[B]ENNINGTON — The four Democratic contenders for governor appeared together on a muggy evening in Bennington to outline all the ways in which they differ from the one who wasn’t there: incumbent Gov. Phil Scott.
Candidates Christine Hallquist, James Ehlers, Brenda Siegel and Ethan Sonneborn engaged in political shadow-boxing with the absent governor, who was represented by a photograph at one end of the candidates’ table, at Friday’s packed forum sponsored by Rights and Democracy of Bennington.
They lambasted the Republican governor for his veto in the recently concluded legislative session of a hazardous materials liability bill, his vetoes of budget bills, and generally for his refusal to work toward compromise with Democratic lawmakers.
The forum at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church was opened by Nina Turner, a former campaign surrogate speaker during Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’ 2016 run for the president, and currently president of Our Revolution, the grassroots organization that grew out of the effort. She issued a rousing call for change, both within the Democratic Party and in American society.
Turner, a former Ohio state senator, told the audience of about 100 never to give up the struggle for justice and opportunity for all, especially those near the bottom of the economic spectrum. “They aren’t going to come down here to save us,” Turner said of the establishment class. “We are going to have to save ourselves.”
Turner called for support for such national goals as Medicare for all health insurance, ensuring a livable wage for working Americans, and getting corporate money out of politics, but it was a local issue that inspired the strongest reactions from those in attendance: Scott’s veto of a bill sponsored by Bennington County Sens. Dick Sears and Brian Campion, which would have allowed Vermonters to sue polluters to cover the cost of long-term medical monitoring for those exposed to hazardous materials.
Scott said the bill would drive up insurance rates and discourage investment, but his Democratic opponents were united in their dismissal, calling it a clear case of caving to well-funded corporate and business interests, including those from outside the state.
That veto was “as telling as can be,” said candidate Siegel, a self-described low-income single mother who is director of the Southern Vermont Dance Festival.
Ehlers, who is executive director of Lake Champlain International and a longtime clean water advocate, said he was “horrified” by the veto. The governor, Ehlers said, is aware that there are thousands of unregulated chemicals used by industry. The state’s policy should be the “the polluter pays” in the event of contamination, even if the industry has left Vermont.
He was referring specifically to the closed ChemFab Corp. in Bennington, considered the source of widespread contamination of groundwater and more than 300 wells, by the known carcinogen perfluorooctanoic acid, known as PFOA.
Hallquist, former CEO of Vermont Electrical Co-op, said she would have signed the bill “immediately,” and called for regular testing for environmental contamination in the state’s water sources.
Sonneborn, the 14-year-old middle school student who also is seeking the Democratic nomination, said the Sears/Campion bill was “as common sense an issue as you can get.”
“To put politics before [the health of] families is immoral,” he said.
On the economy, Hallquist said she would push for expansion of rural high-speed internet access, comparing it to water, sewer and transportation services, all necessary for economic growth. She said she would focus on growing and supporting smaller businesses with growth potential, increase of “big companies that we don’t want anyway” because of their greater potential to harm the environment.
Ehlers said his focus would be on an affordable, single-payer health care system, a sustainable minimum wage and infrastructure upgrades, contending this would be more effective than trying to lure companies with incentives in a national arena where Vermont is too small to compete.
With his proposed initiatives in place, “then the business will come,” he said.
Siegel said the economy has to be improved “from the bottom up,” with a sustainable minimum wage, affordable health care, family leave and similar policies and “100 percent renewable” energy.
She said those changes would both attract new residents and bring increased business to the state.
“What I know is that wealth does not trickle down and that poverty does trickle up,” she said. “Solving the problems of low income and poverty is what will build the economy.”
The Democrats appeared to be equally in agreement over the Scott administration’s handling of marijuana legalization, which took effect on July 1, saying it should have been accompanied by regulation and taxing provisions, including marijuana testing to ensure that it is safe.
Tax revenue from marijuana sales could be used for funding drug or other educational programs, as well as enforcement programs related to use of the drug.
Siegel said “the conservative estimate” is that $25 million annually could be realized by the state if marijuana were regulated and taxed like alcohol.
She stressed the importance of ensuring the quality and purity of the marijuana residents consume, she said, and “can make sure we have a strong craft industry in this state.”
The Democrats called for state support of a “craft bud” industry — along the same lines as Vermont’s ever growing craft beer industry, we well as small farm operations.
The Democrats were also critical of Scott for failing to take stronger stands against the Trump administration on such issues as immigration.
Under the Scott administration, “We now have national politics lite,” Hallquist said.
Ehlers said the “system that produced Trump” cannot be replicated in Vermont.
“At the end of the day, Gov. Scott shares those same philosophies of exploitation,” Ehlers said.
The governor “said he would stand up to Trump, but he has not stood up,” Siegel said. “We need a governor that every time they see something like [the separation of immigrant families at the U.S. border] will say that it is unacceptable.”
Hallquist, the first transgender candidate for governor, said some of what is happening under the current administration is “not the Vermont I love … I will stand up for the Vermont I love, which has loved me in return.”
“We have to talk about what really matters to people,” said Sonneborn. “We can’t focus on political expediency. We have to have a tough conversation about what really matters.”
