Before There Was Bernie
By: Nick Brown
Tags: Democratic Party, Bernie Sanders, Socialism, Vermont, Congress

Like Jefferson Smith in Frank Capra’s “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” Bill Meyer was actually a Boy Scout.

Before Bernie Sanders, there was William H. Meyer. A political nobody when he decided to run for U.S. Senate as a Democrat in 1958, Meyer was a forester who had never run for office before crashing the best laid plans of the Vermont Democratic Party (which had been growing its ranks despite still having little governing power). Panicked that their shot at a Senate seat would be compromised by the upstart Meyer, the party convinced him to run in an unopposed primary for the less glamorous, lone U.S. House seat allocated to Vermont.

The Republican ranks of Vermont were strong, with no Democrat holding elected statewide office since before the Civil War. There was no expectation that a Democrat would defeat a Republican, especially Meyer’s opponent, a former governor. In the triumphant reelection of Dwight Eisenhower in the 1956 election, Republicans gained ground across the country and the election for Vermont’s House seat was not competitive; the Democrat lost by over 35 points. Going into 1958, few predicted the victory that would help spawn the modern progressive movement in Vermont. Meyer won by 3 points in a Democratic wave year that saw low turnout for Republicans, especially in the Northeast. Notably, the “stronger” candidate the Democrats had run for Senate lost by 5 points.

The result wasn’t just a Democrat beating a Republican. During his time in Congress, Meyer advocated for a far-left economic platform, racial justice, and a foreign policy that was friendlier to communist powers around the world. He voted to recognize The People’s Republic of China in the U.N., end the peacetime draft, and reject the military budget both years. He was an adamant anti-nuclear advocate, never failing to speak up even in the face of harsh criticism from his own party.

Meyer was also the House member furthest to the left on economic issues during his time in Congress according to his DW-Nominate score, a metric that measures ideology based on voting record. Meyer, represented below by the large square on the far left, was rated as more liberal than every one of his fellow Democrats on the economy and in line with Northern Democrats on social issues, including a yes vote for the 1960 Civil Rights Act.

In an article for the Harvard Crimson, Frederick Gardner says this about Meyer’s reelection strategy: “His campaign has again been a give-and-take with the voters, wherein he tries to do as much listening as talking. Apparently his major objective is to reach a maximum number of people personally, to counteract the effects of a generally hostile press. The factors working for him are the tremendous degree to which Vermonters believe in his honesty, and the growing acceptance of his views.”

By 1960, the Democratic establishment was done with Meyer and decided to put up a primary challenger against him, who was swiftly put down by over 40 points. However, Meyer lost reelection to a Republican in the general election by a wide margin. His loss wasn’t unique; even with New England Democrat John F. Kennedy at the top of the ticket in the presidential election, down ballot Republicans in the Northeast did well, winning back 5 seats and ultimately controlling 14 out of the 28 seats allocated to New England in the House of Representatives.

Following his defeat, Meyer continued to run for statewide office during the 1960s as a champion of peace, civil liberties, and left-wing economic ideas. After seeing the failures of the Democratic Party to advocate for working class voters and losing those following elections, Meyer set out to start his own party in Vermont.

Meyer, alongside Peter Diamondstone and Richard Clarke, founded the Liberty Union Party in 1970 not to win elections, but to act as a thorn in the side of the two-party system. Meyer wanted Democrats and Republicans challenged from the left in debates and in the public discourse. Candidates garnered just over 5% of the vote consistently, ensuring the Liberty Union “major-party status” in Vermont.

Enter a young Bernie Sanders who, potentially inspired by Meyer, moved to Vermont and quickly fell into the Liberty Union ranks in 1971, running for 4 statewide offices in 4 years under their banner. During the 1970s, Sanders branded himself to left-leaning, anti-establishment voters across the state, but most importantly, in Burlington, where small third parties were beginning to challenge the entrenched Republican-Democrat coalition government.

In Sanders’ last run with the Liberty Union Party, this time for governor in 1976, The Queen City and the rest of vote-rich Chittenden County, came out strong for the Brooklyn-born socialist. About 15% of Sanders’ entire vote in the state came from Burlington at a time when Burlington only constituted about 8.6% of Vermont’s population.

The geographical coalition that would eventually power his statewide success was shaping up. Win the most rural parts of the Green Mountains, win Chittenden County, specifically Burlington, in huge numbers, and remain competitive along the Connecticut River in the east. Sanders’ campaigns with the Liberty Union Party laid the groundwork for his run for Mayor of Burlington in 1980, but also clarified the path to become a statewide elected official in the future. Sanders knew that in such a small state, he could become a fixture in state politics by keeping his name on the ballot and eventually, put up a real, serious challenge to the system. Not as a protest, but to win.

Sanders has never acknowledged Meyer as an inspiration or said that he picked Vermont as the place to start his political career intentionally. When asked why he chose Vermont, Sanders tells a wholesome anecdote about “a fascination with the Green Mountain State born in glossy real estate guides” that developed when he was about 13. If that’s true, it was great luck for the young socialist. Vermont had a burgeoning third-party movement in the state’s biggest city, a clear path to victory for a progressive, and had been perfectly primed for Sanders’ brand of politics by William H. Meyer in the late 1950s and through the 1960s. Whether by chance or by design, Bernie Sanders has William H. Meyer to thank for showing Vermonters that there was a different way than traditional Yankee conservatism.