News & Commentary

The impact of the Supreme Court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health will be devastating. Here’s what comes next.

We know that investing in people and communities over policing and prisons makes our state safer and more equitable. Find our full-page ad in Seven Days.

Juneteenth, short for June nineteenth, commemorates the day when enslaved people in Galveston, Texas learned of their freedom in 1865 - a full two years after the Emancipation Proclamation was signed.

Elected prosecutors have a major role to play in holding police accountable for misconduct. That can include pressing criminal charges when police abuse their power and violate civil rights – something prosecutors rarely elect to do.

Every community should have meaningful oversight of their police department. We wrote a letter with the Rutland Area NAACP urging the Bennington Select Board to empower their civilian oversight board to review specific police misconduct complaints.

While Vermont continued to adopt smarter criminal justice policies this year, we have also seen a shockingly inadequate response to the opioid crisis, and a failure to enact any meaningful police reforms. 

Given state’s attorneys’ immense power and outsized impact on the lives of Vermonters, voters must know what these elected officials are doing in your name. Unfortunately, much of what state’s attorneys do is hidden from the public. We're trying to change that.

The Vermont legislature adjourned last week, bringing the 2022 legislative session to a close. With our allies, we helped introduce proactive civil liberties legislation, tracked more than one hundred bills, and testified numerous times before House and Senate Committees.

Vermont is experiencing an overdose crisis. State leaders must utilize every available tool to address this crisis, save lives, and make our communities safer - including authorizing overdose prevention sites.