The House gave preliminary approval Friday morning to a bill that increases penalties for criminal threatening, particularly for threats against public officials, election workers and other state and local employees.
“Ignoring these threats would be like ignoring a tumor until the cancer has spread,” Rep. William Notte, D-Rutland City, said while presenting the bill on the House floor.
The bill, S.265, makes it illegal to threaten an individual or group of people in a way that causes reasonable fear of death, serious injury or sexual assault.
If the target of the threat is an election worker, holds public office, is a candidate for public office or is a public employee, there is a heightened penalty — up to two years in prison, a $2,000 fine or both.
The fine is also $2,000 if the threat would intimidate the target in a school, at the Statehouse, in a place of worship or at a polling place.
In other instances, the maximum penalty would be one year in prison, a $1,000 fine or both. In all cases, the charge is a misdemeanor.
There was “quite a bit of discussion” among legislators about whether to make criminal threatening a misdemeanor or a felony, Notte said in an interview.
“There’s certainly a hesitancy among many legislators to create new felonies,” Notte said.
James Lawton, who is married to former state representative Kiah Morris, said he was disappointed in the misdemeanor designation. He said it felt like a “slap on the wrist,” and believes it should instead be a low-level felony.
Lawton has been advocating for a criminal threatening law since 2019, after repeated racist threats against Morris and their family prompted Morris to resign from the Vermont Legislature. Morris had been the only Black woman serving in the Legislature.
Morris, Lawton and their family have since sold their house in Bennington and moved to a different part of the state, out of fear for their safety, Lawton said.
“Not making it a felony is a blatant disregard for the victim,” Lawton said.
Washington County State’s Attorney Rory Thibault — whose department is responsible for addressing crimes at the Statehouse — remains concerned that people convicted of misdemeanor criminal threatening would still be able to buy and own guns. The bill does not add criminal threatening to the list of crimes that would prevent someone from buying a firearm in Vermont.
“There is a compelling interest in denying individuals convicted of making true threats the means of carrying them out in the future — even after a sentence has ended,” Thibault wrote in an email.
However, Thibault and the Department of State’s Attorneys and Sheriffs support this bill and the amendments from the House, he wrote. He commended lawmakers for explicitly including threats of sexual violence, and for ending the “affirmative defense”— meaning that, in a criminal threatening case, the defendant can still be convicted even if they claim they were not actually capable of carrying out their threat.
Threats against state employees, especially in the Department for Children and Families and the Department of Corrections, have become more common recently, according to Thibault.
“Threats have a chilling effect on the willingness and ability of public servants to fully and freely discharge their duties — which strikes at the very heart of our democracy, when directed at election workers or candidates for office,” Thibault wrote.
The bill is a response to increased threats against election workers in the wake of the 2020 election, and against public health workers during the Covid-19 pandemic, said Sen. Dick Sears, D-Bennington, last month, when he presented the bill in the other chamber.
Local school officials have also faced similar threats in recent years, which Notte’s family experienced firsthand, he said on the floor.
Notte’s wife, Alison Notte, was chair of the Rutland City School Board two years ago when the board voted to change the district’s mascot from the Rutland Raiders to the Rutland Ravens.
After that vote, she received “threatening, violent, profane, incredibly misogynistic” texts and emails, Notte said. The messages were so severe that the family installed a security system at home, Notte said.
Rep. Anne Donahue, R-Northfield, opposed the bill, she said on the floor, in part because it created a higher penalty for threats against political figures than other people.
She also expressed concerns about infringing on free speech.
Distinguishing threats from “verbal hyperbole in political discourse, which might be very inappropriate, very distressing and yet still constitutionally protected — it’s a very fine and difficult line,” Donahue said.
An amended version of the bill passed by voice vote on second reading. If it prevails in the House on third reading, it would need to return to the Senate for the other body to approve the revisions.
Read the story on VTDigger here: House advances bill to create criminal threatening misdemeanors.