Score another one for Senate Minority Leader Scott Beck. After his star turn manipulating the education reform process, he managed to wangle his way onto the School District Redistricting Task Force* established by H.454 (now Act 73). He’s one of five Senate appointees, and the sole Republican. Throughout the education reform debate, he was the most prominent Republican voice — and arguably the single most influential senator of any party.

*A name only a legislative body could concoct.

On Monday, the Senate’s Committee on Committees announced its five appointees to the panel tasked with redrawing school district lines. Beck will be joined by Democratic Sens. Martine Larocque Gulick and Wendy Harrison, retired Kingdom East Supervisory Union superintendent Jennifer Botzojourns, and Chris Locarno, retired director of finance and facilities for the Central Vermont Supervisory Union. (The House announced its five appointees on Tuesday morning; details below.)

Beck’s appointment capped off a remarkable rookie campaign as Minority Leader — in his first year as a senator. And in the “Way Too Early” parlor game of gubernatorial speculation, Beck has to be taken seriously as a potential Republican candidate whenever Phil Scott decides to step aside. More so, I believe, than everybody’s favorite maverick, Lt. Gov. John Rodgers.

You may think this a rash judgment, but let’s step back for a moment and describe the trajectory of Beck’s political fortunes.

I should make clear that this post considers Beck as a political actor without regard for whether I agree with him or, more often, not. He has shown himself to be a savvy operator, a respected member of the House who ran as kind of a centrist in his bid for the Senate, but has been a reliable spokesperson for Republican orthodoxy as Minority Leader.

Beck was first elected to the House in 2014, the year Republican Scott Milne came within a whisker of ousting incumbent Democratic governor Peter Shumlin. Not the best of years for the Democrats, with their leader serving as an albatross around their necks. Beck and fellow Republican Janssen Willhoit ousted two Dem incumbents in their two-seat district in St. Johnsbury. Beck was assigned to the House Education Committee, a decent posting for a freshman lawmaker in the minority party. He served two terms on House Education before moving to the tax-writing Ways & Means Committee, where he became known as a valued collaborator on legislation — kind of a rarity in a Republican caucus whose standard contribution is reliable “No” votes.

His political path upward was blocked by longtime Democratic senator Jane Kitchel, who represented the Caledonia district for 20 years before stepping aside in 2024. That opened a door for Beck, and he damn well busted it down. He amassed a war chest of more than $62,000 thanks largely to the Barons of Burlington, and coasted to an 18-point victory over the well-funded (and Kitchel-endorsed) Democrat Amanda Cochrane.

Three other Senate candidates raised more than Beck (two of ’em lost), but 62K is a boatload of money for a Vermont Senate campaign. And now I will fire up my Speculative Retrospectoscope and argue that Beck played a key role in the Republicans’ historic gains in the Senate.

Beck was only one of several beneficiaries of the Barons’ largesse, which had all the hallmarks of a coordinated effort. The same group of Burlington-area tycoons and executives gave identical four-figure donations to a bunch of Republican hopefuls, which fueled campaign efforts far beyond their wildest dreams. Doubtless the ringleader was Gov. Phil Scott, whose campaign paid for polling in select Senate districts and the race for lieutenant governor. But I infer that Beck was a key player in the effort.

Why? Because as a freshman senator, he was chosen to lead his caucus. That’s almost unheard of. The Senate values seniority over all else, including the presence of a detectable pulse. For Beck to be named Minority Leader with no visible opposition is a fair indication that he entered the Senate with far more influence than your average newcomer. Influence perhaps gained by helping to raise boatloads of money for fellow Republican candidates in swing districts? “Signs Point to Yes,” says the Magic 8-Ball.

The lack of alternatives helped a lot, of course. Most of the returning incumbent Republicans were comfortable backbencher types, and former minority leader Randy Brock is well into the back nine of his political career and seems at ease with being the GOP’s éminence grise.

Still, Beck did the thing. He rose instantly to caucus leadership on Day One. He also snagged a seat on the influential Senate Finance Committee, normally the province of senatorial graybeards (with or without actual facial hair). He was also installed on a bunch of non-policy committees: Senate Rules, the Joint Fiscal Committee, the Joint Legislative Management Committee, the Joint Rules Committee, and the Legislative Committee on Administrative Rules.

He wasn’t on the Senate Education Committee, but he might as well have been. The three Republicans on the six-member panel were two nondescript Rutland County solons, David Weeks and Terry Williams, and freshman Steven Heffernan of Addison County. IF they played any role in shaping education reform beyond casting the occasional vote, they left little evidence behind.

And when it came time to appoint a House-Senate conference committee on H.454, there was Scott Beck, who formed a tag team with Education Committee chair (and Democrat in Name Only) Seth Bongartz. Followers of H.454 already know how successful they were at tossing aside the House and Senate versions of the bill and essentially forcing through a final bill that protected the interests of large private schools — and, extra bonus for Scott Beck the Republican politician, ripped apart the Democratic caucuses in the House and Senate.

And now Beck finds himself on the committee that will draw district boundaries for the new, much more centralized, school governance system. How about that!

All I can say to his fellow conferees is, watch your backs and keep a hand on your wallets. Because he is fully capable, in a metaphorical sense only, of stealing your lunch money. He’ll only be one out of 11, but I don’t doubt that he’ll be more influential than you’d expect for a minority member.

Speaking of the District Redistricting Thingy, the House-appointed members include Democratic Reps. Rebecca Holcombe and Edye Graning, Republican Rep. Beth Quimby, retired superintendent Jay Badams of the cross-border Hanover, Norwich, and Dresden schools, and Kim Gleason, former member of the Essex-Westford school board and former member of the state Board of Education appointed by, um, Phil Scott.

For those who track such things, the 10 legislative appointees include three from the Northeast Kingdom, four from Chittenden County*, and only three from anywhere else in the state (central Vermont, Upper Valley, Windham County). Interesting geographic distribution. The DRT’s 11th member will be chosen by Gov. Phil Scott**, and will have to be a retired or former Vermont school superintendent. (Paging Dan French…)

*Correction: Kim Gleason lives in Grand Isle County, so Chittenden has only three members. One could argue that the state’s biggest county is underrepresented.

** Scottr appointed David Wolk, former Castleton State U president and superintendent of the Rutland City Schools. Revised geographic spread: Chittenden and the Kingdom have three each, and one each for Grand Isle, Rutland, WIndham, and Windsor.

The Task Force has quite a, well, task ahead of it. By December 1, it will have to devise as many as three new district maps for the Legislature to consider in 2026. It’s going to be quite the job, and the outcome is certain to make a lot of people mad.

And don’t be surprised if the new maps are relatively friendly toward the Northeast Kingdom, which enjoys a distinct advantage in representation on a per capita basis, and specifically enjoys the advocacy of Scott Beck, a proven master of governmental processes.