THE Platform OF
THE VERMONT PROGRESSIVE PARTY

A Vermont where every worker has security, dignity, and a voice in the workplace, including…

• The right of every worker to organize a union and bargain collectively.

• The right of all workers to strike, including municipal, state, and higher education employees.

• A truly livable minimum wage, where a person could lead a good life working only one job.

• A shorter workweek with no reduction in pay or benefits.

• The right of every worker to just cause protections for discipline and termination.

• Ample paid parental leave for all workers and their spouses

• Ample annual paid vacation for all workers.

A Vermont where we take urgent action to address climate change, including…

• Transitioning to 100% renewable energy, by creating jobs in the renewable energy sector, and investing in sustainable infrastructure.

• Lowering emissions across all sectors, transportation, housing, energy, agriculture, and industry.​

• Adopting resiliency for climate impacts.

• Increasing carbon storage in forests, wetlands, and agricultural lands.​

• Holding fossil fuel companies responsible for climate-related damages.

• Military.

• Artificial intelligence.

A Vermont in which every person has access to the high-quality medical care they deserve, regardless of their ability to pay for it, including…

• Fulfilling Act 48 and implementing single payer healthcare, including comprehensive coverage for dental, vision, reproductive, gender-affirming, and hearing care.

• Expanding rural access to care by supporting the creation of more primary care and urgent care to reduce emergency room volume.

• Empowering the Green Mountain Care Board to regulate services and administrative costs at Vermont hospitals. 

• Supporting public research and development of new drugs. 

Promoting an evidence-based approach to healthcare policy, including with regard to vaccination, gender-affirming care, reproductive health, and treatment for mental health and addiction.

An economy based on collective ownership, democratic decision-making, and shared prosperity, including…

• Supporting the development of worker-owned cooperatives and other models of collective ownership.​

• Bringing critical infrastructure and services, such as electrical utilities and broadband,  under public ownership.

• Supporting the creation and maintenance of publicly owned companies as democratic alternatives to for-profit corporations and reducing costs for Vermonters.

• Creating a Vermont State Bank, which will wrestle control over investment from the financial sector to the people.

• Implementation of publicly-owned, ecologically sustainable trash collection, recycling, waste hauling, and landfills.

A Vermont where economic barriers to housing are eliminated and access to housing is treated as a fundamental human right, including…

• Eliminating harmful zoning laws that prevent the construction of dense and affordable housing.

• Constructing publicly owned housing developments.

• Creating a statewide rental registry of all landlords and implementing rent control laws, so that landlords cannot raise rents by more than a certain percentage each year.

• Specifying statewide the just causes of eviction, so that landlords can only evict tenants for community recognized and accepted causes.

• Providing tenants with free legal counsel in housing court proceedings. 

• Expanding and enforcing existing protections for renters.

• Providing state funding for the creation and preservation of permanently affordable housing to meet the needs of working families, seniors, people living with disabilities and those experiencing homelessness.

• Restricting short-term rentals.

A Vermont where the tax system centers the material realities of working Vermonters and redistributes wealth from those who have it to those who need it, including…

• Higher taxes on the wealthy and large corporations.

• A more progressive state income tax with a higher top marginal rate.

• A state-level financial transactions tax on stock trades, derivatives, etc.

• A state-level tax on profits from stocks or property with higher rates for higher earners.

• A state-level wealth tax on millionaires.

• Homestead rates with an index for inflation.

• An inheritance tax on large inheritances or estates passed on after death.

• Higher taxes on non-essential, high-end goods.

• Higher taxes on second homes and rental properties.

A Vermont where our public schools are fully-funded and provide every child with a world class education, regardless of where they live, including…

• Fully funding public education through progressive taxation. 

• Tuition-free education at Vermont’s public universities, colleges, and vocational schools. 

• Oppose all forms of privatization, charter schools, and for-profit education providers. 

• Invest in a transformative curriculum that teaches labor history, Black liberation, Indigenous resistance, anti-colonial struggle, and the role of class conflict in shaping our world.

• Providing free breakfast and lunch to every public school student in VT.

• Expanding access to public pre-K, child care, and after-school programs across the state.

• Supporting educators with better pay and professional development.

• Resuming and expanding state aid for school construction projects.

A truly democratic Vermont where elections are based on the principle of “one-person, one vote” and the pernicious influence of money in our elections is eliminated, including…

• Ranked choice voting to allow voters to support candidates outside of the two-party system without risking an even worse alternative.

• Proportional representation so that every voter is fairly represented in the legislature. 

• A living salary for legislators so working-class Vermonters can run for the legislature to represent the needs of other working class Vermonters. 

• Ending legislative approval for municipal charter change referenda. 

• Public financing of elections to reduce the influence of the rich have and their SuperPACS over our democracy.

• Making Election Day and Town Meeting Day paid holidays.

• Reaffirming the right to vote for all eligible voters including on local level budgets, officers, and public questions in every town in Vermont. Ensuring this right requires universal Australian ballot or universal hybrid town meeting access.

A Vermont that respects the dignity and humanity of every person, and their inherent rights to self-identification, bodily autonomy, and personal freedom, including…

• Defending freedom of speech, the press, and protesting. 

• Eliminating institutionalized racism in our workforce, government, and law enforcement.

• Preventing discrimination and violence against women, including sexual harassment, abuse, workplace discrimination, and domestic violence. 

• Supporting equal rights for LGBTQ Vermonters.

• Supporting the right to an abortion. 

• Supporting academic freedom.

• The full inclusion and social support for people with disabilities.

• Protecting all people from unjust surveillance, policing, and intrusions on their due process, including migrants, whether documented or undocumented.

• Supporting the rights of refugees to seek a better life in Vermont

• Opposing all limitations to an accepting and inclusive society.

• Supporting fair sentencing and bail laws, an end to the use of private, and out-of-state prisons, and decarceral strategies including a shift from incarceration towards the operation of facilities in which people have access to recovery, education, and training in a non-traumatic environment.

• Invest in measures to make the criminal justice system humane 

• Invest in measures and support reforms for both social work, mental health, substance abuse treatment, and law enforcement agencies statewide, to shift interactions with the criminal justice system from hostile policing towards effective support for community.

A Vermont in a nation that prioritizes the welfare of the 99% over funding death and destruction overseas and an unjust international order…

• Opposing foreign wars and America’s intervention in the affairs in other nations.

• Ending the military industrial complex and reducing spending on the military.

• Supporting the cancellation of sovereign debt so that each nation can fund programs that uplift its people rather than repay multinational corporations and banks.

• Actively campaigning to end apartheid, mass murder, and genocide, as well the complicity of American governments and corporations in such actions.

• Supporting local efforts to show solidarity with exploited people worldwide, and to condemn the complicity of American governments and corporations in their marginalization.