MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) - Outgoing Gov. Peter Shumlin said he would leave office on Thursday after leading the state for six years as enthusiastic and optimistic about it as he was when he first walked into the Montpelier Statehouse as a young representative almost 30 years ago.
Speaking to a packed House chamber with many of his senior staff members looking on, the Democrat rattled off some of the accomplishments of his time in office.
Shumlin said Vermont residents need to continue to lead the nation on issues such as confronting climate change and advancing social causes but also must push back as the country enters “an era of narrow, outdated ways of thinking” under the administration of Republican President-elect Donald Trump. Trump has called the science showing climate change a hoax, but in a television interview last month he said he was “still open-minded” about it.
Shumlin, who didn’t seek re-election and will be succeeded by Republican Gov.-elect Phil Scott, said it would be easy for Vermont residents to sit back and rest on what the state has already accomplished.
“But we can’t do that. Our nation has stumbled backward, and America needs Vermont’s leadership now more than ever,” Shumlin said. “That requires all of you to keep up the fight and turn a momentary stumble backward into an inspiring leap forward. Vermont must always stand against the hatred, the bigotry, the intolerance that will sadly be part of our future.”
Trump has said he disavows and condemns hate groups that celebrated his presidential election victory and was saddened to hear reports some of his supporters might be harassing minorities.
Shumlin took office in 2011 as the state and the nation were coming out of the Great Recession. In the three years before he was elected Vermont lost nearly 10,000 jobs, unemployment had spiked and incomes had stagnated. The state had no energy plan and ranked 45th in the nation in the number of structurally deficient bridges, he said.
The state hospital was crumbling, more than 30,000 Vermont residents had no broadband internet service and the state’s prison population was increasing to the point where the state was in danger of locking up more people than are sent to pre-kindergarten. The challenge of opiate addiction was “bubbling just below the surface,” he said, and there were tens of thousands of people without health insurance.
In the last six years the state has added 16,000 jobs, the unemployment rate has fallen every year and personal per capita incomes have grown faster than the national average for the last five years. The state hospital has been replaced, the number of inmates has declined and few state residents lack health insurance.
Almost every home now has access to broadband internet service, and the state has 12 times as many solar panels and 25 times as much wind power. Shumlin said one in 17 state residents works in the renewable-energy sector and the state leads the nation with the highest number of per capita clean-energy jobs.
“Tomorrow, I will no longer be your governor,” he said. “But I will be a Vermonter demanding that my government stand firm for the values that make this state what it is and has always been. Given what I know to be true about this state that I love, I am confident I will not be the only one. That’s why I am leaving this chamber today with the same enthusiasm, hope and optimism I had 30 years ago when I first arrived.”
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