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House amends and advances S.109, an omnibus judiciary procedures bill
Summary
S.109, the annual miscellaneous judiciary bill containing technical corrections, policy changes, and working-group directives, was amended on the floor, the House proposed to the Senate to amend, and third reading was ordered. The bill spans court administration items, victim notification, guardianship studies, and other technical fixes.
The House amended the Judiciary Committee report and proposed to the Senate to amend S.109 as modified, then ordered third reading. S.109 is a multi-section miscellaneous judiciary bill containing mostly technical fixes, some policy changes, and several directed studies and working groups.
Committee sponsors described the bill as a "Whitman's sampler" of mostly noncontroversial items that had accumulated during the session. Substantive elements in the bill and the adopted floor amendment include: remote access for attorneys to non-confidential court records; clarifications to Judicial Bureau procedures and civil penalty language; repeal of an outdated criminal penalty for adult children failing to support parents; creation of a firearm surrender order compliance working group to study uniform surrender and return processes; reinstatement (with clarifying language) of statutory authority for courts to consider a person’s child support payment history in adoption proceedings while excluding certain DCF foster care payment contexts; creation of an adult involuntary guardianship working group to study jurisdictional alignment between probate and family divisions; a victim notification task force to study improvements to victim notice systems; and technical statute corrections across court and probate statutes.
The floor amendment deleted two sections that had been rendered unnecessary when the governor signed separate legislation, added additional consults for the firearm surrender working group (including the Fish & Wildlife commissioner), adjusted membership and scope of the child-and-parent legal representation task force, and made several other technical and membership changes requested by agencies and stakeholders. Ways and Means and Appropriations reported the fiscal impacts are de minimis for working-group per diems and that the reinstated marriage-license fee changes in the bill would, if allowed to sunset, reduce a domestic violence special fund by roughly $72,000 annually (the bill retains the fee increase).
Committee votes were reported in committee: House Judiciary (vote 11 in favor), Ways and Means and Appropriations recommended concurrence with recorded committee votes noted in the record. The House adopted amendments offered on the floor, proposed to the Senate to amend as recommended, and ordered third reading.
Speakers and witnesses included a broad set of stakeholders: Vermont Judiciary staff, Attorney General’s Office, Department for Children and Families, Department of Corrections, bar associations, victim services, county assistant judges, and others who provided targeted testimony on particular sections of the bill.
