Emily Peyton is one of five candidates running in the Republican primary for governor, including incumbent Gov. Phil Scott. Peyton has never held elective office, but this is her fifth run for governor in Vermont. She lives in Putney and runs a business focused on creating building material made out of hemp.
VPR’s Henry Epp spoke with Emily Peyton, and their interview below has been condensed and edited for clarity. VPR is seeking interviews with all of the candidates for governor.
Find VPR's Vermont Primary 2020 coverage here.
Peyton began the interview by explaining why she sees herself as a "transformative candidate."
Emily Peyton: When I am elected governor, I will be convening neighborhood councils and people's assemblies so that we can begin to utilize mechanisms, like a people's exchange, to do the most crucial thing, Henry, and that is to enact a just money supply.
Henry Epp: You've run a couple of times before. This is your fifth time running for governor. You've run before in the Republican primary, and as an Independent, and a Liberty Union candidate two years ago. In all those races, the highest vote percentage that you've ever won was 6% in the Republican primary back in 2014. I'm curious if you think this time will be different, and why?
I am approaching this much more seriously. We're getting donations. We have – I have a big team. I went into running this time as a response to the COVID and the type of compelling outcomes that – I think that we need to go down a different path, a path that increases our humanity and doesn't destroy it.
I want to turn to another topic that's been in the news in the last month or two. There have been increasing calls for police reform here in Vermont, ever since the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis back in May. And there are many activists calling for decreasing police budgets and reallocating those funds to social services. Do you support that movement to defund the police?
We have many excellent police who are nonviolent and who are really important to help de-escalate the type of frustration and the type of crises that are happening in households. That being said, where there is any police officers – and sadly there are because they've been increasingly militarized – there are police officers who have a penchant for violence, who have a desire to dominate. And wherever those exist, we need to get rid of them.
Now, what we need to do also, is to restore the idea and the function of the peace officer. As governor, I will convene a people's assembly, especially so that we may re-envision how we do justice.
So it sounds like you would support then moving money away from the traditional methods of policing, as they stand right now.
Well, what's really important … [is] that we're working with the money system of the U.S. dollar. The U.S. dollar is systematically serving greed. When we're talking about a legislature that's working with the U.S. dollar system, tax and revenue, you know, debt and all that. To me, that looks like we're working in a very limited sandbox.
And what my leadership has always been about, what I began running in 2010 about, was about, “Let's get out of the sandbox, and let's go onto the beach,” and utilize some of these other methodologies of exchange that allows us to expand our money system, our means of exchange.
A poll conducted by VPR and Vermont PBS earlier this year showed a split over the state's response to climate change. 39% of respondents in that poll thought that state officials are doing enough to combat climate change. Another 39% thought that they were not. Do you feel like the state is doing enough to tackle climate change right now?
Well, we can't do everything we want to do until we direct the money that we want to do it with. So, you know, if we, if the people had the ability to fund the things that they really wanted to see happen, we would see permacultural farming everywhere. We would see the soil being built with biochar everywhere. We would see these hempstone villages, which you can go to my website and see.
So there's so much that we the people need to do, and we need to make our place really as much of a garden of Eden as we can. And reduce our use of anything polluting. We need to have the money to support the farmers to move to a true organic or permacultural order. Is that a complete answer or not?
Well, it certainly answers part of it. I mean, it sounds overall like you feel like the state could be doing a lot more, is that right? To combat climate change?
You see the state, when you talk about the state, the government of the state is for business, is a business for profit. We're talking about the people of the state.
But you're running to be the governor of the state of Vermont. And so what I'm asking about is what you would do as the leader of the state of Vermont.
Well, as the leader, I would implement these monetary systems that allows the people to take care of their planet or their part of the planet that they're on, with integrity.
The ideas you're talking about, Emily Peyton, are fairly radical, to the left, I'd say, on the political spectrum.
No they aren't. Ron Paul has had the same ideas. These aren't radical. These are transformative. They are needed. Our times call for them. I will not let you call me a radical. I'm a transformative leader who will help the power return to the hands of the people where it belongs.
Well, I'm just curious, why run in the Republican primary? What Republican principles do you identify with?
There are peaceful conservatives. Because taxing the people is a manner of oppression. And the thing about politicians is, like I said, they're playing in the sandbox. They think the only way to fund government is through taxation. This isn't so.
More from VPR: 2020 Primary Debates: Republican Candidates For Governor
How else would you fund government?
Well, there are other ways, not only if we implemented the people’s exchange, where we value the amount of work we can do within Vermont for one another. Then we can take a portion of our budget because we all buy things in Vermont – we all buy wood for our fireplaces, we all buy eggs that can be laid in Vermont – so we can take a portion of our budget, and even the budget that we pay our governmental people, and assign it to the people's exchange.
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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.
