 Good morning. You are with the Vermont House Government Operations Committee. It is Wednesday, the 5th of January. We are jumping back into consideration of the initial redistricting bill and committee members, you'll have to bear with me for a moment, but I'm going to do a brief explanation of where we're at because I understand that it could be quite unnerving to people if they think we're passing a redistricting plan on day two of the legislative session. So for folks who aren't familiar with how the House does its redistricting, we are required by law to pass an initial bill that is sort of a proposal to get out to the communities with the intention of us being able to hear from boards of civil authority around the state any feedback that they might have. Given the delay in the census data from last year, we are, we lost about four and a half or five months of the time frame that we would have had to build this initial map, this initial bill, because the Legislative Apportionment Board in a normal year would have had their work done in August in order for us to begin our work to be able to pass an initial map here at the beginning of the legislative session. And so to account for that delay and to try to keep us on pace, but more importantly to fast forward us to the point where we are hearing from communities on what, you know, what configuration of districts makes sense to them. We are going to put out the Legislative Apportionment Board's alternate map. And then that will give us the wealth of feedback that we have from the Legislative Apportionment Board's initial map, their adopted map, and, and if we put out this alternate one, then, then that will be a good rich set of feedback that we'll have from various communities from which we can begin to build districts with the hope that we can pass our final redistricting bill at the beginning of April. So, don't have a heart attack this is not a map that is is anything other than simply a starting point to get information back from from the communities around the state of Vermont, which is the job of the Vermont House Government Operations Committee so to that end, we have with us Legislative Council, Amron Average Ailey today and we also have Nick Atherton who's our mapping specialist and so it's, I think it would be helpful for us to take a look at the bill. The redistricting while it is tied very closely in our minds to a map and lines on a map in order for that to be enacted into law, it has to come in the form of actual statutory language and so Amron is going to walk us through what that bill looks like that corresponds to the alternate map that we were looking at yesterday, and then we can take whatever questions we need to so Amron would you, would you think it would be most helpful to go through the bill and its entirety and then do questions or would you like us to ask along the way what, how do you think this makes the most sense. For the record Amron Average Ailey Legislative Council. That was a question that I was struggling with a bet it is long and detailed. So, why don't I just start doing the walkthrough I'm not opposed to being interrupted. If people would like to ask questions as we go that would be fine with me. It is pretty high level. Well, why don't I get started and we'll just see how it goes I'm not sure the best way to do this to be honest, just because I've never done this before. We'll figure it out so committee members let me know if you, if you'd like to jump in with a question and right on cue Rob. Whatever works best for Amron but I have an excellent memory but it's really short. So if I could ask a relevant question at that point because I could forget what it was going back. Six minutes. Eight days later. Yeah, I understand. I think that probably makes the most sense in my experience if one person has a question. Oftentimes it's enlightening for all of us so let's go ahead and raise hands along the way and and Amron will, we'll just ask you to sort of pause in between pages or sections of the bill and and give folks a moment to get their hands up. Great. So, I am looking at everyone's reference I'm looking at draft 1.1 of drafting request 22-0538 dated 1227 2021. I'm going to be posted with today's materials and because the bill itself does not have perhaps some of the detail that you're curious about from the alternate map I've included some other materials here for you to use as additional references. As you go over this bill over the next couple days. One I thought might be helpful is the current house district summary this just lists what the current districts are. How many members there are per district and which towns are or portions of towns are included within that. So this while you're going through the draft if you want to be able to quickly see, well what's there now, you'll be able to do so. In addition, I just wanted to mention that the, the lab alternate map has changed some of the district names, based on which towns are within the districts so you'll see some slight variation from what you're used to seeing. And also you'll see that within the bill draft there, it looks like there might be say a missing district. You'll see that it goes from Franklin one to Franklin three. You'll see that when you're reviewing the draft you can follow the draft and match it to the lab alternate map. So I chose not to renumber anything based on how the districts have changed. So it'd be as easily as possible to track what you're seeing in the bill with what you're seeing in the alternate map materials. Another thing I wanted to mention I've included the reference keys that you saw yesterday when Nick was presenting. This is sorted by town. This is so that one of the helpful items about the listing by town is that you can, if you follow along the list of towns you'll be able to see which towns are being divided. So that I thought was helpful information, rather than going through the bill and trying to find which towns have been divided in the bill you can go to this list and see if a town is listed twice it will show you that it's been divided and where it that division has gone. And then for the reference key that's sorted by district, you will be able to click on the map link within that and see what the actual district looks like, because as you will see as you're going through the bill. We don't have all of the, the customary detail the meats and bounds that you're going to see in the final district apportionment bill right now what you just have is an identification of which towns are in a district. You'll be able to see that some, some towns or cities will need to be further subdivided based on how many, how many members are assigned to that large district. And you will also see that there are going to be certain towns that have been specified as being divided to fit into two districts, though it does not say where that division line is. So if you wanted to go and look at the map in the reference key by district, you would be able to see where that line is, and that's where cities and towns would also be able to see the line that you are considering as an initial step as a starting point for discussion. Thank you Samron and, and we'll be able to share all of this material out with the towns as they, as they are being asked to give us feedback right so they'll be able to see. Oh you know this portion of our town is proposed to be in that district and the other portion of the town and yeah. Okay, that's super helpful and you know I think it's worth acknowledging just the, the vast amount of time it takes to actually describe with words where these boundaries go. I mean we we zoomed in yesterday on the Winooski district and, and you know Winooski includes that small part of Burlington, describing where those lines actually go in words is, is definitely a consuming process and so I think this is a what we're going to look at here is an attempt to sort of expedite that but to still be very clear about what, you know what we're asking folks to respond to. So representative Gannon. Thank you. And we're in just a quick question about the house district map reference key sorted by district. And this is specific to South Burlington it references different districts are those basically wards. I believe so but Nick I'm not sure if you know this was compiled by the lab not us, so I am not positive. I mean, it also references Burlington wards and Rutland wards and I was just wondering if the South Burlington districts are our wards. Go ahead Nick. Thanks. Yes, I put together this key and I was just using demographic information that was downloaded from the data set on in map the two that was used to create these, which referred to those the units as districts. I'm not familiar with how South Burlington runs its municipal affairs but I'm assuming that those are probably that's probably interchangeable with with boards if that's what they in fact what they use. Thank you. All right, any other questions folks. All right, amaran back to you. All right, so the good news is, while this is a 44 page document, we are not going to start on page one. The bulk at the beginning is just me removing all of the current district language from statute. So everything from page one down through to page. I want to say 20 around page 2526. No, keep going, keep going. It must have been when it went through editing. So I'm beginning now on page 35. I will wait just a moment to see everyone reaches that point. Okay. So first on page 35 you have the Addison districts. You'll see that the Addison districts listed here all either have a proposed two member or one member district. You'll see that for Addison one and two and Addison dash Rutland down on lines 10 and 11 all of those are districts that have complete towns with no divisions. You'll see that for Addison three and Addison four, it's contemplated that a portion of Moncton will be divided out between Addison three and Addison four. So moving down to the Bennington. Districts which start online 13 on page 35 and move down on through page 36 wine seven. You'll see that in Bennington one it has Reedsboro Stanford. Again, panel is separated out into Bennington district two dash two also. You'll see that Bennington is divided between Bennington two dash one and two dash two. And then you'll see that Sunderland when looking at Bennington three and four has been divided between those two districts. Is this helpful if I just sort of do an overview and then just point out if some particular town is divided and okay, I'll keep going at this pace but please let me know if you want me to go into so much detail as you can look at it later or. So then moving down to the Caledonia districts on page 36, you'll see that Caledonia is 123 and then Caledonia Essex Caledonia Washington are all districts that have complete towns with no divisions representative again and has a question. And this is more to do when we report this on the floor. So, you know where it says a portion of the town, you know, not included in Bennington two dash two. What if somebody asks, well what portion is that I. And now the answer from what I've heard from the chair and from what we've heard so far at the committee is that this committee has not made any formal decision about where that line is going to be. This is just an indication that the committee is seeking input from that town as to where that line should be, and will include a map for that town as to what has been proposed by the lab as to where that division is. Okay, thank you. Representative Hinkley. Thank you madam chair thank you amaran. I guess the question I've got at this point also is the information that's being sent to the towns, who actually sends that. And what information is actually sent. Let's say there is a division in the towns are are both maps going to be included. What is it specifically addressed to the BCAs. You know what what what are the answers to some of those questions. So I believe in the past legislative council has served the function of notifying the boards of civil authorities and towns and cities. And in terms of what materials you would like them to have that is is up to you. And what you believe would be important information for them to have when as a basis for them to give you feedback. So we can send I mean we can send as much information and as many details as would be helpful. Yeah, no I appreciate that again just thinking about it from a small town perspective or maybe even a big town but the more specific information regarding the potential for that district alone would be better than swamping them with a whole statewide map you know. Anyway, just just a thought. And first to me that in addition to having the bill language and the two other reference documents that we looked at, you know, by district and by town it would also make sense to have have a blow up of each district that we would send to the district but in the event that the part of the proposal was to divide one of the towns, folks on the ground could see exactly where the lab alternate map, put that line, and you know roughly how many people were included in, you know, for, for instance, you know, how many people in, you know, in, in panel are proposed to go into Bennington one versus into Bennington to to that sort of thing. That way, they can, you know, the communities can try to triangulate from from what census data they have access to, you know, where they might propose putting the line in a different place. And that's what I think the representative Anthony. Thank you Madam Chair, following along a suggestion I had yesterday to create a narrative, as I think representative Higley is suggesting to sort of focus, and the other contribution if you will, since we're going to be holding regional feedback it might be useful to anticipate what the geography of that region is and focus on that region. During the send out so that in essence somebody in the Northeast is not getting a whole bottom bit of narrative and material for the southeastern part of the state because frankly, it would be overkill and irrelevant to that forum. That makes sense because, as we have learned, you know, making a change in one place has that ripple effect of a forcing changes in neighboring districts so representative Leclerc. Thank you madams chair, sorry, just thinking ahead here. I don't know if this question going to be answered with later or not but as far as the feedback to the communities. Let's say that we're working on Madame chairs area over there. Will the communities be given the feedback like in real time. Or are we going to be setting things up or they'll have be able to access it online. And how often will they be able to be allowed feedback on the plans as they evolve. Do we know that. So are you're asking about after we've moved this bill out after we've had our regional hearings and then we begin to adjust and and work in on the final maps. Exactly. Yes, yes. You know, we are going to need to put up, you know, draft maps as we continue to work on on different regions of the state will have to put them up with our committee documents the way we always do. I don't think in the past that there has been any sort of continuous in, you know, like specific email to the town of Bradford or, or, you know, anything else. I think we sort of rely on folks to, to follow the process if they're interested and, you know, unlike 10 years ago or any other time we've ever done redistricting. Anyone who wants to can be in this committee room with us watching every step of the way and, and so that's actually kind of cool and I wonder if it's going to mean that we get more feedback, or if it'll mean that the people are just, you know, sort of comfortable with the process and and, and, and we'll just give targeted feedback. I don't know what to predict. This could be like, this could be like a great tsunami. That makes some sense. So, so the expectation is say if you're dealing with say Bennington, and you're moving around a population block that we're not going to be looking for feedback from that community on a daily basis as to how they think that it should be. We'll make that information available online and then they're going to have to have some initiative to pop on and see what's happened. Yeah, and, and I'm sure that, you know that the representatives the current representatives of any given area of the state will also, you know, will also be in tune with what's going on and and hopefully be able to be that liaison between the community and the House Government Operations Committee. That's why we have a big room for when we get back into the State House Representative Colston. Thank you Madam Chair. I agree with representatives Anthony and Higley that it's going to be really important to get a narrative and and that type of information out ahead. What does this be as this will probably raise questions for for having those questions answered. Is there any thought to that. I don't know anyone want to jump in with a thought on that. Go ahead representative Anthony. I do think there ought to be a specified window. I agree with representative Leclerc that people, we will have to depend on people's initiative of being attentive, if you will, as a particular area of the state evolves. But then there ought to be a sort of window of saying, we will take written comments up until the time we have our hearings. And then it's our obligation essentially to answer the issues that are raised at the hearing point. Then the door closes. I think it has to be that way. Otherwise we'll never get it out by the beginning of April, April, the final proposal. I would suspect that that if we talk with folks who've done this in previous years we'll find that it's not quite as hard and fast as you know this is your window but but there will be an official time, you know that that we want to hear from BC as in this initial round. Representative Higley and and acknowledging that rep Higley is the one of us who's done this process before maybe you've got some thoughts on this. Well again I was looking back at my I did have a folder that I saved believe it or not and it's pretty thick with the letters that did come back from from different towns throughout the process. I will also though at very at the very end of the process. There were actual calls made to towns. Initially set up in a sense through legislators talking with town officials. I'll give you an example it was actually in my district one of the finalized districts was. Okay Troy. The potential is you're going to go completely over with Newport. You can carve out a chunk of Troy or we can carve out a chunk of Troy that will go with Newport. And those are the two options what do you what would you like to do and basically they said hey we don't want to go with Newport would be you know completely. You know out of out of whack in the sense of the size of the town. So they made it a conscious decision to look at a map that we created to chunk out 400 people out of Troy and put it with Newport. So, you know that's that's part of our process at the very end believe it or not that when it came down to some last minute changes that we had to make to get things completely done. We we actually reached out by phone at times to to these town officials, again being set up though in advance by, you know the reps having a meeting with them, talking to them talking to them about the alternatives. All right, ready to jump back in I think we are on page 35 36. Yes, I believe I left off on 36. With just starting Chittenden districts. You'll see Chittenden one is all of Richmond Chittenden two has a portion of Williston the other portion of Williston is in Chittenden seven. Jericho and underhill are within one district. You'll see that Charlotte and a portion of Heinsberg are included in Chittenden for one and then the other portion of Heinsberg is in for two. Chittenden five is St. George and Shelburne, but it is listed with three members noting that there needs to be a division of some sort within this Chittenden five to make it a Chittenden five one and Chittenden five two. Chittenden six is proposed to be all of Burlington and Winnowski which would be a total of 12 members. So that is one of the subdivisions that this committee will need to make with input from boards of civil authority. Similarly for Chittenden seven. This is South Burlington and that portion of Williston that wasn't in Chittenden two for a total of five members again this will need to be broken down into one and two member districts. And then Chittenden eight, it looks like we have some spacing issue here but that will have five members. So once again this would need to break down Essex, or excuse me this would have Essex Westford, a portion of Colchester that's not in Chittenden nine, and then a portion of the town of Milton not included in Chittenden nine or 10. So Chittenden nine again is that portion of Colchester and then a portion of Milton. You'll see Chittenden 10. This is one of the only Chittenden districts that currently just has the two members and in theory would not need to be broken down further. So this is one of Georgia, not included in Franklin one, and a portion of the town of Milton, not included in Chittenden eight or Chittenden nine. I will note that Milton in the LA be able alternate map is divided into three different districts. So I wanted to make a note of that for the committee. Moving down Essex, Caledonia contains all whole towns. Caledonia and Orleans also has whole towns or gores also in this instance. And then we move into the Franklin districts. You'll see as I noted previously in my intro, there is no Franklin to listed here that is because what was Franklin to the two towns that were previously Franklin to or maybe was one town has since been divided and moved into different districts meaning that there is no Franklin to contemplated at the moment, at least in the formulation that you're used to looking at. So this has, I would say for all of the Franklin districts, you'll see there is a division of at least one town. But these all. And I will note that St. Albans City and portion of St. Albans town are within Franklin three. This would need to be subdivided into a either three one member districts or at least one two member district and one one member district. Moving down to page 39 of Grand Isle. Grand Isle South hero and a portion of North hero. And then Grand Isle Franklin has the other portion of North hero, as well as a portion of Swanton that is not included in Franklin for for the lamoille districts. You see that Stowe is proposed to be divided between lamoille one and lamoille Washington. However, lamoille two and three have whole towns within them. Oh yes and then you see the portion of Stowe is in the lamoille Washington. Moving into the orange districts for orange one to one and two. You have whole towns within those districts. Also whole towns within orange Caledonia and orange Washington. I'm now on page 40. Moving into the Orleans counties Orleans one and two consists of whole towns Orleans to which is a Orleans to one and two to our two one member districts, but you'll see that new port is divided between these two districts and Orleans to one has a portion that is not included down in Orleans lamoille district. And then Orleans three is that consists of whole towns. Moving down into Rutland, Rutland Bennington has a division of wells, and then additional whole towns. Rutland one has the other portion of wells, as well as Ira and polny. Rutland two has whole towns plus a portion of Mount Holly, which is other what the remainder of Mount Holly would be in Rutland Windsor to Rutland three. One and three to is whole towns Castleton Benson Fairhaven and West Haven. Rutland four is a portion of Rutland town that's not included in Rutland five and a portion of Mendon that's not included in Rutland Windsor one is a one member district. So for Rutland five you'll see this is all of Rutland city, as well as that small portion of Rutland town not included in Rutland four. So this presently is listed as a four member district and will need to be subdivided. Rutland six and Rutland seven are districts with whole towns. Rutland Windsor Bridgewater Killington Stockbridge and then that town of Mendon that was not included in Rutland four. And I will note again that if you are looking at just how much of a portion is proposed to being moved out you can look at that house reference key where it lists by town and it will show you the breakdown of how many individuals from each town are in one district to be in one district and another. So in some instances it looks like maybe this is a town being divided. But if you look at the house key you'll see that perhaps the proposal is just to carve out a few census blocks in order to bring up the deviation or bring down the deviation in a particular district. Rutland Windsor to Ludlow. Here's the other portion of Mount Holly that wasn't included in Rutland to and Shrewsbury. That concludes the Rutland related districts, now moving into Washington districts, we have whole towns or cities for all of the Washington districts, moving down into page 42 now. And that goes all the way down through Washington Chittenden as well as Washington Orange. And then looking at the Wyndham counties, you'll see Wyndham one is whole towns, Wyndham two is Brattleboro, but that is listed as a district with three members and will need to be subdivided. Wyndham three and four have whole towns. Wyndham five only has a portion of Marlboro. Another portion of Marlboro is in Wyndham six. Moving on to page 43 Wyndham Bennington County and Wyndham Bennington Windsor counties are whole towns. Windsor one only has a portion of Windsor that's not included in the Windsor Wyndham County. Windsor two and three are whole towns. Windsor Wyndham Athens Grafton and again that portion of Windsor not included in Windsor one. The remaining Windsor Windsor related counties on this page all have whole towns that's Windsor four Windsor five Windsor Orange one Windsor Orange two. And then Windsor Addison Rutland moving on to page 44. So that completes the list of towns for all of these districts, then, which that comprises section one of this bill, section two of this bill, as you may recall from our review of the statutory provisions. There is both contemplated a two bill process this being the first bill, and then a window of time where cities and towns are provided the opportunity to propose how they would like to subdivide those three or more member districts from this bill. We were looking at Bennington, Burlington South Burlington, Rutland City, those that will need to be subdivided in order to meet the constitutional constitutional requirements of one or two member districts. The boards of civil authority by statute typically have until April 1 to provide that feedback to you. However, you have not had the opportunity of having months of receiving feedback about any of these districts. And not being able to have looked at the census data on time this year so I lost my train of thought so the so currently the by statute the date is April 1. However, if you are looking to complete your work in advance of that date or looking to have a final version of the districts before April 1 then that deadline in statute would need to be moved. So section two would require that if boards of civil authority want to propose a division of initial districts, they need to submit those proposals to the clerk on before January 21 2022. I will note that we went back and spoke with the house clerk and looked through the house clerk files and we were not able to find that a formal proposal for subdivision was made in the last two reapportionment cycles. So we do have records of the of this committee reaching out to all of the boards of civil authority and boards and towns to request specific feedback. So it sounds like rather than going through the formal proposal of subdivision to the house clerk. Cities and towns have instead primarily worked through this committee as to see how those subdivisions should go. And lastly, the effective date of this bill would be upon passage. Excellent replica Claire has a question. Thank you madam chair so amaran. If we just jump back up to say Wyndham. I think that's on page 43. Yes. Is there a written description for the part of Windsor that's not included in Windsor one, or is that just based on the existing map that we're using now and how that played out mathematically. So if there is a couple thoughts on that. I do not have a written description of where the line is we have a map from the lab alternate alternate map as to where that that line would be. And I do not. I am. I'm hopeful that some of the description of these proposed changes will be in the reports that this committee is receiving from the legislative apportionment board. Maybe that your answer is addressed in there. I do not have a description at this moment. So currently we don't have one but there's an expectation that there will be something coming along adding some clarity. I believe there is typically not a meets and bounds but there is at least an explanation as to the purpose of why the division is being made. Thank you. And we have all morning tomorrow with the chair of the legislative apportionment board and so Tom little will. He doesn't have both of the narratives completed, he will, he will have quite a bit of those narratives done I think they were really scrambling to get them done and and the legislative apportionment board will provide narratives for both their adopted map and the alternate map. And I think that's one of the things that I think is really important and I think that's one of the things from which people can understand, you know, what how many people from one community and, you know, the line follows, you know, the Saxons river or whatever. And that descriptor I think will be very valuable to the communities as they give us feedback. Representative Anthony. Thank you. And we're in use the phrase by April 1. And then said, we had to change. Amend that I thought if the language actually says by, we would be able to set a date for our expected receipt of items before April 1 or am I missing something. I think the way to do the way to accomplish that as far as I understand is to not withstand the April 1 and say that instead by January 21. Is that is that accurate. Yes. Yes. Just for to be really explicit about it and not leave it floating so to say. Representative Pigley. Thank you madam chair this is a question that and maybe we'll have the secretary of state's office in as well but I'm assuming there's possibly some legislation that we can pass that might give us a little more time. As far as what the secretary state is is considering. And then looking at maybe, you know how two years ago, we didn't require signatures for folks that we're going to run. I just, and maybe, maybe we can reach out to the secretary of state's office in advance to see what some of those things might be but if we're really in a time crunch here there might be a few things like that that we can put into place that would that would help. Yeah, I understand what you're getting at the conversations that I've had with the secretary of state's office so far are really, really urging us to to aim for that beginning of April to do the final passage of this plan. And, and the reason for that is really just working backwards from the date of the primary, because obviously, you know, you've got the primary, the voting window for the primary starts 45 days ahead of that ballots need to be mailed 45 days ahead of that and and that is to comply with the requirements of being able to get ballots to folks serving in the military overseas right that's that's the 45 day window that allows time for a ballot to get to some military base and back, so that not disenfranchising folks who are serving in the military. And then from from the 45 days when the ballots need to be mailed, obviously the ballots have to be formulated and printed and candidates need to know what district they live in so that they know what district they're filing to run in. And so that's what gets us back to the beginning of April. And, you know, I mean it's, it is what it is and I will certainly check in with the secretary of state's office and see if they can come and and help us understand their thinking on that. Other questions. All right, so folks do we want to do we want to look together at at either of the other documents. I mean they are pretty self explanatory but when I don't want to. I don't want to assume that folks are comfortable with how to read them unless we've done a little bit of work on them. All right. So committee. Let's open this up for a little bit of committee discussion I think that. Actually, before we do committee discussion. I think, Nick, you have a couple other documents up here for today so if you could. If you could just orient us to the documents that that you've created and posted for today. Certainly madam chair be happy to. I'm going to share my screen your permission. Okay. Okay, great so let's start with. The 2010 boundaries this is the first map that we were discussing and everyone see this by the way. Hang on just a moment I think we need Andrea as the host to make you. Of course, make you co host unfortunately I'm co host which puts me second on the totem pole and I can't give you screen share. All right yes we can see your map now. Okay, excellent so this map is a just a new version of the same one we were looking at yesterday so same data just a different visualization. This has the 2010 Vermont house districts with our new population totals from the 2020 census. And this these insets for the urban areas are available in the following pages so it's a three page document full page map on the front one. And then following two pages are inset details of various urban areas. Let's see. So this and the next map that we're about to get to are both available on the committee web page for download as PDFs. The second one that I prepared is the lab alternative redistricting plan the one this is the map that we is a visualization of essentially the bill that we've just been discussing that Amaran has been leading us through. So, as we've been talking about where the meets and bounds are or are not actually written out. This can help provide some visual reference for where those lines might fall, and will eventually be described. Although, just to be clear, this is of course the lab's proposal and not anything binding. So, these. Yes, these should help folks orient themselves as to where some of the what these boundaries as proposed look like. Any questions representative Ganon. Thank you, Madam, Madam Chair. I was taking a quick look at my own district or the new wind them six which, you know, hopefully I'll get reelected but you never know. It has part of reeds borough in it and I don't believe that's consistent with the alternative proposal in the legislation, or what we heard testimony on yesterday from Jeannie Albert. I believe when the new wind them six district includes Wilmington, Whitingham, Halifax and part of Marlborough. I see that too. Yeah, that's somewhat odd. This is again this is the map that I was the map using the data I was provided with directly from lab's. So there may be some some discrepancy and what that what how that was drafted maybe I got an older draft or something like that. But that can be addressed. Okay, I mean, you know, confusing this is, I mean, having accurate maps I think it's really important, especially as other members outside of our committee start to take a look at this. Because people freak out. Yeah, especially if there's somebody who represents the neighboring district who sees that they're that they're being moved into your district. Representative Lefebvre. Yeah, this was the map that I was looking at all day yesterday. So I know it's not. I don't know if it's the one that was the original thought for 2010 and then we just put the 2020 numbers like over it. The alternative but this was the one that I got confused with yesterday so I know it's not the one that we actually are being. So that map is it keeps coming up because I had it all day yesterday. Yeah, it your I think you're right repli fave I think that this is one of the earlier versions of the lab alternative map, because the one of the earlier versions had Williams town and orange in the district and I see that that's what you're looking for. The final version that Jeannie Albert went over with us yesterday had had orange in the district with Berry town I think is that correct. Yeah. So yeah, we may need to, we may need to just double check that that we're getting the right version of that map up. Representative Anthony. Yeah just I think you've already said it I want to emphasize that Miss Albert should be the person who signs off and says okay this is the most up to date version of the alternate map period, get rid of the rest, because it's just confusing. Yeah. All right, any other questions or Nick anything else you want to orient us to for documents that you've brought today. There's nothing I apologize for any any error I'll look into that after this committee meeting and make sure that that is that gets addressed. But other than that I don't think there's anything that I need to present. Is there are any other questions that that I can help answer. Thank you Madam Chair, I was going to say if with the committee's permission it would be great if Nick and I could work with Jeannie Albert if she's available over the next day just to confirm that I had a similar issue with the with the bill draft I had to redo some of it last night because I found that I had had an old version somewhere mixed in with one district and then had to reshuffle a bunch. And certainly want to make sure that both the bill draft descriptions of towns and districts as well as the map are as accurate as possible and with the committee's permission. I'd love to for Nick and I to be able to work with her and make sure that this is the way it should be. Absolutely. Please and thank you because I think if if we intend to give the communities. You know the most helpful information for them to respond to we're going to want to also create regional insets, you know, blow ups of of a particular district with its surrounding districts so that communities know how to make helpful feedback representative Anthony. Maybe it's self evident but I'd like to say it when we do craft the regional narratives and and I think that's a great idea not to compliment myself but anyway, if we conceive of where we're going to call a region a region for public input purposes. I think it's incumbent on us to shine a particular flashlight on any of the districts that now have to be subdivided. So, and there's several around Bennington. Chittenden County Burlington and have a particular paragraph narratives saying, this is really important we really want you to focus on the fact that we have eight representatives in Burlington and we can't do that. We have to know what you want in terms of numbers of twos and ones. That's what the Constitution demands and, and sort of press them to be very explicit where we know it's going to five is going to have to be divided into two twos and a one, or three ones and a two. Thanks. Yeah, I believe that we will all find valuable the narrative that the legislative apportionment board is creating. So I'm going to go off screen chair. So we can come back to committee there we go now I can see all of you. Representative Higley. Thank you madam chair, madam chair I just wanted to share with folks the file that I actually found. And these are these are some of the letters. Kind of Lincoln. Very one page. This is from Colchester, like five pages that even has an actual map where they created, you know, some of the lines. I can know a lot of towns in their comments basically just said, you know, we like the district we're currently in we want to stay that way. And of course, you know that, that in a lot of cases wasn't, wasn't reasonable or, or wouldn't wouldn't happen in the end. The other thing is, and this is where Nick's really going to come into play is. This is an example of one of the maps. This is H and H I don't know if this was Higley and Hubert or wherever. But, you know, we took an area came up with with a new mapping and would come back to the committee and go over it. And, you know, this is, it's just it's just amazing the amount of maps that were created but just thought I'd share that the other. The other thing I guess I'm thinking about. In regards to getting some information out there. Do you think it would be a good idea to create an email for all house members in regards to, excuse me, sending out maybe the alternative map. The house reference key map for sorted by districts and sorted by town would help give people a little bit of a heads up to look at, I mean I've been trying to do that on my own but I'm just wondering if it might alleviate some of the questions and fears, if and when it does come to the floor. Right, so you're suggesting that that we should really highlight this, this resource for folks right now so that they can, so that they can just know in more fine grain detail what exactly we're talking about. Right, and actually I've done that with some actually sending them the, the, in particular, again, the, the alternative map sorted by district, and then sorted by town so that they can actually, you know, take a look themselves that Oh wow, you know, this is this is what it means this is where the divisions are right now and. I just think it might be helpful to get that information out there and, and let them, let them consume it at their at their own rate and possibly answer some questions in advance of a big floor debate. Right, right. I think to that point. I think it's a very big and it's a very good one that there's going to be a high degree of anxiety on the part of on the part of sitting members, you know, like what, what does this all mean for my district. But I think for the purposes of what's on our committee page we need to make sure that we either relabel the the incorrect maps as you know as earlier versions or. Or in some way, cordon off so that if somebody's just simply going to our documents page they, they have a set of documents and reference keys that that we are absolutely certain correspond to the bill that we're going to try to move so maybe, maybe Amron and Nick and Andrea can can double check that and make sure that we have. You know, a set of information that people can access, because we don't want them to have the experience that replica did yesterday and looking at a map that does to completely different things to, you know, to her district. And then, you know, I guess I would also just say again to us in this committee and ask you to share with your, with your colleagues on the floor that this is, this is simply a starting point from which we will get feedback there's about this, this initial starting point that that is in any way an indication of what the final map might look like. It's simply a tool to get us to the point where we're able to get feedback from the boards of civil authority. And, and to do that in a timely manner. And Mark I really appreciate you sharing all of the, the various kinds of feedback and resources it's it's really valuable that we have access to sort of see how that was done 10 years ago because you know, some communities will submit a map other communities will do a paragraph as I think you showed Lincoln was really short and cold Chester had a lot to say so. And that's, that's where I'm, that's where this starts this process starts to get really real when we, when we get into the point of getting feedback from communities representative LeClaire. Thank you, Madam Chair. And I'm not looking to make a complicated process more complicated, but I have heard a couple comments made that somehow that this alternative map was going to be the one that would be the basis for our conversations going forward and I do want to point out that this was not the one that was passed by the lab board. And the other one. I believe deserves as much due diligence and differences we've given this one at least some time along this process, obviously sooner than later. I appreciate that perspective, and we will. We'll take a deeper dive into that again, although we have once with with Tom little in December. Any other questions with respect to the map and reference keys that we've been looking at so far this morning. All right. So I have invited Deputy Secretary of State Chris Winters to come and join us because we've, we've had a few questions and committee and Chris welcome and thank you for being here. And just to orient you, everybody's feeling a little bit stressed about the prospect of trying to get this project done by the beginning of April and, and in fact, you know, maybe, maybe rep Higley if you want to repeat your question because I don't do a poor job of repeating it but but Chris is here and available to have a chat with us so rep Higley why don't you go ahead and and ask your question. Thank you Madam Chair. Again, because of the crunch and having 10 years ago gotten so much further along. I'm concerned about making sure we do our due diligence in responding to towns and and doing the work we need to do and just would ask the Secretary of State's line line maybe for a written out timeline it's always it's hard for me to keep it straight in my head you went through it. I appreciate that. There's a timeline for printing ballots and mailing out ballots and so on so forth but again if there's anything we can do. Legislatively in advance to give us a little more time or help out individuals that are that are considering a run. I appreciate knowing that as to what we can do and again I mentioned. Regarding not having to. You know collect names on a petition not having to file a petition when running again, whether or not that would save a little bit of time if we're not even sure quite when we're going to know what district where we're going to be in. What about it I guess. Thank you rep Higley for the question and thank you Madam chair for inviting me to testify today good to see everyone. So, if you if you go to the August primary and work backward from there. Some of the timeline comes into focus and we'd be happy to put this in writing for the committee to help clarify things I think that would be helpful. Looking at an early August primary backing up the 45 days that we are required to send ballots out to overseas and military voters and make early voting. Available that puts you somewhere at the end of June and I and again I can put precise dates to these on paper. But if you're looking at you're looking at the end of June to get those ballots in the hands of town clerks and sent overseas in some instances. So backing up from there, we in the Secretary of State's office have to have to create and provide. It's a big number like 275 different ballot styles, so that you have the right candidates for each district in the state and of course you can't do that until you know what the districts look like. So backing up from the end of June, the, we need we need a good amount of time to prepare those ballots, the candidate nominating petitions are by statute do. And don't quote me on these dates exactly but I think it's between April 25 and May 26 is when candidates can file. Giving, you know, using that end date of about May 26, that gives us about a month to prepare those ballots and know who has filed to run and to get all those 275 ballot styles correct. And in the hands of town clerks printed and in the hands of town clerks so that that's the 30 day window that that we like to have for that the candidate filing. We have about that 30 days as well that backs you up to April 25 for when that starts. So that's why we've been saying early April. For the legislature to have its work done for candidates to know what their districts are going to look like it's not as much of a problem for statewide candidates but county and town and local. They would need to know before April 25 when that candidate filing window begins now we have talked a little bit about perhaps you could narrow the candidate filing window we wouldn't want to do that too much it's a 30 day window right now. Perhaps there's wiggle room for a week or two in there. That's something that's been floated. We haven't, you know, thoroughly thought that through but there's a spot where maybe you could gain a little bit of time. And that answers your question as to why we're looking at early April, backing up from an early August primary, and the timelines are really tight, obviously not ideal, the census, being late through this all out of whack and we're all doing this in in as quick a manner as we can without giving short for the thoroughness that we need to do to make sure we get this done right. I appreciate that Chris and and I did hear about, you know, the possibility of that two week window from, you know, April 25 to May 26 now and you know might be it might be a consideration again. I'm not sure how that would affect a lot of folks cutting that down from that 30 days but it could help us out. Thank you, Madam Chair. Good morning, Mr. Deputy Secretary of State nice haircut. Thank you. Is it my understanding Chris that a fair amount of what we're having to contend with here is is basically federal statute. As far as primary dates and you know the 45 days is that primarily federal. Overseason military voters yes. Okay. Do you know if anything's being done at the federal level to have some conversations around this because I can't imagine Vermont that we're the only ones that are feeling a lot of pressure to get this done, and this is a very heavy lift. And I can't believe that everybody would be so naive to think that things are going to happen so quickly and so precisely that we're going to hit every target date. It's a good question representative look there I haven't looked into it but I will. I don't know exactly what the, you know, the primary dates are in other states, and whether Vermont is maybe on the early end of that. But there may be some that are earlier I can, I can take a look into that for you and report back to. I have a quick comment here and that you know guess we're working towards the April 1 state understand the importance of that, but it would be helpful I think if we had some recommendations from you folks is to some things that we could tweak a little bit to even buy an extra few days of need because I don't know what to say if we get to that, you know, we're close to the end of March, and we still have a lot left to do. What do we do. Thank you. Thank you. Well clearly we just stopped taking lunch breaks and we work harder. I feel that way to representative Anthony. Go ahead with your question. Thank you madam chair, following on on representative LaClaire. It seems to me that the federal is a window for primaries and as we all know if you're running as an independent you don't have to worry about that I'm just wondering if the primary that the selected date for can be moved to the end or outer edge of the window, thus giving instead of waving at the front end the signature or any of those process, move the primary back as far as it can be, unless there's some sort of congressional dispensation that we don't know about yet. In essence, we don't have to front load the spring so much as we're we're running up against or buying some more time in the summer for preparation for primary and balloting and return a military balance. It seems to me either end you, you could gain some weeks either way. Thanks. Thanks representative Anthony I think I heard the term used earlier the domino effect. If you move the primary. That's going to affect the general one of the reasons that we move the legislature move the primary back in the first place was ballot creation. And again meeting that 45 day window for the general election. We didn't have enough time to do that we were sued by the DOJ. There are ripple effects there as well. If you try to move the date of the primary itself in affecting ballot creation and getting ready for the general election in November. Secretary condos welcome thank you for joining us this morning and I really appreciate your flexibility in popping in at the at the very moment that we're covering these topics. We are, we are, are covering at this moment, all of the legislative language necessary to move out an initial draft map for the purpose of trying to expedite feedback from the communities about how to draw a final map and we've been exploring some of the concerns about this tight timeline that we are on because of the census delay and so these, these conversations are really around, can we sneak any time out from the, the end of this process in order to buy us more time here with the maps. So welcome, I'll let you say any remarks you want to although your deputy secretary has covered it very well. Thank you. And welcome back committee. We're in. It's an interesting time for us all I think we. So, I think when, when this thing first started in March of 2020 when the governor locked down the state and went into an emergency order. I don't think any of us thought it was going to be more than four or six or eight weeks that we were going to be in this pandemic and here we are almost two years later. This is what's going on with with the redistricting and the time deadlines everything hinges on November 8 that's the general election, and you have to back up for each phase of it going backwards. And for instance, so you have general election is November 8 early voting and overseas and military voting starts September 26. The overseas and military September 26 can't be changed because that's a federal issue. It can't be changed so ballots have to be in the hands of the clerks on or before September 26. The last day for party nominations is August 19 after the primary, the statewide canvas is on August 16. The primary of course is August 9. The last day for independent and minor party is August 4. And then we start to back up again early voting and overseas and military is June 25. The last day for filing of by major party candidates is May 26, then the first day to file as candidate petitions is April 25. In reality, the only place you could really pick up any time would be perhaps to shorten the window for filing of candidate petitions from four weeks to say two weeks. Instead of April 25, it would be sometime the first week or so of May, that would give at least two weeks to major party candidates to file their, their petitions for the May 26. A lot of this also hinges, you know, you, you, you look at obey May 26 to June 25. There's a lot of time there. Well, that's four weeks. And keep in mind that our elections team, which is the smallest in the state in the country has those four weeks to create design create proof, send to the printers get back the proofs from the printers, making sure everything is correct with the right districts and all that and the right names the right spellings everything else. So we have a very short window of four weeks to do to right now it's 275 different ballot designs. And if you go to single member districts. That would increase the 275 we're not, we don't even know what it would be at this point but it would probably be somewhere north of 300 independent distinct ballots that have to be designed, and then shipped to the print the to the to the internal clerks. So we, we, we have a four week window to get all that work done to get those ballots, the right ballot into the right clerks hands to make sure that they they are ready to go. We really don't have a lot of time. And, and like I said, the only place you could really gain would be to shorten the window for filing of candidate petitions, but that's only going to gain you two weeks. I've discussed, if you go to single member districts, and I'm not advocating one way or the other, but if you go to single member districts. There's also additional cost placed on our office on the election system, because there's an increase in number of districts that have to be printed, all that, that has to be done so. So I, you know, I guess I know that Chris has talked to you, you know, in 2012 Vermont was sued by the Department of Justice for ballots being sent out late. Let me describe what late was just so you understand where the Department of Justice takes this. The 4045th day is Saturday. We sent out 150 out of 800 ballots on Monday, the following Monday two days later by email. And the Department of Justice said they didn't care that was late and they sued us in federal court over that. And representative again and I think you'll appreciate this but most, most first, first year lawyers understand that if a, if a deadline day falls on a holiday or weekend. It's the next business day and that was the approach that Vermont had always taken. Well, the Department of Justice in the area of voting says no, we go with the day before. So that's why you back up to the 46th day, even though the statute only says the 45th day. So anyway, that's, that's the situation. Nothing. You know, once the suit was filed, we, we settled on a consent decree with the Department of Justice within seven days. And we move forward but that was when we moved the primary from the fourth Tuesday of August to the second Tuesday of August. So anyway, that's, that's where we are. And I know that Chris has explained some of this I didn't get the message shot. I didn't see the email until just before I signed on but that's where that's where you are. The other piece I want to add to this because I've heard some folks, not here I haven't heard it here but I've heard some folks say well maybe we could just wave petition signatures and we're the issue with that was the ones that were raised last year. When we, when we asked this was, well we're going to get a whole lot of people that are going to file and truth be told, we had 20 candidates for president of the United States. That takes up space on the on the ballot and if we, I'm not against having more people on the ballot, but what I'm saying is, if in a year when you're going to have a lot of open seats, whether it be legislative or statewide or federal. There's a potential for an awful lot of folks to file and if they don't have to have petitions of some sort, then it becomes an increasing number. So anyway, that's where I am. Thank you, Secretary condos I appreciate that and, and I think it's worth acknowledging that at the beginning of the pandemic we, we didn't know as much about the modes of transmission of coven as we do now and so the airborne transmission as opposed to as, as much concern about somebody handing a clipboard and collecting signatures representative the Hovsky. The signature question actually was going to be my question if we shorten that window to two weeks for some of these offices that's an awfully short time to collect the amount of signatures that you need so I was going to ask about the potential if we shorten that time, you know, is it possible to to wave signatures just thinking about the variety of people running for a variety of offices that's a really short window if you're someone who's working and that needs to collect hundreds of signatures as well. Well, first of all, legislators don't have to collect hundreds of signatures you only have to collect 50 in the house and 100 in the Senate. The six statewide positions and the three federal or in this case this year will be two federal positions have to have 500. So those are the those are the amounts of signatures that are required. I think everybody is expecting that that the coven transmissions will be much reduced by April. In fact, most of the experts I've been seeing and watching have been saying that they expect this peak to be in the next couple weeks, and then this decline to start to happen. Is that going to happen, we don't know. But I think it's, it's more important to have the signature filings for the general and the primary, essentially for minor and, and for the minor of a major party candidates that it is otherwise because really what the signatures are supposed to be signifying to you are the strength of that candidacy that that that person has some support from around the state. If it's, you know, if you have 500 signatures, you're pretty much going to get signatures from almost every county if you have, if you only need 50 signatures as in a state house race, you only need to get them from your district. So I think things will be a lot different by April than they are now everything will will start to be outside and whatever. Again, this is a legislative decision it's not my decision to make. I'm just, I'm here to just tell you what the impacts might be as as we go down the line here. And I think that the waving of signatures, I do find it ironic that this year. Last year there was a lot of pushback on both sides about waving of signatures. This year it seems like people are starting to push for waving of signatures so anyway, I just wanted to say that. Can I just ask a quick follow up. If it just so I hear you're really focused on something like the federal and the statewide seats would we be able to hold those like keep those signatures and wave other signatures or would it have to be just across the board either they're waived or they're not. I think Amron would be the one that, you know, it's a it's a question of the law and if, if the legislature were to pass the law that says statewide legislative candidates do not have to file. And then, and then the statewide do that would be your, your discretion I mean it would be the legislature would have to pass that. So would that from your perspective of sort of crowding the ballot do you think that would solve that problem. Not really I think I think I think I think that if you, if you wave the signatures on legislative seats you probably going to have a lot more people who are running, then, then you would normally have. That's not a bad thing to get more people involved don't get me wrong, but I think you need to understand the impacts of the waving of signatures so anyway. And has there been any further exploration to electronic signature collection, I know that that was a discussion last year as well but I don't know where it land or two years ago but I don't know where it landed. We have not done anything further than that on that because basically with our small team of elections people we, we've been really focused on, we've got new tabulators coming. We had to focus on the mail in vote last year. We just didn't have any time and so anyway, all I can say is that no we don't, we haven't done anything in that area that regard as far as moving towards it, and it would really be too late to capture. And the, and I do representative the host get I want to make sure that I'm clear people. You could still send out a petition to an email list, but ask them to fill it out and mail it back to you. We don't require the permanent, the original signature we don't, we don't go. I mean, we don't because we don't have anything in law right now that's that's part of it but there's nothing that says you can't send something out to someone. I know I've done it I've sent it to party chairs around the state and said, if you can pass this along at your committee meetings. I appreciate it then mail it back to me at my address and, and, you know, I've done that before so the problem you have and the reason why we settle on April 1 as, as that deadline, and really this is more I think I don't want to send it but I think it's more important impacting on the on the house because of sheer numbers of representatives versus the senators and trying to come up with the final plan is that that the, the legislature needs to try to move this as quickly as possible, and not just pass it out in the house to the Senate, but pass it out of the house and the Senate and get it to the governor's desk. Because then you only have three weeks until that the first deadline representative Higley. Thank you, Madam chair, thank you, Secretary condos. Again, we're not in a presidential year, which I think is a good thing. I am concerned about extending the timeline. I know 10 years ago, the final bill was passed by the House and Senate on April 27, I believe the governor signed it I think the first of May, somewhere in there. I don't see a big problem with cutting right now if we can if we can gain two weeks. And I, and a question would be, you know, now rather than later to give people enough advanced notice but a two week decrease in that filing petition date from April 25 to May 26. I don't think would be a problem in my mind but again, I, and knowing what we went through 10 years ago and coming up with that final on that date that there was a lot of work in there. And again, we're behind the eight ball this year. So that's that's my comments. And thank you representative Higley I do want to say that, and I want to be clear that the filing period for petitions. You don't have to collect your signatures during that period you only have to file with us during that period. So, once you have your districts set. People can go out and start I mean if if we knew this, if you knew your districts right now, you could go out and get signatures right now. And just the filing period is shortened up to four weeks, and you could shorten that up to two weeks. That would not be an issue either. So, we had this I think we had this discussion when we went when we moved this and shortened it to four weeks so it. That's not on that's that that's doable. And I think that, you know, it's something that you want to pick up a couple weeks. The problem is, don't get a false sense of security that that means you can delay getting a bill passed for two more weeks. You still have to get it through the House and the Senate and get it signed by the governor and then then the parties have to recruit candidates and people have to go out and get signatures. Yes. So this is an important conversation to have so that we can be thinking about what we might want to have in our back pocket to to buy ourselves some time later on I in my mind it doesn't change the urgency of needing to get this initial bill out so that communities can start the process of giving us official feedback. We're representative of Claire. Thank you madam chair and good morning Mr Secretary State and I just want to say that I appreciate your comment about the fact that the House does very thorough and the majority of the work compared to the Senate. I do agree with that. And the last question is just briefly though is because it is an off year as far as it's a non presidential election. How much of a change in work for I guess your office and others out there. Would you say you could expect Jim doesn't mean does it change that dramatically or you still have to print the same number of ballots regardless of who's on them. And certainly there isn't a whole lot of change because the as far as these dates because in a presidential year the presidential primary is town meeting day. And then we know, we know what's going to happen after that so that that is basically set to the, to the statewide, or to the general election, once that happens. So we have to deal with this is independent and minor party additions at that point so it's really not that much. I mean and again the presidential we had 20 this past year we had 20, 20 candidates that were listed or 20 teams that were listed. So, it just, it makes for a lengthier ballot and then if you start looking as representative Hooper knows you look at the Burlington ballot for JPs. And there's, you know, pick 15, and you're picking 15 out of about 65 names that are on that ballot. They take up almost the whole backside of the ballot just just for their names. It's not, it's not a, I wouldn't say that there's a great reduction this year for the primary and the general election, we will have new tabulators brought out to the, to the town clerks that for the districts that use tabulators. So we do have some training that we have to do this summer, prior to the statewide primary, but that will be in addition to some of the other issues. Anyway, I hope that answers the question. Thank you. And by the way, I do want to add, because both representative Higley and representative Leclerc raised the issue actually I raised it about the Senate versus the House. I was in the Senate and I was a member of the Senate redistricting team in 2001 and two, and we did not get the final plan out and Deputy Secretary Chris Winters knows this because he was the director for OPR, but we did not get the plan out and finalize it until I think it was June 13 that year. The legislature, the Senate held the OPR bill as the last bill that needed to be passed so that they could attach the redistricting bill to that. And so that's where that went, but that's just an aside. It's fascinating holding the OPR bill hostage. I bet that puts you on the hot seat. Representative Lefave. Thank you Madam Chair and thank you Mr condos. So I just had a procedural question so I have been approached by many people running for statewide or higher office collecting signatures now because regardless of what we do, they won't change. The state will still remain the state. But what happens if someone wanted to go out and start collecting signatures now because there's more than 50 people in every town. Just to get ahead of the game, because you're at least are going to have your hometown, but for those hometowns that are divided. Are you guys going to make people sign like what street they live on to make sure they're on the right side of the districts or just thinking forward that way. So, you're right about the statewide's the statewide's could start collecting right now. Because their district is the state of Vermont. So that's that's correct the statewide's are all set in terms of this. It's the, it's the Senate and the House districts, depending on what you guys do with those districts, because if you it's and it's not our office that checks those it's it's the the district clerks that will check those addresses, and they do have to check to see if someone is living within that district. So they're going to be they're going to probably be checking at that point to make sure that the person so if, if for instance one side of the street is in one district and the other side of the street is in another district, you can't count the ones that are in the wrong district to that person. So, and, and if you start if someone said well I'm, I'm pretty safe so I'm going to go ahead and start collecting now, but the district name and number changes that that negates you can't just cross it out and put the correct district on it you have to, you have to go out and get a new petition started so that's why it's important to get the districts set in place. And, and having been through this twice before I do know that the that ledge council has to, they have to verbally describe each of the districts to put into statute. They have to do it in words. It's easy to do it on a map. Try putting it in words. Thank you yeah we saw some of that today at a very high level of just you know this part of town or this town, not part of this map. I was just trying to put it on record and for people that might be trying to jump ahead that the state, you know if you're running for a statewide office that you're good to get your signatures because that just has the town that you reside in not your, you know, specific street but if you are in a town don't assume you're safe, because your town could be divided into between rivers and valleys. So thank you. Okay just one more thing, Timothy Hovskie Thank you, changing that subject a little bit. Secretary condos you said that if we went to all single member districts there would be an increase in cost for your office do you by any chance have even a rough estimate of what the increasing cost for each additional district would be. No. Okay. will be in time involved as well but keep in mind we have to send this stuff to the printers and the printers have to set up their systems to be able to print each of the ballots and then mail it out to the district clerk. Yeah no it certainly makes sense that there would be an increase in cost. I was just trying to get a sense of every additional district costs what but you don't know so thank you. We haven't we haven't even tried to calculate that. Representative Higley. Thank you Madam Chair. Secretary Kondos I had mentioned it maybe before you came on and it looks like Deputy Secretary Winters is going to provide it for us but I would like to have that timeline that I believe you were reading from as well presented to us if we could get it because it's hard for me. I've written it down again but I certainly would like to look at what you're looking at so that I can explain it to other other reps so appreciate that. That's one of the reasons why I was late getting on I was actually preparing that timeline so I could recite it to you folks so I've got it right here and I can send it to Andrea and then she can distribute it to the rest of you. Thank you very much. That would be very helpful. Committee members any other questions for the fine folks from the Secretary of State's office? All right Chris and Jim thank you so much for being very responsive this morning and jumping in and answering questions for us. You're welcome. Thanks for your work. All right so committee let's take a 15 minute break at this point and we'll come back at 11 for some good morning. You are back with the Vermont House Government Operations Committee. We have been doing some work this morning on the initial redistricting bill and coming back for a little bit of committee discussion for committee members who haven't refreshed their agenda. I have added Tucker Anderson to our agenda this afternoon at one o'clock to go over the town meeting bill. I hear from the Senate that they will be voting it out when they go on to the floor this afternoon at one and we'll be suspending rules to message it over to us so that we can make quick work of it. And so I wanted Tucker to get in this afternoon to familiarize us with what is in the bill so that we can hopefully make really quick work on that and turn it around. We don't have a floor session planned in the house until Friday and so I've been in contact with the Speaker's Office about how that is going to work in terms of the bill being assigned to us and then how quickly we can turn around and send it back out. Anyone have questions about the town meeting bill? Brett Marwicky. Thank you. Given what you've just said is the earliest timeline then that we get the bill introduce it on Friday and then we could vote it out next Tuesday? Or is there another way? That is one possible timeline. There are other possible timelines. If, for instance, the Speaker wanted to take a 15-minute recess off the floor of the house after it's been assigned to us and give us time to do our official vote on it, that gives us the rest of the day today and all day tomorrow to familiarize ourselves with it and I think that we have plenty of folks that we can hear from and we will hear from tomorrow. Well actually I think we have them on the schedule for Friday but depending on how we do at moving our initial redistricting plan we might be able to bump some of this town meeting bill consideration to tomorrow and I guess I would just invite folks to tell me how deep a dive do you feel you need to go in terms of hearing from every single entity who's going to come in and tell us this is really important to get out before towns need to warn their town meetings. Sarah I haven't looked at the Senate bill but is it much different than what we passed last year? I think it is largely the same with the exception of adding that clarification that communities can't use Australian ballot to choose to do Australian ballot forever and ever. In other words communities who before the pandemic still had an in-person town meeting have to go to an in-person meeting in order to decide to do their business in a different format and I think everything else about it is largely the same as we saw last year with giving towns the flexibility to go to Australian ballot or delay the date of their vote and directing the Secretary of State's office to issue procedures and protocols on how to do that. Representative Anthony. Yes thank you Madam Chair not to speak for her but clerk Dawes I know is eager to come in at our convenience and I bet she'd come in tomorrow later today whatever you think wise. And I as far as I hear she had a few minor tweaks but you know otherwise she's supportive and I believe her association is also but not to speak for her. Yeah I hope if she has a tweak that she has expressed that on the Senate side and that they have made the changes there because obviously if we make a change to the bill then it has to go back over to the process. She knows all about that so she'll either have it settled it or it's gone one or the other. Representative Leclerc. Thank you I have to say I don't know about you that are on an iPad but there's a little box it shows up where I can lower my hand and I don't have to look for it but anyway because we've already done this and are somewhat familiar with the language I don't have any major concerns with what I'm hearing coming across for sure. The one thing that I have to ask though is based on our prior conversations with the Secretary of State and some concerns around timelines and things like that should we seriously think about adding some other language to this to buy us some more time. My fear is honestly that this April 1st deadline I understand all the criteria and all the reasons why it needs to be done but I would hate to see us get to the 11th hour and 59th minute and find out that there's something that isn't quite as it should be and if there's some tweaks that we can make some changes that we can make to buy us a couple more weeks I think it would behoove us to at least have that conversation. Yeah I'm certainly happy to have that conversation but I would prefer not to buy us that time in the town meeting bill because the town meeting bill does have such urgency to get it across the finish line so that communities can make their decisions and warn their meetings but we can certainly continue to talk about what we might want to do to ease a little bit of pressure on the back end of our redistricting timeline here in the house. Representative Merwicky. I didn't want to be amenable to Replic LaClaire's request there but I would have to trade him talking to my town clerks first and explaining to them why he wanted to do something that might delay the bill and all three of them are very nice people but they are very adamant about they want this bill passed pretty darn fast so if you'd like to talk to them for me then we could talk about adding something on to the bill. I'm happy to bill you out any time I can Mike. What are friends for? All right any other questions about the town meeting bill? I have asked Andrea to invite the folks who are on our agenda for Friday morning to join us this afternoon at one when Tucker comes in. We really only have you know from 1 to 155 if we want to if we want to bump right up against the governor's state of the state address. Luckily you know the beauty of Zoom is that it's just a couple of computer clicks to get from committee to the house floor the virtual house floor to listen to the governor's address so in theory that should be fine for us to work right up until one and maybe we can feel comfortable that we're ready to give this bill the green light. Feel free to contact me if there's anything else that you feel you need about the town meeting bill in order to get it out the door ASAP. Let's see so I wanted to go back to committee discussion about the redistricting bill and just we gave Amron and Nick the request to you know go back and just make make certain that the narrative that we looked at corresponds to the final alternative LAB map as we as we heard testimony on from Jeannie Albert yesterday and we will have all morning tomorrow with Tom Little the chair of the legislative apportionment board to hopefully help us understand what is what is in the narrative that will be coming from the LAB that can also I think enrich the community's consideration of this initial map proposal so what else do you need representative Anthony? Actually nothing additional but I wanted to key off your strategy and I agree you use the phrase cordon off that is any of the other preliminary map steps to the most relevant recent Albert edition. I don't know how you cordon off and I respect the historical importance of seeing a transition but if there's a way to remove the ones that are not for consideration I don't know whether that's coordinating or not I think it's important to preserve them as a historical record but I really think up with the relevant ones is just asking for misunderstanding thanks. Yep I think the probably the best way to tackle that and I will talk with Andrea and Amron after committee is to go into the committee page and just rename the what we know as previous versions are incorrect maps rename them something else so that it's clear when people are looking at that that those aren't the drafts that they should be looking at and we also have the ability to some extent to use the sidebar on on our committee page for additional information and I think last year that was mostly populated with with information on pensions because we were doing a lot of work on pensions throughout the session last year so maybe in that additional information section we can do something to highlight the the redistricting initial proposal and and some of the some of the reference keys that are available to go along with that to make it easier for our colleagues to direct people representative Leclerc. Along that lines there Madam Chair so when we say that this would be the primary source that people should go to to get as much current information as they can get around this as it's proceeding or I think once we have our documents correctly displayed it will be the easiest way for people to get the accurate information it you know when you go to the LAB site it's a little bit harder to navigate and a little bit more challenging to understand you know what you're looking at and you have to you have to kind of know the LAB timeline because I think some of their documents are in chronological order so and I see Amarons popped her screen back up so maybe she's got some other thoughts on this. No I would echo the same thoughts that you had Madam Chair about how we could organize the documents just relabeling documents that are already on our webpage so it's clear those aren't the most current ones that the committee is reviewing and then having if you wanted to have a particular section either in reports and you know some committee pages have kind of a reports and research page we can have a reapportionment folder and subfolders in that I believe if we wanted to but I think we can accomplish I think we can accomplish this and make it much easier for people to identify which are the most current maps and draft language that you are looking at. Go ahead. That makes perfect sense to me. A follow-up question I have around that though is if we had somebody that was looking at this and trying to work with it who would be their contact person or entity as far as getting clarification or giving some feedback? What kind of feedback can you give me a for instance on that? Sure I mean you know let's say that you have a board of civil authority that's very involved in this and is going through taking a look at information and you know maybe it's changing from day to day is there a preferred way that they would give some feedback because I can't imagine we're looking to say it's kind of once and done here you get your one shot and that's it so you know we're looking for them to contact Amarin are we looking for them to contact members of the committee the chair it would seem that if we had some clear lines of communication it would cut down on some confusion. Yeah certainly contacting members of the committee is is the way to go and I wonder if it might if we might go so far as to create a legislative email address you know redistricting at ledge.state or whatever you know that would that would be the place that communities could send that official feedback because while the statute says they are to respond to the house clerk I believe that's not in practice what has happened it needs to get back to us and you know folks I suppose could just look on the legislative website and send it to all members of the house government operations committee but but perhaps we could make it a little easier for them so I I'll take a look at that and see if see if I can find a way to streamline that. Seems like a really reasonable idea right there. I'm glad you thought of it. No you did I'll give you all the credit for that. Rupert Lefebvre if you had your hand up do you have a question? No I was just going to suggest we just had an email that everybody could go to so that way things didn't get lost or someone email one of us and it go to our spam folder I'd feel pretty horrible something got lost from a town and obviously not to overwhelm amaran or the house clerk. Right so all right thank you. I will put that on my list of things to do when we're between committee meetings find out what we can do for an email address. Rep Pagley. In looking over the letters from 10 years ago they appear to be all addressed to Betsy and Rask Legislative Council so again I don't know if that's what was on the initial information that went out to these towns or not but that's what appears to to come back and then for whatever reason I have a copy of all those so I don't know if to be honest with you whether or not Ledge Council printed those out for us or did send them to our emails or whatever but yeah and and some of them are actually to Betsy and and Michael Chernick so just just to just to be aware I guess. All right so what else would committee members like to cover in advance of or before we are ready to move this bill out. We have a good three hour chunk of time tomorrow morning which we could use you know entirely with with the chair of the LAB or we could hear from other folks if people feel they need to hear from other folks and I see Peter Anthony hitting buttons so go right ahead representative Anthony. Thank you Madam Chair. I think I would feel more comfortable if I could review that feel comfortable with the sort of narrative that we discussed that would go out whether that is lifted from the work of Tom Little and that and that committee or we also ask Ms. Albert to create something that goes along with the most recent iteration. I just I would like to use some of that time to look at not necessarily on screen but have an advance so that we can have a discussion about the narrative whatever shape that takes whether it's regional statewide I just suggested regional but it doesn't have to be. All right I will be it ahead that's all. I will check in and see what the time frame is for the creation of that narrative and also you know we had talked earlier about asking Nick to prepare a regional blow up for each district so that when we send when we send this out to districts for feedback that they would be able to see the surrounding districts as well so that they can offer helpful feedback that doesn't you know doesn't necessarily create a domino effect. I totally agree in the choice of how Nick scopes it out would frame the narrative in one sense because obviously talking about an area that's not related to that region would be just a waste of time and attention and space so what Nick decides is a is a workable compact unit for focus should drive in some sense the selection of narrative scope. I think that my gut would be to share the entire narrative with everyone as opposed to trying to have us you know dedicate staff time to you know to sectioning out just the part that pertains you know it it's not as if we're having to physically mail these packages so that you know that we're trying to keep it from being 70 pages long. I think we can probably transmit most of this electronically and therefore you know sharing the entire narrative. You know it's helpful I think for communities to be able to see what's happening in other parts of the state as well certainly to the extent that you know you know they may see that there are other communities who are in similar circumstances to them and and and and may find solace in that or or or may team up with other communities and say let's advocate for something different. So let's let them all have the whole thing I think representative Lefebvre. Thank you madam chair would we be able to hear from somebody from the majority map that isn't Mr. Little tomorrow for a brief amount of time just to give respect to the work that they put in. I know that we have heard from the creator of the map that we have chosen and I know that Mr. Little has touched base on it in December and I know he'll be speaking to us tomorrow but I do feel that it was the one that was picked by that committee and they would just give a little bit of perspective I do know that was the map that BCA's had already been able to look at and get feedback on and I respect that by the minority map going out it'll also give towns opportunity to comment on that in addition to what they already have done. I just think that it'd be respectful and make my conscience feel much better that we have them come in to give their story as well. I'm happy to consider doing a deeper dive on the majority map after we've got this initial map out and and maybe in the interim between now and when we start hearings with the boards of civil authority but I don't feel like it's critical to our understanding of what we're moving out for input from the BCA's that we do a deep dive on that right now. Representative Leclerc. It is my understanding there Madam Chair that I think that the LAB they're taking a formal vote is it either yesterday or today I believe on the narratives on one or both maps. At least that's my understanding but I'm not wrong but I could be mistaken. I can't tell you that I know on off the top of my head what the LAB timeline is but I have noticed in the past that sometimes when we utter questions like this out loud there's a certain member of our committee who's already begun looking it up and and we'll pipe in in just a moment. Representative Gannon. Representative Leclerc is correct. They had a meeting starting at 9 a.m. this morning and they had one on Monday as well so hold on. So what's the prize I get for getting the right answer on Hollywood squares here? Yes. Hold on. So they do have draft language. Yeah they're operating under the same sort of time crunch that we are and are willing to get the narratives. I think it's interesting that they're doing narratives for both the adopted map and the alternate map which you know I think that's very helpful. Okay. They delayed release of the reports until action today so they'll be voting them out today. Great. So possibly by the time we get back into committee this afternoon we will know that those are done and up on the LAB site. Thank you Representative Gannon and Rep Leclerc for that great question. So we can I think wrap committee for the morning unless other folks have questions or or comments. Representative Higley. I'm not sure I can see much of Representative Leclerc anymore his head looks like it's really too big for the screen right now. I think he got two compliments in one day. Is that possible? It's uh I I understand that you need to get a copy of today's Times Argus in order to really appreciate the beauty. And just for this committee only I will autograph it for free. Oh good. Oh good. I needed something to hang on my wall right over here. All right so I think that kind of wraps the work that we have here this morning and again um we will dive into the town meeting bill this afternoon and I've asked Andrea if she can let all of the folks know who we had invited to testify on Friday morning about the town meeting bill or Friday afternoon I guess let them know that we'd like them to come today if they can. The speaker's answer to me on timing was we want you to get it out ASAP so if we are feeling comfortable with it if we feel like we've heard from the number of folks that we need to to move the bill out we could ask the speaker to take a recess during the floor on Friday morning and you know after the bill's been assigned to us so that we could turn around and vote it back out so I just want to make sure that we use our time today and tomorrow as efficiently as possible to you know to try to get ourselves ready to move that bill on Friday. Representative Anthony. So if I understand correctly folks who could not come say between one and two today could come tomorrow morning at a time convenient to carve out to lay any last-minute unease about essentially having a preliminary vote before we have possession. Well we have some flexibility in our schedule tomorrow we have the chair of the LAB tomorrow morning I don't expect we're going to need him for three hours but maybe we will and then we have the only thing we have on our schedule for tomorrow afternoon is possible mark up and vote of this redistricting bill so we in theory that's not going to take us all afternoon because what we really need to make sure is that the the bill language matches the map version that we intended to put out and that we have you know that we feel comfortable that we have all of the supporting documents in one place so that we know what we're moving out for communities to respond to so in theory we should have some time tomorrow afternoon as well and so we can we can work on figuring out what what time tomorrow afternoon we could come back to the town meeting bill okay i'll convey that and representative gannon um for people who want to get a head start on the town meeting bill it is on the cynic of ops website it's um s172 as recommended by cynic of ops committee so um anybody that wants to take a look at it okay thank you i appreciate that excellent um any other questions comments requests on either of the two bills that we're going to try to move out this week super not seeing anybody diving in for their little yellow hands so um i think that that is all we have on our um on our docket this morning and we will come back into committee at one to do amaran is there anything else that you wanted to direct us to or or point out to us nope okay great uh john gannon thank you i just had one question for amaran um why in the um redistricting bill are we striking out the existing districts i mean why don't we just have the new districts is that just for people so they understand it better or why are we striking out you oh you mean the districts why not leave the district names and just do line edits within each district for the changes well i mean you have 35 pages of the bill which are strikeouts mm-hmm why do you need that well one the district names as you may have seen in in today's new language to some extent are changing so to keep the district names and just alter towns within each district will create a very uh confusing i think overall draft for people looking at this if you have a district name changing plus um some towns staying some leaving because of the order of how we uh in our drafting manual how we delete the order of which we delete things and insert things it would become very messy very quickly i think it'd be difficult to read so the initial districts which are in there currently um the easiest the most simple way to do it from a reading it perspective is to delete what's there and put in what's new recognizing that some of it is in fact the same or in theory would be the same and is the same maybe in this draft there are some districts that are unchanged for for sure okay i just i don't know if that is is helpful there are we could do it differently um if you if you would like to see it done differently this is i think the way we have typically done it in the past okay i mean i'm just i just want to make sure i understood um because i mean you know basically driving people to what is i think page 35 is where you start really getting into the meat of the bill that's just a lot of stuff too it is so when when we're reporting this bill on the floor of the house we'll begin by saying and now on page 37 that's right that's the best kind of 44 page bill to report on the floor of the house yeah so it's not a big deal i just just want to understand well and i think it's also sort of slightly unsettling to see that we're moving a bill that eliminates all of our districts you know it's sort of like okay we're out at the end of the diving board and and we have now jumped we have uh we will have passed a bill that um you know that strikes through all of the current districts and then we're we're really committed to getting new district lines drawn before adjournment all right any other questions all right thank you for your good work this morning committee you know where to find me if you have any questions or requests during lunchtime and um we are going to sign off now until one o'clock