Gov. Jim Douglas (R) Elected 2002, 2d term up Jan. 2007
Born:	June 21, 1951, Springfield, MA
Home:	Middlebury
Education:	Middlebury Col., B.A. 1972
Religion:	Congregationalist
Marital Status:	married (Dorothy)
Elected  Office:	VT House of Reps., 1972-79; Maj. Ldr., 1977-79; VT Secy. of St., 1980-92; VT Treasurer, 1994-2002.
Office	109 State St., Montpelier 05609, 802-828-3333; Fax: 802-828-3339; Web: www.gov.state.vt.us.
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The key decision that led to Jim Douglas being elected governor of Vermont in 2002 may have been his decision 34 years earlier to attend Middlebury College. Douglas grew up in Longmeadow, Massachusetts, a political junkie and a strong Republican, passing out AuH2O stickers for Barry Goldwater in 1964, at 13. In 1968, he enrolled at Middlebury and almost immediately decided to live in the town; his wife is from Middlebury and they have lived there ever since. Douglas's college years were a time of campus protests against the Vietnam War, but he became an active Republican and organized a rally for President Richard Nixon in Middlebury in 1970. In 1972, the year he graduated, he ran for state representative from Middlebury and was elected; he was elected majority leader in 1977. In 1979, he lost a race for Speaker and became an aide to Republican Governor Richard Snelling. In between sessions of the legislature he worked as a radio announcer and became executive director of the local United Way. In 1980, he was elected secretary of state and served for 12 years. In 1992, he ran against Senator Patrick Leahy and lost 54%-43%--the closest race Leahy has had since 1980. In 1994, after working for the Porter Medical Center in Middlebury, he spotted an opening for state treasurer and was elected to the first of four terms. The Democratic party produces many gifted political entrepreneurs who win office even in unlikely years and districts; the Republican party has one in Douglas. He has been on the Vermont ballot every two years since 1972, and for most of that time has gotten up before 6 a.m. to commute over the Green Mountains to the tiny state capital of Montpelier.

His opening to run for governor came when Democratic Governor Howard Dean announced on September 5, 2001 that he would not run again. Returned to office every two years--Vermont and New Hampshire are the last two states with two-year gubernatorial terms--he advanced a number of innovative policies which, in the minds of many observers, entitled him to serious consideration as a candidate for president in 2004.

Most Vermonters responded positively to Dean's presidential candidacy, not so much because of his mixed moderate-and-liberal record on state issues as his loud stand against the Iraq war. But as Dean was preparing to leave Vermont politics, there was discontent with some of his policies. Not so much civil unions, which he embraced reluctantly (but which have become more popular as time goes on), but over the high property taxes engendered by Act 60, which levied a statewide property tax to provide each school district, the long delays in development caused by the environmental reviews under 30-year-old Act 250 and, most of all, by frequent news of job loss and a rising sense that Vermont has a reputation for being unfriendly to business. Douglas and his Democratic opponent, Lieutenant Governor Douglas Racine, agreed that Act 60 and Act 250 needed some changes; so did Con Hogan, former director of state human services, who started running for the Republican nomination but decided in February to run as an Independent. But there was a clear difference in emphasis. Douglas called for tax cuts, if spending cuts could be achieved, and promised to "create a more business-friendly environment." He advocated major modification in Act 60. He charged that despite its high spending on education, Vermont was still getting mediocre test scores. It was "time for a change," he said, in a state which had had Democratic governors 17 of the last 18 years.

Racine had run for the state Senate and lost in 1980, then won five terms; he lost the race for lieutenant governor in 1994 but won in 1996, 1998 and 2000. In the 2002 campaign, Racine said that as lieutenant governor he had helped fashion consensus on school funding, children's services and the budget. He called for conservation, environmental protection and broad access to health care. He conceded the need for simplifying Act 60 and speeding up Act 250.

The result was something of an upset. Douglas led Racine 45%-42%, with 10% for Hogan. Under Vermont law, if no candidate receives 50% of the vote, the governor is chosen by a combined vote of the two houses of the legislature. Republicans entered the campaign with a large majority of legislative seats; Racine announced that he would not take his candidacy to the legislature if he won under 50%, while Douglas said he would. Then, contrary to most expectations, Democrats made gains in the legislature and their majority in the Senate was larger than the Republicans' narrow margin in the House. But Racine kept his word and Douglas became governor.

Douglas's great success as governor was in getting the legislature to pass in April 2004 a bill revising Act 250--the first major change in 34 years. The five citizen approval boards were abolished and their powers given to a single Environmental Court; opponents of development were no longer given an automatic right to intervene; developers could pay for stormwater runoff by offsetting reductions elsewhere. Douglas did not get the legislature to act on Act 60. He did institute increased tax collection from out-of-state corporations, combined with a 14% cut in the corporate tax rate. Douglas sought state reimportation of prescription drugs from Canada; when the FDA denied that, Vermont in August 2004 became the first state to sue. On energy policy, Douglas said his plan was to "promote development and use of renewable energy by facilitating collaboration and market-based incentives that encourage employers and residents to install these alternatives." But that was not enough for legislative Democrats and environment group heads, who wanted to require greater percentages of renewable energy.

Douglas's opponent in the 2004 election was Peter Clavelle, longtime mayor of Burlington, who got his political start in 1982 as an appointee of Socialist Mayor Bernie Sanders, now Vermont's congressman-at-large. Clavelle was a longtime member of the left-wing Progressive party; deciding to run as a Democrat after Howard Dean announced his retirement, he arranged that the Progressive nomination would be won by an ally who would decline to run. Clavelle's major plank was health care. He proposed to use the $90 million the state spends on Medicaid on a universal health care insurance and said it could be paid for by greater efficiencies. To which Douglas said, "It's a $90 million plan that no one really understands, that its author can't explain and that they said is free. I think most Vermonters are pretty skeptical of that." He favored increasing competition by encouraging private insurers to reenter the state, health savings accounts and initiatives for chronic illness and encouraging healthy lifestyles in children. This issue, like renewable energy and smoking in bars (Clavelle favored a statewide ban, Douglas local option), was a clear-cut conflict between a Republican backing market incentives and a Democrat favoring government decisionmaking. Vermont, for all its leftism on issues like Iraq, seemed to be leaning more toward the market than government; as the campaign went on Clavelle said that voters should back him because of his opposition to the war in Iraq.

Douglas won 59%-38%, carrying all but one county. That looked like an endorsement of Douglas's market-based approach. But Democrats increased their margin in the state Senate and replaced a small Republican majority with a large Democratic majority in the House. That leaves Vermont, like Massachusetts and Rhode Island, the only states which gave John Kerry a higher percentage, with a Republican governor and large Democratic margins in the legislature.

Election Results (More Info)
	Candidate	Total Votes	Percent
2004 general	Jim Douglas (R)	181,540	59%
	Peter Clavelle (D)	117,327	38%
	Other	10,418	3%
2004 primary	Jim Douglas (R)	unopposed
2002 general	Jim Douglas (R)	103,436	45%
	Doug Racine (D)	97,565	42%
	Cornelius Hogan (I)	22,353	10%
	Other	6,807	3%