Becca Balint knows some people don’t think she is ready to lead the Vermont Senate, and she thinks some of the 29 other state senators are among the doubters.
On Jan. 6, Balint will be sworn as the 82nd Senate president pro tempore, the first woman and the first openly gay person ever to hold the position.
The 52-year-old from Brattleboro will lead the Senate through a historically difficult legislative session, struggling to navigate the Covid-19 pandemic and the ensuing economic crisis.
The pressure of being a political trailblazer and of leading the Legislature’s coronavirus response weighed on Balint in the weeks and days before the 2021 session begins.
“I know that leading up to this auspicious moment of me being the first woman pro tem, I know that there were still people in my chamber who didn’t feel that I was up to the task,” Balint said in an interview — even though all Senate Democrats supported her Nov. 22, when she was formally nominated for the role. Since Democrats dominate the Senate membership, the decision by the caucus ensured Balint would be the next president pro tem.
However, Balint said, the unanimous vote “doesn’t mean that everybody felt completely confident in my ability to do this, and I know that.”
Balint thinks those doubts could be rooted partly in her small stature, and in her instinct to connect with and listen to anyone she meets.
“It’s not lost on me that I’m kind of underestimated because I’m 5 foot tall and 98 pounds,” Balint said. “People don’t always realize just how scrappy I am.”
Despite Balint’s suspicions, none of her colleagues say they doubt her.
“She’s very, very pleasant to be around,” said Sen. Dick Mazza, D-Grand-Isle, who has been in the Vermont Senate since 1985. “I’ve seen her work with many people. And every one, she takes a deep interest in their issues or their lives. Sometimes people do it because of the political part but with her she’s very sincere about it.”
Another longtime senator, Alice Nitka, D-Windsor, said Balint takes a measured approach, making sure to consider different opinions before deciding her course of action.
“I’m not saying that changes her mind, but I think she wants to find out more about a situation before she makes a judgment on it, which I think is a good way to approach things,” Nitka said.
Sen. Jane Kitchel, D-Caledonia, who heads the appropriations committee, said Balint attaches great value to the experience of committee chairs and is working closely with them on the Senate’s strategy for 2021.
“I’ve always said, surround yourself with bright, talented people that will make you look good,” Kitchel said. “I believe some people feel threatened by that, but I don’t get that feeling from her at all. I think she’s seeking it out and that’s certainly good.”
Early dreams of politics
Doubt is nothing new for Balint.
Born May 4, 1968, on a military base in Heidelberg, Germany, to Peter and Sandra Balint, Becca Balint spent the first few years of her life outside the U.S. before growing up in Peekskill, New York.
Ever since she can remember, she has wanted to run for public office — and that makes her a bit of an “oddity.”
But when she graduated in 1986 from Walter Panas High School, she recalls coming to a conscious realization that she had to drop that political dream.
At the time, the young Balint had told only two close friends that she was gay. She had read extensively about Harvey Milk, the first openly gay elected official in the history of California; he was assassinated in 1978.
“I didn’t want to serve and not be open about who I was,” she said. “And I didn’t feel safe, being open about who I was.”
After graduating from Smith College, Balint followed a different passion in her life: teaching. She has taught middle school history and social studies and worked as a rock-climbing instructor at Vermont Farm and Wilderness summer camp in Plymouth — where she met her wife, Elizabeth Wohl, in 2000.
In 2007, the pair moved to Brattleboro and married in 2009 when Vermont legalized same-sex marriage.
In that time frame, which included the birth of Balint’s first child, her political dream resurfaced. But even then, she had a hard time imagining the reality.
“I had some really hard years of trying to figure out what to do, because I still couldn’t picture a life in politics — I think partly because I didn’t know anybody who had done it. I don’t even know where to start,” she said.
But Balint with Wohl’s support, she finally got up the nerve to launch a career in public service, according to her longtime life coach Laura Coyle. And she figured out where to start.
Learning the ropes
In 2013, Balint attended the Women’s Campaign School at Yale University, where she roomed with a Republican from Kentucky.
“I loved the bipartisan aspect of it,” she said. “It forced you to be really clear on why you believe what you did believe policy-wise, because you are constantly in these workgroups with people on the other side of the aisle.”
After that, she entered the inaugural class of Emerge Vermont, an organization former Gov. Madeleine Kunin had founded to prepare Democratic women to run for office.
In the summer of 2014, now with two young children, Abraham and Sadie, Balint announced she was running for the Vermont Senate. After then-Sen. Peter Galbraith decided to retire, Balint emerged victorious in a four-candidate primary and entered the Statehouse in 2015.
“When she decided to run for the Senate, I first met her at one of our fundraisers and it didn’t take long before I knew that she was somebody who was going to be one of the leaders in the Senate at some point,” said John Campbell, who was then Senate president pro tem.
“She’s somebody who, the moment I started talking to her, I knew that she was going to eventually end up in leadership and be an effective leader.”
After just two years in the Legislature, Balint ascended to majority leader in the heavily Democratic Senate, holding a leadership position with Senate President Pro Tem Tim Ashe, D/P-Chittenden.
In her six years in the Senate, she has served on the economic development committee. Balint has also been vice chair of the education committee, and a member of the committee on institutions and the finance committee.
The new minority leader, Sen. Randy Brock, R-Franklin, has worked closely with Balint for the past several years. They sat together all day as they both served on the economic and finance committees.
Brock says he has a good relationship with Balint and they have jointly chaired the Senate task force on lessons learned from the coronavirus.
“I found we had a good give and take in terms of sharing ideas and perspectives and that was useful,” he said. “We don’t always agree politically, but sometimes it’s helpful to bounce ideas back and forth.”
“My hope is that she will be fair, in terms of what she does as pro tem,” Brock said.
‘That confidence has just grown’
The new Senate majority leader, Alison Clarkson, D-Windsor, served with Brock and Balint on the economic development committee. The biggest change she has seen in Balint has been a growing self-assurance.
“When she became majority leader, she wore that mantle with growing confidence,” Clarkson said. “She is the same person; that confidence has just grown in her.”
Part of that confidence came from being on the leadership team that handles last-minute deals at the climax of legislative sessions. At the close of the 2019 session, Ashe had Balint work as a key go-between in negotiating with the Vermont House on paid family leave and a minimum wage increase.
However, things did not go smoothly that year for Ashe or House Speaker Mitzi Johnson, D-South Hero. Lawmakers adjourned without agreeing on the Democrats’ two economic priorities. Compounding the frustration was that the House and Senate had passed a $15 minimum wage and a paid leave proposal, only to have them vetoed by Gov. Phil Scott the previous year.
While many senators dislike comparing pro tems, in the case of Balint and Ashe, it is hard not to focus on the differences between the two leaders.
Ashe was generally known for walking through the Statehouse with his head down, eyes averted from passersby. He kept his cards close to his vest, not wanting to promise the Senate would do something unless he could back it up.
Balint is open and warm, almost to a fault. She hurries through the corridors between committee rooms, but is never too busy to stop to talk — whether it be with a constituent, lawmaker, lobbyist or reporter.
And while Ashe might have been the strategist in chief of the Senate, Balint seems poised to be the communicator in chief.
Ashe, who spent 12 years in the Senate and four years as president pro tem, said Balint’s greatest strength is communication.
“Becca has always been more of a storyteller — trying to put in human terms why we would do something or why we wouldn’t do something — and that is really important,” Ashe said.
Ashe says the Senate president pro tem is a referee for the other 29 senators.
“You need someone in the job who actually cares about people and who takes the time to listen to them and understands how to keep people happy and feeling valued, even if they don’t always prevail or prevail completely,” he said.
Ashe said while the coronavirus will be the primary focus for Balint and Jill Krowinski, D-Burlington, the new Speaker of the House, he believes their biggest challenge will be managing expectations.
“Liberal interest groups, for instance, will look to new leadership and say, ‘Oh, a new chance to get what we want, or as near to what we want as possible,’” said Ashe, an outspoken critic of lobbyists’ influence.
“Both Becca and Jill are going to have to manage that because the governor, who rightly is commended for his handling of Covid, has not been very warm to many of those types of issues that many interest groups are going to be looking to the leadership to be passing,” he said.
Ashe said it’s important to know how the Senate feels about an issue before making any legislative promises.
“Don’t make commitments before you know the Senate is ready to go with you,” he said.
Balint said that concern has kept her up at night — the balance between being herself while making sure it does not appear she’s overpromising on an issue.
“I am one person in this world and I wish that my days allowed more time for me to have all of those individual meetings and I know it’s going to be a source of sadness and frustration that I’m not going to be able to do it to the extent that I want to,” Balint said.
“If I make decisions and people are disappointed with me or angry with me, that’s part of the work. You’re not going to please everybody,” she said.
Sen. Phil Baruth, D/P-Chittenden, who was an early endorser of Balint for the pro tem position, said it would be a mistake for people to underestimate Balint or take her willingness to talk with everyone as a sign of weakness.
“There are some people who look at Becca Balint and see a physically somewhat petite person who has an instinct as a people pleaser and they think that there’s not a red line somewhere with her,” said Baruth, who was majority leader when Balint arrived in Montpelier.
“She’s smart enough not to overpromise,” he said. “She has such a deep reservoir of goodwill, It’s hard for me to imagine that people won’t follow her when push comes to shove and she needs the hard vote, rather than the vote that you were hoping to make.”
‘It’s about people’s lives’
Balint said she is not naive about politics and, while she prefers to collaborate on policy work, she is not afraid to draw a line in the sand, whether it be with the Republican governor, lobbyists or fellow senators.
“I know that politics can be a dirty, ugly game to some people. It’s not a game to me. This is about people’s lives,” she said. “if people want to play games, they can do that and I will engage in ways that feel true and right on behalf of my senators and on behalf of my constituents, but I’m not in it for the tally sheet of winning or losing. I’m in it because I want to make a difference in people’s lives.”
Kunin, who was governor from 1985 to 1991, said she expects Balint to bring a “fresh outlook” to the position.
“When I was lieutenant governor, the president pro tem was always male and you didn’t even think about a woman holding the job because that was such a tradition, so I think it’s about time and a new time,” Kunin said.
Balint and Krowinski are weighing serious questions about 2021 — how effective the Covid-19 vaccine will be, getting children back to in-person school, the possibility of another coronavirus shutdown.
She has also had to discuss her spouse’s professional future.
Wohl, who has worked for the lobbying firm Downs Rachlin Martin, is currently general counsel for the Brattleboro Retreat, Vermont’s largest psychiatric hospital, which has received state funding.
When it became clear Balint would become the next pro tem, Wohl decided to stop working for the Retreat.
“It is something that neither of us feel comfortable with,” Balint said. “I can’t tell you yet who she is going to go work for, but she will no longer be in-house counsel for the Retreat.”
In the Statehouse, the new Democratic leaders will have to contend with a massive budget gap prompted by the pandemic. The general fund is projected to lose $180 million; the education fund $63 million.
And with Covid-19 cases going up in Vermont, Balint and Krowinski must navigate a long stretch of working remotely — at least until March.
“I’m approaching this work as an educator this year,” Balint said. “We’re going to make some plans, we’re going to make some progress and we’re going to have to reassess, and figure out if we’re going to have to change strategy based on not just what’s happening in Vermont, but the states around us.”
She likened the Legislature’s current situation to riding a motorcycle — in her spare time, Balint rides a Honda Rebel.
“When you stop forward motion, that’s when you worry about dropping the bike,” she said. “I’ve got to keep it in forward motion — don’t drop the bike.”
“But, with riding a bike, too, you have to take some risks and be courageous but also be ever-vigilant,” she said.
An added complexity is that several senators have told her this could be their final two-year stint in the Statehouse.
“That won’t become absolutely clear until the spring of 2022 when people really assess, but I do know a number of people are looking ahead to what ‘what’s my legacy going to be, how can I put things in shape, so that the people coming after me can continue this work,’” she said.
“So that’s another wrinkle in there,” Balint said.
