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The following is an interview with Terry Bouricius, a member of the Board of Aldermen (city council) in Burlington, Vt., and a member of the steering and executive committees of the Progressive Coalition, which is running Bernie Sanders for governor in November.

Bouricius was first elected to office in 1981. He was reelected to the Board of Aldermen in 1983 and 1985 and is currently running for the Vermont state legislature on the Progressive Coalition ticket. The interview was conducted on Sept. 14 by Alan Benjamin.

Socialist Action: What is the Progressive Coalition and what are your: relations with the Democratic Party and the Rainbow Coalition in Vermont?

Terry Bouricius: The Progressive Coalition is not like a lot of left-wing organizations or parties that have sprung up in the United States in the past. It did not come out of a study group, research, or ideas. It came out of a reality of radicals and socialists getting elected to office in Burlington.

I ran as a Citizens Party candidate for Board of Aldermen in 1981. Bernie Sanders ran for mayor as an independent. Our campaigns were connected in that we knew each other and had previously worked together in the Liberty Union Party. But our campaigns were not really coordinated.

When we won in 1981, it was pretty much a surprise. Once we got elected, an organization sort of formed around that unique event. It became apparent that the thing to do was to extend the success we had had in the electoral arena.

The first year after we were elected, the Citizens For Fair Play was formed. It dealt with the problems the new socialist administration had in dealing with the old-guard Democrats.

We ran as independent or Citizens Party candidates against the Democrats and the Republicans and were able to defeat them. Our major opponents up to this day have been the Democrats. We found it easier to deal with Republicans, who are principled conservatives, than to deal with the Democrats, who are unprincipled and have a hidden agenda of trying to oust us as upstarts.

The people around what was then the Citizens Party, the independents and radicals, and many new people and activists have all come together in what we call the Progressive Coalition. We have finally organized as an entity with a steering committee, executive committee, and a structure.

S.A.: What is the goal of the Progressive Coalition in the current statewide elections?

Bouricius: We are now broadening out to state politics, but not in any organized way. We are basically running as supporters of Bernie Sanders' campaign for governor. Bernie is running as an independent against the Democrats. I am the only candidate other than Bernie running on the label of the Progressive Coalition. Supporters of Bernie's are running in other places in the state, some as independents, some as Democrats.

That brings up the issue of how we relate to the Rainbow Coalition. The Rainbow Coalition in Vermont is probably more organized and more radical than the Rainbow in most places in the country.

One Rainbow leader, Ellen David-Friedman, is a socialist radical who got elected to the Democratic National Committee at the 1984 convention. But now they are sorry about that. They have since asked for her resignation many times. She's refused to resign.

The local Rainbow activists don't have any loyalty to the Democratic Party. They work for candidates who are running against Democrats. For example, Ellen DavidFriedman has worked hard for Bernie's campaign for governor against Democratic incumbent Madeleine Kunin. She was the co-manager of the campaign for many months.

S.A.: In a recent article in the bulletin of the National Committee for Independent Political Action, Ellen David-Friedman explains that the Rainbow in Vermont "has constructed itself as an independent organization....while running and electing Rainbow Democrats and holding Democratic Party roles." Isn't there a contradiction here?

Bouricius: They use the phrase "having an inside/outside stance toward the Democratic Party" to define what they are doing.

S.A.: But aren't they totally committed to staying inside the Democratic Party? Isn't that the national line of the Rainbow?

Bouricius: Nationally that's what's happening, but that is not really what's happening in Vermont. The 8 SOCIALIST ACTION ОСТОВ 1986 Vermont Rainbow has a structure and a leadership which meets and chooses to endorse candidates who are running against Democrats as well as endorsing candidates who are running in the Democratic Party primary.

S.A.: Why don't these forces decide to go it on their own and build an independent party in clear and open opposition to the Democrats.

Bouricius: That is the position that many of us in the Progressive Coalition have taken. We have urged people in the Rainbow to leave the Democratic Party—to split and form a new organization or join the Progressive Coalition. But there has been resistance.

There is a common feeling among many people in the local towns, for example, that they can take over the Democratic Party. Others who have the inside/outside strategy want to see how far they can push the limits of working inside the Democratic Party. They refer to this Burlington, Vt., Mayor Bernie Sanders as using the Democratic Party as the playing field for the conflict.

S.A.: But doesn't this only fuel illusions that this capitalist party can be a potential avenue for social change, when, in fact, it is the main obstacle...

Bouricius: That is the problem people like myself have. In Burlington we are very busy trying to smash and dismantle the Democratic Party, but people in other parts of the state feel this is not practical in their communities. They don't have the sense of success that we have had.

S.A.: You speak about the Progressive Coalition having a clear position on independent political action yet I hear contradictory signals from Bernie Sanders. Sanders told The Guardian newspaper last year that he was "opposed in principle" to working within the Democratic Party, and Ferraro in 1984.

Sanders recently spoke at a fundraiser for the Berkeley Citizens Alliance (BCA), which is the local Democratic Party club. At the conclusion of the recent West Coast Socialist and Activists Conference, Sanders told our reporter that he was extremely impressed with the April convention of the National Rainbow Coalition and that while he would prefer it if the Rainbow were outside the Democratic Party, he would nonetheless urge support for the Rainbow and for Jesse Jackson. Yet Jackson is for funneling the disenfranchised back into the Democratic Party. Isn't this double-talk?

Bouricius: The '84 presidential election was absolutely the first and only time Bernie has ever been willing to say that he would support a Democrat. It is the lesser-evil argument.

S.A.: But wasn't it clear that Mondale would quarantine Nicaragua and that his policies were indistinguishable from Reagan's? Mondale made no pretense of even being a liberal...

Bouricius: There is a certain element of truth to that. That is why the campaign that Bernie ran with some people of the Rainbow Coalition was focused on attacking the administration and Reagan-and was primarily not a pro-Mondale campaign. There was a lot of torment in trying to figure out what to do.

As for Jesse Jackson, Bernie explained to him when he came to Burlington why we were trying to dismantle, supplant, and eliminate the Democratic Party here locally. Bernie did not support Jackson in the 1984 primaries. He did not want to play a role in the Democratic primary process at all and wanted to ignore the Democratic Party completely. That is the position that a lot of us took. Others here did work for Jackson.

Many people around the country view us as an example and sympathize with what we are doing-like the BCA. But Bernie didn't give political support to the BCA.

We don't have any affiliation, analysis, or strategy on a national level. We don't think that we're simply going to grow and grow and become an alternative independent pole nationwide. There are no illusions around that. We are basically a municipal organization.

S.A.: What are Bernie Sanders' prospects in these Bouricius: Bernie is an acknowledged major candidate, even though he is an independent. He is one of the viable candidates and is treated fully and equally by the news media.

His support is not breaking down along liberal or conservative lines. His support is far more class-based than liberal- or conservative-based. Many working-class people, when asked, will say they are conservative and yet they support Bernie. His campaign has captured the anti-big government, anti-establishment, anti-big business sentiment that has been captured by the right in most parts of this country.

There's a slim chance he will be elected. least as good a shot of being elected governor being elected mayor.

S.A.: What are your own prospects?

Bouricius: I am probably considered the frontrunner. I am running against a young liberal Democrat, a career politician, who would probably support the ERA and oppose U.S. involvement in Nicaragua, but is fundamentally a liberal. If I am able to do my campaigning as expected, the odds are that I will probably win.

I am hopeful that, if elected, I will be able to form a progressive caucus within the legislature, probably with a few Democrats and at least one Republican, who is rather progressive.

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