“Vermonters have always been in the forefront of standing up for civil liberties, and they’ve always been in the forefront of standing against the abuse of governmental power,” said Sen. Peter Welch.
On Monday night, the towns of Shaftsbury and Bennington joined a growing number of municipalities that have passed a resolution condemning attacks on due process and affirming the rights of residents granted in the U.S. Constitution.
Meanwhile, members of Vermont’s three-person congressional delegation have also been speaking out in recent weeks in defense of the Fifth Amendment — the right to not be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process — on the floor of the U.S. House, at rallies and in letters to officials in the administration of President Donald Trump.
“Due process is the heart of enforceable liberty against overreach by government, and every citizen has an interest in being entitled to due process to restrict the government from arbitrarily arresting them,” said Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vt., in an interview.
“We’re seeing unprecedented use of arbitrary power in some of these recent cases” such as the international students who were detained in Vermont, Welch said.
The Shaftsbury Select Board passed the resolution unanimously with little discussion. Board Chair Naomi Miller said she supported the resolution because due process rights are under “existential threat from the current government in Washington” and so she believes any action “people can take to resist the erosion of democracy is essential.”
The Bennington Select Board passed the resolution 5-2 after ample discussion by members and the public. Tom Haley, the board’s chair, said the initiative to bring the resolution forward for discussion was “citizen-led” and he was grateful for the civil discussion of the resolution.
Haley said he voted in favor because he knows that residents of Bennington, particularly LGBTQ people, immigrants and people of color, have expressed to him that they are afraid their due process rights will be violated, and he said he believes that in Vermont “you take care of your neighbors.”
While the language of the resolution has been adapted to fit the context of each municipality, the “resolution condemning attacks on due process and affirmation the constitutional rights of all persons,” first passed in Rutland City on April 21, has served as a model for towns around the state.
Michael Talbott, a member of the Rutland City Board of Aldermen who penned the original resolution, said the document aimed to show to residents, through a “symbolic action,” that their local governing body will uphold their due process rights, and he hopes that other local boards will take the resolution up.
“It was meant to be reassuring to members of our community who are pretty scared and uncertain about the current moment and the future because of things going on at the federal level,” Talbott said. “I found statements made by the federal government to be pretty disturbing in that they run counter to the protections that are guaranteed to everyone in our country, regardless of citizenship status.”
Acting nationally
Welch spearheaded a letter sent last week to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, calling for a hearing to evaluate the Trump administration’s infringement of due process rights in the case of the deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia.
Garcia was deported to a prison in El Salvador, where he remains, despite the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that the administration has an obligation to facilitate his return and the Trump administration admitting Garcia was deported due to “administrative error.”
Welch said Garcia’s case is among several instances of violations of due process, including the detainment of the Palestinian Vermonter Mohsen Mahdawi during a citizenship interview and of Rümeysa Öztürk by masked, plainclothes ICE agents outside her apartment for exercising their right to free speech.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Rep. Becca Balint, D-Vt., along with other congressional colleagues also held a press conference on April 29 calling for the release for Mahdawi after his detention without due process, before he was released a day later on April 30.
The letter sent to Grassley also mentioned that Trump administration officials have said they are assessing the possibility of suspending habeas corpus, or the right against arbitrary detention, which Welch said is “an explicit threat to abuse executive authority.”
Balint also spoke on the U.S. House floor Monday about her concern with the threat to the right of habeas corpus. She said only Congress has the right to suspend habeas corpus, and its suspension would mean the abandonment of a “core principle that no one in this country will be imprisoned unlawfully.”
Acting Locally
Welch said he is heartened and inspired by the governing bodies in municipalities around the state taking up resolutions to protect due process and constitutional rights.
“Vermonters have always been in the forefront of standing up for civil liberties, and they’ve always been in the forefront of standing against the abuse of governmental power,” Welch said.
Since the resolution passed in Rutland City, resident and U.S. Army veteran Peter Franzoni said he has sent the resolution to the town clerk or selectboard members of every municipality in Vermont and has attended board meetings in various towns to advocate for the resolution’s passage.
Franzoni said he has taken action to drum up support for the resolution around the state because he believes that despite partisanship, people should work together to protect constitutional rights.
“We’re being torn apart by all these other forces in our culture and our society. Right now, we can’t find any common ground, but the one common ground we all have is our Constitution,” Franzoni said. “It’s literally what binds us together as a nation, and if we start letting people chip away with it, it will be destroyed.”
The selectboard for the town of Wallingford passed the resolution unanimously on May 5, and the town of Rockingham selectboard passed the resolution on May 6. The Brandon selectboard then passed the resolution unanimously on May 12, and the selectboards for the towns of Jericho and Pittsfield also unanimously passed the resolution on May 15.
Several municipalities including East Montpelier, Rutland Town, Proctor and Middletown Springs have also placed the resolution on their agendas for upcoming meetings.
The Burlington City Council passed a resolution on April 28 to uphold the constitutional right to free speech and the free press, free association and dissent and to express support for student activists Mahdawi, Öztürk and Mahmoud Khalil.
Council Chair Ben Traverse said he adapted some of the language of the due process resolution, which had already passed in Rutland City at the time, and said Vermont’s political leaders on the local and national level will need to continue efforts and “band together” to uphold democratic principles.
“I think that the free speech resolution and these due process resolutions are just the beginning — not the end — of various efforts that we’re going to need to undertake to support and maintain a resilient community,” Traverse said.
Story Written by Greta Solsaa, VTDigger