 Hello, and welcome to ongoing general election coverage by town meeting television. This is one of a series of forums we are bringing you in advance of the general election on November 8th. My name is Bridget Higdon. I'm the managing editor of the St. Alamed's Messenger, the Essex Reporter, the Colchester Sun and the Milton Independent. I'm here tonight with former Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman and Senator Joe Beding, who are competing for your vote for Lieutenant Governor of the state of Vermont. Town Meeting TV hosts forums with all candidates and covers all ballot items you will see on your November ballot. Town Meeting TV election forums introduce you to community decision makers and connect you with issues that shape your local community. If you're watching this live, we welcome your questions at 802-862-3966. We're going to start here with some opening statements from each of the candidates. They'll have one minute to please tell us why you are running. And most importantly here, what will be different for the people of Vermont because you are elected. So we'll go, I guess, alphabetical here by last name. So Senator Beding, can we begin with you please for a one minute opening statement? Sure. Thanks, Bridget. David, good evening. I'm running for Lieutenant Governor because, number one, I believe in the institution of the Senate, it's a place where I've been for the past 12 straight years. And I'm somewhat concerned that the office of Lieutenant Governor, which presides over the Senate, is fast becoming a revolving door for politicians who want to climb up the ladder. I don't want to do that. In fact, I've committed to getting re-elected in 24 if in fact I am elected this term. My hope is that folks will recognize I have been in the Senate now for 12 years. I know who the senators are and how they fit together, which was one of the components of the Lieutenant Governor's position. I have the ability to run a meeting, having been chair of Vermont's Human Rights Commission, having watched three different Lieutenant Governors over the years, developed their cadence and routine and the delivery of their mission as moderator of the Senate. And I've served as town moderator in the town of Lyndon for the past 10 years. My best attribute, however, happens to be my good working relationship with Governor Phil Scott. I do believe he's going to be re-elected. And one of the things that the Lieutenant Governor must do at this point in time when we're about to lose a big chunk of federal money that has been in our revenue stream for the past couple of years is to work in harmony with his office and try to advance his legislation and keep us in an affordable state. I believe he has kept a very good hand on the tiller of our ship of state, and I would like to keep a very firm hand on that tiller with him as we go forward. So I hope you'll take a deep dive into my candidacy at joebenning.com, and hopefully we'll have a good discussion this evening and you can learn about more of our differences. Thanks. Great. Thank you. And David, let's hear from you, please. Thank you, Bridget. And town meeting TV. I've always enjoyed these conversations and community access. I am David Zuckerman. I'm former Lieutenant Governor, also state legislator for 18 years. Also father, small business owner, I run and operate our farm with my spouse. And I have a lot of experience in the legislative process, both as a policymaker and as Lieutenant Governor. What I'm hearing all across the state is that people are struggling. They're struggling with housing costs. They're struggling to keep their house warm this winter with the rising fuel costs. They're struggling to make sure Vermont is a place that they can live and thrive. And right now we're seeing Vermont become a playground for the rich. And I believe you need someone. I believe the issues in front of us are about everyday Vermonters. And those issues are on economic struggle as well as the climate crisis. We've had record opioid overdoses. And if you return me to the office of Lieutenant Governor, you're going to get someone who has real experience working with Vermonters across the state on major legislation that has improved our lives from raising minimum wage to working to have marriage equality, climate legislation and many other pieces. So if you get me and as Lieutenant Governor, what you will see is someone who works with you all across the state to bring your voice into the process so that we can tackle these major issues facing Vermonters. And as my opponent also said, you can find out more information on my website at Zuckerman4vermont.com. That's ZuckermanFORVT.com and I look forward to working with you. Great. Thank you very much. Senator Benning did a good job sort of describing the role of the Lieutenant Governor as it is on paper, proceeding over the Senate breaking ties as need be. So David, we'll kind of come back to you here. Can you talk about in what ways you would use this position, both sort of that concrete and then what sort can you build around that, please? Sure. There are the three very clear jobs. One is to be first in line to be governor if something happens to the governor. Two is to preside over the Senate, you're essentially the town moderator of the Senate. And the third is to serve on the committee on committees, which allocates the senators to their various committees, as well as citizen appointments to boards all across the state. As Lieutenant Governor, I've got four years experience doing that. I've worked with the senators, I've in fact got the endorsement of the majority of the senators who will be returning and I plan to work with all senators to make sure we use their services and their expertise as well as we can on all the different committees that we'd be assigning them to. As Lieutenant Governor and as a legislator, what I used to do was travel the state one foot in the building doing the official duties and one foot throughout the rest of the day. And in the off session, traveling Vermont, really bringing Vermonters deeper into the process from school groups to senior senators. I've talked with and worked with people who didn't realize how powerful their voice could be. And when we brought them into the process, we made effective change for them and their community members. And I look forward to doing that again. Thank you. And Senator Betting, in what ways would you use this position in state leadership? Well, first, I would act as a conduit between constituents and myself for people who would want to come into the building and learn about the government process. And I've done that in the past with numerous individuals and I use the typical example of an eighth grade girl named Angela Kubicki came in asking me the question, why doesn't Vermont have a Latin motto? It's a long story, but Vermont does now have a Latin motto as a result of my efforts to bring her into the building, introduce her to who the players were, and shepherd a bill through the system where she and her classmates all got a very good education on how civil government actually works. I'm very proud of the fact that this young lady now is out of college, but the bottom line for her is somewhere down the road 50 years from now, she'll have a grandchild on her knee and be able to say, that's something that I did through government. And I was very appreciative of the senator who helped me for that process. I believe the office is also a place to act as a conduit between anybody coming in the building and the governor's administrative team. I have a very good working relationship with all of the administrative players. I happen to know that they have a mission. I know what that mission is. I want to be able to help Governor Scott continue with that mission of making Vermont a more affordable place and being able to introduce the players who walk in my door immediately to those folks in the administration who might bring them an immediate solution to their problem is a very important part of the job. Great. Thanks very much. Let's talk here about endorsements, both of which you've received many. So can you talk about what organization or individual are you proud of being endorsed by and why Joe will start with you please? Obviously, the first endorsement is Governor Phil Scott. He has officially endorsed me, not just in the general election, but also in the primary. I think that he sees me as somebody who would be a valuable addition to his team. I would want to work that for all it could be worth. I've also been endorsed by former Governor Jim Douglas, former Lieutenant Governor Brian Duby, and those individuals have worked with me throughout this process, teaching me everything I need to know about this particular position, but it is important for the position itself to have a really good working relationship. And I happen to do with the governor that I would be serving under and in the event that it happened that he could not serve in his role, step into his shoes, if you will, with the administrative team that basically comes along with that package and in running in what's currently an 8.2 billion dollar budget, that's really important when somebody steps into that role. David, please. Sure, I'm not going to limit it to one or even two people because what I'm most proud of is that I have the endorsement of every single environmental group that's endorsed, every single labor group that's endorsed. Let's grow kids, moms demand action, and numerous current and former elected officials and leaders, including Becca Ballant, who's going to be our next congresswoman, and Peter Welsh and Bernie Sanders, as well as Howard Dean, Doug Racine, the vast majority of the Senate, including the majority leader, Allison Clarkson. I'm proud of this breadth of support because it really shows that I have a long track record of working with people across the board and across the state to make policy happen and to get things done. I'm particularly proud of the environmental endorsements, VPIRD, Sierra Club, Vermont Conservation Voters, Bill McKibbin, because when we look at the issues of our time, they are all overshadowed by the climate and what we can or may not do around trying to mitigate the effects and how we can take advantage of the economic opportunities that the climate crisis is also going to create for us from weatherization to renewable energy jobs and carbon sequestration through agriculture. We have a lot of opportunities and I'm really pleased to have the endorsement of so many different groups and so many different people. Great. Thank you both very much. I've got sort of a follow up question here. Senator Benning, you mentioned that it's important to have a working relationship with the governor as lieutenant governor. And so, of course, Governor Scott is running for that position. We also know Brenda Siegel is running for that position. David, I'm wondering when you were, you served lieutenant governor with Governor Scott, do you have the opportunity to possibly do that? Again, if you're elected, it could also be Brenda Siegel. Can you just talk a little bit about what that relationship means to you and how it's worked out in the past? Sure, happy to have that conversation. I will work with whoever is governor. I've always made that opportunity available. I think there are issues that you can work on no matter who's in the executive branch. It's also more to recognize that the relationship between the lieutenant governor and the people of Vermont and the Senate is critical to making sure those voices are heard. I took calls from people around the state who had called the governor's office hadn't gotten a response and our office helped them. I've reached out to the governor on ideas around saving money in Vermont through our very huge human services budget and education budget and said, let's work together to save money and make government more efficient. I plan to do that again with this governor, if he wins or with Brenda, because I think what we have to do is look at how we can make government work better. I've reached out and worked with different secretaries of this administration, both ones that have been there before, as well as new ones that came in while I was lieutenant governor. We all know that we can work across the aisle when both sides are ready to work together. And I'm more than happy to do that. Thank you. And Joe, would you like to respond here? Any further comments? Well, I think I have a very good relationship with Phil Scott. That's the one difference that I bring to the table here in this conversation, because I know that David, at the very least in running against him has demonstrated that he is not in favor of what the governor is presenting for policies. So what I envision at the commencement of the next session is the warning signs coming down the pike of a severe downturn in our federal revenue stream at a time when David and Phil Scott would be at loggerheads with each other. And that's very concerning to me. I want to believe that if Brenda Siegel is actually elected, I've had a fairly good relationship with Brenda. I use this as an example on the past winter when she was sleeping out on the state house steps. I was walking by one morning and I invited her into the building to get warm and give her breakfast. We engaged in conversation then. We've had several conversations since then. We have long term and short term differences in how we would attack a given problem. For instance, housing. Brenda is very much interested in creating a short term solution to the problem. I am very much interested in creating a long term solution to the problem. And I suspect if we spent some time working with each other, we would figure out how to reach consensus. But at the end of the day, I believe everybody that is in the state house right now, I don't care what party you're from, they all see me as somebody who is congenial and willing to work across the party lines. We have done so on many occasions and many of the bills that I've been associated with have been just that, for instance, cannabis reform, tax and regulated system. I have worked very extensively with people from across the aisle and I believe that is the actual way you get things accomplished here in the morning. If I could follow up on that for a moment. I do appreciate the work Joe picked up from my 15 years of cannabis work again also across the aisle. Part of working across the aisle is recognizing those people you did work with. So Joe, thank you for that work as well as work on many other issues that we've worked together on. But I do think it's important to recognize that our job is to be representative of the people and to work with anybody and everybody who's willing. And I've always been willing to work with both Governor Scott and folks across the aisle, including putting Joe in as chair of institutions six years ago. And I think you did a good job. You made a good choice. Great. Thank you very much. We'll move on to another topic here. Let's talk about gun rights here in Vermont. Can we talk about your positions on gun control legislation, if any? Who did started with last time? I think it was Joe. So David will jump to you perhaps here. Sure, happy to. I think you had started with me on the governor question, but that's OK. So, you know, for me, I think it's very important. So look at public safety across the spectrum. And part of that is around gun safety and gun safe common sense, gun safety measures. The vast, vast majority of Vermonters support mild steps that would make it safer in Vermont, whether it's waiting periods or really looking at the issue around folks not getting a full background check and then being able to buy a gun because the statute of time ran out. You know, all we need to do is make sure we have a safer state and allow people to have the guns they need for their personal safety and or hunting, as is protected in Article 16 and of the Vermont Constitution and Article Two of the US Constitution. But we do know that it is legally been approved to have certain limitations. And I think we need to look at a couple of those to make sure Vermont is both safe and respectful with those gun rights. Great, thank you. And Joe, do you think there should be further gun legislation in Vermont? I don't bridge it. And that's because we've had several pieces of legislation come down the pike recently. I don't think any of them have had real full time to work out. But for instance, the red flag law, I supported it once we had due process put in place to protect those who were accused but had a good reason not to be accused to be able to get into court and get their property back. I have had several differences of opinion along the trail about Article 16 of the Vermont Constitution. The bottom line on that is it has got nothing to do with hunting. It is all about your right to bear arms for self defense. So when I hear people talking about a waiting period is just a little thing we can wink, wink and pretend we don't need to worry about the explicit language of the Constitution. I get up on my heels, if you will, and I say, wait a minute, we are sworn to uphold that document. We're sworn to protect and defend it. If you want to change the Constitution, that's fine. But right now, the explicit language requires me to be very cautious and walking down the road of additional gun legislation. And right now, I don't know anything that's out there pending on the table that we could specifically address. So right now, I'm happy with what we've got. If I could just add, as far as I know, Joe is not all knowing with respect to what the courts will decide in the interpretation of such a document, the legislature's job is to explore what people want within the confines of the Constitution. And I think that conversation is worth having. I'll just pose a counter to that and say, I know what the document says. It's very explicit. And the first thing that happens to you when you take a seat in the legislature is you are sure to uphold that document. And I intend to continue doing that unless and until I see something that doesn't interfere with that. And you did vote for a restriction, which by your purest perspective wouldn't have passed such a muster, but it did. That's because I put due process into it. Is due process in Article 16? Article 16 says you have the right to bear arms. The bill that was in front of us, yes, and the bill that was in front of us was to remove property from you. And if I was going to support something like that, it would have to be on the heels of making sure a court had observation over what was happening. That's my point is the court did interpret that to be legitimate. Well, the courts have not determined that at all at this point in time. That may be coming down the pipe, but they have not yet addressed that issue. OK, thank you. If you're watching this live, we welcome your questions at 802-862-3966. Just as a reminder, we've got 10 minutes here. So let's move on to talking about the climate. Do you expect climate change to impact Vermont in the next three to 10 years? And how do you propose we mitigate that potential negative impact? Joe, we're going to go to you first here. Sure. I would say it's a safe bet that the climate in the way it is changing will affect Vermont in some fashion. We're not going to be so bold as to say it's going to result in us being a desert in the near future. But the bottom line is we need to be paying attention to what's going on. For that reason, I have championed the cause of having us become resilient, because I think that's within Vermont's ability to do. Vermont has a very limited number of people. We have a very limited revenue stream. And in order to make sure we use our resources wisely, I think we should attack the first priority. And for me, the first priority is making sure our people are actually resilient to whatever is coming down the pipe. Can you define what that means to me? What does resilient mean to you? Sure. We have set aside a lot of money through the years to make homes weatherize. We've been absent projects to complete that, but we have paid attention to it. And I think that is the direction we need to be going. We shouldn't allow, for instance, homes to be built in a river floodway plain. You're going to have a lot more water falling upon us. And when that happens, those folks who are closest to the water may be threatened. So learning how to adapt as a human animal to what's coming down the pipe is very important. And it is within our responsibilities as a state to try to take that on. It's not overbiting anything that you want to attack in climate change. One of the differences between David and I is we have a very different opinion on what tools should be used in that effort. But for me, the top priority is making sure we are resilient. Okay. Great. Thank you. And David, please. Sure. Well, thank you. A few things. My opponent just mentioned he was been a climate champion. I'm interested in that, given that every environmental group has endorsed me. And in fact, some have recognized me as an environmental leader and champion in the legislature. And if my opponent has received such accolades, I was unaware. But through 20 years, I've worked on the legislation, both water quality, climate, housing weatherization as well. And I can tell you as a farmer that the changing climate is happening daily. The erratic weather is happening more. It's impacting our ability to produce a consistent food supply. This is only going to get more extreme as time goes on. And yet, if we don't act swiftly, we're going to continue to see our climate shifting. Our shorter winters will impact our tourism will have hotter summers. It is critical that we take this into a new level of urgency. We know when there's a catastrophe, whether it's the COVID, when citizens came together and said we need to tackle this together. We need to take care of our neighbors. We need to take care of ourselves. We can do this with a climate with a coordinated effort. And I believe I'm better suited to do that coordinated effort having worked with people all across the state on these issues already. Well, David, you've asked about my championing for the environment. But long before you came to the state of Vermont, I was one of those people who was harassing their congressman because we were experiencing acid rain from the Midwest coal-fired power plants. And it was defoliating our mountain ridge lines. The exact ridge lines which we differ about whether or not we should have 500-foot wind towers put atop them after dynamiting those ridge lines and then having all of those ridge lines exposed to, in the case of Lowell, 21 separate 100-foot tall concrete pyramids. The nutshell is we may have different opinions about how Vermont should be reacting. But I think both of us are very much concerned about the climate. This question was designed for the next three to ten years. I don't think you're going to be stopping production of carrots in the next ten years. I really think it would be disingenuous for us to try to leave that impression with the public at large. But I do believe there are certain things that the national government should be doing in order to effectuate the changes that I think we both are looking for. But there's also Vermont's contribution to that. And I believe that Vermont has a limited number of people and a limited number of dollars to work with. So I come back to saying resiliency right now is my number one priority. We need to do both, but I will tell you as a farmer there are crops that I'm already taking off of my list of production because of the impact of different pests due to them arriving sooner because our climate is changing. Whether it's carrots or something else, I will very clearly let you know that there are crops shifting as far as what is valuable or possible to produce in Vermont literally years within years. Great. Thank you both very much. I do want to move on to a final topic here in our remaining minutes. So can we talk a little bit about what the Lieutenant Governor can do for racial justice in Vermont? What are some concrete steps for Vermont in this work? David, we're going to start with you, please. Well, of course, first and foremost I hope voters will support Proposition 2. It is on the ballot to adjust our Constitution language around slavery to make sure there's no semblance even within our criminal justice system of allowing that in Vermont. It's both symbolic and meaningful. I think we really have to look specifically at our education and incarceration systems. We know there's a very disproportionate rate of disciplinary action, suspensions and detentions of people in communities of color in school. We have to work on better training around their implicit bias. These are biases that we all have but when people are in positions of power over others and teachers are both incredible nurturers for our youth they're also in positions of power with respect to disciplinary action and law enforcement who also take care of all of us and protect all of us but also have power over all of us. We need to do serious training around implicit bias to really work to reduce these disproportionate numbers that are being incarcerated and being punished in our schools. We also need to support economic development tools. There's great professionals of color networks that we could help either individually to amplify their existence to help small businesses get started led by people of color as well as potentially state investment to help those businesses get on their feet and build their wealth of our society across all of us and that's the next some disproportionately dollars. Thank you. Great, thank you. And Joe please what can the office of Lieutenant Governor do in this one? I probably have about a minute left. Let me say first we are working on all of these things in my chairmanship of the Vermont Human Rights Commission we began talking with law enforcement agencies to try to start collecting data we have done that quite successfully incorporating that into all of our law enforcement training. The cannabis tax and regulated system that we just worked on in the judiciary committee comes out with a statement effectively saying anyone who has been affected socially may be able to get some leg up if you will the licensure of trying to put together a tax and retail establishment. I'm very proud of the work that we have been doing in order to try to get people to come together and look at what things need to be done especially for law enforcement I'm very proud of law enforcement for taking that lead and I think we are making tremendous strides in determining how it is that people of color are ending up disproportionately in our juvenile system as well as our adult criminal system so at this point the only other thing I would say as Lieutenant Governor we want to invite everybody to the table anytime we get an opportunity to have a conversation it's really important to have those folks come in I'll use an example of Connor Casey at our last debate Connor is a person of color and we were talking about the fact that he left my town of Linden to go over to Burlington because he felt more comfortable in a place where he had a whole lot of people who looked like him and I said Connor the way that we are going to actually have a lot of people talking to each other is if you're not in a homogenous society we are actually out there talking with each other every day and that's really something very important to me to have that conversation with Lieutenant Governor's office great thank you both very much I do want to have some quick closing statements here so perhaps we'll go a minute or two over I think that is alright with me it's alright with you so good so yes let's hear each of you about 30 seconds or so with your final note to voters I believe Joe did his opening statement first so David will you close first please sure and Joe I think you meant Connor Cyrus not Connor Casey but you're right thank you I do want to thank CCTV and all of you out there watching you do have a clear choice before you one who wants to go with a little more as usual and someone else who's got bold progressive leadership to tackle the urgent issues of our time I've spent my entire career in public service putting forth ideas and issues that were ahead of their time in the moment but working with Vermonters across the state we built the momentum to tackle those big issues from marriage equality to raising wages Lyme medical care for Vermonters as well as affordable housing and climate and rural agricultural issues I want to continue that fight with you and for you as lieutenant governor I want to continue the work I've done in living rooms and church basements and coffee shops across the state bringing you into the process so that Vermonter will tackle these issues with the urgency that they have and need and deserve I hope you'll vote for me on election day please do visit my website zuckerman4vermontzuckerman4vt.com and you can send me an email or ask any questions you want if you vote, about 80,000 people have and your vote is critically important to make sure we have good results here in Vermont, thank you thank you and Joe please David has alluded to the fact that I'm actually looking for business as usual I will plead guilty if business as usual is keeping Vermont affordable as Phil Scott has attempted to do I plead guilty if being a person who has tried to keep our taxes down I will plead guilty to wanting to do that as well we have donated 90 million dollars or set aside 90 million dollars for home improvement 40 million dollars for tax relief purposes growing our economy we've dedicated 87 million dollars broadband connectivity 96 million dollars and growing our workforce 66 million dollars if those things are business as usual I'm all for it I think we can to make Vermont a reasonable affordable great place to live, work and play and the last thing I want to say is between the two of us I have the best working relationship with Phil Scott and I believe he will be re-elected please visit my website joebenning.com thanks everybody for turning out today and have a great Vermont day great thank you both very much for joining us this evening for their ongoing coverage of state and regional candidates please don't forget to vote on or before November 8th you can do so at the poll from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on November 8th or you are most likely mailed a ballot which you can fill out and either bring to the poll or give it back to your town clerk so lots of options for voting and we really do encourage you to do so again my name is Bridget Higdon managing editor of several papers in the area here and I appreciate the chance to be a part of this you can re-watch this on the town meeting TV YouTube channel so thank you both very much best of luck with the rest of your campaigns and have a great rest of the night thank you Bridget thank you thank you