Bankowski, former chief of staff to Vermont’s only woman governor and herself a senior stateswoman, had watched Becca Balint’s campaign for the Vermont Senate and been impressed by her natural talent and skillful stumping.
“Someday she’s going to be governor,” Bankowski told the couple.
When the results came in that night, Balint had won one of two Democratic slots on the ballot to represent Windham County in the Vermont Senate. She finished a strong second in the November general election and headed to Montpelier, the first openly gay woman to serve in the Senate. After just two years, at the start of her second term, she was chosen as majority leader of the Democrat-dominated chamber.
The senator stands five feet tall and weighs a mere 98 pounds, but she has a large presence in the Statehouse, loudly cracking jokes, laughing and liberally dispensing hugs. She can’t walk from one room to another without being waylaid by people who have questions to ask or simply want to chat. She’s so busy she struggles to find time to eat. She showed up at a recent noon meeting with a bag of pretzels for lunch; another evening, she left the Statehouse exclaiming to no one in particular, “I need calories!”
In quick order, Balint, 49, has become a mentor to female candidates and a confidante to women who work in the capitol. This year, in the wake of the #MeToo movement, she has taken the lead in reforming the Senate’s sexual harassment policy.
Liberal but pragmatic, with a particular interest in social justice and anti-poverty efforts, Balint has been a strong advocate for public schools and affordable housing.
After four years, Bankowski isn’t alone in predicting big things for the junior senator. Though a future Democratic primary for any statewide office is likely to be a crowded and competitive affair, “I wouldn’t count her out in any situation,” Sen. Phil Baruth (D/P-Chittenden) said. “She walks into a room, and she walks out with all the votes.”
‘You Probably Won’t Win’
Becca Balint (right) with wife Elizabeth Wohl and children Abraham and Sadie
Balint grew up in Peekskill, N.Y., the youngest of three children. Her Jewish grandfather was killed during the Holocaust, but her father survived, immigrating with his mother to the U.S. in 1957. He put himself through college, served in the U.S. Army and worked at a phone company. Balint’s mother, who worked at a watch factory, later went on to get a college degree and, her daughter noted proudly, a black belt in kung fu.
“I always knew that I wanted to be in politics,” Balint noted. “I knew also at [age] 11 that I was gay.” She assumed the latter precluded the former, but that didn’t stop her from staying informed. At 13, Balint subscribed to Ms.magazine.
She attributes her early interest in politics to growing up gay and female in a family affected by the Holocaust. In sixth grade, she confessed to having a crush on a classmate, and students started writing “lezzie” on her locker; she didn’t formally come out until after high school.
Balint graduated with a bachelor’s degree in women’s studies and history from Smith College, where, as coxswain for the crew team, she earned the nickname “the Admiral.” Calling out commands to the much larger rowers, she remembers herself as “this little Napoleon figure with her cup of coffee and her shaved head on the dock.”
Balint insists her passion for the sport wasn’t just about being the boss: “I loved this idea of being able to get eight really strong women to move together in harmony.”
After college, in 1994, she got a job as a rock-climbing instructor at Farm & Wilderness, a Quaker-inspired summer camp in Plymouth. She taught middle school social studies but each summer returned to the camp where, in 2000, she met her future wife, a quiet carpenter from Wyoming named Elizabeth Wohl.
The two were joined in a civil union in 2004. They settled in Brattleboro in 2007 and wed two years later when Vermont legalized same-sex marriage.
While Wohl, who had graduated from Vermont Law School, was working to make partner at Downs Rachlin Martin, the couple decided Balint would stop teaching full time and stay home to care for their two young children, Abraham and Sadie.
“Those were hard years,” said Balint, recalling her early forties. “I just got really quite down about my life and what I was doing … I couldn’t seem to shake this narrative that I was called to do this public work.”
When Wohl suggested to her wife that she run for office, Balint said, her response was, “It’s a terrible time.”
“It’s always going to be a terrible time — we’re parents,” Wohl replied. And, she added, “You probably won’t win.”
In 2013, Balint attended an intensive candidate boot camp at the Women’s Campaign School at Yale University, and then entered the first class of Emerge Vermont, a program founded by former governor Madeleine Kunin to prepare Democratic women to run for office.
In June 2014, one month before she graduated from Emerge, Balint announced she was running for state Senate — challenging two Windham County incumbents in her own party: Peter Galbraith and Jeanette White. Galbraith was a zealous champion of campaign finance reform and a wind project opponent who frequently clashed with fellow senators, including White.
“I was concerned that some of the real concerns of my constituents back home were getting lost in the interpersonal drama,” Balint said. In particular, she said, she was worried about growing poverty in the public school system, a dearth of affordable housing and the need for economic development.
Balint, who likes to hold meetings on the move, sought advice from Bankowski — Kunin’s onetime chief of staff — on a mountain hike.
“It was a risky thing to do,” Bankowski recalled of Balint’s decision to challenge sitting senators. “A lot of people would not have gone into a campaign like that.” At the same time, “It was very apparent to me how much talent she had and how ready she was … There was nothing naïve about it or uninformed.”
Galbraith unexpectedly announced in late June that he wouldn’t seek reelection, but he endorsed a formidable Democratic candidate: Roger Allbee, a well-known former secretary of agriculture who was then CEO of Grace Cottage Hospital in Townshend.
Sen. Baruth, who was majority leader at the time, took the unusual step of endorsing Balint. “I heard there was a phenomenally talented woman from Windham County and that I should go meet her, and so I did, and I was about as impressed as you could be,” Baruth said. “I found her highly charismatic and intelligent — everything you could want in a political candidate.”
Balint triumphed in what became a four-way primary, finishing second to White, and then winning again in November.
“She’s sort of a poster child for Emerge,” Kunin said. “She jumped right in and has proven to be highly effective.”
Ruth Hardy, the executive director of Emerge Vermont, believes Balint has succeeded in part because “she’s just incredibly genuine and authentic.
“As we saw in the 2016 election, sometimes powerful women have a hard time being likable,” Hardy continued, referring to Hillary Clinton’s reputation for being rigid and unrelatable. Balint, Hardy noted, doesn’t have that problem.