BELLOWS FALLS-The Windham County Democratic Committee hosted a debate of the three Democratic candidates for lieutenant governor on July 9 at the Masonic Temple in Bellows Falls.
Moderated by Amy Howlett and Denny Harty, the 90-minute debate featured candidates Esther Charlestin, Molly Gray, and Ryan McLaren.
The candidates were given prepared questions for the first half hour of the debate, then the majority of the time was spent answering questions from the 35 to 40 members of the audience.
The debate was streamed live on local FACT-TV, where it is still available to watch.
Candidates introduce themselves
Charlestin, daughter of Haitian immigrants, is a first-generation American and an educator with two master’s degrees. She said she was not raised in Vermont but moved here to raise her children, now 11 and 8, and in doing so “found my real family.”
She said she grew up a “conservative Christian” and has left those values “far behind me.”
“Let me tell you,” she said. “The life I’ve been able to create here is amazing. [My children] are kind, sweet, thoughtful individuals, and I have Vermont to thank for that, as well as my mama and myself. I am also grateful for my partner, Jesse, and give him a shout out.”
In 2024, Charlestin was the Democratic nominee in the gubernatorial race against popular Republican incumbent Phil Scott. In the general election Scott won over 73% of the votes, the best Republican showing since 1946.
Prior to running for governor, Charlestin was elected to the Middlebury Selectboard in 2021 and 2022.
In 2019, she worked as a residence director at Middlebury College and during the 2022–23 school year served as dean of culture and climate at Middlebury Union Middle School.
In 2023, Charlestin founded Conversation Compass, a consulting firm that helps individuals and organizations navigate conversations around culture, diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Gray, who has already served one term as lieutenant governor from 2021 to 2023, announced her candidacy for a return to office on Jan. 5 this year. She has since earned the support of over 100 Progressive and Democratic leaders.
Gray has served as executive director of the Vermont Afghan Alliance from 2023 to 2026 and as an assistant attorney general from 2018 to 2021.
Born and raised on a farm in South Newbury, she lives with her family in Burlington. She said for the past three years she has focused on caring for her new son, taking care of her ailing mother, and working with Afghan refugees in Vermont.
“I’ve seen the really deep cruelty and inhumanity of the Trump administration up close,” she said, “and that’s brought me to wanting to run to be able to make sure we have the strongest possible armor in this state to protect fundamental rights, while also delivering for working families and lowering costs.”
McLaren, of Essex Junction, grew up in northern Vermont, the son of working-class parents. He talked about his family benefiting from government programs like Dr. Dynasaur and WIC that helped his parents be able to afford to raise a family and even buy a home in Essex Junction.
“I’m running right now because while my life was never guaranteed, it was possible,” he said. “It would be virtually impossible for my parents to do that if they were trying to raise kids today.”
He said property taxes increasing yearly makes it difficult for families to own even a modest home.
McLaren is the former top aide to U.S. Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vt., and announced his candidacy last January. He has not run for or held a state-level position. He has served as an advisor to the commissioner of the Vermont Department of Motor Vehicles.
A skiing accident at Mad River Glen in 2017 left McLaren partially paralyzed from the waist down. His condition continues to improve, and he uses both crutches and a wheelchair to get around.
Working with the Legislature
The first question focused on the fact that in Vermont, the lieutenant governor has few day-to-day responsibilities and has limited input into issues. The three statutory roles of the lieutenant governor are presiding over the state Senate when it’s in session, sitting on committees, and casting tie-breaking votes when needed.
The candidates were asked how they would handle presiding over and working with the 30 members of the Senate with mutual respect, objectivity, and neutrality, especially with those Senators they disagreed with.
In offering an example of how she would lead, Charlestin said she has worked with clients who were outspoken Trump supporters but who needed her help in dealing with a serious family matter.
She said she needed to put aside any personal opinions and “create a space where we can talk with each other and get to a place of a resolution. I’m happy to announce we did.”
“It’s not about me,” Charlestin said. “It’s not about my opinion. It’s about how do we move this work forward whether I agree with you or not.”
Gray said the question gets at the heart of the lieutenant governor’s primary role: serving as president of the Senate. She outlined how that works in day-to-day practice and said she feels that when she held that office during the pandemic, “I think I did it really well.
“It’s an extremely important role for building trust” in the Legislature, she said.
Gray said part of the reason she is running again is that “we’re going to have a number of new senators next year who don’t know the rules and who are going to need a really thoughtful, knowledgeable presiding officer.”
McLaren said that building trust when leading a body of people is not a secret. “It’s being honest with people, and don’t be a jerk. This is a human business. We are in a service business — that means dealing with other people.”
He said those qualities were particularly necessary when dealing with “people that you disagree with.”
McLaren said this is how he tries to move through the world every day, “with that sort of grace and dignity: [to] treat people the way I want to be treated, and to lead by example.”
All three candidates agreed about the importance of making sure that the makeup of legislative committees is fair on all sides and of getting members onto the committees for which they are best qualified.
“I don’t care what your politics are,” McLaren said about committee appointments. “I care that you’re ready to act and to make this place livable again for Vermonters.”
What issues matter most?
All the candidates agreed that affordable housing and healthcare top the list of the most important issues facing Vermont, with education and childcare important as well.
Gray made clear that each of these factors affect the others. She pointed out that increasing health insurance costs for educators drives up education costs, which in turn increases the cost of housing through property taxes.
Vermont needs a “statewide, urgent, comprehensive strategy to address healthcare,” Gray said, noting that Vermonters pay the highest health insurance premiums in the nation.
Part of the answer, Gray and Charlestin agreed, would include “raising taxes on second homes” and noted that a huge percentage of houses in Vermont are second homes.
Charlestin said that Massachusetts had done just that, “it brought in millions. It would make a huge difference. Vermonters are house rich and cash poor.”
McLaren said he supported extra fees for luxury properties in Vermont. “But Vermont cannot just be a theme park for these people.” He said that a billionaire with a home in Stowe “pays a lower tax rate than probably any of us here. That doesn’t need to happen. We can change it tomorrow.”
McLaren also added that hope — or the lack of hope — among Vermonters, is a major factor to address.
“I say all the time that my opponent in this race isn’t Molly, isn’t Esther, it is nihilism,” he said. “It is the sense that nothing we do can make a difference, that politics can’t change things.”
He added that those who have worked in politics over the last decade or more have “to confront the fact that our inability to act on some of these major challenges — housing and healthcare top of the list — has led to that sense of nihilism, that fear, that anxiety. And it is amplified by a fascist in the White House and the erosion of our democracy nationally. We have work to do.”
All three candidates said that their leadership experience — whether in the private sector, in running a business, in supporting political leaders, in working with or in government agencies, and, as in Gray’s case, actually holding elected a state-wide office — has prepared them for the lieutenant governor’s other responsibility of stepping in if the governor is in some way incapacitated.
When asked about how they would address the severe impact of climate change in Vermont, including several century-level floods in just the past decade or so, Charlestin said she saw the lieutenant governor’s job as not only showing up when “there’s a crisis, but before a crisis — really understanding what folks need before they need it. Being in communication, being connected.”
Gray said that high fuel costs at the moment are driving up the cost of healthcare, education, and housing. Battery storage needs to be increased in Vermont to make better use of the hydro power supplied by Vermont’s contract with Hydro-Quebec and wind and solar sources, making Vermont more energy resilient.
She said that’s up to Vermont in the years ahead because “the Trump administration, they don’t care. They are so extremely reckless.”
McLaren said that part of the problem is that “we have a culture of no in Vermont” when it comes to the most important issues: housing, healthcare, and energy.
“We have built up 30 years of bureaucratic crust on the things we say we want the most — affordable healthcare; abundant housing; clean, green, renewable energy. We say no too, too often. It’s time for us to walk the walk and say yes to the things that we want.”
Saying no to AI centers
With regard to the building of giant AI data centers in Vermont, and encouraging diversified clean energy sources, the candidates were unanimous for a moratorium on huge data centers until we fully understand their impact, while encouraging developing diversified, clean energy sources.
McLaren commented that for the past few decades, society has “been running essentially a science experiment on children’s brains, addicting them to social media, and all it’s done is extract wealth, attention, life from rural communities, and invested it in, like, 10 different billionaires.”
“They are just sucking our money and our life out of rural communities and taking it away off on private islands and doing whatever the hell they’re doing,” he continued. “And this is just the next generation of that.”
He said Vermont needs to fight back against that economic model that has “pulled money and life out of rural communities for 30 years.” He noted that AI is run by the very same people.
‘Impressive choices’
Attendees commented after the event on how refreshing it was to have a political debate marked by intelligent, informed, polite and respectful discussion, in contrast to the often-vitriolic dialogue of national politics.
In the concluding comments, Stuart Brown of the Windham County Democrats acknowledged “the quality of people who have been here tonight. It’s amazing.”
“Impressive choices for Democratic lieutenant governor,” Howlett said about the debate.
She said her favorite moment of the evening came in the candidates’ response to the question about how they as Democrats would work with Scott, a Republican.
“The question presumes we’re going to re-elect Phil Scott,” Gray responded.
She praised Scott for his “incredible job” handling the pandemic. But she cited a “healthcare system that is completely imploding,” the governor’s veto of a bill to control prescription drug costs, the crisis in housing, and threats from the federal government to voting rights, immigration, and refugee resettlement.
She agreed with McLaren that “we need some vision” and said that if showing up as a partner in addressing those issues “means disagreeing with the governor, if it’s Phil Scott, I will do that respectfully.”
But she would prefer either of the two candidates for the Democratic Party nomination, Amanda Janoo or Aly Richards.
“We’re going to elect an amazing new woman to the governor’s office,” she said to applause from the audience.
This News item by Robert F. Smith was written for The Commons.