BRATTLEBORO-Molly Gray wants her old job back.
Gray, 42, a Democrat from Newbury, is running for lieutenant governor, a job she held from 2021 to 2023.
She came through Brattleboro on May 21 to visit Brattleboro Memorial Hospital, the Downtown Brattleboro Alliance, the agricultural community at the Retreat Farm, patrons at The Works on Main Street, and do a video webcast. She also found time for a sit-down interview with The Commons.
In 2022, while in her first and only term, Gray challenged Becca Balint in a high-profile, hard-fought race for the seat in the U.S. House of Representatives vacated by Peter Welch, who won the seat of retiring Sen. Patrick Leahy.
Balint beat Gray by a 24% margin.
“Let’s say on the record, I had the incredible pleasure of working with Becca Balint when she was president pro tem of the Vermont Senate,” Gray said. “And we were in the chamber every day together, sometimes just the two of us, because most senators were working remotely, because it was the height of Covid.”
Gray described Vermonters as “so deeply lucky to have Becca Balint in Washington.”
“She is exactly where she needs to be, and I hope, if elected, I will have the chance to work with her as a partner in Montpelier,” she said.
After leaving state government, Gray went on to head the Vermont Afghan Alliance, a Burlington-based nonprofit that supports Afghans who are resettling in the state.
Gray is also an attorney. She graduated Vermont Law School in 2014 and served as an assistant attorney general from 2018 to 2020.
In the Democratic Party primary on Aug. 11, Gray is competing against Ryan McLaren, who worked for Sen. Peter Welch for a decade, and Esther Charlestin, a first-generation Haitian American, the chair of the Vermont Commission on Women, a small-business owner, and an educator. Charlestin lost a run for governor in 2024.
When asked why she wants her old seat back, Gray said Vermont deserves a lieutenant governor who is “going to show up every day fighting for them, for their rights and for their families, and for the future of the state.”
In Vermont, the lieutenant governor is elected separately from the governor, giving the job some independence. The governor and lieutenant governor tend to come from competing parties, as was the case with Republican Gov. Phil Scott and Gray. Voters bucked that trend in 2024 by putting John Rodgers, another Republican, into the lieutenant governor’s office.
The job has three main responsibilities: officially presiding over the Senate (though the actual day-to-day leadership falls to the president pro tempore); breaking tie votes in the Senate; and stepping in to replace the governor in the case of death or incapacitation. When Republican Gov. Richard A. Snelling died in office in 1991, Democratic Lt. Gov. Howard Dean replaced him.
The lieutenant governor otherwise has freedom to work on, create public conversation about, and advocate for specific issues.
“Vermonters are hungry for leadership right now,” Gray said, adding that the lieutenant governor “has a voice to communicate what is right, what is wrong, what is lawful, what is not, and what is possible when we focus our priorities on the urgent challenges and needs facing the state.”
“A lieutenant governor can elevate the voices of Vermonters, help drive a focus on policy and lead,” she said.
Looking at the record
Gray’s term as lieutenant governor came during a stressful time in Vermont, when the state was dealing with the pandemic. Still, she said, she managed to make her voice heard.
“When I was lieutenant governor, I hosted a regular seat-at-the-table series, giving Vermonters a voice in Montpelier,” Gray said. “I brought students into the State House to serve virtually. They learned to serve as lieutenant governor for a day, making our government accessible to the next generation.”
She also “traveled to every corner of the state as part of a Recover Stronger tour, trying to assess where we should invest federal Covid relief funds to support Vermonters,” she said.
“But that is the bare minimum that we should expect,” Gray said. “In this moment, the stakes are so much higher.”
That is because the federal government appears to be attacking democracy’s core values, she said.
“Every morning, Vermonters wake up to some new act by the federal government to roll back rights and increase costs,” Gray said. “We, as a state, sometimes have a choice of whether we capitulate, we coordinate, or we hold the line. I believe Vermonters deserve a team of leaders in statewide office who are fighting every day to protect the rights of Vermonters.”
As examples, Gray pointed to Secretary of State Sarah Copeland Hanzas, a Democrat, who is fighting the Trump administration’s demands to hand over Vermont’s voter data, and Attorney General Charity Clark, also a Democrat, who has sued the Trump administration 49 times.
“Our treasurer, Mike Pieciak, is working to support immigration legal defense for Vermonters who may be unlawfully detained by [Immigrations and Customs Enforcement],” Gray said. “And we deserve a lieutenant governor who has the skills and ability to be on the team holding the line federally every day, while also helping the state invest in key initiatives to support working families.”
Gray said she has a good relationship with Scott, who is running for an unprecedented sixth term in office.
“I’ll work with whoever the governor is, and I had a strong working relationship with Phil Scott when I was lieutenant governor,” Gray said. “I’m not afraid to work with Phil Scott. And I’m not afraid to speak up when I disagree. I believe that Vermonters deserve a different kind of leadership, someone to speak up when Vermonters’ rights are being violated and their needs aren’t being met.”
When asked for some concrete success stories from her first time as lieutenant governor, she pointed to the entire Scott administration’s effective leadership during the pandemic.
“I helped work with the governor and the Legislature to support our recovery from Covid,” Gray said. “That was number one.”
She also cited her work as “a champion for child care and universal paid family and medical leave,” and held the first legislative summit on those two issues. “That helped with the passage of Vermont’s landmark child care bill,” she said of Act 76, which passed in 2023.
And in 2021, Gray and then-Secretary of Commerce Lindsay Kurrle, along with Greg Knight, adjutant general of the Vermont National Guard, represented the state in a partnership with North Macedonia.
She also presided successfully over the Senate.
“I didn’t waste a moment of my time in the office, because that’s what I believe Vermonters deserve,” Gray said.
Roots in Windham County
Gray comes from northern Vermont, but says visiting Brattleboro is like coming home.
“I spent my childhood visiting my grandparents,” she said.
“My dad grew up in Putney,” Gray said, and her grandparents, Ed and Mabel Gray, were beloved staff at The Putney School. “My grandfather was the handyman at The Putney School. He helped build it. My grandmother taught home economics.”
Her mother, Kim Mumford Gray, grew up in Dummerston and was a student at Brattleboro Union High School. Her mother’s father, Jack Mumford, founded Brattleboro Tire on Putney Road.
“I’ll never forget from where I came,” Gray said. “The roots run deep. And I think it’s important that Windham County have a voice in Montpelier,” Gray said.
Working with new Americans
Immigration is an important topic in Vermont, which depends largely on new Americans to help run its agricultural industry.
When she was leading the Vermont Afghan Alliance, Gray became especially aware of the risks taken by Afghans, who helped the U.S. government during its time there and then, when the Taliban regained power, they fled to come to America and restart their lives.
In Afghanistan, “they risked everything for our government,” Gray said.
For refugees who resettled in Vermont, “our agency helped them with things like jobs, housing, driver’s licenses and, unfortunately, immigration legal services. We worked with tremendous community partners like ECDC [the Ethiopian Community Development Council] here in Brattleboro.”
With the openly anti-immigrant policies of the Trump administration, “now they are being targeted as well as every other immigrant in the country,” Gray said. “Unfortunately, the Afghan community is not immune from unlawful ICE detention.”
Gray said she hasn’t “stepped back” from or given up her work for the Afghan community, and she said she would take those experiences with her should she return to state government.
Housing and health care
Addressing Vermont’s need for more housing should be included in a larger strategy for making Vermont affordable that also includes health care, Gray said, noting three related policy points.
“One, we need to continue to reform or remove barriers to costly duplicative permitting so that housing can be built in a faster time frame,” she said.
Secondly, “we must continue to invest in the workforce to build housing, so we need electricians, plumbers, and carpenters,” Gray continued.
Finally, “we need to make sure cities, towns, and [other] municipalities have the support to be able to build through advancements and Act 250 reform,” she said.
Gray is planning to visit every part of the state before the primary on Tuesday, Aug. 11.
“I’ve worked to try to make a difference with the skills and talents that I have,” she said. “I’ve tried to grow our workforce and tax base and better understand the challenges in finding housing or affording to live in Vermont.”
“I have a much greater understanding now of the needs of working families,” said Gray, who, since her days in the State House, has had a child, now 2½ years old, and is “also caring for my mom, who has multiple sclerosis.”
“These are the challenges that a generation, my generation, face every single day,” she said. “And if we want to meet the needs of working families, then we need to put them at the center and listen to what they’re saying about what it means to try to make it work in Vermont.”
This News item by Joyce Marcel was written for The Commons.