 We do have the Montpelier Charter and I see Andrea just invited Representative Hooper to join us so and I know John Odom's already here so if you don't mind I think it would be good to get their testimony if everybody's okay with that. Seeing thumbs up but not so okay great thank you John since you are here do you want to start testifying and and then we'll let Representative Hooper. Absolutely thank you Mr. Chair and it's always a pleasure and an honor to speak before this committee nice to see most of you all again. I will try to be very brief since I know you all have the you know I did speak to this committee fairly extensively last time around and I know that information was then reflected in the bill that went to the floor which was was was passed pretty strongly. I know we had Tacoma Park City Clerk Jesse Carpenter speak before you all as well as Peter Teachout speaking to the constitutionality which was you know then followed by the extraordinarily you know thorough report from the Legislative Council which was terrific. We also had Dan Richardson speak to you who's one of our city counselors and who was key in drafting the the the the Charter Change proposal. I'll just blast through I guess the the sense of the community and this did pass by about 66 67 percent in Montpelier. I guess our thinking was first off the idea that you can be a citizen of the city without being a citizen of the state. I mean the citizen in the in the general sense who we consider a member of the community who can participate. For example I am a citizen of Vermont but I'm not a citizen of Montana so that doesn't necessarily mean that the being that citizenship is completely one-to-one linear stuck together and that's what we're talking about who are who are essentially citizens of our community. The Montpelier proposal was not about the state or any other town this was not an attempt to make a statement about state policy. It was just Montpelier citizens deciding how they want to decide their their own affairs basically. These are our neighbors they pay property taxes they have kids in the schools we had a couple folks testifying who were examples of that. They participate in community life but they are not allowed to vote on who represents them on the city council or what the budget should be and the Montpelier citizenry has clearly made the statement that they think that's unfair. Now a lot of the common arguments you hear that is that it's well I already covered that it the question of constitutionality I think that's been pretty well covered. It's worth saying repeating again that we wouldn't be the first non-citizen voting has been happening in several municipalities in Maryland at Tacoma Park for literally for a generation and it hasn't been an issue but in San Francisco in Chicago you have opportunities for non-citizen parents with kids in school to participate in school board elections you know Hyattville Maryland Mount Rainier Maryland Chevy Chase Maryland a few more towns have been doing this in other nations to the extent that that you are interested there's a huge list of nation that they allow non-citizens but who are who are essentially citizens of the community members of the community to vote on municipal issues sometimes more issues than that and that's Canada Switzerland New Zealand Ireland Argentina Belgium and the list goes on and on non-citizen voting was the norm in the early days of the U.S. which means the founding fathers and all their children voted in elections alongside non-citizens non-citizen voting rights in most states were scuttled by constitutional amendments and or statutes mostly between 1880 but as recently as 1926 which is a period when literacy tests poll taxes restrictive residency and voter registration requirements were introduced generally in response to nativism movements at the time non-citizen voting would the ballots would specifically be designed for them so it would include or would not include national state school or other municipalities such as the central Vermont public safety authority which is chartered as a municipality there would be two separate checklists maintained by the clerk so that that can be distinct from any questions about it mixing in to the secretary states you know the federally mandated overall voter checklist that is kept undocumented immigrants will not be at risk at having their information revealed because this only applies to legal residents the voter registration in the issue that that came up just briefly about how you verify and why would just be the oath first of all I would say the oath would still apply since Montpelier is a creation of the state swearing to vote in a way most conducive to the best good of Vermont still applies but the concern about additional ID requirements is the creating higher bars for non-citizen registration is a slippery slope it opens up the sauce for the goose sauce for the gander argument which could allow you then to start raising that bar for other citizens it could create a sort of justification for that and again I think what we have is in Vermont has worked quite fine and we're talking literally about sharing that at the local level um tip districts bonds council priorities those are all decisions representing the overall will of the community itself not any individual voter a set of voters and again Montpelier has the right to this or should have the right to decide who it considers members of its own community and we've spoken pretty clearly and decisively on that topic as a as a you know on the ballot I don't know if you all have any more questions but that's sort of the quick review of what what I discussed with y'all last time around well thank you John and before we go to questions I'd like to give Representative Hooper an opportunity to testify I know she's very busy so Representative Hooper so thank you and thank you very much committee for taking up our charter amendment frankly I did not prepare any testimony for you and I'm sorry I missed the beginning of Montpelier's most able city clerk and I totally agree with what he presented what I heard um the the last biennium when this committee considered this proposal your former legislative council did some really interesting research in terms of of what how how this issue had been treated in the past and my recollection from one of those pieces was a dissertation on perhaps it was a legal dissertation on the value of allowing non-citizens to vote on municipal to vote as a way of introducing them to the political process and engaging them in community and making them part of who we are and this was something that was written in the 1800s it's my recollection but never trust my memory but I just thought that was terribly compelling in terms of how we create community and I know that in the city of Montpelier we have many long not many we have a number of long-term deeply engaged residents who do not have access to engaging in our community and that way they contribute a huge amount to our civic discourse and our and our into who we are as a community and asking them into this process through through the voting process I think is just one more way of building a really strong community which is what we're all interested in but in this instance Montpelier's just asking to be allowed to engage her own citizens in a way that makes sense to themselves and so we would deeply appreciate the city of Montpelier would deeply appreciate if you would support the vote that we have taken in the past and I would note what was supported by this committee in the last biennium as well as by the house in the last biennium we think it is a way to build stronger more vibrant communities by engaging all of our residents not just a few anyway you understand what I mean thank you thank you representative Hooper questions from the committee thank you mr chair this isn't necessarily a question but a few things that have come up that other folks have talked about when you talk about property taxpayers john in particular there's been a discussion around maybe second home owners or people that own property outside of the town that are property taxpayers as well they they don't necessarily have a vote I guess there's a fairness issue in a sense I have a know of other Canadian residents living here in my district who are very outspoken they certainly let me know what's on their mind they are not able to be involved in in voting so there's there's still a few issues out there that that concern me thank you john do you want to respond to that sure I've definitely heard that concern before I think that is a very distinct statement of legislative policy um I I think connecting the two is is difficult they only connect in the most general sense I think of how conceptually voting is done in the state for example 18 year old to vote you know that that sort of thing I I think there I don't think there is a one-to-one policy connection at all and I think if that were to come up in the future I know it's discussed a lot I think it would have to be discussed on on very much its own terms as you know certainly you know the work that legislative council and others have done on this does not speak to that and does not really apply to that now would argue would not be relevant to that I think that would be really a specific policy question that stands along thank you john representative yeah thank you rep Hickley reference the tax issue that people being represented you know having a voice in taxation and I I do not make the argument and I don't think our community has made the argument that this is about representation for taxation purposes this is an issue of how do we engage people in our community not how do we give them a voice around taxes so I agree with our city clerk that these are two separate and distinct issues in in caution against putting the two together and the first the what we're advocating for is essentially a community building tool a way of welcoming people in and giving them a voice not in tax policy but in all of the policies that we are involved in so we see it more narrowly thank you and I believe the original draft of the Vermont Constitution had a very similar concept contained in it so I mean this is something that's been long part of the history of Vermont any other questions from committee okay I realize this is listed as markup and vote but I know I know that the memos that the Tucker Anderson has talked about that deal with the constitutionality of this issue are not posted on our site Tucker can we get those posted yeah I'll take a look for them right now and send them along to Andrea and are you available this afternoon at all or I certainly can be I think Andrea has access to my calendar okay thank you Tucker and thanks everyone I think we're done for the morning