Policies

• We have a responsibility to see that our communities and the Vermonters who live in them are strong, supported, and protected. I will endeavor to address all aspects of livability and how to balance it with running the state the way we deserve it to be run.

  • Create opportunities for the most underserved Vermonters and fix the structures that hold them back and harm them so that they may peaceful, fulfilling lives.

  • Empower Vermonters to participate in improving state governance.

  • Find ways to simplify and reform education funding and make it fairer for Vermonters of all economic levels. 

  • Support towns in ways that help them manage growth wisely and responsibly

  • Deepen our exploration of ways to both reduce healthcare expenses and increase access

    1. Create a Universal Primary Care system that keeps people healthy, prevents acute illness, and reduces emergency room expenses

    2. Explore adapting the Costa Rica system (mobile clinics that reach every patient at least annually) of care to Vermont

    3. Look at captive health insurance for state and education workers; reform benefits negotiation processes

    4. Make the “grow your own” initiative more robust and permanent

  • Protect our citizens from unfettered overreach from the federal government

  • Invest in our state in ways that unlock more federal funding and matching

  • Create pathways for more cooperation between state agencies to save money and make things run more smoothly; unlock communication between and among agency partners. 

• Education should not be political. It’s a public good that we should continually protect and improve.

  • I will always fight for public education, meaning I will

    • Support and reform educational quality and systems; encourage cooperation between districts that increases capacity and quality while lowering costs

    • Push for economic analysis before forcing systemic changes based on inaccurate or unclear data

    • Remove non-educational expenses from the Education Fund

    • Support small schools

    • Ban political appointments from education governance

    • Fully integrate Career and Technical Education and adult education as important components of our education system and not treated separately. 

    • Require that all taxpayer-funded schools are held to consistent standards and rules

    • Resolve the acute problems of hazing, harassment, and bullying in our statewide school culture by collecting data, reforming policy, provide training and guidance, and adding levels of accountability that are not currently in place. 

    • And NOT

      • Support forcing district consolidation, 

      • Unnecessarily shuttering schools,

      • Putting our communities at risk

• We have lost sight of the “ALL” part of “Housing for All”: I will always push for

  • Building housing that’s responsive to the needs of our actual demographics and economic stressors;

  • Reforming landlord laws such that landlords and tenants are recognized as equal partners in rental contracts; and

  • Finding ways to improve and make use of the older housing we already do have that has gone underused over the years. 

• Foster and encourage an accessible and robust economic system that doesn’t rely so heavily on small, service-based business to hold it up.