Updated at 5:27 p.m.
As of Tuesday morning, Vermont’s state constitution no longer includes exceptions to a ban on slavery, and the state cannot interfere in the reproductive health care decisions of its citizens except when there is a “compelling state interest.”
The state House chamber was filled with lawmakers, supporters and press on Tuesday morning for the formal enrollment of two constitutional amendments, Proposal 2 and Proposal 5, which voters overwhelmingly approved in November.
Upon signing the amendments into the state’s founding document, Gov. Phil Scott and Secretary of State Jim Condos held up the certificates of each amendment, beaming, while the Democratic leaders of the House and Senate who helped shepherd the proposals through the legislative process — Speaker Jill Krowinski and President Pro Tempore Becca Balint — looked on.
Vermont’s state constitution is notoriously difficult to amend, rendering it among the oldest and shortest constitutions in the country. Proposed amendments in Vermont face an arduous, years-long process, requiring majority support from two consecutive cohorts of state legislators, then approval by the voting population.
“Our founders had the foresight to protect their constitution from impulse and partisanship, and that’s something Vermonters have felt strongly about ever since,” Scott said in a speech Tuesday. “I believe this is how it should be. And it makes moments like today even more meaningful.”
In a year with historic political turnover and Vermont’s first open congressional races since 2006, it was Proposals 2 and 5 that won over the most support from Vermont voters statewide this November. Proposal 2 passed with nearly 89% of the vote — the highest approval of any statewide item on the ballot this year — and Proposal 5 passed with nearly 77% of the vote.
“When we talk about a resounding vote, these two amendments passed in every city and town in the state of Vermont,” Condos said on Tuesday to the applause of the chamber.
Proposal 2 removes all exceptions to the document’s language around slavery, banning “slavery and indentured servitude in any form.”
Proposal 5 is among the first amendments in the nation enshrining the right to abortion, contraception and other reproductive health care in a state constitution. The amendment’s language guarantees “personal reproductive liberty” and says the state government cannot interfere in the reproductive health care decisions of its citizens except in cases of “compelling state interest.”
The two amendments represent the first changes to the state constitution since 2010, when voters approved a measure allowing prospective voters who would turn 18 before a general election to vote in primaries.
Tuesday’s ceremony marked one of Balint’s final official duties as Senate president pro tem as she prepares to be sworn in as Vermont’s sole member of the U.S. House of Representatives in January. After years spent working on Proposal 5 and other laws protecting abortion access, she told VTDigger that the ceremony was a full-circle moment.
Balint called it surreal to hear Condos say once again that the amendments won a majority of the vote in every Vermont city and town. “It finally sunk in,” she said.
“That is so encouraging, because it shows that these ideals around freedom, around personal liberty, cut across political party,” Balint said. “What I’ve heard from Vermonters … is this deep sense of worry that we can’t come together on anything. And that gives me hope that, no, actually there are fundamental values that we can come together on.”