How can I afford to run?
From the Deerfield Valley News, Nov. 3, 2022
To the Editor,
Being a first-time candidate for state representative for Windham-6 has been six months of brain food. A couple things I had to learn have been financial: how to comply with Vermont’s laws and whether I can feed my family on this job. Once a candidate raises $500, regular reports are required by the secretary of state. Donors over $100 are disclosed by name. Candidates have to report a mass media buy, such as a newspaper ad or a texting broadcast.
I’ve filed eight reports, all available in Vermont’s public online database. They show that as of Monday, October 24, 76 individuals had donated $9,255. I’ve spent $7,833.77 on everything from signs to my website to newspaper ads.
The job of state representative is in-person in Montpelier four days a week from January through May. It pays $17,000, some living expenses, and no health benefits.
Several capable Vermont State Representatives who are not seeking reelection this year cited the pay and time demands as an issue.
Rep. Lucy Rogers, of Waterville and Cambridge, shared on Facebook that, “No matter how strong the passion for service, this makes the Legislature inaccessible to many Vermonters who are not retired or independently wealthy. As a young person, a renter, a working Vermonter, and a political newcomer, I was more the exception than the rule... Our legislative structure must change if we want to have a truly representative government.”
Some voters have asked me how I can afford to run. One of my privileges in life has been that my grandfather spent his career as an electrical engineer at General Electric in Schenectady, NY. He made a nice retirement by investing in little else but their stock.
In my life, GE has taken and given. As a kid I explored the ravines of our dairy farm down to the banks of the Hudson River but was never able to swim or fish it due to the PCBs they’d dumped upstream. But it was GE that gave me a great high school and college education, which led to job opportunities.
What was left over and given to me when my grandparents died, I exchanged for land in Halifax to begin my lifelong dream of homesteading.
I’d love to make more of my living from my homestead and my creative projects but I invest in them when I can.
Meanwhile, I earn a living in the building products industry, where I run a small consultancy and hold a job at a nonprofit, the Health Product Declaration Collaborative.
In my 40s, I found myself ready for a change. I started saying “no” to doing the same old work, even if it paid. I tried opening myself to different experiences. I poured more time into the Halifax Selectboard, which pays $150 per month. I poured hours and hours into my first love, the craft of writing.
I did this without much in savings or retirement and with no family money. I took out a home-equity loan to have a cushion. My partner and I share expenses. My boss at HPDC carved out a new part-time role and convinced me to stay. Another privilege, she was flexible around my campaign schedule, something many jobs don’t offer.
I learned that a person’s “safety net” isn’t just a figure in an account somewhere.
It’s also you, your relationships, your knowledge and skills, your creativity, your commitment, and your grit.
In May, state representative for Windham-6 became an open seat. We decided as a family that the money would work out, somehow. I hope the money does work out. Not just for me but for any citizen whose passion drives them to be a state representative. But whatever happens, I wrote this letter to give voters a transparent sense of my baseline commitments.
Thank you for reading. Please vote Tuesday, November 8.
Tristan Roberts
Halifax
