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Explore our coverage of government and politics.

Gubernatorial Candidate Rebecca Holcombe Makes Her Case

Rebecca Holcombe, former Education Secretary, is seeking the Democratic nomination for governor in 2020..
Taylor Dobbs
/
VPR File
Rebecca Holcombe, former Education Secretary, is seeking the Democratic nomination for governor in 2020..

While a number of contenders are considering running for governor in 2020, former Education Secretary Rebecca Holcombe is the first to declare her candidacy. Holcombe served as secretary of education under Gov. Peter Shumlin and Gov. Phil Scott, before resigning in 2018. She now says that she left the position over policy differences with Scott. She will seek the Democratic nomination for the governorship. Scott has not declared his intentions.Holcombe told VPR's Mitch Wertlieb that she resigned partially because she felt undercut by the Scott administration as she worked with towns to implement Act 46. Holcombe says that while she supports the goal of Act 46 - to make education more efficient - other education policy proposals coming from the administration made it hard to work out the details.

"The challenge I had in that final phase was trying to sit down and work with the communities that it wasn't going to work for and really help figure out how to move forward when their budgets are being undone, and frankly when we're targeting some of the highest poverty, lowest spending schools in the state on their staffing," Holcombe said.

Holcombe also said that she would support implementing a 24-hour handgun waiting period, raising the minimum wage and approving a tax-and-regulate system for marijuana.

A graduate of NYU with a Master's Degree in journalism, Mitch has more than 20 years experience in radio news. He got his start as news director at NYU's college station, and moved on to a news director (and part-time DJ position) for commercial radio station WMVY on Martha's Vineyard. But public radio was where Mitch wanted to be and he eventually moved on to Boston where he worked for six years in a number of different capacities at member station WBUR...as a Senior Producer, Editor, and fill-in co-host of the nationally distributed Here and Now. Mitch has been a guest host of the national NPR sports program "Only A Game". He's also worked as an editor and producer for international news coverage with Monitor Radio in Boston.
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