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Push for ranked-choice elections dies in Vermont's biggest city

Burlington, Vermont; ranked-choice voting

The mayor of Burlington, Vt., objected to the cost of adding a ranked-choice voting referendum to the general election ballot.

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The drive to bring ranked-choice voting back to Burlington — Vermont's most populous city and one of the most liberal in the country — appears to have been quashed.

Mayor Miro Weinberger issued his first veto after eight years in office late last week, blocking a citywide vote in November on whether so-called RCV should be used in future municipal elections. An override vote was scheduled for Monday, but neither side predicted the city council would have the supermajority needed to reverse the veto.

Because RCV has proven most popular in New England and among progressives, the setting for the setback was unusual. Ranked elections have become one of the more popular ideas in the democracy reform world, because they're seen as one of the best ways to reduce combative partisanship by improving the chances for outsider and consensus-minded politicians.


The mayor rejected a measure passed last month by the council, on a 6-5 vote, with all his fellow Democrats opposed. (The council majority is made up of Progressives and independents.) Weinberger said he objected to the $45,000 cost of adding a referendum to the general election ballot and said he worried that debating the "polarizing and divisive issue" of RCV "will consume community attention and resources at a moment in which those finite resources are urgently needed elsewhere."

Under RCV, voters rank candidates in order of preference and, if none of them muster a majority of No. 1 votes and win outright, the person with the fewest top-choice votes is eliminated and those votes are assigned based on their second choices.
That "instant runoff" process continues until one candidate has a majority.

Burlington was one of the first places to use the method in the country. But voters repealed the system in 2010 after a particularly contentious election in which the mayor at the time seemed to have been defeated but ended up re-elected when the instant runoff was over.

Adopting a referendum to go back to RCV would need to be followed by approval by the Legislature and governor — which means it would have almost certainly been delayed beyond next year's mayoral contest, in March. Weinberger has not yet said whether he'll seek reelection.

Council member Jack Hanson decried Weinberger's veto as "inherently undemocratic," adding: "It also is very dangerous rhetoric of, 'Democracy is too expensive, and we don't want to hear from more people on an issue that affects our city.' "

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Marines Sent to Los Angeles “Presents a Significant Logistical and Operational Challenge”

Protesters confront National Guard soldiers and police outside of a federal building as protests continue in Los Angeles following three days of clashes with police after a series of immigration raids on June 09, 2025, in Los Angeles, California.

(Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

Marines Sent to Los Angeles “Presents a Significant Logistical and Operational Challenge”

LOS ANGELES, CA - An estimated 700 U.S. Marines are being mobilized from the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center in Twentynine Palms, approximately 140 miles east of Los Angeles, to Camp Pendleton in San Diego County. This mobilization will position the troops closer to Los Angeles, where they may potentially work alongside National Guard units to protect federal resources and personnel, according to NBC News.

The latest figures from police, nearly 70 individuals were arrested over the weekend during protests. This total includes 29 people arrested on Saturday for failure to disperse and 21 individuals arrested on Sunday on charges ranging from attempted murder involving a Molotov cocktail to looting and failure to disperse, as reported by the LAPD.

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From Unite America: NEW 30 MINUTE CUT: With America's democratic experiment mired in division and dysfunction, the state of Alaska votes to revolutionize their election system. The surprising results spark new alliances, a growing call for election reform, and fierce pushback from political parties. Could changing how Americans vote also change politics for the better?

America’s Political Crisis Sparks Great Interest in the Federalist Papers. Is That a Good Thing?

U.S. Founding Documents.

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Last week, I was at an event with United States Senator Chris Coons of Delaware where he was interviewed about this country’s current political crisis. As he was responding to questions, Senator Coons (full disclosure, he is a former student) gave an unusually eloquent and impassioned call for service and political engagement.

He offered his audience an opportunity to consider why democracy is worth defending. I was enthralled.

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GOP Funding Bill Could Put CA Rural Health Centers, Hospitals at Risk

Medicaid, known as Medi-Cal in California, makes up about 40% of revenue for Community Health Centers, which serve almost 32 million mostly low-income people nationwide.

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GOP Funding Bill Could Put CA Rural Health Centers, Hospitals at Risk

People who depend on Community Health Centers and rural hospitals could have trouble finding care if Medicaid cuts just approved by the U.S. House are signed into law.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated 8 million people nationwide could lose coverage over the next decade, including more than 3 million in California.

Lizette Escobedo, vice president of government relations and civic engagement at AltaMed Health Services in Los Angeles, said the costs to treat a flood of uninsured patients would overwhelm community clinics and small town hospitals.

"If this bill were to be implemented over the next 10 years, some federally qualified health centers and hospitals especially in the rural areas would probably have to close their doors," Escobedo projected.

Supporters of the bill said the savings are needed to fund other administration priorities, including President Donald Trump's 2017 tax cuts. The bill would also tighten work requirements for Medicaid coverage and force people to reapply every six months instead of annually. And it would slash tens of billions in federal funding to states like California allowing health coverage for undocumented people.

Joe Dunn, chief policy officer for the National Association of Community Health Centers, called the proposed cuts counterproductive, in terms of keeping people healthy and keeping costs down.

"Health centers actually save money in the long run, because it reduces utilization of emergency departments and other kind of higher-cost settings, like inpatient hospitalization," Dunn explained.

The bill is now in the U.S. Senate.

GOP Funding Bill Could Put CA Rural Health Centers, Hospitals at Risk was originally published by the Public News Service and is republished with permission.

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