 Larry Novens, did we invite you? Sorry, this is Senate government operations. It is Wednesday, May 12th, and we are going to be looking at the proposal for a statewide code of ethics. And before we get started, I would like to thank Senator Colomor for his report this morning on the Eugenics Resolution, the Eugenics Apology Resolution. I think you did a really fine job. Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate your words. Yeah, I agree. Thank you. All right. So Larry and Ameron is going to be with us, often on and often on. She's jumping between three different places. So Tei can take jumping jack lessons from from Senator Clarkson because she does them alive and you can just, or leap frog, whichever. So, yes, Senator Clarkson. I apologize for being a minute late. Joint rules ran late, big subject. So I apologize. And I just have to ask Madam Chair, before we start, did we all give a big shout out to our own Senator Colomor for his great presentation? Okay, great. We did. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, so where were we with this when we started going through it? It's been so long and I really, really apologized. I am trying to remember the last time I had any notes on this, I don't remember. I believe it was April 7th or 8th and we did a rough overview. I should say for the record, I'm Larry Novens Executive Director of the Ethics Commission. TJ Jones is here with us, professor at the University of Connecticut and ethics official formerly in Connecticut and California. And he's consulted with us or we've consulted with him a lot during the process of coming up with this. So I believe our last appearance before you was on the 7th or 8th of April. And there were a few questions. We did a rough overview of, a very rough overview of the statute. And then we submitted, we were gonna come back. I think it was the ninth. We were gonna come back a couple of days later and we submitted a, TJ drafted a four page memorandum answering some of the questions that came up in the first meeting. So you should all have that. We gave that to you at the time. And I can briefly go over those things or I can give you an overview. I don't wanna get bogged down too much by the questions were asked if going through it from scratch we'll do and make it easier. So if I may, let me just outline what we did last fall again and we gave your committee and the house government operations committees copies of our proposed code of ethics along with annotated versions of what we had put out last summer for public comment. And the annotations contain not only the original draft that we sent effort comment but it also contained all the comments we received. So you could see those and see how we modified our proposal in a few places to accommodate the responses we got. So I think the process should be very clear on that. When we met last time in April, we did a rough overview and I started out by highlighting one of the changes between what we submitted and what ended up being in language of H 384 which is the Straft Code of Ethics. And that was the part that excluded the legislature the functions of the legislature from the ethics code unless the code was adopted by rule in each house of the general assembly. And I can talk about that later that was definitely not our suggestion and in fact it directly contradicts the section A immediately above it on page five if you happen to be looking at it where it says that code would apply to all persons elected or appointed to service officers of the state all persons elected or appointed to service members of the general assembly, all state employees all persons appointed to act on state boards and commissions and persons who in any other way are authorized to act or speak on behalf of the state and we refer to them all in the code as public servants. Sorry, I've got, I'd love to know what document we're are you wanting us to work off of H 384 in this conversation or your memo? And I don't see TJ's memo on our website. Senator Clarkson. Yeah. It is on the document I believe that Larry is referring to I reposted on our website for today. Oh, I'm looking for today and the two documents under Larry's name are both the November 11th, 2020. I believe. Yeah, they're both 98 page memo or the same memo. Yeah. Posted under two different titles. And so just curious, I'm happy to go to H 384. I just want to know what you want us to work off of. I'm happy to work off 384. I mean, that's the one that has hit the public and went through legislative counsel. So I'm happy to do that. That's technically still on the house website, right? It's listed as H 384 and it's listed as having been referred to house government operation. Okay, fine. We'll find it. Okay. I did also just send that to Gail. So she has that to post. I will post that. Oh, great. Okay, perfect. That's better. Okay. Can you email it to us? I'm sorry? Could you email it to us, Emron? I've got it, Emron. I'm doing it. Okay. Okay. So that was the one section that varied from what we had submitted in the fall. But I can go through it because basically the substance of it is almost identical in every other way. There's a word changed here or there, but nothing substantive. What the bill does and what our proposed ethics commission code of ethics does is set forth some very basic and standard government ethics standards. And we start off with definitions of what a conflict of interest is. And then we go through a checklist of eight or nine, 10 different things that basically anybody in government should watch out for and avoid. And the obvious one is to be aware of conflicts of interest. And more than anything else, when there's a conflict of interest in anything we do, the most important thing to do is to be aware of it and disclose it. And there are some conflicts that disclosure just takes care of it, and there are others where disclosure might not be enough and we have to get into recusal. What we said in the code, and I can go through that in a little more detail, is whenever there is a conflict, if it's a real conflict of interest, you just recuse. You don't participate in the matter. If you think that the conflict or the appearance of conflict is something that isn't important, doesn't matter, is something you can still proceed on anyway, then what we suggested in our code is that the person just sign a little statement saying, I have seen this conflict of interest, I reviewed it and find that it doesn't matter and that I can continue to work in this, that it's a minor matter, it's not gonna affect me, and that there is good cause for me to continue and work anyway with notwithstanding what might be the conflict of interest. Now get into that a little more. Larry? Yes. Can I make a suggestion here? Certainly. What I would suggest is that we take the bill and start going through it and ask questions as we go through it. Then we can decide if there are questions or concerns, we can put a flag by them. And if there aren't any, then we know that we're okay with it. Because if we jump around, that's kind of a procedure that we have used in this committee a lot is to just go through and flag things where we have concerns and not flag things where we don't have concerns and get the questions answered. If that makes sense. Oh, sure. And to committee members, that is the way I would prefer that we do it so that we, okay, I see a couple of thumbs up. Yeah, that helps me. I opened the bill and just was already wondering is this definition standard? Does it come from the federal government? So I was already just looking at the language and wanting to. Let me start through and confidential on page one. 14 of age 384. The only change on this particular page that our new ethics code provides is giving a definition for the term confidential information. And it just refers to the statutory definition from one VSA 315. And basically so unless it is confidential under that law or some other statute or law, then that's the definition. So confidential information is a very small group, very small number of things in state government. On page two, the next section, section four, conflict of interest is what I believe is a very standard definition of conflict of interest. It mirrors to a great extent what is already in the governor's executive order 19-17 the language also mirrors what is in the current code of ethics that the ethics code adopted. And I can defer to Mr. Jones, but I think it basically refers to standard language that appears in many other states conflict of interest definitions. Yeah, Senator Comer. Sorry, it's just a, I think a typo, but line two on page two, it says or otherwise comma of a public servant or such. An interest, I think it might mean of such an interest. I'm trying to understand what that means. Oh, it's an interest director and direct financial otherwise of a public servant or such an interest known to the public servant of a member of his family. Okay, the way you read it now I understand it. Thank you. Okay, it's the inflective reading that makes all the difference. Indeed. Yeah, and then considering moving down, we have a definition of gift. Can I go back to conflict of interest? Sure. When we're looking at conflict of interest in the legislature, there's very specific definitions in Masons. And it says that I'm trying to find it right now, but it clearly says that we are to be represented representing our constituents and that unless there's an overwhelming, let me find it because I think it is less, I think that this definition would declare a conflict of interest in legislative world that goes beyond what Masons says. And I'm trying to find it here. I think I can address that while you're looking for the definition in Masons. Because on line six of this bill, it has a relatively similar definition, Madam Chair. On what? Line six of the definition of conflict of interest. I think mirrors what you're referencing. Yeah, but it even goes beyond that. In 522 in Masons, it says the right of members to represent their constituents is of such major importance that members should be barred from voting on matters of direct personal interest only in clear cases and when the matter is particularly personal. And I think that goes beyond just that statement that and it also says, but the uniform present practice is to permit all members to be the judge of their own personal interest. So those are the rules that we follow. I have a couple of responses to that. I don't think this definition changes what you do. And this is where jumping around if we jumped around a little bit, when we get to page five, where it says the code of ethics doesn't apply to the functions of state legislature, legislatures that are protected by chapter one, article 14 of the constitution. This type of thing, what you do in committee votes you take are completely off limits to ethics oversight. Those are protected and they are reserved for you and you only. And no one can second guess those. And so your obligations or your duties to your constituents are in no way affected by the definition of conflict of interest. And in fact, a large majority, the legislative branch is different from the executive branch in that much of what you do is exactly that. It is dedicated toward your constituents and you are always asked to do things on their behalf and in their benefit. And what the constitutional protection does is it eliminates that from any scrutiny. So that those things are still protected and they are beyond anyone's question in the ethics code. Madam chair. Yeah. I have a problem with legislators being beyond an ethics code. I mean, I think that's, I think there are possibilities of real conflict of interest representing your constituents. I mean, you could, there may be a huge amount of self-interest involved that is a conflict of interest that, I don't understand excluding, I guess I just don't understand excluding legislators. I think we are, we should be a code of ethics that is applied to the rest of the state. I think there are two things going on. I'm sorry. No, go ahead. Two things going on. One is who the code should apply to. And my position is should apply to everybody except those areas that are specifically excluded by the state constitution. So that would be your core functions as legislators that are protected by article one, chapter one, article 14 and judicial power being exercised under chapter two, section four. Those are beyond anyone else in state government's scrutiny. And the code of ethics can still apply to legislators. And so if you're doing something in your town, if you're doing something on your own, to afford your own desires or something like that, that's one thing. But if you're in a committee and you're having a hearing and you're doing something in the hearing or you're voting on the floor of the house or the Senate, those are constitutionally protected activities. And no matter what we do or no matter what we want to do, they are protected from scrutiny by the outside. You are the sole judges of what is proper and improper when you're voting and not voting. And I think that that's been made. Oh, Senator Polina, I apologize, go ahead. No, that's okay. Just gonna need to confirm it. I mean, what we're saying is that voting, for example, is protected. But if I were, as a legislator, if I take a bribe from somebody, that's not protected. That's different than voting. Yeah. It's the core legislative party. So it still applies to the exception when I'm voting. I mean, I know it's not just voting, but the rules apply to me, except those rules that directly relate to my core function, which is voting and considering legislation. Yes. That's right. But what if the bribe affects the core function, which is voting? If you take a bribe, you violated the law. Not only the code of ethics, you violated the law. Agreed, but people don't, it may be happening and nobody else knows about it, or you owe somebody, I don't know. I guess I'm having a hard time separating out. If you were to take a bribe and vote consistent with the bribe, we wouldn't be able to, or anybody would be able to come after you and question the vote. But you would be subject to prosecution for the bribe. That is not within your purview. That is not constitutionally protected. There is some federal law on this, there's no Vermont law on this, but the federal law makes it pretty clear that the purpose of the constitutional, the speech and debate clause in the federal constitution is to protect the integrity of the legislative process and ensuring independence of legislators. But it doesn't cover things like bribes or other improper acts. If a legislator was to go to the governor and do something completely outside of making laws and say, you know, you better do this or we're gonna come after you threatening, that probably would not be protected, nor should it be. But again, two questions. One is should the code, the general provisions apply to legislators? And yes, are there things that are excluded and those core legislative functions would be excluded? And this is where going through it in order gets us out of line a little bit because it appears in the order of the statute in a manner that's consistent with statutory drafting, but not really the theory and how the ethics code should work. But if I could go back, I know it takes a while for this to sink in. I know drafting it, it took a long time for me to wrap my head around the differences between what is included and what isn't included. And I think if we talk for a few minutes about the types of activities who are included in the ethics code, it'll make understanding the exclusions a lot easier because the types of things that the code covers are very, very basic. And Madam Chair, with your permission, if I could just jump a little bit, maybe for two minutes and just go through the provisions, the things that we're asking legislators and executive branch and other people in state government to do, I think that will answer a lot of these questions. I will accept that. I do wanna point out that whatever decision we come to on page five, lines 11 and 12 only refers to article 14, it's not article 14, it's actually section 14 because the articles are in chapter one. It's section 14 and section 14 only refers to the house. It has to also add section 19 because section 19 says the same thing about the Senate. So regardless of what we decide. Right. And it's nice. I didn't notice that in 384 before and I'll have to double check and see if that's what we sent over or not. But that's an excellent point. The point is that there are constitutional protections for members of the house and the Senate and those should be part of this code. But, okay. Well, the chapter one article 14, it only is protection for the freedom of speech. That's all that section refers, that article refers to. Is freedom of speech in the legislature. It says it cannot be the foundation of any accusation or presentation. That's what that says. But in chapter two, it clearly says that the Senate and the house set their own rules and decide when and what not to expel a member. And the election and qualifications make its own rules, appoint its own officers. So I think we also need to refer to that. I think we need to be very clear that the house and the Senate by constitution set their own rules. And that includes conflict of interest rules. Well, I don't know if that excludes statutes though. I mean, the fact that the constitution gives you right to adopt rules doesn't mean that you are prohibited from adopting statutes that apply to everyone. I am not so sure that I think we can adopt the statutes, but I believe we can't tell the house and the Senate that the statutes apply to them unless they are adopted specifically by the House and Senate ethics commissions. I think that is clear in the constitution. And I think that Betsy Ann has made that abundantly clear to us. Senator Clarkson. Once we adopt the statute, we could ask the House Ethics Commission and the Senate, I didn't even know who serves on our ethics commission, the Senate Ethics Commission to review them and hopefully adopt them. So I mean, we can encourage our bodies, our two bodies to actually adopt these. Okay, let's go through what it actually covers then. I just, because I really think that the way it's, the draft, you're right, the drafting constraints are construct, I guess it's called, is makes it difficult to look at it, but what would be nice is to see what the code of ethics would look like. Right. But anyway, so go ahead, Larry. I'm sorry, but I feel very strongly that we need to make sure that the core functions of the two legislative bodies are kept sacrosanct. That's the right word. Right. And I agree with that. So going through the dos and don'ts, right? This is what the gods of the ethics code, what we as public servants should and should not do. We start basically with, let me get here on page five. Yeah. And at the very bottom, starting on line 18, conflict of interest. What do we do when we have a conflict of interest? What do we do in state government? One of the things we discussed, T.J. Jones and I discussed the other day is, there may be parts of this code that may not specifically apply to every area of government. And it may be appropriate if there is one particular provision that doesn't apply, say to the Senator of the House to say this provision doesn't apply to Senator House. If we get there, we get there. But what we had suggested in this conflict of interest is that if a public servant has a conflict of interest, you acknowledge it, you say, I have a conflict. And if it's a conflict, you recuse and that's the end of it. You don't do anything else. If you have a conflict, you note that I have a conflict of interest in this matter and I'm not going to participate in it any further. Can I ask a question right there? Certainly. There is no ability for you to say, I have a conflict of interest and for the other three board members that you are serving with say, well, really I don't think that's a conflict of interest that rises to the level of, I mean, if you feel you have a conflict of interest, you have to recuse yourself. That's what this says. No, you don't. You refuse yourself if you have a conflict of interest and if you feel you don't need to, you prepare a written statement, disclosing what the conflict or the question may be and explain why there is good faith or why there is good cause. For you to continue participating in the matter. So maybe something comes up and it doesn't look right and you say, this is like a conflict, I could recuse, but I don't think I have to and here's why, because there is good cause and this is where we jump around a little bit. So if I can go through this, I'm trying to think where it says good cause. It's online three on page six. Yeah. Why good cause as in section D, right? And that is sufficient detail so that the matter may be understood by the public. So why there is good cause that I can still, not withstanding whatever the issue is, I can still be fair and objective and do this in the public interest. And if there's good cause and you can do that, you say, I had this conflict or I perceive a conflict, but I think I can proceed anyway. And because it's not important that it is, I can be fair, objective and act in the public interest. So we can do that. So is the reason for doing something in writing so that there's a public record? Is that why? Yeah. So what I was thinking primarily in the executive branch or I suppose if it was a judicial branch person other than a judge, let's say I have a conflict of interest in something, something comes up, I say I have a conflict of interest. I recuse, that's the end of it. I don't need to do anything else. So I've disclosed it on the record, the end of the game. But if I think there's good cause for me to continue, then I say, I take this little one paragraph piece of paper and I say, this is the issue. Here's why I can be fair and here's why good cause exists for me to do it. And I just keep that piece of paper and it would be in my office or anybody else's office. It would really, the more important thing is to get people thinking about the conflicts and to write them down. And in those closed cases where it's a should I or shouldn't I do it, it's just easier for most people just to recuse. But if there was an agency or department where somebody had a history of acting on matters where there was a conflict of interest, then we would be able to examine those. We meaning anybody in the state of Vermont would be able to examine those to see what kinds of conflicts of interest were people acting on despite the conflict. Okay, I'm gonna ask another question. I can't, every other people feel free to jump in here because I really, I've gone through this pretty carefully and I just, if the reason for doing it in written form is for the record so that there's a record and for the public, then why on earth would you keep it in your own office? Wouldn't it go into the records of the committee or the agency that you're working with? I mean, or can you just keep serving them? If I was with the agency of transportation and I had a conflict on something, we would keep all our conflict papers in one place. Right, and if you're on, we have 300 boards and commissions. And so this also applies to the members there. So if I'm a board member on the XYZ board and I have a conflict with them and I write out this little note and then I keep it in my office, what does, good does it do if I keep it in my office? Shouldn't it be in the records of the commission? Yeah, it would be in the, yeah, that's what I meant by my office. So if I was with the agency of transportation and I had a conflict, I would keep it in the AOT little file folder of conflicts that we went and worked on despite the conflict or not with standing in the conflict. Oh, so I thought you meant that the person who had the conflict would keep it in their office. No, that would defeat the whole purpose. Right, that's okay. What about the possibility of someone challenging what you say in a little piece of paper? So I always file a complaint. Okay. And then there could be a debate about whether the individuals continuing to work on that particular project or matter was appropriate or not appropriate. The bigger goal, I think, is to get people to be aware of when they may have conflicts and to disclose them. And if they disclose them, that's 90% of it right there. If you say, I have an interest in this particular matter because of whatever, and that's out there. People forgive, it's not even a matter of forgiving it. They understand it. And I think public perception is more important with this than anything else. We want our constituents, we as Vermonters want our elected, appointed, state government officials and underlings, whoever, to act fairly. And if we have a system where people say, I have a conflict, I need to stay out of this. If they stay out, that's the end of it. If they say, I'm gonna stay in here, not withstanding the conflict, then I think we have a right to know about that. And I think just the exercise of going through that creates an atmosphere where people will trust us and state government better because we're bringing up these things and we're explaining why it's okay for us to continue anyway. Shouldn't the board or the commission or the agency or whoever it is that you're working with are for? If you write your little note and say, I think I can be objective anyway, shouldn't that commission or that board or whoever acknowledge it and say, yes, we agree that this makes sense and you should be able to take part or we don't agree and we're going to cut you off. Well, we have nothing that addresses that now. We have nothing. I mean, because that's the way, actually that's the way it works in the Senate. If somebody has a conflict, they say, I believe I have a conflict and then the Senate has the right to either accept that a recusal or to say, that's just fine, we think you can be objective anyway. Right. I think the challenge with that is, I mean, it's something to think about, but let's say it's a three-person select board or something, there's a lot of other interests that could come in. This doesn't cover municipalities. Okay, like a three-member other board. Like a full cannabis control board. Yeah, right. Yes, better example, but it's just, if there's a smaller board, one vote could really, there could be an interest in attacking that person. Yeah, that's true. And the other problem with a small group of people is if you're a tightly knit group, I think the opportunity to say, oh, I trust Larry, it's not a big deal, is much greater. And really the underlying issue, the underlying concern is, how will the public look at these things? And if they look at it as, oh, they're all just protecting themselves or their workmates, and they're just going along with the people they work with and they don't give a hoot about us, that's what we're trying to avoid. And so, ethics is an individual responsibility and I don't think it's appropriate, this is my personal belief, to delegate to my co-workers the decision all the time of whether I should or should not do something. That should be my responsibility. Further down in the code where we talk about what good causes and it got separated out a little bit. Good cause to proceed would be if the conflict or the potential conflict is de minimis, it's really minor, it's nothing. Or whatever I'm being called upon to do is ministerial or clerical. I have to, I'm looking at an application for something and I have no discretion whether they're granted or not. I just have to make sure all the boxes are checked and they're all checked. Then I have no discretion, it's okay for me to continue. If the conflict is speculative or amorphous or intangible, it's just so out there that it really doesn't rise to the level of real conflict. Then we could say good cause is just to go ahead and do it anyway. The only time and the other time, the one time when a public servant might continue to do something where there is a conflict would be if there's nobody that the public servant can delegate the task to. So if I'm the only person in my office or in my department who can do something and I can't give it to anybody else to do when I have a conflict, I have to do it. So I would note the conflict, I would say I have a conflict with this for this reason, I cannot give it away to somebody else to do. I'm going to proceed and make a decision on this. And then I make very, very clear that why I'm making the decision I am so they could see that my personal interest isn't entering into it. So we do the right thing for the right reason, we make it very clear to the public that we're doing it that way because no one else can do this. It's easy when we can recuse and give it to somebody else. And I'm nine out of 10 times that I hope would be the default. The people just say, oh, I have to grant this application and it's my next door neighbor, I'm gonna stay away from it. I'll let somebody else do it. So that's the good cause part. And I think that answers a lot of the problems with the conflict. So when there's a conflict, there are those four areas that allow you to proceed. And so it's basically where we are. The other, as we go through the list is if there is a conflict of interest, it can't be delegated. I can't have a conflict and say to my buddy in the office, hey, you take this, I can't. And I can't tell you what to do. It's like, I can't grant this application, but DJ, I'd like you to grant it for me. Absolutely cannot do that. If I recuse, I'm out. I take no further part in any consideration of it. I don't let my personal beliefs be known. I do nothing to affect the decision in any way. And that way the public is protected that decisions are being made on their own merits and not because of a real potential conflict or something that I've stepped away from, but I'm operating like the marionettes from backstage. Madam chair. Senate appropriations is ready for you. Okay, keep on. I will be right back. Do I have to leave this one and then go and then come back, right? Okay. I can't remember why I'm going, but bye. Words and commissions. Okay. Just figure it out when she gets there, go ahead. Yeah. So what the current code says on page six, line eight, I can't, if I have a conflict, I can't direct someone to act in a manner that I myself would be prohibited from acting. Basically what I just said a moment ago. And then the next thing is once I've recused, I can't be a part, I can't say I can't vote on this, but here's how I feel. And this is what I think we should do. Absolutely cannot do that. If I have a conflict, I'm out of it completely because I cannot then be, if I stay in it, basically I'm trying to direct other people to do my bidding that I have a conflict in. And by stepping out, we tell the public that the process is fair and safe and open and that whatever conflict Larry has is not being foisted on anyone else. And he's not asking anyone to act on his behalf. So Larry, in the in the in the case where, you know, there might be 10 or 12 people on a board and you're actually physically meeting or even as we meet now virtually, does the does that mean that that person should leave the meeting at that point? I think so. Yeah. Yeah. I think so because if if I have a conflict and you, you know, we're sitting across the table from anything, I think it makes a little more difficult for you, if we have a close relationship to take a position that may be contrary to what my suspected conflicted position would be. So I think in order to make it easier for my colleagues to make a fair and impartial decision, I should be gone. I should leave the room for that discussion. And that way, when when the rest of you vote, you can vote without having to look me and saying, you know, and feeling, gee, I'm sorry, Larry, I'm going to vote against you on this. I should not even be a factor. So I'm out of the room and we've given that advice to people this year already. What do I do when I have a conflict? Yeah, I think the situation, you know, how facial expressions can come into play, probably more so in person, although you could certainly see in a Zoom session. I mean, if somebody's rolling their eyes and going, whoa, man, that's a pretty clear indication of how you feel about something. Right. So I think you're right. I think you ought to leave. OK, thank you. OK, thank you. The next thing on page line 16 of page six is the appearance of conflict. And that's pretty much the same thing. If you have an appearance of conflict, the public doesn't know whether it's real or it's not. But if it looks terrible, it is terrible. And again, most of this, a lot of this, is how does the public view what we are doing in our jobs? And if it looks like we're acting when we have conflicts, we're not gaining public support. We're not in any way assuring the public that we're acting on their behalf. So in some ways, it seems like the appearance is almost not worse than the actuality, but it's just as bad as the appearance because the whole idea is to not undermine faith in government. Exactly. If people don't believe in what you're doing or the appearance that you're doing something unethical, it's as good as if you actually were being unethical. Yeah, maybe even worse in some ways, depending on it. Yeah. So the appearance of impoverity is huge. And, you know, if all you have to do, I know all any of us have to do is read the paper where somebody's speculating about somebody's motives. And, you know, we just need to be very attuned to that. So on page seven, the next section is preferential treatment. This is pretty straightforward. I can't treat my friends better than I treat people that I may not like. You know, I can't. I have to act independently and fairly and consistently, and I cannot show favor or prejudice towards anybody and what I'm doing. If there's something before me to decide, I have to decide it on the merits. And if the applicant or the person before me is wealthy or poor, it shouldn't make a difference. If it's a person with a lot of political influence or none, that should make more no difference at all. We need to make decisions for the right reasons, not the wrong reasons. Now, how does that affect you as legislators? When, you know, you have constituents who want you to do things the answer is that in voting and making decisions that you make as lawmakers, those things are protected by the Vermont Constitution. And they can't be questioned outside. But to get to your point earlier, if you take a bribe, absolutely a big, big problem. So can you give preference to particular people in your jurisdictions when you're voting on something? Yeah, absolutely. As long as you're doing it for a good reason and not for an improper reason, because, you know, they're they're making direct deposits into your banking counters. Misuse of position, this goes for everybody. So you can't use your own position for personal or financial gain. You know, I can't call, I don't know, the Lost Nation Theater and say not that it would make a difference that, you know, I'm Larry Novens from the Ethics Commission. Do you have free tickets for me or or, you know, somebody else? You can't use your position to do that. I mean, you know, I think it would be improper to call a restaurant and say, I'm Senator So-and-so. And it's Saturday night at six o'clock. Do you have a table for four and a half an hour? That would be misuse of your position. I watched Al Franken once being interviewed. And he used to do this thing when he was walking through the Capitol, when he was still a senator, and he would walk by people and say, excuse me, I'm more important than you. I'm more important than you. And everybody knew it was joke. But if you don't know and and you're the people whose table is bumped at seven o'clock because some important person in state government has used their position to get their dinner. That doesn't help any of us in state government. It really is a very simple thing. But if we want to do anything to engender distrust or the feeling they're only in it for themselves, then misusing our positions for things like that is the easiest way to do it. Well, there may be a tenuous connection, but with my example, and I think everybody, all of us have probably done this once upon a time. If you have a constituent that's sort of having trouble getting through the layers of government bureaucracy, I have picked the phone up before and gone straight to the commissioner or secretary and said, hey, Senator Collamore, I need you to focus on this particular issue for me on behalf of this constituent. And sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. You know, the the ability to do that, I think is very important. And that's why I think the five of us enjoy being elected because we can help people with a particular problem. Whether you feel in your heart of hearts that that also translates into a future vote, I guess it's between you and whoever. But you know what I'm saying? There could be sort of a tenuous connection between it's not for personal gain at the time, it's for a constituent's gain. But the truth of the matter is it probably will reflect well on you. The next time they go to vote, too. I mean, I think that needs to at least be out now. I think that's a good point, because I think also that's part of the job in a way. Yeah, that part of the job is trying to help your constituents. Right. And I would consider that not being for personal gain. You know, if you make a call on behalf of the situation, you're not making personal gain. It may be ultimately in your interest to do that because your interest is in being an effective representative of your constituents. But it's I make a distinction between that and saying I want a dinner reservation at seven o'clock, which is clearly for you and no one else. No, no. T.J. Jones, I don't know if you have a different view on that or. No, I have the exact same few, but I did want to assure the committee that although there's no Vermont law that I can find on point on this issue, there is fairly vibrant federal law that the type of things that you're talking about constituent services fall squarely within your role as legislators and would be protected under the speech and debate clause. Even even if you were acting on behalf of a constituent, you know, for the hope of a future vote or whatever, it still falls squarely within your role as a legislator. It would be exempt from scrutiny. Thanks to you. So the next section would be misuse of information. This is section seven, line 10 on page seven. To me is I think a no brainer that there are times in our positions where we have confidential information, information that is not available to the public. We can't use that for our personal gain. Pretty simple. It's like insider trading. So we can't use it for personal financial or personal gain of me or anyone else. So if you knew and I don't know when or if anything ever comes before you that's confidential, but if you were to call a constituent and say, hey, there's something coming our way that isn't public yet. You might want to buy this stock today. That would be barred by this section. Again, pretty common sense. I'm sorry. Insider trading. Exactly. Exactly. You aren't allowed to use information. So where you have a personal gain, we get. That is pretty basic. Yeah. Section eight on the same page, misuse of government. Resources. So you can't use state materials, funds, property, personnel, facilities for any other purpose than for official state purpose and less. It's permitted or required by law or written. Institutional Department, institutional policy or rule. So an example would be I can't go to my copier in my office and do. You know, all my Christmas cards, my holiday cards. That's pretty easy if I had. If I had staff, I wouldn't be able to ask my staff to go pick up my laundry someplace. That would be misuse of that for personal use. If I had a government car. I would not be able to take it on the weekend and go up to Lake Mem from Angok to go camping. If I had a car and it said, you know, you have to go to a particular place or you're allowed to bring it home in case you're called in the middle of the night to go on duty. And there's a policy that allows that fine. And then I could use that official card to go home. But again, it's it's pretty straightforward. Is that, you know, the things that we have access to as public servants are for the use of the public and for the benefit of the public, not for ourselves. I mean, all these things come down to almost invariably. What are we doing for ourselves or people we know? Well, versus our duty to the to the people we serve for modders. And we always keep that in mind that whenever we're looking at those two things, it's the Vermonters interest, the public's interest, that is paramount. And anytime we put our our interests first, either in granting preferential treatment or using information or using resources, we're violating that public trust. These are pretty straightforward. I can't say it all seems so non-controversial. I'm sorry. It all seems so non-controversial. I think it is. I think it is. I mean, I think 99 percent of this should be a no-brainer. I mean, we can we can talk about how it's going to be applied and who it should or should not apply to. And those are legitimate discussions. But in terms of the do's and the don'ts, these, I think, are very non-controversial. I can't imagine anybody who would think that it's proper to use government resources for your own personal benefit. Well, sadly, too many people haven't taken it to heart, mostly federally. But I mean, it but it is a no-brainer. I completely agree. Next section is gifts. And I have to say we struggled a little bit with this. Obviously gifts can be problematic. If people are giving you gifts, that raises the whole spectrum of why and what do they expect for it. And so gifts are generally prohibited. And this is on page eight. And less covered by an exception of public service shall not accept a gift under circumstances where it could be inferred that accepting that gift is intended intended to influence the person in their duties. So, you know, campaign contributions, whole separate thing, they don't count. Which is. What's that? Well, it is interesting. I mean, those are gifts. Yeah, they are. But they're permitted by law. Right. So certain gifts are okay. And free gift, I mean, and free gifts, like, you know, when in agriculture, if an apiaryist comes and brings little jars of honey to everybody, you know, if that's a gift and it's under $10, that's fine. Right. So in a perfect world, it would be nice if there was a simple blank rule. Right. But we don't live in a perfect world. In a simple blank rule, we say no gifts. So if somebody brought you a jar of honey, you'd say, that's wonderful. I wish I could take it, but I can't. No, you'd say that's sweet. Exactly. So what we put in this is if it's $20 or less, it's okay. As long as over the course of a year, gifts from a particular person don't exceed that $20 limit. So, I mean, it would be a lot easier if we just said no gifts. It would make it so much simpler. But in the real world, I think that would be really hard. Can you remind me if this does this exclude statewide office holders? No, they are absolutely included. Okay. Well, because then what, I mean, what I've always understood the President of the United States has to do, for example, is if they want to receive a gift worth a certain amount, they just have to pay for it. And so the President can look through the gifts they've received and say, yeah, I can't accept any of this, but I really like this, you know, really nice wooden piece, you know, and so tell me the value so I can pay for it. I imagine it would probably only be the governor and some of the statewide office holders for whom that would apply. But I don't know if that matters to anybody. I just think there are times, especially with foreign governments, where you might want to accept a gift. Yeah, I don't know if the governor gets a gift, say from China or some foreign country, whether that belongs, becomes the governor's personal property or not. I suspect that that gift is property of the state of Vermont. And if that's the case, then it's not an issue. If I'm wrong, if it's not the case, then we need to look at that some more. Just those gifts are certainly unsolicited. I know when the lieutenant governor and the governor used Taiwan as an example, they got loads of stuff from Taiwan all the time, just sending them stuff. Sometimes it was cakes. Sometimes it would be like a key holder, whatever might be a key chain. I mean, all kinds of things. And it would be more of a pain to like, you know, what do you need to send it back? I mean, it seems like it's not worth the effort to send back. Or to deal with. So you just sort of let it sit in your office and ignore it. Mr. Jones, you had your hand up. I did. I hate to interrupt. I just wanted to draw Senator Rahm's attention to the statute that is cited there to VSA 261. And it has a specific exemption that says, you know, if you pay for something out of pocket, it is not a gift. It falls outside the definition. Oh, that's good. Yeah. Thank you. I forgot. We need to be more clear. I mean, I'm fine with that. I don't know unless it comes up. I think that's good. Yeah. That's clear. I mean, I think that's. Where is that? Clear and addresses. Casey, it's going in the bill, right? There is always some diplomatic thing where you're going to get a gift that's going to be more than $20 or you can either choose to pay for it yourself or you can keep it on behalf of the state of Vermont and share it with everybody, I guess. To Senator Polina's question, the definition of gift in the front part of the statute says gift is as it's defined in two. Okay. And the definitions part. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And which is fine as long as to VSA. Was it 261? Yes. Is it amended? If it's amended, then it will change the ethics code. So we had originally copied the provisions of that gift statute into the code so that it would remain if the other one is was changed. You know, right now, I don't think it makes any difference. But if anybody ever wants to amend that title to section, we need to be very aware that it will affect the ethics code. Just something to keep in mind. At some point, I wonder, Larry, whether the value will have to change something that's worth $20 today and five years may be nothing. Right. And you know, that would certainly be appropriate if you feel that the $20 limit is appropriate. And if the people I heard on the radio earlier say that we're in for some inflation, then maybe in a few years that that would properly be changed. Yeah. I mean, $20, 20 years ago, certainly not worth $20 yesterday. Should we put a trigger in for it to be reviewed in every 10 years? I think my personal belief would be to leave it alone. And if and when it becomes a problem, then deal with it. And my whole thing on this bill is to try and keep it as simple as possible so we don't get into too many details and too many fine points. I think the basic dos and don'ts, as I think we agree, are pretty straightforward. Well, I think if the ethics commission is going to be reporting to the legislature on an annual basis, that's kind of the thing that would be raised in the report. Yeah. Then it's time to change the threshold. Right. And I'm sure that we would hear from people on stake government if they said, I got a $30 gift and it's worth nothing. You know, it's barely a movie ticket. Then, you know, we would hear about it and you would hear about it. Senator Clarkson. Thank you. In all fairness, sometimes when you're given a gift, you have no idea what its value is. Sure. I mean, if you're given a silk scarf in Taiwan, you know, what value do you actually value it at? The cost of production, the cost of the retail, the cost of what they got it for. I mean, you know, so, I mean, we don't even necessarily always know what the value is. Right. Well, I think that raises a whole other point. I'm sorry. I think I'm going to have to go. Did they just ask for you? No, but you're back. Sorry, they said they said it would be immediately following you. So. Okay. They are asking for you, Senator Polina. I'll be back soon. Thank you. There's been, I think it's been really fuzzy for a long time about legislators being able to accept airfare, et cetera, to go on trips and who that comes from. I know it's legislators, but I don't, I don't know, maybe, you know, there's sister cities from, you know, I know this doesn't apply to municipalities. I'm just saying we've been invited in the past on lots of trips, and I don't know that we've ever had a good policy around that. Boy, I've never been invited to go on a trip. Oh, really? No. We were all invited to go to Turkey, remember, and some people took that gift. That might have been before Senator Calamore's time. They have not been as active. Taiwan too. Taiwan, exactly. And those are trips we're fully paid for. That's why they're called junkets. Right. And I haven't given that any thought, and I don't know how you deal with that now or how you want to deal with it in the future. Again, my view on what we have here. Can I just ask where you are so that I can catch up? We're on page nine or 10. We're in gifts. Thank you. Maybe we're on page nine-ish, I think, aren't we? Yeah. All right. Okay. Larry, I'm sorry. Oh, no. You know, this idea of junkets and where they come from. We, on page nine, on line 16, it says, a public servant may accept a gift of attendance at training or similar events, approved by a public servant's supervisor, and determined to be in the interest of the service agency or department. Yeah. And you know what? That's the way it operates now. Yeah. The speaker and the pro tem decide who, I mean, generally on most of these things, they decide who's being invited, who is the appropriate diplomatic representative from our body to represent the legislature. And they are all representing the, generally, they are all representing the legislature in some public function. So as long as there's the way to keep track of that, it doesn't need to involve the ethics commission, but as long as there's a means by which appropriate trips are engaged in, that's fine. We don't need to go through that. Can I go back up to line four? Have you already talked about that? Yes. The market value. We did, well, a little bit because I raised the question, who values it and what value. If somebody gives me, wants to give me a $50 ticket to a game, because they have a ticket, and I say, well, I can't accept anything over $20. So I will pay the other $30. Why would that not be acceptable? It is. I asked that question, and it is in the underlying statute. You can pay them fair market value of something over $20 that then it's no longer. But in here, it says the public servant shall not pay the excess value in order to accept. Yeah. On line four and five. Yeah, but then Larry showed us where we could. So now are they in conflict? Well, not if it's okay by your supervisor or agency. But it doesn't, it doesn't say that. Right. It says where the market value is over $20, the public servant shall not pay the excess value over $20 in order to accept it. That's very clear. You shouldn't, you can't do that. I would favor allowing them to be able to do that and pay the excess amount. I think TJ, Tom, did you have a, are you TJ or Tom? TJ is great. Okay. I've been called many worse things. So TJ is just. Well, we'll refrain from that. As written right now, the statute contemplates that you can accept something, whether it's $25, $30, $40, $100, if you pay the whole thing. But what it doesn't allow as written now is to essentially take a $20 discount on whatever is offered you. If somebody offers you a $40 ticket with the idea that you'll pay $20 for it to get it down below the mark, that's not allowed under the current rule. You would have to pay $40 for the whole ticket. And why would that be? Yeah, now I'm not, I'm not trying to justify the language. There are states that do allow pay downs to get it under the limit set forth in statute. But there's also this is off the top of my head. I can't recall what other states, but there are other states that prohibit sort of discount pay downs. But that's how it happened. Offenderly phrased and should be interpreted. Okay, well, we can think about that. Yeah, I don't know. Not making decisions today, so we're clearly marking areas that we have questions, you know, ongoing things to think about. Right. The next section on top of page 10, unauthorized comments. I'm sorry. Commitments. Yeah, Larry said commitments. I thought it was comments. It's okay. I was looking for unauthorized comments and I make a lot of those myself. Actually, I think I was proposing we can't do those. Let me check. That made, I may not have noticed that. No, it says commitments. I thought it said comments. Nope. And I'm trying to figure out. Okay, just a moment. Okay. Yeah, that's fine. So people should not make comments or promises that bind the state of Vermont unless they're authorized to do so. Commitments. Commitment. Sorry, I keep making that mistake. I had a hard time yesterday with a sentence. But you said it well today. Then outside employment is the next one. Shouldn't have seek or engage in outside employment that's inconsistent, incompatible, or in conflict with your official duties. That's fairly straightforward. And then we have a section on post government employment. And this is basically the revolving door thing. And what it says is there when you leave state government, there's a period of time where you can't come back before the people you worked with and try and advocate for them to do things. I mean, that's grossly over simplifying it. But the idea, the problem with it is, I mean, the problem with the revolving door is the public looks at it and they say, well, this person was in the legislature, this person worked in AOT, and he gets out. And the next day he's back trying to influence his old buddies to change something. And two questions. One is, does he have undue influence over the people he used to work with? And two, when he was still working there, whose side was he really on? Raises the question. Yeah. And that to me is probably the more dangerous of the two, is we want to be sure that people working in state government are working for the state of Vermont and not using their position to get a job that's going to pay a lot of money when they leave. Senator Collmar. Thank you, manager. So Larry is one year length of time fairly standard in other states. I'll defer to TJ on that. Just a question. I'm not trying to advocate for anything more or less than that. Just wondering. I'm going to throw, this is already in law. Right. This isn't, we already have it. And the one year for executive officers came from the governor's executive order. And for legislators, you'll write and see that it's two years. Yeah. I don't know when two years got enacted because it's been functional as one year. No, not for legislators. It's always been until the end of the biennium session following their retirement, their departure. I'm sure that's what it's always been. I don't have it in front of me. I'm not sure, but it makes sense that if you're like, if you were to leave right now halfway through the biennium, it would be very inappropriate for you to be appearing in front of your former colleagues in January. Right. And that cooling off period should encompass one full biennium after your departure. Right. I think that that's, I'd love to double check that because we've had several former colleagues who have started lobbying sooner than that. Yes. But most of them did that before we passed that law. It was in the executive order for executive officers, but not for legislators. We worked on that only a couple of years ago. I think the first biennium I was in the Senate. Yeah. I think it's good. I think that's appropriate, the full biennium. But it's okay. Yeah, I assume you're right. You're usually right. Well, it doesn't actually, it doesn't make any difference if it's current law or not. This is the suggestion now. Yeah. Yeah. And if I may say so, I think it's a good idea. You're potentially not addressing all the same people that you served with. There might be new people there that you're, in fact, there might be a complete turnover. All new people. Yeah. I am likely, but we know it'll be at least a third. Yeah. And again, I think it's the perception from the outside that you've used your position to go back and influence your former colleagues. Or more importantly, that, you know, the question is, whose side were you on when you were serving a month ago or just one year ago? So putting that breathing space in, I think, assures the public that we're not misusing our positions and we're not acting on our own behalf or on someone else's behalf when we should be acting for the state. Senator Collomer. Thank you, Madam Chair. So, Larry, if someone steps down this summer, it's really only a year because the biennium would end. No, the next biennium. Oh, is that how that's working? I think so. The end of the biennial session following the legislature departure. Right, because it's a different biennial session. I think the way I read this, I think Senator Collomer might be right. It's the end of the biennial session following the departure. If the departure is in July, the end of the biennial session following that departure would be in December of 2022. There wouldn't be a full two-year buy. I think that's the way I read it. That's why I raised the question. I wasn't sure reading that whether someone could literally step down this summer and get a job in state government on January 1st, 2023. Not in state government, but as a lobbyist. Yeah, yeah. I mean, we spent a lot of time working on that and maybe we still didn't get it right. But my thought was that you're in a biennial session now. And the biennial session following your departure is the next one. And it would be after that one that it would be okay to lobby, but not before then. So when I say the biennial session following your departure, that would be the next full biennial session. So you're thinking January of 25. If I resigned today, what you're saying is I couldn't be a lobbyist until January 25. Correct. I don't think that's as clear as it needs to be. Yeah. Well, maybe what we should say. Brian's right. I think that needs to be clear. And do we also, I just haven't gotten there yet. Are we able because often, as you know, let's say a political party gains the governorship and we there are always there's an exodus of legislators taking those executive jobs. Do we, are we still able to do that? Or are we now looking at an ability to go straight into state government after you've been a legislator? Yeah, you can. And so she shall not be an advocate for anyone other than the state. Oh, great. Okay. And sorry, where's that? It's on line 16 on page 10. Oh, right. There it is. 15 and 16. So that would be covered. And I think we had a lot of conversation before about limiting employment and that we didn't necessarily want to do that either going from the legislature to the administration or from the administration to the legislature. Right. Although, as we all know, members of the administration lobby us often. Yes, but that's in for the state. That's okay. It says it here. I realized I'm just saying. Well, that's their job is to lobby for the executive branch. That's what I'm doing right now. And they're not there and they're actually not paid. They're not listed as registered lobbyists. They're lobbying. I realize that their position. I realize just saying. But I think part of the rationale, Senator Clarkson, was we're so small estate and the available pool of candidates is small. And if you, if you tighten it too much, you don't allow for anybody to do anything. I totally agree. It's just, yeah, I know it's basically the same thing. It's just different employer and hopefully higher, you know, different purpose. But, but I, yeah, it is. But you couldn't say if you were in the legislature, you can't lobby. You can't come before the legislature as an employee of the state. But if you weren't in the legislature, you can come before the legislature. I mean, yeah, anyway. So I just think you need to clarify some of your favorite people, Allison, some of your favorite people have taken that position. Many of our favorite people, many, many of our favorite people and former colleagues state, all of our former colleagues. I'm sure we can come up with language to clarify. Yeah. I think that's one of the centered commerce thoughts. And maybe to the end of the next full biennial session, following departure from the general assembly, something like that. That really creates a, you'll know that at minimum it's two years. Yeah, yeah. So I can suggest that. And then legislative branch employees. This is only people who work for the legislative branch, just one year for them. Because I think the risk of their having unfair influence is much lower than a former colleague. We did get a bunch of comments from people saying, well, I work for A&R. And if I leave, does this mean I can't contract with A&R or with the state of Vermont if I'm an engineer or something like that. And so we put in this section on page 11, line five, that if people have contracts with the state of Vermont, that's permitted. The state of Vermont can contract with them. We didn't want to disenfranchise anybody from their area of employment. And then on section five, representation restrictions. Would you explain that a little bit? I have a question mark beside that. Okay, if I was part of a, let's say when I used to work at OPR, if I was part of a prosecution or a decision making on a disciplinary matter, and then I left state government, I wouldn't be able to come back regarding that matter, no matter what, for no period of time. It would be a permanent exclusion, just with regard to a matter that I've been intimately involved with. Just for the sanctity of the matter, the investigation, that if I was involved in investigation and misconduct, I couldn't then come back a year later representing the person who was being investigated. I've already sort of cast my lot with the state on that one. And it's so closely tied to my state employment and what I did with the state that the sanctity of it would be destroyed by me taking another side and appearing at all. So if I'm intimately involved in an investigation or request for rulemaking, something like that, I can't go ask work for the people who were under investigation or asking for a real change. You can't work for the other side, but you're a material witness. I mean, you are an expert now in the side that you work for with the state. I mean, if you continue to... I think so. If I was called as a witness, that would probably be okay. Right. I mean, the... But maybe not. And again, it's like litigation. If I was involved, intimately involved in litigation in a particular matter, then I couldn't be involved on anybody's behalf later on, nor should I be. And I wouldn't be a material witness in that sense. I mean, if I had subject matter information, that would be another thing. Yeah, but you have subject matter expertise. And if it isn't a legal issue, surely you're of infinite value to a committee or to anyone who needs expert testimony on something, even if you'd love state government. I would think you would be a huge resource. Again, to go to Brian's point, we're going to be talking about Brian's point, we're a tiny state. We don't have that many experts in those areas. Well, I think this... I'm sorry. I think it's very... I might be reading this wrong, but on line 13, it says, you can't appear before the entity of the state on behalf of any person. So you can... You could be an expert witness, but you couldn't come in and appear on behalf of that person that you were involved with. Is that what... Is that the way I'm reading this? Yeah, other than the state. Other than the state. Yeah. So I couldn't flip sides. Right. It's the flipping sides that's the problem, not the... Okay. Right. So if the state called me, that would be one thing. But I couldn't flip side and go for the other side. So, okay, now that I have a son who's a state's attorney, what happens if you leave state government and instead of... Maybe you had worked in the AG's office, our prosecutor, and all of us... Then you go and work for the defender general's office. I mean, aren't you able to flip sides there? Yeah, but as long as you're not working for the same person. I mean, I had that happen. And I know that's how that frequently happens. Some of our former public defender becomes a state's attorney or vice versa. That's okay, but you can't be on the same case. So you couldn't... Somebody couldn't be my lawyer and then go join the AG's office and prosecute me. Okay. Thanks. And if we're talking about lawyers, there's the whole lawyers ethics code that prohibits use of confidential information, et cetera, against former clients without their consent or disclosure. Oh, right. Absolutely. So those are... I mean, I don't think my description has done this really justice, but I mean, the representation restrictions are really very limited to those situations where you play an active role in one particular matter to prevent you from flipping and taking the other side when you get out. And it's the same thing as the revolving door. It creates two problems. One is you may be using information you had on the inside against the state, which isn't good. And the other is whose side was this person working on before they left? Why did they flip and go for the other side? So it really, I think, protects the integrity of the proceeding to know that somebody who's working for the state in a particular matter can't go and then come back against the state in that one particular matter. The next section on page 12 is section 12, basically says we all have to abide by the law, including anti-discrimination and equal opportunity laws and comply with applicable governmental codes of conduct. And then if there are any agency rules or executive orders that we're supposed to comply with, then we do that as well. And then under section D on section on line nine, this is the part that went back to what we were talking about earlier about conflicts of interest. And this is where the statutory drafting makes this a little confusing. But when we were talking about only because it's out of order. So if you have a conflict of interest, you recuse or you determine if there's good cause. And this D outlines what good causes. And this is what we talked about earlier. But does this say that the State Ethics Commission, the person or the person's supervisor would request a determination, right? There isn't a determination in every instance. No, no, no, no. That would be the rare exception. It would be, say, if I felt I had a conflict of anything, but my supervisor said, no, Larry, you don't, then in that situation, they could ethics commission if my finding of a conflict was well founded or not. And so I would imagine this would happen extremely rarely. So it wouldn't include, before we had talked about the idea that somebody could challenge your decision about whether or not you have a conflict or not. And I asked whether somebody could challenge that. And you said, yeah, I could lead towards a hearing or what have you. If I thought you were doing something wrong, or that you choose not to recuse yourself because you think you have good cause to continue forward. I, as it's just a legislator, for example, could not ask the Ethics Commission to decide whether or not you're abiding by the good cause or not. Correct. But you could file a complaint against me once we get to that stage where we take complaints and that might trigger a complaint. Excuse me. But the idea is, and this would apply to a legislative branch, I think probably almost, well, most, more than anybody else, is if you had somebody who said, I can't do this, I have a conflict. And their boss says, I don't see the conflict. I'm going to ask the Ethics Commission for a second opinion. Then they could do that. I see it. Would it work the other way also? I don't have a conflict and my boss says, oh, yes, you do. Hadn't thought of that. But I would imagine that my boss would have other recourse. Like if he's my piggy or she is my boss, she could say, Larry, you're off this. And I would have to go along with that because that would be a condition of my employment. Yeah. On page 13, Section C, what this does is give whistleblower protection for ethics complaints. So in very much the way there is whistleblower protection in 3VSA 971, there would be whistleblower protections for ethics complaints as well. And then on Section F would be provisions for mandatory ethics training and the hope would be that there would be mandatory training for all new employees within their first 120 days. They would get some kind of ethics training and each department would keep track and keep records to make sure that their employees had been adequately or appropriately trained. And the training would be either in person or online. I would think that an introductory training for state government could be a very simple, maybe one or an hour and a half online training session. I've seen some that states use and they're pretty good. And we could do that with, I think, relative ease and very little expense. And then for, we could have continued education once every three years again could be in person or online and approved ethics providers would be the Ethics Commission, CAPS, the Department of Human Services, the House and Senate ethics panels if they want to give trainings for their own members and any other education providers approved by the Ethics Commission. So we'd have a little leeway if somebody else came along and said, we've got a great ethics program. If we felt that was appropriate, we could say, yeah, that would be an acceptable ethics program. But I think the idea is, I'm sorry. No, no, go ahead. The idea is to make sure that when people join state government that they realize that there are ethical considerations for everything we do starting on day one. And then a reminder, every three years or however often is appropriate, just to brush up and go through those things again. So that ethics is somewhere near the front of our mind when we're going about our daily affairs. So I would modify this a little bit so that legislators would receive some training at the beginning of every biennium. Because every three years doesn't make any sense at all with a two-year biennium election cycle. And we are required to do every biennium sexual harassment training, implicit bias training. And I believe we should be required to do charm school classes. But so far, I can't get that put in place. But charm school could marry with ethics. No, I don't think so. Charm school is very ethics. And I think that we have legislators who don't understand the kind of unspoken... Anyway, the traditions and stuff of the Senate, we go through this every biennium. But so I would just put it there that at the beginning of every biennium there should be some training by the legislature. Here, here. I guess my concern is we don't have anything about our other public servant bodies. So we don't have anything here about working with Vermont League of Cities and Towns to make sure that every select board gets this. Every municipality gets this. This should be... We have never, we have not gone to municipalities yet. Purposely. About public servants here. No, they are not defined as municipalities. They're state public servants. We have not... This does not extend to municipalities only to state public servants. So this is a state code of ethics. Yes. Normal people would understand that as applying to everybody in the state. I don't think so. I do. Okay. Well, it doesn't. It was a state law. I wouldn't think, oh, that's just a state law for legislators. I think that's a state law for everybody. Well, if you look at the affected body, the affected people, it clearly says all appointed or elected officials of the state, persons elected, members of the General Assembly, state employees, persons appointed to serve on state boards and commissions, and persons who are authorized to speak on behalf of the state. It does not cover municipalities and we have purposely not gone there. Okay. So do we... Do you know, does anybody know if the Vermont League of Cities and Towns has a code of ethics for... They don't have a... They have a model code of ethics and they're encouraging their towns to adopt code of ethics, but they can't tell them that they have to. And many... No, we... Well, I think this is a different conversation. Okay. I get it. I get that it's a different conversation. It's just to me that if we're making this a stat law for... I mean, yeah, okay. It's a... It's a different conversation. It's a different conversation. Got it. I didn't mean to shut you down, but we spend a lot of time debating this a couple of years ago. No, I remember this vaguely, but I think we should have it after we get this up and running. Can I ask a question? Yeah, yeah. What about... What about regional government, like regional planning commissions and... They're not covered because they're not state. Okay. This is only a state employees and officers code of ethics. Am I right, Larry? Yes. Yeah. So what about things like the Arts Council or the State... Arts Council or the State Humanities Council or historic... You know, the other state bodies that are... It says state boards and commissions. Okay. Great. State board. Okay. Great. Thanks. That's at the beginning. That would mean having to go on the way back. Yes. It's on the very beginning under applicability. Right. Yeah, yeah. Got it. Thanks for that reminder. Yep. And I didn't mean to jump there, but we do not want to have this conversation now. But I think once we establish this as a model code of ethics, I hope that others will adopt it. Well, and the VLCT does have one. Great. And many, many towns have adopted their own. They... Yeah, I've looked into that. We actually have a lot of those. We posted them on our website in case people were interested in them. There are a few towns or cities that have really nice ethics code, but it's a handful. And the other towns, the Vermont League of Cities and Towns, created a policy. But it's very aspirational and it's not hugely helpful. I've gotten calls from people in towns saying, what do we do? And my response is, well, what are you using? And they said, we have this policy that we adopted. And I just... I said, well, take a look at our code. And if you want to adopt something like our code, go ahead. You know, it's a good model. And I agree. Someday, it would be a great conversation to have. But... Yeah. Great. We'll have it here. Yeah. One of the questions we didn't discuss today is... And maybe just because nobody's questioned it, but it was in the comments we received is whether this should apply to non-judicial functioning in the judicial branch, you know. So I was thinking, well, the Constitution has an exclusion for judges. Much as what you do as legislators is insulated from... Or isolated from discussion by other people and constitutionally protected judges when they're judging cases have that protection for their jobs as well. The question is, should the code apply to state employees other than judges who work in the judicial branch? And I was just thinking, some of the things that they do are very, very much the same as what happens in the executive branch. You know, they have contracts. They hire people. They have IT. They do payroll. They have custodial staff. They own buildings. They purchase computers and programs. They do all these things. They have the same temptations that we have in the executive branch or the legislative branch about using personal equipment or using private information. There are lots of people who aren't judges, who aren't making decisions, who have the same ethical considerations that everyone else in state government does. And I think our position would be that the code should apply to people who aren't deciding cases. And acting in a judicial manner. I think if you look at the comments we received, we did receive a comment from the judicial branch saying that they should not be covered. But I think the arguments for including them are stronger than the arguments for excluding them. It's just like the Department of Human Resources. They don't really have a position on the ethics code because it's separate and apart from what they do. They do employee or employee relationships. And in the judicial branch, it's one thing to have an employer-employee relationship. It's another thing to determine whether somebody is using private information for personal gain or misusing their position for some other thing, which is the same for everybody in government, regardless of branch. And I don't think it seems to me as a matter of efficiency and accountability that the standard for people other than judges should be the same throughout state government. And I know in the response that TJ drafted on April 9th and sent to you after April 9th, addressed that. And in fact, ethics commissions or ethics laws in some other states do encompass non-judicial appointees. Actually, a couple of states, they include judicial appointees or judicial people because they're elected. But that's the rare exception, except for probate judges. I was going to say, we have elected judges here. But they're not state elected judges. They're county, so they're not covered under here. I would support that proposal, Larry. I think that's absolutely appropriate for administrative staff in the judicial branch. I think that's absolutely appropriate. I think we'd have to have a lot of conversation about that with the judiciary, because if you look in the Constitution, it clearly says, the Supreme Court shall make and promulgate rules governing the administration. You've frozen up again. Oh, no, we've lost her. Yeah, usually she disappears after this. It was about to say administration. She's basically saying that they're ruled by the Constitution. A hiccup in the Constitution. We'll have to figure out what to do about it. I wasn't sure, Larry, if what you had said before, that most states or only some states covered the judiciary workers. Yeah, I'll let T.J. address that. But yeah, I think on page three of the memo, or page two of the memo, they T.J. drafted. He addressed whether judicial employees covered by the code. I guess I didn't lose my internet, but I got kicked off again. Look, I didn't even have to call you. You got back all on your own. We were still talking about the judiciary question. I asked whether it was unusual for other states to cover the judiciary workers or not. Well, did you hear what I read from the Constitution? Not all of it. Not all of it. You got cut off mid-sentence. It says clearly, the Supreme Court shall make and promulgate rules governing the administration of all courts. And I suspect the administration means the administrative staff, because they are the ones that administer it. The judges make the judicial decisions, but the other people administer the courts. So it would have to be a conversation with the judiciary. Absolutely. But I think it's a worthy conversation. Yeah. And there are, I've had these conversations that I don't have in front of me now, but there are lots of laws and statutes adopted by the General Assembly telling the judiciary how to do certain things. So they're not sacrosanct by any means. Oh, no. I don't think it's a matter of should they be, but I really think they know that their branch better than we do to make sure it meets the needs of what a conflict of interest looks like in that branch. I think it's different for the judicial branch than state employees. Really? How do you think they're different? How do you think that they're different as administrators? How are they not tempted by the same thing as the executive branch or the legislative branches? Well, they just have really different administrators than we do. People are handling different information. I just think they would know better than we would about their own branch of government. Well, we're making a decision about two branches of government. I don't see that we should be excluding the judiciary, and I think they do the same straightforward work. I mean, they just manage different kinds of stuff, but all they're doing is administering and managing. It's not like they're doing something sacred. No, I'm not saying they're less sacred. I mean, they're working with police and a lot of other sensitive information. I feel like it's a different branch of government that should be able to determine their own code of ethics. And we don't know. I'm just trying to humble us a little bit. It's just not our job. Well, I think we'll definitely have the conversation with them and see because they do have their judicial rules. And so I think it's important that we hear from them. We certainly can make a decision without hearing from them. Right. And I suppose if we're hearing from another branch of government, we should hear from the secretary of the agency administration. I am sure that when we get to actually addressing the details of this bill, we will hear from almost everybody who has something to say. True. I'd be shocked if it was otherwise. Can I ask a question? Sure. Larry, I heard you say something about custodial staff. And I just wondered sort of what that looks like. Oh, I know. I don't know in detail how they handle custodial staff. That was an example. But they hire people. They hire clerks. They hire assistant clerks. They hire people to work in their buildings. And I don't know what overlap there may or may not be with BGS. There may be. There may not be. But they certainly, you know, they have budgets and they award contracts and they make decisions and they hire people. And that kind of work is no different from what goes on in any other branch of government. And the temptations that an individual might have to put their personal interests ahead of their governmental interests are the same. And that was my point that I don't really see that it would be any, any different. You know, there's certainly ample history of the legislature telling the judiciary how to do certain things, you know, like you permit them to have furlough days. You tell them how to administer ticket revenues. You know, you're the ones who create the superior court divisions and subdivisions, you know, so there's a lot of, you know, you said venue for courts, you know, they're budget. I'm asking a different question, which is, when have you received a complaint about a custodial staff person? Oh, I've never received a complaint about a custodial staff. I just pulled that out of the air. Okay. And if that clouded the issue, then I'm happy to take that. Well, I mean, when I was on general housing and military affairs, we worked a lot on making sure custodial staff were an over-scrutinized credit checks, et cetera. I mean, a lot of people tend to blame custodial staff if they believe there's some kind of unethical behavior happening. They tend to put a lot of, just like we saw with the polygraph test, et cetera, I feel like when we're trying to solve bigger problems, we put our, we put a lot of screws on the lowest paid workers. So I was just really curious what you meant by that. No, no, and that was probably not the best I could have come up with. But I think, you know, the idea is if I'm hiring somebody, and I don't know who hires custodial staff over there, if they do it or if they use BGS, maybe it's an on-issue, but they do hire people. And if it's a matter of, do I hire my son's boyfriend or somebody else, that's an ethical issue. And that's no different there than it would be anywhere else in state government. So I think that there are two things that I just want to say, but that one, in that same section that I read from the Constitution, it also says, any rule adopted by the Supreme Court may be revised by the General Assembly. So we do have some authority there. We're not completely distinct branches of government, but the, and the other complicating issue here is that some of the court people are county employees, as opposed to state employees. So that gets a little complicated here about who would, if we included the judiciary, non-judges, who would be covered? Everybody who works for the judiciary are only the people that work for the state for the judiciary. So I just, we just need to have more discussion about this. Where are we committee? Well, oh, I'm sorry. Oh, no, or Larry, look, I'm sorry. No, I think we've gone through, when you were at your other hearing, Senator Wright, basically we're just going through the main points of the code, the do's and the don'ts, which I don't want to characterize what other people said, but I would submit that many of those things are fairly straightforward and not really, I would hope, not a matter of much debate. Basically everything that's in there is a matter of putting our duty to the state of Vermont ahead of our personal interests. And that's same with preferential treatment or using confidential information, being fair to people. It all comes down to that really, that one basic thing is our duty to the state of Vermont comes first. And if we let our personal interests come first, then we violated one of these provisions. And that's pretty straightforward. The areas of discussion will be, to what extent this, or to whom will this apply and to what extent, and how do we work out some of those fine points? But I think, I mean, if I had a theme, it would be that we should, this is me, the advocate now, try and keep it as simple as possible to get something that people would understand and that we can educate on and raise awareness about our duty as state employees, state officials. Because I think the public needs to hear this. I mean, there's so much cynicism these days, especially after the last couple of years. Anything that we can do to let the public, to assure the public that we're really on their side and not in it for ourselves would serve us all well and make our jobs much easier. And I've said before, I think some people worry that an ethics code is a trap for the unwary. And I don't see it that way. I don't think it has to be that way. I think if anything, it protects us. If the public knows what is expected of us and we're open and transparent about what we're doing, people will trust us more. So I see it as more of a shield for us in state government than a sword to be used against us. And I think it would help all of us to have something that applies to us and that the public can have some confidence in. And that's why I think it should be as inclusive as possible and should be clear that it applies to everybody where it can and with no exceptions. So for me, clearly we won't get this past this year. We know that. But it would be great if we come back in January and we're really ready to... We'll take this up the first week we come back and get judiciary in here and whoever else we need to, all the advocacy groups and anybody who wants to testify. What would be helpful to me is to see what it would look like if I go to the state of Vermont website. Once this is passed and adopted, I go to the state of Vermont website and I look for the state code of ethics. I don't want to see this because this is so garbled. And I mean, just the drafting construct, I would like to see what it says and how it's laid out. And I don't know, but for me, that would be very, very helpful so that I could see it without all the kind of... It's sort of distilled in bullet points. Well, however it would be presented, I don't know if it's bullet points or little paragraphs or sentences or what, but how it would look to the public who wants to look at the state code of ethics. That would... I don't know about anybody else, but that would really help me to understand what it is we're doing here. And then all this other stuff is statutory construct and backup and explanations and stuff. I've been thinking the same thing, exactly. This, I've been looking at this and wondering like, if I think somebody broke the law or broke the ethics code, I'm going to go look at a piece of legislation. I want to look at a list of things that it does and don'ts. Right, exactly. Make it simple. And... If you look at what we sent you in November, that's the format that you want, I think. Right. I did. I don't think I even have it anymore, but I would like to see it again. It's posted on our website. Okay. Right on today. It's on our website. Under Larry's name. Yeah. It's under Larry's name for today. Okay. Although having said that, I also actually think that this piece of legislation is a lot simpler than I thought it was going to be. Yeah. I mean, I'm glad to see that it is fairly confined. I mean, I think that the work in terms of the bill itself is not as complicated as I was afraid it might be. Yeah. Senator Hallamore. Thank you, Madam Chair. So, Larry, I just want to recognize your efforts on TJs and whoever else worked on this because I can clearly see a lot of work went into this. And it's unfortunate for many reasons that we didn't get to this earlier in this session, but we will get to it next year for sure. But the chair, I think, has raised a good point in, and the other senators have chimed in as well. If I'm just an average Vermonter and I have a feeling that there's something not right with a particular situation, if we can manage to write it in plain English so that somebody goes to the Vermont, state of Vermont website and is able to distill for themselves exactly what this covers, and I just think it would be a lot more important than constantly referring to six VSA chapter above a lot because most people that I know don't have any idea what those things even mean. But they sure as heck know if something is not right with a particular situation. So thank you for your work, but I do think Senator White's raised a very good point that if we could get it, and I don't know how to word, Smith, any better than you do, but put it in plain English so that when people see it, they know what this covers. All right. Well, I can send you again another copy of what we submitted last November, which is plain English. The only trouble I have with the legislative draft H384 is it is all chopped up to fit into the existing statute. Yeah. Well, that's the way we have to do it. Yeah, I know. And as you can tell, going through it today, it's just hard to follow that way. I agree, 100%. So I don't see it under today's under your name. It's 98 pages long. And it says under Larry Novans. No, no, that's I thought that we're referring to. Well, I said one of these was in November. I did print. It's OK. It's not on today's documents. It's under today's documents under Larry Novans. November, it says November 11th, 2020. Not under today's. Can I share my screen? Yeah, it's under today's. Oh, all of the all I see under today's is ethic commission, submitted proposal code of ethics and attachments. That's it. That's that's his November 11th document that he sent us in November. And where is the where is the code of ethics that someone would look at? Well, the bill is under Amarin's name. No, no, no, that's not what I meant. I printed out that whole 98 page thing. Yeah. What I don't see anywhere there. And Larry, maybe you can show me what page it's on. Yeah. Is something that the the average Vermonter could look at and could say, this is the code of ethics. If yeah, let me share my screen. All right. Yeah. Oh, I can't. I'm just. Yeah, we'll have to give you something. I'll try it now. There we go. It's eight pages. Yeah, it's eight pages. Really? We are the what you we have posted is 98 pages. You're right. But there's eight pages of it that are the guns. But this isn't this doesn't this is not as plain English as you would like it to be. I agree with that. This isn't what I want to see. This isn't what I want to see. Yeah, you want to see something distilled and easy to read and clear. No, I want to see. I want to see what the public would see. I don't think the public cares that more than 40 states have codes of ethics. And this doesn't tell me they don't care about the findings in the legislative intent. They don't care about any of that. What they want to see is a nice one page list of the things that do's and don'ts, as Senator Collomer said, that's what they that's what they want to see. And that's what I'd like to see. Is because I read all of that, but it didn't. But no public person is going to read that. Does that make any sense? Yes, it makes sense. What's in here is the distillation of the bill, which I think was a good start towards plain English, but you're saying we've got to go more into plain English. Well, what I would like to see is the Boy Scouts. Well, that's a bad example now. The Girl Scouts have a code of ethics. It is five things. You you should do this. You shouldn't do this. The I don't know that that's all. I think people want have when Senator Colmore and Senator Polina both said is people need to be able to go there and see this is what they can do. This is what they can't do. Just in 10 words or less for every everything, they can't accept a gift over $20. I mean, I don't know what they can't. They can't use their position for personal gain. Those are the kinds of things that all the backup behind that is is is important, but that's what they need to see. I would certainly be happy to give you a one one and a half page summary in plain English. Not a summary. I don't want a summary. OK, then synopsis. I want a list. I want a list of things that we can that state employees can do and can't do. So just to be fair, I've looked at like three or four other states code of ethics right now. They're they're not very easy to read. I don't know. I haven't found a model yet. I think like corporations have pretty simple codes of ethics, whether or not we agree with them following it. But it's these other states have huge long complicated lists that are kind of. I think they're more designed for lawyers and policymakers than for the public. It's just I just don't see a model like what you're talking about in other states, just from a cursory glance. Right now, maybe maybe I'm asking for something that's impossible to do. But I I just don't see. I mean, I I was thinking of when you said corporations have it. And this isn't a code of ethics necessarily. But you know, when we tend to have mission statements that are just outrageously mom and pop and don't really say anything anyway, and vision statements and stuff like that. You know what I think it's. I think it was Helena Rubinstein, isn't that a makeup company, right? Right. I think it was them that their motto was we manufacture chemicals. We sell hope. I mean, it's great that how do you enforce that? Yeah, there is a 14 item code of ethics for executive branch employees of the U.S. government that's much easier to read. I'm happy to circulate that to the committee. That's something like that. And I think FAQs would be helpful when we're when we're ready to roll this out. It would be great to have a whole list of frequently asked questions. To write right for for us and to be able to respond to people. But I really want to see what what the public is going to see when they go to the state of Vermont code of ethics. So that it's very clear we cannot use our positions for personal gain. We cannot accept gifts over a certain amount. We cannot. That's what I'd like to see. But we need to maybe pass a code of ethics before we do that. Well, we have we have the draft here. Why? Oh, I agree. It would be I'd like to see what if we pass this draft as it is. What would we see? It's not dissimilar from the code of ethics that the commission came up with a year and a half ago. Well, use that as a format then. But it's different enough that it's going to cause. I mean, use it as a format, not the not the trouble. The trouble is we're talking about a law. And the trouble with laws is there are people looking for loopholes all the time. So we were very we tried to be as careful as we could to answer a lot of the questions and a lot of the what ifs with this language. And I on maybe this is my legal training. I don't know how to keep it simple and easily understood without depriving it of its of its meaning or eventual enforceability. Well, you could always maybe I'm maybe I'm wrong here, but you'll always we'll always have the law. Whatever we pass, the law will always be there. The statutes will be there. The people who administer or who determine the code of code of ethics are who make decisions will know what the backup is. But the public doesn't need all that information there. They're the ones that are going to be looking for. What is that? What is Senator White doing that is unethical? I'm going to try and find her something that she's doing that's unethical. So they go to that list and they say, uh-huh. Somebody took her to dinner the other night and I know it was over $20. I guess maybe I'm asking for something different than I don't want to make the law. So just bullet points. No, the public doesn't read the law. I think what I sent that's 14 items from the federal government for state I mean for U.S. employees is it tracks a lot with everything we've been talking about. It just makes it and in fact, I think the public in addition to the people who are being governed by this, they have a right to understand it and play English as well. And so I think it's a pretty good model that in my view so far doesn't conflict with what we've talked about and may add some value to the conversation. Oh, you're right. Did you send it to Larry? I don't think you did. She emailed it to all of us. I know, but I'll forward it to Larry. Okay. Yeah. The spacing got weird. I don't know, it's like copied. But you can look at it in the website link itself. Yeah, it came through perfect in your email. Okay. Yeah. I don't have TJ's email, but I sent it to Larry. Thank you. Okay. So, committee, I hate to beat a dead horse on that one, but I just feel it's really important to have those simple bullet points that people can understand. Yeah, let's say you, you know, let's say there was like an AmeriCorps who was new to state government and you're like, this is, you know, this is the code of ethics we follow. You're not going to ask them to read the law. You're going to ask them to understand, you know, hey, you're here for six months. You should know the ways we try to maintain. And that's easier to adopt in a local municipality or wherever. I think it's easier to have as a guide. Okay. So I think that anything that's simple, you can always have an asterisk and say, see white old blah, blah, and for the whole law at the bottom. Well, anybody, anybody in their right mind is going to know that this is not the backup information, that there's, there's information behind this that has to be followed. And that I, anyway, right. In fact, we're very clear when people deserve to know their rights and responsibilities in plain English because it's only fair to your ability to enforce them. Okay. So thank you. So Larry, we will probably not see you until January. And again, we apologize for putting you off so much. But I think this has been a good discussion. I'm sorry I missed part of it. But I think it puts us in a good place to land in January. And we can all spend a lot of time over the summer and fall thinking about this and contemplating it and we'll come back in January ready to rock and roll. Senator Clarkson. So Larry, is there anything we can do as a committee or we could do as a joint committee with the house to advance the ball at all during our off session that would be useful? Like, I don't know, public hearing? I mean, or should we just not, we'll just wait and pick it all up in January. I don't know. That's your barely wick. I think you need to hear from more people and how you choose to do that. I mean, you know best how to do that. I can't advise you. Well, we can have a public hearing in January. My, my preference is not to have a public hearing because in public hearings you have people get there two minutes or the three minutes and there's no discussion. And it just goes bam, bam, bam, bam. And there's I would prefer to have to take as many days as we need in the committee and hear from anybody who has something they would like to say. Just because I think public hearings often, they don't allow the committee to ask questions and to say, well, what do you mean by this? And I think they're very unsatisfactory for both people who testify and for the committee members. Senator Colomar. Thank you, Madam Chair. I agree. I think the normal legislative process which involves committee work will definitely attract those folks who have a passion for this and they will be able to at least speak to the provisions that Larry has put together. And I think we'd be much further ahead. It's almost like starting from all over again, if we have a public hearing. Many of the public has already responded to Larry and I think we have the benefit of some pretty hard work on that side. So yeah, I think for sure the regular committee work will, to me, make the most sense. Thank you. Anybody else? Well, thank you, Larry. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thanks a lot. Thank you, TJ. Thanks, TJ. Thank you. This was great. And a lot of work. We know that you put a lot of work into this and we appreciate it. Well, thank you all. All right. Well, well. So let's jump to S15. Can we take a five minute exercise break? Okay. Chris, is that okay with you?