Republican Gov. Phil Scott on Tuesday evening allowed two bills to go into law without his signature: one that bans unserialized firearms and another that aims to make it easier for employees to organize unions.
S.209 prohibits Vermonters from possessing unserialized firearms, which are nicknamed “ghost guns.” Such guns are often assembled from kits available for purchase online, and or can be built using a 3D printer. The result, according to gun control advocates, is a firearm which subverts the state’s background check process. And with no serial number, law enforcement groups have said, ghost guns are difficult to trace when they’re used in crimes.
The legislation does not prohibit home-built guns, but it does require that a Vermonter with an unserialized gun take it to a licensed firearms dealer, who can then conduct a proper background check and inscribe a serial number onto the weapon. It also establishes higher penalties for anyone who commits a crime while in possession of an unserialized firearm.
Lawmakers in the final weeks of the legislative session also added a provision into S.209 prohibiting the possession of guns in polling places. The measure is intended to protect voters as they cast their ballots, legislators said at the time.
Despite questioning the bill’s “practicality and impact,” Scott wrote in a letter to legislators on Tuesday that he was allowing the bill to take effect because, “As a public safety measure, I agree firearms should be serialized.”
To allow a bill to go into law without a signature is a middle-ground approach available to the governor — in between striking it down with a veto and endorsing it with a signature. Scott holds the record for issuing the most gubernatorial vetoes in state history: 46.
“Again, while my concerns on the practical impacts and enforceability keep me from signing this bill, I’m allowing it to go into law because I understand the fears behind access to untraceable firearms and respect the effort to tailor the scope and exceptions to limit impact for law abiding citizens,” Scott concluded in his Tuesday letter.
The Vermont Federation of Sportsmen’s Clubs, a vocal voice for gun rights in the Legislature that has previously sued Vermont over prior gun control measures, opposed S.209 throughout the legislative session. The federation’s president, Chris Bradley, wrote in an email to VTDigger Tuesday evening that Scott’s decision “did not surprise us.”
Asked whether the federation plans to sue the state over S.209, Bradley wrote that the group will allow currently pending cases — challenging Vermont’s high-capacity magazine ban and its waiting period laws — to “play out” in court “before we challenge other unconstitutional laws.”
“It is shameful that Vermonters have to sue to obtain rights which should have never been infringed upon in the first place,” Bradley wrote, “and it is sad that Vermonters are paying the (attorney general) to defend these unconstitutional infringements, and then have to repay our legal fees when, not if, we win.”
In a statement celebrating the bill’s passage into law Tuesday, Senate President Pro Tempore Phil Baruth, D/P-Chittenden Central, described the legislation as a matter of broad consensus. “No Vermonter should be able to 3D print a gun in their basement — or order a ready-to-assemble gun kit off the internet — without acquiring a serial number and a background check for that weapon. Vermonters of all political parties can agree on that.”
With Scott’s action on Tuesday, Vermont is now the 14th state to regulate ghost guns, according to the gun control advocacy group Everytown for Gun Safety.
Also on Tuesday, Scott allowed S.102 to go into law without his signature. The law aims to make it easier for certain workers, such as public sector employees, to organize labor unions. Before passing the bill, lawmakers scrapped a provision that would have allowed agricultural workers to unionize.
S.102 also prohibits employers from forcing their workers to attend meetings with religious or political messages — such as messages aimed at union-busting. It was this piece of the bill that raised alarm bells for Scott, he wrote to lawmakers on Tuesday.
“One concern with the bill is the potential to adversely impact the employer-employee relationship by limiting an employer’s ability to communicate their point of view on a range of issues, including the advantages and disadvantages of unionization,” he wrote.
Scott in his letter also said he is “concerned that S.102 is a slippery slope to future disruptions in the employee-employer relationship in agriculture, domestic services and independent contracting as well as any local businesses and non-profits working solely within state lines.”
Still, Scott allowed the bill to become law, saying that his worries are appeased by the National Labor Relations Act, which “will help limit the adverse impacts of this bill on the private sector.”
Read the story on VTDigger here: Phil Scott allows ‘ghost guns,’ union organizing bills to become law without his signature.