Tim Maciel is a retired educator and college administrator with advanced degrees in administration, planning, and social policy. He is a former school board director with the Windham Southeast School District.
BRATTLEBORO-By now, most Vermonters who have been following the governor's race probably have a pretty good idea where Gov. Phil Scott and Amanda Janoo stand on issues ranging from healthcare and education to housing and data centers.
But as we enter the final weeks of the campaign, I think there is a question more fundamental than what each candidate would do. It is worth asking: How would each candidate govern?
The differences between these two candidates go beyond individual policies. They reflect two different ideas about how government should make decisions, involve the public, and communicate with Vermonters.
In any election, voters need to be able to understand what candidates propose and how they intend to govern. Janoo has published a detailed platform explaining what she would do on a wide range of issues. Scott's campaign website offers considerably less; his positions often have to be pieced together from speeches, budget proposals, and annual addresses to the Legislature. Voters can compare the two approaches for themselves at JanooforVT.com/platform and Philscott.org.
The two campaigns are also organized differently. Janoo has pledged not to accept corporate or business contributions and is relying heavily on small individual donations. Scott accepts corporate and business contributions, including those from outside Vermont, and has said, "I'll take money from anyone."
Those approaches reflect different political networks and different ideas about how campaigns should be financed.
Here in southern Vermont, there is another noticeable difference. Janoo has spent considerable time meeting with Vermonters in communities across our region. Thus far, Scott has not attended a single campaign event in our part of the state. Janoo has been in our region more often in the past five weeks than Scott has in the past five years.
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But what interests me most is how each candidate approaches governing and the role each sees for the governor in creating positive change.
After nearly a decade in office, Scott frequently points to Democratic control of the Legislature when explaining Vermont's problems.
That raises a basic question: After 10 years as governor, how much responsibility should a governor accept for what has and has not worked? And if Democrats continue to control the Legislature, what would actually change during another Scott term?
Janoo describes a different approach. She talks about developing a cohesive strategy for problems that are interconnected rather than treating each as a separate issue. More importantly, she puts public participation much closer to the beginning of the decision-making process.
That distinction matters.
The question isn't whether a governor should lead. Of course, the governor must lead, propose solutions, negotiate with legislators, and, yes, sometimes use the veto. But leadership can take different forms.
One approach begins with a decision: Government identifies a problem, develops a solution, and then passes a law. A different approach begins by asking Vermonters what problems they are actually trying to solve, what success would look like, and what role government should play in getting there.
That is the distinction I see between Scott's and Janoo's governing philosophies.
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Janoo has spent more than a decade working with banks, governments, financial institutions, and communities on economic policy and participatory policy design. Her professional experience has emphasized not simply deciding what government should do, but involving the people affected by those decisions in defining goals and measuring whether they are being achieved.
The important point here is not that Janoo is a trained economist. It is that her professional experience has taught her to ask a different set of questions: What are we trying to accomplish? How will we know whether we're succeeding? And who gets to help define success in the first place?
That is a different way of thinking about accountability and strikes me as particularly Vermont-like.
Public participation isn't the absence of leadership. It is a different form of leadership. People who live in a community often possess knowledge that is not available in a state office or a consultant's report. They know what has been tried before, what is likely to work locally, and what unintended consequences a proposal might create.
We have seen what can happen when decisions are made without meaningful participation from the people who will live with the consequences. Think about school consolidations, data centers, the Brattleboro Memorial Hospital birthing center, the role of law enforcement in ICE operations, land use, or decisions about funding human services.
Local knowledge does not always produce agreement. But ignoring it can produce decisions that are poorly understood, poorly supported, or simply do not work as intended.
This does not mean government should be paralyzed by endless meetings. It does not mean every decision should be put to a popular vote. Experts matter. Evidence matters. Legislators matter. And so does the experience of the people who have to live with the consequences.
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The debate over data centers illustrates the distinction. The Legislature passed H.727, establishing a framework for sustainable data-center development. Scott vetoed it, arguing that Vermont already had substantial regulatory authority through Act 250, the Public Utility Commission, energy-siting rules, and municipal zoning laws.
Reasonable people can disagree about whether the bill struck the right balance. But the larger question remains: Should Vermonters have a meaningful voice in establishing the rules for a potentially transformative industry before major investments are made and the consequences become difficult to reverse?
That question gets at the heart of governance.
Vermont has a long tradition of believing that ordinary people are capable of understanding difficult questions, weighing competing interests, and helping make decisions about their communities. Our town meetings, school boards, and selectboards may be imperfect examples of that tradition, but they embody an important principle: Good government depends on the participation of the people it serves.
That, to me, is the more fundamental choice in this election.
Neither approach guarantees agreement or success, but after nearly a decade of essentially the same governing model under Scott, I think it is worth asking whether Vermont is ready for a different way of governing - with Vermonters more directly involved in shaping the decisions that affect their lives.
This Voices Viewpoint was submitted to The Commons.
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