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Robert Lehmert
Robert Lehmert (Democratic Party) (also known as Rob) ran for election to the Vermont House of Representatives to represent Washington-1 District. He lost in the general election on November 3, 2020.
Lehmert completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2020. Click here to read the survey answers.
Biography
Robert Lehmert was born in Plymouth, New Hampshire. He earned a bachelor's degree from Binghamton University in 1976. He earned a master's degree from The American College of Financial Services. He attended George Washington University. Lehmert's career experience includes working in business development of future-facing technologies to combat climate change and create economic activity. He received a Fulbright Fellowship for study in the Middle East from 1976 to 1977. Lehmert has served as a president and as a director with the Partridge Farms Area Association. He earned the award "Rotarian of the Year" from the Montpelier Rotary Club in 2015.[1]
Elections
2020
See also: Vermont House of Representatives elections, 2020
General election
General election for Vermont House of Representatives Washington 1 District (2 seats)
Incumbent Anne Donahue and incumbent Kenneth Goslant defeated Denise MacMartin, Robert Lehmert, and Gordon Bock in the general election for Vermont House of Representatives Washington 1 District on November 3, 2020.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ |  | Anne Donahue (R) | 32.4 | 2,225 |
| ✔ | Kenneth Goslant (R) | 27.5 | 1,891 | |
 | Denise MacMartin (D) | 22.2 | 1,529 | |
 | Robert Lehmert (D)  | 14.1 | 966 | |
| Gordon Bock (Berlin-Northfield Alliance Party) | 3.7 | 251 | ||
| Other/Write-in votes | 0.2 | 13 | ||
| Total votes: 6,875 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
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Democratic primary election
Democratic primary for Vermont House of Representatives Washington 1 District (2 seats)
Denise MacMartin and Robert Lehmert defeated Gordon Bock in the Democratic primary for Vermont House of Representatives Washington 1 District on August 11, 2020.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | | Denise MacMartin | 50.5 | 747 |
| ✔ | | Robert Lehmert | 27.8 | 411 |
| Gordon Bock | 18.5 | 273 | ||
| Other/Write-in votes | 3.2 | 47 | ||
| Total votes: 1,478 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. | ||||
Republican primary election
Republican primary for Vermont House of Representatives Washington 1 District (2 seats)
Incumbent Anne Donahue and incumbent Kenneth Goslant advanced from the Republican primary for Vermont House of Representatives Washington 1 District on August 11, 2020.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | | Anne Donahue | 50.9 | 685 |
| ✔ | Kenneth Goslant | 48.3 | 650 | |
| Other/Write-in votes | 0.8 | 11 | ||
| Total votes: 1,346 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. | ||||
Campaign themes
2020
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
Robert Lehmert completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2020. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Lehmert's responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.
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- Managing economic and human consequences of the coronavirus pandemic are likely to overshadow any other priorities for years. Unemployment, homelessness, and food security will be key issues well into the first year ofthe biennium. Of necessity, we look to our Federal Government to cushion the pain for our most vulnerable citizens and institutions.
- We need to attract families and retain our young people to come to and stay in Vermont by competing with other places - with living wage jobs, modern infrastructure, and family friendly benefits like universal access to daycare and paid family leave. We need to complete universal broadband access and build-up our stock of affordable housing.
- To attract families and young people include supporting development of light manufacturing and precision engineering, building well-equipped spaces for business incubation, broadband communications. To maintain our farmers and woodlot owners, we must follow through with compensation for producing services that keep our environment pristine. We must foster cooperative ventures that offer farmer processing facilities to add value.
I applaud H.688 - the Climate Change Solutions Bill - awaiting Governor Scott's signature. I would like to participate in writing the Rules called for in this Bill, because I am aware of novel technologies and processes available which could accelerate transition to a de-carbonized economy.
We have underutilized assets that can help finance removal the transition. We need to recognize the practices and technologies that remove CO2 from the atmosphere. There is a market for carbon removal that can be used to pay our farmers and woodlot owners cash, a "payment for ecosystems services".
By controlling nutrient run-off from water treatment and farms, we can end the algae blooms that plague our waterway, eliminate imported fertilizers, and export phosphorous and nitrogen, instead of importing it. This will reduce Vermont clean-water expenses.
Bucky chose to embark on "an experiment, to find what a single individual could contribute to changing the world and benefiting all humanity".
To quote one of his biographies, "Fuller was an early environmental activist, aware of the Earth's finite resources, and promoted a principle he termed "ephemeralization" was defined as "doing more with less".
Resources and waste from crude, inefficient products could be recycled into making more valuable products, thus increasing the efficiency of the entire process. Fuller also coined the word "synergetics", a term used broadly for study of systems in transformation. His focus was on total system behavior unpredicted by the behavior of any isolated components."
Bucky has the honor of having a carbon structure (C-60 ) called a "fullerene" or a "buckyball" named after him because of its resemblance to his geodesic domes. It is a molecule with immensely strong bonds.
That said, my guiding principles are based on Stephen Covey's masterwork, "Seven Habits of Highly Successful People". The Seven habits practices based on:
1. Independence and integrity
2. Be proactive
3. Always begin a task with the end result in mind
4. Prioritization: First things first
5. Interdependence in relationships, cooperation, good faith
6. Thinking "win-win"
7. Always seeking to understand a situation before offering an opinion
For many years already, the demographics of our state are signaling an aging population with health, mobility, and housing needs. To sustain the state economy , we must modernize key aspects of the economy and bring in a new generation.
I also remember the Cuban Missile Crisis vaguely, President Kennedy's assassination, and the Gulf of Tonkin incident.
Then I went around to the homes in the neighborhood, asking if anyone wanted to buy them. It must have been quite a sight to see a little boy coming to the door with a Christmas tree for sale (pre-decorated).
If we are to preserve our agricultural heritage and landscape, we can't expand large-scale industry into the lands used for farming and dairies. To preserve our landscape and culture, farming and dairies must be profitable and provide living wages, without causing environmental problems.
These are unchangeable constraints, and Vermont will never take a place beside a heavily commercialized and dense area such as southern New Hampshire. Where Vermont has high property taxes, New Hampshire has high tax revenue from corporate income taxes.
Our biggest challenge is to attract a diverse crop of young people to Vermont to raise families, innovate, start new businesses, and add to our ability to adapt to changing times. Otherwise, demographics
operate against us.
To attract young people, basic infrastructure is required including the broadband that allows us to bypass geographical constraints - but maintain our heritage. Broadband is as important today as electrification was 90 years ago.
No one should run for the Legislature expecting not to interact with people who disagree, or who don't understand, or just don't care. This would not be the first time in my experience that I had to adapt, build relationships, compromise, keep quiet, persuade, "prove it" and meet in the middle.
House Committee on Energy and Technology
House Committee on Commerce and Economic Development
Joint Carbon Emissions Reduction Committee
Note: Ballotpedia reserves the right to edit Candidate Connection survey responses. Any edits made by Ballotpedia will be clearly marked with [brackets] for the public. If the candidate disagrees with an edit, he or she may request the full removal of the survey response from Ballotpedia.org. Ballotpedia does not edit or correct typographical errors unless the candidate's campaign requests it.
See also
2020 Elections
External links
Footnotes
- ↑ Information submitted to Ballotpedia through the Candidate Connection survey on July 23, 2020
