[T]his will be the 20th and final legislative session in Montpelier for longtime Rutland County lawmaker Sen. Peg Flory.
Flory, a Republican, has decided that she will not run for re-election this fall.
Flory said Friday she is coming up on her 70th birthday and wants to have more time to spend with her sons, who live in three different states, and her seven grandchildren.
The Vermont native remembers her childhood fondly. She grew up in Rutland, where her father was a janitor.
“I didn’t realize it, but my family was poor,” she said. “But I had everything I needed, and a few of the things I wanted, and that was OK.”
Flory was a stay-at-home mom for 12 years before she became a lawyer. She read the law, a process in Vermont that allows people to be admitted to the bar without going to law school.
She passed the bar exam when she was in her early 40s.
Flory first decided to run for a seat in the House when she was serving as chair of the selectboard in Pittsford.
A business with a plant in the town wanted to double the size of the facility. They enlarged the size of the quarry that supplied the ore, and they had the opportunity to get a permit to enlarge the plant in Pittsford. But, she recalled, they could not get a permit from the state to transport the material from the quarry to the plant.
“So I went home and I was complaining mightily, and one of my sons looked at me and said, ‘Mom, I’m going to tell you what you’ve always told us: You’ve got no right to — I’ll use the word “complain” — about a problem unless you’re willing to be part of the solution. So either run for the Legislature or shut up.’
“And I knew I wouldn’t shut up, so I ran,” she said.
Flory served in the House for 11 years, during which time she chaired the House Judiciary Committee for a period. She is now in her ninth year in the Senate, and currently chairs the Senate Institutions Committee.
Flory said some things have changed in the Legislature over the years she has spent there.
In her early years in Montpelier, there were more events where lawmakers across the aisle mingled after legislative hours. She said she believes that helped to build relationships.
“It’s really hard to take something personally, negatively, when you’ve been out dancing with folks the night before,” Flory said.
Flory said she is particularly proud of her work to establish drug courts in Vermont while she was chair of House Judiciary. She also cited her work on the board that handled judicial nominations as a point of pride.
Flory has also been an advocate for making Vermont schools compliant with the state’s E911 system.
“Very, very few of the issues we deal with up here are black or white. They’re some shade of gray,” she said. “And if you’re not going to listen to the black and the white, you’re never ever gonna get the right shade of gray.”
