Via Community News Service, a University of Vermont journalism internship, on assignment for the White River Valley Herald.
The men running to represent Orange 1 District in the Vermont House have a lot in common.
Both have held a variety of jobs, and both are concerned about housing affordability, public safety and education
But incumbent Democrat Rep. Carl Demrow and Republican challenger Michael Tagliavia have divergent views about how to tackle those issues. Demrow and Tagliavia are vying to represent the towns of Orange, Washington, Corinth and Vershire in the House.
Demrow’s platform has three major goals: to reform Vermont’s education spending formula to make it “affordable, understandable and fair to rural communities,” to improve housing affordability by making building materials cheaper and to support families through policies like expanding the earned-income tax credit.
Tagliavia believes state legislatures have a responsibility to keep people safe. He plans to advocate for mandatory treatment for drug offenders, and, like Demrow, he also highlights the need for education reform and affordable housing.
Tagliavia said his campaign is aligned with the “GET REAL” platform of the Vermont Republican Party. The plan includes changing the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2020 to remove the provision allowing private citizens to sue the state government. It also calls for the repeal of non-core curriculum mandates in schools, alongside other objectives.
Tagliavia credits his political approach to his job history. He has been self-employed for most of his life, and he described himself as happiest in that form of work. The experience of starting and running businesses in the pool service industry taught him about the value of hard work, he said.
“For me, being self-employed is about being the most efficient,” he said. “If I was able to get a job done faster, then it increased my wage or my profit.”
After moving permanently to Vermont in 2019, he found that he had time on his hands and decided to engage more with the Vermont Republican Party.
“I realized that waiting as long as I did (to get involved) was a mistake,” he said. “I’m 61, and I have the advantage now of hindsight. I’m trying to be able to take what I’ve learned in the school of hard knocks.”
Tagliavia is inspired by his interactions with neighbors, he said.
“The thing that I like about Vermont so much is the people … they’re incredible people: They’re kind, they’re generous, they’re helpful, they’re courteous,” he said.
Preserving that culture is a significant piece of what motivated him to run for representative.
“If I want to see the heritage of Vermont and the personality of Vermont and the spirit of small-town Vermont preserved, the best thing I can do is get elected and use that as my guidance to try to keep the personality of Vermont alive,” he said. Like Tagliavia, Demrow had a variety of jobs prior to becoming a member of the Vermont House in 2019, including teacher, volunteer firefighter and trail steward.
Demrow is a self-identified “jack-of-all-trades,” enjoying both physical and intellectual work. Though each job has been different, Demrow pointed out all his professions involve public service.
While his lifelong commitment to community service stays with him in his current position, Demrow has not found that much else from his other professions is useful in government work.
“I really try to leave a lot of it behind when I am thinking about the Legislature,” he said, “because I want to try to keep an open mind.”
His pursuit of open-mindedness led him to request to be on the House Committee on Corrections and Institutions, despite not knowing much about Vermont’s corrections system.
That isn’t typical in the Legislature. In Demrow’s experience, representatives tend to work in committees that reflect areas they have the most experience in.
“It’s a tremendous opportunity to learn, serving. It’s a lot like going back to school,” he said.
“You get constituents who get in touch with you, and they have a problem and they can’t figure out a way out of it,” Demrow said. “I find that some of the most rewarding work is helping those folks figure something out, figure out a problem or get their issue resolved.”
Among these “little, intractable problems,” he remembers helping a struggling dairy farmer fill out tax paperwork and assisting another constituent in registering a new truck with the DMV.
So, what do each of these candidates want voters to know about them?
Tagliavia said, “(Running for state representative) is not a want for me. This is a have to.”
“My wife and I worked very hard all our lives to be able to have what we have right now … There were a lot of freedoms that this state and this county offered,” he said. “We have had a lot of that totally evaporate, and it really concerns me.”
Demrow hopes voters know that he wants their input.
“It’s important for me to hear from voters on whatever issue is on their mind,” he said. “I mostly want to hear from people about what they want me to work on, what’s important to them,” he said.