Regular readers will recognize that Republican electoral victories are celebrated but rarely in this space. Today marks an exception that proves the rule: We think Republican gains in the Vermont Legislature hold the potential to restore a healthy and productive balance of power in Montpelier, where Democrats have mostly had their way in recent years.

To recap for those whose attention has been riveted on the national political scene, Vermont Republicans picked up 18 seats in the 150-member House, for a total of 55 in the upcoming session, as compared with three independents and 92 Democrats and Progressives. In Senate races, Republican candidates beat four incumbents and picked up two open seats, nearly doubling the party’s representation to 13, while Democrats and Progressives will still muster a majority with 17 seats.

Moreover, Gov. Phil Scott, a Republican, cruised to re-election for a fifth term with more than 70% of the vote, and John Rodgers, a former Democratic state senator from Orleans County who switched parties, beat Lt. Gov. David Zuckerman by about 6,000 votes, although the Legislature will have the final word.

That’s because under the Vermont Constitution, if no candidate for governor, lieutenant governor or state treasurer gets more than 50% of the vote, lawmakers vote on filling the office with any one of the top three vote-getters. It has been nearly 50 years, though, since the top vote-getter was rejected, so expect Rodgers to take office in January.

If Democrats were shocked by the results, it is perhaps because they had fallen out of touch with their constituents. The enduring popularity of Scott’s brand of moderation with voters should have provided a clue, as should have the furor over this year’s spike in education property taxes, which Scott effectively stoked during the campaign.

Rep. Scott Beck, a Republican who captured an open Senate seat in Caledonia County, said that, “Vermonters have clearly spoken and said that this state is becoming unaffordable for far too many. They’re telling us that they don’t want the far extreme agendas. They want the middle to be represented again.”

Rep. Laura Sibilia, an independent from Dover who has announced her candidacy for Speaker of the House, sounded a similar note. “I think the governor has his finger right on the key issue impacting Vermonters: affordability,” she told VtDigger. “I don’t think the Legislature has even acknowledged that we understand that.”

Of course, one lawmaker’s “extreme agenda” is another legislator’s answer to a pressing problem. The Democrats have tackled some big ones and racked up notable successes on such issues as Act 250 reform. In other areas, though, they have fallen short, such as failing to come up with a comprehensive approach to addressing the state’s homelessness crisis, or getting a handle on school spending and taxation. Elections are the means by which lawmakers are held accountable.

With all that said, many of the election post-mortems have focused on the fact that Republican gains mean that the Democrats no longer have a veto-proof majority in the Legislature. That’s true, but the Republicans will prove themselves extremely shortsighted if they focus primarily on sustaining Scott’s vetoes of legislation passed by the majority party, which after all still represents a majority of the state’s voters. A party of “no” is a party of no progress.

We look forward to hearing fresh Republican ideas on school finance reform, including cost containment measures, and how they propose to deal with homelessness in an efficient but humane way. And we urge Democrats and Progressives to give those ideas a fair hearing.

Sibilia made another pertinent remark in this regard: “I certainly hope we will see the governor bring forward proposals to work towards affordability and the Legislature will tell Vermonters how they plan to make progress.” Indeed, the onus is on Scott to engage with lawmakers of both parties to shape legislation early in the process rather than just weighing in with objections at the end.

Montpelier has the potential to demonstrate over the next two years that the politics of compromise and incremental progress still has life left in it, even as the national political scene descends into darkness.