Philip Hoff: How Red Turned Blue in the Green Mountain State

Seven Days published a review of this Philip Hoff biography that made me want to read it (sadly, I can't link to the review because neither google nor the Seven Days website can find it.  shame on you, Seven Days).  


At any rate, Hoff was elected governor of Vermont in 1962; the first from the Democrat party in over 100 years.  During his six year tenure (the VT gov is elected to two-year terms), the state underwent great social, political, and economic changes.  Blah, blah, woof, woof.  Normally I don't go in for biographies, but this one is charmingly Vermont-y.


For example, in talking about Hoff's first legislative session as a VT House Rep,  

Hoff, who represented more than 35,000 voters, was seated next to Representative William Jay Smith, a Democrat from Pownal, who represented about 1,500 voters.  Sitting close by was Ethel Eddy, a Republican of Stratton, who represented just 24.  (pg27)

The text then goes on to mention that Smith "was a poet and professor of English at Williams" and gives a great quote comparing the Vermont House to the British House of Lords.  What's never mentioned is that William Jay Smith was the 19th poet laureate of the United States.  Oh, yeah, that Smith fella, the rep from Pownal.  Oh, he taught some down at Williams.  Good school, I hear.  Lordy lordy.


Related to the quote above, the authors spend a godawful amount of energy talking about reapportionment as if it was Hoff's gift to VT, and having vapors over how "a House majority could be achieved by representatives from towns that [sic] made up of just 11.5 percent of the state's population".  Well, yeah.  Like how a majority of the United States Senate can be achieved by representatives from states that make up 17% of the country's population (summing half the population of Louisiana, plus the 25 less populous states, and dividing by the total). The Vermont legislature was simply flipped so that the Senate was proportional to population.  Reapportionment was federally mandated, and while I see the argument for requiring unicameral legislatures to be apportioned by population, I really don't see how federally mandating that both bodies of a bicameral legislature to be apportioned by population isn't a violation of states' rights.


There's a section on civil rights issues during Hoff's governorship, and now I want to read Civil Rights in the Whitest State; we continue to face many of these issues today.