VT SENATE: Peter Welch (D)
Peter Welch has represented Vermonters in Congress since 2007. In an era of partisanship and division, he is widely recognized as a progressive leader and a skillful legislator who chooses governing over gridlock.
He was born in Springfield, Massachusetts, and graduated from the College of the Holy Cross. As a member of the first class of Robert F. Kennedy Fellows, he fought housing discrimination in Chicago after college and went on to earn a law degree from the University of California, Berkeley.
After law school, Welch settled in Vermont’s Upper Valley where he worked as a public defender and then founded a small law practice.
He was elected to the Vermont Senate in 1980 and later was selected to lead the chamber, becoming the first Democrat in Vermont’s history to hold the position of Senate president pro tem.
In Congress, Welch was a cosponsor of the Green New Deal and is an advocate for lowering the cost of prescription drugs, providing affordable childcare, expanding access to broadband in rural America, and protecting our imperiled democracy.
He currently serves as a chief deputy whip for the House Democratic Caucus and is a senior member of the influential Energy and Commerce Committee and Oversight and Reform Committee. He also serves on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
Welch and his wife Margaret live in Norwich, Vermont.
The above information was sourced from the candidate’s campaign website.
