 government operations on Tuesday, January, right, June 9th. And we're the first thing we're going to do so that we can allow people to leave who don't need to sit through with us for a long time. I'm hoping that Senator Hardy will join us. She said she would be done hopefully by one and then she has another meeting at 2.30. But I just want to say and committee members, I don't know if you agree with this or not, but I think that when Senator McCormick brought up the issue this morning about the difference between the office and the officer, I think that it suddenly gelled for me and I did write a note to Ruth because the way I read it, it referred to the officer and her intent was to refer to the office. So I think that with his guidance there to look at that difference, I think we have a solution. And did the committee, did everybody get the proposed amendment that Betsy and Damien worked on? No. We'll look it up. I emailed it at some point this morning and then I, huh, yes. Well, some of us stood up and went and had lunch and sorry, haven't been on email. Is this the thing that says powers? See powers? The provost. Yes, but then, but then there's from Chief Brackell, I thought I forwarded that to everybody. Yes, you did. It's right here. You did. On powers. He suggested changing powers to law enforcement authority. If you look at Chief Brackell's suggestion. Yeah. And Senator Bray, did you get that? Just I sent it a little while ago. No, I'm sorry. I just connected through. Pardon me. Okay, so if you look in your email, Gail, you could post it. I did send it to you. No, I don't think I have received it. I received the chief's change, but not any new amendment. Is that correct? Well, that's the, that's, that, that is the amendment. Okay. Right. I will post that. With his, with his. It's not in a draft form from the attorneys. It's just his language, correct? No, we haven't drafted an official amendment yet. This is just a possible language that's been circulated. Okay. So, but I can share. I can send you a document. If you would like. I just have to leave it blank because I haven't gotten clearance from Senators Hardy and Parchel like to draft it as a substitute amendment yet as I'm sure you're all familiar. Everyone's been running around since the floor this morning. So, but I'll send you something in a minute, Gail, so that you can post it. Chair, Madam Chair. Yes. Are you referring to, for the thing that you're, there's a lot of traffic. I know. Account. Is it the language from Chief Brachel that you're looking at? Yes. Thank you. Yes. The language came from Damien. And then Chief Brachel had one comment and he said, instead of using power, which is highlighted, use law enforcement authority. So the amendment did not come from Chief Brachel. It came from Damien, but with the suggested change by chief, the chief. Yeah. If you fall, scroll down, you'll see Damien's email to him. Thank you. So, oh, there is Senator Hardy. Thank you. Thank you. So Senator Hardy, we were just talking about how with the, I think very astute observation this morning by Senator McCormick. We were talking like this. You, you were intending the office and the way I read it and the way others read it was, it talked about the officer. So I think that we have some. Suggested language here from Damien. And I think you got that. Yes, I did. I did. I don't have it in draft form, but I have an email. Right. Yeah. Right. Yeah. And also then there was the. Suggestion from Chief Brachel. And I think I'm pretty sure I forwarded that to you also that instead of using power in the, like the third to last word or something to use law enforcement authority. I don't see Ruth on your email. So I'm going to forward it to Ruth. I just sent Senator Hardy a version of that language. I just, I'm looking at it now. So he wants to change exercising the powers. Is that long to law enforcement authority instead of using your power. Oh, I see. Okay. So it would read exercising law enforcement authority granted to officers working in that agency. I would defer to Damien and that's the end if they think that makes sense. It seems fine to me, but that's the end is nodding. So. And Damien is also, and his mouth is also moving. Yes. I think that that language works. If anything, it's, it's more clear and I'm, I'm 99 and a half percent certain that that's the agrees with me there. Her opinion is the more important one here. I am agreeing with Damien. I think that's a more specific reference to what, what the point of the amendment is. Yeah. So. With that, if, if this were to be the, we will leave that to Senator Hardy and Senator Perchley. But if this were to be the amendment that was offered, where is the committee on it? Brian. I'm fine with it. Anthony. Excuse me. It's fine. Allison. I am grateful for all the senators and the surprising things they bring to our conversations and how they all help clarify things. And yes, I would say that this is a, this is great. And I'm glad we've come to a resolution. Chris. Chris. Can, so I was emailing you folks this morning. I was talking about taking, you know, two laps around three. So can someone now. Could the chair now. Explain. The goal of this additional provision. And what it is that we're. We're going to be able to. Ensuring. Ensuring that it will happen and ensuring that it will not happen. So in my. The way I view this and Damian and Betsy, you can tell me if I'm wrong. But why I suggested that we look at. The issue that was posed to us by Senator McCormick. Around the difference between looking at. I think that we were looking at it in two different ways here. And the, in my, in my opinion, we probably don't need to say that the provost Marshall can only act as a provost Marshall within the guard because the provost Marshall as such has no authority. Upon civilians, but to make it clear. That the provost Marshall can only act as a provost. Here it says that that office can only be used within the National Guard. And if the person is a certified officer and they're engaged with another law enforcement agency. They have all the right, the. Law enforcement authority. Conferred upon them by being a level three. That they would have. The law enforcement officers. Would have. You know, we have a lot of questions here, the office and the officer. Is that what you're concerned was Chris. No, I'm just trying to see what we're addressing. So it is. What in real life, what does it mean? Yeah. I mean, is this mean someone who's not a law enforcement officer in the state of Vermont? Otherwise. It comes a provost Marshall or assistant. might have been construed as having power to act outside of the guard in a law enforcement capacity. Was that the concern that now we're hedging building walls around it to hand that in? No, my concern was that by putting that language in, it wasn't specific enough to the role of the provost Marshall, the role of it. And what it did is it limited the person from exercising law enforcement authority outside of the guard in a law enforcement position. Right, so I got it. Like a member of the guard happens to be a member of Montpelier PD. Yes. That would have messed up their ability to be a member of Montpelier PD as originally drafted. So the way I read it. OK, right, created a problem. But for someone who's not a law enforcement officer, who's a member of the guard, was the concern that's now precluded by the new language that they might have acted in a law enforcement capacity outside of the guard. Like the language was too permissive. Is that what was driving this? I really am having a little trouble understanding what was driving the additional definition. Ruth, do you want to respond to that? Yeah, thank you, Jeanette. First, may I ask you? I think Senator Perchlich just emailed me and asked me if he should join or could join. He could, yes. Gail, would you send him an invite? Thank you. And second, so I just want to step back once to answer your question, Senator Bray. My original concern and why I liked this amendment that I believe you all came up with in the first place, and then I kind of took it over, was that I wanted to make it clear that the provost-martial duties were for the guard only, within the guard, and that those duties wouldn't be exercised in a civilian capacity. So that was my concern. And it was the concern with the position of not the person. And that's where I think Senator White and I got confused with each other. And this way we're all communicating right now makes it even worse. But to your point about if the individual is a law enforcement agent, so if they are a mob healer police officer and the provost-martial, those are two separate positions. They have duties for one and duties for the other. They can do both. They just don't want to cross the streams too much. This makes it clear that there are separate positions. If your scenario where somebody is not a law enforcement agent in Vermont, but comes and joins the National Guard and becomes the provost-martial, then that would be fine, as long as they have the training and the ability to be that position, then they would just be the provost-martial. And there wouldn't be a concern about that person having duties outside of the guard. So it has always been about the position, not the person. And it's just gotten confused. And I believe just to add to that, thanks Ruth. If the person in your case here came to Vermont, joined the guard, became certified as a level three officer and was the provost-martial, but was not connected to any outside law enforcement agency, that person would not have a statewide level three authority. Because in order to be a certified law enforcement agent officer, you have to be connected to a law enforcement agency in order to carry out those duties and that authority. Am I right with that, Betsy? So you can't have this row level three person running around there being a law enforcement agent officer without belonging to an agency. Right. The way that our law enforcement officer's certification is set up is that a person has to be employed by a law enforcement agency in order to exercise law enforcement authority. Obtaining that level three certification is the ability to exercise law enforcement authority, but you have to do so. You can't just hang out a shingle and be a private law enforcement officer. You have to be connected with an agency. And so if the provost-martial decided not to be connected to an outside agency or the provost-martial became a was a full-time job so that that was their only responsibility, they would that person would not have law enforcement authority outside of that position because they're not connected to another agency. Does that answer, Chris? Pretty much other than it, for me, it brings up the question of if this is already inherent in the law, why do we need to say anything right here? Like what did we just add if it was already inherent in the law? I think that it was added to make it clear that there's a difference between the office and the officer here and that the officer were they employed by a law enforcement agency, it does not impede their ability to exercise their law enforcement authority outside of, in that capacity. It could be considered a belts and suspenders or like I like to say boots and suspenders. Why, I don't know, but yeah, Ruth. Yeah, thank you for saying that, Jeanette. I was like resisting that terminology, but and also, Chris, just to be clear, I mean, one of the reasons that this was a concern for me is because we are creating two new positions, law enforcement positions. It sounds like the intent of the action in general is that they would be filled by existing law enforcement officers, but in the future, they could be full-time positions. And just to make it clear for future people who may be involved with these positions that these are positions for within the guard only not civilian positions. Does that answer everybody's questions? I think that, and I can't tell you, I was very grateful to Senator McCormick this morning for pointing out that we were talking about two different things here, the office and the officer, and making that very clear in my mind. And maybe no one else was confused by that. And if so, I apologize for confusing the issue, but I did not read it as related to the office, but to the officer, so. I think it was clarifying and that was helpful. I hadn't thought about the distinction either. And so the minute he said it, it was great. I thought it was very helpful. And I appreciate our taking the time to do this now. Okay, so it will be up to Senator Hardy and Senator Purchlich. Has he joined us? Senator Purchlich, are you with us? Can my mind string a little slower than yours? So I think just I wanna check this out. This is really maybe reading between the lines, but I wanna make sure I'm not missing something or the idea that we're adding officers right now is that part, I mean, I'm almost feeling like that's a problem that's behind some of this additional language. The notion of adding officers. And I think in part because there's a social context of concern about law enforcement at the moment and choices that some members of law enforcement agencies make. But so I wanna make sure I'm not hearing that but it's not quite explicit. Is that part of the concern that there should be no hiring right now? I don't know, I'll let Ruth answer that. Yeah, I mean, so Chris, yes. I mean, part of my concern was that in just one second Damien, I was emailing you, you can share that with the committee if you want. It's hard to do two things at the same time. Yeah, so part of my concern was that right now we are in a moment in time when there's a lot of concern about the role of police in our society. And so that was a red flag for me last week when this bill came up on the floor. It was a bill that creates two new law enforcement positions. And so I wanted to make sure that first of all that the positions worked on an issue that was a concern with the guard, namely the sexual assault and harassment issue, which that was the first part of the amendment. And then the second was to make it abundantly clear that these positions were internal to the National Guard and that in fact, they would be used to make sure that the National Guard and the members of the Guard were acting appropriately and not breaking the law. And that's a good thing. It's sort of internal. And I think Senator Clarkson mentioned this on the floor today, but to make it clear that these are not civilian law enforcement, they're not, they don't have duties. These positions don't have duties outside the Guard. The people might, but that's a different issue. It was like the physicians don't have duties outside of the Guard. And so the creation of two new law enforcement positions is for the purpose of making sure that our law enforcement and our military are behaving well. And that's a good thing, especially today. So that was really what was behind this and the confusion about the people and the positions. It's unfortunate that it got this long before we figured that out. And I'm just grateful to Senator McCormick for pointing that out. Does that help you, Senator Bray? Sure. I mean, I think, you know, what I worry is that it feels, and maybe this is, to say this way, it feels a little negative from the side of being concerned about hiring anyone into law enforcement at the moment, we worked for years to get a special investigation unit in Addison County. And those were hires that we fought for. So to be sort of tapping the brakes on hiring feels a little broad brushed. Now, someone could say, well, you're not paying attention to this moment in history. I'd say, whatever. I don't, I think we can do both. And I don't want to be impugning anyone who's in law enforcement or any potential hire into it because there's a mixture of people in those positions. That's it. I don't think that this, the way this has worked out here, we are creating two new positions. And if Senator Hardy and Senator Pertz use this amendment, they are agreeing that we're creating these two new positions. And that they're, the positions, the positions themselves are within the National Guard. It could be a part-time, level three certified person in the National Guard that is a landscaper during the rest of his time. He's not connected to a law enforcement agency outside, but is still a level three certified officer. So we're differentiating here the positions and the person. And I think that, so I don't know, I, there are, believe me, there are going to be plenty opportunities for us in this next week to talk about every single, I have three pages of recommendations that I've gotten here so far from people about the training council and what we should do and what we shouldn't do. And we're going to have to tackle those, excuse me, starting tomorrow. So, but in this case, I think that it's pretty clear that we are creating two new positions. The positions are within the guard and the person in the non-guard role can work within the scope of practice, whether it's as a law enforcement officer connected to an agency or a landscape artist or a child care worker. I mean, yep, so thanks for spending extra time. I think, if I keep my eyes on the language itself, then that's simpler for me. I think that that's the best thing to do at this point in this discussion. And with this issue is to keep our eyes on the language and nothing behind that or between the words. Ruth? Yeah, thanks. I just want to add to, is that I have been in constant communication with General Knight since he was appointed or since we elected him. I seconded his nomination and he is one of my constituents and I have talked to him frequently about how we can make sure that the guard is improving its operations. And I think this is part of that ability and I just want to make sure that it's focused on that. So that the guard can be as strong and as ethical as possible. So this is not about bashing on the guard or bashing on these positions. It's about making sure that they're focused on the thing we need them to be focused on. Thank you. And I appreciated your slip of the tongue there when you said appointed. And I wish we could convince the house to agree with us and do it. But we are locked into a never-ending conference committee. So, so I guess that I don't see if Senator Perchlick Betsy Ann, did you, are you waving goodbye? I'm Madam Chair. We're supposed to be in Senate Appropes at 130. So I'm going to head over there now for the OPR. Oh yes, I am too. Okay. I'm too. I'll head over there now and let them know that you're wrapping up and. Okay. You'll come over when you're able. I will come over. So. Are we wrapping? No, not necessarily. You get to sit here and keep talking. Senator Perchlick was, is here. Senator Perchlick is here. Okay. Yes. There you are. Indeed. So I guess committee, I do have to run over to across the hall and you can, I don't think we had anything else on for today, except I was hoping to have some discussion about where we would go next week this week with the law enforcement issues and the pay act. And I think, I think that's really what we have looming are those two issues. And then, but you can have that. You can start having that discussion if you want, or we can put off the discussion and just do an email agenda. I would, I would vote to put it off for now. Yeah. The other possibility would be if you wanted to come back at like when you were done at approach, you know, we could take a break and we'd come back together again at two 30 or something like that. Okay. I don't think. I don't know. I mean, I've been doing these things since seven 30 this morning. So I wouldn't mind taking a break. Okay. So what, why don't we took a half hour? Why don't we come back at two? Okay. We'll do. And then in the meantime, maybe Senator Hardy and Senator Purchlick can decide what they're going to do with the amendment and then we can take a position on it. That would be great. It would be great to be done with this today. Yeah. Okay. Andy, I'll call you. We're going to get to constables in this bill. Just checking. Hope so. So does that mean Gail puts out another invitation for two o'clock or do we just sort of put up that sign says we're on break? I think you put it. The sign that says that we're on break so that everybody who wants to participate already has the information. Okay. I'll see you in a little while. Good luck. Thank you. Thank you. In a bit. All right. So let's go to our amendment here. And Senator Hardy, would you like to present it to us or have Damian and or Betsy walk us through it or how would you like to proceed? They can walk one, whoever wants to walk you through it would be fine with me. Okay. Thank you. Do you have a preference Betsy? You want me to? Okay. Gail, is it possible to put it up on the screen or does everyone have a copy of it in front of us? We have it in front of us. I actually prefer having it on my computer because otherwise I lose contact with everybody. No problem. I don't like things on the screen. And this is the one that says I'm edited draft, right? Yes. That's right. Yeah, we all have it. Yep. So the language in D, the first sentence is identical to the bill that the committee voted out. The second sentence is identical up to the words maybe exercise statewide. And then the new language with respect to criminal activity in the National Guard only is the language that Senator Hardy and Senator Purchlich proposed in the first version of the amendment. And then the sentence following that is brand new. And that would provide that nothing in the subsection shall be construed to prevent an individual serving as the provost marshal or assistant provost marshal from working as an officer in another law enforcement agency or from exercising the law enforcement authority granted to officers working in that agency. May I just ask one question? Why did we say the powers and immunities conferred on the state police and capital letters instead of other law and for other level three law enforcement agent officers? I took that language from other existing law enforcement officers. Okay. So, and the state police refer to, they have the same powers and immunities as granted to sheriffs. Yeah. So, it is a little bit circular the way everything refers back. Okay. I think it's back to sheriffs, right Betsy? What was the last thing? I think all of the powers and immunities ultimately refer back to the sheriffs. You're correct. And I think that's because they were our first law enforcement officers in the state. What about constables? Oh, maybe constables. I don't know. That's a good question. Ruth, we have quite a history with constables in this committee. So, that's why we always refer to them. I took all of us sheriffs. So, Senator Hardy and Senator Perchlich, are you going to offer this amendment? And is it what you would like? Yes, I think our plan is to offer this amendment and it looks good to me. And Senator Perchlich had looked at it over email and he and I spoke in this interim time just to make sure. And so, our intention is to offer the amendment and we would like to have the support of the committee. So, thank you for your consideration. Committee? Yes. Oh, would you like a motion? Well, I would like us to decide first whether we are supportive or whether there are other questions and then we can have a motion. So, if there are other questions or concerns. We're fine with it. Chris Bray? Well, so I'll ask my question again. It's kind of the same question. This sentence right in the smack in the middle, powers granted to Provost Marshall and Assistant Provost Marshall on this section shall be exercised statewide with respect to criminal activity in National Guard only. If it didn't say that, have we somehow implied that? Like, do we have to say that only because somewhere we implied something broader than that? I thought by virtue of how we drafted that that was what this job was all about. Guard, National Guard. That's who you are. That's who you work for. That's what you're working on. So, I think the initial confusion came because the initial language was the powers granted to the Provost Marshall and Assistant Provost Marshall under the section maybe exercised statewide. Can you hear me okay? Yes, yes. Okay. Just making sure I wanted to make sure that I wasn't interpreting some of the way people looked there that the sound on this headset is sometimes wonky. So, originally with that language maybe exercised statewide. I think what this was a response to was there was concern that even though the guard's stated intention was to use it within the guard and to use it as a liaison with civil authority, the way it was worded the Provost Marshall could be carrying out civil law enforcement on a statewide basis the same as a state trooper and so forth. And the language kind of matched up to language for state troopers or other law enforcement officers. And I don't wanna put words in Senator Hardy's mouth here, but my understanding is that the with respect to criminal activity in the National Guard only is just expressing the intent that this position is focused internally on the National Guard even though they have the level three law enforcement certification and authority. It's just within the National Guard that they're supposed to exercise that regardless of what they might do for their full-time job because these are going to be drilling guard members meaning that they have a full-time job. Very likely they're going to be state troopers or local police officers or deputy sheriffs who then do this position part-time. So it was meant to clarify and reflect the intent of the guard so that 10 years from now when no one was present for the conversation people would still understand what the intent was. So I don't know if that satisfies your concern but that's my understanding. May I make a suggestion? When I read it, it still tells me that the Provost Marshall and the Assistant Provost Marshall are still only able to do law enforcement within the National Guard. In my humble opinion, it should say the power is granted to the office of the Provost Marshall and the office of Assistant Provost Marshall. To make it very clear that it's the office of the Provost Marshall that we're talking about that only has that authority. And then the following statement that clarifies that not if they are law enforcement outside of that role, they do have that law enforcement authority. I like that. Yes, and I think it calls out Dick's catch and clarifies it yet further. Ruth? I guess my concern with that is that this whole paragraph with the powers starts out by saying the Provost Marshall and the Assistant Provost Marshall shall have the same powers and immunity. So that should, according to your addition, that would say the office of the, should say the office of the Provost Marshall and the office of the Assistant Provost Marshall. So my concern with putting the office of before each time is that we would have to do it throughout to make, and then because then there would be confusion of when do they say the office and when do they say just the Provost Marshall? Do you know what I mean? I get that, but I think that the Provost Marshall and the Assistant Provost Marshall do have the same powers as conferred on the state police as the person themselves, but it's the office that only has authority within the, to act within the, and that may be just too confusing, but I think it still looks to me, the last sentence clarifies it some, but it still looks to me like the, anyway, I think we've spent enough time on this. I don't know how to resolve this, but I want it to be very clear that the person is a level three certified officer. So they have all those same duties and immunities that a state police officer would have. That person themselves has that, but the office itself can only operate within or maybe it's fine the way it is. I'll leave that to smarter minds than mine. So I would say that just for consistency with other statutes, I mean, even if you look at the rest of this bill, typically we'll say the commissioner shall have the following powers, the secretary shall have the following powers, the adjutant general shall have the following powers and duties, we don't say the office of, unless we're referring to something much broader like the office of the attorney general, which includes all of the assistant agencies or something like that. So I think it's implicit that when you say provost-martial and assistant provost-martial because above in this, we say the adjutant general may appoint to serve as provost-martial. And then it goes on to say an officer who holds the following rank and has the following certification. Saying that it is a specific position. And then I think the third sentence again makes that implication clear and it says the individual serving house. So I think we're okay as is. I do understand your concern though about, am I the provost-martial or am I the individual serving in that office? Well, you're both. You're both, just like we are as legislators. We are both representatives of our community but we are individuals voting bills. So we make those decisions every day. And so the office holder and as the individual holding that office. Well, I'm okay with this language if Damien and Betsy are okay with it. I think that last sentence that was added helps me a lot and we have, we could use a lot of examples but we're senators and we make decisions but we don't have any authority outside of the Senate to act, to do anything. All, we only can act in our official capacity. We can't do anything outside of that except in our other jobs. So anyway, I'm fine if Damien and Betsy are okay. So committee. Yes. Yes. No. Chris. I'm just neutral. I'm not gonna get past neutral. I still find something, I'll stick to the language here. It's in and of itself. I'd say, okay, it provides more specificity. I know I'll leave it at that. I'll leave it at that. I'll leave it at that. I'll leave it at that. I'll leave it at that. I know I'll leave it at that. Okay. All right, so with that, I think that we can probably say we support this amendment. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Okay. And Anthony, if you would like to speak to that on the floor when we, when it comes up. But Ruth is gonna present the amendment. Right. And you can give our committee response. Sure. Okay. Thank you. Thank you all so much. And I'm grateful that we got to a point of clarification and I appreciate you sticking with the conversation and taking this time. So thank you very much, everybody. Especially thanks to Damian and Betsy Ann for getting us language that works for everyone. Yes. And thanks to Dick too. Yeah. Thank you. All right. Bye everybody. Thank you. Bye. All right. So committee. Clear. I don't know what I want to say. I'm supporting this language. I said I was neutral. We don't have a neutral vote button and around this joint. I know that. Anthony, you can just say the majority then. Yeah, I could say the majority. Or you could say we don't oppose. Well, we actively opposed it before. So that, yeah. No, I'm just trying to be clear. I don't want to misrepresent my position and say, oh, well, I just sort of rolled myself into supporting something that I don't. But I'm not going to speak against it or vote against it. So. Is your issue about adding two new positions? No. My position is what I was saying earlier this morning where I feel like we've, we've had an adjutant general who came in saying he wanted to tackle certain issues, which he has of my senses based on many, many visits with him and his staff. About doing an exemplary job and that what we've engaged in is knowing. Expressing instructions that I don't think needed to be expressed because he was already doing that. And so I don't know why we would go out of our way to tell someone who's doing something to please do that. So I don't know why we would go out of our way to tell someone who's doing something to please do that. And then the coloring of the whole question around. And law enforcement. That to me is not. Feels inappropriate. You know, it's like. I'm not interested in. And somehow expressing in a sentiment that worries about adding law enforcement. Hopefully that won't be part of the, the presentation. Well, we can't control that. Right. And that's why I said, if we come back to the language in and of itself, then that's fine. But there's been a story around the language and how it was brought conversations around it. And that's what I have to step away from. Leave it at that. The thing that probably part of it for me that's a little challenging too is five generations of my family have served in the U.S. military. When you see someone serving and doing their job. I think one of the prospecting that work is. Not for the politicizing and managing them from outside. Yeah. Well, I, I mean, I, I agree with you. And I think that, and there might be questions about immunity and all kinds of things that come up on the floor. I am prepared to answer that question. If unless somebody else wants to. So now I've said my piece. I can go on to our discussion of constables. So general. I see you're still with us. Are you okay with this? Yes, ma'am. The guard is, is good with the amendment as written. I'd also like to echo my appreciation to Senator Hardy, Senator Perchlick and Senator McCormick and certainly the committee for getting us to this point. So very much appreciated and thanks for what you do. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.