Vermont Politics class ventures to Montpelier

4/17/08

By Jennifer Ingram
Critic Staff

There is much that goes into the running of Vermont’s politics.

To fully understand how politics are run today you need a concrete understanding of what happened in the past.

On Thursday, March 27, David Plazek’s Vermont Politics class took a trip to the state’s capital to meet with the state archivist, to learn about the history of Vermont and then to tour the state house.

The class first met with state archivist D. Gregory Sanford, a physically imposing, self-deprecating and witty man with a long, thick white beard. Throughout the meeting with Sanford he described the history of Vermont in terms of politics and described how Vermont has progressed through the centuries. Sanford has been the State of Vermont's archivist for 25 years.

“The trip to Montpelier was a good educational experience, off campus. The archivist seemed very knowledgeable about all aspects of Vermont,” Timothy Carlough said by e-mail.

As part of Sanford’s presentation he presented many different types of political documents spanning from the 1700’s all the way through the 1900’s.

One particular document that he showed was a petition from the 1800’s, men and women couldn’t sign the same petition together, and each sex had to sign different documents. “Meeting with the state archivist was very interesting, and seeing all the documents that he had was very fascinating. I wish that we would have had been able to see more of them, and been able to see where they are all kept,” Megan Guilck said.

After meeting with the state archivist the class then went to tour the state house to see how the Vermont government is run and to see the different groups in session. The state house was not very guarded for many groups being in session.

”For 2008 I was amazed at how open the access was to the building. There were uniformed security guards patrolling the corridors however,” Brent Lyons said by e-mail.

Once inside the State House the class was free to explore the state house and to see what was happening.

“It was interesting to see Vermont State government working first-hand. The House was debating on the State Budget for 2009, specifically the merits of a tax reduction plan for
individual's capital income. It appeared most of the active debate was coming from representatives from the Chittenden County area,” Brent Lyons said by e-mail.