 So on H329, if we remember correctly it had its distinct from H320, but it does deal with workplace discrimination. And I wanted to offer, Suzanna Davis, who is here with us today, the opportunity to testify that on this we had a number of folks who testified earlier and some of whom are going to invite back once we as we gain a better context of and knowledge of what this bill entails but I wanted to give Suzanna an opportunity as the executive director of racial equity and on the governor's task force of racial and chair of the governor's task force on racial equality. It's an opportunity to weigh in on this bill. So, welcome back. It's good to see you. Thank you very much. Good morning. It's good to be here. So, well, the microphone is yours. I'm sorry there's, we've got a slight delay going on so I'll try to be patient on what on our back and forth. Again, it's the microphone is yours. Thank you very much for the record, Suzanna Davis, racial equity director for the state of Vermont. And as usual, I'm going to try to keep my comments brief. You all have already heard from others on this bill as well. Some of our colleagues around the state including the HRC executive director, whose testimony was largely in alignment with ours. I am going to appear here in support of age 329. This is a bill that again helps to close gaps for employees who are at highest risk of experiencing discrimination harassment on this conduct in their workplaces. This is also something that was a recommendation of the racial equity task force in its first report. And as we did last time, I'm happy to include a link to that report in the chat so that we will have the opportunity perhaps it can be put on the committee's page. This bill of course would amend the standard of proof so that employees who are experiencing harassment or discrimination don't necessarily have to meet a burden of proof that is largely for many of them unattainable. The fact is that discrimination today in the United States looks very different often than it did in years past, but still has incredibly tumultuous and difficult negative effects. So we've gotten better at causing people harm, sadly, in places of public accommodation and workplaces in schools, etc. And as such our law needs to be modernized and updated in such a way that permits people to be able to adapt and flex with all of the different ways that harassment discrimination takes place. I'll give a more concrete example. We know and I apologize for continuing to touch my ear. I'm trying to keep my head someone in place. The, for example, in decades past, social media bullying wasn't really a thing that we knew how to handle, or even could have foreseen. But today it's something that has driven people to commit heinous acts and sometimes tragic acts of self harm. So we think about the ways in which harassment, bullying, hazing and discrimination have evolved so to what's monthly in the way that we address it. So extending statutes of limitations for bringing claims is also important. We know that there is a strong chilling effect for people who want to pursue a claim, particularly if they are pursuing a claim based on an agenda factor that makes them a stark minority. I'll explain what I mean in a little bit clearer terms. It's one thing for a woman identified person who is, you know, part of a gender group of 51% of the population to bring a claim of gender based harassment. It's another thing for a person in a state that is 94 or now 89% white to bring a claim of racial discrimination in the state where they may only represent 1.3% of the entire population, let alone whatever percentage of their workplace. That being said, the chilling effect is absolutely a factor that oftentimes drives people to wait to consider their options to think about whether it's worth it or to try to live with it. Sometimes we're telling those children just ignore the blues, but we find that increasingly that's a strategy that not only doesn't work, but that is a form of passive approval of the intimidation or other bad behavior. The extension of statute of limitations is important. Modification of the standard, the burden of proof is important. And I believe the other aspects of this bill include not requiring the employee to prove that other similarly situated employees were treated differently. That's another important piece of it because oftentimes it implied that if there's discrimination happening based on a particular immediately factor that everyone in the environment, who's a member of that demographic group would also be experiencing the same treatment and not always the case. Sometimes people are singled out for whatever reason and it's not necessarily up to us to explain why others are not experiencing discrimination one thing that I often remark to people is that it's not up to people of color to prove or improve the circumstances of their oppression. Similarly, it's not up to people of color or members of any other historically marginalized group to have to prove why other people are or are not experiencing discrimination. So this is also another important aspect of the bill that reduces the very slanted odds of failure of a claim or dismissal of a claim of discrimination. I'm going to pause there, because I've gotten to the point where I'm now just telling you what the bill does and I know that you all already know that so as always I'm available for any questions and I'm going to remove this earpiece because it's more of a bother to me than a help. Sorry, can you hear us. Can you hear us now. I'm here for a minute there. And so, this is not a good question just on the, we took testimony and we heard about the extension of the statute of limitations. I'm curious if you could, if you could talk a little bit further about that about why it's why it's important in the work that you see with with with individuals in terms of how long it may take to be able to even report. So, we have seen at the local, I should say it's a micro and the macro level efforts by individuals by organizations and by government to address harm. This could be something big like specifically the establishment of a truth and reconciliation process at a national level in countries we've seen before, or this could happen at the micro level, which might just be somebody going down to the local police department and filing a report of graffiti. So, in all cases along that spectrum, we often assume in policy making that a staff that a clock should begin running from the time of harm. And we assume that there's a reasonable period during which a person should file a cleaning based on when that clock begins running. But one thing that our historical policy making has not taken into account is the impact of trauma. It is not trauma informed. And the reason for that is, we don't acknowledge the fact that many people experiencing harm are in the moment, not that they're still processing what's happening to them. Either they're not sure if it's really harassment or discrimination and as a person of color as a woman identified person as a young person in an office setting, I can tell you that it is often the case that we are made to second guess ourselves. Did you really mean it that way? What was that supposed to mean? Are they doing this to me singling me out? Maybe I'm being oversensitive. Am I overly acting? This happens all the time. And so by the time you get to the point where you come to the determination that, yes, I do believe that I'm being singled out, at that point it's probably already gone on for some time. Then beyond that, now you're processing what's happening or what you perceive to be happening to you. And that takes time. The last couple of years have shown us that mental health is absolutely something that matters to each and every one of us. You think it doesn't affect you until it does and suddenly you don't know what to do because you've never had to think of it before. So when we think about the mental health impact of workplace discrimination, harassment, etc. It's really important to keep in mind that oftentimes it's going to take people a while just to process what's happening before they get to the point where they want to decide to do something about it. Now they get to the point where they want to decide to do something about it. The first question they're going to have is, who do I go to? Do I go to a supervisor? Do I go to someone above the supervisor? What if that harms me professionally? Do I go to an outside entity? Do we have an HR department? Is this something that they do? You send an email. You don't hear back for three days. Now it's been a week. You're not really sure. OHR can't help me. What if I go somewhere external? Do we have a human rights commission in the state? Yes, I will. I'll send another email. I might hear back within 48 hours. But then at that point it's a question and answer period. It's a back and forth by email. By the time you get in touch with somebody who actually can help you, who's helped you understand your options and who has convinced you that this may or may not be a good strategy to take, a considerable amount of time is passed. Now you may decide, you know what? It's not worth it. I don't want to lose my job. I'm going to sit on this for a while. But then it keeps happening. And you think, well, you know what? Maybe I'll transfer departments and that might help. And then it keeps happening. And at that point, maybe it's been six months, maybe it's been a year, maybe it's been longer than that. I feel as if I'm rambling. I'm going to cut it off here. But what I'm trying to get at is that there are psychological and logistical and operational reasons why an extension of the statute of limitations is helpful. Not only because of the chilling effect of reporting at the individual level in real time, not only because of the bureaucratic nature of addressing these sorts of claims as you proceed, but also because sometimes you look retrospectively, retroactively, and you might say to yourself, you know what? I experienced harm then. I didn't do anything about it. I'm still experiencing the negative impact of that harm. And I've decided I want to do something about that. And it's important that when we make law and when we make policy that's designed to address harm, that we do so in a way that is more inclusive of that long range harm, not punitive of those who are fearful of trusting us enough to take us up at the beginning. I will add one more thing. And that is that one of the ways in which this harm often is experienced is with people who may have language barriers. And so if you're somebody who may have unstable status in the country or who may be limited English proficient, then all of this timing is even longer for you because navigating a world or a workplace or a process in a language that may not be your first also compounds the amount of time and the added challenge that it takes for you to be able to successfully do the claim. Thank you. Thank you. Good morning and welcome. Damian, I wonder if you could help me understand the current law about need not pursued internal grievance prior to to filing and then if I could ask Susanna to discuss that in terms of this amendment. So, to answer your question, the current law is silent on that issue. But it can be an issue that plays into the consideration. And it gets to the trial court as to whether the whether the individual took appropriate actions to try to stop the behavior, whether the behavior was severe or pervasive at their workplace so it goes into the factual considerations as to whether there was a hostile work environment created. The other area where it comes into play in current law. And the bill wouldn't prevent us from occurring is it goes to the issue of notice to the employer so one of one of the current requirements in law is that as an employer. If you become aware that any form of discrimination that's is occurring within your office so if there's a legal discrimination occurring, you have a legal obligation to stop that discrimination from continuing. And so there there is that does come up in terms of liability for employers, but often it's flipped around as an argument where if an individual doesn't take advantage of the internal process there's an argument that you know maybe they didn't take adequate steps to address the problem and it would have gone away if they pursued the internal process, or maybe it wasn't as severe or pervasive as they're arguing so the bill here is. It's not doing away with the opportunity of individuals to pursue an internal grievance process but it's taking that off the table as a consideration for determining if the behavior they experience constituted unwanted discrimination. And it's worth noting to that. This isn't the only way that an employer could be liable for discrimination that occurred within their office. The employers are. If it's a manager, or an executive or another person in a leadership position who's engaging in the discrimination. The employer is basically deemed to have knowledge of that because that person is acting as the employer's agent. But on the other hand, if it's just a line employee, or you know, a regular employee, and the manager is not aware that the behavior is occurring. The internal grievance process is a way for the individual to try to make that go away and then puts the burden on the employer to address the issue. What this bill is really concerned about is is the flip side of that where, if you're afraid that that's a feudal process because of the individual who you have to bring the complaint to, or because of power dynamic or because of the way the last individual was treated. It takes that off the table so that you're not, your claim isn't harmed by your failure to pursue a process that you might have perceived as being feudal or ineffective. Does that make sense. It's probably a very convoluted answer. Well, no, you got the part I was, and you did answer thank you was the bill also rose to amend the law prohibiting employment discrimination to provide that an employee need not pursue an internal grievance. But what I'm hearing from you there isn't any clarity in the law right now about that. There is, there is case law where they consider law individual pursues the grievance but it's not in our statute right now. And this that provision is is sort of consistent with the general thrust of the bill to limit the barriers to making a successful discrimination claim so right now. The severe or pervasive standard forms a barrier in some cases. And then this is another barrier that's formed in some cases where an individual doesn't pursue the internal process because they don't believe that it's going to be successful for them, or whatever reason. And then in court that's considered as evidence against it being severe or pervasive or sufficient to create a hostile work environment. I'm in support of this bill and I love the extension of the six years. But I'm just saying if it isn't in the law we don't have to say amend the law prohibiting about notice. Because if it's not in the law but there's nothing to amend that. Yeah, no this this would be adding adding this together with the severe or pervasive language is addressing case law not statutory law. Okay, I understand. Okay, thank you for that sorry. It's fine. I mean you work within a large state now the administration. Any, your thoughts on this part would be appreciated. Yeah, thank you representative I think that Damien explanation is exactly right it really addresses something that's not necessary that something on which the law is silent and the trick to the current is that the more we use it as a informal measurement. That is to say the more that we say well let's look at some, some of the factors involved did the person come forward with an internal claim no wonder why it's not looking good for you. The more that we do that informally the more that it starts to become a de facto practice, and then at that point, it doesn't matter whether the law is silent on it it becomes a presumptive part of the process. What this amendment would do is to say that whether you look at that as a factor or not, it's not something the employee would have been required to do. So it shouldn't necessarily be counted against the person if they didn't and you know I think about the, I think about what it means to go with an internal investigation or to file an internal grievance first. And finally, it's probably something that I would see as a thorough or good practice, something for good measure. However, that operates on the assumption that the internal process, first of all, even exist. I think that it is robust enough and that it could support an adequate investigation of the circumstances I mean we have some workplaces that have just very small teams were inexperienced HR liaison who may not have enough experience doing these to be able to say that their internal process is even worth itself. Third, it presumes that that process is even trustworthy after all the person to whom you're supposed to bring your complaint is someone who has participated in or at the very least passively allowed the behavior to to happen then what are the odds that your internal process is going to go in a way that that's just. So, for all of those reasons I think allowing more clarity about whether an employee should have to go through that kind of a process is important. It also matters because when you think about timing again and one of the concerns with something like a statute of limitations is how long does a person have to be able to claim and if we expect the person to have gone through certain prior steps that may or may not be fruitful, then we're also compounding the impact of that that time pressure. I think the last thing that I would add about this piece of it is that. We want to be able to plan for contingencies ideally internal grievance processes are effective and equitable and are trustworthy. Oftentimes they are not though and in those circumstances you want to make sure that our law can be applicable to people. So, I think that's really important on the spectrum of experiencing harassment and I'm thinking back to more young testimony, I think last week or the week before, where she mentioned a case in which a person who had brought claims a person had been experiencing gender based discrimination and also race based discrimination. The finding was that the gender based discrimination wasn't pervasive enough, and the race based discrimination wasn't pervasive enough, even though taken together. The two things were pretty egregious, but when you separate them out based on the cause of action or the protected category, it ends up blunting the effect of each. And so, when I think about having to go through something like an internal grievance process and having that sort of thing be picked apart at that, at that first level. It might end up again, either creating chilling effect or somehow negatively impacting the person's ability to bring a claim down the line. If those kinds of things are muddled and parsed out through a process that may or may not have been conducted thoroughly. Thank you. I appreciate it. Any further questions for Susanna at this time. Thank you for your sharing your thoughts on this on this bill. And will we schedule will schedule another another conversation on this coming up soon. Can you think of anyone Susanna. Can you think of anyone else that we should be talking to on this bill, or at least categories of people that we should be talking to on this bill. I would say that it's always good practice to continue hearing from individuals members of the community themselves. If you haven't heard from someone who may be limited English proficient or who serve people who are limited English proficient with experiences and strongly recommend reaching that might include anyone from ALV or the new Americans advisory council or the USRI or any of the local groups, perhaps even Howard Center. People have close contact with that population. I would also consider, I would also consider following up with an email with more names when I can think of them. Okay, that would be, that would be great because this is. I would appreciate that. Very much. And, you know, the, you have more than an hour, just over the next few days whenever you have time that would be great. So, whatever, whatever you can, I would appreciate it. Thank you so much. Thank you. Hey, did you get a text from Ron? A text 477. Did you reach out to you. He might have texted me but I did not look at my phone on my break. So I had asked, I had asked. I just wanted to. I just wanted to. Take, take the time that we've been talking about a second and then do it now. If that's okay, everybody's here. It's just sort of a very easy walk. It's very easy walkthrough, but I think that not a simple little bit, but not a simple little bit. It's just an example of that. I just wanted to. I mean, I'm good to go. I feel so, this feels so luxurious to have you not running it out of the room to 17 different places. So, believe me, it feels great. It's like that's only because it's January. And we'll take it when we edit. So, So folks, H 477, I'm just going to kind of do a bill introduction from, I guess, from here. And I'm going to be real, I'm going to be short because I think Damien will explain this whole thing. A few years ago. I sponsored a bill and we passed it and then I believe it passed relatively, it might have been unanimous on the floor. But it was it was about employees who had suffered a crime. And needed needed time off protected time off from their work when they had to deal with the crime, the outcome of the crime including trial. And so we proposed a bill that allowed that to happen. And it was, like I said, it was not the equivalent of having a crime victim bill of rights but it was it was a benefit. I have to even use the word benefit because again, if someone has suffered a crime that they have to deal with the fallout from that and have to testify in court or have to deal with other could be medical issues could be family issues related to that. It seemed to be unfair that people did not have the opportunity to have protected time off. And so it was, we passed it it was, if there was very little pushback against it everybody seemed to think that it filled an important loophole. And then I got a call from Damien. We passed that recently. Years ago was two years ago. And so I want, I basically want Damien to, I mean, again, when you look at this bill. And you don't see what the context is or anything else it's like, well it's just erasing a line. It's just taking out a line isn't that simple. But you know Damien, it took Damien a while for him to just sort of get at what was going on here and so I wanted to just create the idea that there is no simple bill, no matter how simple it looks, and take the opportunity to, to, to let Damien now expound on why this bill, why this is important and what it, what it, what could have happened, what could happen if we keep it this way. Right, so. Well, currently, the, the current law, the issue with it and this came up in the context of the joint legislative management committee, adopting policies for the General Assembly's employees and so in working with our human resources department legislature, we were drafting policies that were at least as effective as the Vermont statutes. And we drafted one to create an official crime victims lead policy because the, a lot of people don't actually realize that they have the right to take this leave. So we were adopting that policy and Senator Benning, who all of you know, is a, he's a criminal defense attorney and he raised some concerns. His concern was primarily with the use of the term crime victim. But in discussing that with him what I realized was that the, the definition of crime victim in the statute is broader than the actual people who are entitled to take leave under the statute. So, I think what it would be most helpful to do is to start with first, the statute itself. And then I'll show you the definition of crime victim and then I'll take you to the actual statute and show you how the statute is more. And so the bill proposes to just strike out the reference to crime victim. There, and so we'll kind of work from there but then this this will give you a sense of the who we've defined as a crime victim and that definition is important for purposes of anti discrimination law. Because you're, once you're a crime victim under this definition, you are protected against discrimination based on your status as a victim. But you're also entitled to leave to go to the hearings related to that where you're obtaining, trying to obtain an order against stalking or sexual assault, something like that. And so that there's a terminology issue in our statute and when we adopted it a few years ago. I'm sorry to say that this totally slipped by me and then drafting. And it wasn't until we were having that discussion over who was protected and, and so forth in relation to the legislative employment policies that I realized that the terminology here is problematic in the statute so that's the background. And I'll bring you right now to the statute itself. So, can everybody see the statute there so this is the definition of crime victim in our current statute. And you'll notice everything here is in the past tense. So this is someone who has obtained a relief from abuse order under title 15. A person who has obtained an order against stalking or sexual assault under 12 vsa chapter 178. A person who has obtained an order against abuse of a vulnerable adult under title 33. And a victim as defined in 13 vsa 5301 provided that the victim is identified as a crime victim in an affidavit filed by a law enforcement officer with a prosecuting attorney of confidence state or federal jurisdiction and shall include the victims child foster child parent or step child or ward of the victim who lives with the victim, or a parent of the victim spouse provided that the individual is not identified in the affidavit as the defendant. So, let me pull apart that last one here so the, it includes a person who's identified as a victim under this section of title 13, and then it includes their family member provided their family members not the defendant in the action. That's important because if you have an issue of a domestic violence case here. This is not protecting that individual against discrimination. So that that is the part of it there so let me just bring you now to the other section here. Wrong section about that. The second. Oh, it's under leave I'm sorry. So, now if we look at the definition of employee here means a person who is a crime victim as defined in that definition we just read. In consideration of director indirect gain or profit has been continuously employed by the same employer for a period of six months for at least 20 hours a week so the second part of this is a standard employee definition, they're employed for some sort of gain or profit money etc. By an employer they've been employed for at least six months, and they work an average of 20 hours a week so they're a half time or better, or more employee, and they've been employed for six months and that's, you know, sort of your, your base employment to get protected status for purposes of this leave. So what we say is an employee shall be entitled to take unpaid leave from employment to attend a deposition or court proceeding related related to a criminal proceeding when the employee is a victim as defined and title 13 are relieved from abuse hearing so very importantly here, the employee hasn't gotten this order yet, but they're seeking the order, but our definition of employees as they have to have gotten the order. So, we have this internal inconsistency here where we're defining them as someone who's already gotten the order that they're seeking and this is what Senator Ben and caught and said well wait a second. If you're going to the hearing. There isn't a finding yet your pre judging. And that that was his concern, and then when we started pulling it apart we realized well hey, we use this definition from the anti discrimination law which says you can't discriminate against someone, because they were a victim of domestic violence. So what we're saying here is you can get leave to attend your hearing to get your relief from abuse quarter, and then again, the hearing and number three is concerning stalking or sexual assault and for is the relief from abuse neglect or exploitation of an elder under title 33. That that's the internal inconsistency here and why this bill proposes to take out that reference to crime victims. You may also want to consider whether the calling it crime victims leave is the appropriate title, because these are its in general you're looking at people who are either the identified as the victim of a crime pending a hearing on the crime, or seeking a relief from abuse order of some sort and that that's the internal inconsistency is that these are not adjudicated yet these are instances where the individual is is seeking the adjudication or seeking the order. So it's basically it's like can you be a victim of before the accuses. Exactly. So, under under 13 vsa 5301 I'm going to stop the share. Just to get the other statute up here, but I'm under 13 vsa 5301 the way that's drafted and this isn't proposing to change that. But that is that is sort of drafted looking. Looking forward, so it's. It defines me just pull that definition here. So this defines victim as a person who sustains physical emotional or financial injury or death as a direct result of the commission or attempted commission of a crime, or active delinquency and shall also include the family members of a minor. A person who has found to be who has been found to be incompetent or a homicide victim. And so this is again, you're you're looking here at you know the this is someone who's who's been identified as sustaining physical emotional or financial and injury. What we're looking for is the actual statute itself though, is that again, just going to share here is that the individual. So, again, the language here around victim may also be problematic. And the question here is, is should be the when the employee is identified as a victim. You know pending a proceeding and then they have a writer obligation to appear at the proceeding. Or should we be saying when the employee and this is something where we may need more testimony here but to address this internal inconsistency. And this is a, again, where, you know, if your goal is to protect the people who are the alleged victims, you may want to say is an alleged victim. And then victim has the same meaning as in 13 dsa 5301 and has the obligation or right to appear at a proceeding because what we're looking at here is is that in these cases here none of these proceedings have actually been gone to gone to the finish, but the we're seeking to give people the right to take time off from work to appear at the proceeding. Where the crime is being, or the alleged crime is being adjudicated, or the relief from abuse order that they're seeking is being adjudicated. So that that's what this is and so, and someone adjudication could result in a negative. Right, it could result in a finding that a crime, the alleged crime didn't occur, or a denial of the relief from abuse order. So this is an foregone conclusion. But what this statute is, is providing us the right to go to that hearing and take time off from work without losing your job. That's what the statute currently provides but the way it's worded is it pre judges the victim hood here, and it also creates a catch 22, where you have to already be a victim in order to get leave to go to the hearing, where they're going to determine if you are a victim or entitled to this relief from abuse order. And so that, unfortunately, is is my drafting mistake from years ago. I totally would have caught that. Well, there's just. And that's why you guys are elected. So, oh, that was a joke. No, but yeah, so this is, this was a good catch elsewhere but it also potentially presents problems for these individuals where they could be up against the, you know, they could argue well my job was protected and then their employer can legitimately at this point say well, actually you, you weren't a victim yet. So you weren't covered. So the solution lies in, so the main part of the solution is to strike the reference to the definition of crime victim, but you may want to make some additional wording changes in there around where the individual is the alleged and then cross reference the definition of victim and just say, you know, and that way we're being clear. So we're, we're focusing the focusing of the employee definition would be on to just the employees length of service and the number of hours they work, which was, it's in the existing law, take it off of this idea that they have to be a victim. Right. And then the, the next piece is to consider adding language around them being the alleged victim, because that hearing is, you know, the court hasn't made its determination yet. And so if you say that they have to be the victim, then they're potentially caught in this catch 22 where they can't attend the trial related to the alleged that they suffered in order to determine if they're a victim. So that was the, the upshot of that. So that's something like an alleged victim or victims, like, or, you know, yeah, so when the. Yeah, I would say when the employee is identified as the alleged victim in court filings or an affidavit filed by a law enforcement officer. And then the employee has a right or obligation to appear at the proceeding is the the next part of that so in some cases. And I don't know enough about criminal law but there may be instances when the employee does not have a right to appear at the proceeding but I'm not sure what those would be. But it's, but that was the qualification added there and then we would pull the language saying as defined in 13 BSA 5301 from the actual right for the leave and put that into the definition section and just say the term victim has the same meaning. I would agree that I would agree that crime victim should be eliminated as a definition it's it's a situation in which a request for relief from abuse order or stalking or sexual assault order is brought to court that there is no crime that has been committed at that time at that point is an allegation of domestic violence, but no crime is convicted if the individual if the defendant or perpetrator is convicted then it certainly is crime. The definition that you showed I think it was under 5503 certainly defines victim in a way that would be accurate and particularly involving domestic assault because the definition that talked about emotional stress and and such that would be an adequate definition of victim in my opinion and but we should definitely eliminate crime and I think the the addition of alleged or purported victim would be a good a good solution to this as well. And of course if the perpetrator is convicted then they would be a victim and so I think that I think that we do need a little work on that but that's my experience would suggest that the person could be called a victim or alleged victim but not a crime victim. Representative Murphy. Yeah my sidetrack because I realized this bill is about the victim so I totally understand that but it brought to my mind I just wondered what about leave for someone who's been accused so that you know there certainly are false accusations I and I just is there anything similar in in our laws that require an employer to allow someone time to defend themselves there. There isn't. There is a proposal in the Senate that resulted from Senator Benning introduced as a result of our discussion. When we were first parsing through this, which would provide leave for anyone who has to attend the deposition or court proceeding both defendants and plaintiffs. But that yeah that's a separate proposal. It's it's s 157 and so would expand that so the number. There's history. But yeah so the. That bill is out there as an alternative proposal if you want to look at it. But that that would strike all of the specific qualifications here and replace it to with language saying leave for a court proceeding and in an action to which the employee is a party. Or a deposition or court proceeding at which the employee is required to appear some other words you've been, you're required to testify by way of subpoena or some other requirement like that. And that would, you know, give give employees sort of a general leave right related to court proceedings, ranging from divorce or custody proceedings and family court to a civil trial or to a criminal trial in which you're the defendant. Right. You know, which was, you know, his his initial concern from his own work in his, in his day job as a defense attorney. So the, you know, the change that we're talking about here is much more limited in terms of just making the law consistent with its original intent. Instead of creating this catch 22 where people aren't allowed to take the leave in order to try to achieve this result until they actually have the result, which is the circular nature of the current language. And then his bill is definitely broader than that. But which is the issue that you're thinking about there. Right. And I realize it's, it's, as I said, this is a project in the bill so I get very different language but it just did leave me curious because certainly whether you are the person who perpetrated whatever you're being accused of or not. You can even find out potentially you lose your job because you've got to either go to court and defend yourself, or you've got to go to work. So it just seems as if again that whole pre judge before you can get your moment ends up happening. Right. And I mean even outside of the criminal context there are are any number of court proceedings people have significant rights that are being adjudicated. But that, you know, is is a much bigger different. Yes. Yeah. And I mean at the time that this came forward there wasn't, there were no protections whatsoever, especially for crime victims that. Okay. Yeah, so not a simple little bill. No, you got that 24 minutes so. Wow, really? It felt longer. Considering it's changed right now. All right. Thank you. Thank you. I think we'll, you know, I'll reach out to representative grad, Jerry, because he's a sponsor on this bill because, you know, at this point, it may be better for them and see if the best 157 is on their radar at all. I don't think it's even come off the wall in the Senate at this point. Yeah. If we were to do this change, I mean, I would be perfectly happy with just make, you know, it seems like it's a corrective measure for what we had spent time on two years ago or three years ago. I think we'll, we'll pick it up. I just really wanted to. The four, the four, the conversation of simple little bill is instructive to us. You know, just understanding the check of that. I mean, you say you catch it. You know, three years ago or whatever. I don't think it's a question of you catching it or not. I think it's the awareness that comes out of, I mean, out of right field. It's a whole different context that and somebody who paid attention to it late, you know, just brought in a different point of view. And all of a sudden the words nothing comes up and you're just like, Oh, but wait, right. I see it. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I do remember at the time we were just thinking of, you know, with being done with the discrimination protections. And I remember the conversation was, oh yeah, we'll just copy that definition and cross reference it and it will be easy and it'll be easy. It occurred very quickly. As these things tend to do. And yeah, you know, when the things get going quickly here. There's just little details that escape and hopefully they don't happen too often but. Yeah, yeah. We'll discuss that. Okay. Great. Anything else. If you want to pull up off off the calendar and tackle this morning. While I'm here. Sure. We're going to take extra time. I do represent. Chair, I think this questions for you is you and Maxine graduate were the ones who put this forward. I understand the clarification about the crime victim are alleged. I think that's really important. And then Barbara mentioned the other thing and we have in the Senate, that language with that language be inappropriate to integrate into this one. Would it still serve the intent that you had in this bill, or is it really a different intention? Well, I think it broadens the intent, of course, if it's including everyone. And I think it opens us up for, for, you know, the need to hear from, I would say, probably copious witnesses that would, that would testify on victims rights and criminals rights and human rights. Or whatever, whatever is the broad language, and I think that's better served for the judiciary committee, if it's going up into that larger scale, we were dealing with it from, from, you know, incredibly narrow perspective of, of, you know, crime victims work related issues that. And I think that, you know, for us to undertake the change that might be proposed in this 157 would lead us to have to be educated on the larger, the larger range of what rights people have once they're charged in our just in our judicial system. And I think that's a much larger, I think that's a much larger bill, if you don't have the context for it in your portfolio which we don't, I mean it's much more of a judicial situation when you enlarge it that far than I think the narrow approach that we took which was work related. When we originally took it out. Okay, thanks. I think what you're saying makes sense I would agree with you but when I looked it up it actually in the Senate got referred to the committee on economic development housing in general affairs, so the Senate didn't send it to their judiciary just interesting. Yeah, that may be a function of Senator Benning sitting on, I believe he sits on judiciary. I may have, yeah he sits on judiciary so they may have wanted to send it to the employment committee first. But that, you know, bill referral is a chamber thing so absolutely. Yeah. Okay, let's stop on this bill now. And before I let the all go for early lunch, I did receive an email I just asked Ron to send it to everybody from the clerk's office on the question that we posed yesterday about whether or not representative Higley's amendment was out of order. Okay, their opinion is that it's not out of order because the substantial change comes from the larger amendment. Okay, not necessarily with the amendment that representative Higley is proposing so we'll hear that and if anybody challenges it on the floor, then it'll be ruled in order. The larger amendment, the substantive nature of the larger amendment validated the attempt at a repetitive amendment. Yes. Okay. Because it alters the bill, not be the original bill anymore. Yep. So we're dealing with the original bill of this word. If, if, well, obviously if they had concurred with the bill, if the Senate had concurred with this bill this would be an issue. Right. And so the fact that we have received it back is more than technical changes. Yep. And so his request to request to request to amend that is, again, the substantive changes or the substantial difference appears in the bill that's attempting to be amended, not the amendment itself, even though it's a word for word. That's a good procedural. I'm glad we asked. I think it's really these two on the fact that the Senate proposal of amendment was a strike off. So no matter how little they changed it, they did a strike off. So it's a new bill, which I wouldn't be noticed. No, we weren't discussing that. So I think that's the technicality that it flies on. And you were making fun of me for being focused on details. Or being irritated. I'm entertained. Oh, I know, I know. You know, I mean, you know, for years, it's just, you know, when somebody said in a text that some point about what's she doing, I'll just be like, who knows. She read. Mr reminder, we're still alive. Yes.