 And I'll just say a few words of introduction here before we get started. First of all, thank you for coming on in a timely manner so that we can work all these kinks out as we move into this phase of virtual committee meetings. I want to make sure that we are being extra careful to make sure that people are able to ask questions and are able to participate in the same way they would be if they were in the room with us at the state house. And so moving forward, we are heading into uncharted territory and I will be the first to admit that I'm completely new at this. And so I would welcome you to make requests of me if you think that things need to slow down or speed up or be done in a different manner or be open to public participation in some other way. I'm happy to have that conversation because I think it's very important that we figure out how to do this governing that we need to do and do it in a way that ensures public safety by not putting us in the same room together. So please be open and feel free to reach out to me directly if you have questions or suggestions or concerns. Thank you. So when we had a chairs discussion with the leadership team, I can't even remember what day it was because the days are all sort of running together and nights as well. We had talked about thinking of our workload right now in sort of four different phases. Number one phase was that let's get these immediate emergency services done. And number two phase was that we had to do the first phase of the workload that was contained in those packages that we moved yesterday. The second bucket or the second sort of level of priority is was there anything that committees were teed up and ready to do during that last week before crossover when we put a stop to basically everything in order to concentrate on developing our services. And the third bucket is what is the next phase of emergency response that might fall within the jurisdiction of our committee. So are there other things that we hear from our municipal government from our, from our schools. From, from different agencies of state government who might also need some change to statute in order to allow them to continue operations and or shift operations into a remote realm. So I'm going to ask you to keep your eyes and ears open for those and funnel those in so that we can be keeping tabs on them. And, you know, at some point, the return to normalcy will, will hopefully mean that we can sit down and, and sort of map out an agenda that, that goes, you know, a couple of days ahead of time. So that we've got an agenda put together and people can, can take a look at it ahead of time right now. I think we're still trying to get into the swing of things and haven't had a chance to, to really do that pre-planning in the way that we would if we were in a normal state house setting. So the third bucket being those other emergency or midterm response, things that we need to look at. And I'll just flag one of the issues that we had left out of the, the elections part of the COVID-19 was this sort of discomfort that people have with the idea that because there are no petition signatures required that all of a sudden, you know, there's much less of a barrier or a hurdle for, for people to get over if they want to legitimately run for office. And is that a concern enough that, that makes us want to pursue some other way. And, and so that's a question mark. And I know that that's one that we don't have to figure out immediately, but just so that you kind of frame that in, in as one of the midterm response that we might need to make. And then the fourth bucket, or the fourth priority of things is, you know, what were we planning to do post crossover? And so the, the, we, we had talked a bit about a few things that we wanted to do post crossover with bills that, you know, maybe adding some language to bills that were coming from the Senate. And we don't know right now what is going to, to continue to come to us from the Senate based on the fact that we're going to be able to, to continue to come to us from the Senate based on the fact that everybody's putting everything in a time out. And, and it's a little uncertain what we're going to see from them. Warren, you've got your hand up. Yes. I just wanted to mention that. At least four times during the last couple of minutes that you've been talking. You're the video has frozen. And audio as well. It lasts for about. Three to five seconds. And then it catches back up with you. I don't know if Tony has any idea. What might be causing that, but. You know, we. That's the limitation of internet bandwidth. That's where basically the internet's kind of. Clogging up and catching up. Yep. Well, unfortunately. Well, unfortunately, there's nothing we can do about that. We're literally seeing record traffic on the internet these days. Yeah. Well, part of. The problem could be that my husband is sitting in the next room on a conference call with his company. But he told me he's, he's done with that call at two 30. So hopefully it'll get better. I apologize. I just wanted to make sure you know. Yep. If it is unclear what I said, please ask me to repeat myself. All right. So that fourth bucket is post crossover stuff. Not sure what that workload looks like right now. So if you have concerns, questions, ideas, et cetera, you know, feel free to. Reach out to me by phone or by email. So I think that we have passed hosting over to Betsy Ann, which means that Betsy Ann now has the ability to put Warren's hand back down. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely done. All right. So Betsy Ann, I will keep an eye on when I see people's hand raised and, and I will try to. Anticipate when it is that I should interrupt you to, to give the chance for the question or to jump in. And those of you who are on video, if, if you have any questions, if you have any questions, or if you have any questions, or if you have any questions to move away from, feel free to give me a literal wave as well as your virtual wave. I'm going to try to do my best to. Sort of read the flow of the presentation that. Let's counsel does. And that a couple of our witnesses do and give folks an opportunity to ask questions. Hopefully. Yeah. And if you are ready, you can take it away. All right. Okay. Do you have the screen coming up for you? Yes. Let me get to the right place. So everyone who is not currently. Talking should mute their phone so that. Or mute your screen. So you can. So we don't hear you. You grabbing a handful of peanuts. Awesome. Go ahead, Betsy. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I don't want to still follow along on their own. Screens are where I'm, we're accessing this, these docs. It's on the house gobs web page under today's date. And the first thing I'm going to pull up is the draft 2.1. Strike all amendment that the house committee on government operations last considered as an amendment to S 47. So the draft 2.1 strike all to S 47. Would do two main things. First, it would say that. Only an individual. A pack. Or a party. Can make a contribution to a candidate. And you can find that main language. Here at the bottom of page six. So notwithstanding any provision of law to the contrary. It would say that an individual. A pack or a party can make a contribution to a candidate. So in effect. That means that non-human entities. Such as corporations or labor unions. Cannot not make direct contributions to candidates. But those non-human entities could still. Form their own pack. Which could then make a contribution to a candidate. That would still be able to make independent expenditures. To support a candidate. But of course, independent expenditure means that it's not connected in any way with the candidate. And they can still contribute to packs and parties. So that is the first main thing that this bill, the strike all would do. The second thing. That this would do if it's okay to move on. Is to, and I just don't want to. I don't want to. I don't want to move on. But my screen here. The thing that this require is that any pack name. Would need to include the name of its connected organization. And that is one other. Slight changes you've made to the bill as past the Senate. It's just to change what it means to be a connected organization. It's the corporation. And that's what it means to be a connected organization. And that's what it means to be a connected organization. It directly or indirectly establishes. Administers. Or financially supports a pack. And this is the connected organization, if applicable. So the two main changes from the bill as past the Senate, would be to have that contribution limit. Apply only to candidates. The Senate version would have added applied to both candidates and parties. This committee discussed removing parties from that. And that would be to remove individuals from the definition of connected organization. The two or more individuals that was language that the. As past Senate version had that raised some questions about, you know, if it's just too in the human beings getting together, you know, what would they call their pack? Are they, are they going by some informal name? So this would be to remove individuals from the definition of connected organization. That's the high level overview, Madam chair. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Folks here. See if anybody's raising their hand. I'm not able to tell right now. You are. Oh, I see Rob has a hand up. Go ahead, Rob. He's doing cartwheels. Rob and then how. Unmute yourself. There. Can you hear me now? Yes. Okay. One as far as the naming of the pack. Betsy Ann. Yeah. I'm not one that's already taken. Will that come through the secretary state's office? Kind of like when you're doing a, a business name, you have to do a corporate search to make sure that. Those names are available. Well, the language is that it's just the name, the pack name would have to include the name of the connected organization. And so there's, or a clearly recognized abbreviation or acronym by which it is commonly known. It's the name of the company that you're talking about. Replicler about not having things that are. Not having names that are the same. This bill would just use that definition of court connected organization being the corporation lay reunion, public interest group or other entity that directly or indirectly establishes administers. Or financially supports a pack. So I would think under that corporation naming requirement is that if someone wants to file, register with the secretary of state, that's where that screening process happens. If there's any sort of prohibitions in the, when you register your name as a corporation of prohibiting very similar names, I think that would have already happened at that point because that entity is operating already as a corporation. And that I have a follow-up question around that as far as you're talking about. If you're a corporation, so whether you're like a single member LLC, you would have to develop a pack. If that LLC is the entity that is directly or indirectly establishing, administering or financially supporting the pack, then yes, it would need to include that LLC's name in the pack name. Okay. Excellent. I think we had Hal. Well, Rob stole my thunder. So my question was asked. Thank you. We're such a team, Hal. You guys are awesome. All right. I see Jim with a hand, Jim third in line. Go for it. I know a little slow on the take today. That's the end. I admire your different hairdo. I'm just not sure how I can swing my head. I don't know what you're saying. You know, with the ponytail, but. Anyhow, this draft. As I look at it, the change, as you said, from the Senate was. That. Political parties are. Exempt from accepting corporate contributions. That's correct under this house gov ops version, the house. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Last time discussed removing political parties from that contribution limitation. So this draft takes them out. In the house. We have, I don't know. Five or so. Independent candidates. Or representatives. Would this. Potentially arguably. Make it. Unfair to them. Right now. Presumably they can accept. Corporate contributions directly on today's law. And they can also. Receive them from packs. But with this change. Those corporate contributions could go to a party. And the parties would have. Ability to. Donate or contribute back to their. Candidates. And the independent might. Arguably be at a disadvantage here. Thought about it in that way. It's on the one hand, all candidates are being treated the same in that all candidates, regardless of party affiliation. They're all being treated the same way. They're all being treated the same way. They're all being treated the same way. And would not be able to accept corporate contributions. I hadn't really thought about it from the political party side. And whether that puts an independence at a disadvantage. But at least from the candidate side, they are all being treated. They would all be treated the same under this. I would say under. Your current law. Political parties can make contributions to candidates. At this point either. As far as I'm aware. All right. So I'm not hosting Jim. So you'll need to lower your hand. I don't see any other questions at the moment. So. Does anybody need more information or more detail on. The bill as we were looking at it two weeks ago. Okay. And so we have both will and Eleanor spots would from the AG's office with us. Do either of you want to make comment on, on the bill as, as we were considering it from a couple of weeks ago. We also have a proposed amendment that we would love to have your comment on, but if either one of you wanted to jump in now, please let us know. Hi, well, go ahead. First, I apologize for not being on the zoom video with you all. My laptop is having audio issues. I do hope to figure those out so I can. In the future. That said real quick, I'm, I'm good with the changes on this particular draft. I will have some comments on the proposed amendment. We get to that. Great. Thank you. Eleanor, go ahead. Yes, Eleanor spots it from the attorney general's office. For the record. Our office is also good with these amendments. I would say we strongly support the. Striking that language about individuals from the definition of the connected organization. I think that solves a lot of administrative. Administrability concerns. We don't really take a position on the. We don't really take a position on that. We don't really take a position on that. Striking the political parties from the contribution limitation. That's a matter of policy that's up to this committee. And. We also, I think have some thoughts about the next amendment coming up, but in terms of this one, I think we're good. Okay. Any other questions committee on the. Any other comments? I think we have a sort of uncomfortable pause that we make. While I make sure that. We're giving folks time to find that hand raising button that they, that they need to push. So Betsy Ann, if you still have hosting ability, you can move over to the proposed amendment. Jim, would you like to introduce this conceptually before we have Betsy Ann go through the words on the page. Okay. So. Try to, I had offered. I guess it was two weeks ago. An amendment that. Required. That if you didn't file. First of all, let me take a step back. I'm just a believer in disclosure and transparency. And let the voters decide. From there. Which is why I'm saying that the committee. The committee today potentially is influenced by, etc. And in terms of beefing up our financial disclosure. I had previously offered amendment which required. That. If a. Pack party. Corporation didn't. File the proper disclosures or or. they had to give those contributions back once it was discovered. I did get some pushback from the Attorney General's office as being problematic in terms of enforcement. So I have modified that portion of the amendment with a may be required. And that would be up to the, I assume, the Attorney General or a state's attorney, whoever's prosecuting the case, or bringing in a charge. The second piece, again, to encourage disclosure, right now we have, to the best of my knowledge, no penalties for late filings, no filings, etc. Yet, for a number of years, we've had an automatic filing penalty if you're a day late on a lobbyist disclosure. I think in the lobbyist disclosure, it's $25 a day. I put out $100, it's, I'm not, you know, if someone says, well, that's too high, I mean, we can talk about that. But I think at the very least, we should hold ourselves to a higher standard than we do currently. In fact, today, we hold ourselves to a lower standard than we do public advocates, whether that's V-PURG, ABC Corporation, whoever. And so, I think it, you know, only makes sense to have that automatic penalty. And in proposing that, I mean, it's first of all, and Will Sending can talk to it, it's his same shot that does it on the lobbyist disclosure in the Secretary of State's Office administers that. And I certainly was received the impression initially that, you know, the Secretary of State's Office was probably okay with that. Now that may have changed in the last two weeks, but that's, that was the impression I got. So that's, that's my motive for putting it forth, Betsy Ann, I'll turn it back to you if there's anything I missed in that overview. Take it away, Betsy Ann. All right, thank you. Betsy Ann, Rask for the record. Just reiterating what you already said, Representative Harrison, we're looking at draft 4.1 here. Representative Harrison's proposed amendment to S-47, it'd be add on to the bill. And the first section would amend the penalties statute within our campaign finance law. So this penalty statute is in regard to the penalties that could be imposed for campaign finance violation. And this language would amend the penalty statute to say that in addition to the current law penalties, which is a civil penalty of up to $10,000 for each violation. And also there's another provision for returning public campaign finance funds when there's a violation. But so in addition to those penalties, a person who violates the sub-chapter four of the campaign finance law, which is about reporting by failing to report a contribution may be required to return that contribution to the contributor. So as Representative Harrison had indicated, this was a discretionary may. It might be something that the AGs or state's attorney would pursue. But it would be a penalty that would have to be imposed if it goes through the whole charging process, imposed either by court order or some stipulation as a potential penalty that could be imposed. That was the first part. The second part is in regard to submitting campaign finance reports. And this would amend a different statute in the campaign finance law. This statute that is before me, the 17VSA 2961, is in regard to the Secretary of State's office's duties in regard to campaign finance law and how people have to submit their reports to the Secretary of State's office. So this would add a new subsection C to this statute to say that any person who is required to file a report with the Secretary of State under the sub-chapter four reporting sub-chapter shall pay a late reporting fee of $100 for each day. The report is late, not to exceed $5,000. And Representative Harrison is correct. The other statute that already provides this is in our lobbying law for the record. It's 2VSA, Section 264, subsection I, which provides that either a lobbyist lobbying firm or lobbyist employer who fails to file a disclosure report is subject to a late reporting fee of $25 in that case, not to exceed $350. And as I understand it, you'll probably want to hear more from the Director of Elections of how that is administered in practice. But it's my understanding that this late reporting fee is set up through the online reporting system that applies. There's an online reporting system for lobbyists. And similarly, there's an online reporting system for campaign finance. Rob, you had your hand up and now it's down. Are you good? Any questions right now on the words on the page? All right. So, Eleanor, if you could share with us the AG's perspective on this two-part amendment proposal. Sure, I'd be happy to. So, as to the first part, we thank Representative Harrison for taking our concerns into consideration and making that a discretionary rather than a mandatory penalty. It just gives us a lot of a lot more flexibility in terms of dealing with some of the unsophisticated folks out there who may not understand exactly all of the ins and outs of our campaign finance laws. In terms of the second part, the mandatory late filing fee of $100 a day, I do want to talk for a little bit about some of the differences that we see between sophisticated political actors and unsophisticated political actors. And I hope that the Director of Elections will agree. You all, I would put in the category of sophisticated political actors. You've been doing this, you know, any of you for a while. You've served in the state legislature, you're obviously familiar with our campaign finance laws. We typically don't see a lot of problems with sophisticated political actors, failing to file their reports on time. You all are pretty good at it. Everyone who knows that they, you know, regularly need to file these reports tend to file them quite regularly. But chapter four, which is the subject that this penalty would apply to also includes a number of, or I should say requires a number of reports from folks that are much less sophisticated in terms of knowing what's required of them politically. And these are the people who we tend to have problems with in terms of filing reports on time because they may not even know that such reports are required. And in this way it's actually quite a bit unlike lobbying reports which again I would put in that bucket of fairly sophisticated political actors are the ones that are filing lobbying reports. So let's focus on just two of the reports that are required by chapter four to show you what I mean. So, so chapter four, I'm looking at title 17 section 2966. And this section requires reports by candidates who do not reach the monetary threshold. For local election, or sorry, this is general election candidates for two or four year county offices who do not raise or spend more than $500. So this is someone who's jumping into a race for sheriff or for assistant judge who decides not to spend any money on their election. So they may have to file within 10 days of the general election. A report with the Secretary of State's office. And that's the end is very hopefully pulling up this sub this section right here. So you can see what it says. So we can imagine this candidate. Maybe this is not a winning strategy for them they lose the election. 10 days later they're supposed to file a report with the Secretary of State. We may not even know or be aware that they didn't file this report on time. We met might get a complaint about this person several months after the election. Already they've passed their 50 day threshold they've run up a fine of $5,000. And this person didn't even win their election. So this is the highly unsophisticated candidate that we're concerned might get into real trouble with this kind of mandatory penalty. So the subsection I'm going to focus on is also in title 17 sub chapter four section 2970. This requires reports by really a wide range of entities, not just packs. And over $1000 essentially on any kind of advertising, just on a public question. So this is not a pack that has both raised and spent $1000. This is any entity that spends over $1000 on advocating on a public question. So we see this come up with folks who don't realize that they're subject to this law. For things like, you know, you can imagine someone on the PTA who is very fired up about whether or not the school bond is going to pass. You know, maybe this person has a little bit of money, maybe they're a local store owner or something like that. They end up spending $1200 trying to advocate for their issue. They don't realize because they're not again sophisticated political actor that they need to file this report saying that they've spent this money advocating just on a public question not on a candidate. Not for a party, not for any other issue. It's a local public question. And so this has also come up and these are the kind of folks that I'm afraid would get swept into this sort of mandatory penalty without realizing it. Finally, just to address the concern about whether or not penalties exist. I'd like to direct the committee to 17 title 17 section 2903. This is a penalties, it's not in sub chapter for it applies to sub chapter for it also applies to sub chapters two and three. So these are penalties for any violation, essentially of our campaign finance law sub chapters 23 and four. And this provides penalties for up to $1000 per violation to be imposed. Essentially, after a lawsuit is filed but often imposed by stipulation of the parties. That's in the event of an enforcement action either by my office or by the state's attorney's office. So penalties do exist. They are discretionary. And I think that that's for good reason because we do have, you know, a wide variety of actors subject to these laws. And so we need to make sure that we can take into account whether a person even is knowingly violating the laws that issue here. So that's all I have. I'm happy to take questions or hear from the director of elections. Jim Harrison. Yeah, Eleanor, thank you for putting us in the category of sophisticated. That was quite generous. To say the least. But thank you. So I appreciate that you have a wide range of penalties available under current law. However, I think as we all realize, it's very, very infrequent that they are ever cases are ever brought for a multitude of reasons, one of which maybe you don't know about them. And in my prior life, as an advocate, I made darn sure that my reports were filed on time. I set myself reminders. In the secretary's office will sendings division to their credit. I think also used to send out reminders. Each period I don't know if they still do that. In terms of sophistication. I think I mentioned when we were last meeting that I noticed, you know, a significant contribution from progressive voters of America. I did a little research on them. Last election cycle 2018. They contributed over 30,000 to either entities such as the Vermont progressive party or individual candidates. But I believe somehow affiliated with Bernie Sanders. It is a pack. But yet there is no Vermont filing on them. So I would think they're a sophisticated, but they're not filing and it's probably, you know, just ignorant of our law, even though it's based in Burlington, Vermont. Even the, if you had some suggestions on, you know, taking out the so called local or unsophisticated. I would certainly be open to a suggestion, you know, ie less than $5,000 total expenditures, you know, which might get at that thousand dollar public campaign on a local level. If you had some suggestions in that area, I would certainly be open to dividing where the automatic I like the automatic because it works really well in the lobbying. We can argue about what the amount should be, but it works very well in it. And today, if you don't file notice of mass media report on time. You're putting your opponent at a very much a disadvantage. And there's really no good enforcement mechanism today. So I see another question is that Bob Hooper iPad. Yes. Yeah, you're on. Okay, so I suppose this is Attorney General's office questions. Both of these changes sort of for the first one, or actually let me address the second one first. Treasurer's computer crashed I would be ill prepared to pay $100 a day until she got it back up and running. But also a couple days ago we basically took the governor and inserted him into the authority of the Secretary of State. I mean to be moving to move the Secretary of State more into the role of the Attorney General with a couple of these things I don't feel inclined to be very warm to either one of them. I would ask the Attorney General's office though with section two. The only thing that would prevent somebody that made a contribution that was unreported and then got the money back from basically saying, that's fine I'll just give it back to you, you can report it in the next cycle. This seems like a revolving door potential that has no real impact. Thank you. I'm not sure I actually followed your hypothetical can you say that one more time. About the hypothetical. So, in the scenario. Company acts makes a contribution to me. I failed to report it. It gets picked up in that reporting period. The next reporting period is not having been done. I'm instructed to return it. Because the election is actually over. Maybe. I'm out of money so I give the money back somehow the entity then turns around and gives it back to me, and I then just reported in the next reporting period. Is there anything that would stop that revolving door which is possible maybe even probable. I think I understand what you're saying. English is not my primary language. Maybe if we had a sense that you were using this return of contributions as more of a loan situation. We might try to use, we might try to ask you to report it differently. I'd actually be interested in hearing from the director of elections. I don't know what they might think of that. But I'd have to think about that one it's certainly not covered in these penalty sections. All right, I see a hand from Marsha. Go ahead and unmute yourself Marsha. Okay, can you hear me. Yes. Thanks for Eleanor might be for well, but how widespread is this problem of people not filing their reports. How many complaints did your office receive. And when you do receive complaints how egregious are they. Yeah, so I can certainly address that. I would say, and I should preface this by saying that started in this campaign finance related position in 2017, which means I just missed the last big election in 2016 when we had all those contested races. So I would say that kind of off cycle races that I've seen, I'd say we get, Oh, between maybe one and eight complaints per election, this is very back of the neck and guessing here. And I have not seen particularly egregious for the most part when we point out the laws like I said they're mostly unsophisticated actors who seem to be unaware of the laws, maybe have not filed campaign finance complaints before, or, excuse me, have not filed campaign finance reports before, and are subject to one of the sections that I just went over with you about, you know, advocating on a public question, or some such. So, typically when we point out that they're subject to the law they immediately file their report. And that tends to be the end of the matter we don't get a lot of, you know, I'm unfamiliar with the situation that representative Harrison pointed out to the committee. And I, we certainly didn't get a complaint about that one that I recall. But the ones that I've dealt with, again, and these sort of off cycle years have been, in my opinion, not egregious, but director sending may have a different take. Thanks. Alright, so let's, let's go back to will and will you can either answer, answer that question directly first or you can give us your, your whole view of the of the proposed amendment and come back to the questions. I can certainly do that well sending for the record director of elections and I can answer the question briefly first and I was going to touch on it to when I was just speaking in general and I'll keep this as quick as possible for everybody. I would say that it is not uncommon for the standard regular disclosure reports to be filed late. Whether that's a day or two, five. That's how I'd characterize that not uncommon. And frankly, it's not uncommon among sitting members of the legislature and among new folks who are running for the first time. The one of the issues with quantifying how many people are complying or not is what a couple people have touched on already you don't know what you don't know. In terms of challengers who are running their first campaigns and don't even aren't aware of the requirement to and so don't register with us. We're not going to ever necessarily pick up to those people are out there unless it's reported to us. And that's sort of the last comment on that side which is that I've said this to you all a number of times the real enforcement mechanism here is the media and your opponents. And the most common thing is when a report is laid for me to hear from that candidates opponent to let me know that they haven't filed. Well, but I know that I don't hear about a lot of late reports and my staff does not thought at every filing date and produce a report of any that are late. We don't have the time or resources during the heat of the campaign season to do so. That's sort of the brief summary I can take questions in that regard in a minute, but why don't I just quickly give you my five minute thoughts. Which are I have no problem with the first part of the amendment, although I think all of the issues that Ella raised are important to consider. I had talked to you all I guess the one issue that I had raised was what you would do in the situation where a candidate had extended everything in the campaign account and so had nothing to return back to the contributor. But with that language being permissive, I think it gives the AGs the flexibility they need to either apply it or not. Regarding the late fees, to begin with, of course, whether or not you do it yes or no to this is a policy question that is up to you. I can tell you that it's caused significant debate in the past. When we did the overhaul of the campaign finance law about four years ago, there was significant debate about this issue of imposing late fees for disclosure reports. Ultimately, it was not part of that bill after a lot of discussion. I was thinking of myself and I was preparing for this call. I could have just, if I could dig out my notes from four years ago, I would have said the same thing. If you were to decide to go forward as the administrator of elections and as Representative Harrison pointed out, also the director of campaign finance and oversee the lobbying disclosure system and law, I can tell you we could administer this, but I want to point out a little nuance to that and I might have the AG's office weigh in on something too dependent. I would support this in imposing the late fee structure or could administer it and wouldn't oppose administering it if I would model it the way that the lobbying system is set up, which is to say, and this is the important part, that once your report was late in the online system, you wouldn't be able to file that report late unless you made the payment right there at that time through the system. That works really, really well with the lobbying reporting. It's brought our compliance way up and it means we really collect the fees that we're entitled to collect. Back in the day when we didn't have the online system and we were chasing fees and chasing cash payments and check payments through our office through the mail, there was a far greater degree of people not paying the fee that the office was entitled to. So I would design the campaign finance system the same way and I think I'd be entitled to the way the language is written, since the fees are mandatory, the shall language, and because they are fees and that was the point I kind of wanted to ask either Ledge Council or the AG's office if they might want to touch on is the difference between fees and other penalties and whether it is in fact the case that as a fee my office has the authority to enforce it. I think that's the case, but I would want to check on that. If you were to ask me to impose some kind of system where the late report could be submitted without paying the late fees and that then my office and or the attorney general's office was chasing down the late fees by check or cash, I would be far less supportive of that idea. However, if it's set up the way I'm talking about, setting it up, this is the final point I wanted to make about that. I think that you could end up with the unintended consequence of actually less disclosure because I feel like I would run into a lot of people who were unable to pay those fees or unwilling to and would tell me to forget about my report. And you can take it up with the AG's office, which may lead to a lot more of that kind of enforcement that isn't happening now when people have an easy way to correct it without paying. I think I can leave it at that for now. Madam chair and take questions. Jim Harrison and then John Ganon. Thank you. Thank you. Well, for for your comments. I certainly would agree with, you know, making an automatic collection in terms of a late filing like you do with the lobbyist disclosure. That system works really well. And there's no reason why this one couldn't as as as well. Again, I would certainly be open to adjusting the penalties or the late fees if that helped with your system and make sure that for 50 bucks, you got it in my motivation is compliance. It doesn't do anyone any good. If a mass media report or financial disclosure isn't filed to after the election, when there might have been some critical information that would have been publicly available before voting day. And getting back to Eleanor on sophisticated, you know, I gave one example closer to home, the Windsor County Democratic Party gave out over $5,000 last election cycle, they still have not report. I know that. But yet the system, if you look in terms of who contributed, they're all listed individually is contributed because each of the candidates disclosed it, but the party so you don't know where that money came from, because the party down there the county never disclosed it. I, you know, it seems to me, someone should know better. And, you know, sure, I didn't file a complaint. You know what good was it going to do me it's after the election. I'm still here. But you know that's not. I want people to comply. And I would welcome the opportunity for some suggestions on how to make this work so that disclosures are put forth in a timely basis, as we have in our law. Thank you. Thank you will for a couple of questions will. So you said it currently it's not uncommon for uncommon for standard reports to be filed late. Is that correct. Will are you on mute moment. See him on here anymore. Oh, did we lose him. Oh, yeah. I don't see well on anymore. Well, we'll give him a moment. I'm sure he just got disconnected. Perhaps he was trying to unmute himself and instead pushed the off button. Can't imagine that ever happening. Jim, I'm really glad to see that you're hydrating today. I don't know if I'm going to open the attic or something. My, my, our home is in the barn around an old barn frame. So I'm in the loft right now. The former hey, hey bail place. Well, I'm glad it's not activating your hay fever, because everybody would be really nervous if you took to coughing and sneezing today after we were all together. We will yet. Does anybody have an email link to will to find out if he's having ongoing technical difficulties. I can send him one. I'm back. Thanks will. I apologize you guys an incoming call appears to have cut it off, which shouldn't be the case, but I hope it doesn't happen. No worries. Yeah. So I believe you said it's not uncommon for standard reports to be filed late. Is that correct. I did. Okay, so these are the periodic reports that we all have to file as candidates. Yep. Like we had one was doing March 15, I believe was the last one. Okay, so but mass media reports are periodic reports. Correct. Those are filed. And you do a mass media activity. Right, they're not regular they're dependent on you having done something. Right, how would you police those I mean I understand how you'd police periodic reports, because your system could set up to, to reject reports that are filed late, unless you pay the fee. But how would you deal with mass media. That's a good question I should have touched on it briefly. And it also the same question applies to initial registration, right, because that's floating that's not on a date. That's when you hit a threshold. That same trick, we had to figure out in the lobbying system in terms of registration. It's also based on when you put a lobbyist up in the state office and start lobbying. So those reports the way you do you do those we would do those require the person filing to identify the date that is the trigger. And then the system looks at whatever the date is that they're filing and figures out whether they're later or not. And so that one relies a little bit on the, you know, the good faith of the filer saying I did this I ran this that at this time or I made this payment at this time and I'm reporting it within 24 hours or not. Right. Okay. So those would be more difficult to police or that I guess the individual filing the report would have to self police. Right. And then there's just the underlying that they would have to know in the first place to report it. Okay. And, okay. And so you believe you could administer it if your if your system was set up to to automatically reject late filed reports. Would there be a cost to changing your system to do that. There would. I should have hit on that too. Thank you. So there'd be a not significant but there would be a cost. Yeah, you know, pretty, I would have to think about that or there you're over $10,000 probably enough hours to get you over that amount. Okay. All right, thank you. Committee are there any other questions, either for will from the Secretary of State's perspective or from Eleanor with an AG's perspective. Great. I see Rob with a hand up. Go ahead, Rob. You know, I totally get to where Jim is going with this. I would say that I think the $100 a day is a little steep. I could support something more along the lines of the $25 a day like for the lobbyists. Because I will have to confess here among all of us that I am one of those that has filed late in the past, more only because I don't think I always hit the right button. I've actually gone put all the information in and then go back a day or two or maybe even a week later and find out for some reason it didn't send it. And you can rest assured if it's going to cost me money per day, I guess I would make sure. The other question I would have would be for will is if we do this. It doesn't seem I don't recall getting any sort of a notification reminder from the Secretary of State's office that I need to do that it always seems to come from caucus leadership. Is that something we could potentially expect from you folks, potentially, I would have to think about that replic layer. The problem is that that ends up with, you know, it goes to somebody's spam folder. And then all of a sudden it's my fault that they didn't get the notice email. That's by not having that it's very clear to everybody that it's their responsibility to do it whether I remind you or not. Yeah, okay. I'll just put that out there. Thank you. Jim. Yeah, no just real quickly, I think on the lobbyist disclosure report. There is some advance notification, but I think on their website. Will you have some wording that you're not required to do that. You just do it to help with compliance. That's right. Okay, thank you. Yep. All right, committee discussion questions. So, so we'll ask, and I think this is a question for Eleanor, whether the Secretary of State office would have the authority to enforce a fee. Eleanor, can you provide us with some guidance there. That's a good question. It's not one that I have thought about beyond what will said, which is that if they are collecting it, they would be the first line in terms of making sure that it gets collected. And presumably if it didn't get collected. So I do imagine it to be sort of their agency action, which then gets referred to us as a failure to follow the laws. So I do imagine that they would be the first line and in terms of collecting that fee. Okay. Jim. I mean, John, we're back to you. Sorry. Well, I understand Jim's concern about this. You know, I think many of us like Robert sometimes unsophisticated actors and sometimes we forget to hit a button, or just forget to file the report on time. And given that we're citizen legislators. I learned about charging the late fee, especially given the fact that there could be a potential cost the Secretary of State's office, which, you know, is going to make this have to go to the appropriations. And there's a fee. So does that mean it has to go to ways and means. All of a sudden this is becoming a much more complicated bill than it was. Am I back on. You are. Okay. Maybe this is a question for Eleanor, but would you be more comfortable if we mirrored the lobbyist disclosure late fee. It was suggested at $25 a day, which is the same as the lobbyist report. And then up to a similar max as, as to not being a hardship on the so-called unsophisticated actors, like the member from Berry town. I think that the amount on the who is and is not a sophisticated actor. I think that lowering the amounts all around would be helpful. I'm still not sure. You know, I, I share director settings. I think that. With late fees, particularly when they accrue without someone knowing that they're accruing. And again, we often get complaints months or years after an election has happened. So, so. These so-called unsophisticated actors would potentially without knowing it at all have easily maxed out their fees. And then, you know, when, when we come after them and say, hey, you never filed this report, you didn't know you needed to file. Then they're unable to file it without paying whatever that maximum is. So just something for the committee to consider, whether it's $5,000, which does seem quite steep or $350 maybe for someone who has fairly spent that on their local campaign for assistant judge. You know, a lower, I think is, is probably better when you're talking about mandatory fees. But, you know, again, it's a, it's a question for the committee to consider. I've got Marcia and then Bob Hooper. Thank you. As it is, we have problems with finding people who will run for public office. I see this as just another obstacle in the way that will prevent people from wanting to run. I might be more open to this if it was for statewide offices only. A lot of times those people have staff. We don't. We're just trying to keep up with all of the work. And I know that I have missed my filing dates too. And, you know, in reality, I probably had $100 or $200 that I had to report. So, as written, I don't think I would support this. Bob Hooper. I definitely agree with Marcia and I think what John said, I hear our officials basically saying I could. I'm not I'm really eager to and it, I'm just uncomfortable doing this in this sort of environment for some reason and I know that's going to be passing but I cannot support either of these changes as presented and probably as modified down. Any other questions. All right, I'm not seeing any hands raised and so I think we need to Warren maybe wants to ask a question. Are you raising your hand Warren. Oh, okay. So we have the question before us as a an amendment from Jim, half of which we have seen before and half of which is a bit newer so we'll look for some committee discussion on on what to do. Jim. More of a process. I mean, I guess I would amend this to on the penalty to be the same identical to the lobbyist disclosure late filing. What I'm hearing from a few members is they're still not happy with that but I firmly believe we should not hold ourselves to a different standard than we do for everybody out so I would amend the fourth amendment and just change that. You know $25 per day, you know up to the same maximum for the lobbyist disclosure which I think I heard was 375 but having said all that from a process standpoint. Are we allowed to actually vote now on committee or do we have to still work out the kinks with the the online voting I guess I'm supposed to be on some kind of pilot with that. So I believe that for committee purposes we are allowed to. Okay. Yeah. I mean, I still remain troubled by the second part of the proposed amendment. I mean I'm more comfortable with the first part, especially given that the Attorney General's office seems, you know, satisfied with the slight modification to that section. So, I mean, I'd be willing to support that first part of the amendment. Okay, so I have Warren with a hand raised and then I will pose the question in a different way. I'm going to go ahead Warren. No, I'm going to support Jim in this. All right, so I'm hearing that there are differing levels of appetite between one part of the amendment and the end is the other so. Marcia, do you have access to your report of action forms for committee action. I do and I have one ready to go. Well, aren't you the best. That's amazing. Okay, Rob has his hand up. Go ahead Rob. So, did Jim, did you change this to so that it will reflects what the lobbyist pay as far as the per day, and then total amount. Or is that yet to be worked out. No. I for purposes of this, I would change the late filing to be identical to the current lobbyist disclosure. That would be $25 a day. Up until the up to a maximum of 375 and I think I saw it says 350. But whatever, whatever, whatever it is on the lobbyist, I'm sorry. I have that somewhere. Right now I pulled up the lobbying law. You should be able to see that right. Right here. Yep. Yep. I would certainly support that language. All right. So Jim, did you have another question or were you raising your hand to answer that question. No, I was, I was kind of, I didn't know if I needed to raise my hand. Sorry. Trying. Okay. No, I'm good. I think he, I gave him the answer he and if you want to do a kind of a hands up hands down on each section, I'm fine with that too. Yeah. So I think it probably makes sense for us to document a little bit more than we would ordinarily. Just so that we have a record of what we've done. That people can take a look at. So if it is amenable to the committee, I would suggest that we have Marsha. Call a roll on the first one. The amendment, which is the. The part that says that it may be required that the contribution that was illegally accepted is returned. And then I will ask Marsha to run a separate roll call on the second part of the amendment being the amended late fee that. That would follow along with the same penalty levels that, that lobbyists do at this point. Does that make sense committee? All right. So Betsy and you are host right now. Do you know how to give host back to me? I think Andrea is able to. All right. So. Regardless of who's hosting, I think it would be helpful to unmute all so that we can all know who's hosting the roll call. And then. When Marsha is doing the roll call. So. Hopefully we won't have. Barking dogs or. Squealing grandkids or whatever, but. Madam chair. Yes, Rob. Would it make any sense for us to like raise our hand while we vote? That way you have the verbal and the. The verbal and the verbal. The verbal and the verbal. Raise my hand. Raise your right hand. Put your left hand on your favorite. Holy book. Andrea has her hand up. Madam chair. You are now the host. Oh, thank you. That's excellent. So there we go. Look at that. Now I have the power to put people's hands back down. That's fun. Okay. So I believe that we are all. All right. So my apologies to Eleanor and other folks who are listening at the moment. I've unmuted you all. So just hold tight. Marsha. If you want to go ahead and call the roll on the first half of the Harrison amendment. All right. Do we have a motion for that? Or someone has put forth the motion. I put Jim down. Jim's proposed the amendment. So. Okay. Yeah. It's Miller. Yes. Yes. Yes. Harrison. Yes. Gardner. Yes. Plastic. Yes. Cooper. Yes. Brown now. Yes. So that's a unanimous yes. All right. And Jim, do you want to take the motion on the second half as well? Yes. And. Not much printed here, but $25 for each day. The report is late not to exceed $350. I thought you were going to say $25 for each. Yes. Still time. All right. We'll give Marsha a moment to finish that. Are we ready? I believe so. No. It's Miller. Yes. No. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Cooper. No. Brown now. No. No. Couple in the hands. No. Is that seven four? Yes. Yes, it is. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes, it is. For yes seven now. No. Okay. All right. So we've got. One small amendment to make. Regarding the. The possible. Requirement that a contribution be returned. Any other committee discussion, Jim. Yes. Whenever we last spoke on the Senate amendments to the election law, Representative Marwicki brought up an amendment, and I thought we had some conversation in terms of limiting number of candidates of whether we might continue that conversation. And, you know, whether it was yesterday or after we sent out summaries to our respective caucuses, there was I think a lot of concern on both sides of the aisle about the elimination of the petitions, having a potential field day in terms of filing. If there ever was a year you wanted to run, say, tell your grandchildren you ran for governor, or your secretary of state or attorney general, this is the year. So, you know, I know on our side, I had to do some serious convincing that overall the package was a good bill and we should support it to get the emergency measures necessary to the governor. But I do think that issue raised some angst as to people putting themselves down on 10 different ballots, which is very confusing to the governor. And I understand there is some constitutional potential question raised, but I thought Representative Marwicki tried to, you know, put a little bit of description in his amendment that might help alleviate some of that. So I'm just, I'm thinking this might be a germane vehicle if we want to have that conversation and in fact, you know, may actually help the bill. So, I just throw that out there. So in the absence of someone else jumping in on that, I'm just going to say that Owen Marwicki is virtually raising his hand or physically raising his hand, but maybe not putting his hand up on. I'm going to suggest that we, that we keep the ideas separate. This bill has been in its current form related specifically to the issues around campaign contributions. And I don't believe that we are quite ready to move forward with with a solution that would meet the concerns that I've heard from many people, you know, not just folks around this committee, but folks in other committees in in the house who have been concerned about sort of the free for all that might happen if there is absolutely no hoop you have to jump through or exercise. So you have to go through in order to sort of demonstrate that you've got a little bit of support to get on a ballot. So I'm going to suggest that we keep those two separate with a pledge from me that we will continue to work on this other issue and try to find a way that works between us and the Senate to to put some logical, meaningful equivalent in to getting signatures without putting people's health at risk. I don't see any hands raised I did see a little thumbs up there. So thanks, Mike Marwicki you want to unmute yourself. Yes, thank you madam chair. I appreciate that this is being offered and supported but when we talked about this recently. I was assured that we would have a full throated. I appreciate the time and the full third discussion about that. And I'd still like to have that but I don't want to rush this through so I would I would agree that it's it's not the time and to stick this on on this other bill. And I do appreciate the commitment to look at this further. As we get used to this way of doing business. We're going to have enough time to give it the time and attention that it needs. Absolutely. Yeah, so I would love to. I think it's a good discussion if we have time at the end of today which it's not looking like we're going to because boy time flies when you're when you're having fun here. And the extra moment of pause that it takes sometimes to make sure that we are waiting and looking for someone to ask a question does slow down our work a little bit. We finished this bill here today I would like for us to take a look at the 250th Commission bill. And then if we have time remaining we certainly or in our next meeting we'll come back to the issues around some equivalent to petition signatures. Mike. I I hear your take on things moving a little slowly and I'm going to suggest that for now we we move this bill that we've been working on today. I move to accept. Oh, Betsy helped me out with the number as 47 as amended. Yes, please. So that we all are very clear the amendment that we have made to what Betsy and showed us at the beginning of this committee session is the amendment that leaves open the possibility that a contribution may be required to be returned if it was unlawfully received. Betsy and do you want to jump in with anything else on that. I'll make it the draft 3.1. So it will be all of your 2.1. And then it's just going to add comparisons proposed amendment. Only in the penalties statute the amendment to 17 BSA 2903 in regard to the discretionary ability of a penalty to be the requirement to return a contribution that was not reported. All right, Jim has his hand up. Yeah, thank you. Madam chair, especially for indulge me both in committee and today on the video conference. I'm going to oppose the bill. I think it hides money in this sense that it encourages corporations to give to parties and give to packs. And circle back to the candidates and arguably, it's worst in our present law in terms of parties can give unlimited funds to candidates. So whereas today a corporation as well as individuals are limited to the reason to contribution limits for each office. This bypasses that and I think that's not good for transparency. So I will be a posting this bill. Thank you. Anyone else want to weigh in about the bill. John Gannon. Yeah, no, I think the bill does an effort to ban contributions from corporations and unions and other organizations directly to candidates and I think that's a good important step to take. And I intend to support the bill. Anyone else want to weigh in Rob. Can you hear me now. Yes. Okay. Well I'm going to have to go along with the gym on this one I will not be supporting the bill because I think that it makes a process that we feel isn't as transparent as it should be even less transparent. I know there are some that feel there's too much money in politics and I can't say that I totally disagree. But let's make this a bit more user friendly for those who are the unsophisticated users of this process. Thank you. Anyone else want to weigh in. Thanks. Thanks Bob. I think the appropriate amount of pause is, you know, it's easier when I can look around the room and everybody's going, okay, I'm good, I'm good. Get on with it. Okay, so seeing no hands. If Marsha is ready to take a roll call on draft 3.1. You're going to unmute us all madam. Oh yeah, thank you for reminding me. Are we ready. We are. Shannon. Yes. It's Miller. Yes. Ro Wickey. Yes. Leclerc. No. Harrison. No. Gardner. Yes. No. Cooper. Yes. Brownell. Yes. Paul. Yes. Yes. So the motion carries. All right. Thank you very much. Okay, so we can probably. That's Hannah. Are you. Are you sticking with us through this last few minutes here? I can. All right. Are you able to pull up the 250th? Sure. And Michael Churnick is with us because I believe. He worked on the 250th commission. And I see Bob Hooper with a hand raised. What's up, Bob. Technical sort of thing. I. Before I could only see the bill now for some reason I can only see four people. Is that something that you are doing on your end? Or is everybody else seeing everybody? Yeah. I've been toggling around with my screen just so you know, I've, I have a tile view that lets me see. The three, six, nine, 12 of you. But if you have the ability to, you can. Change the size of while you're on an iPad. So I shouldn't give you advice on this. Anybody else on an iPad want to give him a tip on how to. You know, I can view the bill when it goes up. It's viewing the people while we're talking. That is the issue. That's okay. Move on. I can. All right. Marcia has a handout. Do we need to assign a reporter for this? Yeah. Can I interrupt for one second? Go ahead, Peggy. Thanks. I was wondering, has anybody heard about the process? Cause I did ask Mike for on this morning, but I haven't heard back. But have we heard anything about the process about getting these bills that are voted on to the clerk's office? Nope. And I think what we'll do is we'll just hold on to this as if we needed to ask that question, understanding that it might take us several days or a week or more to understand what that process is looking like. Okay. So at this point, we're not bringing anything to the house clerk's office or anything. Okay. Great. I mean, in an ordinary world, when we had a floor session coming up tomorrow, there might be a sense of urgency to, you know, get bills turned into the clerk's office. So they appear in the calendar. I don't know when the next time is that we're going to have floor action. And so I will keep an eye on that and I will ask the question. When we get on our next chair's call to understand what things look like. Moving out of here. Okay. Okay. So. JP has a question. Yes. Just referring back to reps. Cooper's. Issue with the iPad. I'm, I believe he was asking that or why he couldn't see everybody. And I had the same thing. I started because the first time we use the iPad was in my wild, wild about. Anyway, what I did is I just, just slide bottom to bottom left and right. You'll get everybody. You'll get everybody. But it's, it only lets you see, you know, four or five at a time. And when you slide it, it will. If you. Get some black screens. Which are blank screens. It will fill in eventually with a picture. And so you can see everybody. You just have to slide it back and forth on the iPad. All right, Andrea. Madam chair. I have a question. I would unmute him. Oh, that's a great idea. Thank you. Mike, you should be unmuted now. Michael, Mike C. Mike. I believe you're unmuted. That looks like it. And if you are on a phone, tried dialing star six. Still nothing. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what to mention on how. We can get Mike C. Not hearing him yet. Madam chair. Yeah. I have a note from Tony. Saying he's unmuted in the meeting. But he's muted himself on the call. So maybe on his computer, he could unmute himself. So Michael. Are you on a computer? I'm not. I'm on a computer. I think we actually had. The ability to hear everyone. So there's something going on, on Churnix and that is making this challenging. He said it worked fine this morning. Any luck. Tony is asking him to check his audio connection. Through chat. Well, this will give you all. All an opportunity to read through the text of this. I'm not sure. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I don't have the text here and has a hand up. Yes, Warren. I don't have the text here in front of me. Is it displayed somehow on my iPad that I'm. Not able to find. Well, I believe we still have Betsy Ann on screen share because I see S 153 in front of me. You may need to shrink the size of the little video tiles of all the content. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. The share content thing. And it says you can't start screen share while the other participant is sharing. And it allows me to check. Okay. Which is the only thing that I can check. Nonetheless, I recall. I recall the. Discussion. A week or two ago, the folks from Bennington and representative Morrissey. I fully intend to support. The bill. Absolutely. A hundred percent on every single word in it. I'm certainly a hundred percent on the concept. And the bill was pretty short and straightforward as it was. I don't know whether we can get my in here or not, but for me, that's not even necessary. I'd be ready to move the bill right now. Well, I appreciate your eagerness. Let's see if we can. Get a little more troubleshooting possibly done. I'm going to go ahead and. I'm going to go ahead and. I T. And see if we can give him an opportunity. Poor man has been listening to our entire hour and a half of committee deliberation. For a few minutes. Of presentation time. Isn't it amazing what a difference. Isn't it amazing what a different. Madam chair. I'm going to turn my computer off and just do this by audio. My computer. All right. How are we doing people? I see. Yes, we have. That was Merwicky. Okay. So I. On my screen, it looks like. Churnick is still unmuted, but I'm not hearing him. So. Let's see what are we looking at for time? We are bumping up against our time block. So I'm going to suggest that we. Do a moment or two of committee discussion here. If you would like to about the 250th commission and that we put this on our agenda for our next committee meeting. What I was saying a moment ago is it's amazing to me. What a different world we are in at this moment. Then when we. Looked at this just. Seems like just a few days ago. You know, the concept of. Throwing a party to celebrate our 250th is a little more distant now than it was just a short week ago. But we do have to remember that we're coming out of the other end of this social distancing. At some point. And I think when we do, people are going to be really ready for a party. Ready for a celebration of all of the. All of the history of our state and the history of our union. And so I really look forward to. Seeing what this is going to look like. And that is the responsibility of our union. And so I really look forward to. Seeing what this commission can put together. Marsha has her hand up. As appropriations. Confirmed that they. Have approved the amount requested. No. No. In fact, that's one of the, bills that require expenditures are going to be put on the way back burner because honestly we don't know right now how hard this is going to be and how bad it's going to get for us as a state to respond to COVID-19 and and so you know we may want to do you know when we get Madam Chair can you hear me now oh i can because i just phoned in oh that's excellent thank you Michael chernick so if you like madam madam chair if you like i'm michael for the record michael chernick legislative council i'm happy to go over this bill by phone all right so um we are looking at the bill on a screen share so why don't you go go ahead and walk us through the bill and and then we'll probably push pause there and not try to do work that sends us too far into the four o'clock hour so go right ahead thank you very much madam chair this is a bill that would create a vermont 250th commission it was introduced lost biannium had some consideration in senate gov ops it was more bennington oriented in the last version and this version has a more statewide orientation so if you look at section one it creates a vermont 250th commission the membership is spelled out one person from each of a number of designated counties including addison bennington chititan ruttland windham and windsor appointed by the governor from a name or names at each county's legislative delegation shall submit then one member of the senate not from any of the counties listed in subdivision one another b1 in other words the counties i just mentioned appointed by the governor the remaining counties the unnamed counties then one member of the house not from any of the counties listed again from that first subdivision b1 appointed by the speaker then the executive director of the historical society the state curator or designee and again with the historical society director it may also be the designee the state historic preservation officer or designee and one person appointed by the vermont commission on native american affairs and one person who is the author of published vermont history books appointed by the governor and one person appointed by the governor who doesn't fall into any of those categories as the subsection c the commission shall plan and sponsor events in advance of and in connection with the 250th anniversary of the state of vermont and that also look to the future of the state that's 2000 that's 2027 by the way the commission shall coordinate with the agency of education the agency of agricultural food and markets the department of tourism and marketing and with other state agencies and departments with federal agencies and departments with the municipalities of the state and with national and local public and private sector organizations in this and other states for assistance and support in planning and conducting commemorative sequenced senio activities the historic preservation officer or designee shall call the first meeting of the commission to occur on a before september 1 2020 the commission shall select a cheer from among its members at the first meeting a majority of the membership shall constitute a quorum a member attending remotely shall count towards the quorum and be able to cast a vote and the commission shall not be limited to a specific number of meetings however it shall not incur expenses in excess of its appropriated funds number six the commission shall cease to exist on december 31 2027 again referring to the end of the uh 250th year compensation reimbursement it's the standard for attendance in a meeting during a german of the general assembly a legislative member of the commission shall serve in his or when serving in his or capacity as a legislator may be compensated pursuant to two vsa 406 and other members may be who aren't compensated otherwise by the state may receive the compensation that's allotted pursuant to 32 vsa 1010 and then as post in the senate version there's a $25,000 appropriation uh for fiscal year 2020 and that is the bill madam chair and members of the committee excellent that was a very quick jog through thank you very much jim harrison has a very welcome and sorry for the techie problem no worries we're all learning jim yeah so um i guess two things i mean first of all i'm supportive of the you know forming a committee and celebrating the 250th um i there's a part in there where it says the first meeting by september one um i might suggest that that be pushed back um yeah you know maybe it's i don't know december 31st i mean we just don't know unfortunately what the future is and i don't i mean i guess they could meet remotely like we are now but i don't know i just i'm sensitive to that the optics of that the other thing you know quite frankly as madam chair as you said initially um i'm a little concerned about us putting a stamp of approval right now today on a $25,000 bill which may not seem like a lot even though knowing that appropriations is going to put it aside i just it sort of suggests that we're like removed from reality right now so i'm just a little sensitive to the optics and that may just be me and i got to get over it all right anybody else uh want to ask a question about the words on the page or or get any other clarifying information definitely does seem to be very timely to to give this some consideration both from the standpoint of pushing back the first meeting date to to be what we could consider to be well beyond the current emergency that we're in and while we hope september 1st will be well beyond that um i'm not i'm not really convinced at this moment um so michael churnick i have one other question for you um yes madam chair you mentioned that the uh the flavor of the bill has changed from the last introduction of it to to this introduction of it and in that it was more oriented towards bennington county that is correct madam chair because how did these yeah i'm just wondering um how we have assembled this set of counties um as opposed to trying to designate this as a statewide celebration uh the particular set of counties that we now have it's reference to counties that existed or the municipalities of those counties existed in 1777 the other counties didn't uh their municipalities rather i should say not necessarily their counties but they weren't any organized for the best of my understanding any organized municipalities in the unnamed counties in 1777 and that is why it was set up the way it was okay interesting any other questions committee all right so i'm gonna have us push pause there and um and come back to this but do uh do give some thought to adjustments that you think make sense uh given the time and space that we're in um that uh that we might consider making some changes to this uh if and when we're ready to move it out how has a question uh thanks madam chair um given the uncertainty of funding in in the you know near term i wonder if it might be um a thought to consider for expanding the commission or incorporating in the commission of those with fundraising skills and acumen so that could be another um avenue of raising $25,000 yeah that's definitely something to consider madam chair by may part now of course uh this was all written in the pre-19 arab and the road is changed drastically but the time the reason the money was put in in part yes to underwrite x uh per diems but that was really a very small piece of it the real reason was at the time there was a perception that there was going to be federal money available the 250th anniversary activities and this was meant to be uh matching funds for that yes i recall that yeah um how back to you use your hand is up do you have another question no i'm fine question hi hi my turn yes um how may it's a good point something to consider you know i i remember the the bicentennial commission for the state's 200th anniversary in 91 and the state was going through a difficult budget time in the middle of that um in the bicentennial commission got their budget cut and fortunately they were able to come up with an idea on selling license plates that many of you may have had or may remember much like we did with the vermont strong plates and we got involved and we were selling them at stores sort of like as a middle person and i think the state raised you know i'm going to guess 160 000 um it was certainly enough to pay for some of the things that they were doing um and you know fundraising may be very important on the other hand fundraising may be very hard uh unless the economy turns around right all right well let's um let's call that a wrap for today and we will continue to mull over um uh what we would like to do with this bill and i have not yet seen um the the plan for next week for committee times to meet um we were designated these times on a giant grid this week in order to give it the opportunity to be able to give us support as we um as we move to virtual committee meetings so i don't know what next week's schedule looks like but um do stay in touch and we'll get you that information as soon as we can does anybody have any other questions or we sign off for the day i have unmuted all of you or i'm trying to unmute all of you some of you are remuted all right great well thank you all for being uh so patient with this today if you have any um tips or suggestions for me as the virtual moderator and doing computer things as well as trying to call on people don't hesitate to reach out i like to set up jim and i bookend you on this now we get to sit the head of the table yeah have a great week everybody it's been nice to be with you all and uh andrea has something to say madam chair i just wanted to remind you that you're the host and you end the meeting that's right i have i have the hosting stick can you see it it's right here all right i am going to end the meeting which means that we will end our live stream on youtube and we will all disappear from each other's screen so please be safe please stay home um unless you're going out for some fresh air and then don't touch anything and wash your hands all right be well people we'll talk to you later ma'am i know all right please don't end the meeting please just give the hosting back to andrea hey tony can you call me oh yeah all right to what the andrea can you capture um hosting back from me or i forget oh i'm doing okay i got it okay i have a new horse oh andrea's that was now yep hi everyone