A day before the House of Representatives is scheduled to approve an official apology for Vermont’s role in the eugenics movement, Rep. Tom Stevens, D-Waterbury, briefed the Democratic caucus about what to expect.
“I would be prepared to just listen and internalize some of the material that I’ll be presenting,” he said of the Wednesday floor session.
Stevens, who drafted the apology with the House Committee on General, Housing and Military Affairs, fought back tears Tuesday as he described to fellow Democrats the importance of the resolution, which takes responsibility for the Legislature’s participation in the eugenics movement.
The resolution is a four-page apology “expressing sorrow and regret to all individual Vermonters and their families and descendants who were harmed as a result of state-sanctioned eugenics policies and practices.”
It addresses a 1931 survey that sought to “breed a better Vermonter” by sterilizing and institutionalizing Indigenous people, French-Canadians and those who were mixed-race, poor or disabled. The eugenics survey was led by UVM zoology professor Henry Perkins, and it was endorsed by the Legislature.
“It’ll give you the time and the opportunity to really sit with it and sit with the moral and ethical questions of the work that we do and how it can affect people and how it has affected people through the years,” Stevens said.
—Kit Norton
A House panel began to work Tuesday on a bill that would block certain inmates from earning good time off their prison sentence. It has already passed the Senate.
Under the bill, S.18, people who have already been sentenced for major crimes would not be eligible to earn “good time” in exchange for a shorter prison sentence. In the future, however, the legislation would enable those sentenced for all crimes, except life without parole, to earn good time.
The measure is designed to ensure fairness for victims in cases where sentences have already been handed down.
The House Judiciary Committee heard from a victim of a sex crime who was 13 at the time. She testified in favor of the Senate version that did not make “good time” available for those already sentenced for major crimes.
She said she believed when her perpetrator was sentenced that he would be in prison for a very long and specific period of time.
“I relied upon his sentence to be able to try to heal,” she told the panel. “The one relief that I got was that he was going to be in jail.”
She later added, “I don’t have the ability to reduce my survivor sentence.”
—Alan J. Keays
The House Committee on Education has officially moved legislation involving proposed changes to the Winooski city charter back to the House floor.
The contentious proposal would allow noncitizen residents of the city to vote on school district matters.
Two weeks ago on the House floor, Republicans raised concerns about how that could potentially be unconstitutional, arguing that it could affect the state’s education fund and therefore affect other towns and cities that may have a different voter standard.
On an 8-3 straw poll, the education committee approved a recommendation stating that the proposal is constitutional and would not substantially impact the education fund. The committee then voted 8-3 in favor of moving the charter change back to the House floor for action.
Rep. Scott Beck, R-St. Johnsbury, who two weeks ago pushed for the education committee to carefully study the proposal, told the panel Tuesday that he disagrees with its conclusions about the measure’s impact on the education fund. However, he said he would likely support the charter change on the grounds that noncitizens should be able to weigh in on city issues.
“In the case of Winooski, they have decided to do this because they have a very large immigrant population,” Beck said. “And I think because of that consideration — I think I would look the other way on this, what I would call significant impact,” Beck said.”
—Kit Norton
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