 All right, we are back after that testimony from the affected communities of the Indigenous folks on JRH2. I just wanted to spend some time and open it up for conversation amongst us if you wanted to ask questions. I know that if there's any questions that we had about what we heard and next steps. We have testimony on Thursday from representatives of the disabled community. We have a woman from who will testify on behalf of the effects on the French Canadian and Franco-American community. Kim Chase will be here. We've also invited Jeff Benet, who has been affiliated with the Mrs. Coy band in Swanton for quite some time and was unable to fit them in today. I thought that five people, it might go longer, the testimony might go longer than that, but five people in an afternoon is quite a bit to begin with. Chip? I guess this has been on my mind a little in reading Nancy Gallagher's book. It just strikes me in such, just this May that Henry Perkins and his band of intellectual snobs through the early 20th century had no regard whatsoever for the lives of the people that we are addressing 90 years later. It just blows my mind. Even though it could have been, it was a prevailing thought, but under the guise of science and zoology to do such heinous things to our citizens and our indigenous population is just absolutely unacceptable. It just blows my mind. I just have to say. Now, re-reading some of the materials that we've already received this weekend, it's a hard read. On one hand, there's a sense of, well, times were different, but if you read some of the history of the times, issues were the same. Vermonters are leaving. We need better Vermonters here. We need to attract, we need to, and this was a time where you're like, did we even have electricity in half of our towns then? Did we have automobiles and roads? I mean, this was progressive science allegedly, and yet the idea of the other, which Rich was talking about, was very much a part of what this came out of, not just in Vermont, but nationwide. Tommy? Thanks. A couple of things. This is pretty obvious. In our committee, we get to hear some pretty horrendous stories. I can think of the widows, of veterans who are poisoned by those open burn pits. We've had extremely moving testimony from the homeless, and this reminded me of the very moving testimony we had last biennium from this particular population. In this case, because of the official role the legislature had to do, it's no doubt it's an incumbent upon us to do something in an official capacity, more than just listen. I do want to point out that this is an ancient history. As early as the 70s, in Maine, they were separating indigenous children from their families and forcibly adopting them into European white, better families. As late as the 70s in Canada, they were doing the same thing, including involuntary sterilizations. It's good to remember that this act was official 90 years ago, but this kind of thing has been going on far more recently. It's not ancient history, and it's an even more compelling reason why we need to do something. Thank you. I think the comments that Doug was making about the kind of parallel with what Nancy Gallagher had started with in our conversation, which was don't limit the conversation or the thought to sterilization. That letter was not only, Doug's comments made an assumption of sterilization because they didn't have children later on, but the idea of how it's referred to in Mercedes de Guardiola's article was eugenic segregation to separate the children from the families as Tommy's, what you're talking about is being an integral part of the policy. Yeah, Tiff. Thanks, chair. I was really struck by what she Stevens said about, you know, we're all just doing this as volunteers, trying to preserve Indigenous culture and language, and there's not a single kind of paid position in the state that it does that. And I think that maybe you made a reference, or maybe he did, to past efforts to establish a paid position in some way so that because it's, I mean, is absolutely right about the per diem, you know, we have created a commission on women that has a paid executive director. And I am just, so I am just wondering what past discussions about that have been like. So in the years, it was like a three or four year process to get the, to get a recognition policy, a statewide recognition policy that we think passes muster on a federal level, in the sense that it's not a federal recognition, but that what we put forward allowed the state a process and allowed the bands a process to, as Don said, you know, we, they had to prove their existence to this, this recognition process that we created. Because there were real limitations on what, you know, if you were an, if you were a a Vermont or a Vabanaki or indigenous descent and you were an artist, and you, and you created traditional art, you couldn't market it that way. That was one of the ways avenues into saying, federally, you, you're not just, you're just not allowed to do that. You're not, and there's some pretty strict laws. And so when we did the recognition, it took a couple of years for the four bands that have been recognized to get their paperwork in order, get their application in order. And once they were in place, this committee felt like, you know, I, I think the first year I might have cosponsored it with somebody. It was just one of those things where you say, well, I have to put this on the wall, just because it's got to be talked about. And it's the office of Native American affairs, because in, on a federal level, one of the, one of the pieces of a relationship between a, at a recognized tribe and, and the, then American government is they're supposed to have relations. They're supposed to have, they're supposed to have some form of, of official recognition across their two different, you know, their two different ways of being, period. And so that bill didn't really go anywhere. We would discuss it every once in a while. It would come off. We would, we would discuss it in committee, but there wasn't a lot of momentum and there certainly wasn't any room as, as driven by the budget. And by people saying, well, what would this, what would this office do? And that existential question wasn't, hasn't been fully answered yet. Because we have this Native American commission that is made up of volunteers who do get prudiums when they can meet. And there's actually been some stability to the commission over the last couple of years that didn't exist for a very long time. And that is, so, so the answer is it's in limbo right now. I don't think that anybody introduced it this year. I think last biennium, perhaps representative China may have introduced the concept, but it's been, I don't see it in the pipeline for this year. But it's a, but it's a real question. Should there be someone who works for the state who is a liaison with the Native American bands that have been recognized in particular, you know, because that's what we have control over. We've been able to recognize four bands of people, but we also know that there are Indigenous people who do not belong to one of those, to any of those bands. And the question is, should there be someone who works for the state government who can work as liaison to help them find funding? When we see big budget things that are coming from the federal government, like we just did, where you see there's line items for Native Americans that is separate from any particular states. And we don't qualify for those because we don't have federal, we don't have federal recognized tribes, federally recognized tribes. So, but there are other monies out there. Should this person, you know, how, how do we define the role? It's just never gotten to that point. It's been on the wall in years past, but the idea of adding another piece of bureaucracy without having a clear definition to it, it has been a, has been a point of contention. And it just stops everything, stops the conversation because, because no one can really identify what that committee should do or hasn't been able to yet. So, thanks. Representative Byron, then Murphy. On the topic of somebody in state government to assist or be a direct point of contact. I mean, if we're, as the task force concept is developed and we're taking a look at like what we're doing to really help with equity with these populations, I think it makes sense to try and identify someone maybe in existing agencies, state government or whatnot. But I mean, if we're talking about programs or access to state colleges or loans, you know, land access for farming just got brought up in the conversation earlier. You know, I kind of see that acting in a way as the programs that we've set up for like technical assistance for the other programs that we've set up before. So that was just something that was spinning in my mind. And maybe I could partner with one of the existing offices that we have for concepts and ideas like that. Just throw that out there. I mean, when I was first introduced to this whole set of issues in our committee, you know, with the state archaeologists at the time she was had been with the state for 30 years. And she was a de facto expert on Native Americans in Vermont, specifically the Abenaki. And yet she wasn't in a position to be like we couldn't name her as the office of Native American affairs. Again, the same argument, you're not naming the, you want to name that person, but you really need to name an office. And but yeah, which, you know, so does it, but as it go in DH, does it go in the Department of Housing and Community Development? Does it go, you know, finding the right place for it would be would be one important step forward with it. Representative Murphy. Thank you. My thought is on a fairly different angle of everything we've talked about this afternoon. And just thinking about one of the asks that we commit to avow that that something like the sterilization legislation will never happen again. And it brought to mind one of the discussions I've tried to put on the table and I'm going to go controversial here, but on Proposition 5 that is in in our second year now of the General Assembly vote on giving people autonomy to their reproductive rights. And even in that, we still have the language that does give the state the right to have a compelling interest and to intervene by the least restrictive means, but still have the ability to override that. And it is, has been a thought in my mind that Proposition 5 speaks to not being able to tell me I can't have children or to sterilize me. So I just put it out there for people to think about. Yeah. Thank you. That's some. Yeah, it's not simple. All right. Any further thoughts on this bill right now? Joe or John, this is kind of your first introduction to this testimony at this level. Anyway, any any thoughts on what you've what you've heard so far on this resolution? Joe? Yeah. It's pretty wild to first dig into it. And as you know, the same themes and languages or language and really just resonated quite broadly at that time. It was amazing the the names of people that come up, presidents and governors of other states and everything else where it's the same language, imbeciles and all the other things that you for as they use. Yeah, it's amazing how prevalent it was at the time. John? Yes, I was familiar with your times, but I got to be honest with you after hearing a little bit that we have heard about it and checking into a little bit, I found it was totally outrageous that this could even have occurred in these United States of America. I just can't believe it. This is just something that is totally, totally wrong. And I really think we need to do, we definitely need to come up with a real apology on this, do whatever we can to make this acknowledge this extreme injustice to many, many, many, many people. Again, I just found it so outrageous. It's just urge me to fathom. Thank you. No, it is. And so as we move forward with this over the next couple of weeks, don't be afraid to say more or ask more because it's a lot to carry. This is a lot to process. And I know a year ago we were having the same conversation, but it was fresh to the six or seven of us who were having it, who are here now. And it was hard. It's just simply hard. Well, oh, Mr. Chair, I'm finding that this has been going on for a while now, the idea of this apology, but hasn't. I realize it was stopped due to it was in existence before then, like to hear before the year before that. No, about 10 years ago, Representative Donahue put some language forward that was, it was, I think more geared towards the effect on the disabled. Because at the time, we had, we were just in the process of recognizing the Abinacki bands. And so there is this feeling of, I mean, one of the things is when you, and I think Rich touched on this is that when you don't recognize somebody and you don't give them their name that don't exist legally. And so 10 years ago, and maybe it's 11 or 12 years ago now, Representative Donahue was really the first time it had been brought forward, but it wasn't complete. And there wasn't, as we say with bills, there wasn't momentum. There wasn't a real full or full understanding. And since that time, we've recognized the four Abinacki bands. The state hospital has closed. You know, after years and years and years of like, of like living with a broken system. And while the system itself may not be completely fixed, it's still a lot better than being in the Waterbury State Hospital at any level. And so this only came back last year. Last year was the first time we considered it in a decade. And maybe because the things like the state hospital has been gone for 10 years, maybe now people can start to deal with these questions or deal, you know, where this, I mean, I don't know if you've ever had the privilege, if you will, of walking through the state hospital when it was open. But there is a lot of karma in that place. It wasn't very, it wasn't very healthy. Even after it was closed for a year. I had the opportunity to do some work in there and do an art project in there. And in the preparation for walking around some of the wards in that building. It was very, very powerful a year later after the flood. And I'm not usually like a ghost seeker or, you know, those things don't usually get me here. But the state hospital certainly did. Any more on JRH2. And then I just want to kind of shift the conversation over to, I guess, expectations for the next two weeks of work, which is this week. And then next week we have off for town meeting break. And then the week after that, the speaker announced that just like always, close of business on that following Friday will be crossover. So I think what I would like to be able to focus on are, you know, that this sense of, well, what can we do in the second half of the year is reliant a little bit on what comes over from the Senate, but also bills that we're not going to pass before crossover that we want to either tee up to be passed by the end of the year. So it summers over in the Senate, or to be ready for next January, February, you know, to deal with it before crossover of next year. So we have plenty of work to do because there's plenty of bills that have interest and or priority for us. But one of that I had a list of about four bills and this resolution that I'd like to see if we can get done in the next two weeks. One is the annual alcohol bill. It's almost always an omnibus type bill that starts on one side or the other goes to the other side and then comes back and it's one of those bills that gets traded back and forth because usually the items are fairly, not that they're insignificant, but they're very small. So we had a bill last year that Matt will talk about, I believe tomorrow. So one of the bills that we passed last year was exactly this. It was an omnibus bill. There were several things in it that we sent over to the Senate and then COVID hit and they only ended up by the end of September returning like one or two things that had to be returned because of absolute deadlines. But because of COVID there was sort of this interruption in the process of whatever DLL would be doing. This doesn't include, I don't think this bill includes anything about the lottery that we were talking about last week, but it just has elements of work that we did last year that we passed that we'll review, we'll look at, we'll answer all the questions we need to, but I hope we can just get something alcohol related over to the Senate so that they can then do their work on it. And if there's anything that we have left that comes over, like for instance, there's another bill that Matt's putting in, I believe, is on licenses. DLL wants to, what does DLL want to do, Matt, on the license? I know you're going to talk about this later, but yeah, yeah, yeah. In a nutshell, it's just a one-year fee reduction for first and third-class licenses of basically brick-and-mortar restaurants and lodging, getting 50% off their annual license cost. Right, just as again, nutshell. Recognizing that it's COVID and that it's a really, they haven't been able to do their business. It's a nice thing to do. And that was a request from Commissioner Delaney for me to put that in. So that's something they want to do for the industry. So that's out there. We're going to hear from Damien on Friday about the modernization of the National Guard language. I don't know what hangups we would have with it, but as I will always hesitate to call it a simple bill. So I think, but I think if we hear from Damien and hear that it's as plain and simple as modernizing the language without making any policy changes, because Damien can rewrite, Damien can do that. But when it comes to policy changes, the two in front of us, the selection of the adjunct general and the criteria for what the adjunct general should be, Damien won't rewrite that. That'll just, that'll still exist, but that's a decision for the legislature to make. But simply rewriting it and modernizing it. Again, I don't know, does anybody see any problem with passing that bill? I think it's, you know, I think it's a first step in, it's another step in modernizing some of our statutes where they need, where they need it. Lisa? Yeah, I think you just stated it exactly as it is. It's simply modernizing the statutes. And I know that Damien worked extensively with Representative Fagan and Rep Byron on it. And I don't see anything concerning in it at all. And some of the, some of the terminology really does need to be changed because there are some things in that statute that just don't exist anymore. Yep. No, and that's, so when we hear it this week, we just listen to make sure that the, you know, that that's what the changes are and that there's nothing, you know, I mean, the due diligence on it doesn't seem like it has to be all that deep. But you never know. When things start, when things start getting dusted off, old language starts getting dusted off, you just have to pay, we just have to pay attention to where, to what may happen if we move things around. But again, I don't view it as a huge, I don't view that bill as a huge lift to get across the line. I'd like to see H96 get across the line before crossover, which is the task force. I think it's a possible candidate for me to ask for a slight extension. But let's just see how the testimony goes this week on it. We'll have, we'll hear testimony on from Susanna Davis and from the Human Rights Commission, as well as the original sponsors, we'll have them in to start the conversation anyway, and kind of share what Ron shared with us this week, which was the, which was the report from the social equity caucus, which was kind of a result of their particular committee. I don't know if that report has a list of who was on their committee and how it worked. But that'll be at least my homework before we, you know, before we talk about H96 again, and really begin to, you make some fairly, I mean, obviously, if crossover is in two, is in seven business, eight business days, then, you know, we just have some quick decisions to make. And I think we have, by the time we finish work on Friday and start our break, I think we'll have a long list of things that we need to really get in order before then, in terms of homework and knowledge and information that we want to ask. H256 is a priority, but we're not going to get to it. We're expecting a Senate version of H256, which is the housing, which is the rental registry and rental housing safety, a lot that has the VHIP program in it that the commissioner Hanford's been talking about. I believe the Senate will send us a version that's closer to last year's version, H739. But once we have it, then we can work on it with some quality time rather than try to skim it. It's not a bill that's worth skimming on. It's a little bit more complicated than that. And so we need to give it time, and the Senate, as of now, has approved that they'll send it over to us to work on. And then the other, the last one is H157, which is the contractor licensing. And I'm trying to think about, again, this was S163, I think, in 2019. And it was something that, of course, came over to the Senate. It originally had a lot of what is the rental housing safety. S163 had the rental housing safety stuff in it, the version from 2019. But it also had this piece, which is from the Office of Professional Regulation about the licensee and contractor. So we've heard a little bit about it. We'll hear more about it this week. We passed it out of our committee. In 2019, it actually wintered over or summered over. But it was still on the board at the beginning of 2020. And we brought it back into committee because so much else had been split off of it. H739 had been split off from it. So all that was left in it was this contractor licensing piece. And so that's what, so Representative Campbell introduced this bill to us a couple of weeks ago. And I'd like to see if we can get this out as well. There are, I believe, 48 other states who have some kind of protections, consumer type protections on contractors and consumers. But we're going to start to hear about this and actually have a bunch of testimony scheduled for tomorrow, I think. Yeah, tomorrow, we're going to start it. So we're going to start at nine tomorrow. And then we're going to hear a bunch of testimony from folks who have, most of the folks who are on the agenda for Wednesday have testified on this bill before. And I know that doesn't mean anything for those of you who haven't been on the committee before, but just, it's just, there's, in case people start testifying in shorthand, and they think that, oh, we did this last year, don't, you know, if you have a question, make sure you raise your hand and ask it, because I'm not going to ask you to pass a bill if you don't understand it. Yeah, and then I don't know about you, but I'm getting some emails on an H 200 enact relating to regulating short term rentals. And so we'll just hear the introduction from that. We won't take a walk through. And then, and then again, we have some bill introductions on tomorrow afternoon. So we're just going to be busy. You know, we're going to be busy with a, you know, a lot of different things that aren't as hopefully, I mean, you know, we'll get what we can get done, you know, and if we need to have a slight extension of time, we'll ask for it on a key bill or two. But I think we can get across a couple of bills that are easier, that are just part of our portfolio, and that will allow us to work on them later on this year as well, when they come back from the Senate. That was our plan last year, especially with the alcohol stuff, but also some of the housing stuff and life changed, you know, about 49 weeks ago. So, all right, anything else? Shoot the breeze? Any questions? You guys, you know, misplaying Lotto or, you know, we didn't get to have the community didn't get to see interactive Lotto day at the State House. Yeah, that got canceled last year, too, because of snow, right? Yeah. Yeah, maybe that's maybe that's our line for the, oh, we can't possibly even consider this bill unless we all have our own Kino machine and see how easy it is to spend money. We have to personally interface with it first. There you go. That's right. That's right. Yeah, maybe if we're lucky when we talk about break open tickets, we'll get some, we'll get some of the duds from the break open ticket collection that the lottery has in their warehouse. All right, well, I guess in, let's just finish early today. And I know I'm a little bit worn out by listening to the testimony and, you know, it's going to be hard on Wednesday as well, on Thursday as well on this bill. But after we hear that testimony, we'll find out if we're missing anyone on JRH2. And then we'll do some, we'll go back and look at the actual resolution itself and see what, see what we have with it. And resolutions, again, do not have they don't need to make crossover date per se, but we do need to get it across as soon as, as close to crossover date as possible. Just because of the process, the Senate has to take time and hear the same testimony that we've heard, or whatever they so choose, but we can't wait till April to pass this over. So, all right, let's call it a day. Mary, can you stay after class?