Philip Baruth


Philip E. Baruth is an American politician, novelist, biographer, professor, and former radio commentator from Vermont. A Democrat and member of the Vermont Progressive Party, he represents Chittenden County in the Vermont Senate. He served as Majority Leader from 2013 to 2017, when he endorsed his successor, Becca Balint.

Education and teaching career

Baruth earned a B.A. in English from Brown University in 1984 and a Ph.D. from the University of California, Irvine in 1993. He is Professor of English at the University of Vermont, where he has served on the faculty since 1993. His teaching is primarily in the areas of creative writing, postmodern American literature and culture, eighteenth-century British literature, and the literature of Vermont. He is married to Annika Ljung-Baruth, a senior lecturer in the Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies Program, and in the Department of English, at the University of Vermont.

Political career

First elected to the Vermont Senate in 2010, Baruth was re-elected in 2012, 2014, 2016, and 2018. He was elected Majority Leader of the Vermont Senate in 2013, and served until 2017.
As of 2019, Baruth serves as Chair of Senate Education and also has a seat on the Judiciary Committee. He has previously served on the Education, Economic Development, and Agriculture Committees.
He has also served on the PreKindergarten-16 Council and the Vermont Child Poverty Council.
Baruth began his public service career as a member of the Burlington Board of School Commissioners. First elected in 2003, he served two non-consecutive two-year terms in Ward 4.
In the fall of 2005, Baruth launched a political blog, "The Vermont Daily Briefing." The blog was voted "Best Vermont Blog of 2006" for its first year of political coverage in the Seven Days "Best of Vermont" poll. It won "Best Political Blog" again in 2007, 2008, and 2010. The blog included daily political posts, in-depth interviews, humor, and satire. The blog continued until 2012.
Baruth's career in the State Senate is most noted for his advocacy of gun control. He first proposed an assault weapons ban in 2013 as Majority Leader and later supported a comprehensive background check bill in 2015. In 2018, following the Parkland mass shooting and a foiled plot at Fairhaven Union High School in Vermont, Baruth’s Universal Background Checks language became the nucleus of a comprehensive gun safety bill S55, a bill then signed by Republican Governor Phil Scott on the steps of the Vermont statehouse.
He was the driving force in the Senate behind the passage of the 2016 Paid Sick Leave bill, in recognition of which he was named Legislator of the Year by the Main Street Alliance of Vermont. On Education, he was one of the drafters of Act 77, which created Vermont’s dual enrollment, early college, and personalized learning plan programs.

Writing

Philip Baruth is the author of four novels and more than a dozen published short stories, as well as screenplays, radio commentaries, and works of scholarship. His most recent novel, The Brothers Boswell, was included on the Washington Post list of "Best Books of 2009." It was also an Indie Next List Notable Book. The novel, a historical thriller, tells the story of the relationship between James Boswell and Boswell's younger brother John. In this fictionalized account, the envious younger brother pursues Boswell and Johnson with malicious intent. Baruth's novel The X President was a New York Times Notable Book of 2003. It is a time-travel narrative focused on the presidency of Bill Clinton.
Baruth is also a notable writer of short fiction. In 1994 he won the Black Warrior Review Annual Fiction Prize for his short story "Peaheart." Other stories have appeared in New England Review, Denver Quarterly, Carolina Quarterly, and TriQuarterly. "Peaheart" and other stories are now collected in American Zombie Beauty.
For a number of summers Baruth has led intensive writing workshops in his role as Visiting Writer at the Bread Loaf New England Young Writers' Conference. He has also led workshops as a Visiting Writer at the Champlain College Vermont Young Writers' Conference since 2001.
Baruth's book-length biography of long-serving U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy was published in 2017 by University Press of New England.

Radio and television work

From 1998 to 2009, Philip Baruth was a regular commentator for Vermont Public Radio. His series, "Notes from the New Vermont," focused on both national and Vermont issues. He won the 2009 Public Radio News Directors Award: First Place for "Birth Rate Blues," a satirical take on Vermont's low fertility statistics, in the nationwide Public Radio Commentary category. He also shared the 2009 Edward R. Murrow Award in the Overall Excellence category, for "Birth Rate Blues." In the 2003 Vermont Associated Press Awards, Baruth shared First Place in Radio and Television Commentary as part of Vermont Public Radio's "Great Thoughts" Series, celebrating Vermont ideas; and Third Place for "Howard Dean — Babe, If I May," a political satire on Dean's presidential campaign. In 2002 he won Second Place in the nationwide Public Radio Commentary category of the Public Radio News Directors Awards for "Lonesome Jim," a satire on Jim Jeffords' April 2001 defection from the Republican Party. In the same year, he shared First Place in Radio and Television Commentary in the Vermont Associated Press Broadcast Awards as part of Vermont Public Radio's coverage of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and Second Place for "Lonesome Jim."
Baruth's other radio work has included host and scriptwriter for Camel's Hump Radio, a half-hour radio program produced by Vermont Public Radio and featuring interviews and narrated segments from classic and award-winning adventure stories. From 2006 to 2012 he provided weekly commentary on national and state politics for Air America /WKVT-FM "Live & Local."
Several of his radio commentaries appear in the book he edited with Joe Citro, Vermont Air: The Best of the Vermont Public Radio Commentary Series. He wrote the Introduction to And Now, Michiana Chronicles, a collection of selected commentaries aired by WVPE in the Michigan/Indiana region.
From 2006 to 2009 Philip Baruth appeared among the regular rotating panel of journalists and publishers on "Vermont This Week," a half-hour Sunday news show produced by Vermont Public Television. It is their signature public affairs segment analyzing the week's top political stories statewide.

Novels