 Here we are back again. This is Senate government operations. It is still Wednesday or Friday, February 18th. And we are jumping now to S171, which is the ethics, the creation of a state code of ethics. And I want to I sent out a bunch of notes to people. And I don't know if we have a new draft or to address. OK. And so I do want to say that I've gotten tons of emails about passing a code of ethics that applies to everyone. And and I think that that is exactly when I don't think we have any concerns about having everybody act ethically. My my main concern was in some of the detail of how how the procedures were not the code itself, but the actions that were to follow. And specifically, my concern around the conflict of interest, not not about the the conflict of interest statement itself and what that meant and that we should avoid conflict of interest or the appearance of conflict of interest. But around the procedure that was established, there was so in detail that see. And I think that that's where I heard attorneys and the judiciary and the general assembly members having issues, not with the concept itself, but with the details about how you had the actions you had to take. So I just wanted to make it clear that I don't think anybody has has any concerns about having a general code of ethics that we all have to live by. It's the details of how you care how what you do when there's an issue or how you respond to it. Does that make any sense to anybody at all? Yes. Because I've been very, very concerned that. And so I, Amron, do we have and I apologize, but I have not had a minute to even oh, there it is. Oh, no, no, that's a commentary. If you check your email amount of the chair at about 11.39 this morning, Amron sent out the draft. Got it. Thank you so much. I have not even had a chance to look at my email. Is that the same that's on our website here? Yes, it is. It is either way. Thanks. And I just like to say as we begin this, I really appreciate the amount of time everybody's put into this, especially our chair and Christina, because tonight you've worked really hard to try and get us to guess on this. And I know Christina has as well. So I just at the onset of this conversation, I just want to acknowledge your efforts on moving us forward. So just before we start here, I'm going to do one thing. Something happens sometimes to my camera. And I can't, if I try to go someplace else, it makes all my Zoom things go away. I mean, all my, so I'm going to go away. I guess she meant it. Fair warning. Well, she gave us about a two second warning. She'll be back. How long should we wait? You don't have to. Thank you. I apologize for that. Sometimes when I go to look at something else, it just makes you all go away. Well, are we back? Back, huh? Are we back? Well, I went out and came back. So yeah, you're back. And it's bad enough not being able to be there in person with you. And it's really bad if I can't even be there on Zoom with you. OK, so I am going to ask Amron. And I really, you know how much I hate screen sharing. But I have not had the opportunity to look. And I don't want to try and find it again, because I'll just get kicked out again. And so I'm going to ask Amron to share her screen with us on this new draft. And then we will take testimony on the new draft. Is that OK with everybody? And I see we have Paul. Thank you for joining us. Anthony told us you were going to. So thank you. And Jason and John Campbell and Vinciluzzi, we have with us in addition to all our usual players. So I will for the benefit of those of you who don't know all of us, I keep forgetting that some of you aren't with us all the time, we'll introduce ourselves. And then we'll have Amron jump on. So I'm Jeanette White from Wyndham County. Hi, I'm Anthony Polina, Washington County. Brian Collamore, Rutland County. Allison Clarkson, Windsor County. Asia Rom-Hinsdale, Chinagham. Senator Rom-Hinsdale is in the middle of some kind of an ice and wind storm and is having trouble with her connection. So she's leaving her camera off. So Amron, do you want to start us off on this? Sure. For the record, Amron Avergillie Legislative Council, I will share my screen. Thank you. All right. Is everyone able to see my screen? Yes. Great. And just I will say that these recommended changes, I don't know how much Amron put in there what I sent and what other people sent. But this is not, these are not suggested changes necessarily by the committee. But I sent a whole bunch of suggested changes. And I know Christina sent some to Amron also. So I think it's a combination of those. Yes. So for everyone watching, I am looking at draft number 1.1 of S171 noted as a markup with today's date, February 18. This is a strike all amendment that you have seen before with updated language, which is noted in yellow highlight. The new language in here is a combination of some suggestions from Senator White, as well as some suggestions from the Ethics Commission. And so I will, unless anyone would like me to go into more detail, I will just scroll from highlight to highlight and give you some context. So you'll see here on the first page that conflict of interest has been deleted. This is because it is being added later within the bill. And then there's renumbering happening on page 2 into page 3 and 4. And then you'll see the next set of changes begin at the bottom of page 4. I've removed the word exclusions from the title. And you'll see the applicability section, the first section and second section are similar to the language you've seen before, but there are some changes to this subdivision 2 on page 5. So with these changes, this would read the Code of Ethics established by this section does not prohibit branches of state government agencies or departments from adopting additional provisions regarding the ethical conduct of their employees or provisions which exceed the requirements of this Code of Conduct. I would say make a note on this section to think about how this language reads with some of the changes you see later and how you would like this section to read. So I will just note that for now, and I will mention it later when we get to that point. This removes all of subsection B, the exclusions. And now moving on to page 6, there is a fairly significant change to section 1203, Conflict of Interest. I've added in Appearance of Conflict of Interest. This would now read subsection A, Conflict of Interest, Appearance of Conflict of Interest. In the public servant's official capacity, the public servant shall avoid any conflict of interest for the appearance of a conflict of interest. The appearance of a conflict shall be determined from the perspective of a reasonable individual with knowledge of the relevant facts. 2, as used in this section. And here you will see the definition of Conflict of Interest has moved from the definition section up at the top of the bill down into this section. So as used in this section, Conflict of Interest means a direct or indirect interest of a public servant or such an interest known to the public servant of a member of the public servant's immediate family or household or of a business associate in the outcome of a particular matter pending before the public servant or the public servant's public body or that is in conflict with the proper discharge of the public servant's duties. Conflict of Interest does not include any interest that is not greater than that of other individuals generally affected by the outcome of a matter. So the next significant change is under subsection B course of action. There is a new subdivision one legislative branch. A public servant of the legislative branch shall comply with applicable legislative branch rules and policies regarding the course of action a public servant may take when confronted with a conflict of interest or the appearance of a conflict of interest. Similarly, moving now into page seven, subdivision two judicial branch, a public servant of the judicial branch shall comply with applicable judicial branch code of conduct rules and policies regarding the course of action a public servant may take when confronted with a conflict of interest or the appearance of a conflict of interest. Subdivision three is specific to government attorneys and others in licensed professions. A public servant who is a licensed attorney shall comply with the Vermont rules for professional conduct regarding the course of action the attorney may take when confronted with a conflict of interest or the appearance of a conflict of interest. A public servant working in any other licensed profession shall comply with the rules of the licensing entity regarding the course of action the public servant may take when confronted with a conflict of interest or the appearance of a conflict of interest. Subdivision four, and now we get into language that will look more familiar to you from the previous draft, public servants other any public servant not covered by subdivisions one through three of this section shall comply with requirements prescribed in this subdivision before. Each time a public servant is confronted with a conflict of interest other than that for which the public servants action is solely ministerial or clerical the public servant shall either make a public statement which may consist of a statement made to the public servants immediate supervisor recusing themselves from the matter or if the public servant chooses to proceed with the matter prepare a written statement regarding the nature of the conflict. And then you'll see later in here I moved up a previous subsection in the instance of recusal once recused to public servant shall not in any way participate in or act to influence a decision regarding this matter. And then it goes into if the public servant chooses to proceed and then you'll go through the written statement requirements. And then there's a redesignation of the good cause subsection. A removal I'm now on page nine of subdivision to the action to be taken as ministerial or clerical because that phrase was added up above. Let's say the deletion of conduct after recusal that is another item I moved further up above and then there's a new subsection D confidential information nothing in this section shall require a public servant to disclose confidential information for information that is otherwise privileged under law. There is a couple of changes to section one, two, three, B appearance of unethical conduct which I will note is beyond just appearance of a conflict of interest. This would cover conflict of interest as well as any other type of unethical conduct. So a public servant shall avoid any actions creating the appearance that the public servant is violating the code of ethics whether particular circumstances create an appearance that the code of ethics have been violated shall be determined from the perspective of a reasonable individual with knowledge of the relevant facts. That was a requested change from the ethics commissions while we have the reasoning for that for a witness testimony. Moving down into page 10 section one, two, three, F this gray language was language that was highlighted. Senator White in a comment about whether to have this language in this section the ethics commission would like to keep this in this section. So I have just flagged it for the moment for further committee discussion. Then you have section 12 with 3G gifts these are unchanged. I'm moving now into page 12 and then into page 13 and 14. You'll see in subsection B this is a section about how to value the value of gifts either the value or the cost of a gift in limits. I have changed the de minimis gift amount from $20 to $25. This is sort of a combined comments from Senator White as well as from the ethics commission. And then moving down into page 16. Right now we are, let me scroll back for a moment just so you can orient yourselves. We're now in section 1203 I employment restrictions subsection B post government employment. You'll see some divisions one and two are a restatement of the current laws that apply to legislators and executive officers. Subdivision three is regarding legislative branch employees. You'll see most of the language from the current draft is being taken out and then there is some new additional language that is suggested by the ethics commission. So this would read except as permitted in subdivision four of this subsection for one year after leaving office a former legislative branch employee may not for compensation up here before the general assembly or its subparts or the office in which the employee served at the time of leaving service to advocate for anyone other than the state concerning any matter in which the state has a direct and substantial interest. I did include a question here about the scope of employees that this would cover. As you know, there are interns as well as clerks that work both at the office of legislative council as well as for each of the chambers at times. So I was not sure what you wanted me to put or not put for those individuals. So I left that as a question. Subdivision five representation restrictions. You'll see the current language that's in the draft is being removed all the way down through page 17 and then following this there is a new language that is suggested by the ethics commission after leaving state service or employment a public servant shall not knowingly with the intent to influence the outcome and investigation application, ruling, license, contract, claim, rulemaking, charge, arrest, quasi-judicial or judicial proceeding, communicate with or appear before the state on matters involving specific parties in which the employee participated personally and substantially during government service and in which the state is a party or has a direct and substantial interest. Moving down now into page 18, looking at section 1205 mandatory ethics education and training, a public servant shall participate in continuing ethics education which may be in person or online at least once every three years thereafter. Approved continuing ethics education providers are the state ethics commission, the department of human resources center for achievement in public service, also known as CAPS, the Vermont house of representative ethics panel for the house of representatives, the Vermont state ethics panel for the Senate, the new addition here of state licensing entities and then any education providers approved by the state ethics commission. And that is all of the changes. Thank you, Emron. So if I might just add something here before we go. I suggested taking the conflict of interest definition out of the definitions and instead putting it there with everything else because that's what we've done with all of the other ethical 12 rules or whatever we're calling them so that it is there. And I also suggested because what I thought I heard from people and maybe I'm wrong was under that code of ethics, I mean, under that conflict of interest policy that the legislative branch will determine the process that the legislator or the branch employee goes through when there's been a conflict and the judiciary will determine how they, the process that they use and that attorneys will use their process. So it wasn't meant to instead of saying but this doesn't apply to have it there and then say but this doesn't apply to those. It made more sense to me to put it in a positive way and say they already have procedures for how to deal with conflict of interest. And so they will use their own procedures as opposed and then they'll all the, I think it said public servants other. I think that was Christina was that you and Amron that came up with that word, okay, Amron. So anybody who isn't covered under those others then that's the procedure that they would use. So I apologize if that didn't answer what I thought we heard a lot from the attorneys and the judiciary and other people, but that was why I did that. And there was one other one that Amron said, oh, where I suggested taking out, oh, use of government resources. I had suggested taking out that whole language because it seemed unnecessary to me. You can't misuse government resources, but I don't have a strong feeling about that. So that I just wanted to explain kind of how, and I really appreciated Christina's rewrite of that language about the post-employment, post-service employment for both legislative branch employees and for others because I think it wasn't clear enough that you had to have been involved in that particular case personally and substantially before and that seems to me to make sense that you should not be doing that, but I think that was unclear and I think we heard a lot of concern and comments about that. So I just wanted to explain kind of my thinking in here and appreciating Christina's willingness to bear with me. So with that committee members, does anybody have any questions about the redraft and where it is and what it says? Yes, Alison. I think this is good. I think this answers much of what we've heard. I said earlier that I really appreciate the work you and Christina have put into this to respond to the concerns of the committee and to your concern. I mean, I think you've done a lot of work and I'm grateful because you've done it on our behalf and this is really moving us forward. And I think I have some concern about interns and clerks that I'd like to also address. I do have some concerns about government resources. I think that is, I think they can be abused and I have a vivid imagination, I guess, but all of us, and I think it's one common concern and complaint that people see, people taking advantage of a resource that is available in moderation for your use but not in gross amounts. So I can think of many ways that government resources could be misused by people. And so I'm sort of, I'm a little surprised that got taken out, but. No, no, it didn't get taken out. Only that. I thought you said, no. I can't find, I'm having a hard time finding it. No, it didn't get taken out. The only thing that got taken out was. Oh, here it is. A pair of a section that said, unless it's been approved before, it still says. Okay, good, good, good. Oh no, I would never take that out. Yeah, because I think that's a source of much complaint. So I think that, so let's, unless there's other questions about the drafting or about this from the committee members, let's jump to hear what people think. And I think that we will start with, because we had a lot of concerns from the judiciary. So I think we'll start with Scott. Good afternoon. Hello, Senator and committee members for the record, Scott Griffith, interim state court administrator for the judiciary, the Vermont judiciary. And I just want to echo what has been said by Senator Clarkson and you, Senator White. There's a lot of work that's going into this. Let me also say that I'm just seeing it. So whatever I have to offer is in the moment without having spoken to any of my colleagues or any other folks, but thank you to the committee for recognizing the interest that we have in having our constitutional authority, if not our obligations recognized. We appreciate that. There's a lot to like here. I'm going to make sure I'm clear about something. It looks like the, on page six and seven in the conflict of interest section, there is an exception made for under the course of action section, legislative branch, judicial branch and attorneys and licensed professions. We've got that other category. And then beginning on page nine in 1203A, the provisions in the bill from 1203A, I think through J, those are things, are those things Senator White that were talked about at last Friday's committee discussion as the Boy Scout 10 points or 10 to 12 points. And is it correct to, how should I read this? Are these things that will apply to public servants including those in the judicial branch as outlined here? Or are these things that the branch will be expected to incorporate if they don't exist already into our existing codes? I don't think that you'd be expected to. I don't have it in front of me now because as I said, I'll lose you. But I think that you're referring to what we refer to as the 12 points or the whatever. And it would seem to me that people in the judiciary branch should be subject to not misusing government resources and to not encouraging others to, I mean, that those are broad enough, those didn't have a lot of detailed specifics underneath them. So they would just be there. I don't think that there's any requirement that you put that into your code. This is the state code of ethics and you have something over here but everybody who's a public servant would have to not use misgovernment resources. Would not have to, would not use information received in a manner for their own personal gain. Or yeah, that's the way I looked at it. It's hard to imagine there's anything really objectionable here. I agree with you, Senator. Just to be clear, at the last meeting last Friday, I think Senator Clarkson, you mentioned a couple of times that the legislation might include these 10 to 12 things. And then the legislation would contemplate deferring to, for example, to the judiciary to incorporate those items into our codes. Maybe I misunderstood that. I don't know why you should have to incorporate them. You have your codes, there's this code that's kind of overreaching. I think that was before we thought about kind of taking that conflict of interest section and redefining that. Right. Okay, okay. Okay, that helps. Well, it's good to get the overview today. I'm, you know, we'll, again, we're looking at it right here in the moment, but be thanks to the folks who worked hard. It looks like in the last week to meet the committee's expectations. Well, that's nice to hear. Thank you. So I'm gonna jump, oh, Amron, I'm sorry. I just wanted to say from a technical perspective of looking at this draft, those sections A through G would cover all public servants in all branches of government. Okay. I'm sorry. That's all right. And I just wanted to be clear that the draft as it is currently written, we removed the exclusions from the application of the code of ethics up towards the top of the bill, which means all of it would apply. That is how it is written at the moment. So A through G or A through J would apply to judges, lawyers and all of the other non-judge, non-lawyer employees within the judiciary. That is correct. So if there is a provision that is in there that is in conflict with what is presently in the judiciary's code of conduct with regard to judicial staff, then I would assume that the judiciary would need to update its code of conduct to align with state law. Right. And so that's... Certainly unless there are constitutional parameters that would give the judiciary authority to, I know I don't want to wait into much of what has already been waited into before, but there has been a lot of discussion about where that constitutional line is. So I will just leave it at present. This covers all three branches of government. Yes. But I think you've recognized a little bit of a sticking point, not one that we can't work through. But with respect to the employee code of conduct, modifying that within the court administrator's office, we have the ability to do that. That's... But I don't think you have to modify anything. Are there issues in those that you feel that the judiciary branch should not have to abide by? No. This use of... No. Okay. No, I think just making sure that there's alignment between what we have in our employee code of conduct and what's here, and that there's clarity for our employees and for our managers. I don't think that's difficult to do, but we'll want to do the alignment. Procedurally, I think there are additional steps that have to be taken. There's a process for the rules of professional responsibility that we don't want to overlook. And I think it will be important for there to be some discussion about that because the professional responsibility board is charged with making recommendations to the court about the rules of professional conduct, and we'll have to figure out how we work that through. Okay, I might be completely misunderstanding this, but I see we have 12 things here. This is an umbrella for the 12 things. You have your own set of procedures under there. You don't have to change anything because if the professional code of conduct does not include or imply that people shouldn't be using information that they received for their personal gain, then there's something wrong with the professional code of conduct. So I don't see that you have to do anything because we have this umbrella and then underneath there, each branch will have some very specific things underneath there and they will have very specific procedures to carry out whether, if somebody is violating them, but I might be completely wrong here, but I can't imagine that there would be any conflict with anything in the judiciary branch or the legislative branch or government attorneys that conflicts with any of those 12 things or whatever they are, however many. Yeah, I suspect you're right. And I see Christina shaking her head and I understand that's certainly the intent, but I wanna make sure that folks on our end who are responsible for all of that technical work are familiar with all of this. So it's a little work on our end, but I understand what you're saying. Yeah, they're sort of foundational. Yes. Okay, I'm going to jump I think to John Campbell because I know you had some concerns about the professional code of ethics or professional regulation for attorneys and also for the post-employment. And thank you, Madam Chair. John Campbell, Executive Director of the State's attorneys and sheriffs and I apologize for my voice. You still sound pretty awful. Yeah, still I think it's like the third day of strip. So it's like razor blades in the throat, but we'll try to get through it. Again, Madam Chair, I just saw this, just now they didn't know that they had done another draft. So I'd like to take the time to go through it. One thing I really do think it's important to point out though because I believe some people have said that the professional code of ethics for the attorneys did not was really more concerned about the attorney-client privilege and relations between attorney attorneys and clients and not anything about having to do with government, which is not true. I mean, we have a, there's a specific section that deals directly with government attorneys. Several, we have several pages of our code of conducts. In fact, actually the conflict of interest is very similar to what it's here, but it is in our professional code of responsibility. We do have a conflict of interest policy for government employees. And I believe it actually, somebody looks like they may have looked at it when they were drafting. I'm not sure if that, if some of this came, but there are some differences, but I'd like to go through this with more detail to determine if it's a major conflict. I have to use that word again, but with what's here, I think the changes, I really appreciate the fact that the committee did make those changes. The post-employment, again, without, with just a cursory glance, I think it does address the issue, but I'd have to look at it closely. You have, I believe somebody representing the VSCAs on the call, so they probably would be able to, to address that and answer that. But if I could just reserve the right to come back and if we do find any issues that might be of concern, I'd like to do that. Yes, thank you. You're right. And we, everybody did just see this, including all of the committee members and myself and probably Christina. Amron is maybe the only one who actually saw it before this, but I would encourage us when we, when we look at this to not read this as is written for legislative purposes or for drafting purposes, but to look at this as if we have these 12, kind of definitions of what we are all supposed to abide by. And then not, and then thinking, oh, wait a minute, can our employees abide by, by that? And if the answer is no, then we need to do some looking at why that answer is no. If the answer is yes, then the whatever codes anybody has underneath there are fine because they're already saying, yes, we can abide by that. So I would just encourage us not to look at, I mean, to look at the way it's drafted, but to, in our minds, think of it a little differently. So thank you. The only thing I would say to that is that as always, I think you always want to avoid conflicts with rules or especially when you deal with ethics rules and ones that might bind that where as with attorneys we're bound under these under the court, the Supreme Court. So we just want to make sure that there's no conflict with them. Just please don't come back and say that the attorneys can't abide by the one that says they shouldn't use their information for their personal gain. No, I, you know, there's certain ones of these that you think are pretty, they would be common sense. And that's why I sometimes I look at these and I say, I can't believe we're actually telling somebody that they should not do this. And they, someone might think it's okay to do, but, you know, having spent 16 years in that building and along with you all, I know that unfortunately some people come in and I have Pat McDonald's there too. So probably heard some crazy stories along the way, but so I, again, I think it's, you know, supporting ethics and cleaning up any type of concerns there are in government is always a plus in my book. So I will say this when Senator Campbell was the pro tem, he was very insistent and dragged me down to his office and said, we need to start working on an ethics issue. So. Good people with me. So I also want to remind everybody that we have this on the schedule again for next Tuesday at two and would like to be able to wrap it up. So if there are issues that anybody comes up with between now and then please try to, I mean, next Wednesday, next Wednesday, not Tuesday, next Wednesday. Okay, so let's see, Jason, who are you representing? Hi, good afternoon, Madam Chair. Thank you. Members of the committee. I'm Jason Graham, I'm representing myself. Oh, good. Okay, thank you. I am the executive director of the Rhode Island Ethics Commission, I'm not here on behalf of them. I'm also the past president of the Council on Governmental Ethics from last year and a member of their governing board, but I'm not here to represent the Council on Governmental Ethics. Okay. I was, Christina reached out to me and indicated that members of the committee might want to hear from someone who administers a code of ethics in one of your neighboring New England states. So it was part of my civic duty. I thought I would, since I'm not going skiing in Vermont this week like I normally do. That's a gift, that's a gift we can't give you. So I think, and I knew I recognized your name from someplace and was from Christina's suggestions. So I think what I'm gonna do is that others weigh in on this draft and then kind of go to you for some overall. Does that make sense? Everybody to do it that way so that we can hear so that Jason has the chance to hear what people's comments and concerns might be. Sure. Okay, all right. Paul, would you like to join us? You're inviting me to weigh in on the legislation. I am, if you would like to on this draft. And actually I would first like to just ask, have you and the other members of the committee seen and read the letter from the five ethics commissioners? Yes. Yes. All right, very good. That pretty much sums up what I would have to say except I would just underscore that I said five, actually one of our commissioners is currently recued. So four commissioners, but the four commissioners who are not recused, we are all of the same mind as I think pretty well expressed in that letter to the committee. Okay, thank you. I think that we should make it clear that we, our intent always was to do that, to get something out this year and to work really hard to get it right. I don't think any of us had any interest in shelving this or dragging our feet or anything else, but as with all legislation, it goes through lots and lots and lots of modeling and redoing and people thinking through and then finally hopefully coming to some kind of a resolution. So I just wanted to make that clear that, and I think that there was some indication in some media that maybe we weren't even interested, but I think both Senator Plenon, I tried to make that very clear that we were. And we really appreciate the time this committee has devoted to this bill. If I could just make one little point, I was hoping and expecting that Paul Gillies would be joining us today at the committee. And there was an invitation to have him come, but he hasn't shown up. I just left him a phone message. I don't know his whereabouts. I hope he would still be invited next Wednesday. I could, if you'd like, I could report on my phone conversation of him from several days ago and his, but it would be better to have him show up and explain himself. I, we would be happy to have him show up, but what I would want him to do is to comment on where we are with the, in the process and with the draft of the bill. We know that he, we often use Paul for constitutional questions. And I think that we have, I think Amron has pretty well gotten around what might be considered the constitutional issues here. By the way, she's written this up, but he's still welcome to join us if he wants. And I will relay this latest draft to Paul Gillies. Yep. Yeah, we will, after, as of today, we will make, this is on our website and it'll be available for everybody to see, so. Thank you so much. Oh, thank you, Paul. I'm sorry. You're fine. I'm good. I'm going to jump to Vince. Are you with us, Vince? Hello, Lucy. Hi there. Can you hear me? No. We can hear you, but we can't see you. Ah, now we can. Whether it's good or bad, that's the other question, but nice to see you all. We won't comment. It's nice to see you all working hard on a Friday afternoon. When I first started there in the 1980s, by noontime the place was a ghost town. Things have changed a lot. But anyway, thanks for the opportunity to comment. As you know, we represent over 6,000 individuals who work in all the agencies and departments and entities of state government, many of whom are licensed by different professions that the Secretary of State's office, the Medical Practice Board, and the Vermont Criminal Justice Training Council. The only thought I've had, having seen this draft just a few minutes ago, is that you may want to consider a delayed implementation date. The reason for that is that I do think, as we've seen with the attorneys, a lot of work has been put in to make sure the bill does not adversely impact the ability of attorneys to do their work and then represent others should they move on to a different place of employment. In the case of all of the individuals we represent, engineers, scientists, land use experts, they all have their own code of ethics, their professional rules of conduct. What I'm thinking is that it might make sense to direct that any profession that is governed by a code of conduct takes six months to review whether anything needs to change in their own governing regulations and then they would be harmonious and work together. The one thing about attorneys is, in this bill they're represented by the Supreme Court, by the Department of State's Attorneys and Sheriffs, by VSEA. Who's out there representing the well-driller or the engineer that works at ANR or one of the land use experts, people at the public service board. There's just so many professions that may be impacted. It's not that we're against the spirit and the intent of the bill, but I really think there has to be a synchronization of the various professions, something which the committee was able to do for the attorneys, but something which it's impossible to do for all the others out there. So that's the only suggestion I have. Put it in, pass the bill, have it delayed effective date. It could be January 1, it could be next July, and then you won't get any unintended consequences. I think I'll leave it at that at this point. Allison? So Vince, as you know, this bill still has a long way to go before it's enacted and it goes to the house next. I mean, if we could put, I think the house, we have another month and a half, two months before of opportunity for people to weigh in on this. So instead of anticipating it needs to have a delayed implementation date at the moment, I would encourage every one of those professional groups that has a developed code of ethics to review them and be in touch with the house government operations committee. I appreciate that, but it's the logistics of it. It's like moving an army. We can't, there's just no way we can do it. We've seen you move that army. Well, that would be Steve Howard, but he spends a lot of time, spends a lot of time with me. So it's hard for me to say that we can do that. So I understand this. My first reaction is that my guess is that they won't need to, most people, most professions, won't need to make any changes at all because this is the umbrella. This doesn't dictate any detail to them. And the only thing that I think might, might impact some of the professions out there is the post-employment government employment. If, if, and I, it seems to me that the way it's written now is it's very clear. So if you had somebody working for DEC and they were involved in a particular permit, then they should not leave. And within a year, go represent the person who is now applying for the permit if they were personally involved. And, and I'm not sure that we need to delay that for, I'm, I have no problems delaying it until January. I wouldn't delay it after past January, but I think that that is common sense right now that they shouldn't, they shouldn't be doing that. Well, the committee really has moved mountains for the attorneys and we're glad you did because we represent all the deputy state's attorneys. But I can see if we opened up every individual code of conduct for these various professions, we might have more questions. And it might be just questions. I don't think they have to open up their code of conduct because this is really just an umbrella, but I'm not opposed to delaying it until January 23rd, which would give also give the ethics commission time to write it up in a nice little poster that everybody can read. And so anyway, thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. So Ben, I'm going to jump to you. Thank you, Madam Chair and members of the committee for the record, Ben Hinsley campaign for Vermont. I think like everyone sort of still digesting the draft that's in front of us. I think there's certainly some positive changes in terms of clarity in here is much more clear. And I appreciate the amount of work that the members of the committee have put in over the past week, as well as Ameren and everyone else that's been involved. I think it's definitely a parent that there's been a lot of thought put into this. And you can tell from the clarity in the draft that we've gotten in front of us how much thought has gone into it. So I appreciate that. I think like some others, I would want a little bit extra time to digest certain pieces of this, I think particularly the piece around the process, the recusal process for conflict of interest and how that interplays, I think we would want to think through some of the scenarios of what that might actually look like if each branch has a separate process for recusal. I don't inherently disagree with that, but I just think we would want to think through to make sure we understand how that would play out in practice. But I do appreciate the committee's work in getting a set of standards that applied all three branches of government. I think that is productive. And I think it's also clear in the draft language that it does not preclude any branch from having a policy HR or professional code of conduct or what have you, that is more strict than the rules being contemplated here. It's pretty clear the way that this is drafted. It's meant to be an overarching set of principles. So I appreciate the work that's been put into this and would also ask that we have a chance to comment next week if we, as we dive in further, if there's anything that we notice, but I think this is a great step. Thank you. Pat, do you have anything to add? Madam chair for the record, I'd like to just echo what Ben has said. I'm the president of the board of directors of campaign for Vermont. And we also do our show vote for Vermont. So we're out there on the politics small T. I think what the draft that I'm seeing now is making me feel really good. And I compliment the committee and I wanna thank you for allowing Ben and I to be part of this. The only thing that's still sticking in the back of my mind and I wanna read the language is the concern about, and I don't wanna open up a, but I'm gonna jump into it. To write why you think you have a conflict of interest. I know there was some concerns from the committee members about if I have a conflict and wanna recuse myself, I have to fill out the form that makes sense to me. I think Christina submitted it to the committee, but there was still some angst about that. And I just wanna make sure as we go forward and you go, if this passage goes onto the floor that everybody's comfortable with that particular part of the process. But I think we have made giant strides here and I really compliment you and the committee. And I wanna thank Christine and TJ especially, we've worked very closely together, the four of us and it's been a pleasure. So thank you. Thank you. So Christina, thank you for bearing with us. No, thank you. I mean, I wanna echo what everyone else has said, like I really appreciate the hard work that has gone into this. This is my first time really working with the legislature. I didn't realize it was unusual to meet weekly and how much work that is for you all just on this one bill. So thank you for that. And I agree I'm feeling really good about this draft. I think there are perhaps a couple of areas that we might wanna have a bit more discussion just in terms of like recent changes, but I do think that we can get through them. I'd like to make an offer to John Campbell. I'm happy to talk through how the conflict of interest issue in terms of how it impacts attorneys, how the commission sees it. So we can come to some clarity on that because I think it's always better that if we're all on the same page. Mr. Lutzi, I just wanted to clarify that the representation restrictions that are in the current code are actually not new. They weren't modified for attorneys specifically. They were just rewritten to be more clear and they track the federal code of ethics. So the DOJ, but also the Department of Labor. And so in terms of changing them specifically to address the concerns of attorneys, that's not something that's happened. It was just rewritten for clarity. I think as we go forward, you might have a couple more conversations just in terms of how the rules for professional conduct interact with the code of ethics in the sense that when we're talking about the rules of professional conduct for attorneys. So they are mainly focused on the attorney-client relationship. I think even if you look at the section that's on government attorneys, it mainly addresses clients and past clients. Whereas the code of ethics addresses situations that might not be related or mostly do not relate to that relationship. For example, you're an attorney, you work for the agency of transportation, you're putting on a hiring committee. It turns out your brother-in-law is applying for a position. That is a conflict of interest for you. That does not fall directly under the rules of professional conduct. It would fall under the code of ethics. So you'd follow the procedures in that case for accusing yourself under the code of ethics. For example, you're a prosecutor. You are assigned to prosecute a case. You find out it's your roommate. Well, you find out that it's somebody that you know. So under the rules of professional conduct, you might accuse yourself under the rules of professional conduct, but you wouldn't need to under the code of ethics. So it's very rare that the two would intersect. So I fully support the idea of following the recusal process for conflicts that fall under the rules of professional conduct. I don't think there's a question about that. And then there's the other question, a one you have a conflict that falls solely under the code of ethics. Is the board of professional responsibility set up to handle all these other types of conducts of conflicts? Do they really want to see, you know, 300 more types of conflicts come before them that weren't coming before them six months ago? So I'll leave it there because I think there are people who are better experts than me, like Jason to address this issue, but I just thought I'd raise those two points. So I think that, yeah. And I think that two, we, Jason, I want to make good reuse of your time. And it is probably just as late on Friday afternoon in Rhode Island as it is in Vermont. I think we're in the same time zone. So if you would like to weigh in here and just give us some of your knowledge, that would be great. Sure, I'd be happy to. And it's your time. And I'm happy to give it. I'm only here to help you. So you can take or leave my comments and opinion. I don't have any stake in the matter. I'm just trying to be helpful to the committee to the extent I can be. So I've already mentioned who I am working at the Rhode Island Ethics Commission where I've worked there for over 20 years now. So just to give you a little background, the Rhode Island Ethics Commission was established in 1986. So it's been around for a little over 35 years. It does have jurisdiction over all three branches of government and municipal government. So we do it all over there, which I recognize you're not trying to do municipal government in Vermont. And so I've reviewed the bill that you have and with the changes you also have here. I guess I will just point out a couple of things that struck me as being maybe a little unusual, but every state's different. So every state might have a different code of ethics and I understand that. As to the issue of attorneys and other licensed professionals, in Rhode Island we wouldn't treat them any differently than every other public servant. And my experience with other Ethics Commissions across the United States and Canada for that matter is that would be a bit unusual. And in my opinion, probably not necessary. The attorneys do have to follow the rules of professional conduct and it's the judiciary that normally has disciplinary counsel that handles those matters, but government attorneys, attorneys who are state employees generally follow the same rules that every other state employee follows. And if they violate the code of ethics, then it's whatever the enforce, I'm not sure what the Vermont enforcement mechanism is going to be, whether it will be the Ethics Commission or some other investigative agency. But it wouldn't be the court's bar disciplinary counsel that would try to enforce the code of ethics. I assume that that's not the case here either. Just as the Ethics Commission wouldn't try to enforce the attorney's rules of professional conduct. Real estate agents also have, or engineers or nurses at the Department of Health, they're all licensed people who have rules of ethics that they have to follow for their professions. But they also, in most states, in my experience have to follow the code of ethics for state employees. And there's really not a lot of confusion. It's kind of a Venn diagram, two circles like the Olympic rings. And one of those circles is the rules of professional conduct for whatever you do. And the other is the code of ethics for public employees. And there might be a little bit of overlap here and there. The same conduct might violate both principles, but there's plenty that it only violates one or the other. So I just throw that out there for your information. And I guess the other thing that I would say two things. First, I give this committee a lot of credit. I've written lots of ethics laws and regulations in my 20 years. It's always difficult. It's hard to legislate on ethics. And I give you a lot of credit for the time and work you've put into it. But it is worth doing, even if you don't get it perfect. You get these laws on the books. They can always be revisited later. It's perfect is the enemy of good enough in ethics. Sometimes you just need to get something on the book. So I would encourage you there. And the last thing I would say about your proposed code of ethics is from an outsider looking in, I think it might be valuable for you to know that it is a modest code of ethics. For instance, the Rhode Island code of ethics is much stricter on almost every one of those A through J provisions that you've got. That's not to say the years are bad or that it needs to be stricter. I just want you to have, and many other states have even stricter provisions there also. So I don't, although when you go from zero to something, of course it seems very strict, right? But if you look across the country, I think you will find that this is a very modest proposal, good and modest proposal at regulating ethics for public servants. And so I encourage you to go forward. And if you need to strengthen them later, you can always do that. Or if you need to lighten it. I want my time here to be valuable. If you have any questions for me or anything you would like me to address, I'm happy to do it. And if you don't, I will not feel the least bit offended, but I'm at your service. So committee, I have a question. If I might, unless other committee members would like to jump in. Okay. You go first. So I just going back to Christina's last statement about that. And I think that one of the areas that has been caused, the most angst is the conflict of interest area. That seems to be where people are the most concerned, including myself. So the idea that, that I totally agree with the kind of the definition there of conflict of interest. I mean, it's not really a definition, but what it means and that you shouldn't, you shouldn't have a conflict of interest or a perceived conflict of interest. You should avoid that. But then when I go to the procedure, I have mixed feelings about how that procedure applies to everybody. And how do you, if you have a similar kind of procedure in Rhode Island, how do your legislators deal with that? If I have to, the way we deal with a conflict of interest is if we're voting, we say, we stand up and say, under rule 71, I'm going to excuse myself from voting because I may have a conflict of interest. And then the body says, we don't think you do. We don't think it's enough of a conflict for you to be recused from voting. And that's the way we handle it. So we don't write anything down. We don't justify why we do it or if we wanted to keep on and somebody else said, I think you have a conflict of interest, the body would decide. So I just am curious how in Rhode Island you deal with that with your legislators when they're voting. Sure. The issue of legislators and whether they have to recuse when there's a conflict of interest. So I'm sure as all of you on the committee know, there is legislative immunity written into your constitution. I don't know if you call up the speech and debate clause in Vermont, but every state and the federal government has something that says, you can't question legislators any place with the legislature or their core legislative act. And so it may be that for legislators, it's not really up to the ethic, the conflict of interest procedures maybe don't apply there. It may be the legislature gets to set its own recusal type rules due to legislative immunity that's written into the Vermont Constitution. Rhode Island had that also, by the way, until 2016 when the people voted to amend the state constitution to specifically put legislators under the authority of the ethics commission in the code of ethics. That's the only state in the country I know of that does that. And I'm not suggesting that's about to happen in Vermont. So for legislators, it may be that you don't have to follow that specific conflict of interest procedure written in the code of ethics, but all of the other things don't really relate to core legislative acts. Gifts, revolving door, post-employment restrictions, use of confidence. So you follow all those. That would be the normal course that the legislature maybe gets to come up with its own recusal provision, but it has to follow everything else. But really the legislature and conceivably a judge sitting in a case might have that type of leeway to under separation of powers principles. But beyond that, but even the judges should still follow the gift rules and the use of confidential information rules and everything else because it doesn't have to do with the judicial function. It just has to do with being a government employee. Well, I think that's the way this is written that everybody has to abide by everything. The only thing that's excused for anybody is the recusal process. That's the only thing in here that doesn't apply to everybody. Well, and then the post-employment issues when you're talking about attorneys, I mean, I'll tell you how we handled that in Rhode Island. Oh, okay. We just said, this doesn't apply to appearances before a court of record. What is it? A matter of public record in a court of law. So that pretty much satisfies all of the attorneys. Their post-employment restrictions don't ever prohibit them from going to court in a matter of, in a court issue. And that's really what the lawyers are concerned with. We found, but they shouldn't be able to, a lawyer for your department of transportation, I don't know if, shouldn't be able to quit today and then tomorrow start representing some giant bridge engineering firm back before the department of transportation. At least in Rhode Island, you can't do that. But if they wanna go work for that same company and represent them in court, that would be okay. Oh, okay, okay. That's how we handled that in Rhode Island. Yeah, thank you, Allison. So Jason, thanks, it's helpful. It's always good to hear another perspective here. Vermont is modest in many ways. So maybe our code of ethics is perfectly complementary to the rest of Vermont. But what I am concerned having had a child as a young person who could conceive of an intern or a clerk who only has limited employment is trained basically doing like a residency in our legislative branch, in our legislative council. I am concerned that we solve this problem because it would, to me, it's grossly unfair to limit them if they're only working for us for a short, either as an intern while they're at law school or as a clerk for a one-year period. To limit them, I think is a little challenging given they're desperate to get a job after they finish their work with us. How do you handle those? All the provisions of our code and of many codes apply to everyone who's an employee. If under the personnel rules, you're considered a full-time or part-time or seasonal employee, then it would apply. But as I read through your proposed code, I don't really see anything that would stop them from... As I said, your post-employment restrictions are fairly modest in that it seems like they're only limited to matters that they worked on while they were... While they were there. In Rhode Island, you can't represent anyone back before your own agency for a year on anything, whether you get paid or don't get paid. So that's what I mean when I say your proposal is pretty modest. Got it. So that restriction to say, I mean, obviously you shouldn't be working on some matter and then when you leave, come back and represent a private party back on that exact same matter. That seems to be what your restriction is and that seems pretty reasonable even for a clerk or an intern. It doesn't seem that onerous to me. And that's why we put in a few years ago, we put in the lobbying prohibition that legislators couldn't become a lobbyist within a year. Right. Any other questions for... Jason, thank you for coming in. I realize this is modest, but as you said, if you're going from zero to something that... I don't mean modest in a bad way. It's great for you to actually to go from nothing to something is probably the hardest part. And so I don't discount the work in the effort it takes to do this. Galison? Sorry, I just, I'm just curious because I know there are lots of states that have a very strong code of ethics and have lots of ethical challenges that we read about in the paper. So I'm just curious how many cases do you get? You have enforcement powers, I believe. Right? Yes. Yeah. And one of the cases a year you get in front and how does it break down between the branches of government, municipal, executive, legislative and judiciary? I'd be curious to know. So those are great questions. First of all, we have more cases that involve the cities and towns than involve state officials. You know, there's just a lot less scrutiny in the cities and towns. Each city and town though, still has multi-million dollar budgets and lots of jobs to give away and things to do. So it makes sense that we see a lot more cases come from there. As far as the overall number, you know, there might be 30 or 40 complaints that get filed a year. The majority of them, you know, don't go all the way. You know, they might get dismissed along the way or they were unfounded to start with. There are some big ones that occasionally happen. But our philosophy and I think this is the philosophy of most good ethics commissions is that the value of the ethics commission isn't enforcing the code of ethics. It's just that it exists. That once the rules are there, most public officials follow the rules. It's just creating a set of standards. Most people are honest and when they know what the rules are, they will follow them. So it creates just kind of a culture. Whereas when there are no rules, there's kind of a back human. People don't know that what they're doing is maybe not has an appearance of impropriety because in a lot of places, we've always done it this way. So how can it have an appearance of impropriety? That's how we've been doing it for 70 years and over here. So having a code sets those rules. The enforcement, sure you have to do some enforcement but the training, the education to go out and teach people what these rules are on a recurring and regular basis is the key. And so if I may, Madam Chairman, follow up. So that's an interesting question at this point in time, isn't it? Because that is resources and that's money and who do we charge with that training and that, I mean, each branch should be responsible for that. And that's a resource question. And we have, I guess the opportunity here with this to apply those resources or we wait and see and apply the blame. But I think if training and education are so important to set this culture code, I mean, to set this standard and to at least communicate that it exists, it would be, and maybe you could think about it but if you might send us, send us maybe what you do for as a standard for training and education in state government and municipal government, that would be helpful because we're gonna have to resource this at some point. Well, yeah, and I think that we do have it in there that there has to be training and we've heard that about 85% of ethics enforcement or compliance is around education and about 15% is around enforcement. So I think that, yeah, I didn't even think about the idea of resources because it's been charged, the commission in here has charged different bodies to provide that training. Well, you can think about it in terms of, I see you've got about six or seven different entities that are allowed to give the trainings maybe five or six under yours. Each one might give a slightly different training. Some might know the code better than others. Some might focus on, in Rhode Island, we leave it to the ethics commission. We have one person who that's their job to train all state employees to develop online training modules to make it more cost-effective and efficient, to do Zoom trainings at places. That's the general model. You'll find that most established ethics commissions have an education coordinator or someone whose job it is, is to think about training all the time. And it's, so it's one more state employee and state government versus five or six spread out at five different agencies that may or may not have the same level of expertise. Something to think about. Here we wouldn't add anybody to those five or six because we would just pile it on top of somebody else's job. And the addition of one person here is always fodder for a fight. But it is an interesting idea that there be a single person at the ethics commission that is responsible for education and training. And I can certainly support that before I would ever go to enforcement. I mean, I think that that's, that is something to consider. Yeah. And I bet Christina is thinking, ooh, she'd like that too. I mean, we would like to work with the different branches to come up with a baseline training. And then it can always be modified according to any special professions, anything that they have that exceeds the code of ethics, but to come up, you know, together, put our heads together and come up with one, one online based training. Yeah. Thank you. Maybe you can get an intern to help you create that. Any other questions or comments or concerns? And then I think that, Christina, do you want to make any general comments here? And then I think that the one that we'll hear from different people about the, oh, at first of all, thank you, Jason, so much for taking time out of your day. And I hope you're having better weather than we are. Not really a big windstorm, but thank you. Yeah. Yeah, Senator Rom Hinsdale is having huge winds up there and she's looking around right now, hoping the trees don't fall. It was winds yesterday. It was a flood alert today. Let's say like, don't leave your house. And now everything's really icy and heavy. So I don't want anyone to worry at home in Chinden County, but. Okay. Great team. And the power's still on. Yeah. So, Christina, do you want to make a few basic comments? And then I think that what we'll do is hear next Wednesday from try to get everything pulled together. Oh, I'm sorry, Senator Plena. Yeah, well, this might be, I thought I was muted. This might be a way for, like take off for Christina to make some comments. But just in plain English, when we look at this new draft, how have we overcome the dilemmas that we were facing with the judiciary and the lawyers? Like what's, why is this different, this draft, in terms of helping us achieve what we're trying to do in terms of the lawyers and the judiciary? Christina, do you want to? Oh, sorry. I didn't realize you're talking to me. Yeah, I think that we've come to agreement. Yeah, I think we've come to the agreement that these are the baseline principles that apply to everyone and that the questions that we're left with are actually pretty narrow and they may be really procedural questions. I do think that when you're looking at the, we're looking at the requirements that are already in place for ethical conduct of attorneys and judges and other professionals, they really are already in line with this. It just may be situations where the application is a bit different. So it might be written a bit differently in the code of professional conduct and it might apply more to attorneys and clients versus it's written a bit differently in the code of ethics and it applies to situations where your brother is in the next office. So that's a bit of a different situation but the principles are really the same. You're just, you're acting in good faith. You're acting in a way that enhances the public trust. So I do think that we've just managed to narrow it down to a very few points that are outstanding that I do think that we can work through with just a little bit more conversation. And like I said, I'm very happy to reach out to John Campbell or anyone else who has testified in the past just to talk through that section and talk through like the actual impact when we're talking about conflict of interest, what does it mean when you're an attorney and you're faced with a situation where you're in a lawsuit versus you're an attorney working on a policy issue and somebody offers you tickets to an event and it may look like a conflict of interest. So those are two different situations. So just getting some clarity amongst ourselves about how it would actually work in real life. I think that's the last step into really moving forward. So are we saying that to this area and the lawyers would in those instances act? Sorry, I'm losing my voice. Would in those instances use their own code, rely on their own code in order to decide what to do? I think it depends on situations. I think if you're talking about the attorney-client relationship litigation, so the rules of professional conduct, are really developed around those situations. So very clearly in those cases, they'd be following those rules because the code of ethics wouldn't be implicated. You wouldn't need to follow the code of ethics because you wouldn't actually arise. We're not talking about, if you represented a real estate firm last year and now you're in state government, that doesn't come into the code of ethics necessarily in terms of conflict of interest. It only comes up, the code of ethics comes up in situations where like I mentioned, like your attending event, you're going to get a gift. You might be looking at a situation where you're trying to hire your roommate for a position, and those are just two different situations with two different applicable sets of rules. Okay. And judge is the same thing. The, if I mean, it seems to me that everybody should be covered under the gift policy. If somebody gives you a gift to influence your decision, that's bad, no matter who you are. So I don't see that there's a, except for the procedures around conflict. I don't see that there's any reason why everybody shouldn't be abiding by this conflict of interest. I mean, by this code of ethics. But we do say that there's nothing to keep them from having something that's stricter or in addition to the code of ethics. Yeah, and they will because they will have different circumstances like Christina pointed out the professional code of regulations will, we're not addressing how their client attorney privileges are here. That's their specific thing. So they will have to have different and different codes for different things that are specific to them. I think. So, anybody else wanna weigh in? Brian, you've been very quiet. Well, Madam Chair, I liken this to, in many ways, a house of cards. And I didn't wanna say anything or make any suggestion that might displace one card and have the potential of having it all fall down. So I've been just very carefully listening and I like what we've come up with. Let's just say that. Oh, good. Good, thank you. Thank you. Okay. Anybody else have any parting words of wisdom or non-wisdom? Oh, I look forward to next week. So I really want to thank Amron and Christina. I know I have been a real pain in the side on this bill and I wanna thank them for bearing with me and listening to my rant. No, thank you. I'm so happy that we've gotten to this place. It was a lot of work, but I think it's really worth it. And like you said, having this in place is really gonna enable us to go forward with the training, which is going to be the most important part. So thank you for all of your hard work, everyone. And Christina, I noted that you said that not having done legislation before you didn't realize that it was gonna mean you were gonna have to be before us every week. And we do this on everything. So remember, if you don't wanna do this, don't introduce a new bill next year. All right, everybody, are we set? And we will come back. We have this on the schedule. Did I say next Wednesday? I think at two.