Democrat David Potter and state Rep. Art Peterson, R-Clarendon, are political opponents. They’re also neighbors.
In 2020, Peterson eked out a 42-vote win over Potter in the two-member Rutland-2 district, ousting Potter from a seat he’d held for more than a decade.
So what did Potter do?
“I took him a pizza. And he’s my state rep now. So what should I do but wish him the best?” Potter said. “It wouldn’t be exactly as I would vote, but he’s my state rep for better or worse. And not only that, he’s still my neighbor.”
Potter and Peterson agree on little politically: Potter supports Proposal 5, also known as Article 22, which would enshrine the right to abortion in the state’s constitution; Peterson opposes it. Potter has suggested the Legislature should help subsidize child care; Peterson supports deregulation. Potter has spoken of the need for environmental preservation; Peterson says Vermont has too many climate regulations.
This year, they’re squaring off again to represent Clarendon, Wallingford, West Rutland and part of Rutland Town.
The race also features incumbent Rep. Tom Burditt, R-West Rutland, a libertarian-minded Republican running for his seventh term, and Ken Fredette, a Wallingford Democrat with decades of service on various Vermont school boards who has run for the House in three prior elections. The top two vote-getters will take the seats.
Even in reddish Rutland, Peterson stands out.
“I feel like I may be the most conservative member of the Legislature,” he said.
An ardent opponent of Proposal 5, Peterson made a political name for himself organizing Mill River Unified Union School District parents to oppose raising Black Lives Matter and LGBTQ+ pride flags. Asked to name a bill he particularly opposed in the last biennium, Peterson pointed to one signed into law last summer that aims to prohibit school mascots that play into racial, gender and sexual orientation stereotypes.
He said he fears the mascot law might come for West Rutland High School’s Golden Horde, named after an ancient division of the Mongol Empire.
“Did the Golden Horde ever subjugate anybody or kill anybody that they shouldn’t have many moons ago? I’m sure they did,” he said.
In speaking to his constituents, Peterson noted that “crime and punishment” seems to be a priority for voters.
“There are folks afraid to go to the Green Mountain Shopping Plaza (in Rutland Town) and to do business there,” he said.
Burditt, Peterson’s Republican colleague, agreed that crime is at the forefront of voters’ minds. He contended that Rutland hotels participating in the state’s transitional housing program have become centers for crime, and that “police are there all the time.”
“We’ve become very compassionate — which I don’t disagree with at all,” Burditt said, but “some of those people we’re being compassionate with are taking advantage of the compassion, and continuing to be a part of the catch-and-release program that people talk about.”
Burditt, who serves as vice chair of the House Committee on Judiciary, said among his priorities is protecting children from child abuse, particularly by strengthening the state’s Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force.
He said he plans to introduce a bill this year to expand the overburdened group by adding an administrator and two more investigators. “My hope is to fund it through cannabis,” he said, referring to the anticipated new revenues from the state’s recently launched retail market.
Neither Democrat flagged crime as a primary focus for their campaigns. Fredette instead has made climate change a centerpiece of his platform, as well as education.
“If we don’t have a habitable planet, none of the other stuff is going to happen, because we won’t be here,” he said. “I’m not an alarmist, but I am alarmed.”
Fredette pointed to building weatherization as a crucial tool to decrease carbon emissions. At the same time, he said, weatherization can prove a useful economic strategy for older folks who may live in older, poorly insulated homes, allowing them to save on rising heating costs.
“They can live more comfortably and spend less money heating their homes, and it’s good for the environment, it creates jobs, and all that stuff,” he said.
Despite his emphasis on cooperation amidst disagreement, and his moderate stance on guns (he is himself a gun owner), Fredette sees his campaign as an uphill battle.
“It’s pretty tough,” he said, “if you have a ‘D’ next to your name.”
That challenge, both he and Potter said, was made more difficult by redistricting. This year, lawmakers redrawing the district swapped Proctor and a portion of Tinmouth for a section of Rutland Town — a change Potter vocally opposed.
But that hasn’t stopped the Democrat from campaigning vigorously to regain his seat. He’s knocked on 3,700 doors in the last five months, he said, which he didn’t do last time.
“The races are more competitive — this cycle and last cycle — than they’ve been previously. And so I had to make an individual effort that I haven’t done before if I wanted to stand a chance of winning.”
Knocking on doors has brought him in contact with Rutland County residents from all walks of life.
“You see that great diversity that ranges from multi-millionaires’ houses to people that are living in poverty, sometimes even in squalor. And you have to deal with that,” he said. “You’re able to sort out the tensions that those various walks of life produce legislatively. It’s your job to try to sort them out.”
Potter is leaning on his past experience as vice chair of the House Committee on Transportation in his pitch to voters. During his decade in that role, he said, he helped get three bridges built in Clarendon, two in Rutland City, and helped get three sections of Route 7 repaired between Brandon and Pittsford.
“Those were all major transportation accomplishments,” he said. He hopes to fight for further repairs to Route 7, and a widening and repaving of Route 22A, if elected.
But Potter’s platform isn’t all transportation-based. The former public school teacher and Vietnam veteran supports Proposal 5, like Fredette. Inflation and its associated cost-of-living increases have also grabbed Potter’s attention this cycle.
“You hear a lot of people struggle with that, because when they go to the grocery store, and in other places, they see it directly, they have to confront that,” he said, suggesting that easing the state off of relying on federal Covid relief funding will help slow the inflationary spiral.
With two weeks to go before the Nov. 8 election and mail-in voting underway, Potter has about 25 more doors to knock on near his Clarendon home. The race will likely be close, again pitting neighbor against neighbor, Potter against Peterson.
“I told him that if he wins again, I’ll bring him another pizza,” Potter said, “and he says, ‘If you win, I’ll bring you one.’ It’s not all bad.”
