A Senate committee that took heat last week for suggesting major cuts in a bill to clarify Vermont’s definition of consenting to sex changed its tone Wednesday, with lawmakers emphasizing their strong support for the proposal.
“If we had intended to kill the bill last week, we would not have scheduled this hearing,” Sen. Dick Sears, D-Bennington, said Wednesday as the discussion began.
The Senate Committee on Judiciary looked at a new draft of the bill, H.183, that uses language from Oklahoma’s laws to clarify what is and isn’t consent, especially when a victim is unconscious or substantially impaired by drugs or alcohol.
“My problem with the first draft was that it was articulating throughout what consent was not, and that work was very important and it was half of the equation, but it kept pointing me back to the need to update the affirmative statement of what consent is,” said Sen. Phil Baruth, D/P-Chittenden.
He said the new language does that in “a very efficient way.”
The committee treaded carefully as it discussed possible changes in the bill, with several lawmakers making clear references to blowback from previous hearings on the bill.
“It’s very dangerous to think out loud,” Sears said.
Lawmakers spent significant time considering language saying that consent shall be based on a “totality of circumstances.” Some committee members worried that language could have unintended consequences and possibly allow various forms of victim-blaming to come into play in a courtroom. Others spoke in favor of the language and its utility for unforeseen situations. The group decided to vote later on whether to include the language.
A representative of the Attorney General’s Office expressed concern about the latest Senate proposal, raising questions about making major changes in state laws without taking enough time to consider the full implications of those changes. The office has backed the underlying bill.
“I just wanted to register our concern, primarily with a dramatic change to the consent definition, without considerably more work to understand both what’s happening in the jurisdiction where it came from and how it might interact with our own statutes,” Assistant Attorney General David Sherr said.
However, Washington County State’s Attorney Rory Thibault disagreed, speaking on behalf of the Department of State’s Attorneys and Sheriffs. He said it’s “always uncomfortable” when two sets of prosecutors in the same state come to two different conclusions but that the department strongly supports the legislation.
Ultimately, the committee decided to come back to the bill Friday. It will likely support a version of the legislation that keeps the new language about Vermont’s consent laws and continues to require data collection about sexual assault reporting — but does not require establishing an Intercollegiate Sexual Violence Prevention Council, which lawmakers spoke against last week.
“There’s no reason to shoot this down, in my eyes,” said Sen. Joe Benning, R-Caledonia.
Correction: An earlier version of this story inaccurately characterized the Attorney General’s Office’s position on the bill.
