Emma Mulvaney-Stanak

Emma is a mom of two small children, legislator, organizer, and small business owner. She currently serves as a state legislator for Chittenden-17 (Old North End and New North End) and as Caucus Leader of the House Progressive Caucus. She is a member of the House Commerce & Economic Development Committee, Social Equity Caucus, Women’s Caucus, Labor Caucus, Rainbow (LGBTQ+) Caucus, and Climate Solutions Caucus. First elected to the Vermont House of Representatives in 2021, Emma led the Burlington legislative delegation to successfully advocate for the passage of 8 out of 9 charter changes supported by Burlington voters, ranging from all resident voting rights, to rank choice voting, to thermal energy regulation. She successfully took the lead developing new policy in collaboration with Republican and Democratic colleagues to allocate first-time investments to support BIPOC owned businesses, create a COVID Worker Relief Fund for employers, and pilot a workforce transition program for formerly incarcerated people. She advocated for workers trapped in a broken unemployment system to ensure they could access unpaid claims while proposing legislation to improve oversight and modernize the state’s unemployment system. In my first year as a legislator, Emma won the Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility’s Legislator of the Year Award (2021). In past elections, she has been endorsed by Planned Parenthood Vermont Action Fund, Rights & Democracy, Victory Fund, LPAC, Vote Mama, Vermont-NEA, AFL-CIO, Vermont-AFT, Sierra Club, Vermont Conservation of Voters, and VPIRG. Emma spent most of her professional career as a labor organizer at Vermont-NEA supporting teachers and support staff across the state to improve their working and advocate for strong public schools. Earlier in her career, she directed the Vermont Livable Wage Campaign and successfully advocated for the passage of a permanent cost-of-living adjustment to the state minimum wage. In 2018, she founded a social change strategy consulting company, EMStrategies LLC, to support nonprofits, school districts, and local governments in building equity-informed strategies. Emma served as City Councilor from Burlington’s Old North End (2009-2012) and led efforts to strengthen the city livable wage ordinance, pushed to create environmental standards for private-public partnerships and worked to create a city-level project labor agreement for development projects. She graduated from Smith College with a degree in political science and is a graduate of the Vermont Leadership Institute. Originally from Barre, Vermont, she lives in Burlington’s Old North End with her wife, Megan and their two small children.