Several weeks ago, as the coronavirus crisis began to unfold, President Trump issued an emergency executive order which gave him the power to implement new rules and regulations to help contain the spread of the virus. The legislation the president used is known as the Stafford Act, named after Vermont Sen. Robert Stafford.
And as VPR senior political reporter Bob Kinzel points out, Stafford also had a strong reputation as an environmental leader and a champion of higher education.
Why did a senator from Vermont sponsor emergency power legislation in the 1980's?
Sen. Robert Stafford was known as a strong environmentalist. He chaired the Senate Environment Committee for a while, and in that capacity, identified global warming as a key issue. More than 30 years ago, he was also the chief sponsor of a law that provides student loans for higher education — these are actually known today as Stafford loans.
But why? Why did he become the chief sponsor of a law giving the president of the United States such extraordinary emergency powers?
Well, Sen. Patrick Leahy served in the Senate with Stafford for 14 years, and recently, I put this question to him.
"He was concerned we would have things happen like this in the country, that we were not prepared to be able to act quickly," Leahy said. "He formed a bipartisan coalition. Republicans and Democrats voted for it. I remember the meetings when his office and he passed it."
Bob Stafford's political career
Bob Stafford was really what I think of as an old school political leader in Vermont. And by that I mean, as a political leader, he would rise one step at a time.
For instance: He served a term as attorney general in the mid-1950s. Then he was elected to a term as lieutenant governor. After that, he served a term as governor — he was elected in November of 1958. And then in the fall of 1960, he was elected as Vermont's only member of the U.S. House, and in September of 1971, he was appointed to the U.S. Senate, when Winston Prouty passed away.
Stafford served in the Senate until his retirement in 1988. So his was a very deliberate climb up Vermont's political ladder, and that's something we don't see much of anymore.
A March 1988 address to Vermont's Legislature
He came to the Statehouse and addressed a joint assembly of the Legislature, it was really an extraordinary speech to hear from Bob Stafford. It was amazing about how far ahead of his time he was: He specifically talked about the dangers of global warming and the need for the federal government to take major steps to deal with this issue.
He also referred to the "great danger" that was posed by the rising influence of money on our political system, coupled with the rise of single issue groups. He saw the corrosive influence that money could have on our entire democratic process.
Keeping it old-school
Stafford was in the U.S. Senate for years before he was convinced that he needed a press secretary. He didn't see the need to sort of toot his own horn.
