The Vermont House voted Wednesday in favor of establishing a state commission to study the history of racism, discrimination and eugenics in Vermont statutes.
H.96, which was approved 109-30 in an initial vote, builds on last year’s Joint House Resolution 2 — a four-page, unanimously supported apology for a 1931 law that legalized eugenics via sterilization in Vermont.
As part of last year’s resolution, the state promised to take legislative steps to study the effects of the 1931 law and other forms of discrimination in Vermont, and attempt to repair the harm done over generations.
Rep. Tom Stevens, D-Waterbury, said the bill was the first step in that process, and it “goes beyond responding to eugenics.”
“The creation of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Vermont will allow us to revisit the outcomes of some of the most difficult policy decisions we’ve been making over the years,” Stevens said while presenting the bill on the House floor Wednesday. “And it starts with listening and hearing the voices of those who have been harmed over decades by the policies instituted by the General Assembly and signed into law.”
More than 250 people were sterilized under Vermont’s eugenics program, targeted for being Indigenous, mixed-race, disabled or poor. The program’s impacts constitute genocide, according to last year’s resolution. Stevens said Vermont’s troubling history is not limited to the eugenics program, though, and that H.96 would allow the Legislature “an opportunity to reckon … with our fellow communities and be held accountable with how our policy choices have affected different communities over the years.”
“And it would strive to acknowledge what we have known for years: that promises have been made and not kept. And those broken promises have caused harm to thousands of Vermonters and their families,” Stevens said.
Rep. Anne Donahue, R-Northfield, introduced, then rescinded, an amendment on the floor to rein in the cost of the commission, which the Legislature’s fiscal staff estimated could cost up to $1.3 million per year. She said she strongly supported creating the commission, as well as the Legislature’s steps in recent years to answer for Vermont’s history, but said she was concerned about the ongoing cost.
Stevens retorted that the commission’s work “is going to be all-consuming,” and commissioners and other participants need to be compensated.
“For those who are involved in it, it is not a part-time job for people, nor should it be considered as such,” he said.
The bill requires a final vote on the floor before it can head to the Senate and, potentially, Gov. Phil Scott’s desk.
