Special Episode! The Social Work Lens Welcomes VT Attorney General Charity Clark

Transcript:

Cassie Gillespie (00:03):

Hello, I’m Cassie Gillespie and you’re listening to the Social Work Lens. The Social Work Lens is a podcast produced by the University of Vermont’s Child Welfare Training Partnership and the state of Vermont. Today we have with us a very special guest for the first time here in the studio. We’re super excited to welcome the Vermont Attorney General Charity Clark. Welcome Attorney General Clark.

Charity Clark (00:28):

Thanks for having me.

Cassie Gillespie (00:29):

I can’t even believe that you came. I’m so excited. Thank you.

Charity Clark (00:32):

Oh, it’s my pleasure.

Cassie Gillespie (00:33):

Well, so we asked Attorney General Clark to come chat with us to help us weed through sort of like the fire hose of information that’s coming at folks right now in this current political moment. And I should say, in terms of a timestamp, we’re recording this on Monday, March 3rd, and we’ll do our best to get it out really quickly. But things are changing so rapidly. I thought that might be a little bit helpful.

Charity Clark (00:57):

Yep.

Cassie Gillespie (00:57):

So we wanted, I have a couple of questions. And really I’m interested to hear anything you wanna share, but I thought we’d maybe start at the very beginning. Our listenership consists mostly of social workers, child welfare workers, and various helpers in Vermont, but also across New England and nationally. And I’ve realized that as we were talking about having you on, there was some confusion about what an Attorney General does. So could you start at the really beginning and let us know what is your role as Attorney General and what does the Attorney General’s office do?

Charity Clark (01:31):

That is a great question and many don’t really quite know what the Attorney General does. Our office is the lawyer to the state. So when you think about what might the state need a lawyer for, often we are that lawyer. We have 100 lawyers in our office, and that makes us as we like to sort of tongue in cheek say, the largest law firm in Vermont. We’re not really a law firm, but there is no law firm that comes remotely even close to being as large as the Attorney General’s office. And we have lawyers throughout state government. So we have lawyers relevant for your audience. We have many lawyers in the Agency of Human Services.

Cassie Gillespie (02:06):

Okay.

Charity Clark (02:06):

We also do have a criminal division. And the criminal division has six lawyers doing, you know criminal law generally. We have a Medicaid fraud unit that also has lawyers. And then we have the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, which is a law enforcement agency that investigates child sexual abuse and child sexual abuse material. And so we represent the state. When the state is sued, we help the legislature and we have the consumer unit, which brings cases to enforce the Consumer Protection Act. And we also have a Civil Rights Unit as well. And the environmental unit, I could go on and on, but that’ll give you a flavor of all the, all the many things that we do at the Attorney General’s office.

Cassie Gillespie (02:49):

Wow. So how does one become Attorney General? Are you appointed? It’s elected?

Charity Clark (02:55):

It’s elected. It is one of the six state elected statewide offices. So, you know, governor, lieutenant Governor, et cetera. And the Attorney General is one of them.

Cassie Gillespie (03:05):

Great. So that’s super helpful context to sort of get us going in this particular moment where there’s so much moving at the federal level. And then I think a lot of people are trying to figure out what that means for them on in their day-to-day life or in their job or related to whatever state level impacts are happening for them. What do you want Vermonters to know in this moment?

Charity Clark (03:29):

Well, I know that people are feeling, you know, anxious or worried. There’s a lot of feeling of disruption and instability right now on the federal level. So I wanna reassure Vermonters that I have been given the power to represent Vermont in court, and that is what I’m doing. I swore an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States, and that is what I’m doing. So if there’s a feeling of helplessness Yeah. That many have. And I’m in this very fortunate position where I don’t feel so helpless because I’ve been given that authority and obligation on behalf of Vermont. So we are reviewing every single executive order and all of the actions taken by the administration to ensure that they comply with federal law and with the Constitution. And when they don’t, we bring a lawsuit. And we have unfortunately had to do that several times already.

Cassie Gillespie (04:20):

Do you wanna walk us through what lawsuits are currently happening or have been filed?

Charity Clark (04:25):

Sure. So right now, as of this recording, we have, well, I should characterize, there’s really three buckets of major activity. Okay. The first is lawsuits. The second is what’s called a friend of the court brief. That’s in Latin. It’s amicus brief. So you’ll hear that that means someone else brought the lawsuit. But the state has an interest and we wanna make sure that the, the court hears our perspective. And so we’ll ask to file a brief.

Cassie Gillespie (04:50):

Okay.

Charity Clark (04:50):

Just, you know, a piece of paper that’s a friend of the court brief. So we have that as a second bucket. The third bucket is more statements. And just to make, you know, clarifying the law we put out a guidance, for example, in the DEI space.

Cassie Gillespie (05:03):

Yeah.

Charity Clark (05:04):

For small businesses and organizations about that. And also just statements that will kind of counter a statement that is, needs to have a response of some sort. Turning to the, the lawsuits where we are the plaintiff, we are the, the person who sued, we’re the entity, we’re not a person, we’re the entity that sued <laugh>. We have sued five times. The first was, I think the day after the inauguration we worked, some lawyers worked through the night to sue over the birthright citizenship ban. We were successful at blocking that from going into place. And so, and here, but now that lawsuit continues, but for now, the ban is not in effect because we were successful at blocking it.

Cassie Gillespie (05:46):

Yeah.

Charity Clark (05:46):

The second lawsuit that we brought was, if you recall, there was a memo from the Office of Management and Budget, the OMB.

Cassie Gillespie (05:55):

Yeah.

Charity Clark (05:55):

And we sued.

Cassie Gillespie (05:57):

and that was a memo that was sort of ordering funding to stop.

Charity Clark (06:00):

Yes. It was a funding freeze for, for federal grants. Now, just to put it into perspective, there’s a very wide variety of grants that are federally funding. It’s, it’s, it’s, you know, refugee domestic violence. My office has two federal grants. I mentioned Medicaid fraud, also the internet Crimes Against Children Task Force. Those both come money comes from the federal government, which by the way, that’s our taxpayer dollars.

Cassie Gillespie (06:25):

Right.

Charity Clark (06:25):

And it comes back to Vermont in the form of those grants. It’s a very wide variety of grants. So that funding freeze would’ve impacted a lot of programs in Vermont that we rely on. I mean, we were getting calls from constituents who had their, their kids were in Head-start for daycare, and if they don’t have daycare, they can’t go to work. So it was just chaotic and crazy.

Cassie Gillespie (06:46):

And I think a lot of social workers and other kind of mental health professionals are in the type of funding streams that come down that way.

Charity Clark (06:52):

That’s, yeah, that makes perfect sense. So we brought that lawsuit against the Treasury Department that said the Trump administration cannot do this. Importantly under our system of government, you know, we have the three branches and it’s the executive branch where like governors and presidents are, and I think I’m in that branch as well. There’s the legislative branch, which is of course our legislature and Congress. And then we have the judiciary, the judges, the courts . Well, in our system, the legislative branch has been given under the Constitution the job of spending our money.

Cassie Gillespie (07:25):

Right.

Charity Clark (07:25):

They get to be the ones to do that. The executive can’t do that, which is why, you know, more close to home, we see, you know, the governor has his budget address and then the legislature gets to decide what they do.

Cassie Gillespie (07:35):

Right.

Charity Clark (07:35):

And he can either veto, you know what they decide, it comes in the form of a bill, but he can’t go in and, and sift through like, nah, I’m not gonna fund that. I changed my mind. No, you don’t have that choice under our system. Checks and balances.

Cassie Gillespie (07:48):

Yeah.

Charity Clark (07:48):

So, not surprisingly, once again, we did prevail and blocked that lawsuit as well. So the third lawsuit was the NIH, the National Institute of Health.

Cassie Gillespie (07:58):

Yeah.

Charity Clark (07:58):

A similar philosophy of like funding freeze now the University of Vermont, which now we just has the highest rating of of research.

Cassie Gillespie (08:06):

Yeah.

Charity Clark (08:06):

Institution.

Cassie Gillespie (08:07):

We just became an R one.

Charity Clark (08:07):

Exactly. Which I, I’m so proud of, and I’m sure everyone who knows about that is we have so much to be proud of, but especially as an alum, very proud. And they can’t do that. That would’ve, that would’ve been like tens of millions of dollars.

Cassie Gillespie (08:20):

Yeah.

Charity Clark (08:20):

Right. So between the treasury case and this NIH case, so much money is at stake that what was supposed to come to Vermont and now is gonna come to Vermont. Because once again, we were, we prevailed and we blocked that as well. So that lawsuit continues. The fourth case related to the treasury case, it was specifically against Doge and Elon Musk. So that’s another, you know, similar one. I won’t go into the details ’cause I think that’s a, a similar case to that other treasury case. And then the last case was similar to that case as well. It was in New Mexico. That case is continuing to discovery where we’re gonna learn a little bit more about what is Doge? Who is Doge.

Cassie Gillespie (08:59):

Oh, wow.

Charity Clark (09:00):

And then once we have information, we can determine whether a preliminary injunction is an appropriate step to take. So those cases are continuing, unfortunately, I mean, this is an ongoing battle for us. We’re constantly reviewing new information.

Cassie Gillespie (09:13):

Yeah.

Charity Clark (09:13):

New executive orders. There was, there’s just one I think that came out over the weekend that I was looking at with some concerns. And so we’re continuing to do that work. And specifically we have two lawyers in our appellate unit. So Vermont is the, we have the smallest Democratic attorney general’s office. We, they’re second smallest throughout the country. So we only have two lawyers in our appellate unit doing this work.

Cassie Gillespie (09:37):

Yeah.

Charity Clark (09:37):

And they’re working. I mean, we all are, but we’re really working like around the clock.

Cassie Gillespie (09:41):

Oh my gosh.

Charity Clark (09:41):

Like nights and weekends.

Cassie Gillespie (09:41):

Oh I bet. Yeah.

Charity Clark (09:42):

So it’s been, it’s been our pleasure to do it. I mean, it’s truly such an honor and I’ve been working to communicate to Vermonter so they can kind of know what to expect.

Cassie Gillespie (09:51):

Yeah.

Charity Clark (09:52):

Which is, I think helps with the feeling of anxiety and the feeling of what’s happening to our to our country. And the concern that that folks have, not just personally about how this might impact them or their families or their communities, but just as a whole, the feeling of disruption to our democracy. I am really pleased to say that this work has resulted in things working better. You know?

Cassie Gillespie (10:20):

Yeah.

Charity Clark (10:20):

The courts are working. They stopped this, the, the federal government by and large has responded by not doing what they were doing. And that’s a good thing.

Cassie Gillespie (10:29):

I think something I hear a lot from my students, from other social workers, you know, and even just from friends and total different disciplines and areas of of work, is this notion that there’s so much information, it’s difficult to kind of parse through to know what’s urgent or even what’s factual. I’m wondering if you have any thoughts or advice, you know, for our listeners about that?

Charity Clark (10:51):

Well, it’s so interesting you bring this up because it, it gets me on my soapbox to talk about one of my favorite topics, which is lamenting the loss of, of media and newspapers.

Cassie Gillespie (11:00):

Yeah.

Charity Clark (11:00):

And one of the reasons why I’m so grateful that you had me on is because I love the opportunity to talk to Vermonters and keep them updated.

Cassie Gillespie (11:07):

Yeah.

Charity Clark (11:07):

It used to be that was a pretty, you could be pretty lazy and the the press would cover you anyway. And now we’ve lost so many of the newspapers. When I first started working in government in the governor’s office in the late 1990s, he would have a press conference every week and the room was full of, of variety of people.

Cassie Gillespie (11:23):

Yeah.

Charity Clark (11:23):

And now those newspapers don’t exist. The media doesn’t come. They don’t have the, the bandwidth or the finances to hire reporters. So that can be really tricky. One of the things that I have tried to do is, is be the source. So I have tried to put myself, my voice out there telling people in plain language what these lawsuits mean. I have tried to come on podcasts like yours. I also put posts on social media. And I think that making sure that the source is reliable, that this is a journalist, either the actual source like me.

Cassie Gillespie (11:57):

Yeah.

Charity Clark (11:57):

Or whoever you’re getting the news from is an actual journalist. Like someone who has those standards and ideals and isn’t just a sort of, you know, someone pontificating on their sofa.

Cassie Gillespie (12:08):

Yeah.

Charity Clark (12:08):

That’s an op-ed, that’s an opinion piece.

Cassie Gillespie (12:10):

Right.

Charity Clark (12:10):

You know, that’s not a, an unbiased journalist. So being aware of being more media savvy I think is gonna help us kind of stay calm too.

Cassie Gillespie (12:17):

Yeah. That’s, that’s great advice. That’s super helpful. You touched on this a little bit talking about the New Mexico case, but I’m wondering, this is more of a process question, but how do, how do these lawsuits work? Like, do you, you must collaborate with the attorney generals in other States. How does that work?

Charity Clark (12:34):

Yeah, for sure. We are so lucky to have great relationships with other attorneys general in other states. In this context, it is particularly Democratic Attorneys general, but we are a force multiplier. And even though Vermont is so tiny, we can join the, the work of other states, it’s, it creates economies of scales. ’cause If someone’s writing a brief, it doesn’t, it means every state doesn’t have to write that brief.

Cassie Gillespie (12:57):

Right.

Charity Clark (12:57):

We do it together. Or some people will take lead and we get on a call together every day, pretty much. I’m constantly talking on a call to the attorneys general of a variety of States. I think there’s 23 of us and they’re all so impressive and smart and they care so much and it’s honestly so uplifting.

Cassie Gillespie (13:16):

Yeah.

Charity Clark (13:17):

To be able to communicate with them. I mean, some of them are just, they’re so impressive.

Cassie Gillespie (13:20):

This sounds like a great call. <Laugh>. It,

Charity Clark (13:22):

it really is just awesome. I am really fortunate that I, not only did I work in the Attorney General’s office for several years before I became Attorney General, but my first term just ended. So I had two years under my belt before this happened, and I, I’m so grateful that I had, you know, gotten to know a lot of these ags. Some of them are brand new, so they started and immediately had to jump into this work. But even that, even those folks I met, you know, around when they were campaigning and stuff, and it’s really helped us. We genuinely like each other and like spending time together and it really helps that teamwork accomplish these really important things that we’re doing here.

Cassie Gillespie (13:59):

And so they’re disproportionately democratic or I don’t know if the proper terminology is that they’re from Democratic states or that they’re Democratic Attorney generals, attorneys general are there, is there collaboration with, with Red states and with kind of conservative or Republican attorneys general.

Charity Clark (14:16):

so far there has not been on these issues.

Cassie Gillespie (14:20):

Yeah.

Charity Clark (14:20):

We do collaborate a lot with Republican ags on other issues through the National Association of Attorneys General, which unfortunately is called NAG <laugh>. Yeah. They’re trying to, they’re trying to change that, but it’s just so quick and easy to say nag instead of NAAG.

Cassie Gillespie (14:35):

Wow.

Charity Clark (14:36):

so yeah, we, so we work closely, but, you know, I’ll give an example. Our neighbor to the East New Hampshire’s is a Republican Attorney General. And, and he’s great and we work really closely with him. He’s the president of NAG right now. But on these issues so far it has been entirely Democratic Attorneys General.

Cassie Gillespie (14:54):

Yeah.

Cassie Gillespie (14:54):

We obviously, I think that Republican ags, if they went to law school, are surely seeing what I see and what the judges who have handled these cases and motions have seen.

Cassie Gillespie (15:06):

Yeah.

Charity Clark (15:06):

. Which is that these are plainly unconstitutional actions, but so far they haven’t moved to get involved.

Cassie Gillespie (15:12):

Okay, maybe we could take a minute and just dig into some of the specific issues around the executive orders coming from the Trump administration. So, you know, to just do sort of like a quick overview, right? There’s issues or orders banning, DEI, there’s a lot of concern around gender affirming care and trans rights. There’s been a number or at least some level of information around immigration, birthright citizenship. And then there’s kind of the larger defunding work, the doge work that we’re seeing at the federal level. This might be going back to that statement bucket that you talked about, but how would Vermonters know if the Attorney General’s office has positions on those issues? And, you know, what do you want Vermonters to know about the way your office is interacting with these concerns? Specifically?

Charity Clark (15:58):

We have a chart on our website. So if you go to our website, ag.vermont.gov,

Cassie Gillespie (16:03):

and we’ll link it in the show notes,

Charity Clark (16:04):

you can see there’s a button with an American flag on it. If you click on that button, it will go to a chart. The chart describes all of our cases.

Cassie Gillespie (16:12):

Yeah.

Charity Clark (16:12):

We also have, I don’t know if it’s a chart or a link to all of the amicus brief. Briefs I mentioned. And we also have some statements that we made and the guidance, the DEI guidance. So we keep that up to date. That is a great place to look for information. I also would encourage people to go to my Instagram especially, or we, we post in other places, we post to Blue Sky, Instagram and Facebook, but I find Instagram to be the most user friendly. And that’s really where I post. And then I post it elsewhere from there.

Cassie Gillespie (16:40):

Sure.

Charity Clark (16:40):

So that, that’s, if people are looking to sort of stay up to date, that’s where I would recommend they go.

Cassie Gillespie (16:46):

Okay. social workers in particular, you know, as part of our ethical mandate and sort of the, the principle that we start from is to help vulnerable people who are experiencing oppression. And so many of these orders are targeting vulnerable groups. How should or can social workers support the work your office is doing?

Charity Clark (17:07):

Thank you for that question. And that is part of, especially as Vermonters, because we’re so small here, we see our neighbors, you know, we see them.

Cassie Gillespie (17:15):

Yeah.

Charity Clark (17:15):

And when, when there’s a bully who’s bullying them, which I think is the dynamic here, and it needs to be called out.

Cassie Gillespie (17:21):

Yeah.

Charity Clark (17:22):

We feel protective and upset. So I, and I feel that way ’cause I I don’t like bullies. And you’re right, there have been a lot of targets of people who are more vulnerable. So one thing I just wanna remind everybody is that there have been a lot of things that are hurtful and there’s a lot of words.

Cassie Gillespie (17:43):

Yeah.

Charity Clark (17:44):

But they’re, but they don’t actually do anything. Or there’s a lot of words and they try to do something and the courts aren’t gonna stand for it.

Cassie Gillespie (17:50):

Right.

Charity Clark (17:51):

So an an example is DEI.

Cassie Gillespie (17:53):

Yeah.

Charity Clark (17:53):

Well, guess what, DEI is completely legal. So when someone makes an executive order that refers to illegal, DEI, the, it’s just, we can just continue doing what we’ve been doing. All of these, you know, all races, genders, et cetera, are protected under the law that includes white men. You know, you can’t favor someone who’s not a white man. That’s not a dynamic that exists either. So the concept DEI is to make sure that the most qualified candidate gets hired, for example.

Cassie Gillespie (18:21):

Right.

Charity Clark (18:21):

So, I mean, let’s just keep things grounded in reality, a lot of mean words don’t necessarily translate into actual action. Yeah. They’re just mean words and they really reflect more on the person saying them than on the reality of our, of what’s gonna actually happen. So amplifying the positivity that we all feel and protecting our neighbors, amplifying, you know, the equality and and compassion that we have, that’s a great thing that we can all be doing.

Cassie Gillespie (18:49):

Yeah.

Charity Clark (18:49):

So just wanna to amplify that, staying informed and then amplifying truth when there’s a lot of misinformation or people who are from fear there amplifying the negative words.

Cassie Gillespie (19:05):

Yeah. Well there’s, it’s this weird moment where like, I’m aware, so I’m certainly not an attorney by training. I’m aware from reading the news that certain things are either being stopped by the courts or are in litigation or are unlikely to move forward simply because they’re vague and, you know, wild and on the ground seeing people experiencing funding cuts or people’s research being scrubbed from the web or, you know, these various sort of smaller scale outputs that appear to be maybe fear-based responses.

Charity Clark (19:37):

Mm-Hmm <affirmative>. Well, if people are experiencing those kinds of changes, the first thing I would recommend is contact my office so that we can make sure that isn’t being done illegally in violation of a court order.

Cassie Gillespie (19:50):

Super helpful.

Charity Clark (19:51):

And then the second thing is, if someone is, if an organization say, or an entity is responding in ear by scrubbing something from their website, well, I think that’s another thing to follow up on and just say, why did you do this? That’s not what you were doing was legal, so why are you taking that down? I mean, we need to preserve what’s right. And I think that it’s, it’s very tempting, I think for some to just hide and say, okay, you don’t like this, I’m gonna stop doing it.

Cassie Gillespie (20:18):

Yeah.

Charity Clark (20:19):

But what that does is now you are allowing the bully to be successful.

Cassie Gillespie (20:24):

Yeah.

Charity Clark (20:24):

And we don’t want that. We want people to be successful. We want for honors to be successful. So that’s something that I would say about that. I’d like to talk about another group that’s been targeted and that’s L-G-B-T-Q people.

Cassie Gillespie (20:36):

Yes, please.

Charity Clark (20:37):

Now Vermont has a, a legacy of supporting L-G-B-T-Q people and something that I have experienced in observing this, the administration’s like rejection and their, their almost just obsession with L-G-B-T-Q people.

Cassie Gillespie (20:58):

Yeah.

Charity Clark (20:58):

And policies.

Cassie Gillespie (20:58):

Something that targeting trans people in particular.

Charity Clark (21:01):

Yes. And something that I’ve experienced like in my body is a feeling of almost embarrassment for them.

Cassie Gillespie (21:07):

Yeah.

Charity Clark (21:07):

Because so many Vermonters, we go about our lives, we have L-G-B-T-Q people, trans people, they’re just people in our lives and Yeah.

Cassie Gillespie (21:14):

We are L-G-B-T-Q people.

Charity Clark (21:15):

That’s right. And, and, and I feel like bullying those folks or targeting them, it just creates this sense of, I feel so embarrassed for them. Like, it’s none of your business, just, here’s another person. They’re doing the their thing. Like, aren’t they great? And that’s kind of my attitude. And I just, I get so disappointed and frustrated and I feel angry when I think about how they’re treating those folks. So I have really focused on some of the work that we’re doing to try to address that issue. So I’ll give you an example.

Cassie Gillespie (21:53):

Yeah, that’d be great.

Charity Clark (21:54):

I mentioned how tiny we are <laugh>. Yeah. So we can’t always be writing all the briefs.

Cassie Gillespie (21:58):

Sure.

Charity Clark (21:59):

But we did take lead when we joined an amicus brief that involved military individuals who were in the military and prospective members of the military who were trans, and they sued over this trans military ban. And my office under my direction led on rewrote the brief that got filed, and I think 19 attorneys general in 19 states joined that brief. And I’m, I’m really proud of that work and of being a leader in that space. And I just, for anyone who’s listening to this who’s trans, I want you to know I 100% have your back and I will use everything that I can, all the power that my office has to protect you and to keep sticking up for you and making sure that your rights are protected.

Cassie Gillespie (22:48):

And so if someone is experiencing what what they believe is discrimination on the basis of gender or sex or sexual orientation, or really any marginalized identity they should just reach out to your office directly.

Charity Clark (23:00):

They can. There are really two main entities to reach out to our office and the Human Rights Commission.

Cassie Gillespie (23:06):

Yeah.

Charity Clark (23:06):

We do sort of different, not sort of, we do different work. The Human Rights Commission handles like issues of public accommodation and our office handles issues of employment discrimination. That being said, we talk to each other all the time.

Cassie Gillespie (23:18):

Yeah.

Charity Clark (23:18):

So if you call one or the other, you’ll get a referral if it’s not the right place.

Cassie Gillespie (23:22):

Okay.

Charity Clark (23:22):

So either place is a great place to, to contact and if you have concerns about something you’re experiencing as a trans or L-G-B-T-Q person here in Vermont, and it doesn’t really fit in one of those buckets, I would still encourage you to reach out to my office because look, we’re responding in real time to what’s happening here and we need to hear about what’s happening so that we can act if it’s appropriate or if we really need to because there’s, there’s a violation of the law or constitution taking place.

Cassie Gillespie (23:47):

That’s super helpful,

Charity Clark (23:48):

thank you.

Cassie Gillespie (23:49):

Mm-Hmm <affirmative>. I know we’re probably running short on time. There’s two more things I’d love to ask you, if we can.

Charity Clark (23:55):

Sure.

Cassie Gillespie (23:56):

One is are you worried about any sort of blow back or like federal interest groups sort of pushing back on us or on Vermont for being what sounds like kind of a leader in this area of, of protecting civil rights?

Charity Clark (24:12):

I mean, I wouldn’t say I’m concerned because we’re gonna stick up for Vermonters no matter what. We have been targeted. I mean, we are, my office is defending lawsuits that involve trans folks and the foster care system right now. And so far the plaintiffs have not been successful in their work. And those cases are continuing, but that’s part of our job. And ultimately, when you, when you get right down to it, when I was sworn in in January, I swore an oath and the oath said, I swear to uphold the Constitution of the United States, and that’s what I’m gonna do. And I, I have an obligation to represent Vermont to uphold our State constitution and our laws and federal laws. And that’s what our system asks of me. And that’s what Vermonters did when they hired me as their attorney general. And I’m gonna keep doing it.

Cassie Gillespie (25:03):

Ah, well it’s really good to hear all those words. We’re so glad you’re, you’re here for us. I guess in closing, you know, part of my work is that I talk to lots of helpers, social workers, but helpers of all kinds about how their work impacts them. And so I’m wondering how you are doing?

Charity Clark (25:20):

<laugh>.

Cassie Gillespie (25:20):

attorney, general clerk and how your staff is doing this. It sounds like you’re working around the clock on some really heavy and you know, salient issues so.

Charity Clark (25:29):

we are, and we’re working hard, but honestly, it’s, it’s our, our privilege to be able to do this work, to be in the position to really help and be using all of our training and our experience and our skill to fight for democracy and fight for Vermont. I am, I’m honestly, we have been overwhelmed with Positive Mail and thank you notes, literal thank you cards. Like from Hallmark,

Cassie Gillespie (25:53):

like handwritten?

Charity Clark (25:54):

Yes. Many of them. And it’s so touching to see that when people feel overwhelmed or or helpless, they can see our work and feel inspired by it and feel gratitude. So I, we have definitely passed that on to the folks who are working late at night and on holidays and weekends and, and well all of us. And making sure that they hear Vermonters see you and your work and it matters.

Cassie Gillespie (26:18):

Yeah. Alright, well thank you so much for joining us today.

Charity Clark (26:22):

Thanks for having me, Cassie.

Cassie Gillespie (26:24):

Alright, take care.

Charity Clark (26:24):

Take care.

Cassie Gillespie (26:28):

The Social Work Lens is produced by the University of Vermont’s Child Welfare Training Partnership and the state of Vermont. Our theme music is composed and performed by local band Brick Drop, and our sound production and engineering has been brought to you by Egan Media Productions. We’d also like to give a special thank you to our in-house administrative production assistant Emma Baird. For the Social Work lens, I’m Cassie Gillespie and we’ll see you next time.