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Voting in the 2026 Primary
With less than 2 weeks to go till the primary election on August 11th, a lot of people have questions on where and how you vote early or at the polls. If you need to request a ballot, check your voter registration, or find your polling place, head to Vote.Vermont.gov
Reflections from the Campaign Kickoff
On Saturday, Senator Gulick and I welcomed the community and musician Grace Palmer to join us at Standing Stone Wines in Winooski to celebrate and kick off our re-election campaign for Chittenden Central Senate. I am so grateful to everyone who packed the room and supported us and the work we’ve done. I’m especially grateful to Wilmer Chavarria who ran over from the Winooski school district’s graduation to give a deeply moving speech about the moment and the fight that we are in right now. Instead of sharing the bulk of the speeches that Sen. Gulick and I gave, I wanted to share some of what Wilmer shared from his perspective as an immigrant, a gay man, and someone who works with a very diverse group of young people.
“13 days after we married, the Supreme Court struck down DOMA, and suddenly our dream of having a life together became possible without thinking that we had to leave the country. These rights seemed to have been granted overnight to us, but obviously they were not. They were the result of decades, if not centuries, of sacrifices by queer people and allies that themselves did not see the result of their struggle. At the time, I felt overjoyed, and I felt hope for the future, not only for Cyrus and me, but also for the country and the world. One lesson I learned quickly, though, is that there's no such thing as permanent rights for those of us in the margins.
While the Defense of Marriage Act was overturned by a mix of activism, political will, and legal accidents, the people that created cruel laws such as this one are still around and are very much determined to take those rights away from us. Just take a look at the hundreds of anti-trans bills being actively considered around the country right now, or the fact that what we thought were settled matters on marriage equality are being pushed for reconsideration at the Supreme Court. The hate day of hate is now. It's not 50 years ago or 200. It's not a black and white photograph or a painting of Native Americans being slaughtered.
We are witnessing terrorists, racists, and wicked men wield power from high offices, ordering killings with a smile on their face. We are witnessing the millions with a moral compass so rotten that they'd rather torture children and put them in cages than share their neighborhood with a brown person. We are witnessing the time where history is so forgotten that the so-called good people prefer to stay silent and not be bothered just to keep peace, even if that means enabling the suffering of others elsewhere. So I don't need a history textbook to show me the martyrs and dissenters of those times. What I need to know is who they are right now.
Who will have my back when they come for me? And who will fight the fight when everyone else hides? I am proud to stand here in support of those two people. I am honored to introduce to you two of the most critical voices in our state who know exactly how to meet this moment.”
I take Wilmer’s call to action seriously every single day. For all the legislation that we pass in the Statehouse, the most important thing that I can do as a Senator and a human being is to stand up and have Wilmer’s back, and every other person who wakes up afraid in this country, and do what is right, not what is easy.
Statement on ICE Raid in South Burlington
Wednesday morning I was notified of ICE activity in S. Burlington and as soon as my work at the Statehouse was done I drove there to stand with not only those I represent, but the entire community who stepped in to protect the rights of fellow community members. Early in the morning, ICE was tracking a car that had previously belonged to a Mexican citizen they had an administrative – not criminal – warrant for. The driver was not the person named in the administrative warrant and was terrified to be surrounded by unmarked SUVs. While in the middle of morning rush hour on Dorset St, ICE attempted to box this driver in, resulting in several crashes. This person and their passenger then ran for safety in a nearby home. At no point was the person named on the administrative warrant at that home. For several hours community members surrounded the house to keep ICE from illegally breaking in without a warrant signed by a judge. I arrived just as ICE had finally obtained a judicial warrant and entered after a VT State Police cleared a path so an ICE officer could break down the front door. Three people were dragged out of the house, none of whom were named on the warrant.
What I experienced from then on was a complete abuse of power and a violation of the Fair and Impartial Policing Policy. While there were many state and local law enforcement officers working hard to keep people safe, I also witnessed officers who took protesters to unmarked ICE vehicles, aggressively threw people to the ground, and shoved people who were not involved in any sort of obstruction. Community members were injured, and many are now traumatized and afraid. ICE agents used pepper spray and tear gas without provocation, drove into groups of people, and attempted to run over incapacitated protesters. I watched agents rip off community members’ masks and spray irritants directly in their faces just because they could. Their violent, erratic and dangerous behavior did absolutely nothing to make our community safer, and now three people who have committed no crime are detained and senselessly separated from their children.
As a state Senator, I call for the immediate investigation into state and local law enforcement’s role in this operation, and I again call for the passing of S. 208, which will make the use of face masks and lack of identification illegal for law enforcement operating in the state in most instances. As a Vermonter, I am exhausted, I am sad, and I’m concerned for the safety of my community. What happened Wednesday was not only reckless and dangerous, it was a complete waste of resources that are desperately needed elsewhere. I hope this is a wake up call for many who didn’t believe this could happen here. Now it’s time to do better.
2026 Mid-Session Update
The first half of this session has been a whirlwind; there is a lot of chaos and unknowns that we are working with as we try to make Vermont more affordable, protect the most vulnerable, and build a sustainable economy. The attached report outlines the work done so far in both Senate Government Operations Committee and Senate Judiciary Committee, along with upcoming events and calls to actions.
In the unprecedented time we are experiencing in politics, it is more important than ever to be engaged and to vote. With town meeting coming up, our local elections and ballot initiatives will be up for a vote, and these decisions have the most impact on our daily lives. No matter how you vote, I strongly urge you to participate in your local elections. Municipal elections have some of the lowest turnouts of any election. It is too late to request a ballot online, but you can vote at your town clerk’s office or at the polls on Tuesday. When the legislature returns to the statehouse on March 10th, it will be crossover week, which is the deadline for all policy bills to be on their way to the other chamber. If there are bills or issues of particular importance to you, please reach out and let me know.
Chittenden Central District Polling Locations:
https://sos.vermont.gov/elections/voters/polling-places/
2026 Town Meeting Report Download
2025 Mid-Session Update
As we pass "crossover", the mid-point of the session, I wanted to share an update on the Senate's work, the bills discussed in the two committees I sit on, an upcoming event, my legislative priorities, and a list of bills that I have I sponsored so far. The report is available as both a PDF and in plain text ODF format.
Primary Win!
We did it! The results of the Democratic Primary are in and Phil Baruth, Martine Gulick, and I will go forward to the general election in November together. Thank you from the bottom of my heart to every person who came out to support me. This wasn’t my win, it was OUR win. With an opponent who was backed by the governor and many of Vermont’s wealthiest families and had nearly $40,000 more to spend than I did, many counted me out. But all those people forgot that you can’t put a price on grassroots volunteers and supporters who stood up and said that this senate district was not for sale. Over 90% of donations to my campaign were less than $100. They came from everyday working Vermonters who, just like me, can barely afford to stay in this state we love. We may not have the financial power to make huge campaign donations, but we have the grit and determination to get out and knock thousands of doors and listen to each other, and work together to make things better for ALL of us. I can’t thank you all enough for standing by me. My campaign manager and I have been overwhelmed with such heartfelt messages in the last week and it has carried us through. I am here because of all of you. Thank you.
Let's Talk Housing
One of the issues that I hear about the most is housing, and understandably so. As a working-class, self-employed person and one of only two renters in the Senate, I experience the lack of affordable housing myself every day and it’s frustrating to often find myself the only person like me in committee rooms and on the Senate floor.
This housing crisis started decades ago and it can’t be undone in a session. No one person can fix this, despite campaign rhetoric we all hear. But together, many of us are working on it. This last session, part of the tri-partisan Act 250 reform we passed was specifically to address the housing crisis. The final bill cleared hurdles for development where we have space for more density, while leaving natural areas protected. This is just one piece of the puzzle, though. We need to consider funding sources like taxes on vacation homes and short-term rentals that go into a special fund for affordable housing. Building codes should include innovative, modular building solutions that reduce the cost of new housing and their environmental impact. We have to continue to rehab derelict housing. We need to clear the path for more perpetually affordable cooperative housing where Vermonters have a say in the future of where they live instead of just building more rentals. We can’t just create more incentives for developers to build huge rental housing where tenants have no security once a lease ends. We need opportunities for ownership and equity.
And for our unhoused neighbors, we need to fully fund the Housing First programs that already exist so that people have wrap-around support to get housed and stay housed. These models work, but we can’t give them a fraction of the funding they need and then discard them when they can’t do the impossible. We have to reduce the administrative burden it takes to implement these programs and access benefits, and increase cooperation across state agencies. No one should have to stay on the phone on hold for hours trying to get into housing for the night. What we offer for funding and support is so rigid that it’s almost impossible for unhoused people to determine what they need and get those needs met with dignity. We’re doing a lot of the right things, but we need to do them better.
The Investments We Need for Public Safety
I have had the opportunity to connect with dozens of constituents, small business owners, and justice professionals about public safety in our community and what keeps inspiring me to do this work - despite all the divisiveness that paints us as on opposite sides of these issues - is that we agree on far more than we disagree on. We agree that we need to do so much better addressing the issues that drive crime in the first place; affordable housing, mental health services, substance use disorder treatment, and accessible educational opportunities just to name a few. We also agree that if we want to talk about accountability, we have to clear the backlog in the judicial system. No one - not the businesses, not the people who have committed crimes, not the people working in public safety - is better off when cases take years to get in front of a judge. I voted to increase funding to the judicial system because we need to fix this, and we can't do it unless we fix the massive understaffing that's leading to this. We also agree that, based on 50 years of Department of Justice research, increasing felony penalties does nothing to deter crime, and therefore the retail theft bill will not solve the issue. All it does is cost us more to incarcerate someone for a longer time and make it far less likely for them to get a job and housing when they're released from prison, which means they're more likely to reoffend. I will not vote for bills that cost our state more money and make crime more likely. I will continue to vote for bills that increase our restorative justice system, and make investments in our communities which address the root causes of crime and give people who have committed crimes the highest likelihood of staying out of prison and meeting their needs legally.
As a senator I don't have any influence over the policing and safety decisions made at the local level but I encourage everyone who is concerned about what's happening in your neighborhoods to work with your city councilors and selectboard members. That's where those decisions are made. My goal is to work in partnership with local leaders while making sure that the policy the senate sets spends taxpayer money as wisely as possible, while also making sure that the outcomes actually do what we say we want them to. We are all working toward the goal of keeping crime from occurring in the first place, and if it does, making sure that those involved have timely accountability and steps forward that restore trust and opportunities for everyone’s future.
A Look at the 2024 Yield Bill
I’ve heard considerable fear and misinformation being shared about the “yield” bill that sets the sources of education funding, so I wanted to take the time to explain the bill, the veto override, the Governor’s plan, and what we’re doing going forward.
Each year, school districts prepare budgets that they present to their community, the community votes on those budgets, and then the total amount of all the budgets that have been passed across the state is sent to the Legislature. The House and Senate don’t determine how much it will cost to run all the schools in the state – all the communities that voted on their budgets do that – but they are required to create and pass a bill that figures out where that money to fund those schools will come from. That bill is referred to as a “yield” bill.
For the last three years, the cost of education in VT has been artificially low because of all the one-time federal money that flowed into the state. That money has dried up, while the needs it was funding remain greater than ever. This year we faced the double hit of having to pay the full cost without federal subsidies for the first time this decade along with skyrocketing costs of health insurance premiums that are out of our control. Those of us in the Legislature worked as hard as we could to keep the full brunt of this from hitting taxpayers. We used all the tools at our disposal, tapping every non-property tax funding source we could to cover the costs, including using $25 million in general fund money to try to keep the tax rate down. Senator Gulick and I were proposing amendments to cut costs in the budget literally down to the last minutes of the session. While any tax increase is too much given how many people are struggling, I want to make sure to explain that the 13.8% increase is the average across the state, not what each community will face. The total property tax each homeowner will pay is determined by a combination of town calculations including the Common Level of Appraisal (CLA), state formulas, and income sensitivity adjustments and can't be determined by the yield bill alone.
If the Legislature had not voted to override the Governor’s veto and let the next fiscal year start without a yield bill, several problems would have come up. The non-partisan Joint Fiscal Office did the research (read their report) and informed us that 1. We would have created an $82 million education fund deficit, 2. The non-homestead tax rate would have gone through the roof to an estimated 30%, and 3. Even if we had allowed those two catastrophic issues to come to pass, the property tax rate would have only gone down slightly. We would have started the session in January 2025 trying to figure out how to fix that huge FY2025 deficit while still having to deal with the problem of funding schools in FY2026. The crisis doesn’t go away. It just gets worse.
The Governor’s proposed plan was disappointing, to say the least, to those of us who were really hoping to find a better way forward. His plan was to use the entire education reserve fund to buy down the tax increase and to eliminate universal school meals. The zeroing out on the education fund would have meant a downgrade to our bond rating. Whatever money that taxpayers saved with a lower property tax would have evaporated with the increased costs to the state for borrowing on all bonded projects, and still left us with this same problem of using one-time money to fill a hole that just appears again the next year. That, along with going backward on progress in addressing childhood hunger, made this a completely irresponsible choice that we had to reject.
We can’t keep doing this. The education funding system is incredibly dysfunctional and needs to be completely overhauled. While I am usually skeptical of bills that use studies to delay needed action, in this case, the study that the bill orders gives us a faster, more informed path forward so that we have fully vetted plans to implement when we get back to the Statehouse in January. I’m hopeful we can make lasting, meaningful change. It’s long past due.
I am happy to discuss these facts and data with anyone who would like to and hope this helps community members understand more about education taxes for the 2025 fiscal year. If you're in the Chittenden Central district and would like to you look at the school budget that passed this year in your community, here are links to the reports:
- Burlington School District
- Winooski School District
- Essex Westford School District
- Colchester School District
As always please reach out if you would like to discuss anything here or anything from the legislative session. My legislative email address is tvyhovsky@leg.state.vt.us
Defending Democracy
As many of you may know, Sen. McCormack and I filed a lawsuit in VT Superior Court on Wednesday. The suit asks the court to enforce the separation of powers and declare Gov. Scott’s “interim” appointment of Zoie Saunders after the senate’s rejection of her appointment to be invalid and illegal. I didn’t take the decision to pursue this lawsuit lightly. To me, Democracy is not a vague concept. It is a living system that each one of us plays a part in. It’s not just a set of ideals. It’s how citizens in our society participate in government and hold that government accountable. As a Vermonter and a Senator, I knew I couldn’t sit by and stay silent as I watched the checks and balances that keep our system honest crumble before my eyes.
What may seem like a complicated legal issue is actually quite simple. The governor can’t strip away the power granted to the senate by both the VT Constitution and state law. But by disregarding our unambiguous decision to reject his appointment for Secretary of Education, he did exactly that.
Let me be clear: this is not about the person Gov. Scott submitted for appointment nor is it about the work that she’s done. It’s about the governor’s decision to overrule the senate and make that appointment without our legally required consent. It’s about making case law that tells any governor who comes after Scott that Vermont enforces the separation of powers.
Let me also be clear: this is not about political parties or divides. Standing up for the constitution shouldn’t be a partisan issue. It should be something that unites all of us. Sen. McCormack and I are doing this because it’s the right thing to do, not because of the letters after our names, and because we both took an oath of office to protect and uphold the Vermont Constitution. We’re doing this because history shows us over and over again that the overreach of executive power leads us away from democracy to authoritarianism unless it’s challenged at every point.
So what’s next? With the lawsuit officially filed, that’s in the court’s hands. Our only goal is to have the court declare that a governor can’t make an “interim” appointment while the senate is in session, and because the senate has already declined this appointment while in session, that the governor cannot reappoint that same person now that we are out of session. It is not up to us to decide how to move forward after those decisions are handed down. Again, this is not about the person that Gov. Scott tried to appoint. This is about his disregard for the separation of powers when he did so.
This is also not about any piece of legislation from the biennium. This was an incredibly challenging session where we grappled with very complicated crises. Through this session the General Assembly worked hard to respond in the ways it thought would be best for Vermonters, and the solutions we had available were mixed. I wish we could have had a session where all of the players came to the table in good faith. But that’s not the session we had. I stand by the work we did. We spent hundreds of hours working together, taking testimony from constituents and experts, debating in committees and on the floor and coming to the best policy we could with the options we had. We all take this work extremely seriously and many of us, like me, sacrifice a lot to be here and serve. To suggest that this lawsuit in any way is meant to distract from scrutiny of any bill we passed is not just incorrect, but wildly off base. To speak directly to the yield bill, which the governor has taken aim at, I want to clarify that this bill does not set the cost of education for the state. That’s not up to us. What this bill does do, and it is critical that it does, is fund the school budgets that local voters in each community passed. Without the work that we did, the cost of those budgets would have been a 20% rate increase. We got it down significantly to an average of 13.8%. Once again let me be clear: this does not mean that everyone's taxes are going up 13.8% - in fact I know that in my district, Winooski’s tax rate is actually going down. As always I want to make sure I’m sharing facts, not fear.
We tackled so much this year - the opioid crisis, the climate crisis, the housing crisis, and much more, and yes - we have a lot more work to do next year when we return to the statehouse. But with so many incredibly complex crisis level issues facing us – I could not in good conscience go home and do nothing when a crisis of democracy was added to the list.
Finally, I’d like to take a minute to recognize the people who helped get us here today. First, I’d like to thank my fellow senators for their support of Sen. McCormack and me as we moved forward with this suit. I’d also like to thank my attorneys, Jared Carter and his co-council John Franco, for their tireless work and expertise. Putting together a lawsuit like this isn’t something that is accessible to many people, and as a self-employed social worker, I’m not someone with personal wealth. This lawsuit wouldn’t be possible without the financial contributions of a wide network of supporters from across the political spectrum who donated directly to my attorneys to cover their fees and to whom I’m deeply grateful. I’m also grateful for the outpouring of support I’ve received from my constituents since news of the lawsuit went public yesterday. This action is the culmination of so many people who believe that democracy is worth defending and in honor of all of them I will continue to do what I believe is right, even when it’s not easy.
Town Meeting 2022
As we return from the town meeting recess take a look at my annual town meeting legislative update. There is a lot happening in the world right now and I will be in touch this week with further actions we can take to help.
2022 Session Outlook
The 2022 session has kicked off, we are beginning week three and already a lot is happening. Included in this email is a report about what is happening and what is upcoming. Please find a more in depth report here, and do not hesitate to reach out for more information or to share your thoughts, tvyhovsky@leg.state.vt.us
Town Meeting 2021 Legislative Report
We have been busy in Montpelier so far this session. I have prepared a report to inform you about some of the work being done and the work yet to come now that we have reached the town meeting recess. I hope that you will get out to vote at Essex Middle School for town meeting day if you have not yet voted by mail.