In a flurry of floor votes, the House passed a dozen bills Friday, many of them focusing on public safety.
Most passed Friday on quick voice votes following their third readings. They now move to the Senate.
One of the bills, H.74, aims to assess the security threat for social and mental health workers at the Agency of Human Services and strengthen protections. The bill mandates that the agency record violent incidents and threats of violence in the workplace and create a “violence prevention and crisis response protocol.”
The legislation was introduced following the murder of Lara Sobel, a social worker with the Department of Children and Families who was killed in August.
Other security bills passed include H.183, which would order the Sergeant at Arms, Capitol Police and other entities to draft security and contingency plans at the Statehouse and submit them to legislators. H.818, would simplify the process of obtaining a civil protection order for stalking.
The House also gave final passage to H.261 on Friday, a bill that would ban private sector employers from inquiring about a job candidate’s criminal history in the first round of applications. The so-called “ban-the-box” bill would eliminate the check-off box on initial application forms that ask about a candidate’s criminal history, which could include a conviction, arrest or arraignment.
The law would only apply to the first round of applications — potential employers could ask for that information in interviews and subsequent applications. Vermont would be the ninth state to implement the ban.
The House also gave preliminary approval to H.743, which would implement new police training techniques intended to bolster impartial policing. The bill lays out at least four hours of required training for police on bias-free practices every two years.
The best practices would be decided by a number of stakeholders, including Vermont League of Cities and 14 Towns, the Vermont Human Rights Commission, and Migrant Justice.
The bill would also require roadside stop data to be collected by law enforcement agencies and then shared with the Criminal Justice Training Council and the Crime Research Group of Vermont for public analysis and posting.
Allen Gilbert, executive director of the Vermont chapter of the ACLU, praised the bill for clarifying guidelines around releasing stop data.
“There’s long been a suspicion that racial profiling has existed in Vermont, but police have often denied that is the case,” Gilbert said. “Now that there is consistent collection, we are going to have a much fuller picture.”
Other House bills passed Friday included:
–H.560, a bill on bicycle and traffic safety
–H.629, a bill clarifying the issuance of vital records
–H.610, a bill that clarifies questions about the Clean Water Fund
A few bills were voted out of the Senate on Friday, including S.174, a bill that requests a comprehensive report by the state’s Department of Public Safety on the proper use of body cameras by police officers statewide.
The Senate Judiciary Committee set a December deadline for that report.
The bill requires no funding, but the report would provide information on federal grants and other options to purchase the cameras.
A number of local municipalities have already acquired body cameras, as have the Vermont State Police.
“We are in a pilot program right now assessing body camera options and costs,” said VSP spokesman Scott Waterman. “There is no plan beyond that at this point.”
ACLU’s Gilbert called the police body camera bill “a good first step,” adding that language dealing with public disclosure of the video is strong. The bill uses the disclosure statutes laid out in the Public Records Act.
“We think that just like all information in any form that government collects, video recordings are a public record,” Gilbert said.
The Senate also gave preliminary approval to S.189, a bill that would create a Foster Parent Working Group, tasked with laying out policies and protections for Vermont foster parents.
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