A woman whose great nephew serves in the Vermont National Guard and, she said, is currently deployed to the Middle East called the Guard’s operations there in support of President Donald Trump’s war in Iran “unconscionable” in a statement presented at the Statehouse Tuesday.
“We are really concerned for their well-being, and very aware that this is an illegal deployment,” said Sylvie Desautels, of Tunbridge, in the comments read aloud at a press conference. Trump ordered her nephew, she said, “into harm’s way for a war that Congress never agreed to.”
Desautels’ nephew was also part of the Vermont National Guard’s deployment late last year to the Caribbean, said Isaac Evans-Frantz, director of a humanitarian group and a Brattleboro Selectboard member, who read the Tunbridge resident’s remarks and emceed the event. That military operation resulted in the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
Evans-Frantz and Desautels are among a group of advocates, and some legislators, now urging Vergennes Democratic Rep. Matt Birong to advance a bill that would put new guardrails on how Vermont’s Guard could serve at the president’s calling. Birong chairs the House Government Operations and Military Affairs Committee, where the bill is sitting on the wall with just days until the midsession crossover deadline.
The National Guard is primarily a state military and emergency response force unless it’s “called up” to serve specific functions for the federal government laid out in the U.S. Constitution. The bill, H.355, would prevent Vermont’s Guard from being released to active duty combat under federal orders unless Congress has officially declared war. Trump has not sought congressional approval for military actions against Iran or Venezuela, and bipartisan attempts in Congress so far to rein in Trump’s military orders have failed to pass. International legal experts have criticized the attacks as lawless.
The bill would also require Gov. Phil Scott to review all federal orders the Guard receives and determine whether they are consistent with the Constitution and other federal laws, and possibly reject those orders if he determined they weren’t in compliance.
The legislation is part of a broader national movement, called “Defend The Guard,” aiming to limit the federal government’s ability to send state National Guard units into overseas conflicts without explicit congressional authorization. Vermont’s bill is sponsored by Rep. Troy Headrick, I-Burlington. Rep. Esme Cole, D-Hartford, also voiced support at the press conference.
Either the House or Senate in four other states — Arizona, Idaho, New Hampshire and Virginia — has passed a similar “defend the Guard” bill over the past three years, though none has become law, according to the group that advocates for such legislation around the country.
In Vermont, a version of H.355 was first introduced in 2023. Birong said in an interview that he opposes the proposal, in part because leaders of Vermont’s Guard are against it. The measure could make the Guard a target for retaliation by the Trump administration, he said, which he’s worried would mean fewer resources for its other duties such as responding to emergencies.
Birong also said he thinks the bill would likely be challenged in court as a violation of the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution.
“I have no intention of taking up this bill,” he said in an interview Tuesday.
Gov. Scott, for his part, is also opposed to the bill, said press secretary Amanda Wheeler, noting that the governor’s authority to decline federal requests to use the Guard is limited. Scott has twice denied federal mobilizations of the Guard so far during Trump’s second term, Wheeler noted in an email — “he’s pushed back and declined when it’s not in the best interest of Vermont.”
— Shaun Robinson
On the trail
Since the last issue of Final Reading hit your inbox, a number of people have thrown their hats into the ring for county and state office. Here’s the latest:
On Tuesday morning, Amanda Janoo, an economist raised in Strafford who now lives in Burlington, became the first Democrat to announce a campaign for governor in 2026. Gov. Phil Scott, for his part, hasn’t said whether he plans to seek a sixth term this year.
This past weekend, Joanna Grossman, a Democrat from Burlington, announced her bid for one of the three Senate seats in the Chittenden-Southeast District. Grossman is a longtime Democratic campaign manager who also co-hosts a Vermont politics podcast called “There’s no ‘A’ in Creemee.” All three of the Chittenden district’s incumbent Democrats — Sen. Thomas Chittenden, Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale and Sen. Ginny Lyons — are expected to run again.
Meanwhile, Zach Weight, a deputy state’s attorney in Washington County who recently helped lead Gov. Scott’s “accountability court” initiative in Burlington, announced on Monday he is running for the top prosecutor job in Franklin County. Weight previously ran for Franklin County state’s attorney in 2022 as a Republican. He currently lives in Milton — a town in Chittenden County. The current state’s attorney in Franklin County announced last week that he wouldn’t seek reelection.
And in Chittenden County, Sarah George — the current Democratic state’s attorney — on
Tuesday announced her bid for a third term in office.
— Shaun Robinson
On the move
The House concurred with the Senate’s changes Tuesday to H.545, a bill that would broaden the state’s power to procure vaccines and issue immunization recommendations. The bill will next head to the governor’s desk.
The lower chamber also advanced H.635, a bill that would eliminate supervisory fees the state Department of Corrections imposes on people under its purview and forgive any outstanding fees.
The Senate, meanwhile, approved S.243, a bill that would allocate funds to the Vermont Language Justice Project to create materials in languages other than English in response to a public health emergency. It will next head to the House.
— Ethan Weinstein
