After a rocky few weeks of discussion, the Senate Committee on Judiciary passed out a bill Friday that would update Vermont’s laws on consent for the first time in 40 years.
The bill, H.183, would define consent as “the affirmative, unambiguous, and voluntary agreement to engage in a sexual act, which can be revoked at any time.”
It also clarifies that a person who is unconscious or substantially impaired by drugs or alcohol is not capable of consenting to sex.
Over the past few weeks, lawmakers have taken some heat over their discussions of the bill, especially after suggesting that the majority of the legislation be scrapped this session, so more time might be spent on finding exactly the right language around consent, which could be brought back to the Statehouse next year.
On Friday, they apologized for how those previous discussions were interpreted.
“I’m sorry in many ways for the misunderstandings regarding our interest in making this bill the law, and changing and updating our consent statutes after 40 years,” said Sen. Dick Sears, D-Bennington, as the committee endorsed the bill unanimously.
While the House version of the bill focused on what consent is not, the Senate version emphasizes what consent is. Lawmakers said that change was key to their support of the legislation.
The only opposition Friday came from Sen. Joe Benning, R-Caledonia, who voted against the committee’s amendment to the bill — but in favor of the bill itself.
Benning, who is a defense attorney, preferred a version of the bill that included a line saying consent would be considered “based on the totality of the circumstances.” Several legal professionals testified that the totality of the circumstances was a standard already used in the typical courtroom. However, Sarah Robinson, deputy director of the Vermont Network Against Sexual and Domestic Violence, opposed that language, saying it could allow victim-blaming in court.
“I would have preferred the language ‘totality of the circumstances’ to be injected in the bill. I remain somewhat concerned that there is an impression we are not continuing jurisprudence by keeping that out,” Benning said before voting. “I feel this is the only place I can plant my flag and say I want to protect the interests of my profession.”
The original bill included three other sections in addition to the first section clarifying language around consent. Of those, just one — requiring data collection on the reporting of sexual assault — remained in the bill.
A second, which would have allocated $40,000 to expand forensic nursing for sexual assault survivors, was struck from the bill because it’s already in the state budget. The money is expected to expand the services that are already available at Vermont’s hospitals so they can be offered by primary care and reproductive health providers.
A final section of the bill would have established an Intercollegiate Sexual Violence Prevention Counsel to identify best practices for all Vermont colleges and pursue a long-term approach for solving the problem of sexual assault on campus. That portion was eliminated entirely, after Sen. Phil Baruth, D/P-Chittenden, said it didn’t make sense to have the state pay — for many years — for work that colleges could already be doing independently.
Rep. Sarah Copeland Hanzas, D-Bradford, who introduced the bill, said that when she hears lawmakers say that this kind of work can happen anyway and that it doesn’t need state funding, it raises the question of “Do you really think this is important work?”
“I’m still perplexed as to why certain members don’t think preventing sexual violence on college campuses is an important public safety goal,” she said.
