Secretary of State Sarah Copeland-Hanzas, joined by Gov. Phill Scott, speaks at a pre-election press conference in Montpelier on Tuesday, October 29, 2024. Photo by Glenn Russell/VTDigger“A dangerous step.”Speaking to reporters this week with her colleagues from two other states, Vermont Secreta ry of State Sarah Copeland Hanzas used those three words to describe a federal bill that would require people to show documents proving their U.S. citizenship when registering to vote. She said the SAVE Act, which passed the U.S. House Thursday with support from Republicans and four of the chamber’s Democrats, could lead to millions of Americans being disenfranchised.GOP leaders say the bill is meant to keep noncitizens from voting. Among other measures, it would require people to prove citizenship using an ID plus another form of documentation, such as a birth certificate or passport. But that could make it harder for married women, whose last names are often different from their names at birth, to register to vote, Copeland Hanzas said. She was speaking about the legislation on a joint video call Thursday morning with the secretaries of state in Maine and Colorado, both of whom are also women.“They bring out the SAVE Act and cloak it in this rhetoric of ‘election integrity,’ when what it really does is, it pushes women out of the democratic process. And it’s not a coincidence,” Copeland Hanzas said. “It’s part of a strategy to make voting harder — to sow distrust in our elections.”Vermont’s Democratic U.S. Rep. Becca Balint voted against the bill, saying in a video posted to her social media channels this week that it could also “put voting out of reach” for some married women because of the cost of getting a new birth certificate that would reflect their name change. The legislation now heads to the U.S. Senate, where it faces an uncertain future as Republicans’ majority is too slim to overcome a filibuster that would almost certainly block its passage.At the same time, though, President Donald Trump — who’s made election integrity a signature issue — called for a citizenship requirement in a sweeping executive order last month, which also included other election-related changes. The order is now facing several court challenges, including a multistate lawsuit of which Vermont Attorney General Charity Clark is a part. It’s the eighth lawsuit against the Trump administration Clark has signed onto in recent months.It is already illegal for noncitizens to vote in federal elections, and according to NBC News, the practice is extremely rare. (Three Vermont cities — Montpelier, Burlington and Winooski — allow noncitizens to vote in local elections, a practice that has nevertheless been upheld in court.)“Even viewed in the most charitable light, this is a solution looking for a problem,” Clark said in a press release announcing the litigation last week, adding she is “deeply troubled by this naked attempt to disenfranchise voters.”The lawsuit, brought by Democratic attorneys general in 18 states other than Vermont, is pending before a federal judge in Massachusetts. — Shaun RobinsonIn the knowA decades-long effort to increase wild lake trout stock has recorded a rare conservation victory this month: The native species has been restored to Lake Champlain.The Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department marked its final stocking effort this March and April by releasing more than 20,600 hatchery-raised fish in the Burlington waterfront and off ferries in Charlotte and Grand Isle, department officials said Friday.Severely affected by overfishing and habitat destruction in the 1800s, the lake trout in the lake have benefitted from a restoration program that cooperating fish and wildlife agencies have run since the 1950s.“They did all the steps and then nature took over and the fish started to survive and recruit since,” said Ellen Marsden, professor emeritus at UVM who has researched lake trout for decades. “There are still some scientific puzzles but it’s an incredible success story for a management group.”Read more about the restoration of wild lake trout in Lake Champlain here. — Auditi GuhaOn the moveAfter a night of closed-door dealmaking and a day of public debate, the House passed its education reform bill Friday.The vote came after weeks of Republican opposition to the legislation, criticized by GOP representatives and Gov. Phil Scott for an implementation timeline two years slower than what the governor’s administration proposed. Ultimately, most Republicans, as well as some rural Democrats, opposed the legislation — which passed 87-55. “I come from a rural community that will lose vital, small, wanted, local schools, both public and independent, if this bill moves forward in its current form,” Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun, D-Westminster, said on the House floor. “I voted ‘no’ to preserve small local schools.”The bill, H.454, proposes massive changes to Vermont’s school governance and finance systems that would phase in over multiple years, including school district consolidation, class-size minimums and the creation of a new education funding formula. The legislation has drawn support from the organizations representing Vermont’s superintendents, principals and school board members. Read more about the bill’s passage in the House here. — Ethan WeinsteinAlso on Friday, the Senate gave preliminary approval to H.259, which adds to other recent efforts to reduce workplace violence in hospitals. The bill would require the state’s hospitals to put security plans in place for “managing aggressive behaviors,” to train staff in defensive tactics and to collect data on the incidents of violence that occur.— Kristen FountainVisit our 2025 bill tracker for the latest updates on major legislation we are following.Read the story on VTDigger here: Final Reading: Vermont leaders pan GOP-led federal voter ID bill. ...read more read less