Rick Hubbard left his home in South Burlington in October 2022 driving a large RV en route to Los Angeles, where he began walking across the country. The 81-year-old retired attorney says he is walking to fix our democracy.

One year later, Hubbard is still walking.

The Vermont Conversation caught up with Hubbard in Colorado, where he is currently walking. The purpose of the walk, he said, is “to involve other people to help get Americans thinking about how important it is for us to have our system of a republic with representative democracy.” He says that elected leaders should “serve not a few but serve the bulk of all 330 million of us.”

Hubbard was co-founder and director of the Vermont chapter of Common Cause, which advocates for voting rights and government accountability. He was inspired to walk for democracy by Doris Haddock, aka Granny D, an 88-year-old New Hampshire activist who walked across the country in 1999 and 2000 in support of campaign finance reform. Hubbard joined Granny D for a week as she walked across Kentucky, stopping at Sen. Mitch McConnell’s office to demand that he support campaign finance reform.

Hubbard has had to make unexpected detours along his journey. Last December, he had to rush home to Vermont when his life partner of three decades, Sally Howe, was diagnosed with aggressive cancer. Howe died in April.

Hubbard wrote that he had to turn his attention from fixing democracy to “fix my broken heart.”

In August, Hubbard resumed his cross-country walking journey. He conceded in a blog post, “some days may be more putting one foot in front of the other, rather than a crusade to save our Democracy.”

Hubbard walks about 10 miles per day, five days per week. He carries an American flag on his back that flaps behind his head. He engages volunteers and community members along his route. He is pressing for passage of voting rights legislation and celebrating state and local activists along the route.

"All Americans both understand that we've got a problem and (that) the system is not serving us," said Hubbard. "If you can cut out the labels, the left or the right, and you can focus on the job that our electors are supposed to be doing on our behalf, you get widespread agreement from both sides." 



You can follow Rick Hubbard’s walk across America at fixourdemocracy.us.