Campaign Launch Event Remarks

Jared Duval for State Senate Campaign Launch

Remarks

State House Lawn

May 20, 2022

It is so good to see each of you. It really means so much – thank you for being here, thank you for your support. You know, when I decided to enter this race, it really felt like a leap of faith and I didn’t know what would happen. And I feel like you all have caught me.

Thank you especially to the more than two dozen friends and neighbors who volunteered to be part of the host committee for today and to everyone who has volunteered to help out with this event or donated to lift up this campaign. It’s also especially meaningful to have folks who are currently serving or have served in the legislature lend their support. Of course Senator Perchlik; Representative Kari Dolan who’s here; and former Senator Scudder Parker. It’s incredibly humbling and I take this responsibility very seriously. 

Before I go too far, I want to say something about my wife Joan. While I have been involved in serving Vermont in many ways over the years, I am convinced that the single greatest thing I have ever done for our state is to convince Joan, originally a city girl from Chicago, to marry me and to move home to Vermont with me. She serves central Vermont and our whole state in so many ways. 

I also wouldn’t be able to say what I am about to say without her unwavering belief and support. 

My name is Jared Duval and today I publicly  announce my candidacy in the Democratic primary for State Senate to serve Washington County, Stowe, Orange, and Braintree.

I’d like to share a little about who I am and why I’m running. 

First, I am a progressive Democrat with a deep commitment to rural communities. I have served as an intern for Bernie Sanders, as the youngest member of Gov. Dean’s policy team when he ran for president in 2003, and have volunteered for numerous local campaigns including, as Senator Perchlik said, for him and Marianne when they decided to run, when Andy decided to run back in 2018.  It means so much to have him and Marianne here today.

The Washington Senate district is incredibly lucky to benefit from Senator Perchlik’s devoted service and progressive leadership in the Senate – and hopefully increasing in leadership in the next year. In addition to being a friend, he has been an inspiration and a mentor to me. It would be such a privilege to serve alongside him – and I hope that anyone and everyone who votes for me in the primary on August 9th will also vote to re-elect Senator Perchlik at the same time. Remember, you have up to three votes because ours is a 3 member Senate district. 

I want to be clear that I do not think that I am running against anyone – I am running for one of our three seats and asking for one of your up to three votes, and hoping you will give one to Senator Perchlik at the same time 

I would also be humbled and honored to work to carry on Senator Pollina’s progressive legacy. He’s been an incredible leader over the decades. Like him, I come from and am committed to the working class and to advancing more just and equitable economic policy. If elected, I commit to working to move forward many of the policy issues that he has championed, including a Vermont Green New Deal that would repeal the Trump tax cuts for the wealthiest, and use that revenue to help invest in weatherization for low and moderate income Vermonters and for other equitable climate progress.

I am also an unabashed policy wonk. Most of all, I want to serve in the State Senate to craft good progressive policy that improves people’s lives. I am committed to carefully testing assumptions, hearing and considering multiple viewpoints, and thinking through potential unintended consequences. I was trained at a great public policy school where I earned my Master’s degree in public affairs, with a concentration in domestic policy. There and over the years I have learned that good intentions are not enough. Doing the hard, careful work matters. As an author, graduate student, and non-profit leader I have deep experience conducting careful research and analysis.

I believe in being guided by science and facts and am committed to evidence-based policy making, from public health policy to energy policy and beyond.  

For twenty years, I have devoted my career to public service and non-profit leadership on behalf of a cleaner, stronger, and more equitable economy. This has included serving as Vermont’s economic development director for our working lands and green economy sectors at the Agency of Commerce and Community Development, leading the Energy Action Network, serving on the Vermont Climate Council, and as a Board member of the Public Assets Institute.

I have a deep love for our state and her people. It has been nurtured by my family’s deep roots, now stretching ten generations in Vermont’s land and history. But I am a ninth generation Vermonter who believes that, whoever you are and whenever you came here, if you live here now, we are all equally Vermonters, with equal rights. And I believe we have a lot more work to do to make sure that ideal is truly experienced by all Vermonters, including Vermonters of color, recent immigrants and refugees, and our LGBTQIA community. 

And, in this moment in particular, fighting for the rights of all Vermonters must mean an unwavering defense of the rights of women – of the rights of people of all genders – to make their own health care decisions, and to have control over their own bodies.  In response to the Supreme Court’s efforts to take away women’s rights and reproductive liberty, I hope you will join me in voting yes on prop 5 this year. Together, we can make explicit in Vermont’s constitution that the right to safe and legal abortion and all forms of reproductive health care shall be protected. Because we also know that outlawing abortion does not stop abortions from happening – it only stops them from happening safely. 

This week we were also reminded of the preventable tragedy of gun violence and of the scourge of racist hate. We are not immune from this here in Vermont and I believe that we need to do our part to make our state safer for all of our residents, including with gun violence prevention measures like background checks and additional common sense gun safety laws and by working to dismantle supremacist belief systems. 

As we have conversations about public policies, I want you to know that I am committed to listening to and engaging with all residents of this Senate district. While we may not always agree, I commit to keeping an open mind, to hearing you out, and to not writing anyone off.

The divisiveness and coarsening of our politics at the national level is seeping into Vermont and I believe that it is corrosive and dangerous. Let’s all commit to living up to our Vermont values of civility, respect, and open-mindedness. As your neighbor, as a fellow Vermonter, and as your State Senator, I will listen to you and I will do my best to serve you -- regardless of your party affiliation or your position on a particular issue.

I believe that all residents of this district deserve to be actively heard and served, year round, as Senator Perchlik has done. If elected, I commit to holding a listening session in each and every Washington County town and city, plus Stowe, Orange, and Braintree during every legislative biennium. That’s 23 total events every two years, in our 21 towns and 2 cities. I also commit to providing a regular newsletter to keep residents up to date on what is happening in the State House during the legislative session and to help connect residents with state and local services and programs year round.  

I want to say more about why public service matters to me, on a personal level. 

For me, politics matters because policy matters. And policy matters because people matter.

To paraphrase one of my political heroes, the late Senator Paul Wellstone of Minnesota: the true purpose of politics is – or should be about—the improvement of people’s lives.

When I was ten years old, my father had a massive heart attack that nearly killed him. Thanks to paramedics who didn’t give up on him and after a quadruple bypass surgery, he survived.

But the surgery and his weakened health left him unable to continue his job as a chef. Without income during his recovery, he lost his apartment. His van was repossessed. His medical related debt later forced him to file for bankruptcy. Without a place to live, unable to physically continue as a chef, he ended up setting up at a flea market, buying and selling things during the days and camping in a tent behind his table at nights. Eventually, he recovered enough that he was able to work again as a handyman and independent contractor and find an apartment of his own.

Now I want to be very clear. My father was one of the strongest people I ever knew and I have never known anyone who worked harder than him, as those who knew him will attest.  

But even the strongest, hardest working people get knocked off their feet sometimes. And it’s at those moments that we see what our society is made of, how our government works, and who it works for.

It was only because of Democratic policies – like Social Security Disability Insurance – that my Dad didn’t end up in a worse situation after his heart attack. But he should have also been able to focus on recovery without losing his apartment. And, unable to work full time in the job he had before, he should have been able to work part-time at another job without having to contend with the benefits cliff and the prospect of losing his disability insurance.

I have a memory of my Dad, lying in that tent behind the flea market, the scars from his surgery still very visible on his chest, trying to fall asleep, his breathing labored. Today I often think about how many Vermonters are facing similar crises. Laying awake and worrying about their ability to continue in their job, or whether their paycheck can meet their most basic needs in this difficult and inequitable economy where the gains go to the 1% and the rest of us are left to contend with rising prices. Worrying about where you will live and how much it costs to rent or to try to buy a home. Unsure of whether you can afford child care, if you can find an opening at all.

I believe that the test of political leaders is not how hard they work for the well off. The true test of political leadership is how effectively we work for the working class, especially in their moments of need.

I am running for State Senate because I am committed to always looking out and standing up for the working people of Vermont. Vermonters like my Dad and Vermonters in the situations I just described – salt of the earth, hardworking people who don’t ask for much but who deserve policy makers in the Statehouse who will have their back and will work to help make things better. And not just in times of crisis, but systemically, so that fewer moments of crisis occur. 

I believe in the need to preserve and strengthen a social safety net to help catch families when they get knocked off their feet, often through no fault of their own. I believe in the need to preserve and expand policies that give families a hand up when they need it most. But we also need to reform our economic policies so that fewer people are in those situations in the first place. No one should work full time and not be able to afford basic living expenses. And no one, whether they can work or not, should be told, “you’re on your own”. We need to ensure a baseline of human dignity for all our people, affirming that we are in this together.

And that’s why I’m running – because I believe that doing these things is a core responsibility of our government, led by the politicians who we elect to craft policy on our behalf.  

Again: Politics matters because policy matters. And policy matters because people matter.

Not long after my Dad had his heart attack, I learned in elementary school about democracy in Ancient Greece and about the Roman republic. Perhaps because we were a family that struggled economically, I was drawn to the ideal – not always realized but always inspiring and still possible – that our representatives should be elected not based on their last name, where they were born, or how much money they earn or property they own. They should be elected based on what and who they stand for. 

I remember the first time I ever toured the State House, around that same time, and seeing the chambers where our democracy is practiced. I later learned the family story of my 4th great grandfather, James McGlaflin, a stone mason who immigrated from Ireland to Montpelier in the early-1800’s and helped work some of the granite that forms the State House.

It would be one of the honors of my life if you were to entrust me with responsibility to craft policy on behalf of working Vermonters in the same Statehouse that he helped build as a laborer. 

Because today we need an economy that works better for working Vermonters. And I want to be clear that working Vermonters include people of all races and ethnic backgrounds, all genders and abilities, and of different immigration status. We need an economy that works as hard for working Vermonters as they do for it. Too much wealth is flowing to the already wealthy, and the gains in our economy are not going to those who are doing the hard work. It’s time to invest in working Vermonters and to re-invest in Vermont’s future.

That means increasing the minimum wage yet again and indexing it to rise automatically with inflation, so we don’t have to keep coming back every other year to try to increase it. 

It means building more housing, especially more affordable housing – and not just apartments, but home ownership opportunities too, so working families can actually build wealth. 

It means investing in high quality, affordable universal healthcare; and in high quality, affordable childcare. 

And in everything we do, it also means that facts matter. That science matters. That moral urgency matters. 

Any clear eyed view of our current challenges must start with two, interlinked realities. The working class is struggling and the climate is in crisis. Now more than ever, we need leaders who don’t just recognize these facts but who have the know-how and demonstrated experience to effectively advance real solutions. 

Because we desperately need bold climate leadership that meets our moral and legal responsibility to do our part to reduce climate pollution here in Vermont, in line with scientific necessity. And we also need to do so in a way that lowers energy costs (especially for lower and middle income Vermonters), and that strengthens the Vermont economy. 

The time of denial, delay, and inaction must end. We are better than that. And, together, we can do better than that. It is time to boldly advance the transition to a cleaner, more equitable economy. I am ready! You are ready! Are you ready?! …We are ready!

I want to close on a personal note. A number of years ago, I was visiting the cemetery in Barnard, Vermont where at least six generations of my family are buried, including my father who died over seven years ago now. It was a beautiful fall day and as I looked at the gnarly old maples rising along the sloping, moss covered stone walls, I had a flood of memories of my Dad and the Vermont traditions he passed down to my sister and me—from hiking in the fall, deer and partridge hunting, ice-fishing, pond skating, cross-country skiing, and maple sugaring.

I thought about how those same Vermont traditions and memories probably tied every single generation in that cemetery together – that what has united us as Vermonters since our founding has been our relationship with the land, our appreciation for nature, and our unique experience of the seasons. I am also aware that indigenous people who called this place home well before it was called "Vermont” have similar, even deeper ties to this land. 

My wife Joan and I are now raising a tenth generation Vermonter. I am motivated to run and serve my fellow Vermonters because I want to work to make sure that the Vermont we have all been blessed to know and love can live on for at least another ten generations. Whether you are an indigenous person, a tenth generation Vermonter like my son and his cousins here, or a first generation Vermonter like my wife, we are all so lucky to be residents and stewards of this beautiful state.

Right now, climate change is the greatest threat – an existential threat – to those traditions and this State we know and love. If we continue our fossil fuel dependence, current projections have Vermont’s climate turning into one more like Tennessee or Alabama by the end of this century - a time when these children will hopefully still be alive. Those may be nice places in their own way, but their environment and traditions are not ours and they are not what we should leave our children with. 

The odds may be long, but our future does not have to end up like that. Vermont may be small. And alone we cannot change the course of the global climate—no single state or country can. But we can meet our moral responsibility to step up and do our part. We Vermonters are not the type of people to shirk responsibility or shrink from a challenge. 

During the Revolution, when the “shot heard ‘round the world” was fired and the first battles at Lexington and Concord broke out, did Vermonters say, “there’s no way we can make a difference”? No, Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys bravely took Fort Ticonderoga, securing cannon and mortar that turned the tide of the Revolution in America’s favor. 

Or during the Civil War, we didn’t say, “we’re too small to make a difference.” No, Vermonters signed up to preserve the Union and help end slavery, playing a decisive role in many battles, from the Wilderness to Gettysburg. 

And more recently, when civil unions and then marriage equality was under consideration by the legislature, we didn’t say, “we shouldn’t do this because most gay and lesbian people don’t live in Vermont.” No. We did what was right by Vermonters, here in our state, and we provided an example that rippled far beyond our borders, encouraging other states and nations to take up the cause of equality.

When we do our part as this generation of Vermonters to confront the climate crisis and make our economy work for the working class, not only will our example make a difference here - it will again serve as a beacon and inspiration for others, casting light beyond our borders yet again, in the same way that previous generations of Vermonters have done throughout our history in response to times of great challenge and opportunity. In short, we can make a difference again.

I love our State. And I know that you do too. We must not let the promise of Vermont fade. It’s time for this generation to claim our place in our brave little state’s history. 

Together, I know that we can live up to the hopes of our ancestors and protect the promise of our children. We can create a better future for this and the next generations of Vermonters. In that effort and in this State Senate race, I humbly ask for your support. Most of all, I ask for your vote. And if you are also willing to volunteer, host a house party, or donate to this campaign, that could very well make the difference. In this crowded race, every single vote, every conversation, every contribution will matter. 

Together, I know that we can elect the next generation of progressive leadership that will advance policies to improve the lives of all Vermonters. Remember: politics matters because policy matters. And policy matters because people matter. 

Now is the time to show it. Let’s get to work! Thank you!