While she didn’t directly tie her bid to the party’s poor showing, Ram Hinsdale said voters sent a clear message that change is the order of the day.
“Vermonters are asking us to do more listening and less lecturing,” she wrote in an email to colleagues. “They want to see quality — not costs — added to their lives.”
House Speaker Jill Krowinski (D-Burlington) is also facing a leadership challenge that Rep. Laura Sibilia (I-Dover) announced prior to the election. But Sibilia’s potential path to the speakership, she said, had become “broader” in light of the election results.
Democrats lost 18 seats in the House and six seats in the Senate as resurgent Republicans rode a wave of taxpayer outrage over soaring education spending and property taxes.
Clarkson said she was running on her record of success and to help the caucus thrive. “I want to enable the caucus members to grow and shine in their work,” she told Seven Days.
Clarkson said she helped build support for the policies that Senate Democrats advanced last session, often by overriding the governor. These votes were over the bills that will cut red tape for housing development, ban the use of seeds treated with pesticides that harm bees and allow for an overdose prevention center to be established in Burlington.
Communicating those accomplishments within the caucus and to constituents always needs improvement, she said. She helped establish a full-time support position in the caucus for that purpose, she said.
“We all need to be better at messaging our values and the policies we support and distilling them and making them understandable in lay terms,” she said.
Because of the workload involved in the role, the majority leader does not typically chair a committee. Ram Hinsdale, current chair of the Economic Development, Housing and General Affairs committee, wants to continue in that role as well, Clarkson said.
“She wants to be able to do both, and I’m sorry, but I don’t think that’s appropriate,” Clarkson said.
In her email to colleagues, Ram Hinsdale contended that Senate Democrats need to up their game in several ways.
“When two thirds of Vermonters say our state is going in the wrong direction, they are asking us to plan for and invest in fuller schools, holistic rural health care, and an opportunity economy,” Ram Hinsdale wrote. “We have been asked to reimagine and rebalance, and I know we are up to the challenge if we unite in common cause across difference and geography.”
She promised colleagues she would improve communication within the caucus, help constituents see senators’ achievements with “storytelling platforms, support, and spotlight” in their districts. She said she was also committed to “raising the necessary funds to maintain and rebuild our majority.”
In a text to Seven Days, Ram Hinsdale said she had been encouraged to think about running for the post before the election but made the decision only after getting the support of respected colleagues.
“We are going to need to combine institutional memory with new ways of engaging, and I bring both,” she wrote.
House Democrats are expected to make key leadership decisions, including the speakership, when they caucus on December 7.
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