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By Guy Page
Gov. Phil Scott will appoint the next senator from Orleans County from among three candidates: two sitting House representatives, and a Newport daily newspaper publisher.
The seat became vacant when first-term Sen. Sam Douglass resigned October 20 under pressure from Scott and GOP leaders after controversial statements he made online surfaced in a national news report. Under the Vermont Constitution, the governor may appoint a replacement to complete an unfinished term until the next scheduled general election. Scott is likely to appoint a replacement weeks ahead of when the Legislature reconvenes for the 2025-26 biennium on January 7.
According to a Dec. 4 news report authored by Editor Dana Gray of the Caledonian-Record, the daily newspaper published in St. Johnsbury, the three candidates recommended by the Orleans County GOP Committee to replace Douglass are Rep. Mark Higley (R-Lowell), Rep. John Kascenka (R- ), Rep. Mike Marcotte (R-Coventry) and Newport Daily Express publisher Tabitha Armstrong, who ran for the Legislature in 2020 and 2022.
Marcotte, longtime chair of the House Committee on Commerce and Economic Development, reportedly has since dropped out of the race. According to the Caledonian-Record, the 11-term House member will not seek re-election next fall.
Higley is a Brattleboro native who settled in his current community in 1990. He attended Guilford Central School and Brattleboro Union High School before joining the U.S. Navy Seabees as a builder. After his service, he launched his own general contracting business in 1978 and married his wife two years later. The couple raised four children—two daughters and two sons.
His public service includes seats on the Solid Waste Committee and Agricultural Advisory Committee, as well as two one-year terms on the Brattleboro Selectboard in 1986 and 1987. He has served as a lister in Lowell since 1994, and spent five winters working for the town, operating a road plow and grader.
Higley is active in agricultural organizations including the Vermont Beef Producers Association, the Vermont Farm Bureau, and the Vermont Sugar Makers Association. He has served in the Vermont House since 2009.
Kascenska holds the House seat for the Essex-Caledonia seat, representing his Caledonia County town of Burke and nine other towns, all in Essex County. At first glance, Kascenska might seem to have the wrong address for the Orleans County seat, but redistricting added the town of Burke to an otherwise all-Orleans County senate district.
Kascenska was born in Torrington, Connecticut. His family relocated to Vermont in 1969, and he has made his home in the Northeast Kingdom since 1992. He is an alumnus of Poultney High School and Lyndon State College, and later earned graduate degrees from Virginia Tech and North Carolina State University.
Kascenska spent 32 years working in higher education, including 25 years within the Vermont State Colleges System as both a faculty member and academic dean. His community involvement includes serving as President of the Burke Area Chamber of Commerce, Burke Justice of the Peace, President of Lyndon Rescue, Inc., Trustee and Board Chair at Northeastern Vermont Regional Hospital, honorary member of the Vermont State University–Lyndon Alumni Council, and a member of the Northeast Kingdom Broadband committee.
He also founded and operates an outdoor recreation company in Vermont that offers nationally recognized training programs in urban and wilderness medicine. In addition, he teaches avalanche safety and rescue courses at Mt. Washington in New Hampshire.
Kascenska previously served in the Vermont House of Representatives, sitting on the Commerce and Economic Development Committee and the Vermont National Guard and Military Affairs Caucus. He served in 2022 and returned to the House beginning in 2025.
After years as an editor and writer at the Newport Daily Express, and working elsewhere in digital marketing, Armstrong was promoted to General Manager in 2022. If appointed, she would join NEK radio station Russ Ingalls as another Northeast Kingdom senator with a professional media background. A former Newport Daily Express publisher, Ken Wells, was elected to the House of Representatives in 2024.
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Categories: politics
Higley is the man and I am sure he has a plan.
No more SNAP benefits for our house and senate members. You will have to show low income to be allowed your free food card as part of your income. You need to set an example on how to cut the Vermont State budget. No more free food , free housing, and free travel expense. Now it is time to live in the real world. Comment from Richard Day with no apology.
Now we can move on to the property tax problem First of all, my land and home are not community property and this is a crime of stealing your wealth. Our great leaders need to spend more time fixing this problem and less time creating more programs that never fix anything. Comment from Richard Day with no apology.
No apology required.
The U.S. Constitution protects private property rights through several key provisions, primarily in the original text and the Bill of Rights. Here’s a clear breakdown of the main protections:
1. Fifth Amendment (1791) – Takings Clause & Due Process
“No person shall be … deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.”
This is the cornerstone of constitutional property rights:
Due Process Clause: The government (federal or state) cannot arbitrarily deprive you of property. You’re entitled to fair procedures (notice, hearing, etc.) before the government seizes or significantly restricts your property.
Again, this addresses requirements imposed on the government (federal or STATE)…..
Takings Clause: The government can take private property through eminent domain, but only for a “public use” (interpreted broadly by the Supreme Court to include “public purpose,” e.g., economic development in Kelo v. City of New London (2005))
only with “just compensation” (usually fair market value).
If anything, the imposition of ever higher property taxes also results in a decrease of a property’s value… the inverse of protection.
2. Fourteenth Amendment (1868) – Extension to States
“No State shall … deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
This applies the Fifth Amendment’s protections to state and local governments (via incorporation). Most modern property rights cases arise under the 14th Amendment due process or takings claims.
Regulatory Takings: Even without physically taking property, government regulations that go “too far” (e.g., ‘regulatory capture’ denying economically viable use) can require compensation (Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal Council, 1992; Penn Central balancing test, 1978).
3. Contracts Clause – Article I, Section 10 (Original Constitution)
“No State shall … pass any … Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts.”
This provision protects property interests embedded in contracts from arbitrary state interference.
Question: What are the terms of the State’s contractual obligation to educate its children? Is the contract satisfied when half of Vermont’s public high school graduates can’t meet minimal proficiency in reading, writing, math and science?
Brigham v. State, 166 Vt. 246, 268 (1997)
“The State’s duty… is to provide, through public education, for the development of an educated citizenry capable of participating fully in a democratic society and competing successfully in the economy.”
Campaign for Vermont v. State, 2019 VT 41, ¶ 16
“The purpose of public education under the Vermont Constitution is to create literate, educated, and participatory citizens who can contribute to the civic and economic life of the State.”
Constitutionality of Act 251, 135 Vt. 540, 544 (1977))
“[E]ducation is necessary for the preservation of our democratic institutions and the intelligent exercise of the rights and duties of citizenship.”
Property taxes, ostensibly exchanged with the State to fund an education system that fails to teach all children the three Rs, never mind their failure to understand science and civics, or to otherwise teach all of its children to be ‘capable of participating fully in a democratic society and competing successfully in the economy’, or to manage ‘ the intelligent exercise of the rights and duties of citizenship’, is clearly breaching the terms of the State’s contract with the property tax payers.
Vermont Constitution: Article 9. [Citizens’ rights and duties in the State; bearing arms; taxation]
“….. previous to any law being made to raise a tax, the purpose for which it is to be raised ought to appear evident to the Legislature to be of more service to community than the money would be if not collected.”
This never happens.
Lastly then:
When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
See above.
Now, the homeless problem. You could deed one acre of property each from the national forest to one hundred homeless persons and wait five years to see how well they improved themselves and I would say the land would be destroyed and the land taken back by the towns for failing to pay the property taxes.