Montpelier
The candidates are House Majority Leader Sarah Copeland Hanzas, D-Bradford; Rep. Mitzi Johnson, D-South Hero, chairwoman of the Appropriations Committee; and Rep. Chip Conquest, D-Wells River, who sits on the Judiciary Committee.
Johnson said the candidates are going around the state and having one-on-one conversations with other lawmakers to gain their support. Some lawmakers are making calls on behalf of their preferred candidate, she said.
The full House will vote on who will become speaker in January. On Dec. 3, the 84-member Democratic caucus, which is the majority of the House, will meet to vote on the party’s nominee for the post.
The speaker is responsible for assigning the 150 representatives to committees and naming the chairmen of those committees. The speaker also sets the House’s priorities during a given legislative session and coordinates meetings among House leaders, Senate leaders and the governor’s office.
Vermont has had only two women, Consuelo Bailey and Gaye Symington, serve as speaker of the House in its history. But two women are running this year, and both say they have multiple supporters.
Copeland Hanzas, 46, said she has too many endorsements to name, but they include House Fish and Wildlife Committee Chairman David Deen, D-Westminster, and state Rep. Tim Briglin, D-Thetford.
“I want to be speaker because I believe that the House is the incubator of good legislation for Vermont, and I believe very deeply that I can help us to come together and come to consensus around some really important issues that are facing the state of Vermont,” Copeland Hanzas said.
“The House is where I want to be,” she said in an interview. “I absolutely love the challenge of bringing together 150 people from all corners of the state.”
“I would offer up the experience that I have in the Legislature (for the past 12 years),” she said. “From the time that I entered the Legislature I’ve looked for ways to help out with the process of moving forward good legislation.”
Copeland Hanzas has been in the House since 2005. She sat on the Government Operations Committee during the 2015-16 session and the House Health Care Committee for nine years before that.
She is the vice chairwoman of the Health Insurance Committee of the National Conference of Insurance Legislators and graduated from the Vermont Leadership Institute. She owns the Local Buzz Cafe in Bradford and teaches science at Valley Vista in Bradford.
“I have always looked for the strengths that my colleagues bring to the Legislature and offered them my endorsement of where I think they should try to put their energy given their passions and their strengths,” she said. “Those are things that all fit very naturally with the role of speaker.”
Copeland Hanzas said her top priority is rural economic development.
“There are disparities between the Interstate 89 corridor and Chittenden County and the rest of the state, and I believe I can and must focus on bringing along our rural areas,” she said.
Johnson said she has support from Democrats who sit on the Appropriations Committee, including Reps. Mary Hooper, D-Montpelier, and Diane Lanpher, D-Vergennes. Other supporters are Rep. Helen Head, D-South Burlington, the chair of House General; and Rep. Mary Sullivan, D-Burlington.
Johnson, 46, has been in the House since 2003. She has been on the Appropriations Committee since 2007 and served as vice chairwoman before becoming chairwoman.
She served on the Agriculture Committee during her first four years in the House, when she also was working as a farmer.
Johnson received her master’s in public administration from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government in 2013. Her day job is serving as executive director for the Adaptive Leadership Network, an initiative of Harvard alumni to train people on leadership and networking.
“I came to this decision (to run for speaker) really from my experience of a decade on Appropriations and feeling like we did not in the Legislature have a unified and strategic plan for Vermont,” Johnson said.
“The policy committees do a great job of considering legislation and moving forward with new initiatives that could help Vermont,” she said, but when those initiatives get to the Appropriations Committee, “we eventually scrimp and save and look under the couch cushions to fund what are supposedly priorities.”
Johnson said the Legislature has a better opportunity to see what government already does before starting new initiatives, evaluate who is better off because of those government programs, and then look at what priorities are.
“My top priority is creating a culture in the Legislature where we look back and evaluate what exists in state government and form a strategic plan to figure out the best ways to move forward,” Johnson said.
“There are a lot of times where conversations in the Statehouse and issues in the Statehouse begin with a few anecdotes, and I want to make sure that we’re focusing our energy on the things that Vermonters need most in this moment in time,” she said.
Conquest, 55, is a farmer who raises livestock and does butchering in Wells River.
He sat on the Agriculture Committee before moving to the Judiciary Committee. He previously was a member of the Blue Mountain Union School Board.
Conquest said he is running because he can bring new approaches to the speaker’s office.
“For me it’s largely about being clear about our goals, our policy goals, but being open-minded about how we achieve those goals,” he said.
“Once we’ve gotten those goals, and we’ve sort of set our sails to achieve those, then we say, ‘Look, here’s our proposal,’ but when we get feedback that we really take that seriously,” Conquest said.
He said, for example, if lawmakers had done outreach with Vermonters early and told them why they were writing the Act 46 school consolidation law, constituents would have been able “to prepare for the change and to be able to respond to what’s being proposed.”
“We’re in a place where I think we need Vermonters to feel like they have a responsive government, and I think the House is probably the best place to do that because we’re the most representative body,” Conquest said.
He said one of his priorities is rural economic development. “I think there is a sense in rural areas that the economy is not working as well for them as it is in Chittenden County and that general area,” he said. “That feeling of divide is not a good one for us or for Vermont.”
House Minority Leader Don Turner, R-Milton, said the Republican caucus has not decided whether to run a candidate against whomever the Democrats choose. He said last week that none of the Democratic candidates had contacted any Republicans to seek their support.
Turner said his caucus would consider supporting a Democrat, but it “depends on what they would be willing to offer, how many positions we might get in leadership, (and) if they’re going to take up any of the issues that we hear loud and clear from voters what they want.”
Turner said the Republicans would decide whether to run their own candidate in the next few weeks.