 of the Progressive Party and former treasurer of the Bernie Sanders Congressional Senators hands. Can I ask the Environmental Associate? Tommy Ricks, League of Women Voters. Eleanor Spotswood from the Majority General's Office. Connor Casey from the Democratic Party. Let's see, I'm asked what is the Council. And our media star here is Rebecca German, with Orca Media. Right. And Dennis, if you would want to start for the community. So I'm Representative Dennis Devereaux from Mount Holly, representing Ludlow, Mount Holly in Shrewsbury. And sitting next to you will be Representative Patty Lewis from Berlin in Northfield. Hi, Jim Harrison from Chittenden, Benden. But did everyone else notice him? As he said, hi, he looks off at the camera. Good media training. It helps if you do this, too. And it's his birthday. And Jessica Bramston from Shelburne in St. George. Marcia Gardner from Richmond. Made of Townsend from South Burlington. Robert Claire from Barrett Town and former leader of the March Madness Basketball Bracket. That was the long loafers. John Gannon from Wilmington, representing Califax, Wightingham and Wilmington. Hey, Rick, it's Warren Kitzmatter. And from? He knows me. Well, other people in the room. Oh, okay. I represent Montalier. Okay. And sitting next to you would normally be? Tristan Tolino. But sitting next to me usually isn't there. But Tristan Tolino from Radlebro, who has leadership responsibilities elsewhere in the building. Somebody just came in and rolled here. And just arrived through the door, Wilsonning, elections director of the Secretary of State's office. Okay. And Rick Hubbard, who are you on the phone? Rick Hubbard, Vermont citizen. From? South Burlington. Thank you. Okay. And so Paul Burns, number one up here. Thank you. Thank you very much. I'm chair and members of the committee for the record. My name is Paul Burns. I'm the executive director of the Vermont Public Interest Research Group, or VPIRG. VPIRG was founded in 1972. We have about 50,000 members and supporters all over the state. And we have members in every single legislative district around the state, which we work hard for in the summer months as folks knock on doors from one end of the state to the other. My organization has worked on a broad range of issues from consumer protection to environmental issues, government reform, health care and the like for the full four plus decades since we've been around. We've had a particular focus on campaign finance and government reform issues. So it is a pleasure to be invited here today to provide some comments on S120. VPIRG supports S120, which of course would restrict campaign contributions to candidates and political parties to only those coming from individuals, meaning a human being as you know, a political party or a political action committee or PAC. The significant practical effect of this is that it would prohibit corporations from making contributions to candidates and political parties in the future in Vermont. I want to point out that this is a concept that is very popular among our members and I believe with the broader public, certain polling has shown this. When we invited some of our members and supporters to weigh in on this issue, we offered the opportunity for them to sign on to the following petition language. I am concerned about the corrosive influence of corporate money on Vermont's political process and I support S120 a ban on corporate campaign contributions. Corporate campaign contributions have been illegal at the federal level for over 100 years and at least 22 other states have prohibited this practice. I urge you to support a ban on corporate contributions and help Vermont pass this long overdue measure. Madam Chair, you have a copy of this petition. There are about 800 or so signatures on this and I will make this available to all members of the committee here if you're interested in flipping through. I do have a couple of copies representative. I will just hand them around. Thank you. As they say, I'll send this electronically as well in order to try to save some paper. I suspect you know much more than I do about the difficulty in setting up a pact. Is that a relatively easy process or a difficult process? I guess it depends on how familiar you are, how interested you are in this kind of paperwork and filings and so forth. It's not impossible to do but it is a burden. And so the question comes I suppose whether corporations would easily decide to set up a political action committee as a means of giving or 10 as the case may be. It's possible. I wouldn't consider it an easy thing for them to do and it wouldn't be my expectation that that would be a remedy that many corporations would avail themselves of at least in multiple numbers. Of course we will talk a little bit later about the multiple corporations that a single wealthy individual can set up as well and that is a problem with the current system too. The Secretary of State's office could probably provide more specific information. That's my concern obviously. How easy is this to circumvent? I mentioned in the petition language itself that this is not a new idea. Vermont would be breaking no new ground in prohibiting corporate contributions. So again the federal government has done it for over 100 years. 22 other states have completely prohibited corporations from giving to political campaigns. In other six Alabama, Missouri, Nebraska, Oregon, Utah and Virginia allow corporations to contribute an unlimited amount of money to state campaigns. Of the remaining 22 states 19 impose the same restrictions on corporate contributions as they do on individual contributions. And the other three set varying limits between corporations and individuals. As you know Vermont treats corporations as individuals in this respect in the manner in which we regulate their contributions to candidates. In this way then we are out of step with the federal government and with many other states around the country. V. Perg is in agreement with President Teddy Roosevelt on corporate contributions. In his 1905 annual address to Congress these were the words of President Roosevelt on the subject. Quote, all contributions by corporations to any political committee or any political purpose should be forbidden by law. Directors should not be permitted to use stockholders money for such purposes. And moreover a prohibition of this kind would be as far as it went an effective method of stopping the evils aimed at corporate practices at acts. Not only should both the national and several state legislatures forbid any officer of a corporation from using the money of the corporation in or about any election. But they should also forbid any such use of money in connection with any legislation save the employment of counsel in a public manner in distinctly legal services. Four distinctly legal services. So yes things have changed in the last hundred years or so in some respects they haven't changed so much. This was the time of the robber barons as we all know a tremendous consolidation of power in corporate entities. And President Roosevelt was a genuine champion when it came to trying to break up the consolidation of that power in the hands of a relatively few entities. That call for action against corporate contributions and corporate influence in elections was one of those things that did lead to the prohibition on corporate contributions at the federal level relatively shortly thereafter. Corporations enjoy certain advantages over us human beings. Unlimited life and limited liability are a couple of those advantages that corporations have because they have been given those advantages as a legal matter as a matter of public policy. But those benefits those corporate benefits were given to these legal entities in order to make our economy flourish to help our marketplace develop. They were not given to corporations so that the corporations could amass great wealth in their corporate treasuries and then use that money to influence the political process. So that's something that many folks have recognized over a long time. We're not anti-corporation. I'm not anti-capitalism. I'm pleased to see businesses flourish in this state and in this country. There's a question about how they use those resources and how they use the advantages that we as a society grant them in order that they might operate more effectively than we can as private individuals. Again, that's the reason why we have corporations is to run businesses and to help that marketplace flourish. Admittedly, it's not just corporate money that causes a problem in our political process. Big money we would argue is a problem across the board. Certainly, there is a problem of wealthy individuals having tremendous influence over our elections at the federal level. That's easy to see and it is, by the way, true across the political spectrum. This is not just a conservative problem or a liberal problem. There are people of great wealth who use that to influence elections. No question about it. We are, however, limited by the Supreme Court in what we can do to address some of these challenges. I know you've all talked some about that already, but the world is not our oyster when it comes to being able to make changes or restrictions on the influence of money in the political process. That is, the court has said pretty clearly, here are areas that you are free to go. Here are areas that you may not go. There are some other areas where you can go, but only at the highest level with evidence to demonstrate a compelling state interest, for instance. We can put limits on what persons give to candidates for office because there is a danger that our process will be corrupted if a single person, that being an individual or a corporation or other entity, gives too much money to a candidate for office and they may get something in return. As you know, that's a type of quid pro quo corruption, this for that. In the past, Vermont has tried to address in a pretty aggressive way that type of political corruption that comes with large donations. We've also tried to address just the issue of candidate spending. Of course, the law passed by Vermont in 1997 to put the nation's lowest limits on contributions and put actual limits on what candidates could spend went all the way up to the Supreme Court. After nine years in the year 2006, it was argued in front of the Robert's Supreme Court. I was fortunate enough to be there at the Supreme Court as that argument was made. My organization had been so involved in the process that our attorney got ten minutes of that argument and Attorney General Sorrell got twenty minutes of the time in front of the Supreme Court justices there. It's a fascinating thing. If you've never taken the opportunity to go to the U.S. Supreme Court, regardless of the case, I recommend it. That's our democracy in action and it was really neat. I wish the turnout had been a little bit better in terms of the way the case went, but it was still a fascinating thing to see. The court at that time made pretty clear that we are not absent some pretty significant shift in the makeup of the court going to see limits on what candidates can spend in elections. But the court did allow for contribution limits and it also allowed for much more by way of disclosure. The court has allowed public financing systems and other systems to encourage small donations to candidates. And the court has never decided that it is improper, illegal or unconstitutional to place a ban or other restrictions on what corporations can give to individuals. So this is not, to be clear, this is not a legal problem before you today with respect to this bill, S120. So does money actually have a corrupting influence in the political process? I would ask you to consider a recent study done by the Roosevelt Institute which identified a series of high-profile cases in which political contributions influenced members of Congress on key floor votes involving financial reform. In the September 2017 publication in these times, they went on to describe the influence of big money in the process of where the U.S. House of Representatives considered the Dodd-Frank Financial Reform Bill. They isolated specific representatives who initially voted in favor of the bill and subsequently voted to dismantle some of its key provisions. What they found was a direct link between the voting behavior and the campaign contributions from the financial sector. According to the paper, for every $100,000 that Democratic representatives received from the finance industry, the odds that they would break with their party's majority support for Dodd-Frank legislation increased by 14% roughly. Democratic representatives who voted in favor of finance often received $200,000 to $300,000 from that sector, which raised the odds of switching by 20% to 40%. So the point there is that if the financial sector was giving large contributions to members of Congress, in this case Democrats in Congress, their support for Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation evaporated. It's this kind of study and analysis that helps to explain the influence of money on the political process. And I've got the article that I will share with you as well that describes this in greater detail. Yes. Jim has a question on that. Sorry. Well, do you have any evidence that this has profit contributions at the state level here in Vermont? It's difficult to make the link representative in the time that we were arguing for and defending the law that was passed in Vermont. There were specific examples given by then the pro tem of the Senate, for instance, as they considered regulation of food products and use of pesticides, et cetera. And there were suggestions that industry contributions at that time had an influence on the activities of the Senate and what issues rise to the level of priority so that they would be taken up by certain committees, for instance. So we didn't win that case. You know, the Supreme Court, I will add, was not persuaded by this. I grant that that is true. But the Supreme Court's definition of corruption has evolved fairly significantly in recent years, even since that law was passed. So that now it's much closer to I received a contribution almost in exchange for a vote on an issue. I don't think that I don't have any evidence that that happens in Vermont. It is my great hope that that doesn't happen ever here. I think what is more likely is that we would see a level of influence that might come with a contribution. Governor Dean mentioned in his State of the State address in 1997, and I don't have the exact quote for you, but to paraphrase, he suggested that he is one who absolutely returned calls more rapidly to individuals who had given him a contribution. It wasn't that he would never get back to somebody who didn't. It wasn't as though he would disregard their concerns. But what he suggested was that there's something did come from the giving of money to a candidate. And I guess I would argue we've seen this now outside the political context, but in the cases of medical doctors, what medicines and prescription drugs they provide are prescribed. It was a study just in the last few weeks released that suggested that doctors are much more likely to prescribe medications if they have gone on a junket or been given other gifts and meals and so forth by the maker of that pharmaceutical. Did one thing follow the other? It's a little bit hard to know. In other words, if you're somebody who represents a certain interest, it's not unreasonable that the corporation might give you money because they like what you stand for. What came first is always going to be difficult to tell, but there are these studies that show a kind of link. I guess I would argue that if you're in line at the cafeteria and the person ahead of you turns around and says, I got your lunch today, no problem. Just as a matter of convenience and friendliness, your natural human inclination will be to pick up lunch for them the next day. I would guess because you're a good and generous person representative. That's not corrupt. Don't make too many assumptions. I would argue that if one were to have that feeling, it would not be corrupt. It's kind of human nature that you want to do something in return for a person who does something for you. In the political process, it becomes corrupt because we have this system of private financing, and of course people are going to give you money. It is only reasonable that you would want to give them something in return, even if that something is a prompt return phone call, or a little bit more time in the cafeteria when they come to visit you at the state house. So I think that's probably more... But isn't that true whether it's an individual or whether it's a small business or another corporation? It is. I'm looking at your list of music constituent of mine on that list that I think has been known to contribute to campaigns. Now, if she were to contribute to my campaign, am I now influenced by that contribution? Possibly. Possibly. So in which case, whether it's individual or corporate, aren't we in the same dilemma? Maybe we should have public financing where it's removed totally. Even with public financing, you would not remove the possibility of individual contributions, because our courts wouldn't allow you to set up a system that prevented individuals from being able to give to candidates. Our laws do allow for the prevention of corporate contributions to candidates, however. And what I've been arguing is that there is actually a difference, a legal difference, and an important public policy difference between corporate money going to candidates, because of the way corporations amass great wealth in their treasuries, shouldn't be able to use that money. They are different than living and breathing human beings. I guess I would argue as well that under our current system, and this was a response to Representative Kitzmiller earlier, the current system allows for a workaround to the limits that the current Vermont law places on contribution limits. So a very wealthy individual today can, and in some cases we have seen this, have multiple corporate entities, limited liability companies, for instance, and each one of those LLCs can max out in their contributions. So a single individual could give you a thousand dollars. Ten more LLCs that are created by that individual could also give a total of ten thousand dollars, therefore circumventing the laws that we have in place to limit the influence of any one entity, whether that is a wealthy person, a corporation, or anything else. And so there are a number of reasons why I think this step makes sense, but it is not the complete and only answer to the challenges we face that are posed by money in the political process. We do happen to support public financing as another means to go here, but that doesn't mean you don't take advantage of the opportunities that we have to do something to reduce the problem as well. The questions from a couple other people about this bill, particularly with just cutting out corporations, is that they can create and give to PACs in a name that might not be as clear to all individuals as to who is really donating to that campaign. So I worry that this bill reduces transparency. So I'm looking at Joe Smith who's running the lieutenant governor, and I look at his list and it's PACs, but really it's corporations. So in some ways I'd rather know what corporation it is that's giving and how much they're giving, rather than have it filtered so that we've got a harder time of understanding what is really happening, behind who is really giving to this candidate, and then I can make an educated decision about whether or not I want to vote for that person. So that's my concern and I understand that that's a hard one because the courts have said PACs are okay. And honestly myself, I think PACs are probably, if not as bad, pretty close to what corporations can do in campaigns. So I'm curious about how you respond to that. And then there are of course different kinds of PACs. So there are the independent expenditure PACs or otherwise known as super PACs and PACs where there is coordination with candidates or contributions to candidates. The latter PACs have been more traditional political action committees. And there you do have to have disclosure about who's giving to those PACs. It's really not difficult to find out who's giving money to those PACs. Yes, that's true. But very few voters are spending an awful lot of time looking at the campaign contributors to candidates. It's something my organization does, it's something the immediate occasionally does. But I have to say it's not that easy for anybody to figure that out. It's not, you don't wear the badge that says, you know, brought to you by. And so, you know, that's wonderful. And my guess is if you asked, you know, 100 people, you wouldn't find a great number who are spending time on the Secretary of State's website. You're sitting in the yard? No, I'd say that's fair. Yeah, I was going to be amazed. And that's not, I'm not happy about that. I'd like to make, and they've actually done a good job. I mean, they're making it better all the time and it's easy as one could reasonably expect. But I think that's a challenge. But those PACs, you're right, there's nothing that we can do about that. But there are those limits in place, both on contributions to those political action committees. There are challenges. I mean, I don't think it's likely that everybody who receives a contribution from a corporation now will receive that same amount of money when the corporation sets up its own PAC, for instance, or decides to give to other political action committees who are giving to a candidate. There's just not that much PAC activity now. And I don't believe that this is a situation where you're simply going to see the balloon squeezed and, you know, right, it goes someplace else. Some of it may, but I think we, you might argue that we better not place any limits or any further limits on what anybody can give to a candidate because of that same concern. And I think that begins to get close to throwing up our hands and saying there's really nothing we can do about campaign finance reform or the reasonable limits on contributions out of fear that it might go someplace worse, someplace darker and less, you know, more difficult to track. Well, we, as I say, this is not a new idea. There are many states that have this operating now and the federal government. And we wouldn't say that they are perfect systems. But I would ask that, encourage you to take this step and pledge that next year we're going to come back and take a serious look at there is public financing. We wouldn't be breaking new ground there either. But there are systems out there that are doing a good job of providing an alternative for candidates who don't want to spend all the time on the phone raising, you know, private donations and so forth. Maine, Arizona, Connecticut are some states that have done a good job of creating those programs. Now there are more and more municipalities and others who are setting up different systems to encourage small donor contributions as well. Those deserve to be looked at. But there really is, if there were terrible unintended consequences that would likely result from that, I think we would see evidence of that in the other states that have this already. That's not what we're seeing elsewhere. If I could specter the issue before us, but when you're called to appropriations to make a report on a bill, go to appropriations. I appreciate that. And I do want to give you a heads up, since you have mentioned the various other states. One of the things I'm hoping you might be able to help us with, if not today, you know, as we go on through the week, and the deputy secretary of state was in last Friday. He did encourage us to look at what other states are doing to stay away from the possibility of multiple packs being formed and that sort of thing. And figuring, you probably have it almost memorized since statute, and we've done an overview for these 22 other states, that you can point us toward this, that or the next state that might be good. Because this committee is not a stranger to amending bills that come to us, trying to make them tighter and more likely to deliver what the intent really is, which is to, you know, in this instance, to control how money's going. Thank you. And I don't have them memorized, but the National Conference of State Legislators has, you know, good information on this. That would be my first place to go. Well, we've been there. We thought of the 22 as opposed to, you know, trying to plow through 22. We thought you might have some highlights. John? Well, I agree with Jessica. I'm concerned about the unintended consequences of the bill, especially with respect to packs. And I do think we can address that through disclosure in this bill. And I think, you know, we need, if we're going to pursue this bill, it needs to be a strong bill. Just banning direct corporate contributions only goes partway in solving this problem. So, I mean, following up on Mata's question, what states have done more than that that have gone into disclosure? Because disclosure is really the only area that's left because of the Supreme Court decisions. Disclosure and moving into the area of incentives for raising the money that you need outside of the system, which is important as well. I mean, I consider that a big area and lots of opportunity there that is fully legal has been, you know, vetted in that respect. The Supreme Court even has given a pretty open door to different kinds of disclosure provisions, even as they have struck down more restrictive measures. That's a pretty strong indication that that is open to you. I guess I'd be interested to know what direction that you might be heading. If you were to put a prohibition on corporate contributions and related types of contributions, unions, etc., are obviously covered by this, what kind of disclosure would we be looking for? I gather that you're talking about political action committees and what kind of disclosure might be possible there. I would have to look more fully into it, representative, to respond effectively. I'm just wondering if you were aware of any disclosure concepts that are out there in other states that address this issue. That's the next step beyond just banning direct corporate contributions to individual candidates. It is useful to know that the money that corporations can use for political action committees, they set up their own political action committees as well, it's not limited to a disclosure provision but they can't use a general treasury dollars for that. That is money that has to come from officers and officials, employees of the corporation itself. That's also an important distinction when we think about PAC money versus direct corporate contributions today is, in my opinion, the general treasury dollars are the ones that are more problematic because if you require a corporation to give through a PAC, at least it's human beings who are making their contributions known through that way and that's a better process. That is not applied to the super PAC situations. The super PACs, in terms of disclosure or virtually any other regulation, I'm not sure that I know of anything that is both creative and legal. You can go one way or the other there, I think. Yes, I think you could do potentially more there on the regular PACs, although again, we've got some pretty good disclosure provisions now. Oh, that's it. So, let's say, as I just said, council, just to follow up on two things that I'm hearing the committee discuss. One, I'll provide this to you in a handout, but under federal law, corporations and labor unions are required to form what's called a separate segregated fund PAC because under federal law, corporations and labor unions are not allowed to make direct contributions, but they're allowed to set up these separate segregated funds. And under federal law, one of the requirements for that separate segregated fund, and I'll provide the site, it's 52 USC 30102E5. It requires that separate segregated fund to include in its name the name of its connected organization. So, for example, Corporation X wants to set up one of these funds. It has to include Corporation X's name. I'll also provide to you representative Bromstead in regard to one of your other questions. There is, I'm aware of one Connecticut law, and I'll provide a link to it for you that prohibits any business entities from establishing more than one PAC. You might ask that question earlier. Can I ask you any questions? Sure. Do our campaign finance laws currently ban corporations or do business with the state from contributing to campaigns? Well, you just last year in the ethics bill established that pay-to-play prohibition where sole source contractors are prohibited from making contributions to the office with which they're contracting. What's that? Only that office. That office, yeah, that candidate, the office, the candidate for that office. There's also a prohibition in the treasurer statute that prohibits investment services, investment fund services, businesses from giving contributions to the treasurer. I'll also provide a link to you to that law that's 32VSA 109. Thank you. Thank you. That's it. You all set? Yeah. Thanks. Thank you. So there are things that could be done there. I particularly like the one where the corporate name would have to be associated with the PAC itself. So you can't avoid that. You can't be the people for puppies and rainbows. Clean water. Yeah. Right. Right. Energy out of algae these days. You saw that. It's going to be some musketeers. So I, yes. Oh, sorry. It's just to go back a little bit. You said that currently PAC is the officers of the corporation, remember? That's the, and Betsy Ann, I don't know if you have the specific, this was the, the separate segregated fund that Betsy Ann was referring to. That can only receive money from certain individuals at the corporation. So it's not corporate treasury dollars that can go into the separate segregated fund if I, if I have this right. So that, that's something that we, we can look into, but it's not, it's not as though ExxonMobil can simply say, I'm going to go into my $40 billion treasury here and, and make unlimited contributions out of that for the PACs. That's the separate segregated fund aspect of this. This is why unions are always a bit different because all of the union dollars come from individuals. They have a separate segregated fund, but it is, by its nature, different from a corporate, a for-profit corporate entity. By the way, this applies to nonprofits as well, of course, but, yes. You donate to United Way through your corporation, you know, through work. They would be able to donate to the, to the PAC. Would that be, or could they still, that the corporation runs? Or does it have to, in other words, they can't take money out of their profits, is what you're saying, and put it into the PAC. They have to take money that is the money of the employees. Well, the employee, you know, the employees have to give, or the shareholders, and so forth. If, if, we should, we should look into this for, for clarity, and I believe this is federal law that we're talking about now. And so, rather than saying anything that may be in any way inaccurate here, I think this is an area that is worth looking into, because there clearly are restrictions in place that get at what is essentially the problem, or the challenge here, that the corporation is just be able to, to dip into that giant, in some cases, giant treasury of dollars to influence the political process. Seems totally inappropriate. And this is, I, admittedly, quite different from many of the corporations that give to candidates. If any of you have received corporate donations here, it might be a much more on the order of the mom and pop kind of situation here. We must recognize that that's true. There's not such a big difference between corporate treasuries or not. But in those cases, it's still a situation where that corporation, even mom and pop corporation could give to you, and the individuals themselves could give to you, and that too would be a way to circumvent the current restrictions in law. That too is a genuine problem, that it seems like it is worth doing something about. That's what this legislation would do. I mentioned the labor unions. What's the impact of this bill as written on labor unions? They would be restricted in the same way that corporations would be from making direct contributions. However, labor unions are set up in a different way. Currently, they typically are giving through packs. So in practical effect, I don't think there would be, and in my understanding, is any meaningful difference, or any difference at all perhaps for the corporations, just because of the way that they are already set up to receive and give money in the political process. For corporations, it would be, in effect, a difference for them. And for the non-profits who may have been, who are which may have been making contributions to whoever. Under the way this bill, within the way this bill is written, they would be able to continue to do so if they set up a path that had in its, or is it only at the federal level, that we have to say, Joe's good for the world pack. Well, you could, so they would have to get through a pack if they wanted to make political contributions. That is accurate. So clearly under this law it says, if you're not a human being or a political party or a political action committee, thou shalt not give. And that was the framing of it that I think made a lot of sense that the Senate chose to go with instead of trying to name all of the entities that cannot give. They just named the three that can. That's federal, I believe that's federal law only. So this would be- And that's not spoken to in this bill as a potential. It's not. And so to represent, again, at this point there are opportunities to strengthen this proposal as well. The merits of the restriction itself, it's not a long bill, it's not a complicated bill, it's a question of whether you want to do it or not. It's been done elsewhere and so forth. But could you improve it further to get at what are potentially some of the unintended consequences? We certainly wouldn't oppose that. And be happy to try to work with you. Thank you for, you know, you have to go searching around to figure out who they are. And it's actually surprising how many you will find for a candidate. And a lot of money. It could be 75% of their donations are from- Oh, yes. Yes, just pick a candidate. And you really should do that. Well, if we're talking about this, you need to look around. Yes. And you'll see very quickly, you can look at the governor or you can look at a senator or look at our own folks. But there's a lot going on. It's worth noting that the- A number of years ago, maybe six or eight years ago, we looked at the average cost of a competitive house race. And it was $5,000 or $6,000 at that time. I don't know if the same holds true today. A lot of races cost less than that because there's no candidate, no challenger, for instance. But we're talking about competitive races. And what is it cost to run and win those races? Even at that, it's a relatively small amount of money, we have to say, for the house races. The Senate races, of course, cost more. And the governor's race, the cost, you know, is particularly for open-seat elections. In this last election, it's worth reminding ourselves that the Democratic candidate Sue Minter, the nominee, did not raise any corporate contributions. And as a matter of kind of policy said, I'm not going to go there. I don't think anybody would argue that she was unable to raise dollars to run an effective campaign there. She obviously didn't prevail, but I haven't heard any analysis that suggested that that was the main problem for her is that she didn't have corporate dollars. On the other hand, the governor raised in the neighborhood of $500,000 from corporate contributors. I'm sure that aided his efforts, and I recognized that he would have to go elsewhere if he wanted to raise the same amount of money. But as they say, Vermonters, and certainly my organization believes that's a good thing, that you should raise whatever money that you're going to raise from individuals as much as we possibly can. Paul, my understanding of this bill limits the price of nonprofit corporations as well. So recently a nonprofit in my district offered me, which I don't know that I need, the use of their beating room, too. Would that be prohibited under this? Yes. Could that be an in-kind? Okay. So last fall, I'm a new legislator, as you know. I want to serve my communities. I went to each community. Three of the four towns have transfer stations, so I did dump and donuts. I came out of donuts, and I wanted to meet people and find out what their issues and concerns, several of which ended up in me sponsoring bills to get at some of those concerns. But arguably, you know, there's some PR benefit for me and come this fall. I'm probably doing the same thing, but now it will be with an eye towards getting elected. That's town, typically town-owned land, which is towns and non-profit. Is that prohibited? I say first, I'm not providing legal advice to you as I sit here represented, so I encourage you, there are others in the room who may want to engage on that. But I would say that there's no cost incurred. This is not a space that anybody's renting out or foregoing because you're there talking to others. So it's a public place in that respect, particularly as it is owned by the people. I can imagine that that would be a problem for you. I encourage you to go and do that. It seems like a great way to meet people and discuss issues. I mean, that is, of course, what you would like to see candidates doing. That's the exhibit gold star representative, in my opinion. You put that on a campaign to... That's what he's going for. I think I would pretty much end there. I have some other materials. Some of them are interesting. They go to the very history of corporate personhood in this country that you... I don't know if your committee has discussed, but the history of the 14th Amendment and how we came to use the 14th Amendment to defend the rights of corporations as persons and how that was a corruption of the intent of the drafters of the 14th Amendment. Just an interesting article that you might want to take on that. The damage at this point, arguably, is done. Corporations are in many, many ways considered people and given the same rights as people. To put a fine point on it, we do not believe corporations are people and we do not believe they deserve the rights that we have as living, breathing human beings. They are important entities. They have a role in our society, but that role should not be to provide an outsized influence over our political campaigns. So the degree that you could move forward with this bill, even as we find... as you all try to find ways to improve it, I think is wonderful. And then I appreciate the commitment to seeing what else we can do to the larger issue to address money in politics. We will be there as we have been here on this issue for many years now. I just want to say, you know, do what we can. Let's not throw up our hands. Please move forward with this bill. Thank you very much for the opportunity to testify. So Paul, five, six years ago, we discovered that our contribution rates were too low and we visited that and we raised the rates a little bit and there was no disagreement, but we got there on it. So one of the main things that came out of that was there was a lot of agreement about, well, you know, I don't care where the money comes from, as long as there's reporting. I give Vermonters a lot of credit, and nationally, I try to anyway, that when they know where the money came from, when somebody gave somebody a lot of money in this state, it didn't help that person one bit in the election because people knew where it came from. So I give the voters in this state, especially credit, that they all they want to know is where it came from. So if they know who it came from, they can decide for themselves whether they support this person still or not. But expanding on Rev. Simon Harrison, the in kind, this affects in kind contributions. So like a local businessman, can't even loan me a tent for an event. And that's not the direction I want to go. As long as I report that that's like a value that $100, the rental of the tent or something, I certainly want to, you know, maybe some of the language works, but this local in kind stuff is not ready to go there. I understand that. I respect that. I think if raising the $100 in even small contributions from a number of your supporters out there and then giving that business to your local tent company would be an even better idea. You know, let's pay for those things that you might get in kind and then help your constituents who happen to own businesses too. That's another way to think about this, is that I know your job is not easy. And I haven't run for office, but my father was in an elective office in New York State for 22 years, 11 years as a Republican, 11 years as a Democrat. Just so you know. And I have deep respect. I have respect for all of you. And frankly, anybody who puts themselves up for election, it is not an easy thing. It's not an easy thing to, you know, put yourself out in that way to raise the money that you need to and so forth. But I think if you decide to do that, to ask you to raise your money from real people is not unreasonable. And disclosure with respect, I believe in disclosure as much as possible, but disclosure is not the same thing as putting actual limits on the capacity of very wealthy individuals and corporations to gain influence. I don't believe that the system of disclosure only does work very well, because I don't think we have perfect disclosure. I don't think most voters have a very good sense of where the money comes from that funds the candidates that they're voting for. I think that's just the unfortunate reality. I just want to make sure I heard you just on the right. You said that S-120 won't have an impact on unions because unions already have PACs. Yes. The way that they give in Vermont is essentially through a PAC now. Well, why do corporations do the same thing? I mean, that's the way that unions raise their money is from human beings in small contributions. That's not the way corporations raise their money today. So it is a much bigger challenge for them. There is a much greater disadvantage for corporations to set up PACs as their sole means of giving money than for unions. And it goes to how unions raise their money. Unions are made up of real, living, breathing human beings. Corporations have people working for them, but that's not how they raise their money. Have you sent an electronic purchase? I will send all of this to Denise. I have not yet, but I certainly will. Again, for the opportunity, I really appreciate it. We appreciate all of the information which we have been talking about. Okay, it's close to 9.30 the time at which we need to be calling Matt Dunn. So why don't we take care of that? Let me ask, I would need to make sure that there's one hour left that we can put to this issue this morning. Eleanor, do you have further information for us from the AG's office? I do. So maybe we'll take care of you before we call Matt. And then... There's quite a few here. On this side of the room, I know, then we have you down on the agenda. So you're wanting to testify? Anyone else who came? I emailed, but I don't know for the week. Wait, do you have that on our webpage? On the week. Did you see that from... From what I was trying to take? To testify. Oh, to testify, you want to testify also? Okay. So we need to get Ben again and the Lee again. Oh. And would you like to be testifying also? Oh, only if people want to hear about my experience. If we have time. If not today. And... Would you like to be testifying also? No. No. Connor? Okay. Well, we'll see who will be... Okay. Will you have anything else you wanted to say? You're here for questions. So Eleanor, from the AG's office, what do you have for us? Yes. I just wanted to follow up on a couple of questions that I received last time, which I was unable to answer. I now hopefully have some answers for you. One of the questions was how many complaints result in formal enforcement action? I have reviewed our records and as best I can tell, we have had 10 complaints over the last 10 years that have resulted in any kind of civil penalty. All of those complaints were settled out of court. Six of them were settled out of court before we even got to court. The remaining four involved some kind of court action prior to settlement. I do not have an exact number of complaints that did not result out of settlements. We have a better system in place, I believe, for keeping track of those now, including sending them to the ethics committee. I can tell you that over the recent town meeting day we received approximately 10 complaints just related to town meeting day. None of those resulted in any kind of civil penalties. From this past town meeting day? Correct. The other question I had was regarding whether I was aware of any kind of enforcement action against corporations specifically. This is a little bit of a tricky question. I understand the committee has been discussing corporations as sort of separate entities from PACS and that is how we tend to think of them. However, most PACS are incorporated and so certainly there have been enforcement actions against PACS. I can't tell you which of those are incorporated. We've also had a number of actions against associations that should register as PACS but are not currently registered as PACS so that's one of the violations that they failed to register as a PAC. I would also remind the committee that any group of two or more individuals that raises and spends more than a thousand dollars does need to register as a PAC. So to the extent that we're talking about corporations pouring a lot of money into campaigns if that money is over a thousand dollars they already need to register as a PAC. So I would just have the committee keep that in mind. I'm happy to take further questions if there are any. The 10 complaints resulted in some form of enforcement action. So this takes into account the PACS not registering as PACS? Yes. They would be included in that? Those are included. The enforcement action as I've interpreted it is anything that results in some payment of some kind of civil penalty. We have had certainly we follow up on every complaint so we contact the person who is allegedly in violation we discuss the violation with them at times they've cured it without paying a penalty but yes of the 10 that have resulted in payment of civil penalties those include organizations that should have registered as PACS. So given that the 10 is not a large number can you sort of describe the cases the 10 enforcement actions that have been taken by the attorney I was not here when these actions occurred so I have limited information about them some of them may be much more familiar to the other people in this room than to me, frankly the committee may be familiar with state versus green mountain future which is a case in 2013 that went up to the Vermont Supreme Court that had an allegation of failure to register as a PAC and failure to file the reports that go along with PACS obligations. There was another enforcement action titled state versus Brian Duby and Republican Governors Association I believe that was settled while it was still at the trial court level and it involved failures to report and I believe excessive contributions over the limit. There was a related action state versus just the Republican Governors Association which involved a failure to register as a PAC failure to file periodic reports acceptance of contributions in excess of the limits What was the penalty on that one? That one settled for what? That penalty was $40,000 There was the recent case of state versus Corrin. I assume the committee is familiar with the case against Dean Corrin that also ultimately settled recently with Corrin and prior to that with the Vermont Democratic Party the remaining settlements happened entirely out of court I don't believe any of them are confidential but I'm not sure that I want to sit here and recite them all The Corrin settlement ultimately was Dean Corrin paid $255 to charity Just to follow up on that I mean Don't you think there should be both disclosure of these actions? I believe there is Because I am a little concerned that you're saying you don't want to talk about half of them in a committee where we're trying to figure out what the problem is here I'm happy to follow up with records This is your second time in here and now we're going to have a third time in here I'm just concerned about the lack of disclosure here This is an important issue I'm going to turn to the general's office so we want to be on the front on making sure that the voters of Vermont know who's violating our campaign finance loss Representative forgive my abundance of caution on this I am brand new to the office I was not here when these actions were taken I believe they are public records and to the extent that we can provide public records to the committee I'm happy to do that I underscore what Eleanor has said besides the fact that you knew the cases at the state life level they were covered by the press that was all over the news throughout the various processes and more local things since there were some questions raised at various points in South Burlington as a matter of fact I know that our local papers nothing was kept under wraps at all so any other questions for Eleanor thank you very much for coming back to us we will refine you yes so I guess but you know the secret about using this phone right Jessica we need the number yes we need the number and she's not here we'll just proceed take a break well no you just stay put right here take a little break how about while we wait for Denise to come back Ben if you would mind taking the chair sure placeholder pass a little time well but you're going to speak to us about the bill as written yes would you identify yourself for the record please because it's all recorded I'm Ben Cohen I'm the ice cream guy I live in Welliston I'm 67 I'm sorry I'm 67 that's not old that's not old identification we don't need to go there what would you like to tell us with regard to S120 well first I'd like to thank you and the committee for the opportunity to be here today this is an issue that I'm pretty passionate about and I feel like I want to express my appreciation for you guys that are serving the state you know I feel like legislators in Vermont are doing a true service you don't get paid much for it nobody's in it for the money and I respect you for it and I feel like you do it because you believe in democracy and call it quaint but I do too you know I think we all know what's going on here Montpelier is crawling with corporate lobbyists and corporate money corporate donations to campaigners and it happens so much that it becomes normal and you know despite the fact that corporations are not people they're so often times in this building and their face is a person you start to get the feeling that they're a person but they're not so they're not we the people not the people that you all represent they're not why you ran for office in the first place I believe you ran to serve the interests of your constituents the people who elected you and it's interesting that the people who elected you people you represent are good working people but they don't have the time to spend here lobbying you and they don't have much money to give to political campaigns they don't get paid to talk to you about their interests the only people that get paid to do that with a few very noble exceptions there's one right there are those who are doing the bidding of corporations those who are working in the narrow self-interest of corporations without regard for what's in the best interests of Vermont as a whole corporations are willing to spend so much money on lobbyists and on political donations because they know that influencing legislation is the best investment they can make it's the best return on investment that a corporation can make is trying to influence legislation in their favor and it is solely a profit driven decision so but people tend to equivocate you have no no, please go on you have one person telling you one thing and then you have another person on the opposite side telling you something different and they're both people but the difference is that one side represents the narrow self-interest of corporations and the other represents regular people and they're not able to make these big donations you know, I know that people say that you can take somebody's money and not be beholden to them but it's just human nature I mean somebody buys me lunch and I listen to them I think that the basic thing wrong with our democracy is that corporations and the ultra-wealthy have too much power and everybody knows it it's what shuts regular people out of the system and that's why people check out that's why they don't get involved that's why they don't vote because they know the game is rigged democracy if we are to have a democracy must be constantly honed and burnished we must constantly defend it from the assault of big money I know S120 isn't perfect but what's the downside there isn't any S120 makes the situation better it does make it harder for corporations to influence legislation it's a necessary tool to defend our democracy at this time anything that we can do to limit the influence of corporations on our political process is a stand in favor of the people of Vermont Vermont could be leading the way on this issue but instead it's in danger of becoming more sucked into the corrupting influence of big money the best thing we can do to protect our democracy and the interests of real Vermonters the ones that are actually people not corporations is to stamp money out of politics thank you very much just so you know my hope is for better and then we'll start from Rick who I trust on the phone here and then we'll deal with that done can you do that again because Jim missed it you can replay it over there so the money that you give to politics and I'm sure it's happened for causes and people over the years so it's come from you personally or from Ben and Jerry's it's just come from you and you're limited as to how much you can give because you're not giving as a corporation I thought there was you guys named it out there a lot so I gathered that there was a lot of corporate money going to a lot of causes that's the interesting thing Ben is a person Ben and Jerry not a person Ben and Jerry's corporation is not a person and therefore there's a big difference between the two one of the concerns that came up the other day about this and I'm not talking national elections I'm just talking state is there's a lot of us who are either part of a corporation or in some cases or a single member of LLC how do you define what's a corporation in other words there's a lot of non-profits out there I would say a VPURG is probably considered a corporation so to 1045 are we limiting ourselves to the point where even as homeowners you can't participate in democracy I don't think so I would defer to Paul who probably understands the specifics of this legislation better but as the gentleman here just pointed out I mean I can make a donation as an individual but that's very different than making a donation as a corporation so my understanding is that people would be allowed to donate based on the current donation rules but corporations would not if like since Betsy who's our attorney she had to go to appropriations but Will let me ask can you clarify with regard to Rob's question or not yes no as I understood it we'll send elections for the record under this bill Rob representable Claire and the effects of this bill the distinction doesn't matter between the various types of corporations because of the way that this legislation is crafted which says yes yeah other questions yes I'm sorry I missed the first part of your conversation it was really the big reveal I you know I maybe one of the few people that remember as I get older that when you first started and I don't know if you recall but I was a young store manager at the then martins and I remember so I was delivering to you I remember you coming to the store you were well I wouldn't even say marketing you were testing an idea you had the ice cream shop this is before you were packaging mm-hmm and you came in and said look we're thinking of packaging our ice cream do you think you know you might if would you carry it do you think I'm going to resupply to it but my question related to that is at that point in time I know any funds you probably had were surely needed in the business and re-investing but were you a partnership or a corporation when you had your ice cream shop before you started packaging I think we were always a corporation okay so let's just presuppose you were a partnership you and charity which in essence is kind of like a sole proprietor but just two partners would there be any difference of the partnership contributing versus you separate from Jerry contributing well my understanding and I'm no lawyer is that there would be a huge difference that if I contributed as Ben that would be an individual contribution if Ben and Jerry's contributed as a partnership that would be a business contribution by that partnership I'm not sure legally a partnership is there a corporation well it's not necessarily a corporation well perhaps will any clarify on this one or is it a fancy question this question was is there a distinction between a partnership no okay so a partnership would be a corporation it doesn't matter the way this bill is phrased talks about who can contribute to the various entities and it says only individuals, packs and parties I believe I don't know right in front of you can contribute which would exclude all of what had been talked about partnership, LLC non-profit, for-profit because again it talks about who can contribute not who can't identifies individuals, packs and parties as the entities that can contribute thank you, that's helpful thank you thank you for reminding me Jim you're coming back to me now you've aged a little you've aged a lot I could tell you a few other stories the dentist's role for the history lessons that I won't I won't go there can I do one? seriously behind schedule at this point so make it really quick and then Dennis and then Rick we need to hear from you on the phone what you think about okay so I don't know if you remember in my role with the grocery association my very first convention that year in the old Radisson I remember we had a comedian from Maine come for the dinner speaking at the same night we were honoring you and Jerry for the work you were doing publishers and I remember the comedian saying I'm supposed to be at this table with Ben and Jerry who the heck are those guys so anyhow your name recognition has grown about six or seven years ago I told somebody that I enjoyed Ben and Jerry's vanilla and they say out of all the flavors why would you bother with vanilla well because I had discovered that when that maple sapling liqueur came out the first year you put that on Ben and Jerry's vanilla and it's really good and I've shared it with knowledge of my committee a couple times but it is excellent I suggest it's from maple sapling liqueur Ben and Jerry's vanilla I have some in my closet but it never had occurred to me thank you thank you for the tip and by the way my mother always told me not to eat ice cream before breakfast so I did not provide but should I have the opportunity to testify at the committee sometime after lunch to provide refreshments because you can't get by on Kirkland peanut butter pretzels so you'll be comfortable I don't know that it would be appropriate to accept such pledges but thank you for the thought maybe I could give it to a pack first and then the pack thank you very much you did a motorcycle trip with Dan Cox to Savannah, Georgia three years ago when you went to the shop that was my daughter that worked at the shop that's amazing that's great contact your fall burns that he's waiting wherever he is to hear from us our apologies for being behind schedule but that's how it is what happens for the record now as a witness if you would identify yourself and then tell us what you need to tell us good morning everyone my name is Rick Hubbard and I'm a child growing syndrome I'm a resident learning a former economic consultant a writer on democracy reform and a contributor to deeper my position on F-120 is somewhat different than that of these putters in our Vermont Secretary of Space I believe F-120 is both little used if it can be easily circumvented especially by those who wish to use contributions way in excess of Vermont norms to vote out those legislators standing up for our public interest and vote in those who will support their narrower private interest so that's what my testimony today is to encourage you to find a way to pass legislation that will actually be effective in protecting Vermont citizens and members of our legislature from the undue influence of outside Vermont advocacy groups that wish to use their financial leverage to influence law regulation policies of their narrower vested interests over the common broad interests of all Vermont and I recently met with our Vermont Secretary of Space Jim Condos and I asked him what states can currently prevent an outside of Vermont 501-34 for equivalent single issue organizations from spending massively more than normal in close Vermont House or Senate races in order to get the balance in our legislature more in favor of their issue and as an example a group promoting school choices out there his response absolutely nothing now here's a real world example of this from Wisconsin in Vermont our House of Representatives district we have 150 are roughly equivalent to in the continent that lower House assembly districts they have 99 campaign contributions and expenditures on average for Wisconsin assembly district races and their larger districts in Vermont normally averaging 20 to 30 thousand dollars remember that because in 2014 first time Republican candidate Todd Novak won the race in Wisconsin assembly district 51 by just 59 votes against first time Democrat Richard or Dick Case Novak raised $133,000 coming back to that 20 to 30 thousand normal rate of which the American Federation for Children a Washington D.C. based 501-C4 non-profit school choice advocacy group that's funded by Betsy DeBos and others spent of that $133,000 that group spent $123,000 of it 92 plus percent to help elect Novak though officially not a lot more named that group effectively ran Novak's campaign producing paid for the advertisement 50 issues they focused on Novak did almost nothing despite its goal and I'm talking about the goal of this organization to tip the balance in the Wisconsin legislature more towards support for school choice and I might add they won because they targeted this way the American Federation for Children almost never ran ads supporting school choice for example that went after Dick Case for his vote on a local school board concerning the Pledge of Allegiance but what to prevent this from happening in Vermont in my opinion to prevent this effectively you go beyond the influence of corporate money and instead address these underlying structural campaigns that can bias who gets to be elected and re-elected and that can also potentially influence outcomes of law regulation of policy here in Vermont as well as in other states currently less than two percent of the Vermont overage population donates any money at all to Vermont state legislators and gubernatorial elections the actual figure in 2014 was only 1.79 percent that means more than 98 percent of us all Vermonters give nothing and this campaign funding imbalance is an important part of the huge problem that we American citizens face today we declare our independence from Great Britain fully over the issue of improper representation and we established our U.S. Constitution in 1787 to in a word to James Madison be independent from outside special interest pressure in order to serve the public good yet much evidence today documents that nationally we citizens largely elect good people to represent us in Washington who are then instead of I to often act in ways that place their own reelection those of their wealthy and influential campaign funders and those of their political priority above the common broad interest of the American people for decades Congress has resisted has resisted passing broad and comprehensive ventures to reform the structure and financing of our political process consequently our Republic in its system of representative democracy are at great risk today in recent years we have disbanded many of the historical norms of bipartisanship respect for the views of opponents and support for public institutions that have helped our system of government work effectively and our founding fathers anticipated that in the future we might come to the state where we are today and they in our Constitution in Article 5 place the responsibility for initiating the needed reforms directly with we citizens through you our state legislators in the event of an action by Congress and in addressing the issue of corporate contributions I urge you to take this responsibility seriously our country is in trouble in a very bad path and I ask you to do what is necessary to broadly strengthen the financing and structure of our political processes both with respect to corporate contributions but more broadly than that in order to effectively protect our broad public institutions you must see the adults in the room and I wish you a lot of success in the words of our former Vermont Governor Gohan this issue is likely the most important public policy issue of our time for it goes to the very core of our democracy and representation and that's it thank you Rick are you open to some questions of course any questions from committee for Rick Marcia from Richmond hi Rick because you're an attorney and obviously very interested in this issue can you make specific suggestions on how campaign finance legislation could be made tighter more effective yes but it's hard to do it within the context of the F-120 legislation that you have in front of you in order to make this different we have to change the incentive that those of you who are elected have based on where you get the money to get you reelected from and I'm the first to admit that with Vermont we do a much better job than we're doing nationally it's pretty easy to make these arguments nationally but when we elect continue to fund our system where 98% of all Vermonters do not have the money even under the old ways the 2% we're giving money does have an effect on whose legislators pay attention to whose phone calls get elected get returned first and it does have an effect on how legislators pay attention to issues ask yourself for example in terms of the person about the importance of this vote if a citizen knows that legislators have to receive a NOBAC in Wisconsin received 92% of his money from one one of the four facts that focuses on school trust is that going to be really important or isn't the real issue is that Republican does NOBAC pay attention to whose phone call is represented as NOBAC in regard to the fact that he was basically elected by this organization so I'm not quite as willing to accept this it has to focus on raising the money not across all reminders so if the influence and impact of money coming from a few is diluted and there are schemes out there to do that long-lasting as proposed on using vouchers for example as that moves very much in that direction okay Marcia, thank you John could you explain a little more about the vouchers sure the numbers will be a little archaic I'll use national numbers for a minute but if you take the total amount of money spent over a two-year period nationally to fund our entire federal campaign process about $5.5 billion over two years the political cycle annualizes to half $3.25 billion by the number of registered voters the amount of money is remarkably small it's about $23 per registered voter so if you with a voucher system a good chunk of our federal election process by allowing every registered voter to have control over a voucher that they could use it could be $50 it should be less than that they could allocate a voucher only to candidates in small amounts whose positions on issues were of interest and importance to the voter allocating time now instead of two percent or less of all registered voters influencing the political process as to who gets elected now you have to speak to the interest much more broadly of close to 100 percent instead of getting through an election in the republican or the democratic primary where we have 5 or 10 percent typically that might participate of all the registered voters and those people elect the candidates in the general election we the rest of us have to choose amongst now in some states where it's been changed you have to speak to the interest of all 100 percent because they're all funding you and in California they need to change the primary process they have a single non-partisan blanket primary and all 100 percent of Californians get the vote so they broaden the whole intent that candidates have to pay attention to and use views they have to please in order to get elected anything we can do to broaden to a much greater extent the effectiveness and interest of all 100 percent of citizens to move in that direction is very very helpful and about your system should be an important point of that part of that okay John? hi Rick it's Warren hi Warren one concern with the vouchers though wouldn't that just shift where corporations spent the money wouldn't the corporations spend a lot of money trying to influence to whom individuals gave those vouchers sure I think it's fair to assume they do their very best to do that the question is do they have more influence that way than they have today well it's one of the reasons why I'm glad we're not a state that has valid initiatives that are binding because they spend massive amounts on 30 second sound bites to vote no on this or vote yes on that I would think that the voucher thing would end up in about the same place anyway but anyway I think it would be an improvement so maybe Warren but remember that but for the ability of citizens to put something on the ballot despite the fact that it can be misused and played with without that California would not have improved its redistricting and put citizens in the middle of it because it was being misused by both political parties or the one in control and without it citizens have moved to change the way they do their primary ballot system in order to make it available for participation from more and more American citizens to it and that's all I'm pointing at yep well thank you Rick okay thank you thank you Rick we're going to have to hang up with you and try and get through to Matt Dunn hopefully he's still available thank you everybody and Rick do you want me to call you on my cell phone so you can listen to Matt's testimony I wouldn't be back okay thank you yeah oh no yes did you bring cake or anything there's cake in here for you do you want to do my birthday hello Matt it's made of Towns is calling on behalf of the House Government Operations Committee in Montpelier I know we're late in calling you do you have do you have time to talk with us now fabulous fabulous okay so if you would please the committee is gathered here as well as a room full of folks interested in hearing what you have to say with regard to S120 as pass it over to us from the Senate thank you for including me and accommodating my needs to be in southern Vermont today so I have long been a passionate believer that we need to do something about finance in both our state and country that was involved in the campaign finance reform effort in the 90s that Vermont got there and I'm delighted that the Senate was willing to move forward with at least the small step of man and corporate contributions in Vermont because this to me is the most basic first step that we need to take and I would say it's for a couple of reasons one is on the pure optics I think the Vermonters have said loud and clear that despite the Supreme Court corporations are not people and we should not be allowing them to engage in our election process as if they were and there are 22 other states as well as the feds and corporate contributions and I believe it makes sense for Vermont to be the same to reflect that view that we want people participating in our democracy not corporate interests and that we should be following that direction the other is that the corporate contribution loophole is really the dumbest one in our state law under the current setup a person with significant resources typically has multiple LLCs for a variety of reasons whether they are for real estate holdings or small companies that they have put together where they are the sole member of that LLC and under the current law it allows for that individual to not only give the maximum amount to a candidate from their own personal checking account but to give that same amount to each one of their LLC effectively multiplying at a significant level the financial contribution and influence of that individual through those multiple LLCs this is just something that is if you look at it kind of laughable on its face in a way that it can allow the intention of law and by banning corporate contributions you remove that egregious loophole so those would be the two big reasons that I would strongly encourage the committee to support this legislation join the 22 other states and the federal government in banning corporate contributions we've seen some press in the last year that have actually questioned the motivation of people in elective office to support certain initiatives based on corporate contributions to their campaign and that's very different from individuals even from those same companies giving to a candidate because it's about those individuals not the view of the corporation as an entity I don't think that's healthy for our discourse in Vermont and only healthy for democracy and there's a real opportunity for the legislation to take action are you up for some questions? absolutely thank you Matt first one is from Jim Harrison from Chittenden Matt how are you? good to hear from you I'm trying to wrestle with the differences here you recently have been involved in a statewide campaign I obviously know the importance of raising money to get your message out and regardless of where the money comes from whether it's individuals or corporate you're putting your stamp of approval you control the message that comes out from your campaign as to what you stand for what you say about your opponent etc but at the same time we have these independent expenditures which you don't control and may give eventually misleading information and I'm wondering what's what's worse I think you were you had a friend or former friend that perhaps gave a lot of personal money outside of any limitations as to what someone could give to your campaign and you have no control over that and it may help you or may hurt you or it may be misleading to the public so I'm trying to wrestle are we just creating more of that going forward so what you highlight is the overall problem with our current campaign and system one that many of us try to address as Vermont tried to lead the rest of the country in the 90s on actually putting the kibosh on that kind of over the top excessive spending on campaigns including you know the kind of independent expenditures that we're seeing across the state of Vermont and across the country and unfortunately there's a Supreme Court that has ruled under a certain configuration that those kinds of human reasonable limits are unconstitutional and if we are left we have to work within them what I that should not however stop the legislature from doing the right thing in making sure that individuals are the ones who are contributing to candidates campaign profits not corporations because it's just a fundamentally different entity when you are contributing from a corporation then when you are contributing as an individual and when you start having people contributing through fees with random and innocuous names that are associated with real estate holdings or other kinds of things it just obscures things so I don't think this is going to affect the problem with independent expenditures or other problems with our finance system one way or the other what I do know is that it will be a step in the right direction or limiting direct or for contributions and the both the optics and the practical loophole that is associated with that piece of wall Maureen good morning ma'am it's Maureen Kitzmiller good morning a little while earlier with a different witness I was I want to go back to the idea of a person who incorporates any number of LLCs which are really the only number and my question would be how hard would it be for each of them to establish a PAC and I don't know anything about how much effort it takes to establish a PAC but I wonder if that wouldn't be even with a proposed new one if that would be an easy way to circumvent these limits because they can accept contributions from PACs with certain limits on it but if you can establish an unlimited number of PACs you could just get around so how hard is it to set up a PAC so what you're talking about though is still having to make someone go through a process of establishing PACs to be able to push money through and those PACs need to record on contributing to and as I understand it operations certainly at the federal level and I believe would be true at the state level are not allowed to directly give to a PAC either so it wouldn't eliminate the ability of a large company just giving directly to a PAC to funnel money around but it also means that if someone was wanting to set up a bunch of entities to be able to funnel their money through to contribute over and over again they would have to take those steps whereas right now many high net worth individuals already have in fact even people who aren't high net worth individuals for a variety of reasons have multiple LLCs and without having to go through any regular roles and having to file it and having to do the filing that says it would be on an annual basis and the rest they would be able to just write checks out of those other LLC bank accounts that already exist anything we can do to create a barrier to that kind of process and more transparency on who is the participant in those money donating entities is the step forward even though it would be possible it still is a barrier even though it's permeable to a certain extent absolutely anybody else from the committee Matt any final words for the good of the order no just in a busy, busy session I'm delighted that you all are taking up this important issue a clear message and have a practical real benefit for democracy in the state thank you for hearing me out and happy to answer questions later if people have questions terrific and we've got your number now so we're not shot so thank you very much for being patient and waiting for us to get a hold of you much appreciated so I will be quick, my name is I'm a member of the league of women voters I'm uniquely qualified to be here testifying on this bill because I'm one of a handful of league of women voters who have actually run for office so I know that you're directly affected by this bill but I'm that little person that is really affected by that bill I'm a political novice I ran I had no political party financing I ran against incumbents that had a republican war chest and I can tell you that if I had thought Rob was supported by some big multinational corporation I would not have run because I looked at what it cost the statistic said approximately $5,000 well I'm a retired school teacher I can afford $5,000 from my savings and I might even be able to knock them off I might be able to bring an independent view a different view from our politics so that's the reason I ran so when this bill is a positive bill it says who can donate and if we're talking about Goliath I don't believe that there is a day that I believe with a Goliath you take them off one limb at a time I don't think you get one lucky shot and knock them down so I don't believe that limiting influence from large corporations is ever going to be is ever going to happen in one fell swoop so this bill to me is the first step to making to allowing people like me to be encouraged to participate in the political process and Vermont is unique where a political novice and someone unheard of can come and do that I do want to reiterate what the League of Women voters their position I do have a full position that I can email to you this is from Kate Rader who is a member of our board so what we want to do and what we have done for almost 100 years is enhance political equality by limiting the financial influence of whomever we are enhancing political equality we want to ensure maximum participation I've already told you if I had thought Rob had this huge amount of money why would I waste $5,000 you know as it was I felt like I learned a lot and I got a good understanding of what it takes and we want to enable candidates to compete equitably so of course we for years have supported public funding we have supported taking out corporate and pack investments in elections and so we hope that you will advance this bill again we're not trying to get rid of Goliath and one fell swoot this is one act that will again hopefully the dismantling of finance influence we hope that you will pass it to the house and we hope that you will enable Vermont to join the 22 states who already have such laws thank you thank you I was hoping I was hoping we would take that really I thought Rob was going to nail me so I'll protect you sure so I come from a rural district today corporate contributions but we're going to get into a campaign season from your perspective I have small businesses in my district what's the difference between a country store that maybe knew me from my prior life that wants to give me a hundred dollars versus them doing it personally what would the difference be on me as their representative the way I would look at it if a person donates to me that is that person and I have a relationship with that person and it makes it more I don't know real if it's a business what is that it's this amorphous thing that that I can't talk to and I can't relate to so to be honest with you I believe in public financing and I believe that if people financed their own elections runs like I did you would have more responsible people and you would limit the amount of money that goes into elections it's ridiculous the amount of money that goes into getting people elected when our infrastructure is down our schools etc etc so you know am I opposed to a small business donating money it's local it's personal it's a big corporation from outside that wants to come in and tell us how to vote and take over our politics I hear you I'm just trying to differentiate the insurance country store in Jim I mean they're synonymous and probably many people's eyes so I don't disagree with you in terms of in an ideal world we would go to like they did 100 years ago and have a debate on the issues and then we go home and vote that's not the world we live in today but in Vermont we come closer to it than anywhere else thank you I knew it I knew it you should have been here yesterday there was a lot of rops in the room just for the record you ran a very well run campaign thank you is that it? no let me find out are there any questions from the committee? no we're good thank you so much and Connor another time and I gather also that Senator Sanders as in Bernie has an interest in talking with him from me the question is would the committee be interested in me finding out if he would be willing to call it and testify I didn't know if this was the last thing we're taking testimony on this bill somehow I doubt it I mean because we have a lot of ground to cover but within a time frame certainly what is your preference more good to see at some point in the near future Senator was available to talk to us by phone or not okay no interest yes you know I would just say I know and I have reached out to congressional delegations in my prior life as a rule in particular