The Next Bernie? McClatchey Profile of David Zuckerman, Organic Farmer & Politician
Hardly a secret that Zuckerman wants to represent VT in D.C.
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David Zuckerman, an organic farmer and state senator, is a key advocate for ensuring that foods containing genetically modified ingredients be labeled as such.
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Zuckerman has been figuring out consumers’ preferences as a farmer for the past 15 years, first on rented property and now on a farm he owns with his wife that contains 25 acres for vegetables, 125 open acres, 1,000 chickens and up to 40 pigs. Half of their production is sold as shares through a community-supported agriculture shares association, the rest to farmers markets and wholesalers. The labeling wouldn’t affect the farm’s products, which aren’t genetically engineered.
Zuckerman and his family live in a pair of converted silos next to the barn where coolers keep the 50 types of vegetables fresh long after harvest.
“I don’t know if I chose farming or it chose me,” Zuckerman said on a recent morning, when the temperature was hovering in the single digits and he was loading four pigs into a trailer for their journey to the slaughterhouse.
Zuckerman first tried politics while still a student at the University of Vermont in the 1990s, losing a state House of Representatives race by 59 votes. He came back two years later to win a seat, and served for seven terms before taking a break for two years to get the farm he co-owns with his wife, Rachel Nevitt, up and running. When a state Senate seat came open in 2012, he jumped back into politics.
He’s a Progressive/Democrat in the largely Democratic Vermont Senate, and he’s staked out liberal positions on marijuana policy, health care, labor relations and taxation.
Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2014/03/12/221022/vermont-lawmaker-and-farmer-pushes.html#storylink=cpy
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On April 25, 2006, Zuckerman introduced a resolution for the Vermont legislature to ask the US Congress to impeach President George W. Bush.[4] The motion failed 87-60 in a roll call vote, April 25, 2007.[5]
In 2009, Zuckerman sponsored a same-sex marriage bill which was eventually passed after the house overrode the veto of Gov. Jim Douglas by the necessary 2/3 majority.
Sen. Zuckerman has also been a leader on the following issues; renewable energy, affordable housing, livable wages, instant run-off voting (and other election reform measures), GMO legislation, universal healthcare, progressive taxation and end of life choices.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Zuckerman_%28politician%29#cite_note-5