The districts largely correspond to the boundaries of the state's
Vermont is one of the 14 states where the upper house of its state legislature serves at a two-year cycle, rather than the more common four-year term in the majority of states.
Senate district lines are drawn with an eye toward adhering to the boundaries of the state's 14 counties, and the districts are named after the county or counties in which the bulk of the district is located. However, due to equal representation requirements of the federal and state constitutions, most districts do not have precisely the same boundaries as their respective counties, containing either one or more towns from neighboring counties or not containing one or more from their own county (or both).
Leadership
The
Committee assignments are determined by the Committee on Committees. This panel consists of the lieutenant governor, the president pro tempore and one member chosen by the full Senate. For several years the third member of the committee has been Richard Mazza.
Composition of the Senate (2021–2023 legislative session)
Affiliation | Party (shading indicates majority caucus)
|
Total | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Democratic | Progressive | Republican | Vacant | ||
End 2012 | 21 | 1 | 8 | 30 | 0 |
2013-2014 | 20 | 2 | 7 | 30 | 0 |
Begin 2015 | 19 | 3 | 9 | 30 | 0 |
End 2016 | 8 | 29 | 1[3] | ||
2017-2018 | 21 | 2 | 7 | 30 | 0 |
Begin 2019 | 22 | 2 | 6 | 30 | 0 |
Begin 2021 | 21 | 2 | 7 | 30 | 0 |
Begin 2023 | 22 | 1 | 7 | 30 | 0 |
Latest voting share | 77% | 23% |
Current leadership
Position | Name | Party | Residence | District |
---|---|---|---|---|
President | David Zuckerman | Prog/Dem | Hinesburg | –
|
President pro tempore |
Philip Baruth | Dem/Prog | Burlington | Chittenden-Central |
Majority Leader |
Alison H. Clarkson | Dem | Woodstock | Windsor |
Assistant Majority Leader (Whip) | Andrew Perchlik | Dem/Prog | Montpelier | Washington |
Minority Leader |
Randy Brock | Rep | Swanton |
Franklin |
Current members
Operations
The full Senate meets Tuesday and Friday mornings only for the first seven weeks of the annual session.[6]
The Vermont Senate is aided by a small administrative staff, including the secretary of the Vermont Senate and several assistants.[7] Since 2011, the Senate secretary has been John H. Bloomer, a former member of the Senate.[8] Previous secretaries include Ernest W. Gibson Jr., Murdock A. Campbell, and Franklin S. Billings Jr.[8]
History
Vermont had a
The longest-serving member of the Vermont Senate was William T. Doyle; he was elected in 1968, reelected every two years until 2014, and defeated for reelection in 2016. Doyle served from January 1969 to January 2017; no other legislator in Vermont history—member of the Vermont House, member of the Vermont Senate, or member of both the House and Senate—has served longer than Doyle.
Former districts, 2002–2022
The following is from the Vermont Secretary of State.[10]
District | Senators |
---|---|
Addison
|
2 |
Bennington
|
2 |
Caledonia
|
2 |
Chittenden
|
6 |
Essex-Orleans
|
2 |
Franklin
|
2 |
Grand Isle
|
1 |
Lamoille
|
1 |
Orange
|
1 |
Rutland
|
3 |
Washington
|
3 |
Windham
|
2 |
Windsor
|
3 |
Notable members
Most individuals who have served as governor or lieutenant governor had experience in the Vermont legislature; many served in the State Senate. For more than 100 years from the 1850s to the 1960s, the
Governors
Governors who served in the Vermont Senate include: William A. Palmer (post-governorship); Horace Eaton; Carlos Coolidge (post-governorship); John S. Robinson; Ryland Fletcher; Frederick Holbrook; Paul Dillingham; George Whitman Hendee; John Wolcott Stewart; Julius Converse; Horace Fairbanks; Redfield Proctor; Roswell Farnham; John L. Barstow; Ebenezer J. Ormsbee; William P. Dillingham; Carroll S. Page; Levi K. Fuller; Josiah Grout; John G. McCullough; Charles J. Bell; Fletcher D. Proctor; George H. Prouty; John A. Mead; Allen M. Fletcher; Charles W. Gates; Percival W. Clement; Redfield Proctor Jr.; John E. Weeks; Stanley C. Wilson; Charles Manley Smith; William H. Wills; Mortimer R. Proctor; Lee E. Emerson; Joseph B. Johnson; Philip H. Hoff (post-governorship); Peter Shumlin; and Phil Scott (incumbent).
Members of Congress
Many of Vermont's members of the United States Senate and United States House of Representatives also served in the Vermont Senate.
U.S. senators include
U.S. House members who served in the Vermont Senate include
Other notable members
Other notable members of the Vermont Senate include:
- Jefferson P. Kidder (1847–1849): U.S. Congressman from Dakota Territory; Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of Dakota Territory.
- Lucius E. Chittenden (1856–1860): author and government official.
- Daniel Kellogg (1865–1866): Adjutant general of the Vermont Militia.
- Hoyt Henry Wheeler (1868–1869): judge of the United States District Court for the District of Vermont.
- William H. Gilmore (1882–1883): Adjutant general of the Vermont Militia.
- William Wells (1886–1887): recipient of the Medal of Honor during the American Civil War.
- Edna Beard (1923–1925): Vermont's first female state House member (1921 to 1923) and first female state senator; also the first woman to hold a leadership position in the Vermont legislature as Chair of the Senate Committee on Libraries.
- Consuelo N. Bailey (1930–1931): Lieutenant Governor of Vermont from 1955 to 1957; first woman in the United States to be a lieutenant governor.
- James L. Oakes (1961–1965): judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
- David Zuckerman (born 1971): Lieutenant Governor of Vermont, 2017–2021.
See also
- President pro tempore of the Vermont Senate
- Vermont State House
- Vermont General Assembly
- Vermont House of Representatives
- Members of the Vermont Senate, 2005-2006 session
- Members of the Vermont Senate, 2007-2008 session
References
- ^ "Senate Redistricting for 2022" (PDF). Caliper. 2021.
- ^ "State legislative chambers that use multi-member districts". Ballotpedia. Retrieved Aug 24, 2019.
- ^ Republican Norman H. McAllister (Alburgh-Franklin) was suspended from senatorial duties in 2015 through the end of his Senate term. [1]
- ^ Hewitt, Elizabeth (December 27, 2017). "Brock to fill vacant Franklin County Senate seat". VTDigger. Montpelier, VT.
- ^ Democrat Richard Mazza resigned on April 8, 2024.[2]
- Burlington Free Press.
- ^ "Secretary of the Senate". Legislature.Vermont.gov. Montpelier, VT: Vermont General Assembly. 2023. Retrieved May 30, 2023.
- ^ a b "State of Vermont Secretaries of the Senate, 1836–2011" (PDF). Legislature.Vermont.gov. Montpelier, VT: Vermont General Assembly. 2011. p. 1. Retrieved May 30, 2023.
- ^ "REPORT OF THE LEGISLATIVE APPORTIONMENT BOARD: The 2001 Tentative Plan for the Vermont Senate" (PDF). Bluehouse Group. Retrieved April 29, 2016.
- ^ "Senate Redistricting for 2012" (PDF). Vermont Secretary of State. May 9, 2012.