 Okay, we are live. This is Senate government operations. It is Tuesday, January 12th, and all the committee is here, along with others. I don't know if there's anybody here beyond the people that I can see, but we are in allowing people to join us. And just so that people out there watching know, they can join us in the room, as they would in the state house, just be able to come into the room. But just coming into the room does not mean that you will be able to participate. Some people will be asked to testify and be witnesses, but others may be in the room and not participating. So just wanted to let people know that. That's the way we're operating. So, committee, we have the town meeting bill that we need to finish up. I don't know if there are any questions. I did a, Brian, I did a run through of it at the Senate at the Democratic caucus at noon today. And but everybody should have gotten the summary before that. Did you get it up, Brian? Yes. And I printed it out for my radio tomorrow, in case there's questions there. We did have a Senate GOP caucus as well this morning. Only one person didn't attend. So the other six were apprised. And in fact, one of them is Richie Westman, who was on joint fiscal. So he's already well aware of it because he voted to help fund it. So I don't anticipate any problems with suspending rules tomorrow and getting it in all final stages of passage and then sending it on to the governor. Do you know whether it's reached the house floor yet? It is there today. And my understanding and Tucker can probably tell us my understanding is that there are some House Republicans have an amendment that they are going to propose that says active voters only will be mailed a ballot if they mail it. And I think that that was my understanding is that that's the way it would be done anyway, because that's the way the general election was. It was people who had not been challenged. Active voters. So I don't know, Tucker, do you know if there is that amendment? That amendment was not introduced on the floor and that language exists in the underlying bill as it was introduced and amended by House Gov Ops anyway. The bill was passed and message to the Senate moments ago. Oh, good. Okay, 28. All right. Well, that's what I was confused by that. The active thing because I didn't look at it to see if it was actually if it actually said active voters, but I knew that that was the intent. So I was a language. I'm sorry, Madam Chair, I didn't mean to go ahead. Go ahead. The language says active registered voters. Yeah. So that means that's already in the bill. Huh. They are not already in the bill. I don't know why anybody needed an amendment. I don't know. I just heard that they were going to be one. I guess there wasn't her. There was one individual amendment from a representative that was discussed and found unfavorable in the House Government Operations Committee and that amendment would have required municipalities to take action. It would have changed the bill from discretionary authority to mandatory alternative procedures and told municipalities to do one or the other or a combination of both moving the date and mailing out ballots. House Gov ups found that unfavorable and then I don't think that it was discussed on the floor. So I'm not sure if that amendment was taken back before the House convened, but it has been passed and sent over to us. Okay, so the plan is, I guess we can't really vote on it until we have it. But the plan is for it to hit the floor tomorrow at our one o'clock floor session. And then it'll come down to us, down to us. It'll come to us at 1 30 or 1 15 whenever we adjourn. And when we convene the committee, we will vote on it then. Is that everybody's understanding, Brian? Thank you, Madam Chair. Actually, it'll be on notice probably tomorrow. So we'll have to ask for a suspension of the rules to bring it off the notice calendar and take up immediate action. So it won't be until we do that, it'll still be on notice. Yeah. Well, no, it will go on notice for tomorrow. I'm forgetting. I've been very confused because up until this point, the Senate has had no calendar, which I found very curious. There was never any calendar entered on the first four days. But but when it if it goes to the Senate tomorrow, it doesn't go on the calendar, it just gets referred to us. Just like a new bill that's being introduced, right? It'll go to the it'll go to the Senate Secretary and it'll be just it doesn't appear on the calendar. It'll just be referred to us tomorrow to our committee. Then we then will take will pass it and send it up. And on Thursday, it'll be on notice calendar. And then we have to suspend the rules. You've got it. You've got it straight, Madam Chair. I miss hope. Well, boy. All right, but we do have some people here with us today who I know that I don't see Carrie here. I is there. I know that Kendall wants to weigh in. And I don't know. I see John Odom here. I don't know if he wants to and Gwen. So can we start with Kendall? Sure. Thank you, chair. And good afternoon, everybody. For the record, Kendall Smith from Governor Scott's office. I'm the governor's director of policy development and legislative affairs. I want to start first by saying thank you all for the open lines of communication that we've had on this issue throughout the year over the year and throughout the year. And I think it's been a great example of our shared willingness to listen to each other and effectively collaborate. I'm going to be really short and sweet, both for your guys's benefit and mine. I do have a two year old roaming in the background. So just again, apologies if there's any interruptions. And thank you for bearing with me or if you hear the lion king in the background as well. So I don't have any bombshells or any changes from what I've previously shared with committee members on this issue. But I just wanted to take the opportunity to get on the record and reiterate them. It's the governor's preference that mailing of ballots be required for this town meeting day on the premise of making sure that all rematchers are comfortable participating and safe when they participate. We're of course very appreciative of the Joint Fiscal Committee allocating the funding and the resources for municipalities and school boards to choose to do that if they wish. And we thought that went very well. That being said, we aren't going to fully oppose the bill. So I just want to be clear about that. But the governor is going to continue to strongly advocate over the coming weeks that our hope is that municipalities and school boards will take advantage of the funding and the flexibility presented in the bail, the bill sorry, to mail ballots and that we see a strong uptake in that. And of course, we'll continue to monitor the epidemiological data and the trajectory of the virus in the state. That's really all I have. I just again, for folks that may have not heard me say before wanted to make sure you were aware of the position here. Thank you for allowing me to participate in this, especially to the chair over the past weeks and happy to take any questions. But that that's really what I wanted to share with you all this morning. I'm sorry this afternoon at this point. Thank you. I will say that it has been a pretty collaborative process. And I know that the governor would prefer to have it be mandatory. But I appreciate the fact that he is not opposing the bill for that because of his preference. And I think that I have talked to a number of towns. And I think that there are a number of towns who knowing that there are some funds available to them are really considering doing the mail out. And and I I just think that it's leaving it to their discretion is a is a wise choice. But that's that's me. Anybody else anybody else on the committee want to weigh in on this Allison? Thank you, Madam Chair Kendall. It's always good to see you. I guess what I'm still not clear on them what if every town chose to mail balance what our costs would be and I I'm not sure we've got a clear answer from the Secretary of State's office on that. But I I'm my concern at the moment is how are we equitably going to dole out those monies? Because two million dollars does not strike me as enough to actually pay for every town mailing. So one of my concerns is where, you know, we talked about this briefly, where the money is going to come from to to pay for the balance. I can tell you what I know and this really is the Secretary of State's area of expertise. So what I know I'm sharing from my conversations with the Secretary and will setting and Chris Winters. But from our conversations with them, especially when putting together the Joint Fiscal Committee request again, and I just want to be very clear on the record that I'm not attempting to speak for their office, was that the two million dollars would cover if there was an uptake by all towns and how that was determined was we're only reimbursing for cost over and beyond what's budgeted in order to produce and mail ballots if somebody should choose to do that. So I live in very town, we already use an Australian ballot. So if very town was to apply for reimbursement to the Secretary of State's office, they couldn't be reimbursed for the printing of the ballots. And that's already part of their their budget, but they could be reimbursed for the mailing of that ballot. So not every town would necessarily need to be reimbursed for the total production plus mailing, it would vary apologies, it would vary on a case by case basis. And that $2 million we are using from the I apologize she's saying the dog is eating her mac and cheese. I'm just going to be being allocated from CRF monies. And they'll have the whole year, I believe, to submit that reimbursement request to the Secretary of State's office, given that not all votes happen at the same time. If we found that we needed more money than that, depending on how requests started rolling in, we could always work with the legislature, we assume we will potentially have some more unallocated CRF that we might be able to apply here. Or we again, since we've made this commitment, again, to communities, we could again work with the legislature to see if we need general fund or what other sources are available. Right. And when we'd had this conversation with the Secretary of State, they said that that would happen and we would put it in the budget if we needed to, if it was if it was if there was a huge uptake. Right. Right. Go ahead, Nintendo. No, no, you go chair. No. I was just saying, yes, that was just recapping that yes. And again, that two million figure was something that we worked with well sending. And again, Secretary condos in terms of solidifying, but for more details in terms of exactly like the breakdown of that cost, you'd have to talk to their office. Well, I think that when he testified to us, the original estimate was 1.5. And then up to two million just to make sure. And when he testified to us, he talked about in the general election, there were 440,000 ballots that were sent out. And it costs half a million dollars to send them out and half a million to have them sent back in. So that even if even if all the towns picked it up, and then of course, there were costs on printing on those for that that election. But so I think that I think that we can be we can rest assured that it will cover it. And if it won't, we'll deal with it. Yeah. Yeah. Any other committee members? John, did you want to comment? Yeah, I just wanted you all to know, sounds like it probably is important to inform the conversation. Among the the chatter among the clerks, there's, you know, not a whole lot of folks have weighed in on this, but there's enough to be a meaningful sample size, you know, probably between 20 and 30 responses from towns of all different sizes, the large municipalities, some of the smaller ones. Definitely, it looks like most of the towns and certainly most of the population and represented in that little sample are leaning away from mailing out all the ballots. So just just information later. Well, and we won't we won't know until a couple weeks from now, I guess, because the ballots have to be if they're if they're going to be mailed out by the regular town meeting date, they're gonna have to be mailed out pretty soon. So but even a town could change their meeting date. And then later on, may decide to mail them out. They don't need to make that decision right now. If they change their meeting date. So any other Senator Rom, did you have a you answered it? I was just wondering if there was more information about what they're leaning towards. Is it waiting for a date uncertain? Or what are they intending to do? I don't know. That's a select four decision, how they how they do that. Any other committee members with any other issues? Okay. Well, thank you. And thanks, Kendall. I hope the dog didn't eat all of her mac and cheese. Find out in a minute here. But thank you all for the time this afternoon. And again, I really I just I can't say enough how much I appreciate the open lines of communication we've had on this issue. Thank you. I hope that continues on other issues as well. Me too. Yeah. Gwen, did you want to weigh in on it at all? Thank you, Chair. Sorry. No, I didn't have anything to add. I was just joining to see if there were any new things that popped up, but the bill got voted out out of the house as you looked at it. So do you know what the vote was? I don't think it was a voice vote. I think it was a voice vote. Okay. All right. All right. Well, there we are going to have our first bill. Great. Thanks, Kendall. Chair, I can just say that the third reading, it was a voice vote on the house floor, but the numbers were unanimous. Oh, good. All right. Thank you. All right. So committee with that led us and thanks to all the the town clerks and people who weighed in and worked with us on this, because I think this was not only good communications with the governor's office, but with the VLCT and the town clerks and the Secretary of State and everybody else. I think it it worked like it should. So thank you. Now the real work begins. Yes, I'm sure that everything we bring up this year will have the same kind of process and unanimous support and everything. Don't you? One can only hope. Yeah. Okay. Great. Okay. So let us move on to our, we're a few minutes ahead of ourselves, but that's okay, because I see that both Larry and Julie are here to talk to us about. First of all, I should say that in doing the agenda, it was we have a lot of issues that we need to hear from law enforcement and from DPS and the reports and a whole lot of other things and from EMS and all of this. It, as I was doing the agenda, it seemed entirely inappropriate to ask those people to come either this week or the beginning of next week. They are so working so hard to make sure that our statehouse and everybody connected to it is safe that I, they did not need any more pressure put on them to come to committees. So we won't be taking up those areas until the week after. So it would be the week of the 24th or something like that, whatever that week is. Does that make sense? I am sorry. We will hear from around about the cares money next week, but we are this on Friday, but we won't necessarily hear from DPS and law enforcement and the sheriffs and EMS and stuff about how it impacted them until the week after. Okay. Just wanted you to know why we haven't scheduled those people to come in right away because it seemed it seemed an unnecessary pressure on them. Okay, so let's welcome Larry and Julie where I didn't hear. Oh, there you are, Julia. Happy New Year. All right. Well, so we have we have one new committee member, Senator Rom. Nice to meet you. And you and Julie and I know each other quite well from working when she was their HR director. Oh, great. Good. Good. Okay. So we as you and maybe people out there who might be watching don't know. We a few years ago passed set up an ethics commission. There was a lot of debate about whether it was appropriate, whether it was too much, whether it was needed, whether it wasn't enough, went back and forth. But we kind of stuck to our guns about what we thought it should be and how it should be set up to begin with. And then this last year, we asked for a commission to come up with a code of ethics that could be statutorily adopted so that everybody who is connected to the state government is operating under the same code of ethics. And we asked them to, there was some pressure from some people that we actually do the code of ethics last year. And instead of just asking for a report back, but we chose to ask for a report back. So that's what we're doing now is we're going to hear the report. And I don't know if all of you printed out the entire thing. But or if you even sent this, but look at this, it's about two inches thick. I use think I use four rings of paper. No, not really. But it's a pretty comprehensive report. And there's everything in here. So I think thank you very much for the work doing it. And I'll just unless committee members have any, any questions or anything, I think I'll just turn it over to you to, to start off on the report. And we plan on doing this until three, I believe. And then at three, three 15. And if you don't want to take the whole hour, you don't have to but we're allowing an hour for this. And then at three o'clock, we'll take a break. And then we're going to come back and do our committee discussion on our priorities and stuff. So take it away. Great. Thank you very much for the record, Larry Novens, I'm the executive director of the Ethics Commission. Julie Halbert, who is the chair of the commission is here with me. And thank you for the invitation. It's nice to see other people sometimes. And it's certainly nice to see you again. I think the last time Julie and I spoke to anybody from legislature was on March 11, which seems like a million years ago now. So it's nice to be back. This, I'll just give you a brief wrap up of what we did. Excuse me, last year. At the beginning of the year, before the legislative session began, we submitted proposals for legislation, what I call in house phase one. And what that was was some changes that we believed are necessary to the current ethics statutes to fix some of the things that are in the current statutes that really need to be tightened up no major changes. And if you like, I can go through what some of those are. One of the things in the current statutes for executive officers is they need to submit a financial disclosure form every other year and disclose the income and money they received in the preceding one year. So that leaves an obvious gap of every other year. There's no reporting and no way for the public to know what sources of income people had during these off years. So one of the things we proposed was to tighten up that loophole. And then so minor, I won't go into the details, but minor language changes to allow certain language on the forms so that people are not swearing to it, but affirming certifying that the information in there is true. Excuse me. Other things we did in that statute was to change a couple of things that are in the current statute in error. One is it talks about the Department of Human Resources Code of Ethics. And there is no such document. What should be is their policy, personnel policy manual. And so we advocated for that change. And then a couple of wordsmithing things that I don't think we really need to go into. There were some changes on the language regarding advisory opinions. And one of the Ethics Commission adopted a while ago now, a policy that we will only consider a request for an advisory opinion from the person whose conduct would be affected. So if one of you or somebody else in state government had a question about, is it okay for me to do this or do this, then that might be the proper subject for an advisory opinion. What we do not want is for anybody in the world to come and say, I think, you know, Senator so-and-so is doing the bad job or the governor is doing a bad job. Ethics Commission, we want you to weigh in on that. We don't think it's appropriate use of resources. I think for many reasons, it's bad policy. Our review of ethics provisions around the country show that there are no provisions, or I shouldn't say none, but I don't I can't recall any in other states that allow just anybody off the street to ask for an Ethics opinion about the propriety of an individual and government's conduct. Just sorry, if I can just interrupt for one second. Yes, please. I believe that that also was the intent, the original intent of the legislation. But unfortunately, it seemed that it was the way we said it, some people didn't understand that that was the intent. Right. We share your goal, and I don't want to see that happen again. We don't think the Ethics Commission should be in the position of playing gotcha that our vice really should be prospective. And you know, for people who are thinking about doing something or have a question about their current conduct, and they would like us to weigh in on it, then we can. But you know, we're not standing in judgment of what people did in the past or anybody other than the people who come to us for advice. So we hope that the language we've presented will reaffirm, I guess, what the original intent was in the original statute. So that's that. The big thing that we asked for last year, and we sort of had a two prong approach to this, the big thing was to ask the legislature to put into statute a requirement that the Ethics Commission would submit a draft code of ethics to be adopted into law as a statute. And at the same time, we we provided you with a draft that we had last late last year early January of where we were going. And as a result of your requests, we didn't move forward with the draft we had, but we assured you and the House Government Operations Committee that we would continue working towards drafting a statutory code of ethics and that during the summertime, we would seek public input, public comment and open it up to the world. And we spent a lot of time last spring and summer doing exactly that. And we have a long section in our annual report outlining the efforts we made to seek public comment. Also, if you want to check out on our webpage, we have a page on the Ethics Commission website outlining what we did last summer. Here's what we did. We spent time in the spring redrafting the code of ethics. I completed legal research that I was doing of the ethics rules and the other jurisdictions almost 50 states and the federal government made some changes to the proposal that we had shown you last winter, updated it, cleaned it up. And then we spent a lot of time opening it up to the public. And what we did is we sent out an email to everybody in the world that we could find all the media in Vermont. We got everybody's lists of all the media contacts and we sent those out to them saying, you know, the Ethics Commission is working on this project. We want to hear from as many people as possible so that we can make sure that what we sent to the legislature has been vetted and reviewed. And if there are changes to be made, we can make those changes before you see them. We tried to send it the email asking for public comment to everybody in state government. I was thinking we all get these emails every day from about COVID. And I tried to see if we could get an email sent out that way. And for reasons that escaped me that just didn't happen. We did try. But I was given email addresses for all the heads of all the departments. And I wrote to them asking them to forward art. I know you're shaking your head. That's exactly my response. We did send everything to all the department heads saying, please forward these to your folks and let us know. So the word did get out, although I know from my own knowledge that there were people in state government who never saw this. At least not directly from us to them. They may have seen it in the newspaper or on radio or TV because there were stories done about it, but they didn't get it directly from us. And so we had after we sent this notice out, we had our public hearing almost immediately after we sent the notice out, we began getting some comments. And I wouldn't say we got a lot of comments, but they came in regularly. And all the comments are included in our report to the legislature that we sent to you in November with the updated proposed Code of Ethics. But the comments we got were interesting. And they were, for the most part, very well thought out and very helpful. And and some of them were surprising. There were a bunch, there's one section in the code talking about post government employment. Yes, I'm sorry. You have a question, Senator Brown? Yes, sorry, Larry, I've been I've been privately seeing if Gail could track down a copy of the document from November. Did we get a proposed draft copy to Senator White and I think to Gail, and to the whatever address it is at the legislature, we're supposed to send reports to the report is on our website. It's under today's date. That's the annual report. It's not a draft code of ethics. Isn't that embedded in this report? I know that went out in November to you. Look at that. Well, it's on our webpage. If you I don't have it right in front of me. I will. I can forward it right now. Things that would be great. Sorry, I thought that it was embedded in this annual report. And I'm sorry, Larry, I for some reason, I guess thought everybody got it. Okay, my apology. It may be let me search. Yeah, my email. Because I think it was around the 11th or 12th of November that I sent it in. I think it was the 11th because I remember it was Veterans Day. November 11. I'm forwarding it to everybody. Yeah, I don't see. P. B. C. C. and K. R. And if you ever misplace the email, it's on our website. There it goes. And I will also post it under legislative reports for our committee. Oh, good. Right. Oh, that's perfect. Thank you. So immediately we got some comments. I started to say that the section that drew the most comments in the beginning was the one on post government employment. And interesting. And I was thinking, Well, are people concerned because they're going to leave state government and they're going to go elsewhere? And I hope that's not the case. Because they were sort of executive branch, I would say mid-level employees, professionals. And the goal of what we sent out in that draft was not to say that they couldn't ever work in their chosen field again, but there was a waiting period for certain people and certain activities. What I realized is if you write something that's clear in your mind, and there are a lot of people who don't see it the way you do and don't see it clearly, it's a communications problem. So we redrafted that to make it work a little better. And I think we've allayed the concerns of people who were worried about what we were doing. The other sections that we received comments on and revised were the ones on conflicts of interest to make it more clear. And the sections on gifts. Excuse me, my phone's ringing. Okay. Sorry. May I just interject? Jeanette, you just sent us out the annual report at 210. You didn't send out the report Larry sent in November. What I sent was what he sent me on November 11th. It says 2020 submitted annual report. And it looks like exactly like what we have on our website now. Okay, let me go back. I can send it to you again. I just can't do it right. I'll send that right now. Yeah, just send it shortly. It's really easy to find on the Vermont Ethics Commission website. It's called submitted draft code. I just emailed that back out to everybody. Right. Thanks. Is that right? Yeah, that's it. Yeah, underneath it is the submitted draft code. What we did when we sent it in in November is we took the code that went out the draft that went out in July. And we annotated it so you can see all the comments we received. So you can see the evolution of where we started. And then it ends up being the code that was submitted to you in November. So the idea was anybody who wants to look at these documents on our website or anywhere else, we'll know what we heard and see exactly what our thought process was. And then in our in the annotation, we talked about whether we accepted recommended changes or didn't enter Russian out for doing that. So I think the process is very clear. What was a little disappointing was other than individuals who sent in comments. And I think there were maybe one or two comments on behalf of different agencies or departments. There was very little in terms of comments, at least from the executive branch and only one comment from the legislative branch. So whatever comments there may be are out there. And I suppose when you take up the draft code of ethics, will be the time that that will hear those. But we certainly made every effort to try and get them. And to find out what everyone's concerns were so that we could address them and make it easier for you when this when this process of adopting the statutory ethics code begins. So we'll see how that goes. And then once just to go back to the summer, once we got all the comments, we revised the code some more, we made the changes. And then we were rather arduous process, but it took a lot of time to get it all done and ready. And then we sent the annotated code, meaning the early one that had gone out annotated to show comments and changes. And our final proposed code for you all to see in November, and that I hope will be the beginning of a discussion that can occur in this next section session. One of the other things that was in the legislation last year, in addition to asking the ethics commission to submit a draft code of ethics, was in your bill s 198 that that you voted out of committee, which asked us not only to submit a draft code of ethics, but to also submit a rough outline memorandum regarding enforcement. And we did that as well. And sent that to you in November. So you have that as well. And our position last year, and this is in our annual report. Is it we really strongly believe that we need a code of ethics in statute first, before we can begin talking about enforcement for lots of reasons. One is, I think it's important for people to know what's in the code to be educated about it to have public awareness of it, to answer all the questions and to work out any kinks that there may be, once it's adopted, and then see if if and where it's not working. I have no doubt that at some point, enforcement will be and should be necessary. If people know there's never going to be enforcement, then there's no reason for them to comply. And I think the message that I would like to send out is, we need an ethics code. And there's a section in our annual report outlining why we need one in statute. Let's get everybody up to speed, educated, aware of it, see where it's working and where it may not be working. And then when we have a better idea, we'll be able to determine what kind of enforcement resources we need. So what my major concern is, we need to see how it's going to work before we decide how much enforcement is necessary. And the others are more practical consideration. And that is, if we start talking about enforcement, now the first question will be, what's it going to cost? And in 2021, the first time we say what's it going to cost? I think that just puts the brakes on the whole thing. And I'm worried that it would almost be like a poison pill, that it would really be fatal. So I would love to see us adopt a code of ethics for a number of reasons. One is, people come to us for advice and guidance. And what I tell them is, well, based on what we have now, this is what I think the better conduct would be. But what I have now is the ethics code that the commission adopted, which is not a rule that hasn't been, you know, gone through the rulemaking process, doesn't have the force of law. And I can say, well, based on what the five people in the ethics code and the executive director felt is an appropriate code of ethics, here's what you can do. Here's what you should do. And here's what you shouldn't do. If somebody follows our advice, there's no protection for them if they're a boss or someone else disagrees. Conversely, if we give somebody advice, and they disregard it, and just say, well, thanks for the advice, Larry, but I'm going to do what I want to do. There's no sanction. And there couldn't be unless it was the law. So every other state and the federal government has in one form or another, a code of ethics, something that has the force of law upon which people can rely, give advice, receive advice, and if they violate it, be held accountable. So for all those reasons, we feel that the statutory code of ethics should come first. Another reason, and maybe this is sort of pie in the sky. I remember saying last year, that if ever there was a time in American history where we need to assure the public that we're acting on their behalf and acting ethically, 2020 was it. And I think 2021, the need is even greater. And so if we have a code of ethics, it will do a couple of things. One is it will be a resource for people in state government to use so that we can make sure that our conduct complies with legal requirements and so that we're upfront and open and transparent about what we're doing. And ethics code in a way is also for state employees. I think some people are afraid, well, if we have a code, I'm gonna get in trouble for doing something. I think it works the other way. I think an ethics code is a shield. And if we have a clear set of guidelines and clear set of expectations, and somebody comes to us and says, you know, Larry, I'd like you to do a special favor for me. And I respond to them. I can't do that. The ethics code says I can't do that. That code allows me to sort of take the moral high ground, the ethical high ground with no question about where I'm coming from or am I being a mean person, or or anything else. So it's, it's, you know, I don't I think of it more as a shield and a sword. But I think of most importantly, what is what an ethics code will do is assure the public that one, we care that to we're complying with, you know, accepted general standards of ethical comment. And, you know, good ethics in government. I think the result is we get public confidence in what we're doing. There's so much cynicism about what people in government are doing these days, you know, whether just out for their own, you know, their own needs, their own good. And if we had a clear ethics code and clear ethics expectations, good education and public awareness, then I think public confidence in what we as public servants do will be increased. And for me, I think that's the number one reason to have it. I mean, the ethics, the enforcement is important. But the better education we have, the better public awareness we have, the less need there's going to be for, for enforcement, because more people will comply. They're always going to be a couple of people who say, I'm not going to do it. I'm just going to, you know, whatever, I'm going to do whatever I want. And those people will, you know, will be able to deal with it at some point. But number one, let's improve our relationship with the people we serve and their confidence in us and have a code that will protect us and serve their, their needs as well, or vice versa, depending on how you want to look at. So that's, that was the bulk of 2020 and the ethics commission's work. And when you have an opportunity, if you have time, and I know how busy you all are to read through what we sent you in November and to read through the annual report, you'll see exactly how we got to where we are today. So let me just go through a couple of other things. Senator Rom has a question. Yes, I'm sorry. There might be a pause. So tell me if you want to address this later. But speaking of 2020 and 2021, some events in the early part of 2021, you know, I think have made us start thinking again about what ethical behavior looks like. I just noticed in the beginning of your submitted draft code, it said something about freedom of speech and not holding an elected official accountable for what they say during legislative debate. My sense is that Congress might be rethinking that in terms of people, you know, disregarding an election result or inciting a riot, encouraging violence. Do you see any changes you might make to what you submitted in November based on what we're seeing now? Or can you give me more nuance there about what you mean by that? Yes. And I haven't looked and I didn't know that we're going to get into the weeds on this today. But I mean, generally under the Constitution, whatever is said on the floor of the Senate or the House is protected to allow you to have free discourse interchanged with your comrades. It's probably not the right word colleagues. And to speak freely without fear of repercussion. And I know you have your own internal rule that governs the content of things that you could say. I didn't think it was up. There's a there's a constitutional issue. I don't think that somebody outside of the Senate or the House would be in a position of policing what is said on the floor. Now, if you were to say something, you know, in a speech in Chittenden County, then that may be a different thing. But it wasn't. I think our intention in referring to that one part in the code was to say, there are limited certain areas that are off limits. And that's one of them what you say in the course of your work on the floor in the Senate in the House. It's in article 14 of the Constitution of the Vermont Constitution. It says the freedom of deliberation, speech and debate in the legislature is so essential to the rights of the people that it cannot be the foundation of any accusation or prosecution. Action or complaint in any other court or place whatsoever. However, there also is the section in here where we we determine the behavior of our method of our members and we could ask somebody if we chose to for on on senatorial behavior or whatever, but if that's also in here. Yeah, so we wanted to recognize in the draft that we sent you that the current accepted areas that are uniquely yours. And those of other people as well. Yes, Senator. This might get repetitive because I think the chair may have just already said this, but I wanted to remember that my understanding is that only the Senate itself Vermont, talking about the Vermont Constitution of Vermont Senate, not federal. Right. The Constitution says only the Senate can overrule, you know, oversee the ethics of its members. So and only the House can oversee the ethics of its members. So the Ethics Commission can't really take action against the Senator or House member for what they did on the House Senate floor. Only the Senate itself could do that. Am I saying that right? It's yes. Yes. If it's for our core actions on voting, passing legislation and voting, if I think it's important for Keisha and others to remember to understand, because we grappled with that a lot last year and a year before saying, well, wait a minute, we're not saying we can't do anything about senators or members of the House who do something unethical and repeatedly told, no, you can't. So that's why the Senate has an Ethics Commission of its own. But the Ethics Commission can hold us responsible. It's only in relation to our core function that we can control ourselves. And our core function is passing legislation. So if we were to do things like use our our position to grant special favors to people, that is not part of our core function. So the Ethics Commission has a response. It's there's a term for it. What is it, Larry? Do you remember the term? It's there's like nine things listed that are it'll come to me in a minute. Because it's not coming to me. I mean, Madam Chair, yeah, that's why you're thinking that for me, Anthony, this is all about our behavior outside of the legislature, outside of the state. That's why we're not legislating, but this is about our behavior as senators, as we go about our constituent work, as we go about our life outside of that core function. I mean, that's where this code of ethics would apply to us. Right. Yes, not having to do passing legislation. OK, is Tucker or. Emeryn are with us. I thought Tucker was here earlier. I cannot think of that term. It's a term that implies there's things like Brian, you don't remember the term. Do you it's not immunity? No, no, no, no. It's a prohibitive acts of I'll I'll think of it like core legislative functions or anything like that. No, no, but it's the things that the Ethics Commission does have control over us about. There's like eight or nine very specific things that we can't take bribes. We can't use our personal and there. Julie, you don't remember that term, do you? I'll I'll I'll think of it for where are those listed? Jeanette, are those in our Senate rules or in our? Where where would a senator find those? Well, there are those in the statute created the Ethics Commission. Sorry. They're the same things that apply to everybody else. We don't have them in our. Right, I got that. But I'm just curious, for example, we have a new ledges, a new senator here. Where would Keisha have read that? I will find it. It isn't it isn't as if it's someplace in our rules. It's because we don't that. We don't control ourselves on those issues. So it would be three. Section 1201 talks about government conduct related by regulated by law. Is that what you were saying? That's it. Yeah, regulated by law. Right. So it's section 1201 of title three. Subsection five. And that would be including bribery, neglect of duty, taking illegal fees, false claims against government owning or being financially interested in an entity subject to a department supervision. Failing to devote time to duties of office, engaging in retaliatory action. Former legislator or officer serving as an advocate. So there are those things. And that was section 1201. 1201 of title three. Yeah. Now that we have that lovely book given to us by our chair, we can easily and quickly reference it now in addition to our iPads, of course. I'm not sure what you're referring to, but. You gave us section, you gave us title three. No, I didn't. If I gave you anything, it was title 17. Oh, you gave us title. So that's right. Sorry. So much for that. Forgot. Senator Rom. So just to clarify, for example, if someone made false claims against the government, but they did it in the course of Senate deliberation, does that not fall under the purview of the ethics committee and instead fall under the jurisdiction of a Senate body regulating the ethics of its members? I would think so. Yes. I can't say off the top of my head. I need to look at that some more. But I mean, there's certainly conduct that you if we had a statutory ethic code, ethics code that would maybe add or subtract from what's in title three already. And so there are other provisions and it would be up to you to determine, you know, to what extent those may or may not apply to you or other people in state government. For example, the last one that Larry, the last one that you quoted there was employment. I don't remember what it was, but that was passed recently. That is something that's regulated by law, because it's in the law that says that you can't you if you're you can't be, I don't remember what it is, a lobbyist for a year after you're out of the legislature. That's regulated by law, not by anything else. So that if if I were to become a lobbyist next week, I would be violating that law and the Ethics Commission would have jurisdiction over me. Could have, yeah. Although right now under current law, what we would do is we would take that complaint and we'd send it to the ethics, the Senate Ethics Panel. That's our limited ability right now under current law. So we really have no authority. But you could send that one to the AG's office because that is if it was a criminal violation, no longer a senator, if I'm a lobbyist. So you've ended. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if you want me to go. Please, I'm sorry. There were there were other things that came up in what I sent you last fall and when you get a chance to look at there was discussion about whether and to what extent the ethics code might apply to people in the judicial branch, not judges. Judges are clearly outside and because separation of powers, there's nothing to be done for them. I spoke to Chief Justice Ryber about a year and a half ago and asked him, what do you do if there is an ethics complaint against somebody in a court clerk or somebody like that? And it was unclear to the chief what it was. He said, well, speak to the court administrator. So I tried to get a hold of the court administrator and was unsuccessful when I set out our draft bill or draft code of ethics for comment last summer. I heard back from them immediately, almost within a day, saying separation powers, you can't touch anybody in the judicial branch. We can do our own. And I included in what I gave you last fall memo, outlining why that necessarily doesn't have to be that way. And there's lots of state law. And I haven't looked at the memo today, but there are lots of statutes where the legislature can very clearly tell the judicial branch what to do and what not to do. And so I refer you to that memo. My thought would be that if you had a clerk or some type of administrative person in the judicial branch who was showing preferential treatment in awarding contracts or hiring people to friends, that should be something that would come under the ethics code. And it shouldn't be relied. We shouldn't rely on the administration in the judicial branch to remedy that. One of the problems with having the Department of Human Resources for the executive branch or having the judicial branch monitor ethics thing of their own people is always becomes an employment issue. And it shouldn't be. It should be separate. And if somebody does something as a state employee that is an ethics violation or looks like an ethics violation, the ethics commission, if we ever have enforcement, it should be like if you were on your way to the Senate in the morning or better yet on your way home and you got a traffic ticket or you toss something out the window and got a ticket for littering. Well, it's somehow related to what you do, but it's a different thing. And so you could get a ticket, a fine for violating that law. It doesn't affect your ability to serve or to hold your office. And what I see down the road for the ethics commission would be something like that, that if there is enforcement, it wouldn't, we wouldn't be able to say you can no longer sit and hold your seat. You can no longer work in state government. But it'd be like, well, you've committed an ethics violation and that's $150 fine or whatever it is down the road when we get there. Getting back to where I was thinking about judiciary is, I think, as it is for the executive branch, if there is ethics and ethics enforcement, it should be independent of the employer-employee relationship. And I address that in the memo that we sent. And the ultimate decision on whether the ethics code should apply to people, those people in the judicial branch, obviously will be up to you. And if somebody, if you decide that it's appropriate to do that, fine. If you decide that it's not, that's your decision. But I wanted to outline for you sort of what at least we saw as the arguments. We included in our packet to you the letter we got from judiciary, saying why they felt that the code shouldn't apply to them. And then I put in my memo why I thought it could. And if necessary, we could add to that. But it's an interesting conversation. It's interesting to think about. So we had that. Let me look at my other notes here that I had. But let's see. In terms of the day-to-day operation of the Ethics Commission, to the extent you want to move away from talking about a code right now, we're hobbling along. In our annual report, we put in a section about the only person employed by the Ethics Commission is me part-time. So if you ever want to have a meeting with our IT people, call me. If you ever want to have a meeting with the people who run our website, call me. If you ever want to talk to the people who do the typing for the annual report, I'm your guy. So one of the things we asked for in the legislation we proposed last year and was part of H634 was to allow us to have a position for administrative assistance. And whether and to what extent we get money for that, who knows. But at least if we were in the statute that, you know, dollars permitting, we could do that, it might make a big difference. There have been times when I just can't keep up within the strictures. Senator Callumar, I'm sorry. Thanks, Larry. And it's great to see you again. Good to see you. What kind of money are we talking about with that? Between 12 and $14 million a month, no. Right now, our whole budget is $113,000. That's our annual budget for the entire commission for the whole year. If we had a part-time person, I don't even know what that would be, what that would look like. You know, they've already done the work for next year's budget. If they said you could have somebody for 20 hours a week, I have no idea what that would look like. But it would certainly be less. I mean, if 113,000 covers our entire commission and the majority, that is my salary and benefits, I'm thinking it couldn't be that much. I mean, we're talking, you know, 10,000, 50,000, I don't know. Senator, I'd guess that it would be somewhere around $60,000 for a part-time person, including whatever benefits are. And that's a guess, whatever benefits would be applied to that person. And despite the year being very, very difficult to find any sort of new funding, that figure, I'm pretty sure, would not be insurmountable. That's music, right? Yeah. Just one man's opinion. So, you know, a lot of it will depend on where we go. You know, if we have additional responsibilities, if it looks like we're going to be doing more, then the way we're carrying on now will be just impossible. But even you, I mean, not even thinking about enforcement or anything here, but just the education part of it. I mean, that made a big point about talking about how, even if we have one, what we need to do is we need to make sure everybody is aware of it and educated around it. So that's a huge responsibility. And I can see that that would be. Yeah, I'm sorry. Senator Clarkson. Thank you. It's not only a huge responsibility to tag on to the education piece. It's also a big cost. I mean, it's not a huge cost, but to actually do an education as a systematic education for this. For all these bodies, it's that's going to also cost of it to be designed and to roll out. But I think what I'd like to ask is our action steps, our next action steps, you have presented us with a draft code of ethics that you have had feedback on. You've had public hearings on. You're ready to rock and roll with it. Are you hoping that we will introduce that as a committee bill? How are you hoping that we go forward with this? I I don't know. I mean, if it were a committee bill, that would I would imagine would be the quickest way to get it out there. You know, we didn't send it to you as a bill at looking for a sponsor. We sent it to you because that was what we stood or what we understood our responsibility was under two bills that had they become law would have told us to do that. So if it were a committee bill, that would be ideal. I actually think that it would be better to have it introduced as a bill than a committee bill, because when you have a committee bill, you don't have the bill for people to react to until you've finished the bill. I mean, there is there's only drafts. There's not there's nothing there for people to react to. So if we had a bill that was introduced and sponsored and had a number, then people have something to respond to and something to react to. And we can get a lot of testimony. So that's that's great feedback. I'd be happy to sponsor that bill with whomever else on this committee would like to sponsor it. And maybe we could individually join together and sponsor it. But which makes it sort of a committee bill, but not really. It would be it would be great to get it introduced because I think that's our next step, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. And let's yeah. And we know that bills never remain the way they are introduced. So there will be. But I do believe that that's the best way to get input from people and responses and testimony. Senator Rom, did you? I may have been the one who originally interrupted before Larry got to this part, but I'd love to hear a little bit more about the public process and any gaps you feel like there might be in who you heard from. If we do take testimony, that can be another form of public engagement. But where do you feel like you missed some voices or that went? I think we got to a majority of people in state government. I don't think we got beyond. I don't know that we got to anybody in the judicial branch below the court administrator's office. So there are a lot of people out there and I just don't know. I suspect they never heard about it. I know two people who work for a judicial branch. I don't think they heard about it, at least not through the state of Vermont auspices. So that's one area. You know, whether the code applies to some people in the judicial branch or not, there's a large number of people who work there who are state employees who would probably have valid ideas and comments about the requirements that we all should, you know, be meeting. And so I would like to hear from them. The Department of Human Resources didn't give anything formal. I had a couple of informal chats with people, but the message I got is, well, when it comes up as a bill, then we'll chime in then. And I didn't hear from, I think I heard from the Public Utilities Commission and their comment is included in what we sent you. They said that they should not be subject to the ethics code because they have their own individual requirements. We felt that that probably wouldn't carry the day. And then the executive branch is a whole. I know that Governor Scott and then Lieutenant Governor Zuckerman and all the statewide officers last February, you know, sent that you, Senator White and Senator Copeland Hansen said, House government operations, a letter indicating their support for a statewide code of ethics. So I don't know about the particulars of what we have, but certainly the current statewide officers, except for Molly Gray, who I just haven't approached and haven't heard from, they all support a statutory code of ethics. So I'm sure there are a lot of people out there who will want to be heard from we, I think we did the very best we could to get to everybody we could. I mean, I could share with you the list of people we sent these things to the media. I mean, we just like 70 or 80 different addresses that we sent them to. So I'm sure there will be comments out there that we haven't heard before, but I don't know any better way to get as far as we have without, you know, and be able to get other comments. I think to add, I would, I would also, sorry, say it, state employees were the biggest gap that we really didn't. I don't know that we could say that we really reached everyone or that it was available to everyone. Yeah. I think Julie, sorry. What did you say was the biggest gap? State employees. Oh, state. Yeah. Well, we talked about the reaching the public and stuff. I was less concerned about reaching people who actually work for who state employees or elected officials or I was more concerned about hearing from those people out there who who wonder if we are ethical or not. And I know that when we had planned a public hearing, the campaign for Vermont and VPURG and a lot of the media outlets and stuff were were going to promote it. We we had it set up that we were going to have it at Vermont Law School. And so I think that once we have something that all of those groups will get cranked up and get their members out and the media will get people out. So I'm I'm I'm less concerned about the state employees and the elected officials because we will hear from them. Yeah, we do get comments from VPURG and they send it to our public hearing and their comments are included in the packet we sent you. I think the I'm sorry. No, go ahead. No, then I think let's get it introduced and let's get that public hearing. And the VSEA could have sent it out to all its members without any difficulty. I mean, I'm just saying, I mean, they it strikes me that they could have sent it out to every member and gotten comments back. It was it did get a little bit. People got a little preoccupied with other things like the pandemic. And I think that there probably was people sitting there saying, oh, my God, I have to figure out how I'm working at home and keeping my two year old dog from eating her mac and cheese. So I'm not going to worry about this ethics thing until it actually is a reality. Right, we did send them notice the state employees union. We sent them notice and I actually talked to now I'm drawing a blank on his name. I want to say Steve Howard, Steve Howard, a couple of times. And they said, well, we'll wait until it gets to the legislature before we comment. So. OK, well, let's get it to the legislature and get comment. I mean, lots. I'm happy to send it to I mean, let's get it to Tucker and go. I'm happy to co-sponsor. Right. Let's do it. Tucker, I assume is the person to send it to. I don't know if it's Tucker or Ameron. I'll ask Tucker and we can start there. What I tend to do, if I'm not sure, is I send it to Luke. And he gets the right person. But it is the kind of thing Betsy had been working on. Yeah, I think you're right. So Ameron is probably the person that I think so. She's been doing the other election bills. OK, well, that's music to my ears. Thanks. Yeah. I don't know if you have any other questions. I'm looking through my notes because I wasn't prepared to go into details about the proposed ethics code, but obviously. Well, you don't know where to find me, but emails get to me. And I'm happy to to show up whenever there are questions and do that. Or individually, if you have any questions or want to pick my brain, I'm happy to make myself available whenever you wish. You know, we put obviously a lot of thought into this. And I don't think any of us believes that what we sent you is the end all be all of ethics codes. But I think it's a great starting point. And I think we've covered the big points. You know, there no doubt will be some things that get changed. And we certainly anticipate that. But having something and taking a big step forward is is our immediate goal. And I think having a code in statute will be a big will make a big difference for all of us. I think it'll be a great thing. So. So I do that part of that about a term. I mean, I think that once once we get this into a bill form, there will be lots of questions. And then people will look at it and say, oh, my goodness, $20 is that is that really what they mean is $20? Shouldn't it be $40? Or I mean, those those kinds of things. But I do have a question about not considered gifts. Is a device or inheritance? What on earth is a device? So if a device, if I die and lead $10,000 in my will, something. Oh, device. So, you know, that's what I mean. It's one of those terms of art that only lawyers know, I think. And so a device would be something left through a testamentary disposition or a will or a trust, something like that. Oh, OK. So we're the we're the the the donor has to die. OK, in order for you to get it. So I think there's less likelihood I'm going to profit from it in the long run. I thought maybe it referred to Joe Benning's motorcycle. Oh, that kind of device. I guess that's spelled. No, no, no, no. So any other questions, committee? I don't have a question, but if you're taking names, I would be a sponsor of that bill as well. If you're taking names, I would as well. Great. Thank you all. Thank you. Thank you. And thank you for all the work you've put in on this. It really was monumental and and for the report that that you sent. I mean, it's very comprehensive and leaves no questions, only agreements or disagreements. Thank you. Thank you. I was shocked when you printed it out, how big it was. And I haven't printed it out. I've only been looking at it on my computer. It reminds me of something that somebody said when I was in law school, completely off subject, but they said, kill a lawyer, save a tree. So I would imagine, for the most part, we'll be dealing with electronic versions. But for writing it up and scribbling it and doing that for my money, nothing beats pen and paper. So well, I think that I think that once we get the bill, the draft bill in here is only about six pages. Yeah, all the rest of the stuff that's there. And I had no idea how much I was printing. I just hit print and then walked away and I was surprised. I feel, Senator, like we're the little commission that could. So we will keep working because we know that this is important. So we've we've put all our effort into it in 2020. Well, I think this committee or me, anyway, feels very this is going to sound pretty awful, but kind of motherly about the Ethics Commission and the Racial Equity Advisory Panel because we're the committee that for that. Form those two. And so I, anyway, feel some kind of parental responsibility for making sure that you're able to operate. Well, thank you. Thank you, Allison. Oh, I agree. I agree. We have a vested interest. And happily fewer birthing pains, but actually there have been quite a few birthing pains on this one. OK, thank you so much. Any more questions or comments or anything for Larry or Julie? Right. Well, thank you. It's great to see you again. And hopefully we'll see you in the not too distant future. And, Julie, I think that what we'll do is double your salary. Sounds great. As long as you don't fire me from my volunteer job. Well, so, but that does lend itself to a question, which is when the commissioners meet, is that are their prudiums taken a part of your annual budget? No. Yeah. No, you're kidding. Oh, that makes it even worse. Your knowledge when back in the days when we had in-person meetings. Yeah, that is true with every board and commission commission. Right. You're you're our whiz on this. Yeah. Well, I definitely think we need to address this. We we create things and then we need to fund them as we need to do with our racial equity. Advising. Yeah. Yeah. OK, so thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. And you're welcome to stay. I don't like to watch the live stream. Thank you. OK, thank you. Bye bye. I'm going to find here now where my I think we're scheduled to take a break at three. Do people feel that they would like to take a break or do you want to just plod on? And I'd like to stand up. OK, let's take a like a 10. Let's take a 10 minute break. We'll be back here like 10. I sent off the drafting request to Tucker and Amron. OK, let's be back here at between five and 10 after.