In the race for Vermont’s attorney general, only one candidate is an attorney

Within the election for Vermont’s subsequent lawyer normal, voters will select between Democrat Charity Clark, who most not too long ago held the No. 2 place within the Lawyer Common’s Workplace, and Republican Mike Tagliavia, a first-time political candidate who shouldn’t be an lawyer and says his outsider standing makes him the higher alternative.

Clark has emphasised her resume in her pitch to voters all through a hard-fought major marketing campaign and on the overall election marketing campaign path. She has eight years of expertise within the Lawyer Common’s Workplace, most not too long ago serving as chief of employees to then-Lawyer Common TJ Donovan from 2018 to 2022. Beforehand, Clark labored for 9 years in personal apply in Burlington, then New York Metropolis. Shortly after Donovan resigned, Clark stepped down in Might to launch her marketing campaign. 

In August, Clark beat out her Democratic major opponent Rory Thibault, who serves as Washington County State’s Lawyer, by a 30-point margin. Ought to she prevail on Tuesday, she wouldl be Vermont’s first elected feminine lawyer normal.

In an interview with VTDigger on Friday, Clark, 47, of Williston, stated that “voters have a really clear alternative” on Tuesday.

“I’ll let my opponent communicate for himself, however for me, I’ve been an lawyer in Vermont since 2005. Earlier than that, I labored within the governor’s workplace for greater than 4 years. I went to an excellent regulation faculty. I labored at very well-regarded regulation corporations,” Clark stated. “I’ve simply a number of related expertise and assume I’m a really robust candidate with deep authorized expertise and management expertise to convey to the workplace.”

Tagliavia, 59, of Corinth, was nominated to the race by the Vermont Republican Get together to exchange perennial candidate H. Brooke Paige, who rescinded all however considered one of his 4 statewide major victories. Tagliavia, now retired, is a former enterprise proprietor whose resume appears to be like far totally different than Clark’s — and he believes that’s a superb factor.

“I am proud to say that I am not a profession politician. I am only a man making an attempt to do good issues for Vermonters,” he stated in his opening remarks at a debate hosted by the League of Girls Voters in September. “I am not an lawyer. I imagine that provides me a bonus. I can convey a brand new perspective to the desk.”

Clark instructed VTDigger that her coverage platform is knowledgeable by her eight years of expertise throughout the Lawyer Common’s Workplace, and her data of “the ability of the workplace and what it will possibly do,” notably its work crafting laws alongside the Legislature. Clark has staked out positions on prison justice reform, environmental protections, client protections, immigration reform, home violence prevention and extra.

However her high precedence, if she is sworn in come January, is crafting secure harbor protections in Vermont for sufferers looking for abortions and the medical doctors who carry out them within the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court docket’s choice to overturn Roe v. Wade.

When the court docket’s conservative majority issued its Dobbs v. Jackson Girls’s Well being Group opinion, putting down the federal proper to an abortion, Clark stated “the Supreme Court docket of the US instructed me, I’m much less human than males.”

“That is what I heard when the Dobbs choice got here down, that I might not have a proper to manage my very own physique,” she stated. “And I will restate that. It isn’t nearly me. The idea that ladies and ladies and others who can change into pregnant do not have management over their very own our bodies, do not have private freedom over their very own our bodies, when freedom is our complete model in America — it’s extremely upsetting.”

Tagliavia, then again, stated at September’s debate that his “legislative priorities are public security, public security, public security.”

In an interview with VTDigger on Friday, Tagliavia stated he strongly opposes current calls to finish certified immunity for law enforcement officials, which protects public servants from dealing with litigation for violating residents’ civil rights whereas on the job, and needs to see higher funding for police forces throughout the state. His high precedence could be “determining find out how to get into the price range extra regulation enforcement on the streets, whether or not they’d be strolling foot patrols in Burlington, or really doing (Vermont State Police) patrols out in rural cities like mine.”

“There are lots of people I’ve spoken to who’re actually involved,” he stated. “They do not really feel as secure as they used to in Vermont. It is a new phenomenon.”

Tagliavia stated he believes residents of and guests to Vermont have “seen a change” within the state, and he needs to shepherd the state again to its “conventional” and “old-school, rural Vermont” methods.

Requested to outline the latter time period, Tagliavia stated he doesn’t imagine Vermonters “need to see (the state) flip right into a California or New York.”

“, Vermont usually is understood for its maple syrup, for its climbing, for its kayaking, for its cross-country snowboarding, for its downhill snowboarding, snowmobiling, stuff like that,” he stated. “Vermont has its personal character … and I feel it wants to take care of that character, and many of the voters I come throughout need to see it preserve that character.”

Clark, not less than electorally, is trying to break with custom. 

“The reality is that I am very motivated by the concept that it is 2022 and Vermont has by no means elected a girl lawyer normal,” she stated. “To assume that (Vermont’s first feminine governor) Madeleine Kunin is now in her early 80s, and I’m a grown girl with a baby of my very own and we nonetheless have not seen an (elected) lawyer normal who’s a girl, in a state the place 50% of the graduates of regulation faculty are ladies — it is extremely motivating.”