Django Grace describes himself as an environmentalist, skier, chiller, and lifelong Brattleborian. He graduated from Brattleboro Union High School in 2024 and will enter his junior year of college at Columbia University this fall. He plans to study political science and environmental policy, and eventually hopes to work in the Vermont Legislature.
BRATTLEBORO-The approaching election cycle will be a tumultuous, important time of change in this country, especially here in Vermont, where I see and feel a growing anxiety about the deterioration of our small communities. It is a crucial opportunity to elect leaders who will push things in a positive direction.
Once again, it is time to elect a governor who will show up and innovate for Vermont. There is no question in my mind that the woman for the job is Aly Richards.
When I met her recently, I was blown away by her strong vision of the root issues affecting Vermonters and how clearly she was able to discuss attacking them.
I also was moved by Ali’s capacity to listen, a quality of leadership that feels difficult to find these days. In our conversation, she took notes the whole time in a notebook already filled with pages upon pages that she had collected in her short time on the campaign trail.
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Aly is the former CEO of Let’s Grow Kids, the organization that mobilized 40,000 Vermonters to back the historic Child Care Bill (Act 76, passed in 2023).
By combining federal and state funding with a strategic 0.44% payroll tax, the law is delivering wins to families and businesses across the state; approximately 7,500 families now have access to financial assistance for childcare; state investments have bolstered the early childhood education infrastructure, opening hundreds of new spaces and jobs; and employers can benefit from a more-stable workforce because employed parents don’t need to scramble for childcare.
Even though there was a new tax, it was carefully tailored to fill a gap that ended up providing a net benefit to businesses reliant on a consistent work force. This is exactly the sort of leadership that Vermont is crying out for.
In a recent forum, Aly made it clear that her policy approach as governor will be similar to the model she and her organization used to pioneer the Child Care Bill.
“We didn’t just raise revenue and hope for the best,” she said. “We identified the problem very clearly; we identified how the return on investment was gonna look; we maximized every dollar we could, both federally and in state; and then there was a gap. And then we raised the smartest possible revenue to fill the gap, in this case a 0.44% payroll tax that garnered support from a large coalition.”
Aly is deeply experienced working in the Vermont Legislature and has proven herself as a skilled leader; her policy approach is absolutely solid.
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It’s time to ditch the halfhearted indifference that has kept Republican incumbent Phil Scott in office for five terms, because his method of managed inaction is delivering no results at a time when Vermont needs constructive leadership.
Scott has proven that his entire goal in office is to keep things the way they are going: in a clear state of decline.
I’m not satisfied.
It is heartbreaking to hear many of my high school friends talk about how excited they are not to live here anymore. Perhaps it is the ghostly presence of more and more vacant storefronts downtown, the abundance of familiar houses for sale, or the barn on Route 5 that was, for the first time in my life, vacant of cows when I drove by.
More than ever, I see economic strain at the forefront of what we are struggling with here.
Yes, many of these issues are the effects of national trends that extend far beyond the reach of state-level politics, but at the bare minimum the governor’s office has the capacity to shape responses to these trends.
After a decade, it should be clear that Scott’s Reaganesque model of limiting government action isn’t serving us. In fact, any homeowner will tell you that it hasn’t even been successful at keeping taxes low.
The question at this point is not whether we want a conservative or a progressive, it is whether we want a governor who is willing to act.
We need someone with a plan, someone who operates with the goal of leading the Legislature instead of stifling and blaming them, who is willing to use their resources to generate innovative policy, who shows up and engages the public once in a while with more than a grumpy Facebook post.
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I have at times admired Scott’s leadership. He has done some solid work, and most Vermonters seem to think he’s pretty good. In fact, he constantly ranks as the country’s most popular governor.
It is clear to me, however, that support for Scott has been mistaken for indifference.
The main point which everyone singularly seems to think of when they hear Phil Scott’s name is that he did a fantastic job managing the pandemic. This is true.
It is also true that he got much more attention than Democrats who also managed the pandemic well, because most other governors in his party were busy resisting lockdown measures and questioning the legitimacy of medical science.
Scott often seems like a sensible, middle-of-the-road guy, but how much of this is because of how he compares to the extremists in his party?
He got a lot of press for being the first Republican governor to publicly announce that he voted for Joe Biden instead of Donald Trump in the 2020 election.
That is, in fact, a fantastic example of common sense. Does it make him the best governor in the nation? Christ, I should hope not.
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Ask yourself: “Can I name three substantive things Phil Scott has done for Vermont besides manage the pandemic well? What about in his last term?”
Scott’s approval as a Republican governor in a blue state is not a mark of good leadership; it is a symptom of the bipartisan polarity that is pulling this country apart. We gravitate to the idea of leadership that bridges the political divides carved by polarization, but in this case it hasn’t led to any constructive results. Instead, it has resulted in Scott looking good while doing the bare minimum.
It is also worth noting that Scott has made serious mistakes. My mother, who was naturalized as a U.S. citizen seven years ago, recently received a letter from Vermont Medicaid which asked for proof that she was a citizen.
“Did you become a U.S. citizen?” it demanded in bold lettering. “Tell us by 6/18/2026.”
We are fortunate that this bears no real consequences besides some additional paperwork, but it is part of an extremely damaging shift that left many other families far less lucky.
When Scott acquiesced to Trump’s demand and handed over the personal information of 64,000 Vermonters receiving SNAP benefits, he knowingly contributed to a reality of paranoia and alienation for low-income immigrant Vermonters.
My brother and I were incredibly lucky to have an immigrant mother and to benefit from SNAP assistance in our upbringing, but reading that letter momentarily made it feel like that was somehow wrong and un-Vermont.
Scott said he complied because refusal would put Vermont at risk of unspecified financial sanctions and because the Trump administration has legal right to the information.
Frankly, that reasoning is ridiculous. The decision was weak, it jeopardized the structure of our communities, and it should be obvious to an elected official like Scott when the time comes to stand up to political extortion.
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There seems to be a widely held perception, even among progressives themselves, that progressive policy and reasonable taxes exist in opposition. Perhaps there is some aversion to electing a progressive candidate in Vermont because, despite progressive values, we fear that if progressive policies actually come to fruition it would impact our tax base to a damaging degree.
Scott’s campaign team will work to mobilize this fear. The campaign will focus blame on the Democratic majority in the Legislature for “spending money that we don’t have,” for hiking costs, for placing the burden of expensive public welfare projects on taxpayers, for not focusing on the economy, and for failing to promote affordability.
The pocketbook-cringes we all feel at the grocery store or gas station will be highlighted, and Scott will be framed as a staunchly common-sense guy who will keep things under control.
Yawn, yawn, yawn.
The idea that voters have to choose between policy innovation and reasonable taxes is another fallacy produced by the bipartisan gridlock of contemporary America. We’ve become afraid of “progressivism” because within the polarized confines of our red-vs.-blue system it has become a buzzword that has lost its true meaning.
At its core, progressivism means that the government can and should have an active role in bettering the human condition.
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We should be excited to elect someone like Aly Richards, who will actively use the office to advance a concrete policy agenda, because so many methods of progressive policy innovation can both help the economy and deliver active support where needed.
A paramount example is, again, Vermont’s Child Care Bill, which Aly brought into reality through an approach that encapsulates what Vermont needs: calculated policy innovation that takes everyone’s needs into account.
When one removes partisan bias, the choice is clear. Do we want to elect someone who is unwilling to use the governorship to do anything beyond the minimum, whose political approach is managed inaction, who lacks creativity, whose legislative dogma is “no,” and who is colloquially called “Governor Veto”?
Or do we want a leader who has proven that she is willing to innovate, who has delivered mutually beneficial results, who wants to creatively lead the Legislature, and who has a strong vision for Vermont?
The choice is with us voters. Let’s make a good one.
This Voices Viewpoint was submitted to The Commons.
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