Vermont’s status as a climate leader is in jeopardy after Republicans netted their biggest statehouse gains in decades, breaking the Democratic supermajority that has spent years passing climate policy over GOP Gov. Phil Scott’s vetoes.
A backlash to the state’s climate policy fueled the Republican gains, members of both parties said. They singled out the state’s recent Affordable Heat Act — a prelude to a potential “clean heat” standard — as exacerbating voters’ concerns about fuel costs in the New England state.
Those worries were compounded by an election-year hike in property taxes of almost 14 percent — something Democrats blamed on the state’s school funding formula — that Republicans wove into a unified argument about restoring affordability.
In the 30-member Senate, Republicans won 13 seats — almost doubling their seven-member caucus from this session and breaking the working supermajority Democrats held in the chamber since 2005. (Third-party or independent lawmakers also serve in both chambers.)
