Dana Colson Jr. is the owner of a welding supplies company in Tunbridge. He is among five candidates seeking the Republican nomination for lieutenant governor.VPR’s Mitch Wertlieb spoke with Dana Colson Jr., and their interview below has been condensed and edited for clarity. VPR is interviewing all of the candidates for lieutenant governor.
Find VPR's Vermont Primary 2020 coverage, including a full debate schedule, here.
Dana Colson Jr.: A lot of people view the lieutenant governor's office as a bit ceremonial, but I see it a little bit differently. First of all, you preside over the Senate. You cast any tiebreaking ballots. But here's the real power of the lieutenant governor: you get to choose the committee chairs. Now, for instance, in the finance and appropriations committees, I would be looking for somebody who is a fiscal conservative to lead those committees. The justice committee, you know, instead of somebody who wants to take away our constitutional rights, I'd be looking for somebody who wants to tackle criminal justice reform and the opioid crisis. So in that way, I can help shape what legislation comes out of the Senate and goes to the conference committee.
(Editor's note: the lieutenant governor does not personally choose Senate committee chairs; they sit on the committee on committees, which names committee assignments.)
Mitch Wertlieb: When I hear you talk about constitutional rights, are you talking about specifically Second Amendment rights, the right to bear arms?
Correct. Those have been under attack and gun grabbers have been chipping away at our rights for a number of years now and I'd like to stop that in its tracks to protect our rights.
What did you think then about Gov. Phil Scott when he did sign some gun reform legislation into Vermont law? He is a Republican, as you are. Did you disagree with him on the bills that he signed?
Yes, I did. I view that as unconstitutional, particularly the magazine capacity limits. And I'm hoping the court will overturn that.
You know, of course, that Vermont is undergoing this massive economic shock from the COVID-19 pandemic. The state is doing pretty well, at least for health outcomes compared with some other states. But I'm wondering how you think we can rebuild and recover while also keeping Vermonters safe.
I was asked yesterday at an event, you know, what would be the first thing I'd want to do if I was elected? I said open Vermont up for business. You know, I'm a very pro-business candidate. I've got a lot of experience in that area. And I did an article that was published by True North Reports about reviving our rural economy, which really focuses on farms and the surrounding businesses that are also helped by farms: your veterinarians, feed stores, equipment dealers. We certainly are overregulated. We've got to cut out some of those regulations.
Dana Colson, your personal life has been touched by tragedy. Your son Austin was shot and killed two years ago. And this has prompted you to call for criminal justice reform. What specifically would you look to change if you were elected to the position of lieutenant governor when it comes to criminal justice reform in Vermont?
So throughout that case, I worked very closely with the news media and the detectives with the Vermont State Police major crime unit, first in the search to find Austin, which took several months, and then gathering evidence. After that, I got involved with the Tunbridge based Intelligence-Based Policing Group. It's kind of like a community watch program, but more. We're advocating for criminal justice reforms. And one of the big goals was running drug dealers out of town. We want to take the market away from them. And there's three ways to do that.
First, we want to take away the future market, which is our kids. So, working with the Orange County Sheriff's Department, we're advocating for what they call the LEAD program, Law Enforcement Against Drugs. It's more interactive with the kids than DARE. There's role playing. There's a bit of homework. So we get some parents involved.
Watch or listen to the 2020 VPR-PBS debate between Republican candidates for lieutenant governor.
Second is you want to take away the existing market. That's where the users come in. We don't have a secure rehab facility in the state. We do have nonsecure facilities. But what happens there is: an addict who wants help, they'll go in, they'll try it. And as they're detoxing, if they feel it's too hard and they check themselves out, they got to go get their next fix. So what we propose is a secure rehab facility. They sign an agreement to get into the facility. The agreement is, you know, they got to complete the program; they can't check themselves out. They get some counseling and job training. You know, maybe they do some agricultural work or other work in inside the facility, get their lives back back on track and get detoxed before they're released.
Then the third aspect is the enforcement aspect, where we go after the dealers. A lot of cases, drug dealers, they get their cases pled down to a possession charge. And we really think that the punishment should reflect the amount of product they're caught with. Obviously, if they're caught with a large amount of product, they're a dealer. Lesser amount? Probably a user, and punishment should reflect that.
So throughout this work with this group, we had a big event at Vermont Law School, which I moderated, pretty good practice for being lieutenant governor. We brought in local county, state law enforcement and prosecutors, probation and parole, school principals, community members, politicians and some media, and had a really thorough discussion about the whole process. It was very informative for a lot of people. That's the kind of discussion I'd like to have in the Senate as well, and hopefully, you know, we can get the members of the Justice Committee to help make some changes.
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Vermont’s primary election is on Aug. 11, so VPR is reaching out to candidates in contested races for governor, lieutenant governor and the U.S. House to find out why they're seeking to serve, and where they stand on the issues of the day. Find our full coverage here.
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