ACLU-VT Legislative e-update
April 17, 2010
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Hello
--
The "Challenges for Change" budgeting process consumed
the House for the past two weeks. A bill was finally passed on Friday.
It now goes to the Senate for review by that chamber.
The House
review was testy. A "revolt" by the House Education Committee led to
significant changes to the Education Department's proposals around
school spending. The House Human Services Committee was cool to mental
health service changes related, ultimately, to the closing of the state
hospital. Several communities banded together to force changes to
proposed Corrections policies.
In the end, the Democratic House
leadership had to acknowledge broad unease about establishing savings
targets and then turning over authority to the administration to meet
them.
It was Republican legislators who first pushed for another
legislative review of the Republican administration's implementation
plans. Democratic members began to join them, and by week's end House
Speaker Shap Smith had announced a special summer session to keep tabs
on the administration's work.
It's unclear whether such an
approach will fly in the Senate -- where three members are anxious to
rev up their campaigns for governor and raise money from people
(lobbyists) they can't solicit until after the Legislature adjourns.
Civil
liberties issues cropped up in numerous areas of the Challenges plan.
We write about them in this e-update. And we'll be following them in the
Senate.
Legislative leaders have vowed to finish their work by
the end of April. That means two more weeks. If that deadline is kept,
the pace of business will get furious.
In addition to the
Challenges plan, we'll be watching the highway safety bill, the
innocence protection bill, and perhaps even a campaign finance bill
(stuck in the Senate for the moment).
-- Allen
Gilbert, executive director
-- Serena Hollmeyer, Loomis fellow
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Education Funding Equity Preserved
The ACLU is always concerned that proposed changes to the
state's
education funding formula could result in unequal access to school
funds. The 1997 Brigham vs.
State was an ACLU case, so we have an ongoing
interest in preserving equity to resources for Vermont's school
children.
Early drafts of the education section of the
"Challenges for Change"
proposal included mandatory cuts to school budgets, with stiff penalties
if cuts weren't made. Testimony from the lead attorney in the Brighamcase,
Robert Gensburg, convinced the committee this would unfairly burden
certain districts and violate the equity provisions of Brigham.
At one point the
committee considered whether public education
should, in fact, be entirely exempt from the Challenges for Change
initiative. Word spread that
the House Education Committee was "revolting" against the Challenges
for Change process. The "buzz" prompted a personal visit from Speaker of
the House Shap Smith.
It is extremely rare for a speaker to
leave his (her) office, come to
a committee room, sit in the witness chair, and tell a committee it
shouldn't do what it's about to do. But that's what happened next. It
was a rather dramatic moment, with people crowding into the room to hear
the exchange between the speaker and the committee members. The
administration's point person on the Challenges initiative, Tom Evslin,
also came into the room and testified.
The House Education Committee stuck to its guns. It said school
boards had done an admirable job in moderating or cutting budgets, and
that mandated cuts as proposed in the Education Department's Challenges
for
Change plan would violate Brigham. In the end, the House leadership agreed that it wanted no part
of undercutting what Speaker Smith said was probably the fairest school
funding system in the country.
A nuanced plan was developed. It
said that while cuts wouldn't be
mandated, school boards would be assigned budget reduction targets by
the Education Department-- and would be strongly urged to meet them.
It's
hard to know what additional changes might
be made as the process continues. The Senate may try to put the
mandatory reduction plan back on the table. If it does, the fight over
equity will be taken up again.
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Changes
To Mental Health Laws Turned Back - For Now
The
Douglas administration has struggled for a number of years with what to
do with the state hospital in Waterbury. It has planned to close
the aging facility and have designated regional hospitals provide
necessary mental
health services.
Contention has arisen around exactly how
those hospitals would carry out the important procedures that provide
the due process needed to commit someone or force them to take
medication.
In its Challenges for Change plan, the administration
proposed changes to the involuntary medications law, and collapsing
civil commitment and involuntary medication into one procedure. The
ACLU, and other advocates, believe the proposals violate due process
rights and increase coercion.
The House Human Services Committee
rejected the administration's proposals during its review of the
Challenges plan, and the full House agreed.
The administration
will no doubt resubmit its proposals to the Senate. We, and other
advocates, will continue our opposition to the provisions.
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Shift In Course (Back) For
Corrections
The state Department of Corrections' underlying philosophy has
long been based on risk
assessment, minimal incarceration, and reintegration back into the
community. The reason is that Corrections' officials know that when your
goal is rehabilitation, prison isn't the right place for most
offenders.
But over the years, the Legislature and governor have pushed for
more
jail time for many offenders -- mandatory minimums, loss of "good time,"
and even civil commitment.
The result has been burgeoning
increases in Vermont's prison population -- despite the fact that crime
rates have been
steady for almost two decades. For a number of years, the state has been
shipping 500 inmates out of
state, to jails in Kentucky. There's no space in Vermont's jails.
All
this has cost money -- a lot of money. Corrections now consumes about
10
percent of the state's General Fund budget. Vermont spends more on jails
than it does on colleges and universities.
The recession finally
made legislators acknowledge that their
"lock-'em-up" approach wasn't feasible. So changes as to who gets locked
up and who gets released are key parts of the Challenges for Change
bill. (Some changes also come through another bill, S. 292, an
omnibus
Corrections bill.)
Essentially, Challenges for Change aims to cap
the state's prison
population. Nonviolent detainees who can't make bail and offenders who
have met their minimum sentences will, under the plan, await their court
dates or serve their remaining sentences in their homes and
communities.
We agree with career Corrections officials that
prison is not the best place for most offenders. Public safety can be
protected, and offenders rehabilitated, in suitable placements outside
of locked facilities.
Nearly all offenders eventually return to
society. We all have an interest in increasing their chances of
successful reintegration. Inhumane treatment or unreasonable sentences
don't work.
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Reckoning With Torture
 Following our "Reckoning
with Torture" event at the University of
Vermont, we were asked, "What comes next? What can I do to make sure
events described in the program readings and videos don't occur again?"
We've
created a Web page that
offers suggestions for what you can do to help end torture. You'll find
links to videos of detainee testimonies, to a "Torture Report" (where
you can access the documents the ACLU has obtained through Freedom of
Information Act requests), and more.
We're grateful to the
readers who participated in the event, and to the many people who
attended.
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Strengthening The Freedom Of
Information Act
The
ACLU used Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to obtain
government documents that showed the American people weren't being told
the full
truth about the Bush administration's interrogation programs. The
government
was using torture, which was denied by numerous officials -- despite
written
evidence to the contrary.
The
Obama administration pledged open and transparent government,
yet many FOIA requests (up to 67,000) are going unanswered. More
exemptions to
disclosing documents are being claimed. Such practices are clear threats
to our
ability to hold government accountable.
The
Senate Judiciary Committee, chaired by Sen. Patrick Leahy, has just
approved a "Faster FOIA Act." It
aims to streamline the FOIA process and make it work better for the
public. The bill was first introduced in 2005.
To access the text of the bill, follow this link to the
Thomas bill-tracking
system of the Library of Congress.
To
read more about how the FOIA process works -- and how to file a
FOIA request, including for records the government may hold on you -- click
here
(you will be linked to the National ACLU Web site).
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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.
- 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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