ELECTION 2024

By MAURY THOMPSON
Contributing writer

 

The death of longtime state Sen. Dick Sears and the retirement of Sen. Brian Campion have set up the first election in more than three decades in which both Senate seats representing Bennington County are open.

Six candidates, including three running as independents, will be on the November general election ballot in the Bennington District, which includes all of Bennington County along with the towns of Wilmington and Londonderry in Windham County.

Three of the candidates have previous experience in the Legislature and are looking to continue or pick up where they left off.

Seth Bongartz of Manchester, one of two Democratic candidates, is in his second two-year term in the state House of Representatives and previously served two terms in the House and one in the Senate in the 1980s. He also was president of Hildene, the Lincoln family home in Manchester, for nearly two decades before retiring at the end of 2019.

Cynthia Browning of Arlington, running as an independent, previously served in the House as a Democrat from 2007 to 2020. She works in banking, previously taught economics and served for many years as executive director of the Batten Kill Watershed Alliance.

Steven Berry of Manchester, another independent, was elected to the House as a Democrat for one term in 2015-16 before losing his re-election bid. In recent years he has served as pastor of the Congregational Church of Rupert.

The other three candidates are looking to make a new mark in politics.
Rob Plunkett of Bennington, the other Democratic candidate, is a prosecutor in the office of the Bennington state’s attorney and a former Mount Anthony Union school board member.
Joe Gervais of Arlington, the sole Republican contender, runs a custom lumber milling company and formerly worked in sales, administration and product development for technology companies and nonprofit organizations.

Lawrence “Spike” Whitmire of Shaftsbury, the third independent in the race, is a construction contractor from Shaftsbury who is the board president of Grace Christian School in Bennington. Although he is running as an independent, Whitmire has linked his campaign with that of Gervais.

“On most issues I tend to the right,” Whitmire said. “Joe and I are in agreement on most everything.”
Candidates run at large, with the two who receive the most votes winning election.

 

Death scrambles a primary
The death of Sears, who had represented Bennington County in the Senate since 1993 and played a major role in shaping legislation across many years, brought an unusual wrinkle to last month’s Democratic primary.

Sears’ name was already on the Democratic primary ballot when he died in early June, and the filing deadline for other candidates to be listed on the ballot had passed. As a result, some Democratic leaders urged people to vote for Sears in last month’s primary so that the county Democratic Party committee could select the replacement candidate.

Bongartz, who was already on the primary ballot, rejected that strategy and joined his campaign with that of Plunkett, who ran as a write-in candidate for the second Democratic nomination.
“It was a horrible idea,” Bongartz said in a telephone interview in late August, referring to the strategy of urging people to vote for Sears.

Bongartz received 2,641 votes and Plunkett garnered 1,616 write-in votes in the Aug. 13 primary, enough to earn them the two Democratic spots on the general election ballot. Sears received 837 votes, and other write-in candidates received a total of 294 votes, according to figures from the state secretary of state’s office.

Jim Ramsey, the Bennington County Democratic chairman, said urging voters to cast ballots for Sears was a “backup strategy,” because potential candidates had little time to organize their campaigns before the primary.

But then, Ramsey continued, “more of the candidates said, ‘I really need to get my name out there.’” So the strategy was abandoned but had the advantage of alerting voters that Sears had died, he said.

Bongartz said he thinks most of the votes for Sears were from people who were not aware of the senator’s death. He added that he does not expect there will be fallout from the controversy in the general election.

“That was a little inside-baseball thing that was not where the voters were,” Bongartz said.

 

Large void to fill
Several candidates said there is no doubt the death of Sears and the retirement of Campion, who has served for a decade, will leave the area with less political clout, at least for now.
Sears had been chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee for many years and also was a member of the powerful Appropriation Committee.

Campion is chairman of the Senate Education Committee and chairman of the chamber’s ethics panel. He previously served two terms in the House.

“It is not possible in one [election] cycle to kind of replace their effectiveness,” Bongartz said.
But the candidates each stressed skills and experiences they’d draw upon in an effort to represent the region effectively at the statehouse.

“Dick Sears had a long legacy in serving in the Senate,” said Gervais, the lone Republican candidate. “He left a large vacuum.”

Gervais said his own “ability to listen, and listen carefully” would be an asset in the Senate. In his work in product development, he said, he spoke with customers about what kind new products they needed, and then networked with the company’s engineers to design products. The same skills apply to listening to constituents and networking with fellow legislators, he explained.
Bongartz said his success at crafting legislation in the House makes him the best qualified. He said he drafted three major housing bills over the years that became law. Most recently, he was one of the authors of a major overhaul of Act 250, the state law regulating development, that the Legislature enacted in June over the veto of Republican Gov. Phil Scott.

“I have a long history of involvement with state and local government,” he said.
Plunkett, the other Democratic candidate, said Campion, the retiring senator, asked him to run.
“He’s the one who reached out to me,” Plunkett said. “If he thinks I can do it, I certainly can.”
Whitmire, who volunteers at a soup kitchen and in a program that assists families of prison inmates, said his charitable work mirrors that of Sears, who founded a local residential program for at-risk youth and served as its director for three decades, overlapping with his early years in the Senate.

“I think Dick Sears was a community servant,” Whitmire said. “And I’ve proved in my life that I care about the same things.”

Browning said her economics background and previous service on the House Ways and Means Committee provide her with the greatest degree of financial expertise for which Sears was known.

Berry, the third independent candidate, did not respond to a phone message seeking comment for this report.

 

An opening for the GOP?
Bennington County Republican Chairwoman Carol Dupont said this year’s race offers the rare opportunity for the GOP to pick up a seat in the Senate. She called Gervais “probably the hardest-working politician I’ve had in a long time.”

“He’s smart, and he works,” Dupont said.
Voters in the district have not elected a Republican senator since 2004.
But Gervais said independent candidates Browning and Berry, who both have name recognition from previously serving as Democrats in the House, could siphon off Democratic votes, opening a pathway for the GOP.

Ramsey, the Democratic chairman, disputed that suggestion.
Browning and Berry “sort of have left, or abandoned, the Democratic Party,” Ramsey said. “And their focus really is as independents.”

Browning said she still identifies with the Democratic Party nationally but is running as an independent because neither Democrats nor Republicans in the Legislature seem to have an adequate strategy to address property taxes.

A Republican pick-up locally would not by itself pose any danger to the Senate’s lopsided Democratic majority.

Democrats currently hold 21 of the chamber’s 30 seats, with seven Republicans, one Progressive and one vacant seat. There are six open seats on the November ballot.
Asked about the top three issues in the race, Gervais said, “Affordability, affordability and affordability.” He said he is particularly concerned about the cost of education and the cost of complying with the state’s new heating fuel standard.

Bongartz said the top three issues are property taxes, housing and protecting democracy from Trumpism.

Plunkett said the top three issues are criminal justice, property taxes and education.
Whitmire said the top three issues are transparency, spending and property taxes. On transparency, he stressed the importance of constituents being informed about legislation before it is voted on, not afterward.

Browning said the top three issues are property taxes, housing and the environment.
Elsewhere in the region, two Democrats are challenging the three incumbent Republicans in the Rutland Senate District. It is an at-large race for three seats.

State Sen. Brian Collamore, R-Rutland Town, is seeking a sixth two-year term, while freshman Sens. David Weeks, R-Proctor, and Terry Williams, R-Poultney, are each seeking a second term.
Democratic challenger Marsha Cassel of Rutland Town was a public school teacher for 24 years and a conflict mediator for 15 years. Democratic candidate Robert Richards is a longtime town selectman in Fair Haven.