Tag: Vermont

Election Integrity Expert Says States Need to Stop Non-Citizens Voting: America Doesn’t Know the Extent of the Problem

Zachery Schmidt

An election integrity expert told The Tennessee Star that states need to start taking steps to prevent non-citizens from voting in their elections. “I think states need to make it clear in their constitutions that you have to be a citizen to vote in all elections in the state to prevent local school boards, local town councils, and others from legalizing alien voting,” said Hans von Spakovsky, manager of the Election Law Reform Initiative.

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Democrats Draw Backlash, Suspicion over Opposition to Hill Republicans’ Citizen-Only Voting Bill

Just the News
House Minority Whip Katherine Clark

Democrats’ opposition to the passage of GOP-led congressional legislation that would require proof of citizenship to vote in federal elections is drawing backlash and suspicion.

“Why are Democrats so adamantly against ensuring only American citizens vote in our elections?” GOP House Speaker Mike Johnson asked Monday on X above a repost of a Fox News story on such opposition.

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Vermont Blocked Christian Families From Fostering Over Gender Ideology, Lawsuit Alleges

Virginia Star Staff
Michael and Rebecca Gantt

A new lawsuit alleges that Vermont blocked two families from fostering children, despite the state’s foster care system crisis, because the families held traditional, religious views on gender and sexuality.

Brian and Kaitlyn Wuoti and Michael and Rebecca Gantt accused the Vermont Department for Children and Families of mandating an “ideological position at the expense of children” in a lawsuit filed Tuesday. Both Brian Wuoti and Michael Gantt are pastors, and both families hold traditional, Christian religious views.

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Democrats Deny Non-Citizens are Voting in Federal Elections While Republicans Seek to Prevent It

Just the News
Rep. Joe Morelle

Democrats claim that non-citizen voting doesn’t occur while Republicans and most states are trying to ensure that only U.S. citizens vote in elections.

As states are adopting constitutional amendments to prevent non-citizens from voting and Republicans are raising the alarm about the issue as more evidence has been presented, Democrats insist that it is not a concern because non-citizens are not voting in U.S. elections.

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Biden Admin Reports Over 3 Million Illegal Aliens Cross America’s Borders in Single Year

Virginia Star Staff

For the first time ever, U.S. border agents encountered over 3.2 million illegal aliens on America’s borders in a single fiscal year, a number that is greater than the combined population of Hawaii, Alaska, and Vermont.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection, or CPB, reported Saturday that agents encountered 3,201,144 illegal immigrants at or between ports of entry to the country between October 1, 2022, and September 30, 2023. (The federal government’s fiscal year runs from October through September.)

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National Pro-Life Group Sues Vermont for ‘Unconstitutional Attack’ Against Pregnancy Care Centers

Susan Berry, PhD

The National Institute for Family and Life Advocates (NIFLA), in conjunction with two Vermont pregnancy centers and their attorneys at Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), have filed a complaint against the state of Vermont “for the unconstitutional attack launched against pregnancy centers in the state” resulting from a law that “suppresses the free-speech rights of faith-based pregnancy centers,” ADF said in a press release.

ADF attorneys filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday that describes the case as “a challenge by pro-life pregnancy services centers and their membership organization to a state law that unconstitutionally restricts the centers’ speech and provision of services.”

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10 States to Sue EPA for Not Updating Wood Stove Emission Standards

Just the News

Ten states and a regional government clean air agency plan on suing the Environmental Protection Agency for allegedly failing to update emission standards for wood-burning stoves, allowing high-emission stoves to still be sold.

The mostly Democratic state attorneys general filed a notice of intent to sue the EPA last week.

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Drug Manufacturers, CVS, Walgreens Settle Another Opioid Lawsuit with 22 States for $17.3 Billion

The Center Square

Thirteen attorneys general announced settlements with opioid manufacturers Teva and Allergan on Friday, while 18 states settled with CVS and Walgreens for a total of $17.3 billion.

The attorneys general said settlement funds will start flowing into state and local governments by the end of this year and will be used for prevention and treatment of opioid addiction.

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Progressive Activists, Officials Work to Extend Voting to Prisoners, Noncitizens to Expand Base

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by Fred Lucas   Inmate voting, noncitizen voting, and even mandatory voting have been among the initiatives pushed in Democrat-led jurisdictions this year to expand their voting base. “The Left wants to normalize voter classes that nobody took seriously a generation ago—criminals, foreigners—to help them win elections,” J. Christian Adams, president of the…

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Advocates Warn of ‘Desperate’ Movement to Undermine the Electoral College

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An organization’s efforts to circumvent states’ rights are “getting desperate” as they try new ways to push their interstate compact through state legislatures, two pro-Electoral College advocacy groups told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The National Popular Vote (NPV) is a group initiative to reform the U.S.’ two-step, Electoral College system by ensuring that the candidate with the most popular votes nationwide becomes the president. Now that NPV has enacted its interstate compact in all of the “easy,” bluer states as a standalone bill, it is getting creative to force the law through in swing states like Minnesota, Nevada, Michigan and Maine, Trent England of Save Our States and Jasper Hendricks of Democrats for the Electoral College told the DCNF.

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College That Celebrated Student Riot Is Being Sued for Canceling Benefactor as Eugenics ‘Mastermind’

Just the News

A New England liberal arts college that celebrated a student riot that sent a professor to the emergency room then allegedly incentivized students to continue disrupting events, defamed one of its most famous sons to justify its unlawful removal of his family name from the campus chapel he paid to build, according to a lawsuit by his estate.

Though John Mead was a Civil War veteran, doctor, philanthropist and Vermont governor who promoted “clean energy,” women’s suffrage and the humane treatment of mental patients, Middlebury College falsely portrayed the alum as “the mastermind” of a eugenics movement that resulted in Vermont’s sterilization law long after his death.

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Catholic Civil Rights Group Condemns State Legislation to Force Priests to Break Seal of Confession

Susan Berry, PhD

Bills in the states of Vermont, Delaware, and Washington would include in mandatory reporting laws information about child sexual abuse a priest learns during the Sacrament of Reconciliation, a move the Catholic League states lacks sound reasoning.

Last week Catholic League President Bill Donohue warned the “seal of confession” is “under fire” in Vermont, noting the Catholic civil rights organization is once again “doing battle with lawmakers who want to violate” the priest-penitent privilege, mostly in legislation concerning the sexual abuse of minors.

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Eighteen State AGs Voicing Support for New York Gun-Industry Liability Law

The Center Square

A coalition of 18 state attorneys general, all Democrats, on Wednesday submitted an amicus brief in support of New York’s firearms industry accountability law.

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Grassroots Parents Organization Files Complaints Claiming Discrimination in Schools Separating Students Based on Race

Susan Berry, PhD

Parents Defending Education (PDE), a grassroots parental rights organization, filed three complaints Tuesday with the Biden Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) that allege discrimination in schools that formed “racial affinity” groups or “community circles” to separate students based on their race.

The complaints allege that discrimination occurred in schools in Oregon, Maine, and Vermont where students were organized according to their race, which, the complaints argue, is in violation of the 14th Amendment.

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Illegal Entries into Vermont Surge in November

The Center Square

Foreign nationals illegally entering the U.S. are increasingly entering through Vermont at an unprecedented rate.

In October, the Swanton Sector of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which includes all of Vermont, saw a 676% increase in apprehensions of illegal foreign nationals compared to last year, according to Border Patrol data. Agents apprehended 334 people from 19 countries in October, and the “upward trend continues,” Swanton Sector Chief Border Patrol Agent Robert Garcia said.

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Vermont Sees Almost 700 Percent Increase in Illegal Immigrant Apprehensions

The Center Square

While record numbers of foreign nationals continue to enter the U.S. through the southern border every month, one of the tiniest states by geography and population is also being impacted by the surge: Vermont.

Mexican cartels are now increasingly flying foreign nationals who arrive in Mexico from all over the world to Quebec from Mexico City, Border Patrol and law enforcement officers told The Center Square. Cartel scouts help them make their way from Canada into northern states illegally, they said. Vermont, which is seeing record-breaking illegal entries, has a population of roughly 645,545 people.

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Vermont Backs Down on Religion-Free School Choice after SCOTUS Knocks Down Maine Policy

Just the News

Vermont families that want to send their children to religious schools will no longer be excluded from the state’s tuition benefit program, as a result of legal settlements in two cases brought by the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF).

The plaintiffs who were denied funding under the Town Tuition Program, which provides tuition for students who live in areas without local public schools, will get reimbursement for money spent out of pocket on tuition. Other families denied funding can apply as well.

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Google Agrees to Nearly $400 Million Settlement with 40 States over Location-Tracking Probe

Just the News

Google agreed to a $391.5 million settlement with 40 states after an investigation found that the tech giant participated in questionable location-tracking practices, state attorneys general announced Monday.

Connecticut Attorney General William Tong called it a “historic win for consumers.”

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Early Returns Show Voters in Five States Defending Abortion-Related Measures

Susan Berry, PhD

In the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision that returned the question of abortion limits back to the states, unofficial election results in five states show voters opted to codify abortion as a constitutional right, defend expanded access to abortion, and deny lifesaving care to infants born alive despite an abortion attempt.

More than 133,000 Vermont voters – about 72 percent – appear to have supported a ballot measure that made the state the first to enshrine abortion in its constitution. Nearly 42,000 voters, or about 22 percent, voted against the measure, while 9,000, or about 5 percent, left the ballot question blank, The Hill reported.

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Democratic Secretaries of State Warn ‘Independent State Legislature Theory’ Would Upend Elections

The Center Square

Thirteen Secretaries of State led by Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold filed an amicus brief with the United States Supreme Court in Moore v. Harper, a case that will have the court considering the “independent state legislature” theory.

The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Moore v. Harper in December, a case brought forth after the Republican-controlled North Carolina Legislature adopted a new congressional voting map based on 2020 Census results. A group of Democratic voters and nonprofit organizations alleged the map was a partisan gerrymander that violated the state constitution and challenged it in court, according to Ballotpedia.

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Suspended Vermont Student and Coach Father Sue School District for Retaliating After Complaint About Biological Male in Girls’ Locker Room

Susan Berry, PhD

A Vermont high school volleyball player who was suspended from school and her father, the team’s coach, who was suspended from his job, are suing the school district for retaliating against them following their complaint about the policy that allows biological males in the girls’ team locker room.

Blake Allen, 14, a student at Randolph Union Middle School, and her father, Travis Allen, who coaches his daughter’s volleyball team, spoke out against a biological male, claiming to be female, being allowed in the girls’ team locker room while they were changing. Now, the family is suing the school district after Blake was suspended and Travis was fired from his job, asserting the district retaliated against them, the Daily Signal reported Thursday.

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Vermont High School Girls Volleyball Team Banned from Locker Room After Objecting to Trans Player’s Presence

Susan Berry, PhD

The Randolph Union High School girls’ volleyball team in Vermont was reportedly banned from its locker room after some girls on the team objected to the presence of a biological male, who claims to be female, while the girls were changing clothes.

School officials, WCAX-TV reported, banned the girls from their locker room because Vermont’s policy states transgender athletes can participate on sports teams and use the private facilities consistent with their chosen gender.

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Vermont Poised to Become First State to Guarantee Right to Abortion in its Constitution

Susan Berry, PhD

With support from its Republican governor, Vermont is on a course to become the first state in the nation to guarantee a right to abortion and contraception in its constitution.

The Vermont House voted 107-41 for Proposition 5, a proposed amendment that would guarantee sexual and reproductive freedoms to Vermonters once it is placed on the ballot and voters give their support in November.

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State Attorney Generals Launch Investigation into Instagram’s Effects on Kids

Admin
Young person on Instagram

A bipartisan coalition of state attorneys general launched a probe into Instagram on Thursday to examine whether the company violated state-level consumer protection laws.

The states are investigating whether Meta (formerly known as Facebook), which owns Instagram, promoted the image-sharing platform “to children and young adults” despite being aware of its negative effects, according to statements from the attorneys general. The probe cites internal Facebook communications and research leaked by former Facebook employee Frances Haugen and published by The Wall Street Journal showing Meta was aware that use of Instagram could contribute to body image and mental health issues among teens.

“When social media platforms treat our children as mere commodities to manipulate for longer screen time engagement and data extraction, it becomes imperative for state attorneys general to engage our investigative authority under our consumer protection laws,” Republican Nebraska Attorney General Doug Peterson said in a statement.

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Patrick Leahy, Vermont Senator Since 1975, Announces Retirement

Virginia Star Staff

Vermont Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy announced his retirement Monday morning in his home state.

Leahy, 81, was first elected in 1975 and is in his eighth term. He is the president pro tempore of the Senate, making him third in the line of presidential succession after Vice President Kamala Harris and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and he is the chamber’s longest-serving member.

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