About Terry
Long before he won office, Terry Bouricius was already “a political person,” concerned with both the wider world and his own neighborhood. As a student at Middlebury College, he heard a speech by a then little-known Bernie Sanders, who was saying things most politicians were not saying plainly.
That encounter helped draw Terry into local politics and Vermont’s Liberty Union Party. After running for the Vermont State Senate, and then Lieutenant Governor as a Citizens’ Party candidate, Terry noticed that he had done especially well in his own neighborhood—so he ran for Burlington Board of Aldermen (City Council), won, and began a long period of public service.
Footage thanks to CCTV / Town Meeting TV (1993)
In Burlington, Terry saw politics at the scale where it is most concrete: streets, neighborhoods, meetings, budgets, and the daily needs of people trying to shape the place where they live. Elected office gave him a close view of what local government can do—but also of what it leaves out.
Over time, he became less interested in simply winning elections and more interested in the deeper question beneath them: how can people govern together, rather than handing power to a small class of officeholders?
Speaking at his own 1985 election victory celebration, Terry takes a moment to critique the system that just re-elected him. Even after three successful campaigns, the focus here isn’t on the electoral win, but on the inherent flaws of a system that limits democracy to a multiple-choice question every two years. This is an unpolished, early look at his transition away from traditional politics and toward the structural mechanics of genuine citizen power.
Footage thanks to CCTV / Town Meeting TV (1985)