 So we are going to get started. Can you hear me? OK? I do have a mic there, but my dad told me once that I was meant to be a public speaker before they invented PA systems, and he would always go, shh. So we're going to introduce ourselves, and then we'll talk about the procedure and the procedure for both amending the Constitution and the procedure for what we're doing tonight. And the ding-ding that you hear means that the House is having a roll-call vote. The House is right now dealing with paid family leave, and they will probably have at least 20 more roll-call votes tonight, and every time they have one, it takes them about half an hour. They'll be here all night. They're 150 people. So I'm Jeanette White, and I chair the Senate Government Operations Committee. This is the Senate Government Operations Committee I represent the Wyndham District, which is down by the Massachusetts-Nuhanshire borders. I'm Allison Clarkson. I represent, I'm one of the senators representing the Windsor County District. And we're missing Chris Bright, who's quite ill, and he represents Addison County, except that he's not able to be with us. Hi, I'm Ann Faithfully, and I represent Washington County. Brian Collamore from Welling County. So the way we're going to do this is, I would remind everybody if you have a cell phone to turn off your cell phones. They tend to be a little annoying when people are trying to speak. So just so that you know the procedure for emitting your Constitution, our founders made it a little bit difficult to amend the Constitution for good reason, because it is the framework of our values, and it shouldn't be changed willy-nilly. There are states that have constitutions that are pages and pages and pages long, and they do it by voter referendum, which oftentimes those changes are written by advocacy groups or lobbying groups, whatever. And they change the Constitution. And sometimes people are, when they go to vote, they're voting on 20 or 30 constitutional changes that are many, many pages long. We don't do it that way. The way ours works is every four years, so every other biennium, you can introduce a constitutional change. So this biennium, 2019, 2020, is when constitutional changes can be introduced. They don't have to meet any deadlines, except that they have to pass out of both the Senate and the House by the end of May of 2020. In the Senate, they have to pass by 20 votes. There are 30 of us, so it isn't just, and it isn't 2 thirds of the people that are there. It's 20 people. So if only 20 people are there the day that the vote is taken, it still has to pass by 20 votes. It then goes to the House where they can't make any changes, but they have to pass it by a simple majority. It then comes back, the next biennium. So in 2021, 2022, biennium, it will come back and it has to pass the Senate by just a simple majority at that time and the House by a simple majority. If it meets all those steps, it then goes in the general election of 2022. In November 2022, it will go out to the entire population for a vote, and it has to pass by a simple majority. Then there won't be another chance to introduce a constitutional amendment, a proposal, until the 2023 2024 biennium. So it's only every four years that you can introduce it. So I hope that explained a little bit of how difficult it is to change the Constitution and why when we do change the Constitution, we take it very seriously. Because as was pointed out today on an issue, we've been living with this Constitution for a couple hundred years, and any change we may will probably be living with for the next couple hundred years because it is hard to change. So given that, what we're going to do is I know that we had said that two minutes, and that's the way public hearings work. Let me explain a little bit for those of you who might not know the difference between a committee hearing and a public hearing. All of our committee hearings are open. Our agendas are on our website every week. So we've held this on our agenda, I think it's five times up to this point. On our committee meetings. All of those are open. Anybody can come in, ask to testify, speak to us. And the value of doing it that way is we can have a dialogue back and forth. It's much less formal. We sit in a small room, and there are the five of us around the table and whoever is talking to us. And we have a dialogue. Public hearings are very different. Public hearings tend to be more people come and want to testify. So it's usually limited to two minutes each. And there's no conversation back and forth. It isn't a dialogue at all. It's just you, the public, telling us what you feel. Am I doing OK so far? You're doing really well. So what we have done is we had no idea how many people to expect. We weren't sure at all. So we did limit it to your conversation or your testimony to two minutes. That's the normal process for public hearings. And normally we have this little timer here, and Allison would do it. And when it gets to zero, I don't know if it's apt or what, but she'll do something and tell you that you're done. But given the fact that there aren't tons of people here, we won't use the timer. But we would ask you to keep your convict, your testimony not too long just because we don't know if other people might come who will want to testify. We also have done this in the past where we give you a little ticket. And we figured that that's the fairest way to make sure that people are heard and that where it isn't just whoever comes first gets to speak and those who come later don't. We will do the little tickets here until we run out of tickets. And then we'll just invite people to speak if we still have time. Does that make sense? Sure. OK. And when you speak, if you'd be kind enough to your name and the town you live in, that would be great. Yes. We would like to know that. So let me just tell you a little bit about where we are now. And what I think was one of the primary reasons for proposing the amendment in the first place, although I am on the amendment, but I didn't write it. So I'm kind of guessing as to what the primary reason was. The Constitution is clear, it says, after arriving at the age of 21. And I think that many people interpreted that to mean that slavery was actually permitted until the age of 21. What we've learned in our meetings, and we've heard from a number of people, a couple of constitutional scholars among them, Peter Teachout from the Vermont Law School. And what we've learned is that that, in fact, did not relate to slavery, it related to indentured servitude. And in most states at that time, you were free from your indentured servitude at the age of 30. The Vermont Constitution, when it was written in 1777, said men were free of their indentured servitude at age 21 and women at age 18. Then in 1994, we made the Constitution gender neutral. Because we made it gender neutral, we had to raise the age of women being free from indentured servitude to 21, the same as men. So that's what we have learned so far about the phrase after the age of 21. And we've found no, we know that slavery existed in Vermont. We absolutely know that. We've found no bill of sale that was acknowledged for either an adult or a child. So our understanding is that while it existed, our framework said that this is our value and it should not exist. So with that, should we get started? Let's go for the test, though. So I'll call out names, sorry, numbers. I'm assuming I don't have to use the last three numbers? Yes. And so I'll do one, and then just to let the next person know that they're in line, I'll call out the next number. So the first person to come out should be 134, followed by 136. Yeah, come on. Are you 134? Yes. Yes, please. And no, you don't want to use your ticket. You can keep that for years to come. That you're still going to be able to use your ticket. Just bring that down, sort of. Yeah, you don't need to be too close to it. There's so many people in here. But it's for the people who are blind. Because you're projecting to us, so they can figure it out. OK, hopefully they can do this all right. I think you can be a little closer. Yeah, if you're in the chair, you have to be great. My name is Nadahe Stoddard. I'm a living cabinet. Would you? Do you know how to spell it? No. N-E-T-D-A-H-E. And I can see new folks in a previous committee, depending on how high it is. And you're in cabinet. I'm in cabinet, yeah. So be brief and to say that I support the amendment change to take away the terminology of slavery. But also, I would hope that the committee would be bold in outlawing any language that allows enslaving somebody or stealing somebody's labor in any form, way, shape, or form. I think to not do so goes against the values that we do stand for and often pride ourselves on as a state. And I think it's really a matter of criminalizing poverty. I'm going to take a minute just to say that I grew up in Vermont. The child I had an incarcerated parent who spent 30 years in prison, who worked full time his entire life. My entire life is 30 years. And I don't think he ever made more than $1 an hour. At that time, he was never able to contribute to our family. Income on the outside. And I remember not even having graduated high school and being in a position to try to work, to save up money, to buy 15-minute chips on the phone that were overpriced to benefit the phone companies. So my ability to save, my ability to contribute to the state, to pay taxes, to let your imagination go wild, has been stunted by what is a horrible form of corporate welfare that takes not only the time and energy and value for people, but our relationships with each other and the rest. And so I would really just hope that we would not just take this opportunity to have it be about language, but to really conceive of what we can do to be true to our ideal and the previous committee meeting that I was in. I'm forgetting which one it would be, but I think it was one that said something to the effect of like, at least changes are hard to make. And we don't want to have to go back and change again. So we might as well make a change that really is true to what we want and feel. And I feel that to do this is so. And that we could actually be bold and have a stiffer understanding of things than the federal 13th amendment allows people to be enslaved in prison. And we can choose to not have that happen in Vermont and into Vermont. Thank you. So 136 is up next followed by 133. And I apologize for coughing. I didn't go home. Thank you. I'm Christine Malmore. I live in the Longton. I've spent most of my life looking in the Longton after moving in with my family. And I'm biracial for lack of a better term. And I think it's, you know, as I was listening to you describe the reasons for maybe considering not doing this and the difficulty around changing the constitution, this strikes me as kind of a strange reason not to do this. And I think that that kind of it should shed light on the difference between perspective of somebody like me that's of color and your perspective. And I think that that's really important to consider. And I think that if that's the only reason that you're thinking about not doing that, doesn't really seem like not your reasoning for me. And the only other thing I guess I'll share with you because I could probably sit here for hours and talk about what this means to somebody like me. But as we're driving down here, I was just remembering the first time I ever had to explain to my children what slavery was. And it's really difficult conversation. It's also really difficult to explain to like, you know, my brown sons that especially in the state of Vermont that if they ever come into contact with the police that they're gonna have to be extra careful, not just careful but extra careful because they're brown and it could be very easy for them to end up in jail even if they just said the wrong thing. So I hope you can understand like our perspective about why something like this is important. And I also think that most people really don't understand because you have to do a lot of research to understand the far reaching implications of having slavery in the Constitution including criminalizing poverty. I spent 12 years at the CJC in Brompton assisting people that were returning from the prison system to find employment and it was very difficult. It's especially difficult for, you know, a white man or a woman, even in the state of Vermont, to find employment with a criminal record. It is next to impossible for a lab around person to find employment or at least decent employment with a criminal record. So I think that anything that we can do to start decriminalizing the issues that are like, you know, what they say or other issues that really most other civilized places in the world don't incarcerate people for, I think that that's something to consider. And back to my story about spending slavery to my children, one of the things where I got stuck was when my daughter asked me if it could ever happen again. And I said, probably not, but I couldn't really say that with confidence. So I guess that's really all I have to say. Thanks. Thank you. Next is 135 to be followed by 132. 132. 132. 133. Yeah, followed by 135. Correct me. I'll be fired for this job before I'm fired. We're a little better with concepts than numbers. Thank you, thank you for this hearing. My name is Wafi, W-A-F-I-C. Last name, Faur, F-A-O-U-R, Richmond, Vermont. Richmond? Yes. Thank you again. I am not a scholar of constitution and I cannot answer the professor from Vermont State why this excuse he gave about the language of the constitution that we have to keep this language and this constitution. And I don't find it very hard to take this language from the constitution, even the founding fathers, but it made it very difficult to change it. After all, we know in 2019, slavery is wrong, but the founding fathers were owners of slaves. What concerns me the most that this language and this kind of relaxation about it, that it's all right to have it when we have now and witnessing more and more the modern way slavery. I see it, the treatment of people of colors, mainly black people, all through history, Jim Crow, and on putting black people in huge numbers in prison, stopping them here on this state, more at 67% on our biggest city, more higher than white commuter, putting them in jail and transfer them to private jail, which is any one of you if you can look at the documentary like 13, named after the amendment of the constitution. We found multinational big American company are using the laborers of the people on jail for less than $1 a day. This is modern day slavery. And our silence about what's happening to our sisters and brothers here, the rural area, the amount on our farms, they are living on fear day after day on the shadow of the bonds that they have no say of what tomorrow can bring to them. And us here on the house of the government, on this state, we cannot protect them. This is what concerns me. And we shouldn't be take this language as an easy language for people of colors or there. Any kind of people, you have to understand that is big percentage of people living on the state of Vermont, they feel as adults, if you are not white, you are adults, even though if you came hundreds of years from the beginning of this state, from the beginning of this country, you still consider as adults, you don't belong. We succeeded last week that we passed FDOT3 to change the education. But there are other areas we are not touching, the housing, the healthcare, and we have to look again and again on the policing on this state. Because how much we think we are liberal and open minded, the treatment of people of color on this state is very dangerous. And this is 2019 and we have to work together. Thank you. 135. So I think I made a bad explanation at the beginning. I didn't mean to imply that because it was difficult and this language was in there that has been interpreted in a different way, that we shouldn't change it. I didn't mean to imply that it shouldn't be changed. I was trying to give an explanation of what we've learned about the intention of the language to begin with, but I have no doubt that it should be changed in some way. So I just wanted to make that clear. I'm just asking if I can make a testimony. Yeah, be good. Did you say you was up next, Dr. Martin? 132. And I should mark just handed in his testimony. If anybody else has written testimony that they would like to give us at the time or a segment later, please feel free to do so. Don't embarrass me. Please provide a copy of me as well for the record. Yeah, we'll give it to Dr. Martin. Yeah, I got an extra one right here. I'm sorry. Good afternoon. Madam Chair. Senate Government Operations Committee, my name is Mark Hughes for the record. And from? I'm from Burma tonight. Sorry, Senator. Oh, that's okay. It's good to see you all again. And thank you for the opportunity to come out and be a part of the hearing tonight. I'm the Director of Justice for All and also the coordinator of the Racial Justice Reclaim Alliance. We brought you Act 54, Racial Disparities in the Criminal Justice System, Advisory Panel. We also brought you Act 9, Racial Equity Panel and Director. The Attorney General of the Human Rights Commission, Act 54 Task Force, reported, it stated, quote, while slavery has been outlawed in this country for over 150 years, the vestiges of it and of Jim Crow remain today in the form of systemic racism. Act 9, quote, it created within the executive branch the position of executive director of racial equity to, quote, identify and work to eradicate systemic racism within state government. These were both done in 2017 and 2018, respectively, as you all know. Now we bring you PR 2. It's sponsored by all of you as well as 19 additional senators. The purpose of this bipartisan bill was to amend the constitution, quote, of the state of Vermont to eliminate reference to slavery. And the purpose of the original proposal went on to say, quote, eliminating reference to slavery in the Vermont Constitution will serve as a foundation for addressing systemic racism in our state's laws and institutions. Now we've all come to understand that through those well attended are pleased to remove slavery, quote, remove slavery from the Constitution. They kind of fell a little bit short of our collective intention to ensure that the Constitution actually expressly prohibited slavery. I think we can all agree upon that. Our purpose, however, remains clear that it is still, quote, to serve as a foundation for addressing systemic racism in Vermont, asking that the essence of this intent not be erased. I'm asking that it be restored in the purpose of the language that we're moving forward. I'm asking that you do so, along with the history of the partial prohibition as well as that of the 13th Amendment that was in the original language, the 13th Amendment of the United States Constitution. Second, I ask you to consider removal of language indicating, quote, or bound by law for payments, debts, damages, fines, costs, or the like from the Vermont Constitution. This language, it supports the criminalization of poverty. Title 13, 71-80, is clear from the fact that incarceration is a remedy for a failure to pay fines across surcharges and penalties, end of quote. Again, Title 13, 71-80 is a remedy of a department states that it is a fact that incarceration is a remedy. Incarceration is a remedy for failure to pay fines, costs, surcharges, and penalties. That's a quote, okay? Ominously familiar to that of the Constitution. United States Constitution is even clearer that those incarcerated for punishment of crimes are slaves to the 13th Amendment. Now outside of federal implications, the implications of these types, this type of servitude amounts to here in the state, nothing less than modern day trafficking. Finally, the wealth of whites being 13 to one, 13 of that African-Americans clearly, the impact is gonna be disproportionate on people who come. Now, third, moving on to Chapter Two of the Vermont Constitution, the words quote, F-R-E-E-N-E-N appears in our Constitution and free women, F-R-E-E-W-O-M-E-N in the quote. They appear in Chapter Two, Session 42 of the Constitution as descriptors for eligible voters in the constitutionally mandated general referendum required to amend the Constitution that you, Madam Chairman, explained at the top of this meeting. Now, this should be replaced with quote, maybe voters' qualifications and oaths or some rewards to that effect, clearly. And I also ask you as we focus on systemic racism in our Constitution to note that the terms free men and free women also appear 16 additional times in Title 17, Session 32. And the term also appears in Rule 84, your rules, this in. All occurrences, obviously, they pertain to voter qualifications in the general referendum to amend the Constitution of this state. And lastly, it'd be irresponsible if I didn't provide some clarity surrounding the premise that the language, the Constitution probably never intended to permit slavery as floating around here. Just a little clarity on that if I might be permitted. You see, Jacobs versus the Vermont Supreme Court was not a decision on the question of constitutional intent surrounding slavery. It never was. You see, the case was about a Supreme Court judge who owed and employed a slave named Donald for 17 years. Windsor brought a claim against this judge because the time was caring for her, being homeless. And she was blind and sick at this time by the way, because Jacobs wouldn't do it. Now, after Jacobs' recusal, the purchase receipt was challenged and Judge Tyler stated that the purchase receipt was inadmissible because slavery was prohibited in Vermont. This is arguably one of the worst court technicalities in Vermont history and a far cry from a decision on constitutional intent surrounding slavery with all respect to Mr. Teach Out, his premise is poorly placed. This time, this is the time now that we're up coming to the surface in this nation, okay? And there's a lot of stuff that we need to unpack. We need to do it together. Southeast state correctional facility is six minutes drive from Judge Jacobs' house, 70 State Street, Windsor, Vermont. That's where Diana lived for 25 years. A woman, black, a slave, sick, disabled, homeless, unemployed, uninsured, she represented almost all of what society has historically neglected, abused, oppressed, and criminalized. Let's use our legacy to embrace the history and let's commit to the future of this state. Now, we can't go on just criminalizing black and brown and poor folks, okay? This is our opportunity to make a clean break. The state, of course, let's continue the work that we started, let's continue to live up to who we are as Vermonters, whether it has been immigration, cannabis legalization, to fight for women's rights, to choose concerning their own bodies. Nothing has deterred us here in Vermont for a fight for what is right. Let's continue to fight against oppression and criminalization of black and brown and poor folks in this state. Thank you for your time. From 32 to be followed by on 37. I'm so heart resident of Shelburne, Vermont. H-A-R-T, H-A-R-T, and so, C-O-V. I wanna thank the committee for holding this hearing. I'm here to speak out in support of proposal two of the proposal to amend the Vermont Constitution to eliminate reference to slavery. In particular, I would ask that the committee send the proposal to the floor with the language as originally proposed by Senator Ingram and the other sponsors. The language originally proposed is straightforward and clear and I believe represents who we are as a people today. Nobody would read that language today and say, oh wait, we forgot to mention slavery. The very idea that such simple and clear language could be improved by adding the mention of slavery to it is incomprehensible to me. My understanding is that there's a desire by some to retain the language of slavery in our constitution to enshrine the fact that Vermont was the first state to abolish slavery. Setting aside very real questions about the degree to which Vermont truly and fully abolished slavery, I think that it is time for us to stop clinging to that history, to stop patting ourselves on the back for that past and start the very real and crucial work of addressing the racism that remains a part of our present day society and institutions. If we must hold on to that history, let's make sure we're holding on to our full history, both the grave wrongs committed and the acts of which we can already proud. And let's remember that history in museums, both blacks and statues, but not in our living constitution, the critical foundation of our current laws. There is so much important work to be done to address the dismantled racism in our state. One small piece of that work would be the full and complete elimination of slavery from our state constitution. I ask the committee to please restore the clean and simple language originally proposed for proposal two and give us a clean constitution. Thank you. Thank you. And so would you kind of have to submit that? I did drop it off and I'll give one general. Electronically, very well, yeah, together. Up next is 137, followed by 131. Good evening, Madam Chair and others. My name is Rashita Butler, R-A-S-H-E-T-A. I am currently a Vermont law school student, a 3-O, class of graduate in Maine, originally from Chicago, Illinois. I do not have a prepared statement. However, I do want to voice my opinions on this matter because I think it's important to have a voice. As stated earlier, I believe section two, article one, of the constitutional amendment that's up, the amendment should be eliminated that says, unless bound by the person's own consent or bound by the pain of death, damages, fines, costs, or the life should be completely eliminated. And for the reasons that I heard tonight, for people who spoke before me, it is also known that prison is a form of slavery, if not a form of individual servitude. We have prisoners who are mostly of color in prisons doing free labor. And I think the elimination of this section of the constitutional amendment, section two, article one, is essential to accomplish that goal because it makes it apparent that Vermont will not stand for its institutional racism to persist, especially in prisons. Thank you. Ms. Kathleen. Oh, yeah. 130, we're next. My name is Kathleen Void Walsh. I have written a statement. You have digressed from it. I'm very proud that my family is here with me. They're probably at a change then. Ruby and Maya are some of the reason that they are. I've had a lifelong sort of wanting to learn more about black culture and my bookshelf has always had those books that I never got around to reading, but my life has been an exploration of race and what it means to me and what it means in our society. More so now that I have such amazing, wonderful grandchildren. I come here today on this 51st anniversary of the passing of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. because I want the beloved community to come live here in Vermont. Before he died, he started to talk about poverty and it is really true that poverty is criminalized and it's true in the words of the Constitution as well and it's not okay. I would respectfully offer to you that it is the past time for Vermont to finish the task of ensuring what we started in 1793 when our forebears, I should say forefathers, and they were white and they were probably landed in wealthy and that's worth making a note of. An active Vermont state constitution. I want to share with you, I've been trying to learn about race and art history and I learned something, I found it out recently. I'm sorry, I wasn't able to do more research and give you more information about it, but. So 1612 is the year that sticks in my mind because I heard someone say it and I don't know for sure but I think it might have been the date that the first ship landed with African Americans. I don't really know for sure but I know that it was significant to the man who was saying it, who was the black minister that I was listening to. In 1640, the people in Virginia legally sanctioned slavery for people of color and they did that because there was a court case where there were three indentured servants that ran away to Maryland from Virginia and the three indentured servants were found to be guilty and all three were sentenced and the one African servant was sentenced to a full life of servitude and the white servants were not. So whatever the rules were, I think it's great that Vermont did better than those rules but the rules were, those rules are still there and they're there for an economic reason. Our country has, I struck out of my original notes a comment about who made the laws and they were white people, they were white men, they were from someplace else and this land wasn't theirs and it wasn't free for the taking but yeah, we took it. So all that is part of that. But in 1641 that slavery was legally sanctioned. It was also the beginning of a rift between the poor white people and the poor black people because the poor white people had one up on the poor black people now. So it was really the beginning of racism. I think that in Vermont, there might have been an intention. Vermont was maybe trying to blaze a trail but the cultural and economic underpinnings of slavery were still at play in them, in their lives. I mean, Ropee Museum was owned by a gentleman who took in people who were fleeing with slavery but yet when one of those people asked him, could you please pay my former master so that I can be free because I don't have the money even though I worked really hard. They sent a letter to the master, to the former owner, and that person said no, that's not the market value of that slave and I will not take less than us and such. And the Vermont owner, the Vermont person who was sheltering that enslaved person said, I'm sorry, my morals won't allow me to exchange money for human life. He later regretted it but the fact was that he still had that, he had a certain viewpoint in the world that didn't treat everyone the same and his idea of what was right was his and he had the freedom to do that. That's like me. I mean, I recently read a book by, you know, I don't know the case, by Angela and now I'm gonna lose my train of thought. So if you're probably there, I should start reading it. She was heartbroken when Martin Luther King died and when I read her autobiography, I realized I didn't have to be heartbroken. So back to my notes. When in 1793 Vermont was trying to blaze a trail but we have exceptions in our constitution when they wrote it, which you all know well. Our constitution does not yet guarantee freedom for wrong. And as has been already said, neither does our federal constitution. So the conditions of poverty and whatever people decide is gonna be criminalized are conditions of slavery to nationally and work in Vermont. What I am asking is simple. Do whatever you have to do now to make this keep on going because I know there are people who are gonna grow up and I don't want them to have to fight this battle. Not when they're 12, not when they're 16, not when they're 20, not when they're, you know, has it has been prohibit slavery with that exception. Give free, especially give Vermonters the opportunity to heal the wounds that we still have of slavery that are hiding and racism. It's legacy, racism. It lives here. It's past my first to do all that we can and the constitution needs to be changed. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for bringing Ben's back. Thank you. Such a treat. Up next is 130s to be followed at 138. If other people have come in after we've done this, we don't have any more tickets in here. So I can give you a ticket if you want or if you don't have one, we will still have some time and we'll take other people. Good evening. Thank you very much for having us here in. My name is Sylvia Knight, K-N-I-G-H-T. I live in Brompton, Vermont. Proposition two provides a unique moment in history when we can begin to rectify the troubling and damaging legacy of slavery in our country. It is time to make certain that Vermont's constitution with bases of our laws does not in any way provide a basis for inequity or inequality between persons or groups of people. Since the 1960s, I've become painfully aware of the effects of inequity and racism on myself, my family and on my brothers and sisters of color. As whites, we participated implicit bias and benefit from institutionalized racial inequity. It is ingrained in our laws, institutions and cultures. Slavery and racism based in the social construct of white supremacy has been perpetuated in Jim Crow lynching mass incursorations of black and brown people and desjured segregation, not de facto, desjured based on laws. In Vermont, we have seen neighborhoods with restrictive covenants failure to protect black people in Vermont from racial harassment and criminalization of black and brown people with unequal treatment before the law, as our nation was built, would also include in that the criminalization of our immigrant farm workers. As our nation was built on systemic racism and inequality based on law, we must remove the legal basis for inequality and systemic racism in order to create racial justice in Vermont. Healing cannot happen without movement toward justice. In the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948, signed by the United States, we read recognition of inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice, and peace in the world. The amended version of PR2 beginning with therefore no person born in this country still maintains references to conditions of inequality that are not clear or helpful in moving toward racial equity and justice. So I urge that you adopt language suggested by Peter Teachout, such as adding after the word therefore, adding slavery and indentured servitude in any form are prohibited and omitting the remaining language. I would also accept us going forward with the original PR2. For me, this makes it clearer. So please help us to embody our constitution so that upholds the principle of inherent dignity and equal inalienable rights for all. Thank you for having this hearing. Because I'm tight. Thank you. So the last take I have is 1.38. Thank you very much for the opportunity to come speak on this issue. My name is Uman Hadarian, I'm here on my own time and I'm a University of Vermont student in the graduate program, CTA Masters of Public Administration. And I'm here to voice my opinion on eliminating all language regard and slavery in Vermont Constitution. I'm originally from Maryland and I came here primarily for furthering my education, but I could have chosen many different schools but I wanted to come to Vermont knowing that Vermont invests in the people and in the land. I also want to continue my work in agriculture and food policy, which is something I'm very interested in being here in Vermont and seeing how robust it is. I believe from my short time here, so far that Vermont is a progressive state in that the government adopts new policies that would continue to invest in the people in the land and in keeping with those traditions and values, I urge you to support the original language in PRT. And also, UVM celebrated the Andrew Harris who was the first black graduate of the school and seems to me that will also continue in that same path of, in fact, not holding back minorities and criminalizing poverty but to in fact celebrate the minorities that we do have in Vermont. That support our economy and as well as agriculture. Thank you. Thank you very much, Laura. So has anybody come in after we started that would like to speak? Do you have that one? Would you like? Yeah, but she was only going to be on stage. I'm going to keep an eye on her. Hi, thank you for the opportunity. Thank you for holding this hearing at a later hour for the opportunity to speak. I didn't submit testimony because I wasn't sure if it was going to be able to get here, but I did send an email. I'm peacefully written earlier, so I appreciate the chance of speaking. My name is Susan S-U-S-A-N, Schumfeld S-C-H-O-E-N-F-E-L-G from South Burlington, Vermont. I retired in 2014 after working for the state for 25 years, and I'm currently teaching part-time at the University of Vermont in the public health program. When it first came to my attention, the wording related to slavery being prohibited except for under 21 conditions in Vermont that I was startling and distressing. Clearly the last, I think over the last several years in particular, maybe the last couple years, I've come to have an even deeper appreciation of the importance of language, the way that our cost, the strength in our constitution when it's worded well and the potential problems when it isn't worded well. We want to be able to trust our courts that interpret the law and they base it on the constitution so wording is really important. I read the first proposal submitted by Senator Ingram and others and thought it was great, it was clean, clear, and understandable and not subject to potential problems. And then when I read the revised version, I don't feel the language is clear, I don't feel that it's clean. I was typing this out and the word hold came up and that's not in the dictionary on my phone anymore. I mean, there's like the languages older, it might be in line with the other in the constitution but it's not clear. And when we get to the part that's left in about, unless bound by laws for payment of debts, damages, fines, costs in the light, could we say that someone is bound by law to be a servant or apprentice because they have a debt I would like to think we wouldn't get it, that we think we know what that means and it's always the wording is a little unclear but I don't trust that anymore. I think we have to be very, very careful. So I support returning to the language to be a regional proposal and particularly if there has to be some compromise, removing that unclear language. I mean, do see this as important not only to the importance of the body in clear but also racism has never been gone in this country or in this state. We happen to be in a time where it is, there's more blatant acts being identified and more, I think, hopefully for all the sense that we need to address this within our state government and our institutions of society and I look to the leadership of people of color and what it means to them and we should be listening and understanding that and I think that we need to use, we can use the clarity of this language and a statement of changing the constitution as a basis for showing our commitment to understanding the systems of racism in our state and how we can address that and I urge returning to that language. Thanks. Thank you. Number 139. My name is Rachel Wilson. I live in Woodbury, Vermont. I ran a social justice group at high school in Hardwick, Vermont for four years. I have done a lot of racial justice work in the state through the Peace and Justice Center and I'm just here to speak on behalf of the young students of color who are here in the state of Vermont and people of color. I just want to say that having any language that keeps slavery in the Vermont Constitution sends a very clear message to the people of color that we are not safe in Vermont, that justice may not be served to us and I have to say that I have seen so many instances of racism in schools that have just been swept under the rug and so time and again we see that we're not being supported in the state of Vermont and when we stand up there's always backlash and people of color move to Vermont and then a lot of them leave because they don't feel that they have the support of the community and of the state behind them and I know just firsthand after doing all this work around racial justice, feeling the effects of the backlash and the emotional and mental stress and strain and trauma that it causes has made me want to leave the state and I feel that I have a lot to offer to the people of Vermont and I want to stay here and I think that the people who are in power and are in positions of power need to make sure that a message is sent that the people of color in Vermont are going to be safe and that we're all going to be safe that any language that has to do with slavery needs to be removed from our Constitution and I thank you just here as a mother and I'm a very concerned person and thank you for hearing me. Thank you so much. Thank you. Anybody else? So the committee will continue to discuss this and take your comments into consideration and I would suggest that you also watch our website for our committee to see when we take it up next because we will continue this conversation and when you come, if you come to the committee as some of you know, it's a little less formal and we can actually have conversations with you and ask you what about this or how would you do this or can you explain this? So I would encourage you to come when we take this up again and remember that this, just one second, this does not, this has until May of 2020 to pass both chambers. So we want to get it right. We don't want to rush it. We want to make sure we get it right. So, did you have a question? What time of day are you right now? We are an afternoon committee so we meet, typically we should meet from one until about 4.30 or five but oftentimes we're on the floor on Wednesdays and Thursdays, we're on the floor at one o'clock so sometimes we don't get done until later but it will be on our calendar but we are an afternoon committee. And if you have testimony or additional thoughts, if you get Gail's email, please send them to us. We would appreciate having any testimony and if you send it straight to Gail, it comes to us. Mark. Madam Chair, I just want to thank you for taking the time tonight. I think there's a lot of people in the room that would have never had the opportunity to voice to after voices heard so it's a really big deal to me as well that you took the time and your time to do this this evening. So thank you very much for that. That's a two way street, we appreciate you guys. And also just the last point is simply that just inherent in the very nature of what we're talking about when we start, when we're talking about poverty and we're talking about criminalization of poverty and this ties into it is when can we show up? Because a lot of us, we just can't show up and it's so important. And if we would have had it a little bit later, you probably would have had some more folks out but thanks for making the effort. But and also remember that you can always send us written testimony and if you have something when we have anything on the calendar, you can also testify by phone. You can talk to us by phone because we understand that not everybody circles around this building every day like we do. So feel free to ask to testify by phone if you would like to. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you.