[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 209 (Thursday, December 21, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8246-S8247]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       TRIBUTE TO GARRISON NELSON

  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I want to take a moment to recognize the 
achievements and contributions of a renowned political scholar, 
remarkable educator, and a personal friend. This year, Garrison Nelson 
will conclude five decades of teaching at the University of Vermont, 
where he is recognized as a legend in the department of political 
science.
  Garrison, the inaugural Elliott A. Brown Green and Gold Professor of 
Law, Politics, and Political Behavior, is known by some Members of this 
body, as well as legislators throughout the country who rely on him to 
offer political insight. Widely considered a leading expert on 
congressional history, Garrison has authored more than 150 articles and 
professional papers on national politics with a major focus on the U.S. 
Congress and elections in Vermont. His works have educated students 
worldwide and can be found in close to 500 libraries in the United 
States and 13 countries around the world.
  An Irish native of Boston, Garrison has resided in the Green Mountain 
State for most of his adult life, adding much richness to the State's 
political landscape. I have known Garrison since he served as an aide 
in my office shortly after my first election to the Senate. Garrison is 
as revered as he is brilliant. His skill and affinity for the esoteric 
is evident in both his teaching style and his storytelling, perhaps 
most notably his magnum opus, ``John William McCormack: A Political 
Biography.'' Works like this one have made significant contributions to 
our Nation's historical library, offering profiles and untold stories 
of the political icons of our time. In today's political environment, 
such citations of success and failure can offer us precious insight 
into improving our own oath to serve.
  As Garrison departs the Old Mill at the University of Vermont at the 
end of this year, he will leave a legacy that has reached more than 
13,000 students. With them and many others, he has shared his 
appreciation of and reverence for the American political system and the 
need for participation to ensure the success of our democracy. I am 
grateful for his commitment to inspire the next generation of political 
leaders.
  In recognition of Garrison's timeless contributions, I ask unanimous 
consent that an article by Terri Hallenback. appearing in Vermont's own 
Seven Days, about Garrison's achievements be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                  [From Seven Days, October 18, 2017]

   Fifty Years, 13,450 Students and 5;000 Interviews: UVM's Garrison 
                        Nelson Calls It a Career

                         (By Terri Hallenback)

       When former Vermont governor Howard Dean ran for president 
     in 2004, national media turned to University of Vermont 
     political science professor Garrison Nelson for insight.
       ``I think he is an arrogant, ill-tempered schmo who does 
     not play well with others,'' Nelson told the Houston 
     Chronicle.
       Many of the same political reporters came back 12 years 
     later, when Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) wanted the job. They 
     called on Nelson to capture the politics and personality of 
     the quirky democratic socialist who'd once been mayor of 
     Burlington.
       ``Bernie's the last person you'd want to be stuck on a 
     desert island with,'' Nelson told the New Yorker in 2015. 
     ``Two weeks of lectures about health care, and you'd look for 
     a shark and dive in.''
       In his day job, the bearded professor with a booming, 
     Boston-accented voice has spent nearly 50 years bringing dry 
     political facts to life for thousands of students while 
     churning out a steady flow of academic research.
       To the broader public, though, Nelson is known as the man 
     to whom journalists both local and national regularly turned 
     for well-informed analysis--and no-holds-barred skewering--of 
     Vermont politicians and their ambitions.
       Now, after 13,450 students (including this reporter), 11 
     books and more than 5,000 media interviews (yes, he keeps 
     track), UVM's most quoted professor is retiring. The 146 
     students in his two political science classes this semester 
     will be his last.
       Nelson is calling an end to a career that has made him one 
     of UVM's most public figures. On campus and off, he has 
     chafed and informed generations of students, politicians and 
     voters. ``With full classrooms and multiple book demands at 
     age 75, the pace has become grueling,'' said Nelson, whose 
     walk has slowed to a shuffle on the well-worn route between 
     his Old Mill office and Lafayette Hall classroom.
       Looking back, it's hard to believe that Nelson lasted a 
     full year, let alone five decades, at UVM. He's poked at not 
     just politicians, but university brass. In 1971, as a 
     relatively new, untenured teacher, he protested the 
     politically motivated ouster of a left-wing professor, 
     Michael Parenti; 30 years later, then-tenured Nelson feuded 
     publicly with his university bosses over pay and college 
     leadership.
       For a while, Nelson considered leaving UVM. From 1996 to 
     2002, he worked part-time at Boston area colleges and had 
     designs on landing a full-time job at one of them. But he 
     held on to his tenure and continued to teach in Burlington 
     during that time. He's now one of the university's longest-
     serving professors.
       As he completes his employment, Nelson said he has 
     mellowed. He claims to admire the full slate of university 
     leaders above him. The twice-divorced Nelson remarried this 
     year. He literally beams over the positive reviews of his 
     newly released book, a 910-page tome on the little-remembered 
     1960s-era U.S. House speaker John McCormack. Nelson refers to 
     the book's publication as the ``crowning moment'' of his 
     career.
       At an official gathering last week to honor his upcoming 
     retirement, Nelson told colleagues that a friend asked him 
     why he wanted to retire now, when things are going so well. 
     ``My answer was, 'It won't get any better than this,'' ' he 
     said.
       In the classroom, Nelson is known for turning large numbers 
     of students--including apolitical ones--on to political 
     history through the stories behind it. He's a natural 
     raconteur, whether the topic is the rise of Woodrow Wilson, 
     the Austin-Boston dominance of the U.S. House or his own 
     Massachusetts roots. Nelson's single mom raised him and his 
     younger half-sister in working-class Lynn after his Communist 
     father left.
       ``Super paper. Star of the day,'' Nelson told one young 
     woman as he handed back papers to the 39 students in his 
     Electing the President class last week.
       ``More sources, Maddie. More sources next time,'' he told 
     another, also loud enough to be heard by everyone in the 
     room.
       Former student Jade Harberg said she liked the way Nelson 
     challenged students with candor and humor. ``I appreciated 
     teachers who were willing to shame their students to work 
     harder,'' the 2013 UVM grad said.
       Harberg, who now works for Nelson as a researcher in 
     Washington, D.C., recalled that the professor sent her class 
     an email listing the students who had turned their papers in 
     early and those who had been late. He included a statistical 
     analysis that concluded men were more likely to be tardy than 
     women and told the class, ``This is why women are ruling the 
     world.''
       Nelson gets high marks on the website Rate My Professors. 
     Former students graded him 4 out of 5 in quality, and 89 
     percent say they would take his course again. But the 
     comments reflect a range of reactions to the professor's 
     personality.
       Some called him a ``genius,'' ``hilarious'' and ``extremely 
     helpful.'' A typical dissenter, on the other hand, concluded: 
     ``Pompous, has a weird inferiority complex about not having 
     gone to Harvard.''
       Clark Bensen, a 1974 UVM grad, said Nelson's intensity 
     helped push him into political science from his math-
     economics major. ``For me, he was a breath of fresh air, or 
     more like a gale-force wind,'' Bensen said. Today, Bensen 
     still uses the skills Nelson taught him to run Polidata, a 
     Virginia-based firm that analyzes political data.
       Nelson made an impression on his colleagues, too. Anthony 
     ``Jack'' Gierzynski, chair of the UVM political science 
     department, said that when he arrived at the university in 
     1992, he saw Nelson's students were enthralled by his 
     storytelling.
       ``At first, I tried to imitate that,'' Gierzynski said, but 
     he quickly found it didn't work for him. Noting the 2013 
     retirement of equally charismatic political science professor 
     Frank Bryan, Gierzynski said Nelson is ``the last of that 
     breed.''
       Despite his outsize personality, Nelson has spent a 
     considerable part of his professorial career toiling quietly 
     on detailed research on esoteric subjects. He has produced 
     thick volumes on the membership of congressional committees 
     that may be valuable reference books--albeit not best 
     sellers.
       At least one student appreciated that. ``The guy has an 
     encyclopedic mind and has done granular research on New 
     England politics,'' said journalist Scott MacKay, a 1974 grad 
     who has long relied on Nelson's insights--and quotability--as 
     a political reporter in Vermont and Rhode Island.
       Nelson had wanted to write a book about McCormack since he 
     met the former House speaker in 1968, just before he started 
     working at UVM. Eleven publishers turned him down--McCormack 
     was a key player in his time but a relatively obscure 
     historical figure--before Bloomsbury Publishing finally 
     offered him a deal. John William McCormack: A Political 
     Biography came out in March.
       Such work earns an author academic credibility, but Nelson 
     is more likely to be remembered for his outspoken political 
     commentary. Insisting it ``was not a central feature of my 
     UVM life,'' he explained, ``I fell

[[Page S8247]]

     into it because, apart from my buddy Frank Bryan, others at 
     UVM were reluctant to do it.''
       Nelson has been analyzing Vermont politics for print and 
     television journalists since Democrat Phil Hoff sat in the 
     governor's office in the 1960s. He's provided plenty of 
     straight, factual observations but over time became known for 
     a spicier variety of analysis.
       He admits that he's dished it out unevenly.
       Nelson thinks highly of Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), for 
     whom he worked for two years, so Leahy has largely been 
     spared his barbs. He has also generally spoken favorably of 
     the political skills of former U.S senator Jim Jeffords (I-
     Vt.) and former Republican governors Jim Douglas and Richard 
     Snelling.
       For Sanders, whose political career he's followed since 
     1981, Nelson has both criticism and affection. ``The 
     difference between Bernie and most of the lefties is, Bernie 
     wants to win,'' Nelson said in the October 2015 New Yorker 
     article. ``Most lefties don't want to win, because if you 
     win, you sell out your purity.''
       His analysis was acceptable to his daughter, Shyla Nelson 
     Stewart, a Sanders devotee who seconded the senator's 
     nomination at the Democratic National Convention.
       ``The most important thing he said was, Bernie has been on 
     the same agenda his entire career,'' she said of her dad's 
     comments, ``and that that agenda has caught up with the 
     times.''
       Nelson has been harder on Dean and Congressman Peter Welch 
     (D-Vt.).
       ``I never understood why Howard was running for president 
     other than the fact that Howard wanted to be president,'' he 
     said before class one day last month. ``It was just Howard's 
     ego.'' Dean did not respond to a message from Seven Days 
     seeking his point of view.
       Nelson is slightly less dismissive of Welch. Nelson said 
     their feud started when he made a comment to a reporter 
     during Welch's 1988 campaign for the Democratic U.S. House 
     nomination, saying Welch's strategy of concentrating his 
     campaign in southern Vermont was a mistake. ``Peter took 
     offense,'' Nelson said. When Welch confronted him, Nelson 
     said, he responded with choice words.
       Welch insisted last week that he doesn't remember the 
     incident or Nelson's specific comments, though he did say the 
     professor was always critical.
       ``He showed no mercy,'' Welch said. ``He was extremely good 
     at cutting folks down to a size that was smaller than they 
     thought they deserved.''
       Daughter Stewart provides some insight. ``What my father 
     has most railed against is anyone who has even the slightest 
     sense of entitlement,'' she said of Nelson, who often talks 
     about growing up poor.
       Nelson saw that attitude in Dean, who grew up on New York 
     City's Park Avenue.
       ``His born-again liberalism has caught a lot of us by 
     surprise--it's a case of `Howard, we hardly knew ye,' '' 
     Nelson told the Associated Press in 2003. ``He's really a 
     classic Rockefeller Republican: a fiscal conservative and 
     social liberal.''
       His disapproval of Welch, a lawyer from Springfield, Mass., 
     is more complicated. Nelson viewed Welch and his late wife, 
     Joan Smith, as a couple in search of power--his in politics 
     and hers at UVM, where she was dean of the College of Arts 
     and Science and Nelson's boss.
       In a 2001 column, the late Seven Days columnist Peter 
     Freyne wrote, ``Nelson told Seven Days that Smith and her 
     husband, former gubernatorial candidate Peter Welch, `wanted 
     to be the Democratic Snellings, with Peter holding the 
     governor's office and Joan holding high office at the 
     university'--a reference to the late Governor Richard 
     Snelling and wife Barbara Snelling, who served as a UVM vice 
     president for many years.''
       Nelson does not let go of such opinions easily, nor does he 
     like being on the receiving end of the kind of criticism he 
     so readily doles out to others.
       Nelson recalled comments Freyne made about him during 
     Dean's 2004 presidential campaign. ``Peter bashed me in four 
     separate columns,'' Nelson said, alleging that Freyne was 
     courting Dean's campaign in hopes of landing a job.
       In one of those columns, Freyne said, ``Garrison despises 
     Howard Dean, always has and always will. We suggest it's all 
     about ego--Nelson's, not Dean's.''
       Asked why this still roiled him 13 years after Dean's 
     campaign ended and eight years after Freyne's death, Nelson 
     said, ``I'm Irish, for Chrissakes; I don't forget anything. 
     Irish Alzheimer's--you never forget a grudge.''
       Nelson doesn't get as much ink in the newspapers as he once 
     did--which is his choice, he said, because answering 
     questions from reporters takes away from his research time. 
     He didn't have a lot to say about former governor Peter 
     Shumlin and has been just as quiet on Gov. Phil Scott and 
     President Donald Trump. But he makes no apologies for 
     comments made over the years about politicians, students or 
     his bosses.
       ``When you're an outspoken person, you're going to piss 
     people off. I've pissed people off,'' Nelson said. ``But I'm 
     still here--50 years.''

                          ____________________