The 2025 legislative session wrapped up late Monday, June 16th, after extending weeks beyond the normal adjournment schedule. This session brought many new elected officials into the legislature, the end of the Democratic majority’s lability to override Governor Scott’s vetoes, contentious discussions around education reform, and the need to deal with the magnitude of pressures from the Trump administration.
At the ACLU of Vermont, we launched our Firewall for Freedom initiative to combat the threats and overreach from Washington. We continued to advance the priorities of our Smart Justice Campaign and doubled down on our efforts to achieve the vision that housing is a human right. The new political dynamics of the legislature called for increased efforts to develop bipartisan consensus on policy priorities, and in this environment, the ACLU and our partners were able to see make significant progress, even while suffering some disappointing setbacks. Below is a summary of the most significant pieces of legislation we worked to advance or defeat in the 2025 legislative session.
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Firewall for Freedom
S.44 Collaborative immigration enforcement agreements (Signed into law): This act limits cooperation between law enforcement and federal officials without approval of the governor. Previously, if there was a declared state or federal state of emergency, law enforcement officials could enter into collaborative immigration enforcement agreements with federal officials. S.44 closed that loophole and requires that any collaborative agreement must first be approved by the governor. While the ACLU argued for stronger protections to be included in the bill, we were happy to see it signed into law.
S.56 Office of New Americans (Signed into law): This act creates the Office of New Americans Study Committee to make recommendations for creating an Office of New Americans. The Study Committee consists of nine members who shall begin meeting on or before September 1, 2025 and submit a report to the General Assembly on or before September 1, 2026.
H.98 Confirmatory adoptions and standby guardianships (Signed into law). This act has two main components to help children and families in Vermont. First, it streamlines the process to confirm parental rights of parents who use assisted reproduction, and helps ensure legal recognition of both parents, especially in same sex or non-biological parent families. Second, it offers protection for children if their parents are involved in immigration enforcement by allowing parents to designate a guardian in advance.
S.123 Miscellaneous transportation and access to accurate identification (Signed into law): S.123, a miscellaneous transportation bill, contains provisions relating to early renewal of driver’s licenses and non-driver IDs. To provide the maximum protection allowed under federal law, we recommended that the legislature include an eight-year renewal option. The longer renewal period would allow Vermonters to keep access to accurate ID despite overreach by the federal administration. Despite this, the legislature declined to incorporate the eight-year renewal option, citing fluctuations in revenue. Although this was not the ideal outcome, S.123 still contains a two-year early renewal option, providing some protection against federal overreach.
Housing
S. 127 Housing law changes including protections for immigrants (Signed into law): This omnibus housing bill adds citizenship and immigration status as a protected class in Vermont’s housing laws, creating new protections for those facing discrimination. It also requires landlords to accept alternatives to social security numbers in rental applications, eliminating a significant barrier for immigrants in our state. We want to give a special shout-out to Migrant Justice for their exceptional campaign that brought this bill over the finish line. This bill was also a major component of our Firewall for Freedom efforts this year.
H. 91 Statewide response to homelessness (vetoed) represented the most comprehensive plan to address homelessness in recent years and would have transformed Vermont’s statewide shelter system. Unfortunately, Governor Scott vetoed this bill at the last moment, preventing the bill from becoming law. Many thanks to our supporters and legislative allies who worked arduously to advance this key reform at a time of high controversy and harsh political barriers. We will be working relentlessly to protect shelter funding and access for those who need it now and throughout next year’s legislative session.
H. 141 The Budget Adjustment Act (BAA) (Vetoed) The BAA represents an annual mid-session bill aimed at rectifying state funds to reflect spending changes and emergent funding needs. This bill sought to extend access to shelter for participants engaged in the GA emergency housing program. Governor Phil Scott vetoed this bill and instead passed an Executive Order extending shelter and prioritizing placements for two populations included in the program, limiting access to others.
Smart Justice
H.2 Minimum age for delinquency proceedings (Signed into law): Initially, H.2 was intended to raise the minimum age for delinquency proceedings from 10 to 12. At the same time, the second phase of the Raise the Age (RTA) initiative was set to take effect in April of this year. However, due to lack of capacity, the Department of Children and Families, as well as the governor’s office, sought to repeal the second phase of RTA and place it within H.2. We provided testimony in opposition of a repeal and partnered with the “Treat Youth like Youth Coalition,” led by Nikhil Goyal, in advocating for the immediate implementation of RTA. Despite our efforts, H.2 passed out of both houses, and the second phase of RTA was delayed to July 2027. While this was not our preferred outcome, we successfully resisted a full repeal of the second phase of RTA and the minimum age for delinquency proceedings was raised from 10 to 12, benefiting youth within the juvenile legal system. We will continue to campaign for the full implementation of the RTA in the coming years.
S.144 Smarter Stops (Referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee): S.144 designates that certain low level motor vehicle violations can only be enforced if law enforcement has already pulled someone over for a primary violation. It also proposed to prohibit law enforcement from requesting consent for a search of a vehicle from either the operator or a passenger following a stop for a moving violation. This effort aims to reduce the number of police interactions with Vermont motorists as they are overpoliced on our roadways. A similar bill was introduced last session (H.176) but received strong opposition from law enforcement agencies, so the bill did not advance. Unfortunately, S.144 received no hearings during this session, but will likely be addressed next year. We will be working with ACLU National to gather more Vermont specific data around traffic stops and strengthen our smarter stops campaign over the summer.
H.294 Stop prison exploitation (Referred to the House Corrections and Institutions Committee): H.294 sought to do 4 things, provide free telecommunications services to incarcerated individuals, provide reasonable commissary prices to incarcerated individuals, require the DOC to evaluate its telecommunication and commissary contracts, and require that incarcerated individuals receive at least the federal minimum wage. . This bill did not make it out of the house this session but will likely be taken up during the next session. We will be doing more campaign work around H.294 over the summer and will be advocating for H.294’s passage.
S.66 Motor vehicle noise (Passed the Senate): S.66 places limits for noise from motor vehicles and prohibits exhaust modifications and engine compression brakes. Vehicles found to be in violation of S.66 would fail inspection, and the vehicle’s operator would face civil penalties. We testified in opposition to S.66, primarily to its enforcement mechanism. As written, S.66 had the potential to create additional traffic stops on our already overpoliced roads. Furthermore, S.66 contained a citizen reporting system, where citizens could notify law enforcement of suspected violators. Citizen reporting systems such as these have the potential of harassment and run the risk of disproportionately impacting communities of color. After raising our concerns, the Senate amended the bill, removing many of the enforcement provisions and relegated those efforts to a report for further study. S.66 passed out of the Senate and was sent to the House, where it was referred to the Committee on Transportation and will likely be taken up next legislative session.
H.379 & S.140 Second look (Referred to the House Corrections and Institutions Committee): Second look legislation refers to legislation that allows incarcerated individuals who serve a portion of their sentence to petition to have their term of imprisonment reduced. Two second look bills, H.379 & S.140, were introduced this legislative session, yet neither bill advanced past their respective legislative bodies. Language from these bills was introduced as an amendment to S.109, an act relating to miscellaneous judiciary procedures. Eventually, S.109 was amended to establish a working group that would report on the feasibility of second look legislation. Sadly, the working group provision was removed from the final version of the bill, and sentencing reconsideration was kept out of S.109. Although this was a disappointing result, we will continue to advocate for second-look legislation and push for its implementation next year.