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Senate concurs with House amendments to S.109 after trimming controversial provisions
Summary
The Senate agreed to a House proposal of amendment for S.109, a broad judiciary-related bill, after removing or modifying several contentious or financially impactful items and accepting targeted changes on victim notification, family law, and courthouse funding criteria.
The Vermont Senate moved to concur in the House's proposal of amendment to S.109, a multi-part judiciary bill, and adopted a further amendment. Sponsors said the Senate removed or modified provisions the other body had added that were considered controversial or potentially costly, while accepting several substantive House changes.
On the floor, the senator from Windham described the procedural history: the Senate had earlier passed its version of S.109 and received a House amendment with nearly 20 pages of new policy and task forces. Because the amendment arrived late in the process, committee members said they lacked time for full review and exercised restraint by ordering the bill to lie while negotiating a compromise. The sponsor said the compromise removed provisions already signed into law elsewhere and narrowed or reworked contested proposals.
Among the retained or revised provisions the sponsor described: additions to the composition of a firearm surrender order compliance working group (including retaining the Center for Crime Victims Services and the Council on Domestic Violence as full members rather than consultants); a reinstatement that adoption courts may consider a person's child-support payment history in deciding whether termination of parental rights serves the child's best interest (with a separate clarification that child-support history is not a basis for termination in DCF-initiated termination proceedings); repeal of an outdated criminal penalty for failure of an adult child to support a destitute parent; changes to earned-time notifications to add victims to periodic notice requirements; creation of a victim-notification task force to improve responsiveness; new criteria the court administrator must use when evaluating county courthouse capital funding requests (effective 07/01/2026); and changes to penalties for second or subsequent DUI offenses intended to encourage community service over short incarceration by lowering a community-service minimum from 200 hours to 80 hours.
The sponsor also described a reworked family-support initiative in corrections to avoid constitutional funding issues that led to a prior veto; the new language focuses on gender parity in access to family support programs and services at correctional facilities and was said to have the governor's general counsel's written support.
The sponsor said the committee received written and in-person testimony from legislative counsel, the chair of the House Institutions and Corrections Committee, the governor's general counsel, the Department for Children and Families, family-law practitioners, the Vermont Center for Crime Victim Services, Vermont Legal Aid, the Vermont Parent Representation Center, and the judiciary. The judiciary committee reported a 5-0-0 vote recommending concurrence.
On the floor the motion to concur in the House proposal of amendment with a further amendment was called, and the ayes carried by voice vote.
The sponsor emphasized the committee's intent to remove provisions that duplicated recently enacted provisions or unduly risked fiscal impact while keeping reforms aimed at victim notification, family-law clarity, and courthouse funding oversight.
