Governor Phil Hoff Dies at 93 - Champion of Social Justice and Friend of CCTV

Governor Philip H. Hoff, a fighter for social justice and Vermont’s first Democratic Governor passed away last week at the age of 93 in his home in Shelburne Vermont.

Hoff “was credited with starting the state’s transition from one of the most Republican in the country to one of the most liberal” through policies and positions including Act 250, the “billboard law”, Human Rights Commission, and his opposition to the Vietnam War. “I was an issue-oriented reformer,” he summed up his tenure, "who believed in change and opening up government to ordinary people. If you give them adequate information and respect them and honor them, they will do the right thing every time. The modern tendency in which people are not trusted, so you end up manipulating them, you do not give them the whole truth, you give them a distorted version of the facts — I’m violently opposed to that.”

Read Governor Hoff’s Obituary in the New York Times and in-depth look at his career by veteran reporter Kevin O’Connor at VTDigger.org

WATCH: CCTV’s 1985 Decision Makers episode with Governor Phil Hoff