 And now I'd like to introduce this guy, who we've all seen before. This is Peter Hirschfeld, and you all know him from before. He's going to talk to us on changing of the guard, what the shift in political leadership means for Vermont. Peter has covered Vermont news since 2003. He began his career as a print reporter at the Times-Argus and Rutland Herald. He has been a broadcast journalist at Vermont Public for the past eight years, covering the legislature, state government, and Vermont politics. He's based at Vermont Public's Capital Bureau in Montpelier, and he lives in Worcester. And welcome him again, please. Peter. How is this volume? Can everybody hear me okay? Too loud? Just right. All right. Good job on getting the name right there. I still struggle with Vermont Public sometimes, but appreciate you playing along with this change and we're grateful for everybody's forbearance. It just feels really great to be back with you all in person. I think I've come to spend time with you four or five times now, which seems amazing. The last time we did this, I was at my living room table talking into a screen, and it was just extraordinarily awkward for me and probably for everybody involved. So yeah, just really great to be back here and see all of you in person. And to the folks on Zoom, we're sorry you can't be here with us. We're making you feel included in part of this as possible. And I sometimes have to remind myself that being able to come to events like this now really is a privilege. I had a conversation with the mother of an immunocompromised third grader recently for a story I was working on and she just can't send her kid to school right now because the prospect of getting COVID is just too severe given the situation that her kid is in. Yeah, there are just folks amongst us for whom this pandemic remains a very real thing and I'd just like to acknowledge that as we all enjoy this communal fellowship together today. I'm going to start off with this story and it's a story whose relevance I hope becomes apparent by the end of it. And I'll take us back in time 20 years ago to a time when Tubermonters, their names were Dick and Ginny Walters, started an organization, thank you, they started an organization called Patient Choices Vermont and their decision to launch this organization was inspired by the passage of the Oregon Death with Dignity Act which passed in 2002 and that law made Oregon the first state in the country to allow doctors to provide medical assistance to terminally ill patients who wanted to hasten their own deaths. Ginny and Dick Walters were inspired to pursue this cause based on their own personal experience with Dine loved ones. They saw how Oregon had decided to respond to this issue and they believed that Vermont too should offer this choice to people nearing the end of their lives. They were incredibly passionate advocates and activists. The Walters self-educated themselves in the nuances of the legislative process and they began to do what any good campaign does. They organized and they mobilized and they found like-minded individuals who were willing to join their cause. They found a community of people who were willing to contact their legislators who were willing to write letters to the editor to their local papers. They organized telephone trees. They raised money and sent postcards and pamphlets to people in the mail. They even bought TV ads paid to create and run TV ads. As I mentioned they founded this organization in 2002 and 11 years after they started, 11 years of hard work and persistence, Patient Choices Vermont had generated enough political momentum in this state to create an opening in Montpelier for passage of this end of life legislation that they were so passionate about. There was a critical mass of legislators that supported the measure. They had a governor in Peter Shumlin who was willing to use his political capital in the executive branch to propel this legislation through the state house. These things, however, are never straightforward and easy. And in this case supporters of this bill had a problem in the Senate, a problem in the Vermont Senate. The number of senators in favor of the bill was 15. The number of senators opposed was 15. In the case of a tie vote in the Senate, the decision goes to the lieutenant governor who presides over the Senate. And the lieutenant governor at that time was a person whose name you may recognize, Phil Scott, and he was adamantly opposed to this measure, understood why people wanted it but had concerns about the bill and was just a flat no. The fact that they were deadlocked 15-15, therefore, meant that this bill was effectively dead. It was not going to move forward. One of the senators that was a no vote, though, had an ear in his voice over the course of those deliberations. The senator's name was Peter Galbraith, the son of the famed economist John Kenneth Galbraith. Peter Galbraith was an esteemed diplomat in his own right and he was a Democratic senator from Wyndham County. He wasn't opposed to the concept in theory. What he didn't like was the state getting involved by a legislative action. But the voice in Peter Galbraith's ear that I mentioned was someone named Howard Kaufman. Probably a lot of you have heard of Howard Kaufman. He's an acclaimed Civil War historian, a very respected former member of the Fourth Estate in Vermont, a really accomplished journalist. Howard was and is to this day a close friend of Peter Galbraith's. Howard Kaufman was also an extraordinarily strong supporter of getting Vermonters the ability and the right to close out their final days as they sought it, that would work for them. And Howard Kaufman spent, I can't tell you how many hours in the Senate outside the building with Peter Galbraith working on him, talking to him day after day, trying to bring him around on the merits of this legislative proposal. As the session hurtled towards its conclusion, supporters of the bill were making revisions and tweaks trying to get Galbraith on board. But he just wouldn't tip his hand. He wouldn't let people know where he was at. People assumed we're just not going to be able to get him on board. As lawmakers moved into the waning hours of the session, Senate leadership decided, okay, we got to call this vote. We're running out of time. It's now or never. And so you have this moment of truth for this legislation. It was such a suspenseful moment. I can remember sitting on the Senate balcony. The chamber was filled with both supporters and opponents of this legislation. So many people who had put so many hours of time and effort into getting this thing across the finish line. And the role was called, and when the Senate secretary got to Peter Galbraith, this culminating moment in this decade-long effort, he said yes. He had come around to believing that this was the right thing to do. The tie was broken. Lieutenant Governor Phil Scott was no longer going to be the tie-breaking vote. And Vermont became the third state in the country to allow doctors to prescribe medicine to terminally ill patients that would allow them to die at a time and place of their choosing. And I share this story because it was so formative for me. I was a relatively inexperienced political reporter at the time. And I was struck by the power of a single vote. You know, like the system we've created for ourselves is in many ways designed to decentralize power, right? To make sure that no one person holds all the cards at any given time. But the way that process works, sometimes it really does come down to one individual on one day who gets to decide on all of our be-haves, the fate of a piece of legislation, sometimes of extraordinary consequence. The title of this talk is called changing of the guard with the shift in political leadership means for Vermont. And I feel disingenuous about the title of this lecture. I had to come up with a title, right? So this seemed like, okay, that sounds good. But the answer is I don't know, right? That's the short answer. I don't know what it means. In fairness to me, I don't think that anybody can predict that this stage, precisely how the outcomes of the upcoming election in Vermont or any other state for that matter, are going to figure in lawmaking over the course of the next legislative biennium. But what we do know, hence the probably too long that it needed to be a story about Peter Galbraith and that legislation, is that the Vermonters that we do entrust to serve either in statewide office or in the legislature could find themselves one day soon in the position of being the person that decides, is this going to go forward or is this not going to go forward? And for me, remembering that just kind of underscores the gravity of the decisions that all of us are going to make when we go to the ballot on November 8th or fill out the ballot that we've requested from our town clerk early. The Galbraith vote is not a one-time occurrence. Just this past session, Democratic lawmakers tried to pass what would have been, perhaps, the most ambitious emissions reduction law that Vermont has ever seen. It was called the Clean Heat Standard and it was a somewhat complicated bill, but it would have established a new framework whereby the state could effectively mandate reductions in use of fossil fuels for home heating systems and industrial heating systems by requiring fuel dealers and utilities to adhere to new admission standards. Governor Scott vetoed that bill. The Vermont House of Representatives failed to override it by a single vote, massively consequential piece of legislation whose fate came down to a single vote. Another bill from this past session would have allowed Burlington Institute of Charter Change that would ban no-cause evictions, something that a lot of housing advocates think is extremely important. Bill Scott vetoed that bill. Democrats and the Vermont House of Representatives, again, came a single vote shy of being able to override that veto. So the makeup of the legislature matters. The individuals who occupy state government matters. And no matter what happens on Election Day this year, we know we're going to see a significant change in who occupies those elected positions in Vermont. And that's because so many long-serving leaders are stepping down. You know, like I said, I don't know what all that is going to mean, and I can't pretend to right now, but I think it is useful to inventory the changes we know are coming down the pike, and maybe we can speculate a little bit then on what those changes might foretell. And it seems appropriate to start with the changes that we know are going to be coming at the highest levels. Vermont has nine statewide and federal offices. Those are two seats in the U.S. Senate, one seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, and then the statewide elected offices, which are Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Attorney General, Treasurer, Auditor, and Secretary of State. Of those nine federal and statewide offices, we're going to see new occupants in at least seven of them. Seven of Vermont's nine highest-profile political positions are going to be taken over by somebody new. We haven't seen a transition of that scope happen in a long time, and it is necessarily going to shift the dynamic in Montpelier and potentially in Congress. And if we want to talk about what those changes could mean for the state, let's go right to the top with Vermont Senior Senator Patrick Leahy. Patrick Leahy is the third longest serving senator in the history of the United States. He's been in that institution for almost 50 years. He's the last of the so-called Watergate babies. These were the reform-minded federal legislators that won office in 1974, just a couple months after Richard Nixon resigned from office. I mean, it's stunning to think about how long he's been there. My colleague, who's a statistics buff when it comes to politics, was telling me that if you take all the senators that have served in the United States since the country's founding in 1776, Patrick Leahy has served with 20% of them. Which is, I mean, that is something, right? And for better or for worse, and you could argue compellingly either way, the longer a person serves in the Senate, the more powerful they become. And because Patrick Leahy has been in office for so long, and because he has amassed so much power, it's difficult to overstate what the senator standing in that institution has meant for Vermont. And a recent example that I think highlights the benefits to this state of his position there is related to federal coronavirus relief aid. Over the past two and a half years or so, the federal government has injected more money into the United States economy than at any time during our history. And it's really not even close. The coronavirus relief packages and initiatives approved by Congress since March of 2020 now total more than $12 trillion. To put that into perspective, that's nearly tripled the amount of money that this country spent on the entirety of World War II. So we're really in an unprecedented place right now in terms of federal intervention in the domestic economy. There are a lot of economists that are actually kind of excited about this because it's an experiment playing out in a lab in real time. We're going to see what it all means. But guess which state got more money per capita than just about any other jurisdiction in this country? Vermont. Yes, it was Vermont. One analysis I just read has found that Vermont received $16,285 for every person that resides in Vermont for federal COVID-19 programs. $16,000 for every adult child individual in this state, which is an astonishing sum that I struggle to wrap my brain around. And this wasn't by chance, right? This wasn't a happy accident. It doesn't matter if you're a Democrat who thinks Patrick Leahy is a saint or a Republican who thinks he's wrong on just about everything that he could take a stance on. The one thing I don't think anybody can deny is that Pat Leahy's seniority has played an enormous part. It's the big reason why Vermont is getting such an outside share of overall COVID relief spending. And that's not the only place that Pat Leahy has been able to sort of bring home the bacon for Vermont. We get more than our fair share when it comes to things like fuel aid, nutrition assistance, farm aid. Now, we have right now Democrat Peter Welch and Republican Gerald Malloy vying for the opportunity to succeed Patrick Leahy in the U.S. Senate. Polls would indicate that Peter Welch has a pretty comfortable advantage in that race. But no matter who wins, right? It doesn't matter whether Gerald Malloy wins or Peter Welch wins. We know for sure right now that neither of those people will enjoy the same standing in the United States Senate that Patrick Leahy has. And neither of those candidates will be able to maneuver and manipulate appropriations in ways that benefit Vermont like Pat Leahy has. So, you know, that's one area at least where we can predict what the change in leadership means. It means Vermont won't have the dean of the Senate using his seniority to get this state more than it should otherwise expect to get in federal spending. One, this is just interesting to me. Maybe it'll be interesting to you. Another wild card here is if Republicans take control of the Senate. Because now Vermont finds itself in an even less advantageous situation. If Republicans control the Senate, then we go from having Patrick Leahy on appropriations and Bernie Sanders on budget committee, two powerful and important committees that have a lot of influence over where money goes and how it's spent. We would likely go to a state with no senators on those committees, right? Republicans are not going to be inclined to give their Democratic counterparts important roles on spending committees. So, you know, just another thing to keep an eye out. And also, for me, useful in terms of understanding how partisan dynamics that are the product of elections in other states can still have very real impacts on us here in Vermont. So, because Peter Welch, who's our current U.S. Congressperson, is running for the United States Senate, that means that his seat in the U.S. House is also up for grabs. Democrat Becca Ballant is vying for that seat against Republican nominee Liam Madden. He does not identify it as a Republican. He does not have the backing of the Republican Party, but he is the Republican nominee because he won that party's primary. In Liberty Union, candidate Erika Redick is also going to be on the ballot. She actually lost to Liam Madden in the Republican primary back in August. Becca Ballant, really compelling candidate who has shown widespread appeal among the Vermont electorate, also has an enormous and well-run campaign infrastructure that make her the overwhelming favorite to prevail on election day. What her presence in the U.S. House will mean for Vermont and for national politics for that matter is sort of difficult to speculate on at this point. I think the open question for a lot of people is, will she position herself as a more moderate establishment Democrat in the style of Patrick Leahy, for example, or will she govern in a way that more closely approximates what we see from Bernie Sanders and what he's come to represent? Will she be this progressive activist lawmaker who really tries to push for more structural government reforms? The early indications are that it's the latter. Becca Ballant campaigned alongside Bernie Sanders quite a bit during this election season. Bernie Sanders endorsed her in the Democratic primary. People credit that endorsement with giving her sort of an important lift towards the end of that primary race. And Becca Ballant has issued preemptive strikes against corporate interests that she blames for lack of action in Washington, D.C. on issues like carbon emissions and health care reform. You know, I think a lot of people are wondering if maybe Vermont will have a member of the squad, right? Could that be the direction that we're headed in? It usually takes some time before a single member of the U.S. House can exert significant influence on the trajectory of policy in that body. But it will be a fun dynamic to watch as it evolves. So that's the federal picture. Let's talk now a little bit about changes that are going to be coming in statewide offices. One thing we know for sure is that we're going to have a new lieutenant governor. First term incumbent Molly Gray decided not to seek reelection to that post so that she could run for the U.S. House. And so now we have Democrat David Zuckerman and Republican Joe Benning vying for your vote on November 8. A lot of people think that this might be one of the closest race, closest statewide races we have this cycle. David Zuckerman, of course, is a familiar name to you all because he was lieutenant governor from 2016 to 2020. He stepped down in 2020 to challenge Bill Scott for governor. Not great timing. A lot of things conspired against him. He ended up losing that race by 40 percentage points, which just sort of a historical drubbing. So Zuckerman wants a seat back now in his pitch to voters is that he wants to bring regular remonters back into the state house. He wants to provide an avenue through which they can get more involved in the legislative process so that they can advocate more effectively for issues that are important to them. He's sort of suggesting to people, if I'm your lieutenant governor, I'm going to improve your ability to register your voice in the halls of the state house and allow you to have more of a role in shaping the policy that's being considered under the Golden Dome. Joe Benning, who's a state senator from Caledonia County, is a moderate Republican. He's very much in the mold of Bill Scott. Ideologically, they're tough to tell apart. Joe Benning, for example, supports a constitutional amendment that would enshrine reproductive rights in the Vermont Constitution. He's a former chair of the Vermont Human Rights Commission. And Joe Benning says he wants to use the lieutenant governor's office to become what he calls the chief promoter for Vermont. He thinks Vermont needs to do a better job selling itself to the outside world. He thinks regionally, nationally, and even internationally we need to be making a better case for ourselves. He wants to go visit other states, other countries, talk about why Vermont is such a great place to live and work and run a business. And in doing so, Joe Benning is arguing that he can get more working-age folks, more businesses to decide to relocate to the Green Mountains. The thing about the lieutenant governor's office is that it comes with precious constitutional duties. I mean, there are instances, right, that we saw in the Bill Scott story where that tie-breaking vote, the duty of casting that tie-breaking vote because you provide over the Vermont Senate, does matter. For the most part, though, there are very few instances in which the lieutenant governor is going to have a direct role in policymaking or legislating in Montpelier. And for that reason, it's often thought of as more of a ceremonial office than anything else. The butt to that is that we have a long track record in Vermont of sending our lieutenant governors on to higher office. Madeleine Cunin, Peter Smith, Howard Dean, Bill Scott, all of them went from being lieutenant governor to being either our governor or our congressperson. Other former lieutenant governors, Brian Duby, Doug Racine, came within a hair's breath of being the governor of Vermont. And the reason I'm saying this is because, statistically speaking, there is a high likelihood that Vermont's next lieutenant governor will soon be credibly in the running for a more powerful and influential role in elected office. That, to me, is why the race for lieutenant governor matters because whoever the voters elect, they're effectively giving that person a springboard from which to launch a future run for office. And Joe Benning and David Zuckerman have very different views about the role of government, right? Joe Benning is inclined to believe that less government is better. He's concerned, for example, about the size and scope of social welfare programs in Vermont. He thinks the state is sort of squelching ambition by making it too easy for folks to live comfortably without a job. This is his opinion. David Zuckerman, meanwhile, believes strongly in the power of government to improve people's lives, has less faith in the free market to solve issues like housing or livable wage, and thinks that it's important for government to intervene, take more prominent roles in sort of ordering our economy and the way we pay for things. The differences between those candidates won't mean much if they're in the lieutenant governor's office, right? But if whoever does win this race does go on to a higher and more influential office, then the choice that folks make in this lieutenant governor's race on November 8 could really have some significant ripple effects on future policymaking in Vermont. We know that we're going to be getting a new attorney general, attorney general TJ Donovan, step down midterm. Suzanne Young, Bill Scott's former secretary of administration is in that role right now, but she's not seeking reelection. We know we're getting a new treasurer, Beth Pierce. A lot of people really like Beth Pierce, but she had to step down for health reasons, and it looks like Mike P. Chack is going to be taking over for her. And we're also going to get a new secretary of state, secretary of state Jim Kondos is retiring. If you all have more specific questions about policy related to those posts, I'm more than happy to field them during question and answer. I won't belabor them right now because they're not sort of part and parcel of what happens in Montpelier in the day to day, but they will have a role in policymaking. The next attorney general will have some influence over the course of criminal justice reform in this state. The next treasurer could really help shape the ongoing conversation we have about pension reform. That's something that's not going to go away because we passed that bill earlier this year. The next secretary of state will have a role in what our voting laws look like and professional regulation. We've touched on the seven of the nine federal and statewide offices where we know there's going to be somebody new in there, because the people in those offices now are either stepping down or retiring. There are two incumbent statewide elected officials who are not stepping down from their posts. That's Governor Phil Scott and auditor Doug Hoffer. Hoffer is facing a Republican opponent named Rick Morton. Rick Morton has not done a ton of campaigning, so I think most folks are assuming Doug Hoffer is pretty safe there. In the governor's race, Democrat Brenda Siegel is mounting a really serious campaign. She's raised a lot of money. She has a lot of supporters. A lot of prominent Democrats have endorsed her. Conventional wisdom and some recent polling data would suggest that Bill Scott is in a pretty comfortable position right now. As I mentioned, he won his last reelection campaign by 40 percentage points. That was just two years ago. But Brenda Siegel is making a really strong case to Vermonters that it's time for change in the executive branch. In the event that Brenda Siegel were to win that race, that would be a game changer in Montpelier. There's no other result on election day I don't think that would sort of turn what's going on in the Capitol on its head in the way that that race would. Phil Scott and the Democratic-controlled legislature have often worked hand in glove across party lines. They successfully negotiated some massive coronavirus relief packages. They've agreed on big-ticket spending bills for housing and broadband. But there are some high-profile issues where Scott and Democratic lawmakers depart. Reform for drug laws is one big area. Phil Scott has vetoed a couple bills related to that. Democratic lawmakers really want to move in the direction of treating substance use disorder as a public health issue. And one thing they want to do to advance that is decriminalize possession of small amounts of all illegal drugs. This is something that Phil Scott, in his constitution, is viscerally opposed to. Vetoed a bill that would have begun to send Vermont down that path. Brenda Siegel would have signed that bill and she would have done so enthusiastically. Overdose prevention sites, perhaps you've heard of these, are also known as safe injection sites. A lot of Democratic lawmakers see this as a really important harm reduction strategy. That if you can allow people to use drugs under supervision, without fear of arrest, that you can perhaps avoid some of the 854 overdose deaths we've seen in this state alone in the past six years. Phil Scott does not think that this is the right move for Vermont. He vetoed a bill that would have set up a study to look more closely at overdose prevention sites. Brenda Siegel would have signed that in a second. She would have held a signing ceremony. They also differ hugely on issues like creating more revenues for more government programs. Brenda Siegel is on the record saying she would support an increase in the marginal tax rate for high income earners in Vermont. She thinks the state could deploy that money in ways that would benefit low and middle income Vermonters. Phil Scott vetoed legislation that would have mandated carbon emissions in the heating sector. Vetoed legislation that would have used Act 250 to increase protection for wildlife corridors in forest lands. Vetoed legislation that would have allowed non-citizens to vote in Montpelier and Burlington and Winooski. All these are instances where had Brenda Siegel been governor, they would have gone into law and they would have gone into law with a happy governor signing the bills. Brenda Siegel as governor would basically just open the door in Montpelier to a lot of progressive policy ideas that Phil Scott has sort of been able to nip in the bud as governor. A lot of conversations haven't really even gotten off the ground because lawmakers know they don't have a willing partner in the Republican governor. Phil Scott is one of the most popular incumbent governors in the country according to a lot of polling and we've done some polls at Vermont Public that show that he enjoys majority of support even from Vermonters who identify as Democrats. He actually enjoys higher approval ratings from Democrats than he does from Republicans which is a fascinating thing and maybe a glimpse into the Vermont GOP of today. But elections exist to let voters make these decisions, not outside observers in the media like me and if Brenda Siegel can pull this thing off, it would be the single most important event on election day in terms of how the dynamic shifts in Montpelier next year. So we've talked about statewide offices, we've talked about federal offices. One of the things that's most interesting to me though, this election cycle is the Vermont legislature and that's because we're seeing an unusual amount of turnover in both the House and Senate this year. There are at least 44 House lawmakers that are stepping down from their seats. No fewer than 11 Vermont senators are retiring from office. There aren't just any lawmakers. These are long-serving, well-respected, influential people. People like Janet Ansell, chair of the House Committee on Ways and Means which oversees tax policy. Mary Hooper, the Montpelier representative who chairs the House Committee on Appropriations which makes all the big decisions about the state budget. The chairs of the House Committees on Judiciary, Technology, Education, Government Operations, Energy and Technology, Human Services, they're all stepping down. On the Senate side, Pro Tem, Becca Ballant is not going to be there anymore. Two chairs in that body are leaving. The point I'm trying to make is these departures all told are going to create a void in leadership in Montpelier that's going to create a really fascinating environment. It's going to be an environment in flux that's trying to find its own level, right? Find a new equilibrium there. And you're adding into that mix nearly 60 new lawmakers, many of whom have never set foot in a committee room, let alone navigated the legislative process. In all that mix together, you've got something of a brave new world under the golden dome heading into 2023. And that shake-up, it comes at a critical juncture. We find ourselves today, I mean, I don't mean to be hyperbolic, and I guess you can say this at any point in the history of the United States, but it feels like the people that I'm talking to were at a moment in which a lot of the basic systems that we rely on for our everyday lives are in crisis. And one of the major contributors to that crisis is the demographic challenge that we face in Vermont. And that's manifesting, of course, in these labor force issues. Vermont has 20,000 fewer people in its labor force right now than it did at the beginning of the pandemic. And we all have begun to experience the consequences of that when you go into a retail operation, right, or a store, you know, just places that either aren't open as much as they used to be or don't have people there to do what needs doing when you do go. But the labor force shortages are also manifesting in ways that have begun to erode anchor institutions that perform really critical functions, hospitals and other health care organizations. They can't find nurses and other health care workers. I listened to the CEO of a health clinic in LaMoyle County that serves low income patients. And he said, look, our clinic has reached a point where we are unable to fulfill our mission because we don't have the health care staff that we need to provide treatment to the patients that come to us for care. You have hospitals that are turning to traveling nurses to perform really important roles. Those traveling nurses, in some instances, cost $200 and $300 an hour. The nurses themselves aren't getting that, but you know, there's these agencies, everybody's taking a cut. Hospitals this fiscal year alone are on track to spend $75 million on travelers. And it's just creating what by hospital executives account, the Green Mountain Care Board's account, are an unsustainable spending track that's threatening the long term solvency of our health care infrastructure. Public schools, I don't know how many of you have teachers in your lives or other public school staff. It's sobering talking to people who are in our schools right now. The things those folks are dealing with, it's just hard to imagine. And a lot of them are leaving as a result at all levels. There has been unprecedented turnover in principals over this past year who are leaving their schools because, you know, they just can't do it anymore. It's just too much. So the point is that the next legislature is going to have some really critical urgent issues to deal with. And the folks that are elected to serve in that institution are going to have to come up with the answers. And the answers that they come up with are going to hinge in large part on the people that are elected to fill those positions on November 8th. So I suppose sort of a depressing thought, and I don't mean to depress everybody, I want to make sure. Yeah, and I guess we're coming right up on 245. If you're looking for one key thing to follow on election day, the thing that a lot of political folks are going to be keeping an eye on, one big question is whether or not Republicans can get to 51 seats in the Vermont House of Representatives. Right now they have 46. If they can get to 51, then that would, and they can hold together as a caucus, then that would give them the ability to unilaterally sustain any vetoes that Phil Scott issues. So one fun number to track on election night. Well, it might be that one. And I'll throw it open to questions now. Can you hear me? Yeah. That was good. But not exciting. We are going to miss Patrick Leahy. Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. Okay, questions. Want to raise hands, please, for your questions? Okay, we'll take them one at a time. Assuming Brenda can get in and she has an overwhelming majority in the legislature, is there enough money left over in the pipeline from the COVID that she can start on all these programs that she wants? So one of the harsh realities for Vermont's next legislature is that that money is beginning to dry up. Most of it has been spoken for. Most of it has already been earmarked for programs that the legislature voted on during these past two years. And so the short answer is no. A lot of the federal coronavirus relief aid was time limited. That money will continue going out the door through 2024. But decisions about how that money is going to be spent have largely already been made. And the loss of those resources is going to make things a lot more complicated for legislators in the coming years. And they're also hearing from economists that work for them that things could get exceedingly tight two or three years from now. Where you could really begin to see the bottom drop out and begin to see state revenues dry up in ways that we haven't experienced for a while. I live in the Burlington area, as probably most of us do. We have seen that a lot of people during COVID have moved here from other places because they can work remotely and also because they seem to have a lot of money to buy homes here. How is that going to affect the voting? I was talking with the chair of the Vermont Democratic Party just a couple days ago. I was working on a story specifically about a district called Orleans 4. It's actually a new district that's being created as a result of reapportionment. And it includes the towns of Crassbury, Glover, Greensboro, and Albany. These are places that have seen something of an influx of folks who decided, you know what, rural Vermont looks a lot better to me right now than whatever suburban or urban environment that I had been in during COVID. But what he said is you don't have the critical mass of newcomers to Vermont that would be enough to sort of meaningfully shift the outcomes of elections. And most of their targeting is being done with folks who have been here for years. So certainly on the margins you could see that make a difference. But the influx, at least according to some of the housing data, it's significant, but there doesn't seem to be a sense that people that have come from out of state to Vermont are a new formidable block and constituency that's going to be able to, you know, in and of itself. Alter the outcome of elections from what they would have otherwise been. Did you say that Vermont is missing 20,000 people? Where did they go? We don't know. Well, no, really. Where did they go? Yeah, it's a good question. It's an epic of the cycle of people being born, people dying. We're losing 20,000. Where did they go? So I'm not an actuary, I'm not a labor market analyst. I have talked with some, though. And I was reading an interesting analysis that right now we are in the process of seeing a generation that has held the most wealth of any generation. Of any civilization in the world beginning to phase out. And what's happening to that wealth is a lot of it is being redistributed to the generation before that. Right? This is what happens when people pass away or die or get to a point where they're financially comfortable and they want to make things financially comfortable for their children. And their grandchildren. And so one thing that people are surmising is that because this wealth is making its way earlier than it would have in the past, you're finding people of working age who no longer need to work and are deciding, you know what, I guess I really don't want to. Over the years, Governor Scott has made it fairly plain that vis-a-vis the legislature, he feels like he's the adult in the room. Most of our governors, you've heard this before, obviously, most of our governors I don't think have served more than eight years, if that. Do you have any feel for where Governor Scott might be heading on this? Does he think he's going to be the adult in the room for the rest of his life or where are we headed? You know, the one downside, we love you, CCTV, but the one downside of having this camera on me is that it makes me less comfortable answering this question the way that I would if we were... I think Phil Scott has authentically expressed that he's not interested in being governor for perpetuity. He's comfortable in the job and I think he's obviously mission driven and he feels like there's a real purpose for him being there right now. But I don't get the sense that he's somebody that's looking to be in that position for years and years and years more. He said his goal always was to leave Vermont in a better situation than he found it. We're in the midst right now of sort of finishing the job in terms of getting all this COVID relief money that came to us out the door, making sure that it finds its way to the places it's supposed to get it. And so I think it'll be interesting to see whether or not Phil Scott thinks that his job is done once this COVID relief money sort of phases out. Zoom members, we could use some questions. The legislature you said is losing about 60 people and we have a very strong Democratic majority obviously. Do you see any shift within the potential new body to the right, to the left? Does it have divisions in it that are obvious? I'm curious to know how you see that because so often when you have a huge majority you start seeing some separation that's pretty clear and different voting blocks. I think in the scenario where Brenda Siegel is the governor of Vermont what I think would be really fascinating is that people would find out that a lot of their Democratic lawmakers huge to a fiscal ideology that is a lot closer to Governor Phil Scott than people think. There are a lot of fiscally moderate Democrats in the Vermont legislature who are not given to raising taxes, who are not given to dramatic increases in the size of government programs. I think we also in my business sometimes make too much about partisan makeup in the body. There were times one by any ago when Democrats in theory had the veto-proof majority between progressives and Democrats. They had over 100 people and yet there were pretty high-profile instances where Democrats couldn't hold together because there were a lot of them that just didn't believe in the party line on that particular vote and ended up siding with Phil Scott. What's going to be interesting for me to see as much about whether people have an R or a D next to their name is sort of the demographic profile of who's elected. I think it was one by any ago. We did a little sort of survey and the average age of a house representative was 63 years old. The average age of a state senator was 65 years old. What we're beginning to notice is a little bit more youth coming into the pipeline. I think there are maybe 25 Democratic candidates under the age of 40 that are running this year. There are a handful of candidates who are under the age of 30. I talked to House Majority Leader Allison Clarkson. She says they're seeing their candidates trend younger as well. I think that could have a really big influence in the issues that lawmakers decide to focus on. I was just talking with a candidate in the Northeast Kingdom. She's a Democrat about 40 years old and she has a three-year-old and she has a five-year-old. One of the reasons that she decided she wanted to get into legislating is because she sees so many moms around her that she's friendly with or in her community that are struggling mightily with child care. It's just not working. That is going to be a focus of hers in a way that it might not be for somebody that isn't dealing firsthand with those issues. I think that will be an interesting thing to keep an eye on, not just whether somebody is a Republican or a Democrat, but do they maybe represent a portion of Vermont that hasn't historically been well-represented in Montpelier? Let's take a Zoom question. Phil Baruth's name is being floated as a new pro tem. How might that color things? There's a couple folks that are contemplating making a bid for pro tem. As somebody who has spent a lot of time in the building under different leaders in different chambers, the person that is in that position can make a huge difference. Not just in terms of what elected officials decide to focus on, but the efficiency and operational intensity with which they're able to approach them. Phil Baruth is somebody who we haven't seen in that role yet. I think it's difficult to speculate on what style of leadership he would have. Certainly, he's watched Becca Ballant, who has been a very capable pro tem, and I think by all accounts, Republicans and Democrats alike in that chamber felt like she did an extraordinarily good job of making sure that everybody felt like their voice was heard, that things that were important to them were given consideration. The fact that there's going to be somebody new in that position is a real wild card, and whoever it is and how they approach it is going to mean a lot in terms of the way that not just the Senate, but the entire building runs. I was just wondering in the state of Vermont, is there any research done on the number of independent voters? What their effect ever is in elections, how that works? Yeah, so generally it's been so long since I looked at the numbers, but I think it's somewhere around like a 40, 30, 20 thing, 40 identify mostly as lean Democratic, 30 Republican, and then you've got this group in the middle of independence. They have an enormous effect on elections, right? That's why they are so targeted and so sought after by campaigns. The open-minded independent is one of the biggest prizes for political strategists because they do have the power to swing things. Time for one more question. I can't think of another one, come on. Okay, good. This is impossible for you to answer, but I was hoping that TJ Donovan would aspire to politics and I was really sad to see him go because he just seemed like such a common sense guy. I wondered if he had any insight about it. You know, it was a decision that caught a lot of people by surprise because he spent so long positioning himself for what everybody thought would be either a run for governor or a lot of people thought more likely the U.S. House of Representatives when that seat opened up. So, you know, he made a decision that he felt was best for himself and his family in doing so, at least for now, abandoned what a lot of people pegged as the most promising political career in Vermont. Peter, thank you. This has been fabulous. Thank you so much.