Elizabeth Brown announces run for Vermont House seat
June 5, 2024 | By Elizabeth Brown 
Elizabeth Brown. Courtesy photo
I am a working mom, so concerned about our state that I could no longer sit on the sidelines. Running for the House of Representatives is not a small decision for me and my family, but it is one that we feel strongly about.
I chose Vermont to be my home in 2000. Beyond its beauty and endless playgrounds, I found Vermonters to be warm and welcoming, but also independent and self-sufficient, more than willing to support strong communities and help neighbors in need. Vermont was safe. I never knew where my house key was. It felt affordable. Vermont was a place where you lived within your means.
I think many of us are questioning: what happened? And when I say many, I mean most of the people I speak with, and most of the people I overhear in the grocery store, at the library, on the soccer sidelines or at the gas station. Our near-term affordability issues are affecting nearly all. People are stressed and scared for the future. With Vermont government spending up 46% since 2019 and income up 10% at most, they should be.
Questions that need answers:
How is it that our legislature is promising affordable housing while at the same time approving a yield bill that is causing our property taxes to skyrocket?
How is it that our legislature put our schools, our kids and our towns in a position where we were pitted against each other, knowing this train wreck was a decade in the making, then failed to engage with the voters to acknowledge it?
How is it that our legislature is passing bills that will double your home heating and electric bills when so many Vermonters are struggling to make ends meet?
As a candidate, I won’t profess to have all the answers, but I do have one attribute desperately needed: accountability. I have been watching the past few legislative sessions with interest at first, and then with anger. We are playing with people's lives and livelihoods. Call me the voice-of-reason candidate. The candidate who is ready to use the skills acquired over 20 years in business to make sure the same rigor is applied to our laws and our budgets.
Out of touch is what I hear. Non-responsive. Our current legislature is focused on passing bills to suit the needs of the special interests, lobbyists and activists, “voting the party platform,” and it is disconnected from its constituents. They take pride in the quantity of bills and not what is most critical in solving Vermont’s most substantial current challenges. All of this busyness means that we are kicking the can down the road on the issues that incumbents have been promising progress on – education, housing, affordability.
Real strategy means focusing our efforts on the burning issues that are imploding in front of our eyes. Prioritizing these to stabilize and grow our communal and fiscal strength and sustainability, we will be better equipped to extend the kindness and connections Vermonters all care about and to broaden our environmental reach.
This election year, take politics out of our Vermont government and remember our roots. We are neighbors with more common ground than our politicians want us to know. We’ve always been Vermonters helping Vermonters. But let's do this the right way. Let's be reasonable about what Vermont and Vermonters are fiscally capable of.
I am an issues-driven candidate and will represent all Vermonters regardless of political affiliation to implement sound and responsible fiscal solutions.
Elizabeth Brown is a Waterbury representative to the Harwood Unified Union School Board and a Democratic candidate for the Washington-Chittenden District of the Vermont House covering Waterbury, Bolton, Huntington and Buel’s Gore. More information: elizabethbrownforvermont.com.