Vermont: Government, Politics, and Higher Education

Vermont is governed under a constitution adopted in 1793. The state legislature, called the general assembly, consists of a senate with 30 members and a house of representatives with 150 members, all elected to two-year terms. The governor is elected for a two-year term. Vermont sends two senators and one representative to the U.S. Congress and has three electoral votes. The state is liberal in its politics, although both Democrats and Republicans have been elected governor in recent years.

The state's traditional devotion to the Republican party was evidenced in the presidential elections of 1912 and 1936, when Vermont was one of only two states in the union that voted Republican. This has changed, however, as the state's liberalism in cultural and environmental matters has turned it away from the Republican party. Since 1991, the socialist former mayor of Burlington, Bernard Sanders (who runs as an independent), has represented Vermont in the U.S. House of Representatives and then (from 2007) the Senate.

Among Vermont's institutions of higher education are Bennington College, at Bennington; Middlebury College, at Middlebury; Marlboro College, at Marlboro; Norwich Univ., at Northfield; the School for International Training, at Brattleboro; and the Univ. of Vermont, at Burlington.

Sections in this article:

• Introduction
• The Changing Economy of Vermont
• The Mexican and Civil Wars
• Statehood, at Last
• The American Revolution and Independent Vermont
• Benning Wentworth and the New Hampshire Grants
• French Vermont
• Government, Politics, and Higher Education
• Economy
• Geography
• Facts and Figures

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