Welch an unchallenged pragmatist Sen. chats about campaign to move from Vt. to Capitol Hill

Author: Joshua Carson

This week, The Campus spoke with the Democratic candidate for Vermont's lone House seat, Peter Welch. Welch is currently the president pro tempore of the Vermont state Senate and is gearing up for the November election, one of the few competitive House races in the country. Both he and front-runner Republican candidate Martha T. Rainville are vying for the seat to be vacated by Bernie Sanders, who is running for the Senate.

The Campus: What issue facing Vermont are you most passionate about?

Peter Welch: Frankly I think we have to change the direction of the Bush Congress. It is doing significant damage to Vermont - on the environment, on the budget including the need for higher education, on health care. So I really believe the most important question facing Vermont is the same question facing voters in 434 other congressional districts. We want a change in direction. We've got a Congress and a president that are pursuing radical and extreme policies and they're incompetently administered. So I really do think the biggest question is changing direction. The issues I personally care about that are off the agenda but need to be on the agenda are global warming, energy independence, universal healthcare, budget priorities that emphasise health and education, and paying our bills - not passing a huge debt onto future generations.

TC: You are clearly concerned with the relationship between Vermont and the federal government. What is happening and what needs to change?

PW: The federal government is passing problems onto the state. Very simply, the federal government has an upside-down budget - $400 billion to the war in Iraq, huge tax cuts for the wealthy. That is translating into budget cuts that are imposed on the states. So I'll give a couple of examples: the first three weeks in Montpelier we had to raise a lot of money by Vermont standards - $10 million - to cover the shortfall in low income heating assistance - a federal program - to keep our seniors warm in the winter; the state spent $12 million on the prescription drug program that the federal government totally messed up; and while the least amount of money but the most shocking, we had to come up with $250,000 to fill a hole in the mental health budget for our Iraqi veterans. That is just all inevitable when you have the upside-down budget priorities that we see in Washington with the Bush Congress.

TC: Vermont is a state passionate about maintaining environmental standards, something you have emphasized in your platform. But this sentiment is not necessarily mirrored down in Washington, particularly in the Congress. Do you think this can change?

PW: I do. I really think that there is a stirring of concern and energy and urgency about aggressively challenging the environmental policies of the Bush administration, which is to say no policy: laisse-faire. But it's an issue that I hear expressed by young people in particular who are demanding that there be a commitment to clearing up our environment and to stopping global warming.

TC: Regardless of the results in the mid-term election, the Congress - whether it is Democratic or Republican controlled - will be working with a Republican administration. You've had success in Montpelier working in a bipartisan environment, but how do you see yourself working with the Bush administration and in Washington where partisan bickering is much more pronounced?

PW: I'd actually bring my Vermont approach to Washington. And my approach is to sit down with people who want to solve problems. I'm not interested particularly whether they are Republicans or Democrats. I'm interested in whether they want to solve problems. For instance, as Senate president [in Vermont], I've appointed Republicans to chair major committees in the Senate if they were the right people for the job, and they were very helpful. I would approach things in the same way in Washington with the recognition that in order to get anywhere you have to be willing to advocate for your position and you have to be willing to listen to others who are making honest suggestions and comments. And I think people are pretty fed up with the partisanship, but what we have in Washington is an unequal situation. We have the concentration of all power in one party. And the leadership of that party is extreme and frankly quite out of touch with American, and certainly democratic values. So having a check and balance by electing a Democratic Congress I think it is going to be good for the process. It is going to force the Republican president and the Republican senate to contend with another point of view.

TC: On the national level, the Republican party is clearly weakened - the Abramoff scandal, the CIA leak and the ongoing war in Iraq - and it would seem the Democrats are in a strong position to make gains in both the House and Senate. But some would argue that the Democrats have not presented a coherent platform and have failed to articulate a vision for the country. As a Democrat, how do you respond to these critics and what are you doing to ensure your views are know?

PW: I think there is merit to some of that criticism. We've had a rubber stamp Republican congress but the Democrats have too often been too timid. And frankly, I think the Democrats should be standing up for an end to global warming, policies committed to energy independence, paying our bills, having universal healthcare in five to 10 years and changing our budgetary priorities to spend less on military and more on education and healthcare. Also in foreign policy, [we should be] standing up for America to assert its leadership through leadership in international organizations. We've got to get other countries to work with us on matters of importance, everything from security to environmental protection to trade agreements. The United States hasn't signed the Kyoto protocol; that's absolutely wrong. And I'd push for that very strongly. We haven't signed the U.N. treaty on torture; that's wrong.

Basically, there are two philosophies, this is how I see it. The philosophy that we've had in this country in the Democratic party when we've been successful, says "we're all in it together." The policy in the Bush White House is "you are on your own." And it is what has led to the justification for not raising the minimum wage since 1996 or 97, to promoting privatizing social security, to tolerating an increase in the number of people without insurance by 5 to 6 million to watching wages for average people stagnate even as CEO pay is exploding. America is a better place when we have a commitment to policies that have as their bedrock foundation a view that "we're all in it together." Everyone should have health care, everyone should pay. Everyone should have retirement security through a social security system where everyone pays and everyone has the benefits. And that's what we strayed from. It's almost as though this election will be about whether we're going to get back to the basic American commitment to do things that benefit all of us and not just a few of us.

TC: You're the president of the Vermont state Senate, you are running a campaign for U.S. Congress, do you have any time for anything else?

PW: No. [laughing] A little bit of basketball and a little bit of running. But that keeps you busy.

TC: Well that's all I have, but is there anything else you'd like to say to Middlebury College?

PW: I think the Middlebury College students have done some very exciting things on global warming and climate change and really making a real contribution to the whole debate and I applaud them.