{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://welch.house.gov/media-center/in-the-news/vermont-business-magazine-gentleman-every-sense-word-mr-welch-goes", "Vermont Business Magazine: A Gentleman in Every Sense of the Word: Mr. Welch Goes to Washington", "2017-11-27", "2017", "2017-11", "Democrat", "House", "VT", "Peter Welch", "W000800", "welch.house.gov", null, null, "legacy", "There are two great threats to American democracy today and neither one are named Trump, said Vermont\u2019s lone-ranger congressman, Peter Francis Welch (D-VT).\n\u201cOne is (the US Supreme Court decision) Citizens United and the immense amount of money in politics that\u2019s not accountable,\u201d Welch said. \u201cAnd the other is gerrymandering, where you get boutique districts designed for either the extreme right or the extreme left. Those two issues have gotten worse since I\u2019ve been in Congress. Trump just upped the ante.\u201d\nVermonters elected Welch to the House of Representatives as their standard-bearing liberal/progressive, throwing him into the flaming fires of Washington politics in 2006, back when George W Bush was president. Liking what they saw, they have sent him back every two years since.\u00a0\nIf Vermonters thought Welch would have an easier time after Bush, when Democratic President Barack Obama came into office, then two words should correct that thinking: those words are Mitch and McConnell.\nSenate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is the man who vowed to stonewall every piece of Obama\u2019s legislation that he could get his hands on. He remains Senate Majority Leader. And now there\u2019s President Donald Trump. You have to wonder if Vermonters have a collective death wish for Welch.\nWelch, however, loves his job and refuses to talk about retiring.\n\u201cCongress has been a tremendous opportunity for someone who believes we\u2019ve all got to pitch in to do the best to maintain our democracy,\u201d he said. \u201cI just love serving in Congress. And my period in Congress has been extraordinary times for the country.\u201d\u00a0\nIn person Welch looks like a buttoned-down lawyer, but he has an unexpected history of involvement in social justice issues that some might call radical.\u00a0\n\u201cIt\u2019s the culture I grew up in,\u201d said Welch, who was born into a large Irish Catholic family in Springfield, Mass. \u201cWhen I was a kid we took a trip down south to Florida. I think we were in Georgia when I saw the segregated water fountains and bathrooms. They were quite shocking and I wasn\u2019t prepared for it. So when I got involved in community organizing in Chicago, I was working with an organization affiliated with Dr Martin Luther King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. The first summer, we took buses and went down to Atlanta for the SCLC convention. We went to the Ebenezer Baptist Church, heard Ralph Abernathy, Hosea Williams and then Martin Luther King speak. That was quite a stunning experience for this person from Springfield, Mass.\u201d\nIn Vermont, Welch, 70, served as a public defender and as a principal in the small White River Junction law firm of Welch Graham & Manby. He served in the Vermont Senate on two occasions, both times being elected head of the chamber. According to his website, he was the first Democratic president pro tem in the history of the state.\n\u201cI say this for a laugh, but there\u2019s a lot of truth in it \u2014 I\u2019d been gone so long people forgot why they were mad at me,\u201d Welch said. \u201cSo they elected me Senate president a second time. In my job, no matter what you\u2019re doing, people are always mad at you. Whatever you\u2019re doing, you should be doing something else.\u201d\nWelch went to Congress after a 2006 campaign that was called \u201cthe cleanest in American politics.\u201d He and his Republican opponent (Martha Rainville) vowed not to run negative campaign ads; even under party pressure, they kept that vow.\u00a0\nFor a lone congressman from a tiny state, Welch has been in the thick of things ever since he won that fight. He is a Chief Deputy Whip of the House Democratic Caucus and a member of the Democratic Steering and Policy Committee. He serves on the Committee on Energy and Commerce and the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.\u00a0\nIn his Congressional career Welch has experienced more ups and downs than a roller coaster, but he has retained his principles, remained a firm liberal and, in the spirit of Jim Jeffords and George Aiken, been a strong supporter of civility, progress and across-party cooperation in politics.\n\u201cPeter Welch is a model statesman,\u201d said Christopher P Gibson, a Republican from upstate New York who served in Congress from 2011 to 2017 before retiring from public life. \u201cHe works very hard for all his people. He works well with his colleagues in Washington, DC. He\u2019s somebody I have the utmost respect for.\u201d\nTogether, Gibson and Welch worked on Hurricane Irene relief, veterans\u2019 assistance, the farm bills and legislation to help fight Lyme disease.\n\u201cWe worked together on very important legislation,\u201d Gibson said. \u201cAfter Hurricane Irene, we were co-chairs of the relief task force and were successful in delivering significant federal funds to help our areas in the region recover. When it comes to fostering small business growth, job creation and seeing wages rise, Vermonters have a tremendous advocate in Peter Welch.\u201d\nWelch is married to Margaret Cheney, a commissioner of the Vermont Public Utility Commission. His first wife, Joan Smith, died of cancer in 2004. Welch has five stepchildren from his first marriage and three stepchildren from his second.\nIn conversation, Welch is earnest, intense, thoughtful, accessible and friendly. He has a sense of humor so dry it borders on irony. He may be somewhat lacking in flash, brash or charisma; the best words to describe him are \u201cthoroughly decent.\u201d\nOr, as climate change activist and Middlebury Professor Bill McKibben said, \u201cHe is a gentleman in every sense of that word, and people respond to that.\u201d\nOther notable Vermont constituents feel the same way.\n\u201cI have been so grateful for the opportunity to know and work with Peter Welch,\u201d said Green Mountain Power CEO Mary Powell. \u201cPeter has been the source of great inspiration for me when it comes to making a difference and tackling challenges head on. Maybe even more important, though, is his ability to tackle challenges with what feels at times like endless love, curiosity and a true desire to bridge differences and create rational, practical and meaningful outcomes. Vermont is lucky to have him serving us in Washington.\u201d\nWelch\u2019s strong support of the environment has also earned him McKibben\u2019s approval.\n\u201cI know a lot of members of Congress, and Peter Welch is unique in a couple of ways,\u201d McKibben said. \u201cHe is relentlessly progressive and doesn't pull his punches. But he manages to work across ideological boundaries in the moment in American history when that may be hardest.\u00a0On environmental issues he's been absolutely stalwart from day one. He\u2019s always willing to pitch in to help. And since he's very respected by his colleagues, that means he can accomplish a good deal.\u201d\nFormer Speaker of the Vermont House of Representatives Shapleigh Smith, now an attorney with Dinse Knapp McAndrew, knew Welch even before he went into politics.\u00a0\n\u201cHe and I had a case together, probably in the late 1990s,\u201d Smith said. \u201cI found him to be someone who was just incredibly interested in what other people had to think. He\u2019s just an easy person to talk to. When I came into public service, he was that way in the building \u2014\u00a0very open, very approachable, really willing to consider all points of view. And that\u2019s still true.\u201d\u00a0\nOn the issue of health care, Welch has won the admiration of, among others, Thomas Huebner, the president of the Rutland Medical Center.\n\u201cPeter has been involved in health policy issues since he was in the Vermont Legislature,\u201d Huebner said. \u201cHe has been a strong advocate in health policy matters. He has really pushed for broad coverage for Vermonters in Vermont and in Congress. He was active in helping to establish Catamount Health and the Affordable Health Act. He\u2019s been a friend to health care providers \u2014 to hospitals and doctors \u2014 helping to ensure we have the federal resources we need to take care of our community. He\u2019s a 100 percent reliable friend to us. He\u2019s been really active in helping our health care system in Vermont to be successful.\u201d\nAt this writing, the Trump Administration is trying to cut back on the 340B Drug Discount Program that requires drug manufacturers to provide outpatient drugs to eligible health care organizations and others at reduced prices.\u00a0\n\u201cWe count on that revenue to help pay our bills,\u201d Huebner said. \u201cThere\u2019s a new rule that\u2019s trying to take that away from us, and Peter has been terrific in trying to sustain that for us. He\u2019s been there every time we need him. It\u2019s a proposed rule and it has not gone into effect and he\u2019s trying to prevent that from ever happening.\u201d\u00a0\nWelch doesn\u2019t pull his punches. In a health-care related Tweet on October 13, he called Trump\u2019s decision to cut off payments that defray out-of-pocket costs for low-income Americans \u201cstunning, reckless and cruel.\u201d\nHe went on to say, \u201cAfter failing to convince Congress to repeal the Affordable Care Act, he is now openly sabotaging it, which will raise the premiums of hardworking Americans by 20 percent. He is also undermining bipartisan discussions well underway in Congress to make much needed improvements to the law. I hope this irresponsible decision is overturned by the courts. In the meantime, Congress should move forward with making the Affordable Care Act work better for working families.\u201d\nThe issues may change but Welch remains constant \u2014 and constantly a Vermonter.\u00a0\nHe keeps his promises. For example, he went to DC with a mandate to end the Iraq War.\n\u201cWe became a majority and Nancy Pelosi was Speaker,\u201d Welch said. \u201cThat\u2019s when we really started putting pressure on to get us home from Iraq. Not that things are calm over there now by any means, but we don\u2019t have the same number of troops as we did. Vermonters paid a high price in Iraq. We had the highest death rate per capita in Iraq and Afghanistan for a period of time. It\u2019s sort of a Vermont tradition \u2014 we had the highest death rate per capita during the Civil War as well.\u201d\nWithin three months of getting to DC, Welch was on the ground in Iraq with both Republican and Democratic colleagues. Then he went to the White House and met with George Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.\u00a0\n\u201cIt was my chance to advocate for my position directly to the president on the behalf of Vermonters who felt very strongly about it,\u201d Welch said.\nThings should have been easier for Welch during the Obama administration, when, for a brief time, Democrats held the White House and a majority in the House and Senate. But that\u2019s when the Republicans shifted the playing field \u2014 in what some worry might be a permanent shift.\u00a0\n\u201cIn 2010 the Tea Party came to Congress, and from my perspective it was terrible,\u201d Welch said. \u201cWe went from a Congress where we were engaged in public policy \u2014 and you can debate whether we could have done a better health care bill or a better Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act \u2014 to a Congress where the sole objective was summed up by Mitch McConnell when he said, \u2018My job is to make sure Barack Obama is a one-term president.\u2019 I found that truly bizarre. When Jim Douglas, a Republican, was governor of Vermont, I remember a lot of my Democratic colleagues wanted us to give him a hard time. They thought that would somehow lead us to the governorship. And I reminded them that the same people who had voted for us voted for him.\u201d\nSerious competition should be practiced during the campaign, Welch said. After that, elected officials should get down to the hard work of governance.\u00a0\n\u201cThat was not the Mitch McConnell\u2019s orientation,\u201d Welch said. \u201cBut it\u2019s the orientation of Vermonters. McConnell was explicit that his job was to just say no and actively undercut anything Obama was proposing. That\u2019s flat-out wrong. That\u2019s not the job of an elected official. Then we went through the process of voting to repeal health care like 60 times, voting to repeal Dodd-Frank 60 times, or however many times it was. It was sort of a show Congress, in the sense that the Republican majority in the House couldn\u2019t get their legislation passed. Either they couldn\u2019t get it through the Senate or they couldn\u2019t get it signed by Obama. So there was a lot of wheel-spinning and symbolic work and it\u2019s emblematic of why people are getting so frustrated with the institution.\u201d\nWelch\u2019s technique is to build bridges, build alliances, build relationships and build anything else he hopes will help him serve his state.\u00a0\n\u201cWhen we were in the majority, when we were doing the climate change bill and I was doing an energy efficiency bill, even though I didn\u2019t \u2018need\u2019 Republican votes, I went and saw every Republican member of the Energy and Commerce Committee to ask if they had any suggestions about what to put in my energy efficiency bill,\u201d Welch said. \u201cThey appreciated that I stopped by, they gave me ideas, and if they were good ideas I incorporated them in my bill. Even though, in the end, they didn\u2019t vote for it. But it made it a better bill.\u201d\nThe Democrats were in the minority in Washington when Tropical Storm Irene tore up much of Vermont.\u00a0\n\u201cWe were in real trouble in the House with Irene,\u201d Welch said. \u201cWe had a Republican majority, I was a delegation of one, and I wasn\u2019t on one of the jurisdictional committees. I needed Republicans to help me, and a lot of those Republicans I\u2019d been to, unsolicited, and asked them for their input, well they remembered that and said, \u2018Let\u2019s see if we can help Peter.\u2019 One of those people was the House Majority Leader at the time, Eric Cantor (R-VA). He helped me the most.\u201d\nThe laws governing the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) had to be changed to give Vermont well beyond the maximum amount of financial help allowed by law at the time.\n\u201cWe needed that because our damages were so great,\u201d Welch said. \u201cWe needed legislation. We had a Democratic majority in the Senate at the time; Senator Leahy was on the Appropriations Committee and he was in a solid position to help Vermont. I was in a precarious position. But by the end of the whole process, when it was very contentious and politicized, the Cantor staff was coming up to me on the floor of the House and asking me, \u201cMr Welch, do we have everything in the bill that Vermont needs?\u2019 Some of my colleagues couldn\u2019t believe it.\u201d\nThis being Congress, even doing the right thing was quid pro quo.\n\u201cNow, Eric Cantor and I disagreed about tax and budget issues and the war and a lot of things,\u201d Welch said. \u201cBut on the other hand, my job was to do things that Vermont needed done. Irene was a big deal and I\u2019d established relationships that I think helped us get through it. I worked with Eric on another bill and the Democratic leadership was upset with me. He asked me to co-sponsor this bill to get more money into pediatric cancer research. At the time the Democrats \u2014 and I was among them \u2014 were very upset with the budget proposals of the Republicans. They were really shrinking the research budget for the National Institutes of Health. I thought that was terrible. So there was a reservation on the part of the Democratic leadership about doing a piecemeal approach. My view was why not? If we can get money for kids\u2019 cancer, then let\u2019s do it.\u201d\nThe cancer research money would come from taxpayer dollars previously earmarked to support the Democratic and Republican conventions. Both sides had already agreed it was no longer an appropriate use of public funds.\u00a0\n\u201cSo I broke with the Democrats,\u201d Welch said. \u201cWe\u2019d like to have more research for cancer, especially for kids, so what\u2019s the problem? I was the lead Democratic sponsor and eventually we wore down the resistance and got that passed. We even had an Oval Office signing with President Obama.\u201d\nFinding common ground may be difficult, but it can make things happen the right way for Vermont, and Vermont expects it, Welch said.\u00a0\n\u201cWe\u2019re hanging on, but still trying to do things that Vermont needs to get done,\u201d Welch said. \u201cI found some common ground in energy efficiency with a lot of my Republican colleagues. Even if they deny climate change, they can see the benefits of efficiency \u2014 because you spend less.\u201d\nCommon sense is one of the biggest arrows in Welch\u2019s quiver. Right now he\u2019s arguing with the Democrats about offering support to out-of-work coal miners; his position puts him squarely in Republican territory.\n\u201cThe more we work to address climate change issues and move from a carbon economy to a clean energy economy, the more we have to reach out and try to help the folks in coal country who are being hammered by the transition,\u201d Welch said.\nTwo years ago, Welch visited a coal mine in West Virginia with Representative David McKinley (R-WV).\n\u201cWe went down 1,000 feet and four and a half miles in,\u201d Welch said. \u201cI was a little scared \u2014 it\u2019s so dark and deep. Then they turned the lights off.\u201d\nWelch enjoyed meeting the coal miners, who reminded him of Vermont dairy farmers.\n\u201cThey are wonderful people,\u201d Welch said. \u201cThe only people I\u2019ve ever met who work so hard are Vermont dairy farmers. They\u2019re the salt of the earth and they\u2019re proud of their work. And it\u2019s dangerous work. They\u2019ve suffered a lot, but they kept the lights on for us in Vermont. So yes, we have to move away from the carbon economy. But that doesn\u2019t mean we have to move away from the folks who helped us.\u201d\nWith that in mind, last year Welch was the lead sponsor on a bill that successfully restored coal miners\u2019 health care benefits.\u00a0\n\u201cThey also lost their pensions,\u201d Welch said. \u201cI had a press conference just the other day, three members from West Virginia, all Republicans, and me, trying to get their pensions back.\u201d\nThe election of Donald J Trump as president of the United States only amplified the anti-government feeling in Congress typified by McConnell.\u00a0\n\u201cThere\u2019s an emerging opposition to the role of government,\u201d Welch said. \u201cThere are a lot of Congressmen who basically don\u2019t believe in government. And that\u2019s unique. In the state Senate, I served with liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans but everyone believed that government should function. They believed there are roles the government should play. We\u2019ve got a lot of people down there now who challenge that. They\u2019re willing to shut the government down. They\u2019re willing to default on the debt.\u201d\nWelch blames Citizens United and gerrymandered districts for the problem.\n\u201cNo majority leader in the history of the country has ever lost a primary, but Eric Cantor did (in 2014),\u201d Welch said. \u201cAnd it doesn\u2019t make sense, because a majority leader is in a position to really help his or her district. The money in politics just turns people off. We\u2019re flooded with ads that are toxic and people throw their hands up and get sick of all of us.\u201d\u00a0\nDemocrats are partially to blame for this situation, Welch said.\n\u201cA lot of America has not been doing well economically \u2014 and rural America especially,\u201d Welch said. \u201cThere really is a divide. People who voted for Trump used to vote for Democrats. They saw the banks getting bailed out but they didn\u2019t get help on their mortgages. They saw the one percent doing great but their kids either can\u2019t go to school or, when they get out, they\u2019ve got debts equal to the mortgages we had when we were starting out. They feel government policies are not helping them get ahead. It\u2019s partly from trade deals but also from technology that\u2019s taken over jobs.\u201d\nFor example, when Welch was down in the mines he saw gigantic grinding machines chewing up the walls and dumping coal directly onto conveyor belts that traveled six miles just to reach the surface.\n\u201cTwelve people were working with this incredible machine, taking out tons and tons of coal,\u201d he said.\u201dThirty years ago, there would have been 300 people down there doing that work. It\u2019s the technology and the transition in the economy. There are winners and losers and I don\u2019t think our political policies have caught up with the challenges we face.\u201d\nThere\u2019s a word for a world without government, and that word is anarchy. It would make for a frightening end game, if that\u2019s where the country is going.\n\u201cI\u2019m not exaggerating,\u201d Welch said. \u201cA lot of folks think we\u2019ll all be better on our own. Now, some of these folks, if your house was on fire, they would be there to help. As a neighbor they\u2019d be fantastic. But they get skeptical or outright hostile about government. You saw that when those folks wanted to repeal Obamacare and had no replacement. Another moment came a few years ago when it came time to raise the debt ceiling and pass a budget, and they were willing to shut government down \u2014 and they did! Or they were willing to default on the debt, which they came within an inch of doing. Those are nuclear tactics. Default on the debt and you\u2019ll do enormous damage to the country and our credit rating. It would cost us billions of dollars. This is something really new.\u201d\nBrinksmanship, tense negotiations, seeing who\u2019s going to blink first \u2014 these are not unfamiliar tactics to Welch.\u00a0\n\u201cI worked with Ralph Wright and he wasn\u2019t afraid to be really aggressive,\u201d Welch said. \u201cBut most of us have some limits, because we know if we go beyond them we risk doing more harm than the good we claim is justifying our position. Those boundaries are eroding, if not vanishing, under President Trump. The norms, the guardrails, the things that establish reasonable boundaries whether you\u2019re a liberal or conservative? Those guardrails are collapsing.\u201d\nEarly Life\nWelch was born into a large Irish Catholic family in Springfield, Mass. He has an older brother and sister who are twins and three younger siblings.\u00a0\n\u201cWe\u2019re all still close,\u201d he said. \u201cEveryone\u2019s doing well.\u201d\nHis father was a dentist and his mother a homemaker. Both are now deceased.\nHis father wasn\u2019t interested in politics per se, Welch said, but he was very interested in what was going on in Springfield.\u00a0\n\u201cThe congressman in Springfield back then was Eddie Boland, and he used to be over at the house every now and then,\u201d Welch said. \u201cThe first campaign I worked on was his. I was passing out bumper stickers and literature \u2014 a very high level job.\u201d\u00a0\nBack then, Springfield was called the City of Homes; but urban renewal in the 1960s tore down a large swath of those homes in the name of progress and the Interstate highway system.\u00a0\nBut before then, in the 1950s and early 1960s, Welch said Springfield \u201cwas a great place to grow up. There were lots of manufacturing jobs. There was a big insurance company. It was very ethnic. Our neighborhood was very much mixed. We had a lot of Catholics who identified where they lived by their parish, and lots of Protestants and Jews. They all lived on our street. It was an eclectic place.\u201d\nThe term \u201chelicopter parent\u201d was unknown while Welch was growing up. He would hop on his bicycle after school and go hang out with his friends \u2014 he says he\u2019s still close to many of them. He was an athletic kind of guy. He played hockey at Holy Trinity Church and basketball at Holy Name. In baseball season, he was at the park.\u00a0\nWork was always an integral part of the picture, not because he had to work but because he wanted spending money. When he started out as a caddy at the Longmeadow Country Club, where caddies could play for free on Mondays, he was 12 years old.\n\u201cI worked all the time,\u201d Welch said. \u201cAll the summers. I worked in a quarry in East Longmeadow, in a machine tool company and as a camp counselor. One of the jobs was at a freight yard loading trailer trucks. All my brothers and sisters worked. We didn\u2019t have cars. We could walk to school, including high school. But I needed money to be with my friends and go out and do teenage things. The big job to get was construction because they paid the best. But they were the hardest jobs to get. Mostly you had a have a father who was in construction and could hook you up at a job site.\u201d\nAfter high school, Welch went to the nearby College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, where his father had gone and where some of his brothers also studied. He began a degree in history and kept right on working.\n\u201cI used to work at the Holiday Inn,\u201d Welch said. \u201cOne year I had 13 W-2s. I\u2019d get a job whenever I needed some money. When it snowed you could go down to the railroad yards and shovel the switches. I\u2019m most proud that whenever I needed money I could go to the fright yards in Worcester and Springfield. Just show up. They almost always needed someone to load the boxes onto the trucks.\u201d\nCivil Rights\nWelch came of age in the mid-Sixties, when the civil rights and anti-war movements were heating up.\n\u201cI left college at the end of my sophomore year and spent my junior year doing community organizing on the West Side of Chicago,\u201d Welch said. \u201cThat was a risky decision. It was the height of the Vietnam War. If you weren\u2019t in school you could get drafted. I went out there just for the summer but got so involved that a few of us decided to stay out there for the year. That was long before there were internships, and my parents were upset. My father went to talk to Father Brooks at Holy Cross to urge him to tell me to go back to school. And he said, \u2018Well, we think what your son is doing is very good.\u2019\u201d\nThanks to Father Brooks, Welch was able to enroll at Chicago\u2019s Loyola University, continuing his studies and staying out of the arms of the draft.\u00a0\n\u201cFather Brooks arranged for us to take some courses, and I\u2019m just so grateful to the Jesuits,\u201d Welch said. \u201cSometimes professors would come to our apartment on the West Side. It gave us an extraordinary degree of flexibility.\u201d\nWelch returned to Holy Cross for his senior year. Then he returned to Chicago as a member of the first class of Robert F Kennedy Fellows \u2014 about 30 young people from around the country chosen because they were doing community organizing.\u00a0\nThe Fellows program was established by Kennedy\u2019s family to honor his legacy and \u201cto advocate for a more just and peaceful world\u201d after the senator and presidential candidate was assassinated.\u00a0\n\u201cThe grassroots community organization I started working on, called the Contract Buyers League, had become this big organization in Chicago,\u201d Welch said. \u201cSo I went back.\u201d\nAfrican-American families were being ripped off when they tried to buy homes. The League fought for their rights.\n\u201cInstead of being able to buy with a conventional mortgage, they couldn\u2019t get a mortgage from the banks because the banks had red-lined the neighborhood,\u201d Welch said. \u201cThey couldn\u2019t get Federal Housing Administration support. The real estate speculators would buy a piece of property and double the price and sell it by contract \u2014 not even a mortgage \u2014 to the black families moving in. And they charged higher interest rates. Under a contract, if you missed a payment after four or five years you would lose your house. It was brutal, very brutal.\u201d\nThe League organized rent strikes which quickly became confrontational.\u00a0\n\u201cThe sheriff was coming to evict people,\u201d Welch said. \u201cWe would find out where the sheriff was going and put rings of people around the house to protect it. That went on for quite a while.\u201d\nWelch was also swept up in the police riots outside the Democratic National Convention in 1968.\n\u201cI was at the Hilton during the demonstrations,\u201d he said. \u201cI was participating in a lot of the meetings with the students who were organizing a presence. For a lot of us, it wasn\u2019t that we showed up to demonstrate. We wanted to go in and then all hell broke loose with the Chicago cops outside the Hilton. Mayor Daley\u2019s police did not use the light touch. It was quite astonishing to see this enormous use of force. The National Guard got called out as well. When you have that breakdown in dialogue, it was apparent to me even then that nothing good can come out of it.\u201d\nWhen the mayor and the police became involved in the housing issue, everything changed.\n\u201cDaley sent us a message by having the police ring an entire block,\u201d Welch said. \u201cThey evicted a family \u2014 it was their first successful eviction \u2014 and when the police left we moved the family back in. Then we went down and had negotiations. I was in a conference room doing a lot of the press work and contract work, and the mayor was coming into our room and then going to the Contract Buyers in the other room. And we would try to mediate a resolution to the dispute. Ultimately we made some significant progress.\u201d\nThe banks agreed to write mortgages. The FHA agreed to insure the mortgages. The contract sellers began to renegotiate the deals so African-American families could get a legitimate mortgage at a reasonable price.\nWelch put in another year and decided to go to law school.\n\u201cI saw that the law has really made a difference,\u201d Welch said. \u201cBad laws were discriminating against good people and were causing enormous pain. And I saw how politics made a difference. Mayor Dailey had an enormous amount of power that eventually he used in a way that was constructive. He used it to bring about a better resolution for the folks I was advocating for.\u201d\nAt the time, Welch thought his community action activities had been successful.\u00a0\n\u201cBut it\u2019s still tough in that neighborhood,\u201d Welch said. \u201cThe ways in which injustice finds a way to emerge is just ongoing. The fight never stops.\u201d\nComing to Vermont\nWelch chose to take his law degree at the University of California at Berkeley. Then he chose Vermont to put down roots.\u00a0\n\u201cMy uncle was town manager in Barre, and my father liked to come up to fish and ski,\u201d Welch said. \u201cI used to come up with him and always liked it up here. I\u2019m not much of a fisherman, but I liked being with my uncle and my father. And I liked skiing. When I got out of law school I had to make a decision. I had opportunities to work on K Street or Wall Street and I ended up on Bridge Street in White River Junction. And coming from Berkeley to White River Junction? That was culture shock.\u201d\nWelch\u2019s intention in coming to Vermont was to work in a small law firm and find ways to be active in his new community.\n\u201cWhere that was going to lead wasn\u2019t quite clear to me,\u201d he said. \u201cBut I ended up, instead of being in a big firm where you\u2019re working on a big case and you\u2019re a small part of it, working with a small law firm for nine months. I did my clerkship and became a public defender. So I was trying cases.\u201d\nPolitics was still in his heart, however. Welch won a state Senate seat in 1980.\n\u201cIt was something you could do in a small community,\u201d he said. \u201cThat opportunity to be really involved. I like the responsibility of it. And it was the year of the Reagan Revolution. I rode in on Reagan\u2019s coattails.\u201d\nBy his second term in the Senate Welch was minority leader; soon after that he was president pro tem.\nThere followed a long series of adventures, issues, successes and controversies in Vermont politics \u2014 all thoroughly covered in the media and too many to be covered here.\nWelch gave up his Senate seat to run in a four-way primary for Congress in 1988, where he lost by 54 votes. \u201cNot that I remember,\u201d he joked. (Paul Poirier won the nomination and finished third to Independent Bernie Sanders and Republican Peter Smith; Sanders came back to beat Smith in the rematch in 1990).\nTwo years later Welch ran for governor and lost to Dick Snelling, who died soon afterward. Lieutenant Governor Howard Dean then became governor.\n\u201cThen I was back practicing law, and I was out of politics pretty much for the 90s,\u201d Welch said. \u201cAnd it wasn\u2019t clear to me that I\u2019d be back. Then Howard Dean appointed me to return to the Senate in 2001 when one of our senators took a full time job. I came back to fill up the second part of her term. And then the next year I was elected Senate president again.\u201d\nWinning And Losing\nThe jobs of Senate president, governor and congressman are very different. Was Welch running for higher office just because the seats were open and they looked like the next steps up in his career? He thinks it\u2019s more than that.\n\u201cWhen you get in a campaign you put enormous energy into it,\u201d Welch said. \u201cWhen you lose, the biggest disappointment is that you lose the opportunity to do the work you\u2019ve been talking about. You really get invested in wanting to do the work. Winning office is less about the satisfaction of that night when you\u2019re declared the winner, and more about the two years ahead when you have the opportunity to do the work you love to do.\u201d\nWelch felt his campaigns had given him a handle on Vermonters\u2019 challenges and aspirations. When Senator Jeffords retired and then-Congressman Bernie Sanders ran for his seat in the Senate in 2006, Welch ran for Congress again, against a formidable Republican opponent, Martha Rainville, former Adjutant General of the Vermont National Guard and the first woman in the country to serve in such a position.\nEarly in the campaign, Welch and Rainville met and signed what is called a Clean Campaign Pledge, promising not to run a negative campaign.\u00a0\n\u201cEven now, Vermonters thank me and her for that,\u201d Welch said. \u201cIt was the only contested race in the country where the two candidates promised \u2014 and kept the promise \u2014 that they wouldn\u2019t run a negative ad. Why? We thought negative ads were toxic. It would be bad for Vermonters and bad for the dialog. We could debate the issues and people could decide who they wanted to represent them. It was old-fashioned. We couldn\u2019t do it now. It was before Citizens United.\u201d\nBefore Citizens United, candidates had control over their political campaign ads. Today they may control their own ads, but any person or group can put out an ad supporting any position they want \u2014 without the approval of the candidates, even the ones they\u2019re supporting.\u00a0\nThe campaign that Welch and Rainville ran garnered national attention as the cleanest race in the country. Both candidates, however, were under pressure to conform and put out attack ads.\u00a0\n\u201cBoth of us had to be very assertive with the national campaign committees,\u201d Welch said. \u201cThe head of the Democratic National Committee was that sweet and gentle guy who\u2019s now mayor of Chicago, Rahm Immanuel. And he wanted me to run negative ads. I said, \u2018No way. No how.\u2019 Martha and I were so locked into this and it was so public that both the Republicans and Democrats had to respect it. They knew that whoever went first with a negative ad, Vermonters would punish them. So they restrained themselves.\n\u201cNow if the Koch brothers or whoever wanted to spend a lot of money, they could come in and run whatever ads they want to run. We could not enforce something like that now. It\u2019s a toxic effect of Citizen\u2019s United. Vermonters wouldn\u2019t be able to figure out who was paying for the ad, so they\u2019d associate a very negative ad with the campaigner.\u201d\nWelch won the race and began his career in Congress.\nSince then, has he met the extremely wealthy, ultra conservative and anti-government Koch brothers?\n\u201cI haven\u2019t had the pleasure,\u201d he said dryly. \u201cI\u2019m not invited to their retreats.\u201d\nCongressman Welch\nWhen Welch arrived in Congress he had to maneuver in a world ruled by the kind of formal etiquette you hardly ever see outside of a European royal court. Of course he made mistakes.\n\u201cWhen I first got here, I screwed up and it was a real lesson,\u201d Welch said. \u201cI was in my first year here. It was the height of the Democratic effort to get us out of Iraq. I was pretty upset with Bush and his \u2018weapons of mass destruction.\u2019 I was on the floor of the House and got overzealous.\u201d\nIt may surprise some people, but one of the arcane rules about speaking on the House floor is that you\u2019re not allowed to make personal comments.\u00a0\n\u201cI said something about President Bush that probably crossed the line,\u201d Welch said. \u201cAnd as soon as I did that I had a sinking feeling. It was not the way I wanted to introduce myself to my colleagues. The person running the floor was then-Representative Ray LaHood (R-IL). He was subsequently the secretary of transportation. Unlike what some of my colleagues would do, which is take advantage of my mistakes, he very gently said, \u2018The member from Vermont might reconsider certain words.\u2019 He gave me the opportunity to amend my remarks.\u201d\nThere was a lesson to be learned here.\n\u201cHow powerful that gracious gesture was to me, and how important it was when I had the opportunity to do it for others,\u201d Welch said. \u201cWe\u2019re losing that generosity of spirit; we\u2019re losing the willingness to give colleagues the benefit of the doubt. There was a tone in this institution that I thought Ray LaHood embodied. Vermont-like decency. He gave me a break.\u201d\nWelch joined the Energy and Commerce Committee and started his life in Congress in 2007. The economy tanked in 2008. Wall Street banks started failing. When Obama became president, there was serious work to be done.\nWelch was the leader on the energy efficiency component of the Waxman-Markey Bill, designed to create clean energy jobs, achieve energy independence, reduce global warming and pollution and help the US transition to a clean-energy economy. It got through the House but died in the Senate. Welch also supported Dodd-Frank.\n\u201cThe Dodd-Frank Bill was really essential,\u201d Welch said. \u201cWe did the recovery act, the health care bill, a climate change bill. It was an extraordinarily active period of time, the first two years of the Obama presidency. The threat to our economy was real. It was terrifying when the financial sector collapsed.\u201d\nIt was especially gut-wrenching for him and many of his colleagues to bail out Wall Street without giving a similar bailout to Main Street.\u00a0\n\u201cFor those of us who had to make the tough call to rescue the financial system, it was not that we wanted to do a favor for anybody,\u201d Welch said. \u201cBut we wanted to avoid the harm for everybody where there were collateral consequences to the bad conduct of the Wall Street actors.\u201d\nWelch remembered a beautiful October day when he was driving down the Interstate and got pulled over by the state police.\n\u201cThe state trooper was so courteous,\u201d Welch said. \u201cHe asks me for my license and then he recognizes me. \u2018Peter,\u2019 he says, \u2018what are you guys doing down there? My wife and I lost $5,000 of our retirement the last couple of days.\u2019 It was terrible what was happening to people. I think we had to bail out the banks, but there was a real residue from it that resulted with some elevation of the Tea Party. And we\u2019re still feeling that.\u201d\nWelch\u2019s career in Congress can almost be described as whiplashed.\n\u201cI go from the excitement of getting elected and the return of Democratic power,\u201d Welch said. \u201cWe were focusing on ending the war and trying to bring our troops home, to Obama\u2019s getting elected and a very affirmative agenda, but dealing with the worst economic crisis that the country\u2019s had since the Depression, and then the Tea Party came in and a lot of my class got defeated.\u201d\u00a0\nConstituent Service\nWelch is famous for his constituent service. A good example came in 2014 and it concerned the cheeses of Jasper Hill Farms in Greensboro.\u00a0\nJasper Hill has won many international quality awards; its cheeses are impressive as well as delicious. So it was somehow fortuitous that Jasper Hill co-owner Mateo Kehler happened to be in Washington for an American Society of Microbiology conference when the Food and Drug Administration \u2014 with epic bad timing \u2014 announced it was banning the use of wooden shelving for ripening cheeses.\nJasper Hill is also famous for its enormous and profitable cheese-ripening cave. All the cheeses are ripened on wood shelving \u2014\u00a020 linear miles of it, according to Kehler. He called the FDA ruling an \u201cexistential threat\u201d to his business. He was in town so he called Welch.\n\u201cThe FDA ruling was going to be devastating to that cave,\u201d Welch said. \u201cThere are millions of dollars of cheese boards there. The whole aging process was going to be destroyed. It was an overreaction by the FDA.\u201d\nAccording to Welch, when the FDA found sanitation problems in one cheese-aging plant in New York, it blamed the boards and banned them everywhere.\n\u201cObviously, the problem was the lack of sanitation in that particular operation,\u201d Welch said. \u201cThey could have been using granite shelves.\u201d\nWooden shelving has been in place for hundreds of years in Europe. Many cheeses depend on the aging and flavor the wood brings to the ripening cheeses.\u00a0\n\u201cSo many cheeses rely on wood to give them their distinct flavors,\u201d said an article on the subject in the Huffington Post (https://www.huffingtonpost.com/culture-magazine/fda-bans-wood-aging-boar...(link is external)) \"Taleggio, Beaufort, and Parmigiano-Reggiano all use wood as an integral part of their processes, using the porous material to draw out moisture.\u201d\n\u201cThis is supported by sound science at this point,\u201d Kehler said. \u201cIf we replaced the wood with stainless steel \u2014\u00a0which is a surface not as good as wood for ripening natural rinded cheese because it creates anaerobic conditions on the surface of the cheese \u2014 essentially we would have to spend many millions of dollars. There were cheese microbiologists in Washington when that announcement was made. We were able to bring microbiologists who had careers spent in studying the use of wood in traditional cheese making to sit down with Congressman Welch and his staff and lay out the science. Congressman Welch really stopped that effort to ban wood in its tracks.\u201d\nAnd how did Welch save the cheese-aging industry? By enlisting, of all people, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-WI).\u00a0\n\u201cPaul Ryan was the chair of the budget committee,\u201d Welch said. \u201cWe contacted Ryan's office and I see him on the floor. \u2018Paul,\u2019 I said, \u2018you and I have a cheese problem.\u2019 That got his attention because he\u2019s from Wisconsin. We called the FDA and said, \u2018We have a cheese problem but you better be sure you don\u2019t have a budget problem.\u2019 We were successful in getting that ban derailed, and also in creating a dialogue. We started having the FDA come up and interact with our cheese producers \u2014\u00a0to educate the regulators. They could see that the cheese makers were totally committed to health and the quality and safety of their products.\u201d\nKehler emphasized that the industry was not adverse to regulation.\n\u201cWe believe we need good regulation,\u201d Kehler said. \u201cWe\u2019re not anti-regulation. But having good regulation that\u2019s based on sound science is something Congressman Welch\u2019s office and his staff believe in. Welch\u2019s ability to commit to understanding these complex issues is a real benefit to Vermonters. There are big political risks he\u2019s willing to take because he has a team that has a handle on the science. That\u2019s something that separates him from many of his colleagues in the House.\u201d\nWelch\u2019s prompt action on this \u2014 and several other issues important to Kehler and his business \u2014 have made him something of a hero.\n\u201cI think he\u2019s willing to consider all points of view in a way that most politicians aren\u2019t willing to do anymore,\u201d Kehler said. \u201cIt\u2019s a challenging time to be a political figure who\u2019s trying to reach across the aisle. Partisans really expect you to stay in your corner and they\u2019ll punish you if you\u2019re willing to accede anything. I don\u2019t think Peter will have political consequences because of that. Vermont, while a blue state, also has an expectation that its people in state government and on the national level are going to try and get things done. I consider Peter one of my role models in how I want to approach my job in the public sphere.\u201d\nWelch clearly takes joy in trying to help people, Kehler said.\n\u201cHe really wants to listen to everybody, not just the people who voted for him, and he has fun in the job,\u201d Kehler said. \u201cI really count myself and our business as fortunate to be located in a state where we can call our representatives in Congress and actually connect with them. Congressman Welch, along with Senator Leahy and Senator Sanders, have been real champions.\u201d\nKehler had special praise for Welch\u2019s staff.\n\u201cOne thing that really impressed me about Welch is the quality and caliber of his staff,\u201d he said. \u201cThey have taken the time and allowed themselves to be educated not just by us but by the scientific community to support science-based issues and the regulatory issues we\u2019ve faced.\u201d\nThe Future\nWith the advent of the Trump Administration. Welch says his job has dramatically changed.\n\u201cNow the job is about defending core values like our civil liberties, like respect for all our religions, like respect for women, like respect for our institutions, like fiscal responsibility \u2014\u00a0which is getting thrown out the window, ironically, by President Trump,\u201d Welch said. \u201cThese tax cuts he wants to pass? He says they will be \u2018paid for by themselves.\u2019 That\u2019s a fantasy. All of these things that have been so important in building our country and are much larger than any individual. These are all under assault in this new administration. I now see much of my job as trying to restore functionality to Congress.\u201d\nIt\u2019s a big job. What are his plans?\n\u201cI believe the way we do business in Vermont is what we have to bring to Washington,\u201d Welch said. \u201cIt\u2019s about engaged debate and fierce debate, but its civil debate and mutual respect. Now the big challenge is trying to restore civil engagement in a Congress which is basically turning its back on it. So what feels good to me, even in this tough spot, is representing a state where those values are very important. You could have a lot of people from Vermont doing my job, but whether they are Republican or Democrat, we\u2019d be united in saying that we have to be talking to each other. We need mutual respect and we need to be on the level. And that approach ultimately has to prevail in order for us to make progress.\u201d\nGive Welch\u2019s talent for bipartisanship, it\u2019s no surprise that he\u2019s already found a way. The Congressional Problem Solvers is a group of House and Senate members who meet regularly to build trust across the aisle. It goes without saying that Welch is a member.\n\u201cThere are starting to be a lot of us,\u201d Welch said. \u201cWe\u2019re 20 Republicans and 20 Democrats. The thing that unites us is the view that at the end of the day, we have to take a step forward. Yelling at each other isn\u2019t the way to make that happen. In the past on health care, for example, it\u2019s always been \u2018Repeal! Just throw the whole thing out.\u2019 And there is no replacement. But we got together and made a specific proposal to deal with a concrete problem in the Affordable Care Act. It\u2019s in the individual market. Only a small percentage of people are in the individual health insurance market, but when you hear about premiums going up, that\u2019s where it is.\u201d\nSome of the Democratic leadership doesn\u2019t want attention put on changes to the ACA, since it might lead to one of those slippery slopes Congress is so afraid of \u2014 scuttling the whole thing.\u00a0\n\u201cWell, there was a problem with the ACA,\u201d Welch said. \u201cAnd my Republican colleagues were under pressure not to engage with us, because if they were to help fix it, it would be acknowledging that there were some good things about it. Allowing for pre-existing conditions. Making insurance available up to age 26. No lifetime caps.\u201d\u00a0\nAt this writing, in both the House and the Senate, Problem Solvers are working on this specific change \u2014 it\u2019s a small change \u2014 to make the ACA better.\n\u201cThat\u2019s an example of where getting specific helps, as opposed to any abstract proposal,\u201d Welch said. \u201cIt\u2019s the first time since the passing of the ACA that we\u2019ve had a bipartisan proposal to fix a component in the ACA. And we\u2019ve seen it get some legs in the Senate. There are members on both sides who want to make Congress work. A lot of my Republican colleagues are just dismayed at what\u2019s going on.\u201d\nWill Welch run for another term? Will he go back into the furnace for another fiery round?\n\u201cI won\u2019t answer that question,\u201d Welch said, laughing. \u201cJournalists couldn\u2019t beat the answer out of me with a plastic hose. I really love my job, and I say that fully aware that it\u2019s a very difficult time here. The Trump era, in my view, is quite dangerous. There\u2019s a lack of respect for the institutions. For preparation. For the understanding that a person of power needs a sense of restraint. It\u2019s shocking to me that that person could be elected. I see my job as defending our Constitutional rights and getting us back to being a responsible institution. I spend a lot of time in Vermont seeing how folks are really committed to things like climate change and health care reform. My job is to bring that Vermont approach to Washington. So I still like the job, even though it is markedly different.\u201d", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://welch.house.gov/media-center/in-the-news/vermont-business-magazine-gentleman-every-sense-word-mr-welch-goes"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.5730869490653276, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}