by Guy Page

Democrats and their union allies are racing to constitutionalize their power base with Vermont’s Prop 3. This amendment would lock the right to organize, join unions, and force collective bargaining into the state constitution while explicitly banning any future right-to-work laws. In plain terms: once it’s in, no legislature can ever make union membership optional or stop mandatory dues agreements. It’s a permanent shield for the dues-collecting machine that keeps pouring money and ground troops into Democratic campaigns.

I agree with what Governor Phil Scott said (in so many words) at his press conference yesterday: unions are a good thing. They give appropriate power to working people to represent themselves effectively in the workplace. They are a free market counterbalance to employers’ equally free market desire to underpay.

But…..

Prop 3 isn’t about protecting “workers’ rights” so much as protecting the unions’ cash cow. Vermont already has strong labor protections. Prop 3 goes further by making exclusive representation and closed-shop style arrangements constitutionally bulletproof. Unions get a forever guarantee that the political money pipeline stays open and that future Republican or moderate majorities can’t touch it—exactly the kind of structural advantage that turns temporary majorities into permanent ones.

Watch the urgency: Democrats pushed this through two consecutive legislatures with near-unanimous Democratic support and enough Republican votes to clear the high bars, then timed it for the 2026 ballot. They’re not waiting for a federal shift or a change in public mood. They’re hard-wiring the union funding model into Vermont’s highest law before anyone can reverse course. When politicians treat dues and political leverage as a constitutional right, you know whose interests are really being served.

Planet Hank nails it in his video below. Hank will be my guest on Chronicle Conversations today at 12:30 PM on WVMT AM 620, FM 101.3, and wvmtradio.com.