 Thank you. So, committee, we are going to look at H207, the Montpelier Charter Change, and for some odd reason, I seem to have lost my folder, but I can mainly remember what we talked about. So, where are we here in terms of what we're thinking right now? And maybe, Tucker, would you join us for a moment here? And this might also want to involve Chris, I mean, Will, possibly this question. So, one of the questions that came up by some of our colleagues was, well, two questions. One was whenever a local vote is made, it impacts the rest of the state because of budgetary. For example, if you're doing, creating a TIF, it's going to affect the rest of the state. So, some response to that, and primarily for you, I guess, is the issue of, if we let non-citizens vote, why would we also not let non-residents vote? And we, in our area, we have a couple towns who have like 60% of the population is non-resident. They're second homeowners who spend a lot of time in Vermont and are affected by the tax rate and by the decisions of the voters of the town, but they're not allowed to vote. So, so, do you, what would be the issues around non-resident voting and then we'll ask Will also that. Are there, from your perspective? Sure. Good afternoon, talk for Anderson, and also the Legislative Council. Both of those sound like policy issues that would need to be debated and considered by you as legislators. I don't necessarily see any legal advice being particularly helpful for that discussion. The last time we were here, I felt framed the first issue that you brought up about local elections impacting the finances and duties of the state potentially with respect to TIF districts. So, to briefly outline that again, that is going to be the case for every municipality, whether or not that municipality allows non-citizens to vote. Local elections at some point may have an impact on statewide policies and issues. That's just a matter of fact. It is a policy consideration for all of you as to whether you want to allow this particular municipality to have non-citizens voting in some of those local ballot issues that have echoing ramifications that are greater than the municipality. There's no particular legal constitutional issue there for me to discuss. I'm not as concerned about the non-citizens because they're not residents. This is trying to focus residents who live here full-time who would like to have a voice in the community they live in. So, I'm not as concerned about the non-citizens, but Tacoma Park, which is our one municipality we can look at with experience. Actually, I want to interrupt just for a second because I've seen this testimony from Roberta Garland, local citizen, she said that San Francisco and Chicago allow non-citizens to vote in school council elections. 11 municipalities in Maryland allow non-citizens to vote in local affairs. Tacoma Park has allowed this in 1992. Chevy Chase started allowing this in 2018. I'm just saying, I didn't realize that, 11 towns in Maryland are doing it. Oh, it's not just to go on. I thought, I mean. No, no, that's good. So then, because my question is, how have they dealt with any local issue that might have state finance impact? To me, that's a red herring. I sort of view it as a red herring, but I'm just curious, have there been any issues that have arisen in those 11 towns in Maryland that have adopted this in terms of placing undue burden on the state finances? I have not researched that issue. I didn't hear any testimony about that particular issue when Tacoma Park testified that is a question that's best answered by them. Okay. So, if you remember the last time we talked about this, I said that Montpelier had a population of 16,700 and there were so many registered voters and stuff. And on the top of my notes for that, it said topo. And I couldn't figure, it was Tacoma Park. I finally figured out that those numbers related to Tacoma Park, even though I only had written down taco. Right. And I thought you were thinking about Paco, who had been involved with that district. So, we don't have, it looks like 13 municipalities if you include Chicago and San Francisco and Chevy Chase also. That was still the question I had. So 14, as far as we can identify, is that Roberta is right here, so we can ask her when she testifies. Any other questions? Yeah, I just, I mean, we've got over this before, but I just would like you to do it again if you can. Go back to the constitutional history that maybe Betsy shared with us about towns or creatures of the state if they have the ability to do certain things. You know what I'm trying to get at? Could you talk about that a little bit? Sure. And yes, that was Betsy and Rask, who may be very thorough in our articulate presentation. Yeah, I'm sorry for you to do it so fast. The briefest possible summary is that unless the constitution prohibits you, the legislature, from granting this power to new municipalities, then you may give it to them. And there is no particular restriction on qualifications for local elections. Therefore, you have the ability to delegate this to the city of Montpelier through this special law. That is the briefest, squarist summary that I can give you without going through the 20, no, 18-page document. That was good. I just needed to be reminded. Any more questions for Tucker? Thank you. Will, would you like to just join us and talk a little bit about the issue of non-citizen versus non-resident? And I know it, like Tucker said, it's policy decision, but it is a question that we have been asked. Sure. Well, sending director of elections for the record and Madame Chair wasn't prepared for any direct testimony. You know, this is pretty informal discussion, so. Do you have a specific question in that regard? Well, how, just when you establish residency, how do you establish residency as opposed to not being a resident? In Vermont? Yeah. For purposes of the election law? Yeah. Both of those things are important because there's multiple residency efforts, as you know. But this is for elections. Yeah. For voter registration purposes, it's, I often say it's a fairly subjective analysis which hinges primarily on whether you consider the place to be your principal dwelling place. And you have an attempt to return there temporarily absent, coupled with an act or acts consistent with that intent. That's basically the definition of it. It starts with a basic premise that you consider it your principal dwelling place. But that's not the tax definition. No, it's not. Nor the school tuition assessment. That's the principle for you. Consider it your dwelling place. Primary dwelling place. And how do you define primary dwelling place? Good question. Honestly, the place you spend the primary amount of your time, the most significant amount of your time. Is that 51%? No, not necessarily. So if you said, I'm, this is my primary dwelling. We had a, this was a huge issue in Grafton. As you remember. Overwind and people who wanted to vote but had their primary residence in someplace else. How would they have established their primary residence so that they would have been allowed to vote? Would they have to change where they paid their income? I mean, how do you, if it's different for tax purposes and different for Medicaid or whatever, how do you, how do you establish that? And how do you enforce that? In the courts, there's not a whole lot of case law and I've looked into it. Some kind of tax, as I was saying, the statute ends with an act or acts consistent with that attempt. The kind of stuff courts would look for, maintenance of a bank account, P.O. Box. Some set of indicia that show you still have some connection to the community. However, I would say that that's usually looked at in the context of somebody who has left and maintains that they're coming back. So it was there as the principal going place then left for some unanticipated reason. Mom is sick and you need to go stay with her for six months. You get challenged by the Board of Civil Authority in your town. You say no by intent to return there as soon as my mom passes away, which might be in a definite period of time. Then the court would say, well, what can you show me that tells me your plans to come back? You still have the house, you haven't sold it. You know, if you've sold the house that you once had before, that shows pretty well that you don't intend to come back. But the second homeowner show is a difficult one. Although in most cases, I think it's pretty clear whether or not it's the person's primary dwelling place. And then sort of the baseline that everyone operates from also is the one thing you don't want to do is be registered in two places. So at least if you're going to be playing in Vermont, it's your principal dwelling place. You're not also registered in Connecticut or Florida. It's highly subjective is where I stand. But it is illegal to be registered in two places to vote. Correct. Not necessarily. Not necessarily. Just discussing that with my election director colleagues across the country yesterday morning. But you're not able, or you're not supposed to vote in two places. Two different things is what you just said. So clearly you're not supposed to vote in two places. Right, so clearly. So it's illegal to vote in two places. To be registered. And you are encouraged to be registered in only one. Yeah, there's sort of tangential statutes that get to it for instance where statutes don't say if you move and register somewhere else, either that clerk or you are meant to call and remove yourself from the rolls. But there are not definitive statements to say it's against a lot of your registered in two places. And I think that's probably a historic way over time because it's so easy to make that error unknowingly. Well, end up registered in two places. It takes a while, yeah. So, if somebody, go ahead. The last point I would make in reference to this bill is that I don't necessarily see the relationship in this discussion with the bill before you. Right. Which is to say that citizenship, unlike residency, is not subjective at all and is very easy to prove or disprove. And so I don't think that this bill raises the same kind of questions that one, I'd raise if it proposed to have non-residents. It raises the question of their colleagues. That's where the question comes from. So if you were, since you're not supposed to vote in two places, if you had dual citizenship, you can't have dual citizenship in the United States, can you? Yes. With someplace else. So, could you vote in that someplace else and vote in Montpelier? You got a country, I suppose you could. Depends on their laws. They're on, depends on their laws. Yeah, you can't vote in England if you vote here. Okay. I haven't enough to know our laws. I think so. You don't know the election laws of the world? Working on it, working on it. You'll be a test next week. Okay. But as we heard from Roberta when she lived in Norway, she could vote in those local elections, not in the federal elections, but she could vote in the local elections and she could vote here. And send a presidential ballot back here? Any ballot. And can't you vote, I mean, when we had a child at school abroad, they voted in every election. Absentee ballots are good for every election. From our perspective, I don't know about Norway. Yeah. No, but from our... Yeah. Okay. I did have one more question, but my senior moment just... It'll pop. It'll pop up at some point. Kind of, not exactly. My impression is that amongst people who direct elections in the United States, there's sort of a mutual aid attitude, like you work with your colleagues around the country and sort of things out. Yes. Are you working in any way to sort out what's going on in Iowa? He's just grateful he's not at elections in Iowa, right? No, in the end of that, you guys give me the opportunity just so there's an audience here to make the important distinction. Hey, the ballots. Well, that, but more importantly, to your question, as to that election primary caucus last night was not administered by the state. Right. It was administered by the caucus. Democratic Party function. And so my election director, colleague in Iowa, had nothing to do with that process last night. There have been suggestions that we should do away with the state-run primary in Vermont and have it administered by the parties and we could save a bundle. Yeah. And look, I guess we aren't. I guess we are going to leave a lot of discussion about it. We are not going down the front any time soon. We necessarily, but there have been discussions as you well know. But it's interesting. Well, I think that some of the reason that some of these states like Iowa still have their caucuses is because the legislature won't fund a primary. The fact that you guys pay $400,000 to pay for all our primary ballots is a big investment. But this is like our public records discussion. What is the business? These are core functions. No, but democracy. No, but the... Determining a party's candidate. Party's candidate? In determining candidates, period. We happen to have a party's assistant. I don't want to get into it. It's too late. I was just going to ask. The projectaries aren't to determine the party's candidate. They are to determine who are candidates. Our party candidates are. I think it's a function of state government and I'm glad we fund it. It hasn't been for very long. It's certainly been for the benefits of funding in, having it done professionally by people who know how to do it. And it hasn't been a state party. It hasn't been a state function for very long in Vermont. I'm thrilled it's currently a state function. And we're more thrilled after last night's mass in Iowa. When did it start to be a state function? I think in 73. 76, I think. 76, because the 72 election, we still did caucuses. I think I thought it always was. April McCollum for the free press is working on the story about the free government. I remember going to the caucuses for the 72 election because we had just moved here. And I remember the day that it was 76, the first senator of the primary, the caucuses also were going on at the same time. Yeah, all right. So you called us for Nixon, then? I did. I did, I called yes. Thank you. Since 1976. So does anybody else have anything they'd like to weigh in on here with some new material or some new thoughts or hasn't had a chance so far? Thank you, Roberta, for setting your tone. Let's see first if there's anybody else who hasn't weighed in so far, but no? Okay. Well, thank you, Chair and members of the committee. So my wife, Micah Garland, would have liked to have been here, but she's in Norway with her 90-year-old mother at this point. So she has been living in Montpelier for 26 and a half years and we bought a house here, we raised a child, we were really kind of involved in the community. So what I did was I came up with some questions that I thought might be questions that get addressed and questions that I and others who circulated petitions in Montpelier faced. Would it make sense for me to read through these or not? What does anybody think? I think I just, so I'm all right, I don't, I mean, we kind of already read number seven about that. Well, maybe I can read, well, the first one, this is a question that we got a lot voting that's a privilege that should be reserved for citizens. You know, people felt very, there were quite a few people in the street who felt strongly about that and we had discussions with these folks and so. Did they all vote? Did they all vote in the? I mean, they talk about it as a privilege, but so our numbers of nine people actually voting are so low. I didn't know some of that, but voting? It's a privilege, that good point, exercise. So I will say that in about five minutes we're gonna do something else. Okay, okay, all right, so I'll just read that. Some people believe that citizenship and voting are tied together and for federal elections they are. However, federal law does not prohibit non-citizens from voting in state or local elections. If states and municipalities allow voting, also the Vermont Constitution and Vermont case law does not prohibit non-citizens from voting in local elections. Because Bill solely addresses voting in Montpelier affairs, the right to vote in federal and state elections will still be limited to U.S. citizens. So I just point out here that in Burlington they just withdrew theirs and the two people that voted against it, one of them was a new American citizen. Right, and some new Americans felt like well, we work very hard and this is the right that we've gained. The majority of people who I spoke to in Montpelier who are from other countries, citizens of other countries, they were really, or they're spelt it in. They didn't say that. I just found that. Yeah, yeah. So another question is, let me see. Would this put non-citizens at risk of committing a crime number nine, and there's nothing in federal law that prohibits non-citizens from voting in local elections. As part of the naturalization process, applicants are asked if they have voted in federal, state, or local elections and are asked to provide supplementary materials if they have done so. In this case, the supplementary material would be information from the city of Montpelier and the city clerk of Tacoma Park, she addressed this too. She said she gives them information that they can attach to their application. Another question that came up with, why can't people wait until they become citizens? That's number two. Yes. The answer to this is as complicated as the number of people who would be impacted by the passing of this bill. And again, some examples. Some people come from countries where dual citizenship is not allowed. They might have family and a strong connection to their original country of citizenship. They want to give up their original citizenship. Some people would like to become a US citizen or in the lengthy process of establishing enough time to do so. One has to be a permanent resident for five years or if married to a US citizen three years. Oh, I didn't work on it. Oops, I don't know if you have the newest version. I wrote that it can take up to 10 years or more to even become a permanent resident. So it can take a really long time to even get to that step where you can consider citizenship. And it costs $725 and the Trump administration has proposed an increase to 1170. And this does not include any potential lawyers' fees. So those can definitely be- Which are serious. They also, I think everybody got the statement from Gilberto. Yes? Yes, thank you for those, that was good. Okay, he was not able to be here because he's working. One of the most powerful things about this conversation for me is the fact that it passed a month earlier by 3,300 votes, 4,900 against, that's like 4 to 1. That's pretty strong vote. Yeah, it was a strong vote. People. Yeah, it was very interesting to go around and talk to people about it in the lengthy process and get so much support. Because I think one of the things that, in terms of the time I've spent on this committee, that we do a lot of charter changes, as you know, as you can imagine. And I always feel like, whether I totally agree with what local folks are trying to do or not, if local citizens pass a charter change, I start from this premise of who am I to tell them they can't do something that they democratically elected to. Right. Hey, what I found very interesting that the only time that the governor's budget address, here was a standing ovation, was when he talked about welcoming more immigrants into the state of Vermont. And so, if we're going to welcome more immigrants into the state of Vermont, this might be a good way of showing a welcome. Instead of just saying welcome, and also we're dealing in the OPR bill, we're dealing with credentialing and license transfers and things like that for people who are coming. So, if we're going to welcome more immigrants, we need to actually output our money where our mouth is for whatever that means. But, anyway. Right, the show value of welcoming and their proximity, absolutely. Instead of just having a welcome banner. Well, I think that I've talked to a number of people. I don't think we're ready to vote on this today. I was hoping we were, but I think they're. So, I'm going to try and put it on possibly for, and I do apologize to the people of Montpelier because I know you wanted this to go through so that you could set it up for town meeting this year. I just don't see that that's going to happen because it has to get through here and then the governor has to sign it. And he has, so if we voted on it, there's a possibility that we could vote on it on Thursday because it seems we have some local government. No, it's not this Thursday, that's the 13th. But we do have a Wednesday, Wednesday, that's tomorrow. We were supposed to hear the Vermont National Guard Sexual Assault Report with the House members. It turns out that the House members are going to have a really, really long session because they have a lot of contentious things to vote on tomorrow, plus the governor's override. So we have some time before 2.30, so I suggest that maybe we be prepared to vote on it then, does that make sense? Yes. Oh no, not tomorrow, all right, thank you. Thursday, we'll see if we can move something and vote it out on Thursday. So thank you Anthony. My pleasure. I think that's on track. It's always a good thing in this committee to have good vice chairs, both Anthony and Brian have acted as great vice chairs, keeping me on track. Okay, thank you. Good bye.