"That majority (of living inhabitants), then, has a right to depute representatives to a convention, and to make the constitution that they think will be the best for themselves."

--Thomas Jefferson 1816.

The Vermont Alliance for Locally Initiated Democracy

Who We Are

VALID was founded in 2006 and has no professional or full-time staff. We do not maintain a membership list or solicit donations.

WE are citizens who believe in democracy but recognize that democracy as currently practiced is not effective to protect our communities, our environment, and our rights.

WE do not affiliate with any political party. We believe that our two-party system largely serves to artificially divide us and distract our attentions every November and throughout the rest of the year.

WE are in various stages of understanding of the relevant and mostly hidden history of our country. This history includes:

•how the nation’s founders created a nation and a constitution that would protect the interests of the minority over those of the majority
• how massive citizen movements have driven the rights of people into the constitution while corporations came to be granted more rights than people through the decisions of a handful of judges
• how a system of regulation, ushered in by corporations to protect their interests against citizen movements, continues to serve their interests today, funneling the time and energy of concerned citizen activists into patterns and strategies that will predictably fail