PUTNEY-Since early May, Amanda Janoo has visited Windham County several times to deliver a message focused on local control, maximizing resources, and listening to the community.
To that end, the 39-year-old Democratic gubernatorial candidate likes to start the dialogue at her meet-and-greet gatherings with an invitation to audience members to share what makes them proud of their community.
At recent gatherings in Guilford and Putney, an outpouring of responses - food assistance, the local school, senior gatherings, and so on - each yielded affirming nods from other attendees.
She has come to make her case that public policy should be viewed through an economist's lens as an alternative to what her campaign materials call the "managed decline" offered by incumbent Republican Gov. Phil Scott.
Her alternative approach is "the work I know how to do, and I think that's the work Vermont needs now," she said to prospective voters in Putney.
Born and raised in Stratford, Vermont, she went through the Upper Valley public schools before moving on to Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, where she majored in political science with a focus in political economy. While there she spent a year at Oxford University studying politics, philosophy, and economics.
After college, Janoo became a Fulbright research scholar; she earned an M.Phil from Cambridge University in economic development, and she worked for the United Nations Industrial Development Organization, as she says, "helping governments build resilient and diversified economies that could generate good jobs and broad-based prosperity."
Janoo's recent work has been at the Wellbeing Economy Alliance, a United Kingdom-based organization focused "on helping high-income countries [...] evaluate their economies by their contribution to social and ecological well-being (rather than to stock market values or GDP growth rates).
The Vermont chapter - which she co-founded and for which she works still part-time while waging her campaign - is "a broad coalition working to transform Vermont's economy into a sustainable, prosperous system that benefits everyone who calls Vermont home."
On the boards of Rights & Democracy and the Vermont chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, Janoo is a steering committee member of Fund Vermont's Future, a coalition working to reform Vermont's tax system so it is fairer, more affordable for working families, and able to fund the services Vermonters rely on from schools and healthcare to housing and climate resilience.
How she got started
At a gathering of approximately 60 people at the Putney Public Library on May 31, Janoo told her audience that her sense of mission was shaped and interest piqued when she'd "attend Town Meeting with my family every year and watch my community debate and decide on everything from how much money should go into schools or roads to whether there should be nuclear reactors in our state or [whether] 'Fast Eddie' [was] going to be our constable again that year."
That, she said, "was my introduction to politics and to economics. That's how I learned that these systems only work best when they're locally rooted and genuinely govern for the people."
Janoo told The Commons that when she was young, her father, a civil engineer, held multiple jobs to augment that income while her mother ran a small tax preparation and accounting business to supplement income.
Neighbors in Vermont looking out for one another "was very much part of my entry into this world," said Janoo, recounting an act of kindness that happened to her parents and her two older siblings when her mother was pregnant with her.
The family was renting "a tiny little house on a farm in Norwich," she said. "One of their neighbors must have noticed they were struggling financially because he dropped off a side of beef at the house."
Her family lived off of the beef "for quite a few months," Janoo said.
"But that's Vermont, right? We look out for each other, neighbors show up for each other, and I'm so grateful for that, because I think that that's what's going to get us through all of this ahead," she said.
Janoo moved back to Vermont permanently in 2018, "because this is home and the place that I want to live for the rest of my life."
Seeing the state of the state - that "our healthcare system is collapsing and our communities are being hollowed out because nobody can afford to live here anymore" - she was motivated to run for governor, she said.
Focused on inequality
To the gathering in Putney, she said that "the thing that gives me hope is that Vermont has never been a place where we accept our fate to be dictated by the powers that be."
"When I went out into the world and started working on economic policy, I realized there were a lot of people who seemed to think the economy is something abstract, beyond our control," she said.
Those people, she continued, think "that the best thing government can do is just take a hands-off approach, encourage large investors or corporations to jump in, and trust that the wealth they're going to generate is going to trickle down and benefit everyone."
"Now, obviously, it hasn't trickled, which is how it's possible that we live in the richest country in history and the majority of us are struggling to afford basic needs like healthcare, housing, and food," Janoo said.
As an economist with a well-regarded background in leadership and policy-making, she said that in this country, "we designed a system where it's easier to make money off of money than from hard work."
"[It's a] system that concentrates wealth and power as opposed to distributing it," she explained. "And a system where the things we need are really expensive and the stuff we don't really need is super cheap, right? We're hearing a lot of people talk about affordability and for good reason."
We're now in a place, she said, where entities can "charge as much as they want for housing, energy, healthcare, and people have to pay it."
There is no option, she asserted, "until we reach a breaking point. And I think we're at that breaking point now" where average citizens have to choose between mortgage payments and healthcare.
Janoo rents. And where she lives in Burlington, "on average my rent has increased about $100 a year, but I should note that in certain years, my landlords (as the building has changed ownership and management a few times) have been willing to negotiate the proposed increase."
She said she doesn't think such negotiation "would have been possible if I lived in an apartment owned by one of large property management conglomerates in Burlington."
Having long understood conceptually "that our economic system was broken, living in it has been something else entirely."
And so she said she aims to prove that a "different economic and political system is possible" as she employs skills and insights gained in her career "to help build the movement we need to push for major economic policy changes here."
One example, she says: Towns and cities, like Burlington, "should be able to advance rent stabilization policies without having to go through the Legislature."
Municipalities, she believes, "should be able to determine [policy] in line with their local realities rather than having legislators who do not even live in these towns dictate rental policies."
Doubling the message
At all of Janoo's regional gatherings to date, the wish most often heard from her audiences is that Scott be replaced.
Democratic gubernatorial candidate Aly Richards, whom Janoo will face in the Aug. 11 party primary, shares that goal.
The two aspiring party nominees are crafting a positive and civil rivalry as they keep that big picture in mind.
"I think it's wonderful," Janoo said in Putney. "We've got two cool ladies running, trying to take on Phil Scott."
For her part, Richards told The Commons recently: "It's amazing that we have a friendly primary, and I think Amanda and I are going to show something really great here: two women putting themselves out there with good ideas, having a reasonable debate, putting a choice out for the voter, and not tearing each other down. I think that's going to be a great model for unity and democracy."
Noting distinctions between herself and Richards, she added, "I think for Aly, it's 'How do we better manage these systems that we have? Because Scott's not doing a good job.' For me, I'm asking a deeper question[s]: 'What if the systems themselves are the problem? And how do we transform those systems from the bottom up as opposed to the top down, starting really with community and self-determination, democracy, and economic development?'"
"I believe a lot of the struggles we're facing are economic in nature, and so being able to speak to how we solve housing affordability and healthcare and all interconnected issues around the cost of living," said Janoo.
Having traveled across the state, Janoo has heard Vermonters express anger around Scott's apparent stance on AI development given his recent veto of the AI data center bill.
The bill, sponsored by independent Rep. Laura Sibilia of Dover, was supported by a majority of legislators, but Republicans stood firm in sustaining Scott's veto, causing the Democrats' efforts to fall short of an override.
And, she added, "people are really pissed about the education bill." Even though forced consolidation has been taken off the table, Scott is still "taking away towns' capacity to determine their own school budgets."
Janoo said Scott fosters "a concentration of power in Montpelier without actually giving any support back to the local communities. [...] There are a lot of top-down directives and not enough bottom-up decision-making."
She cautioned about "the dangers of such concentration of power" as seen now on a national scale.
"People I know who voted for Phil Scott say, 'Oh, he's going to keep our taxes down,'" she said in Putney. "Well, I'm sorry, but who here thinks your property taxes have gone down?"
"It just hasn't happened," Janoo said.
Proactive, not reactive
From the first few months on the campaign trail, Janoo has seen that "people are yearning for something that feels proactive and not reactive."
"We now have over 700 volunteers, many who have never been involved in any sort of politics before, so there's energy and enthusiasm that's here right now that I think will penetrate," he said.
She hopes that energy will resonate with and reach disappointed supporters of Scott, who last won re-election by almost 72% of the vote.
"I think he's eroding a lot of his base," said Janoo, describing a weakening that's exacerbated by "the realities of the economic insecurity we're facing."
Janoo explained to The Commons that she proposes that "Vermont lead the nation by guaranteeing every resident access to free, high-quality primary and preventive healthcare by bringing small town doctors, nurses and mental health practitioners back to our communities."
"Inspired by towns like Stratford and Tunbridge that have hired their own town nurses in response to our healthcare crisis, I've proposed a state-funded universal primary care system" to be funded by the proposed Fair Share for Vermont program, she said.
The funding bill has proposed add two new personal tax brackets to capture more state tax revenue from the wealthiest Vermonters. It stalled in the House Ways and Means Committee in the past session.
Despite that setback, "this [primary-care system] proposal is very scalable, allowing us to start with a few towns to show proof of concept as we move towards universal coverage of the state," she said.
Janoo knows that "in order to move to a fully universal healthcare system not dependent on federal funding "we would need to partner with other states. A New England-wide alliance would make the most sense in terms of geographic proximity but it depends," on states' leadership, she said.
"We talk about our schools being so important to our communities, but the argument that the way to reduce property taxes is through school consolidation rather than through property tax reform seems counterintuitive to me," Janoo said.
What needs to be addressed, she said, are the "root drivers" of increased education spending.
Among those drivers are "healthcare and mental health support for kids. Those should be the things that we're focusing on [...] for our young people and for all of our families."
Janoo told The Commons that, based on discussions with constituents and broad-based concern about protecting their rural schools, every community she's visited "has emphasized that their small schools are not only important for their children's education," but they are "the glue for their communities."
Thus, she reported that she's working with appropriate professionals "on a proposal through which community schools lean into their function as community hubs by working with families, local organizations, and the state to integrate healthcare, social services, food banks, childcare, continuing adult education and other youth development and community engagement services."
That new use of public space would allow "a broader range of budget streams to be directed to revitalizing and supporting communities across our state," Janoo said.
This community school model that "supports the 'whole child' by addressing both in-school and out-of-school barriers to learning," she said.
A different approach to the housing crisis
Of the state's affordable housing deficit, Janoo pointed out that "because Scott is a contractor, a lot of his housing policy has been oriented towards what is going to be good for larger contractors."
Tradespeople and building firms are necessary to build housing in the state, but such policy is not what's going to solve the housing crisis, she said.
"My mom lives up in the Northeast Kingdom now," Janoo said. "During Covid, [many] people moved onto her small dirt road; then after Covid, they left."
But as the new out-of-state property owners returned to their primary properties while the nation reopened post-pandemic, they didn't sell their Vermont homes. They held onto them as vacation and short-term rental investment properties.
Janoo's mother "now only has one neighbor who lives near her all year round," she said. "For a state that talks about how important community is, that's very concerning."
Only a small percentage of Vermonters "would even be eligible for a loan for a new house," the candidate noted, asserting that investors and wealthy individuals are increasingly the only ones with means to buy housing.
"So we need to first stop private equity and corporate ownership of the housing stock," to disincentivize such use and "to provide more incentives for people to build their own houses."
To ensure that Vermont has more resources to put into permanently affordable housing for Vermonters now and in the future, Janoo would limit private equity and large corporate ownership of the housing stock, she told the The Commons.
The candidate would tax second homes, vacation rentals, and luxury estates to reduce the property tax burden on primary residents. She said she would use public funds to support housing trusts, co-ops, public housing, senior living, personal building loans, and rehabilitation grants.
She would also support allowing towns and other municipalities to advance rent control and stabilization without having to get permission from the Legislature. She endorses reducing the cost of building through vocational training, through building trades apprenticeships, and through producing more building materials in Vermont.
Act 181 and local control
Janoo was asked in Putney about Vermont's Act 181, summarized on ruralvermontrising.org as "a major update to Vermont's land use framework that changes how and where development is regulated across the state."
The new law does not replace Act 250, the state's landmark and famously complex and stringent environmental protection law. "It broadens the situations in which the Act 250 permitting process is triggered," Janoo said.
After a groundswell of opposition to Act 181's proposed measures, the Legislature passed a bill this session that partially repeals the overhaul. As of June 15, Scott has not signed or vetoed the bill.
Sharing that she sees room for Act 250 reform, Janoo elaborated with The Commons that her stance on Act 181 "is to do a full repeal and start over with a genuinely participatory process."
With Act 181 and Act 73 - the 2024 law that proposes sweeping consolidation of the state's school districts and other education reform - Janoo also sees a larger issue unfolding.
Both laws, she said, "reflect a broader pattern of Montpelier imposing policies and maps on communities that are not reflective of their values or priorities."
"Vermont has an incredibly strong civic culture, and people are demanding to be a part of policies that will impact their communities and support walkable village centers that have thriving small businesses, schools, small town doctors, libraries, affordable housing and community spaces," Janoo said.
Looking at the bigger picture, she added that some of the anger around Act 181 has been fueled by out-of-state actors like the Koch network, an array of right-wing political organizations and enterprises that founded and fund groups - like Vermonters for American Prosperity - to fight government regulations that are not aligned with large corporate interests.
"So, now is a moment for bottom-up decision-making and to acknowledge the wisdom of both environmental experts and rural communities, hunters, and farmers who have been long-time stewards of this land," Janoo said.
She also sees "a need for us to produce more of [what] we need ourselves."
As small businesses close up shop, she discusses community wealth building.
"That's where you keep more money circulating within your local economies by supporting small businesses," Janoo said.
"When you buy milk from one of your farms, the farmer uses that money to buy some hay" locally and the hay farmer spends it on another local resource, she explained.
Soon, "that dollar gets turned into $4 before it flows out."
"If you buy something on Amazon, that dollar's immediately gone, right?" Janoo said, describing "incentives to keep more money flowing within our local economies and strengthening some of those linkages" as "a really important strategy for fostering more broad-based, equitable development and supporting our smaller businesses."
Fighting cynicism
At the Putney gathering, Janoo was asked by Brattleboro's Django Grace, just home from college and among the curious, how she would attract young people to come to or stay in the state.
"I think we need to get young people more engaged in this campaign and in politics," Janoo said. "Dispelling nihilism is key, too: "that sense that electoral politics doesn't do anything." And then "we have to deal" with the issues at hand: education, health, housing, the environment."
"I, like most many Vermonters, left in search of opportunities, and then came back because I love it," she said.
She acknowledged that "it's very hard to live here."
"Personally, I'm a renter, and I just, like, doom-scroll Zillow looking at houses in Stratford that I'm never going to be able to afford because I have too much student loan debt," Janoo said.
The candidate has been around the state and reports support and surprises.
At the Farmers Market in Hardwick, Janoo connected with folks from all walks of life "and I was really surprised when a local police officer said, 'You know, I've always voted for Scott, but we need new thinking. This isn't working.'"
"So I think there is, across a wide range of different types of folks, a recognition of a need for us to make a change," Janoo said. "The biggest barrier we face right now is cynicism: a belief that it can never be better than what it is now."
After a recent speaking engagement, Janoo said a young woman approached her and said, "Thank you so much. I've been feeling so overwhelmed by our political situation, and you've given me some hope, you know."
Preserving and strengthening democracy is paramount for Janoo: Thus, her focus on participatory decision making. As a model, the country of Wales has inspired her.
"They went through a process of asking their citizens: What kind of Wales do you want to leave for your children and grandchildren?" she said.
"And on that basis, they articulated seven long-term well-being goals that were centered in health and equity, community, culture, biodiversity, global responsibility, and prosperity. In the end, every government expenditure proposed has to prove it would contribute to all seven goals."
In short, she says, "in a moment of democratic crisis, I believe we need to be advancing new systems of governance that engage citizens directly in strategy design and policymaking so it reflects the public will and local context.
"We need to make sure every Vermonter is safe and secure in their basic needs so we can get to the hard work of saving our democracy," Janoo said. "We need states to stand up and come together, create coalition, and push back on our federal government."
The candidate said that federal turmoil "is not going to stop unless we stop it."
"And I believe that together we have everything we need, but it's just going to require us all to be aggressively generous with our time, our skills, our resources to make sure that we not only get through the storms ahead, but lay a foundation for a much better future to come as well," Janoo told attendees.
For more information about Janoo, visit her campaign website. A profile of candidate Aly Richards, Janoo's opponent for the Democratic Party nomination, appeared in the May 27 issue.
This News item by Annie Landenberger was written for The Commons.