Vermont New Members 2023

Rep.-elect Becca Balint (D-Vt.-At large)

DATE OF BIRTH: May 4, 1968
RESIDENCE: Brattleboro, Vt.
OCCUPATION: state senator
EDUCATION: B.A., Smith College; M.Ed., Harvard School of Education; M.A., University of Massachusetts
FAMILY: wife, Elizabeth Wohl; two children

• Becca Balint will fill Vermont’s at-large House seat as the state’s first female and first openly gay representative. Vermont had been the only remaining state in the nation to have never sent a woman to Washington.

Balint, a former middle school social studies teacher, has served as a Vermont state senator since 2014 and has been the chamber’s president pro tem since 2020. While serving in the state Senate, Balint helped pass legislation that bans Vermont health care providers from practicing conversion therapy, a discredited practice that seeks to change an individual’s sexual orientation or gender identity.

Balint’s father emigrated to the U.S. as a teenager from Hungary after his father was killed by Nazi soldiers during the Holocaust for being Jewish. She says her LGBTQ and religious identities have made her an advocate for marginalized communities.

— Brooke Migdon