Legislative e-update, 3-15-10
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The Yankee vote
is over, and the budget battle is about to begin. Legislators' return to
the Statehouse after the town meeting break felt like a lull between
those bookends. Nonetheless, committees were hard at working trying to
pass out bills to meet this past Friday's "crossover" deadline.
There
are always questions of what legislators will "learn" by being in their
communities during the weeklong town meeting break. This year, voters
seemed to be saying that we want to be frugal but we also want to be
responsible. The great majority of school budgets passed. Voters thought
the budgets were reasonable and fair.
The fact that so many
school budgets passed dampened the administration's rhetoric that voters
wanted education spending cut, drastically. And the message that came
from a public hearing Wednesday on school consolidation dampened
whatever fervor might have existed for top-down consolidation of the
state's schools into 16 "super districts." Again and again, people asked
legislators, show us what consolidation will accomplish -- not what you
think it will accomplish.
One of the school consolidation plans
includes elimination of the statewide property tax, and a return to
local/regional grand lists. We submitted testimony that such a scheme
would most likely violate the equity mandate of the Vermont Supreme
Court's Brigham decision.
Action
occurred on a number of the bills we've been following and reporting
on. Details are below.
Thanks for your interest in our work.
-- Allen
Gilbert, executive director
-- Serena Hollmeyer, Loomis fellow
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Medical Marijuana Dispensaries Bill Voted Out Of Committee
The
Senate Government Operations Committee has approved S. 226, a bill to
create a dispensary system to provide medical marijuana to approved patients. The vote was
3-2 (Sens. Ayer, Flanagan, and Ayer for; Sens. Brock and Doyle
against).
The successful vote came despite persistent criticism
from law enforcement that the bill would lead to increased crime and
increased drug abuse. The bill sends the "wrong message" about drug use,
officials said.
The irony that the use of marijuana as a
medicine sends the "wrong message" but the use of percocet and oxycontin
doesn't captures the emotion that has become attached to this issue
over the years. Emotion is slowly giving way to reason in some quarters,
however.
A neurologist gave testimony last week describing why
marijuana is virtually unique in the pain relief it provides some
patients. The American Medical Association has finally recognized the
drug's palliative effects, he noted. In November it reversed its decades-old
position that marijuana has no medical value. The AMA now advocates
that more research be done into marijuana's beneficial effects.
The
bill will be on the Senate floor this week. Passage is not certain, but
the bill does have the support of Senate President Pro Tem Peter
Shumlin. Were it to pass the Senate, it will likely face a rocky road in
the House. House leadership has said "we have a full plate" when asked
about the bill; the House Judiciary Committee has indicated no interest
in either the medical marijuana bill or the decriminalization bill (H. 150).
The
ACLU
has worked with other organizations and individuals on this issue for a
number of years. One such group is the Vermont Alliance for Intelligent
Drug Laws, or VALIDVT. There's comprehensive
information on national drug law reform efforts at the National ACLU's Drug Law Reform
Project's site.
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UVM Donor Anonymity Bill Derailed
The
Senate
last week quietly shunted aside a controversial provision sought by the
University of Vermont, the Vermont State Colleges, and the Vermont
Student Assistance Corp. to allow names of donors to be kept
confidential.
The provision -- an amendment to a benign records
management bill, H. 331 -- ignited a firestorm of
criticism from the state's press and online news sites.
The bill
has been "ordered to lie," or tabled. What happens next is unclear. Most
probable is a conference committee will be appointed later in the
session, and the controversial anonymity provision will be stripped out.
The
only thing certain about the disagreement is that the state's public
records law needs an overhaul. We're supposed to be an "open records"
state. But having 230 exemptions to the law suggests things aren't so
open. On the other hand, there's no workable definition of an individual
right to privacy. Conflicts will continue until the law is cleaned up.
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Hazing/Harassment Bill For Private Colleges Moving;
Cyber-bullying Bills Stalled
The House Education Committee has passed out a bill, H. 648, that requires private
colleges to adopt and enforce hazing and harassment policies.
Two
other related bills were not passed out by the committee before
crossover. Both deal with bullying, particularly cyber-bullying. They
would allow schools to discipline students for out-of-school misconduct.
We
had opposed the cyber-bullying bills on grounds they were too broad and
gave schools disciplinary powers normally reserved for parents. We
offered an alternative, based on student speech rights and school
officials' authority as described in the U.S. Supreme Court's
seminal Tinker v. Des Moines decision.
Our concerns and our alternative are outlined in a dissent we filed with the
Cyber-bullying Study Committee.
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House, Senate Face Off Over Highway Safety Bills
The
Senate thinks banning texting while driving is a good idea. The House
agrees, but would like to impose a host of other requirements on
drivers, including "primary" seatbelt enforcement.
Generally, highway safety bills don't raise civil liberties
concerns. Driving is a privilege, and the state has a compelling
interesting in promoting safety and reducing accidents, and reducing the
injuries from the accidents that do occur. Some restrictions -- like a
ban on texting while driving -- are reasonable.
The
primary seatbelt enforcement law concerns us, though. ("Primary"
enforcement means police can stop you solely on suspicion you're not
using your seatbelt.) Because of the potential for arbitrary stops, we
think that police should be required to collect racial/ethnic/gender
data when they make stops. Collecting "stop data" is the most effective
tool in preventing racial profiling -- an issue that has plagued the
state for many years, with allegations from minorities that they are
routinely targeted by police. (Read the Racial Profiling in Vermont 2009
report by the Vermont Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil
Rights.)
Vermont state police have agreed to collect "stop data"
to ensure their officers aren't profiling. We think the requirement
should be extended to all law enforcement in the state. Until that's
done, we worry that a mandatory seatbelt law will lead to increased
profiling.
The expansive House bill on highway safety has
been grafted onto the more narrow Senate bill on texting. Discussion
on the House bill is set for Tuesday.
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Upcoming Events
- Reckoning With Torture -- Monday, April 12
The ACLU and
the University of Vermont Libraries Department are hosting an evening of
readings by authors, professors, students, librarians, and lawyers to
promote awareness of acts of torture and abuse carried out by the United
States since 9/11. The participants will read from testimonials by
detainees and government memos disclosed following Freedom of
Information lawsuits by the ACLU. The readings take place at Memorial
Lounge in Waterman Hall on the UVM campus, 7 p.m. Free.
- Civil Liberties Films at
Green Mountain Film Festival in Montpelier
William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe, Monday, March 22 at 6:15 p.m. and Tuesday, March 23 at 11:30
a.m., both at Montpelier City Hall arts center. Filmmaker Emily
Kunstler, William Kunstler's daughter, will lead discussions after each
showing. The father-daughter angle is one of the many interesting
aspects to this documentary on the late civil rights lawyer, whose
clients included the "Chicago 8," Attica prison inmates, and Native
Americans at Wounded Knee.
The Most
Dangerous Man in America, Monday, March 22 at 4;15 p.m.,
Wednesday, March 24 at 8:30 p.m., and Sunday, March 28 at 4:15 p.m., all
at Montpelier City Hall arts center. Daniel Ellsberg won the
"most dangerous man" moniker following his leaking of the Pentagon
Papers, a secret compilation of documents on the Vietnam War, to The New York Times. The film has been
nominated for an Oscar as best documentary.
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Civil Liberties Over Lunch In Middlebury
Want
to talk about civil liberties as you munch your lunch?
The
Ilsley Public Library in Middlebury and the ACLU have teamed up to
sponsor a four-part reading and discussion series on challenges to and
protection of basic rights. The discussion began in February but runs
through May 19. You can catch up.
- In
Our Defense: The Bill of Rights in Action by Ellen Ackerman and
Carolyn Kennedy, March 17, guest speaker attorney Wanda Otero-Ziegler.
- Gideon's Trumpet by Anthony Lewis,
April 21, guest speaker attorney Mitch Pearl.
- Arc of Justice: A Saga of Race, Civil
Rights, and Murder in the Jazz Age by Kevin Boyle, May 19, guest
speaker ACLU-VT Executive Director Allen Gilbert.
All
discussions take place at 12:15 p.m. at the library.
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