In the Northeast Kingdom, a single issue is defining hotly contested Senate races in two purple districts: affordability.
Orleans County and Caledonia County will have new senators next year following the decisions of veteran Sens. Bobby Starr, D-Orleans, and Jane Kitchel, D-Caledonia, to step down. Between them, the pair have represented the Kingdom in the Legislature for more than six decades.
In Orleans County, a contested Republican primary pits local GOP leader Samuel Douglass against a first-time legislative candidate, Aime Conrad Bellavance. The winner will likely face Rep. Katherine Sims, D-Craftsbury, who doesn’t have competition in the Democratic primary, in November.
To the south, Rep. Scott Beck, R-St. Johnsbury, a veteran House lawmaker, faces competition from JT Dodge in his bid for a seat in the upper chamber. The Democratic primary features Amanda Cochrane, the executive director of a social service nonprofit, and Shawn Hallisey, a nursing home administrator from Waterford.
Orleans County
In the contested Republican primary, Conrad Bellavance has highlighted his life experience, while Sam Douglass has underscored his campaign experience, as the defining attributes differentiating one from the other.
In an interview, Bellavance called himself a “moderate Republican” aligned with Starr, whom he described as a “conservative Democrat.”
“I had always voted for Bobby,” he said. Bellavance also said he was prepared to vote across party lines.
If elected, Bellavance, who works in the fuel industry, said he’d prioritize trying to change the state’s Global Warming Solutions Act and lowering the cost of energy in Vermont. He’s particularly dismayed by the “lawsuit clause” of the act, which allows the state to be sued for failing to meet its emission targets.
He also hopes to target the cost of education in light of this year’s average education property tax increase of 13.8%. A former school board member, Bellavance said he suspects schools are “top-heavy,” and may have too many “one-on-one supports” for students.
In the primary, Bellavance faces Douglass, a Troy resident who works as a mental health crisis intervention specialist and realtor. He also serves as chair of the Orleans County Republican Party.
In an interview, Douglass said he believes his campaign work ethic — knocking on “thousands of doors,” in particular — sets him apart from his competition.
Like Bellavance, he sees affordability as the primary issue for constituents, a challenge he said could be addressed by lowering taxes and decreasing business regulation.
Through his work at the intersection of substance use, domestic violence and homelessness, Douglass said he sees “a huge connection between mental health and public safety.”
He said he hopes to pass legislation that would give the courts “more teeth” and allow them to hold people in jail longer after they are charged with crimes.
Citing his experience working in social services, Douglass said he believes people from outside Vermont “will migrate” here for state-funded support, so he wants to make sure tax dollars are supporting Vermonters.
“If we have very generous programs up here, other people in other states — they will hear about it,” he said.
On the Democratic ticket, Katherine Sims, who was endorsed by Starr and doesn’t face a primary challenge, said she’s motivated to be an advocate for the Northeast Kingdom, a region whose residents often “feel forgotten” by Montpelier.
Part of that advocacy involves tackling affordability challenges driven by the cost of housing, health care, child care and education. Those concerns, she said, led her to vote against her party on the renewable energy standard and this year’s property tax bill.
“I don’t think Vermonters can afford those things right now,” Sims said.
Caledonia County
In Caledonia County, Amanda Cochrane — executive director of Umbrella, a social services nonprofit with a focus on supporting women and combating domestic violence — and Shawn Hallisey, who helps lead Glover nursing home Union House, are competing in the Democratic primary.
Cochrane, of St. Johnsbury, has clinched Kitchel’s endorsement and said she wants to be a “moderate Democrat” in the vein of the county’s outgoing senator, someone she said “balances compassion with moderate spending.”
Affordability, and specifically property taxes, are on the minds of voters she’s met.
Given the cost of living, she said, “We can’t expect that Vermonters will be able to stay in Vermont in their homes.”
While she “doesn’t have all the answers” when it comes to education finance, she said, “something has to give.”
On education policy, Cochrane said she understands the value of public education while recognizing each community has different needs. She attended public school, and her kids go to St. Johnsbury Academy, the local private historic academy attended by most high schoolers in town.
Cochrane’s primary challenger, Shawn Hallisey, sees himself as an outsider providing an important option for the county’s voters.
“I felt like it’s really the citizens’ and the people’s responsibility to decide who represents them,” he said, in contrast to letting the retiring incumbent pick their replacement.
Top of Hallisey’s mind is stopping “the runaway property tax increases,” he said. While admittedly “new to the game,” he said lawmakers need to see how federal dollars were put toward schools and whether those programs should continue to exist without cash from Washington, D.C.
As a nursing home administrator, the Waterford resident said his work gives him experience with budgeting and fiscal responsibility. Representing rural communities, he would focus his attention on agriculture, forestry, fish and game, and “our way of life up here,” promoting New England-wide regional collaboration on agricultural initiatives.
On the Republican ballot, Scott Beck, of St. Johnsbury, who has served 10 years in the House, hopes to make the jump to the Senate, where he said he could have more impact. He has the help of an impressive fundraising haul — more than $35,000, according to July 1 fillings — the most of any Republican legislative candidate at that time.
“When I’m talking to a voter, going door to door, catching them on the street, when I ask them what’s the state of Vermont doing that’s making your life more difficult, nine times out of 10, it’s property taxes,” he said in an interview.
Beck, a member of the House Ways and Means Committee, has long been a prominent voice on education finance. He sees that experience as a strength and something he hopes to expand on in the upper chamber.
“I tell (voters), ‘I have a plan. It’s been vetted. It’s been nearly passed twice,’” he said.
Beck has previously proposed transitioning Vermont to a so-called foundation formula, in which districts would receive a block of money based on how many students they educate. That formula would still be weighted, he’s said, meaning schools would receive more money for students who are more expensive to teach. Any school districts that wanted to spend more than the formula would pay a separate tax rate for that increased spending.
In addition to affordability, Beck said his focus is on housing, public safety and flood resiliency.
This month, the bookstore he owns in downtown St. Johnsbury, Boxcar & Caboose, was broken into. Beck said that while he supports stronger punishments for crimes such as burglary and shoplifting, the state must address substance use, which he said is fueling crime.
“I think the largest cause of all of these things is addiction,” he said, adding that the state needs to help people “get … into treatment.”
Beck faces JT Dodge in the Republican primary. A systems engineer from Newbury, Dodge said he offers new ideas and energy, not more of the same.
“Initially I decided to run because I could see Vermont becoming much less affordable,” Dodge said. “I have children that I want to stay in Vermont, but I see the writing on the wall.”
To lower property taxes, Dodge said he supports a plan much like Beck’s, which would more closely tie local spending decisions to local property tax rates. But Dodge noted an important distinction: He believes homeschooling parents should receive money to educate their kids much like public school districts do.
Part of Dodge’s affordability plan is to reduce the cost of energy. He leads a group called No Carbon Tax Vermont and said he wants to remove emissions-related “mandates” from state law, instead pivoting to “goals.”
In the wake of this summer’s flooding, which rocked Caledonia County communities such as Barnet and Lyndon, Dodge has increased concern about the state’s wastewater infrastructure. When treatment plants become inundated, they can send untreated sewage into waterways, he said, an environmental hazard.
“It’s probably a very expensive problem,” Dodge said. “We need to be strategic about resolving it.”
Early voting is underway, and the primary election is Aug. 13.
