There will be much to do when the legislature convenes in January. Uncertainty about the Trump administration's policies will mean a lot in a tiny state such as ours. In addition we will have a new Speaker, and it may take some weeks to establish our relationship with Governor Phil Scott. Regardless of what the new administrations have in store, we have our work cut out for us. Against this background I will be working on several priorities of great importance to Vermont's economy. Among them are 1. Substantially increasing support for postsecondary education, 2. Providing enhanced timely workforce education and training, and 3. Developing high skilled high paying jobs to employ Vermonters w
As we have been continually reminded in the recent scorched-earth campaign, words matter. President-elect Trump's campaign rhetoric has awakened hateful behavior and speech in our country. Trump's appointment of Stephen Bannon (his campaign CEO and former chairman of the alt-right website Breitbart News) is an ominous sign that the normalization of bigotry which marked his campaign will continue into his presidency. Not okay. Working with a group Vermont lawmakers, today Jim and I released the following statement. We want to remind President-elect Trump and all those we represent that, in the wake of this election, our values have not changed. We have a lot to be proud of as Vermonters. W
Trying to find some reason for optimism from a pretty dark Election Night, I compiled a chunk of the voter data for how Norwich, Sharon, Strafford, and Thetford (the four towns of the Windsor-Orange 2 legislative district) voted on November 8th. You can see the statistics by opening this document. You'll see that our towns, on average, have higher voter turnout and more strongly support Democratic candidates than the rest of Vermont. Which is sayin' something considering we have a very Democratic state that really turns out to vote. I can't help but pointing out how important our four towns were in determining the outcome of the state senate races in our respective counties. Norwich/Sharo
