Q&A: Deborah Markowitz, Secretary of State

Vermont Business Magazine, Feb 01, 2007

Deborah Markowitz was elected Vermont's 37th Secretary of State in 1998, the first woman to be elected Secretary. She is currently serving her fourth term in office.

A graduate of the University of Vermont with a B.A. in 1983, Markowitz received her Juris Doctorate degree from the Georgetown University Law Center, magna cum laude 1987. She served as a law clerk with Justice Louis Peck of the Vermont Supreme Court from 1987 to 1988, and practiced law with Langrock, Sperry, Parker and Wool from 1988 to 1990.

She served as the founding director of the Vermont League of Cities and Towns Municipal Law Center from 1990 to 1997, where she published numerous handbooks and academic papers on local government law and lectured locally and nationally on issues related to municipal law and on ethics in government.

Markowitz has served on numerous state and national boards and commissions, including the Vermont Girl Scout Council, the Central Vermont Community Action Agency, and the Vermont Women's Business Center Advisory Board She has also been recognized nationally for her leadership by being elected President of the National Association of Secretaries of State and by her appointment to the Executive Board of the National Election Assistance Commission's Standards Board.

Markowitz and her husband Paul, a consultant on environmental issues, live in Montpelier with their three children, ages 16, 13 and 11.

Robert Smith interviewed Secretary Markowitz at her office in Montpelier in early January during this unusual winter's first snow storm.

VBM: First off, I'd like to get an overview of what the Secretary of State does. What does your office do and what kind of a staff do you have?

Markowitz: Great. The Secretary of State's office has five principle functions. We have the state archives, and as part of that we oversee some pieces of records management in the state. Our interest in archives is to make sure that government records that have continuing interest, meaning perhaps forever as a historical record, that they are preserved and made available to the public. Also, through the archives, we've become the office that is the advocate for open records and open government.

We also review the elections, and as part of that the state's ethics laws, which are like the lobbyist's disclosure laws and campaign finance laws. Many people know me because of my work with elections and some of the voter outreach that we do. Also the civics education programs that we have, where we work with kids across Vermont in the schools, kindergarten through high school, with a variety of programs designed to help them understand how elections and the government work. How government decisions are made and how citizens can impact those decisions. So we have booklets on how a bill becomes law. We've developed a great kid's webpage, (www.sec.state.vt.us/) a very attractive site. In fact, we get thousands of visitor's everyday to the kid's site alone. We get tens of thousands of visitors to our website everyday, including our corporation's website as well as our notary database, and the elections site. It's one of the most heavily hit sites in state government.

VBM: I remember when I was a correspondent with the Rutland Herald, there were questions I would have and I would call your office, and probably today a lot of that information would be on the website.

Markowitz: That's exactly right. A lot of our municipal information is up there. So, we've got the archives, we've got elections, and we also provide general services to cities and towns helping them to understand the laws that apply to them, and also for citizens who deal with cities and towns. So we've got a variety of publications. For example, we've got one called The Law of Libraries, another is The Rules on School Governance. Those kinds of publications. One on tax appeals. And we have a monthly newsletter that goes out to thousands of local officials, called The Opinions, which are various opinions on various municipal laws and practices in the state.

We also have the Corporations Division, which is one of the most important parts of our office. Through that division every business has to register, file its Uniform Commercial Code filings. It deals with trade names and trademarks, the LLC filings - we really deal with tens of thousands of businesses every year through that division. Through it we developed our Centennial Business Awards where we recognize corporations and businesses that have been in operation in Vermont for 100 years or more. We've done that in partnership with the Vermont Chamber and also Vermont Business Magazine.

We also license professions. There are about 43 different professions that we license and regulate. Every profession except teachers, doctors and lawyers. So realtors, architects, nurses, mental health professionals - they all come to our office to get licensed. That's actually the largest part of our office. We have about 58 employees in three locations and most of them work for the licensing division. Not only do they issue licenses, but we also receive complaints, and licenses can be taken away or conditioned in some way if the board decides that the licensee has violated some of the rules of the profession or aren't competent to practice.