 Good morning, this is Thursday, March 18th. And this is General Housing and Military Affairs Committee. We are continuing work on JRH2 today, which is our General Assembly Apology for the Eugenics Survey for the role that the legislature played in the Eugenics Survey and in Act 174, which legalized sterilizations for some folks. And I've invited not just the committee, but the attorney for us is Michael Chenick. He's going to take us on a walkthrough of JRH2 that has some changes that I submitted to him that reflect changes that were submitted by witnesses and suggestions to make the bill better and stronger. I don't expect every change to be accepted, but they will all be discussed. And I also, on our website, there is, I believe under my name, there is a document that reflects those changes and they're highlighted in red. And if you're reading along with them, you'll notice that some of the language is bracketed and that to me means those are conversation pieces where the language may not be as, where we've heard different takes on what the language might be. And the reason I bracketed them is because they're there for discussion and they will be discussed after we walk through this with Michael. So Michael, if you could start with your introduction and let us know what we're looking at and are you going to bring this up on a shared screen or do you want me to? Why don't, good morning, Mr. Chair. Why don't you bring that up on your, I don't have that, I'm not a co-host. So why don't you bring it up on the screen and then I'll introduce myself and explain what I'm about to do. Okay, just give me a minute. I'll bring this up. And Michael, I'm sorry, this says, Representative Murphy said this is, what's online is the bill is introduced. Did you submit? I thought, why don't I first introduce myself and then we'll have the conversation. For the record, I'm Michael Churnick. I'm a legislative counselor and I was the original drafter of what's now JRH2 prior to any changes in the text. I did not put anything new on the web. I thought that Ron was going to post your version on the web last evening. Yeah, that's what we have. Yeah, okay. And I have it in my hand, print it out. Well, let me see if this works. People just, given my setup, let me just see if this is gonna bring it right up to you. May I explain, Mr. Chair, while you're doing the technical piece, my proposals to read it through indicate which wording is highlighted in red as language you thought more likely to be included. And then I'll indicate the bracketed blue language before I read that indicating you thought that was language more for committee discussion. Sure, can you see this? I just see you, Mr. Oh, wait a minute. Yeah. Now I see it. Okay, now folks, just as I'm not as skilled at this as others may be, but I can't see you. Oh, wait a minute, I can see you over here just in the side. So Michael, go ahead and just tell me when to scroll. Okay, I'm actually going, if you wanna follow along, I'm going to work from the piece of paper. Be probably the users. Okay, good morning again, it's Michael Churnick legislative council. I'm discussing now JRH2, and I'm going to be indicating Mr. Chair, the resolution is no longer on the screen. How's that? Okay. Okay, we'll start again. JRH2, the title, this is a revised version, and I will indicate changes that are in red that your chair underlined, and changes that are in blue that your chair bracketed, indicating that he thought the blue was more likely language for discussion. But I will explain what's new, what's underlined and what's bracketed. First, the title again remains unchanged as of the moment. Joint resolution, sincerely apologizing and expressing sorrow and regret to all individual Vermonters and their families and descendants were harmed as a result of state sanctioned eugenics policies and practices beyond the long list of sponsors. Whereas, and when I read and don't pre-announce language as one or the other, it means it's original language. Whereas in 1925, University of Vermont zoology professor, Henry F. Perkins, established the discredited eugenics survey of Vermont, new red underlying language with participation and support of leaders in Vermont state government and Vermont Department of Welfare, end of underlying red language. There should be a the preceding Department of Welfare. The definite article, if you retain that language. Two new language collect, delete the word measure, evidence of alleged delinquency, dependency and mental and change defectiveness to deficiencies. And this survey targeted members of blue and bracketed language, indigenous family bands, abinacke bands, red underlying language and other indigenous people, end of underlying red language, Vermonters of mixed racial or French Canadian heritage, the poor and persons with disabilities, new underlying red language among others. Next three clauses remain the same and I'll read them. Whereas the General Assembly adopted 1931, action resolves number 174 act 174 and act the human betterment by voluntary sterilization for the purpose of eliminating from the future of Vermont genetic pool person steamed. The word mentally is in blue and then stricken out unfit to procreate and whereas act 174 resulted in the sterilization of Vermonters and whether these individuals provided informed consent can be questioned. And whereas the state sanction eugenics policy was not an isolated example of oppression but reflected the historic marginalization discriminatory treatment and displacement of these targeted groups in Vermont. And whereas eugenics advocates promoted sterilization for the protection of Vermonters owed, new word in red underlying pioneer stock, new blue bracketed word, Yankee Protestant stock and to preserve the physical and social environment of Vermont for their children. And whereas eugenics survey advocated for assistance from state and municipal officials and the resulting sterilization, blue bracketed and separation policies intruded and back to original language intruded on the lives of its victims and had devastating and irreversible impacts on the directly affected individuals and their families, new red bracketed language till the end of the clause that have persisted in the lives of their descendants today, comma, and. Whereas these next two clauses remain unchanged from the original draft, in conducting the eugenics survey the surveyors were granted access to case files from state agencies and institutions and the files were made available to police departments, social workers, educators and town officials. And whereas as a result of the opening of these files, children removed from families individuals were institutionalized or incarcerated, family connections were severed and the sense of kinship and community was lost. And next clause, whereas on June 21, 2019 the University of Vermont issued a formal statement of sincere apology for its unethical and regrettable role, red underlying language in eugenics inspired state policies and practices, revert to the original language and the general assembly on behalf of the state of Vermont should issue a similar policy, now therefore be it resolved by the same House of Representatives. First two resolve clause remain the same that the general assembly sincerely apologizes and expresses its sorrow and regret to all individual Vermonters and their families and descendants who were harmed as a result of state sanction eugenics policies and practices and be it further resolved that the general assembly recognizes that further legislative action should be taken to address the continuing impact of state sanction eugenics policies and related practices of disenfranchisement and ethnic side leading to genocide. That was the original endpoint of the resolution is introduced. The following language, you have it in red, Mr. Chair. I have it in blue but underlined and bracketed. So I have blue bracketed resolved that the general assembly recognizes the need for conscious and deliberate efforts to uplift Abinaki bands and other indigenous people Vermonters of mixed racial or French Canadian heritage the poor and persons with disability among others by creating legislation and state policies to repeal the trust in state government while providing equal representation for all its citizens and be it further in this next language I have it in my version blue and underlined that the general assembly has recognized at least four Abinaki tribes in Vermont and commit and that should be and commit to not, it should have an S at the end, just a technical point and commits to never creating legislation or state policies to cause their extinction or remove their legal status as Indians ever again. You may find that slightly redundant, the ever and ever, never in the ever again but you can discuss that end of resolution. Okay. I'm going to keep this shared screen up for the time being and I'm relying on seeing people's hands go up. Representative Hango. Yes, thank you. Mr. Churnick, I know we have had this discussion in a previous biennium, but I really would like to revisit it because my understanding still isn't quite clear, perhaps that's from being a relatively new member of this body and I know for the other new members of this committee that this would be a helpful discussion. There are a couple of points that I brought up yesterday that we'll talk about in the whereas clauses, which I don't know whether we'll get a firm answer or not, but in the second resolved clause. You're speaking of the second existing resolved clause, the proposed two new clauses? That's correct, resolved that the General Assembly recognized that further legislative action. My question on that, which I know we've discussed in the past and forgive me for bringing it up again is can we really dictate to a future legislature that they need to take further legislative action? Technically no, you cannot. Thank you, and I guess then the final resolved clause would also fall into actually the next two resolved clauses would also fall into that category of whether or not we can dictate to the future legislatures what they need to do. Point of clarification for myself is that that second existing resolved clause, you spoke of that as being one of the original ones, but my recollection of a year ago when we left the state house that there was only one resolved clause. And I think I asked about it the other day and the chair told me that that was likely added in discussions over the off season or perhaps when we were in session in September, I'm not really sure. Can you confirm that? I'd be glad to address that representative Hangel. When I said you are correct that in the 2000 and the winter 2020 to try to distinguish here in the winter 2020 version, the 2019, at 2019, 2020 biennium, there was only one resolved clause, absolutely correct. In the fall of 2020, when I was working with representative Kalaki and we went back and forth literally over, I think a period of about six weeks from the middle of October till little past Thanksgiving. And it went back and forth. And I know representative Kalaki was discussing with different individuals. In the end, representative Kalaki directed me to use that second clause. It was one of the clauses that the committee was considering as a potential addition at the time the general assembly left due to the pandemic. And then I can tell you the word ethnicide, I went over again that with representative Kalaki in the fall of 2020. And he indicated that I should put a draft that was to be introduced in January, 2021. I should use the word ethnicide for the time being. And when I say it's one of the original clauses therefore, it is one of the two clauses that was in JRH2 as introduced this past January, not an original clause of the resolution as introduced during the 2019, 2020 biennium. I hope that helps clarify with me. Mr. Chair, if I may as well. Sure. I just, as you said yesterday, representative Tango, you notice there were other iterations in this as well from the last biennium one that as I worked on it with other stakeholders and other co-signers, we added other things in as well. And you mentioned that yesterday, you appreciated some of those changes. So I, you know, this is actually the one now, the biennium, that one's over. This is reintroduced in this form. That's correct. And I just wanted to clarify which was which because in the winter 2019, 2020 version, and it's escaping me what number resolution it was at this moment, but I was a co-signer and I had agreed with all of the language up through and including the first resolved. And I was so pleased that we had come to an agreement on that and then we were sent home of course and never got to finish it. So I remain in full support of the language up to and including the final, the first resolved clause. But now this opens up so many other questions. Had we left it as it was and tweaked the language that's in red prior to the resolved statements, the resolved clauses, which I agree for the most part with, I think we could have passed this quickly and succinctly and it would have done the job of being a very sincere apology for very regrettable wrongs. But now we have a whole other discussion in front of us. So I will pass this along to my colleagues for further comment. Thank you. Representative Murphy. Thank you, Chair Stevens. I will stay there at the resolves because that's where I think that I would put most of my focus that whereas is will lead attention obviously. I would like to echo the support of just going with a single resolve. My reasoning might be a little bit different other than we can't tie the hands of future legislators. They can always pass statute that even undoes, but I did look up what's in statute for the recognition of the bans and the only way for it to be removed from how I see it because it's stated as recognized in statute for each of the four is that it would have to be legislation that removed it. So it certainly is already I think is tied up as we can make it. And I feel that this as an apology is stronger if we maintain that first resolved. I always feel it gets weakened when there's too many results added. This is apologizing for an action and I think it's strengthened by leaving it with that. And I would also state that, nope, I'm sorry, that's up in one of the whereases. So that's a different. I was looking at the last whereas. So it's not too far up if we could go to that. I would like to offer that I think we should change the word should which you've magically put your cursor almost on and then moved off of in the last bit where it says should issue. I would like to say that we should say wishes to. I think it's stronger. I think it speaks to it being our desire and not something that's being imposed on us. I just feel that it is something we want to do and it should implies that potentially if we weren't being told we had to, we wouldn't which I totally know isn't the situation but just looking at the emotional value of the word I think wishes to issue is much stronger as you lead into what our resolved is. So thank you. Representative Walz. Oh, I want to talk about a different, let me first address what Representative Murphy was just saying, I agree with her that should issue a similar apology is weak. And I would suggest we say issues this apology, strike should issue a similar and just say issues this apology. And we don't have to get into that it's similar to what UVM already did. I wonder to address an issue that we talked about at some length yesterday that's up near the top. Yes, there it is. And there's this business of identifying people here and specifically, do we say the word Abonacchi or not? And my suggestion would be one that is in there, Abonacchi bans and other indigenous people that would be the language I prefer but I would defer to the people being affected. I know Chief Stevens is here. And I know there's a bit of an issue of whether we should include the word Abonacchi whether that's historically correct or not. And my preference would be, let's go with what the affected people want to be called. And so my suggestion, we would say, Abonacchi and other indigenous people but I would like to hear from Chief Stevens and others. How they would like that to be phrased. Let's go to Chief Stevens and others. Are you ready to discuss this? I can't see anybody anymore. Yeah, Rep Stevens, thank you and thank you for the question. It is historically known that Vermont is Western Abonacchi territory. Whether you're part of a recognized band or you're not is immaterial. It's historically accurate that Vermont is Western Abonacchi territory. So to acknowledge the people that actually existed on our homeland is the proper way to go regardless of what was written in the original sterilization bill. You are acknowledging that we still exist that you have recognized Abonacchi people in this territory. And I believe that it would be the logical and proper thing to do than to try to ignore our existence by trying to exclude us out of this bill. So that is my wholehearted feeling. I don't see how anybody could disagree with that. And I do believe though that there are other indigenous people who live in Vermont that are not Abonacchi and you've covered that by saying Abonacchi bands and other indigenous people. So you're encompassing everybody while still acknowledging that this is the traditional homelands of the Abonacchi people. So that's my thought on that. And I have another thought on the resolution questions when you're ready for that discussion. Thank you. Thank you. Further thoughts at this time on the language question that was brought up by Representative Walsh? Yes, Judy. I feel to use indigenous family bands or Abonacchi bands and other indigenous people is harmful, exclusive. And there's inequality there and it's historically inaccurate. As I previously said, there's no mention of Abonacchi, no mention of family bands. However, there is numerous mentions of other tribal people here on Mohawk, Algonquin. And so to put Abonacchi bands and other indigenous people is not something that shows equity. It shows Abonacchi people standing out first and other indigenous people second when in reality the records reflect people of Indian blood, French Indian people and such. And so I think it would be extremely harmful to use anything other than indigenous. I too have comments on other parts of this when you're ready. This is Douglas Bent, Representative Stevens. Can you hear me? Yes, Douglas, and I see your hand, Nancy. I will get to you next. Yeah, I agree with Don that Abonacchi should be in there because most people today in Vermont associate the natives as Abonacchi. And I have in my hand here the Abonacchi and English Dialogue book that was written by Chief Joseph Laurent, Abonacchi Chief in 1884 and spells out all the Abonacchi to English translations. And I can't see how anybody would think that the Abonacchi weren't here, but by the way, I'm a commissioner of the Vermont native main American affairs. So, and I think most of the commissioners feel that way as well. Thank you. Thank you, Nancy Gallagher. Yeah, you need to mute, we can't hear you. Are you able to find your mute button? Okay. There you go. Oh, there you go. Okay. It seems like when I looked at it, it looks like we are trying to couple together two different bills, one dealing with recognizing the four indigenous tribes as Abonacchi. And the other thing that concerns me a little bit of this as a historian is that we're introducing a big anachronism in the second, the last resolve. And that is that the people who were doing the, we are ascribing intention to all the people in the department of public welfare, the Vermont children's society, all these people collecting all this information on certain families and fomenting various interventions in those families. We are assuming, or it reads as though we, that those people did understand those people to be Abonacchi. When in fact, most of the socialists, if they even heard the word, well, it's questionable. Most of them were from the Midwest, Manitoba, Illinois, I doubt if they even knew the words. There's nothing mentioned that they identified those people as a particular tribe or not. And yet we're giving primus to Abonacchi tribes. I think we should leave it at the first result. If you do, if the legislature wants to ascribe intention to the people doing the eugenics policies, they need to put that in a separate resolution and read that I'm afraid. John. Nancy, I lost you a little bit. Are you talking about the first whereas or the final resolve? I'm talking about the final to resolved. Okay. Resolved. So where are you? We have ascribed motive to the people conducting the survey, conducting the against the Abonacchi per se. No, no, I understand that point. I would love your input on the first whereas. Where we're talking about the issue of indigenous family bands or Abonacchi bands and other indigenous people. Then you'll have to say who we now recognize and you should say target to survey members of indigenous family bands, including family bands we now, we recognize today as Abonacchi. You've got to not close bands without any kind of historical evidence. You know, this otherwise it's anachronistic. Do you see what I'm saying? Well, I... You're ascribing it. The implication is that you are ascribing this of all those people doing eugenics surveys and policies that they want to get rid of Abonacchi per se. And incidentally, other people when in fact, sagination and mixed race was a huge item in their studies that's all through it. But certainly poor and people whom they identified or whom they sometimes wrongly ascribe these two were also among those. And we seem to be elevating certain groups, among others that don't have the historical evidence to ascribe those motives. Okay. Or at least I haven't seen it. Maybe it's there, but it's not in the eugenic survey records that are in public records. All right. And then in this right above that, I think I transcribed something incorrectly from you from alleged delinquency, dependency, and was it just deficiency or mental deficiency? Well, Judy and I have talked a lot about this. And there are a lot of, you know, they spoke mostly about, Karkin's would talk about mental deficiency in all his language, you know? He talked about, okay. That's what he would talk about, but you will see other kinds of things that are not a matter of mental deficiency in the eugenics records. You'll see things like immoral. What immoral was then would be living with someone you weren't married to. You got, and that's not a mental deficiency. So if you wanna be more inclusive, the things they were targeting were cultural or behavioral things that had nothing to do with hereditary traits. They claim that these things were hereditary, but we know them to not be. And we knew it at the time, didn't we? Or some people knew it at the, some people weren't there plenty of people who felt like, I mean, part of the problem with these policies by Perkins is that it wasn't accepted by all this claim of science to this way of- No, in fact, the largest opposition was from the Catholic Church to the sterilization law. It was, so it was the Catholic Church and people who were Catholic voiced the strongest opinions against sterilization. They were the organized groups. And if you talk to people who knew Perkins at the time, his particular prejudice, number one, was against Catholic people, of the people I interviewed who were his students who knew him and his colleagues. It's also- We don't mention Catholic in here at all, so I don't know. Okay, no, we don't. I'm gonna go to Mercedes and then to Judy. Thank you. Dow. I agree with Nancy's point. I think we're getting too much into the weeds of who was targeted and to follow up on whether or not they had the evidence. Even if the field workers looked at their own records, they didn't have the evidence. And to say that they had to have been delusional and they could not find information on many of the people they investigated, they knew that, that was in letters that they corresponded with. So they very much misrepresented what they found. In terms of going into this long list, to Nancy's point again, a lot of it was assumed it was on behavior. It was on perceived deficiency. And I hesitate to just say persons with disabilities because a good portion of it was also on physical and mental health, which is not actually disability and health are two very different things. And just going into this long list, a lot of it when they were targeting someone, it was also because they didn't like them. They didn't like the look. They went into the house and they made a judgment about them. So to get into the list, you're really getting into the weeds here. And I think you are missing out on other people who were targeted. In terms of, and I'm, I don't want to make a judgment call on this because I'm not a member of any family that was impacted. But in terms of again, to Nancy's point, going into saying abnacky bans and other indigenous people, the real fact is that they didn't care. The field workers did not care who these people were. They saw them as lesser because they're Indian blood. And they, that's more horrific to me actually as they made a judgment and they didn't care about their cultural facts and their traditions and their family history beyond what they could use to say, let's get rid of these people. And then just an overall comment. I think this committee is making a mistake by starting off with eugenics survey. This apology is about the state sanction eugenics policies. And that didn't start with the eugenics survey. That actually you have governors well before in the two decades before talking about instituting eugenical policies as well as policies that they did actually institute. Those sterilization wasn't legal. There are records of sterilization happening. And then in addition, going back to the former point of separation policies, the institutional officials, so you've got the Waterbury hospital as well as the Brandon training school, they were very much talking about using their institutions as ways to separate families and keep individuals from procreating. That was very well known. It was a public fact. It was reported in the newspapers, you have governors and public officials speaking to that. So to have this starting with the eugenics survey, I think is a mistake. I would really start it off by acknowledging that the state had a history of eugenics before that and that also the work that those officials did very much supported the survey's own work. I totally agree with that. You have to start much earlier. And so thinking in- Sorry, just to- I'm sorry. The eugenics family histories were not the first family histories of this stored in the state. Just to be clear, the institutions had started tracking family histories and talking about how problems may or may not be hereditary well before the eugenics survey and then the eugenics surveys used those family histories. Those were the records that were provided to them. And so being general about this, well, we would need to try to come up with specific language towards that, but along what you're suggesting is along the lines of, whereas the state of Vermont supported policies that led to eugenics. I mean, they weren't called necessarily eugenics, but at the time, based on what I've been reading, but the idea is that there were policies. What you're suggesting is that there are policies that led to the approval of Act 174. So to clarify, the word eugenics, it actually wasn't even, the Sterilization Act of 1931 didn't even use the word eugenics. The word eugenics doesn't actually pop up in a lot of talk about eugenics and by people who recognize themselves as eugenicists. Usually what they were referring to more is preventing procreation. You're talking about more, you have to think of it as more of a technical term. So I would say, you do see policies that reflect the later eugenical policies that go into place in the 1870s and the 1880s. Eugenics obviously wasn't really widespread or formed by that point. So it's a mistake to call that eugenics, but by 1912, I would say the policies that were proposed in the state legislature, those were absolutely eugenics and they were seen as eugenics and then the institutionalization policies of separating families and forcibly preventing people from procreating or living in society were eugenics. So I would say, if you have to have a starting date, I would really push for the 1912 state legislature, the speech that was given and the policies that they looked at. Before that, it's a little bit, there isn't a lot of information about whether, scientists and institutional officials were already beginning to talk about how hereditary, how things may be hereditary. They weren't, it's not necessarily clear if they were aware of the extent they were aware of eugenics because eugenics wasn't a very radical idea nor was it really that original. The idea of bettering the human race that some people didn't deserve to exist wasn't particularly new. I would say the 1912 legislative discussions are a good place to start. John, I'm gonna let Judy, Judy had her hand up previously, Judy Dow. And there you go. I agree with most of what Nancy and Mercedes said, but I know my family has experienced marginalization and being placed on list far before 1912 with the passing of educational laws like mandatory schooling. When you're looking at, that was I think sometime in the 1890s, when you're looking at families of 16 and 20 people, the older children needed to work the land and gather food and babysit for the children. And so making it mandatory to go to the school only began to create the lists to target marginalized people. I'd also like to mention, everybody is talking about getting in the weeds in that first, whereas when you start listing supportive leaders of Vermont State Government and the Vermont Department of Welfare, there are many departments, including the Department of Education that played a role in this. So if you're gonna start listing, you either gotta list them all or you gotta say the Vermont State Government, you can't make a list that's not inclusive because then you cause harm again. So if you're gonna go with a date, you gotta go, I agree, you gotta go much earlier. And I also think that you shouldn't be listing one department when there were many departments. Charlene sent you a timeline of all those things that happened during this period of time. In that same one, the example I get to on the first day included people who were declared defective in a subjective way. My family was the example I gave, 23 people were deemed to have Huntington's career, but there was not one medical report to prove it, not one. And so it was all subjective material. And like Nancy said, it could be LIS living in sin that became the defect, but it could have also been something like diabetes or being blind or having hemorrhoids. There are many, many things. If they just couldn't find a marriage certificate and people were having children together and living together, they were declared defective. So the word mental has to be eliminated because all of the defects were subjective anyways to begin with. Thank you. John. And then I'm gonna go up to Representative Murphy. Mercedes, I'm just trying to make sure I understand the history because we're apologizing as a legislator for our actions, but the 1912 bill was actually vetoed by the governor on advice that it was unconstitutional in Nancy's book. Yes, so there were three things that were proposed. Sorry. So to me, and I'd love to hear that part, but to me, the 1931 bill is actually the thing that we as legislators can apologize in our legislative actions for because the 12 was vetoed and then 25 there was one with the Senate passed but the House did not pass. And so it was not till 31 that actually a wall was passed, exactly. Anyway, my question for you. So to go into the details, there were three policies that were proposed there. One was marriage restrictions. Vermont already had that in the books. The sterilization bill was declared unconstitutional and vetoed. The state legislature did at that time institute a new institution. So that was the Brandon training school that was founded in that by that state legislature. However, the apology here to my understanding this is about state-sanctioned eugenics policies. The facts, the matter is the state did put into place institutions that then carried out eugenical policies and the state never, the legislature didn't quite say, oh, you can go and have people put in institutions based on eugenical, for eugenical reasons but the institutions were doing that. So if you, if this is an apology to say, okay, we're only apologizing for the 1931 bill, which yes, that was really the only thing that legalized eugenics per se, even though that that law never used eugenical language. It used eugenical language. It didn't really mention eugenics. That's one thing I would say though if you're gonna apologize for state-sanctioned eugenical policies and practices, you do need to acknowledge that there were, that the institutions were putting into place eugenical policies that they were institutionalizing people based on perceived degeneracy, perceived behavior, all of that, and that was pretty well known throughout the government. Okay, thank you. Sure thing. Representative Murphy. Thank you, Chair Stevens. I'm gonna try to limit my comments just to the language piece we were speaking of concerning using the Abinaki state, putting Abinaki into the dialogue. And I would look back at our state statutes and the Title I general provisions, Chapter 23, Native American Indian people in those findings. And since this is a document from our body, in those findings, it's stated that the General Assembly finds that at least 1,700 Vermonters claim to be direct descendants of the several Indigenous Native American peoples, comma, now known as Western Abinaki tribes. So I would offer that potentially we could use the language Indigenous Native American peoples, comma, now known as Western Abinaki tribes in this to put our arms around the whole group without neglecting current language for people to understand specifically that we are speaking to folks now who are understood as Native Americans through being titled Abinaki bands. And it stays with our language. So other comments and other parts, but hopefully that just puts something there for us to use in this document that is our statement. Yes, Judy. And then Don. That would be true. If the records reflected all of the people who are in the bands, but they reflected other tribes, Mohawk and Algonquin and Penobska, so to use that terminology would exclude them because they're not known, their families, their descendants are not known as Abinaki today. They're known as whatever they are, Mohawk or whatever. Don. I wasn't saying to leave out the other Indigenous. So I think that we could then include that, but it's a thorny one. Thank you. But then again, putting other Indigenous is not, it's inequitable because the majority, I'm not saying Abinaki people were not in those records they were, but the majority of the people were not recognized today as Abinaki people. They were coming from other Native groups or they were identified simply as French Indian. Okay, Don Stevens. Thank you. I know other reps have their hand up and I'm sorry to cut in, but I just, I'm a little, I don't want to say dumbfounded or a little confused because you're a legislative body of 2021. You are not a legislative body of 1931. There's a lot of things that have happened from 1931 to 2021. And there are a lot more things known than there was. I think you should concentrate on the spirit of what the apology is and what you're trying to do and not try to mold it into 1931 legislative thinking. I think there are things that are known. We know that this is historically Abinaki homelands. We know that the state has recognized that. They've also recognized this legislative body has recognized four Abinaki tribes that had to go through a process and has legally accepted them as Abinaki and this being our homelands. So that's not even shouldn't be disputed. Even my family was affected and I am known as an Abinaki chief in person and it does matter to me that my grandmother is also, she has also been recognized through this process as an Abinaki person and who was listed on the eugenics survey. It may not matter to others or other Europeans who say, well, that they didn't mention Abinaki, but it does matter to us. And that's why UBM used Abinaki as language. I also think that the last resolutions where people are getting hung up, it's like people doing land acknowledgments but not allowing you on the land that they own. Doing an apology without some kind of promise not to do that ever again. How is that disingenuous? Or are you just doing an apology just to do it? But you have no intention of keeping that word of not doing that and not trying to have us go extinct or not doing that physical harm in the future. You have recognized tribes, this legislative body can take that away. Like the other rep had mentioned, it might be a higher threshold, but if the legislator house and Senate got together and wanted to remove our recognition tomorrow, all they would have to do is pass the bill and we'd be extinct. So all we're saying is that you're pretty much kind of promising or you're at least saying that we will do everything we can not to cause you to go extinct again, whether that be physically or legislatively. So it's more of a, we recognize the wrong and the harm that was done and we don't wanna repeat that history again. So we're saying that we're committing not to do that or we're at least attempting to commit. But if you're just saying, I'm sorry, but there's no guarantee that you might not do it tomorrow, then how do our people ever feel that it's a really genuine apology, right? I mean, that's my concern. And I'm just saying it is pretty factual that today in 2021, you know that this is Western Habanaki territory, you know that you have recognized Western Habanaki tribes and it does matter. And I'll leave it at that, but I'm just saying is let's not get stuck in the mindset of 1931, let's get stuck in the spirit of the apology of 2021 and this legislative body moving forward. So that's my only comment, thank you. Shirley, Gallardo. Thank you, Chair Stevens and committee. I have three major sort of comments, each of which have been addressed in one way. So I'd like to say that. And then there are four other edits I would suggest, but those are less important at this point. Speaking to the scope, if you will, of the apology, the title of the resolution and the first statement of resolution resolved at the end, I think say it well. It speaks broadly, right? Apologizing for the harm done by state sanctioned eugenics. It doesn't say a date, it speaks broadly. I think we could easily add a first whereas that addresses from 1912 on, because 1912 as Mercedes, Nancy and Judy in part have mentioned that was critical in a number of ways. The legislature may not have passed a bill about sterilization. I mean, I'm sorry, it may not have been signed by the governor, but it was passed by the legislature. So there were clearly, I mean, many people in the legislature who thought this sterilization bill should happen. And as was said, Brandon was started then and other things. So I think it might be very possible to add just something recognizing that in fact, the state had set up the infrastructure that enabled the 1931 sterilization law to happen. A part of that infrastructure were these institutions. And to follow up on what Judy said earlier in the first part of this, whereas we do have Vermont state government and Vermont Department of Welfare, but they were not alone. I mean, it was also the Department of Education, the State Board of Health. And let's see, yeah, Department of Education, State Board of Health and also the commissioners or every one of those institutions sat on this eugenics advisory board. So it went much further than just the Department of Health. So I think I want to refer you to, I believe you did get the chronology that I sent. I think it was to be sent out last night, which spells out year by year. Let's see, where is it? If you go on down to the second page, I believe, this gives you some sense of the state involvement. This chronology is about what I thought your resolution was going to be about, which is that broader, not just the eugenics survey. And so keep on going. I started listing when did the legislature get involved in authorizing and funding institutions, which in fact were central to the eugenics survey. And so that's what this is, is a compilation. You could go to the next page, please, Chair Stevens. This is where we begin to talk about, in particularly like 1912 acts that were passed, that supported, et cetera. So anyway, all those are states we could certainly add one whereas I think they're in and make a difference. Another point that I want to make, just actually, Chair Stevens, if you want me to wait, this is about the UVM apology. This is about a later whereas. I can wait on that if you'd like. But let me just think. Go ahead. Okay, it's just that the UVM apology actually says something a little bit different than is in the whereas in this resolution. The language, let's see, it's down in the last whereas, I think in JRH2. If we wanted to be actually accurate on this, they didn't apologize for its unethical and regrettable role. The language reads, and this was by the president of UVM. I offer sincere apologies for the suffering that results from this unethical and regrettable role. So they weren't actually even naming their role. They were offering apologies for the suffering and that's actually quite parallel to this resolution which in name and in the first resolution says, we express our sorrow and regret and apologize. So what you're saying is that if you were to expand that it should be a sincere apology for the suffering caused by its unethical and regrettable role. If we are to accurately cite what UVM said, we just need to change that, yeah. Yeah, and while we're at it, I would say eugenics inspired is probably, I think it should just be eugenics state policies not inspired, but that's... I agree with you, I agree with you. And then my last point is really about the resolve clauses. The first, I think does an excellent job of being a clear and concise apology which would make Vermont, by the way, the sixth state out of the 33 that passed sterilization or had eugenics policies to go ahead and do that. I think the second clause, I actually think there needs to be something beyond the first at some point to make the apology more than symbolic. And the symbolism and saying I apologize is important but there needs to be something more than that and so for me the second call for future action is actually what makes this apology more than symbolic however it might be read. I'm sorry, however it might be worded, it leaves open the possibility more. The last two I think are examples of what might be more. They spell out very specific general assembly actions that I think in fact have deep and really wide range in consequences that far beyond eugenics, right? And far beyond a state apology for eugenics. And so I think that that readjust may be needed but I think what would require then is all the groups who are involved in eugenics to be a part of a discussion to figure that out. And that's not, it seems to me that's not where we are right now. We are in fact are talking about issuing an apology and perhaps an opening to doing more. So that's I think the start. I can give you, actually you have the language in the chronology if you do want to add in the first whereas the other departments in state departments in Vermont that were involved. You have that language or I can resend you edits again. No, thank you. And I think what I'm hearing in general is it's been said you either say them all and miss somebody or exclude somebody and or you simply say throughout Vermont state government. Because if I'm not mistaken in my readings as well I think this was in Breeding Better Vermonters was the notion that actually the way state government was organized was changed during this period of time. So that there were, you know, they went from it. There was just a reformation of how government worked and so perhaps under the Department of Welfare came all these different facets of what had existed. We've seen it throughout history happening. So perhaps just by being, you know, saying throughout state government we may achieve what we're seeking rather than trying to pinpoint every department that existed. Representative Walls, then Trinal. Thank you, Chair. You just said something that I think might change a little bit of what I was going to say. Again, I've got a couple of things we can consider. We're having a lot of discussion on the first whereas. So one thing we could do is eliminate it completely and begin with the second whereas or we could stop trying to be specific at all and just saying we apologize for all those adversely affected by, and the other thing I would like to add, you know, this discussion of all the departments and so on. I think, you know, we maybe don't want to try to enumerate as you just suggested all the departments that could be involved because we are apologizing for what we did as a legislature and not necessarily what the executive branch did with their own interpretations of the legislation or even before the legislation. So maybe if we just eliminate any mention of anything the executive branch did. Now I think it would be unfortunate because if we eliminated specifically who was affected and if we eliminated specifically you know, how they were affected, that's not doing, that's doing a disservice, I think, to the people who were impacted by state actions, but it could relieve us of all the discussion we have before us, you know, a simple little resolution and in order to get this something that is more or less agreeable to everyone, maybe we just be less specific. Thank you. Representative Triana. Thank you, Chair Stevens. I kind of touched on where my thoughts were. If I recall, it was 1920 when that reorganization took place where they centralized child welfare from a lot of the town entities and poor farms and individual municipalities and that precipitated concerns of cost in the legislature and that started to tie into the eugenics survey as an alternative to try and eliminate some of these perceived deficiencies that would possibly change that whole aspect and save the state money. I mean, that's kind of the way I read it. I don't know if anyone else remembers that section of Nancy's book, but that's sort of the way I remember reading it. And that's, you know, it just aggravates the whole thing is that, you know, now it's in part driven by unwillingness to care for the citizens through expenditures of state revenues. Okay, and Judy, I saw your hand up. Did you want to respond to something early? And just, and folks, again, because I'm sharing my screen, I can't see everybody. So if you could use the raise hand function that puts you into a queue that I can actually see when I'm trying to moderate this conversation. Judy? Yes, I just wanted to make a comment, Charlene's comment about the UVM apology. I think that whole whereas should just be eliminated because the UVM statement was just that, a statement, the apology was for the suffering. It wasn't apology for their role in the event. And you could make this really strong. And by putting the UVM one in there, it makes it weak again because they didn't apologize for the program they ran. They apologize for the suffering. So I would eliminate that whole thing altogether. Okay, thank you, Representative Bloomley. Yes, thank you, Chair. And thanks everybody for your thinking on all of this. First, I wanted to make a suggestion, perhaps that we ask Nancy and Mercedes to develop language for a first whereas that would acknowledge the history that precedes that first legislation. I, you know, obviously that legislation is rooted in, you know, eons long biases that, you know, express themselves in different ways. So at least going back to 1912 makes a lot of sense to me, so that's one suggestion. I had a question for Michael. So my read of the word should in the second resolved doesn't really commit to picking up on what Don wrote in the chat, but it does not commit the legislature to any specific action, but it is, this assembly's recognition that an apology is the first step in repairing harm. And that, we're not just apologizing for a moment in time, a period of time in which the state pursued and sanctioned and encouraged certain policies. But we, but there are reverberations. There are longstanding generational harms that have resulted from those policies that we have an obligation to address as human beings. And I don't believe the word should. I personally feel that an apology without that second resolved is not meaningful and would have a hard time supporting it. So I guess Michael, I'm asking if that, and I have one other point, I'm asking for your opinion, does the word should actually commit the legislature to future action? And then the last thing, I guess I wanted just to, I wanted to suggest that in that last resolved, one of the things I kept hearing people talk about who offered testimony was the sense of, or the reality of erasure. And I wondered if we wanted to say, include that word in this last line, related practices of disenfranchisement, comma, erasure, comma, and ethnicity, leading to genocide. Because part of what we're talking about, I think, is the erasure of identity, the fear of identifying oneself as indigenous and the loss of culture or a culture gone underground. So, but anyway. Mr. Chair, did you want me to respond? Yes, please. Sure. Again, Michael Churnick, Legislative Council, representative with respect to the should in the second currently existing resolved clause, you are correct. That's not a commitment. That's a statement of hope of aspiration. But if you looked at the proposed, what would now be the fourth resolved clause, the never create and commits to never creating legislation or state policies to cause their extinction or removal, that would be different because that would be binding the legislature in a resolution, binding a future legislature, which a resolution can't do. Well, for that matter, one legislature can't bind the next. But in the existing second resolved, the should is certainly not binding its purely aspirational. Okay, thank you very much. All right. I wanna recognize that we've been at this since 30. John, do you wanna ask one question before we take a break or would you like to wait till after? Well, Chair, I, and this is for Michael, really, because you're such an expert at helping us develop resolutions, Michael, but I also agree with my colleagues about the starting point of 1912, I think Mercedes and Charlene gave some compelling testimony. And in Charlene's timeline that she gave is, I think the language is there for Michael actually to, if you see it, Michael, that you could craft that first whereas to started at that 1912 moment in our history. Mr. Chair and members of the committee, that was, I've already been scribbling here. I'm assuming I can go off the timeline. I would like to cite the statutes and I'm sitting at home and not with the 1912 statute book, which is in my office, but would be easy enough for me to go and get. I suspect I'm looking at language to the effect of discussing the 1912 sterilization bill that representative legislative commitment and also the 1912 legislation that established Brandon. Am I correct on that? Is setting a base? Mercedes, you had thought on that. Sure, so what I would recommend is language that identifies that the legislative body talked about and then passed a bill, two bills about eugenics in 1912. However, having language that also makes note of the fact that eugenics policies were already being discussed at the institutions and that the institutions own policies already had support for eugenics practices such as tracking family histories, making determinations based off those family histories and separating families. So Mercedes, from what I'm hearing from you is while I'll be citing that legislation as concrete examples, I should make a reference to even before these acts were deliberated in 1912, actions were already being taken on family separation that led to that were effectively, that were eugenics, the early examples of eugenics policies, something along that line. It's, yeah, I think it's very difficult to say that this was the exact moment nobody had ever discussed eugenics before. 1912 was the exact moment when the state decided to adopt eugenical policies. So I think both recognizing that they did first discuss it explicitly in 1912, but- There were three curses of it, something along that line. And I'd be happy to weigh in on any language as well after this. Sure. And Michael, there are in Charlene's timeline, there's in 1912, three bills that she cites that you might wanna look at. Well, I certainly can do that. And you have Charlene, you have the, I'm not looking at the timeline right now as I'm looking at the text that's on the screen, but when I'm away from this text and you provided the citations within that timeline, did you not? Yes. Not the legislative, I cited the names of the acts, but not- I had the sites in the office, I certainly could pull those out very easily. Great. They're sitting right by my office, no problem. Michael, look at the 1927 act as well. Yeah, I can do that. I was thinking about that. Great. So the last thing I just do, I just wanna toss this in before we take a break here. One of the original, when I was trying to wrap my head around what an apology meant last year, and we had these conversations, what made this stand out, what made the 1931 bill law stand out was that it was an act done by the General Assembly that was aiming to end lines of people, genetic lines of people that the state disagreed with. All right, and that's why the words ethnicide and genocide are important to this, to me. And I think that, you know, the idea of that is not, I mean, it's here in the resolved, but it is not part of, I mean, it's hard to say this, all of this historical stuff is, I mean, I agree with where the conversation is going with the notion that eugenics didn't start with the 1931, but it aimed to finish the job in some respects. It aimed to say to this group of the, to these, I mean, this is in my head, this is that we were aiming to end the lines of genetics because they were too expensive or they were not sufficient for what we felt our old seed stock should be moving forward. Am I wrong in thinking this way, Mercedes? I would be careful about saying that sterilization was the end all policy. Many of the institutional officials who were supporting the bill recognized that there would never be support for a state sanctioned mass sterilization policy, mostly they saw it as a additional support supplemental assistance to institutionalizing people and basically getting rid of people in the institutions who were what they called higher grade cases where they didn't need everyday support where once they were sterilized, they felt comfortable letting them back out into society. So yes, it was meant to end lines of families, but it was part of an overall policy of separating people and stopping procreation. It was only one of the several tools used. Right, and with the idea that, we'll get back to in the next hour, but I just, I think we need to remember the power of what happened and just remember the outcomes of that and how people felt. And the thing I appreciate about the historical conversation is that it didn't start in the night, it didn't start in 1912. Othering other people in the state of Vermont didn't happen in 1912 only, it started before that. And there's a whole history of emigration that happened of immigration in America. Anyway, that's, we'll pick that up in the second, the second hour or the last hour. Charlene, before we go, one comment and then Michael, I see your hand. Yeah. I wanna agree with Mercedes on that, but also just to note that when eugenics began, it very much was scientific. And in fact, this is why Vermont latched onto it, I think so strongly around animal breeding and it moved into heredity into genetics, but over really by the early thirties and some ways Vermont was behind the curve because there were people recognizing early on that that was pseudoscience, that that was not science. And so what Perkins did, Perkins made a shift. He started very much in that scientific frame of mind, but he also shifted when that became unpopular and he realized he couldn't back that up, he shifted to a more environmental eugenics. And so it became the kinds of homes that people lived in, whether or not the kids had certain kind of schooling, what kind of was a morality in the household and people were removed and institutionalized based on their environments. So it wasn't just the science. Well, actually it became a social science, right? And this is the entree of social workers and all, but it shifted from pure biology and thus sterilization being effective, right? To other kinds of removal and ending. So I agree and it didn't start in 1912 and it didn't end in 1936. Thank you. No, and yeah, and we'll pick up in a minute. Michael, did you have one last comment before we take a break? Yeah, one last quick question, Mr. Chair. If you like, based upon Charlene's lines, while we're not in the meeting, but recognizing I don't have my citations for the statute book in front of me, I could craft out some rough language for a whereas clause if you wanna look at it when you come back. That's fine. We're gonna be here till roughly noon. So take your time and we will, we're gonna continue working on it. So if you can write something that we can discuss, then we'll get it on screen eventually. Mr. Chair, I'd be glad to, but with the understanding it won't have the citations in it because I would need to be in my office to do that. Yeah, no, absolutely. Absolutely. And Representative Hango, I'll give you the last word, please before we take a break. Just very quickly. Do we have a consensus that we want Mr. Churnick to go through this extra step? Well, let's just see. I'm gonna stop the share for a minute, look at everybody and say, did we want Michael to do this? Thumbs up, thumbs down, please. Okay, so there is a consensus that we wanna see Michael propose language that we can review either today or the next time we take this up, which maybe as soon as tomorrow. But I really need to take a break. I need to get some eye drops. Okay.