 And so we give us a good overview of what this bill's all about. And if there are any flash points we should be aware of based on your experience. Okay. None of those I'm sure. Does everyone have a copy of the bill? Yeah. So you should follow along. I'm going to use my notes if I can. By the way, for the record, Brian Colomore representing the Ruffin Senate District. I'm going to use my foreign notes if you can if you will to walk through the bill. This is an act relating to the mitigation of systemic racism. Section one expresses the legislative intent. Section two amends the section of law setting forth the powers and duties of the governor's cabinet, which will include a directive that the cabinet work collaboratively with and provide relevant records to the chief civil rights officer, which is a new position created in this bill. Section three adds a new chapter to title three regarding that position. Section five 001 creates an independent position of chief civil rights officer to identify and work to eradicate systemic racism within state government. It gives the officer the powers and duties of the governor's cabinet while keeping the position independent of the cabinet, and it houses the officer within the agency of administration. Section five thousand two establishes the panel, the civil rights advisory panel within the agency of administration that consists of five members, none of which shall be legislators appointed by the various appointing bodies here, the Senate committee on committees, the Speaker of the House, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, the Governor and Human Rights Commission. Subdivision two specifies that the member shall have experience working to implement racial justice reform and that they represent geographically diverse areas of the state and that at least three members shall be persons of color. Subdivision three provides that the member shall serve staggered three-year terms, implies that of the first members appointed, one member shall serve a one-year term, one member a term of two years and up to five years so that the term of one member expires in each ensuing year. That was very complicated language at the beginning. I introduce an amendment which clears that up and I'll get to that a little bit later. The responsibilities of the panel are set forth in subsection C and those are to appoint the officer, work with the officer to implement reforms, oversee and advise the officer, report to both the, it should be Senate and House government operations committees annually and only the panel has the authority to remove the officer. The panel is entitled to per diem compensation. Moving on, section 5003 sets forth the duties of the Chief Civil Rights Officer which are to work with state government to combat systemic racial disparities and measure progress toward fair and impartial governance. These duties are to include oversight of a comprehensive organizational review to identify systemic racism throughout state government, management and oversight of the statewide collection of race-based data. Subsection C specifies that the officer shall work with the agencies and departments and the CPO, the Chief Performance Officer to develop performance targets and measures for all three branches of government and directs the inclusion of these measures in the officer's annual report to the legislature. Subsection D provides that the officer shall in consultation with the Department of Human Resources and various agencies and departments develop and conduct trainings for the agencies and departments. Subsection E grants subpoena power to the Chief to require the production of data and to compel testimony. The power granted to the officer is similar to the subpoena power of the Human Rights Commission. Section four is the authorization for the position. Section five, the appropriation that is been replaced by the appropriations committee amendment and we'll get to that a little bit later and section six creates a timeline of events for the rollout of both the position and its work. The panel is to be appointed by September 1st of this year. The officer job description posted by November 1st. The panel appointed the officer by January 1st of 2019. The officer updates the government operations committees on how to achieve the comprehensive organizational review including potential private and public sources of funding for it by April 1st and next year and the bill takes effect on passage. Now one of the two amendments that I offered on the floor was to retitle the bill to enact relating to the mitigation of systemic racism and that has been accomplished. That is in fact the name of the act. And then I mentioned the appointments to the panel. So the first one will change the subdivision setting up the staggered terms to specify which length of appointment is made by each appointing authority. So the Human Resources Commission points a one-year term. The governor appoints the two-year term, the speaker of the house appoints the three-year term, the committee on committees appoints the four-year term and the Chief Justice appoints the five-year term and they will be staggered from that point on. The second repeals the officer position and the panel in five years on June 30th, 2024. And we heard from a very long list of witnesses. I can go through them if you'd like. It's not necessary since we have basically the same, not down to the exact number but virtually the same one that you folks have. Yeah I will say at least one on one occasion we had to adjourn from our committee room to room 10 to be able to have enough people in the room to be comfortable. Are you set for some questions? Sure. Senator Comart, thank you for the overview. This was helpful. Can you, and I don't follow the Senate actions real closely, but there was a news article about some war amendment on this I think related to the commitment of the panel. Can you give us any, I guess ultimately fail, but can you give us any background on that? Sure. Yep, Senator Brock introduced or offered that amendment. He and I had talked, when he knew I was going to be the reporter, the bill he indicated that he was going to offer an amendment. This is the amendment that he offered, which would replace subsection or subdivision two in that five thousand two section. In order to promote vigorous debate and a full exploration of the issues, panel membership shall reflect a variety of background skills, experiences and perspectives be racially diverse and represent geographically diverse areas of the state and all members appointed shall be made in a non-discriminatory manner. That was the amendment that was offered by Senator Brock on the floor. I don't want to speak for him, but I think he did mention on the floor that he felt that in order to put persons of color in the bill was in fact racism and he felt very strongly about that. And the vote as I recall on the amendment was 18 to 12 not to accept his amendment. So I'm trying to understand how this would work in practice. It's in the bill. It says at least three members shall be persons of color. And then you have a five-member panel. Correct. And one's appointed by the governor, one's appointed by the Human Rights Commission. So who gets to choose who's who? I mean, I guess if they're making these appointments independently, how do you end up with the balance or the criteria here being fulfilled? That's an excellent question. I think the feeling was that there would be some collaboration and some talk with the appointing bodies before they would appoint anybody so that that fact would be accomplished. And then the panel would meet and decide who the officer was going to be. Okay. My next question relates to the director or officer or whatever it's called. Is that a full-time or a part-time position? No, intended for six months worth of funding. And I didn't get to that, but the Appropriations Committee in the Senate did appropriate $75,000 for the position of the Chief Civil Rights Officer and to take care of the per diems for the panel. So it was intended to be a six-month appointment. And that was it. Okay, so that raises the next question. So six months meaning like just because it's only going to be half a fiscal year? Correct. So the annual appropriation is really twice this? Well, that's not addressed in the bill at all. The only money that's been appropriate is the $75,000. No, I understand. But if we're going to set all this up unless it's only going to last six months, next year we have to appropriate. Correct. Twice that amount. Correct. Okay. I just want to make sure that that's understood. Yep. The other question I have and I'll be quiet after that is it seems some of this has to do with issues that we might normally turn to the Human Rights Commission. I can remember an incident where a small business didn't use public restroom to be used by a customer of color on the Human Rights Commission that evolved and resolved that issue. Did your committee look at whether or not the Human Rights Commission would be the right place and maybe somehow could be beat up to serve this purpose as opposed to looking to a brand new independent commission? I'm not really sure in the end who reports to it. The initial bill was drafted by Senator Ingram from Chittenden County. So this is the end result is different from what was originally intended or originally proposed. But the Senate Government Operations Committee, I think, was pretty clear in its intent that we, while we appreciate the work of the Human Rights Commission, we wanted to focus strictly on systemic racial problems in the state. So we felt that it should get an independent full-time panel and officer working on that. So that was the intent right from the get-go, was to not use existing bodies, but to appoint and to fund a separate group, if you will, that would concern themselves only with that one issue. How did you define a person of color? That was a very interesting discussion in the committee room. We didn't come up with a definition. And why is color the primary determining factor? Why wouldn't it be all races or religions? I mean, my kids are Jewish. Why aren't we talking about different nationalities as opposed to just color? Well, again, the intent of the committee was to address racism. So that is based on race. And we felt strongly, I think, because the committee vote was 5-0-0, that that should be a part of the discussion, that in many ways, and there was a lot of floor debate on this topic too, you can only understand what someone else is feeling if that person is talking to you about their experiences. I used the example, I don't know if I did it on the floor, but I think I could do it here, in education, for instance, in tests that our teacher will come up with in tests and everybody. What we, as whites, see as a perfectly legitimate question may not be viewed the same way by someone of color, so that we don't see the same lens that they do. And we felt that at least to have a majority of the panel on that was important. Thank you. Sure. We've got John and then Cheson. So, Senator, I was looking at the duties of the civil rights officer, and A-1 says, you know, oversee a comprehensive organizational review to identify systematic racism in each of the three branches of state government, but then it says, which may be completed by consultant or outside vendor? Yes. There's no money for that in this bill. Correct. We did ask Joint Fiscal to come up with a fiscal note for us on that. And we had estimates somewhere between, I want to say, $200,000 to $450,000, depending on how long and how deep a dive you wanted folks to do. But the costs were not addressed in the bill. No, that was something for a future legislature to be concerned. The only funding, the only money attached to this is the $75,000. OK. Thank you. Just to follow up a little bit on Rob's question, I was curious about whether or not you heard from anyone from the Abinachias. And there is a chief of the Nelhigen band that lives in my district, and is curious. And so I'm kind of, because I would assume that that would fit under this, no? Again, we had a very interesting discussion on the floor about that. To my knowledge, we did not hear from anyone from that group. So can you tell me a little bit about the interesting discussion on the floor? Well, again, if you tried to, in 25 words or less, describe what a person of color is, you probably, if you talk to three people, you get three different answers. Senator Pearson, I think, made the point that it's everyone that's not white. And so then you begin to look at Middle Eastern folks, and are they persons of color or not? Asian people, are they persons of color? And the answer is we can't come up with the perfect definition. And if you look at the federal government and how they've, because I know that there is a whole section around Native Americans, and so they have to find it somewhat as well as the different nationalities have been defined. So I wonder if that could be helpful. We didn't take a look at anything like that. Okay, thank you. The vote, by the way, on the floor was a voice vote, as I recall. We didn't take a roll call on that. But we did take a roll call on Senator Brock's amendment. But when it was defeated, we moved immediately to a voice vote, and there was a nose. I mean, I can't say there was a nose. Other questions for the senator from the committee members? Lauren. Small on the appointment of members. The term shall be three years accept. And then we have the one year appointment, two year appointment. And as terms of currently serving members expire, appointments of successors shall be in accord with the provisions of this subsection. And I'm just wondering which provision. And I would hope that their reappointment would be for three years, even if they had originally been appointed only for one or two years, four or five, for that matter. At some point, it gets self-selecting. As people step down, these staggered terms are necessary when you begin, but not in the future. Correct. And I think the amendment that we passed, which changes the way that the appointments are made, took care of that. OK. With this bill originally, it's now an act relating to the mitigation systemic racism. Let me go back. I could look it up. There was oversight in the original, the systemic racism mitigation oversight and equity review board. The board. Thank you for that, Mr. Cheney. I don't know. OK. Yes, Your Honor. How often do they propose a meeting, though? I don't know if that's addressed or not. There was a question earlier, and part of the answer was full-time. And I'm not going to get any volunteers to go full-time if they want to get a PD. That's the chief officer. That's the chief office director itself. Yeah, but there was a mention in sort of passing through about full-time. I'm looking at the bill to see if I could get to any answer. I don't think, I don't believe there's anything in there that addresses it. I'm going to get the sign on that. The sign was on frequency of meetings. I don't see anything. The problem should be someone who is going to burn through your podium. Yes. Really fast. Just a couple more questions for the senator, and then we have to ask for other folks. Jessica? Just quickly. So it looks like the head of the board, the chief, the civil head can't find the name. Chief's of the right. All the other sides. Reports to the board. Does that person report to anyone inside of government? So the governor or a chief, nothing more? I just want to be sure I'm not missing it. There is a report that goes to both of the government operations committees annually, I believe. Yeah, I saw that. I'm looking at it right back. So how many positions are there in state government that aren't controlled by the governor or the administration and can't be fired by the administration? Yeah. That was another interesting point. I'm not sure there are. We did take testimony from folks that in order to set this up as an independent panel and position for the officer, it was important that it not have to sort of have shoestrings tied to any of the branches. So it is worded that way that only the panel may remove the officer. And it became a matter of discussion in the committee and also on the floor. OK. And just one other question with respect to the subpoena powers. Yes. What if there has to be subpoena enforcement? I mean, it doesn't really detail what happens if, say, a witness refuses to comply with a subpoena or an agency refuses to produce documents pursuant to a subpoena. Yeah, the subpoena power was an administrative one that is similar to what we have with the Human Rights Commission. And I believe that if that happened, the attorney general could get involved. OK. Thank you. Marcia, I might have an answer for John's question. It used to be that it was the commissioner of education and liquor control were not direct appointees of the governor. I think that's changed for education, but liquor control still reports to their board. But my question for the senator is, when you testimony, can you give me an idea of how pervasive this issue is on state government? Well, I think that's the answer to which we hope this panel and the officer will come up with. We did take testimony from both the Agency of Transportation and Department of Public Service through the state police that they have already begun work on this and have made substantial progress, I would phrase it. But there may be other areas of state government that we just haven't looked at yet. So that was the point of having the panel and the officer. Yeah. To look at this carefully. Thank you. As a follow-up to that, are there benchmarks, even if they're fuzzy, from which further progress can be measured? Well, I think if the panel and the officer work with the chief performance officer, that person is a big champion of results-based accountability, as we well know, from serving on other committees. So there will be outcomes and indicators, I'm sure, that they'll be able to work through. Thanks. Go ahead. No, I began my Senate report by saying that I think we all can point to instances of bad behavior by people who are acting in a racist manner. But what we don't understand sometimes is the systemic situation that we may not even be aware of. That's why I use the example of the education and the testing and the particular question that, for all of us, might seem fairly innocuous, but it may not be that way underneath all these layers. And I think that was the intent of this panel and the officer. Thank you. First, as a follow-up to Marcia's comment about the liquor in education, I think she's exactly correct. However, in both cases, those boards are totally appointed by the governor. So one could argue there is certainly an indirect line to the governor in both cases. But getting back to who this commission reports to, the Attorney General's Office, I believe, has a civil rights division. Was there any conversation with the Attorney General's Office as to whether this was the right home for the commission or board? I know that we have testimony from that office. I'm trying to remember who came in. I don't see it quickly here. But yes, we did have discussions at least about that. But again, the intent was to make it as independent as possible. It kind of just sets out there to kind of do its own work. And that's a matter of concern, I know. I'm going to take the last question, because your bell is ringing. I'm going to tug out the room there. I have a feeling today's process may not be quite as long or contentious as it is. Oh, yes, Friday. Was there any discussion in committee as to what happens or how it's dealt with? If there's disagreement in the bill, it talks about three members of the panel. Language, I lost it. Yes, at least three members shall be persons of color. If there are individuals, even one individual who believes that there are not at least three members that are persons of color who have been appointed. In other words, if it gets to that question as to how to define, what happens? Was there any discussion about that? Well, I think with the odd number of members of the panel, you would just vote. So from within the panel itself, they would refuse to say that the person, x, y, or z, was not to be seated as part of the panel? Well, no, I think that I jumped ahead. It would be the step before that the appointing bodies would be getting together and deciding who was going to be on the panel. Yes. So at that point, they would have to come to a conclusion. But if they were a member of the public, say, took a look at the final constituted panel and said, hey, they don't meet the definition. There's not three persons of color. Was there any discussion about that if there was the interpretation from outside of the nominating entities and all? Because you mentioned to us there was all this discussion as to how to define is a person from Asia a person of color? Is a person you were running through that before? No, we did not discuss it. We left it up to the appointing bodies to reach consensus and appoint people that they felt were. Yeah. Thank you, Senator. I would head downstairs as need be. Thank you so much for your flexibility. The senator was asking if we couldn't start at 8.30. I explained that we had people driving in. 9 o'clock is our Tuesday morning time. So thank you. You're very welcome. Have a good day. Thank you. And may we call upon you if we have some questions? For sure. Let's see. We have with us our colleagues. Did I see Deanna come in? Or did she? She loves. She has chemical sensitivity. Oh, we have stuff in here? There might have been. Because I think that's why she loved it. It happens in our committee. Well, coach, would you care to share with us any thoughts you have in regards to this bill? I want to take advantage of members who can be here when they stop by. Because your presence shows an interest, it seems, to me for you, Bill, before you get all back to where you would normally be at this moment. Well, I think we're going to go right to the floor. Oh, OK. For the record. Representative Kevin Coach Christie from Hartford. So in following the Senate bill, S281, there was a bill that was in the house, and it is now on your wall, H868, mitigating systemic racism in Vermont. And that was a parallel bill to Senator Ingram's bill. And the outcome of the work in the Senate is what we have before us. Our bill, as you know, is still on the house version, is still on the wall. It's a much broader context. The house version of the bill, it not only looks at state government, but it looks at racism across the spectrum. It goes back into policing, the criminal justice portion of the system as well. And as a result of the work in the Senate, especially in Gabobs, it was felt that initially, to get a very deep dive done at the administrative level throughout state government seemed to be a very appropriate way to go. And when you look at the structure, it's more like an Office of Equal Employment Opportunity. And if you look at those offices across organizations, the idea is that they're autonomous. They have a responsibility to look at where inequities might be across that particular organization and delve into that research and work and come up with solutions, possible trainings, as have been noted, in the Senate bill. So taking that all into effect, I noticed the questions about the Human Rights Commission being used as the vehicle to mitigate some of these questions. And I think that from a legal perspective, what's happened is the Human Rights Commission deals with the state government side of things. And then the AG's office would deal with those external components. Being that the Human Rights Commission has a charge to protect all protected classes, we'll find that. And I think that when we look at how things have worked over time, the Human Rights Commission would end up dealing with those issues in state government because it felt that there needed to be a separation from the AG's office in some cases that showed a true separation, especially around that subpoena component and being able to mitigate one of those cases. I also heard the question that why didn't the Senate look at possibly merging the responsibilities into the commission? Well, after 30 years, this is the commission's 30th anniversary. Its composition has not changed. The work of the commission has drastically changed over the last 30 years. And there has been no support given to the commission. So to give it an additional charge without authorizing additional resources would not be an appropriate thing. When we do things in state government, sometimes that aren't necessarily what we'd like to say are proactive, but that would have been bordering on ludicrous. And that's not just a judgment call. I mean, think about every bill that we've seen that talks about responsibilities, most recently the sexual harassment bill that we passed out of the House, shared responsibility of the protected classes was given to the AG's office, Andy Human Rights Commission. The AG's office added staff. The commission has not. So I mean, there's only so much you can do with what you have. So anyways, that's that perspective. I have a couple of questions. Sure. Committee, questions for the coach? One, I guess going back coach to your, excuse me, about the Human Rights Commission. Are there no people of color on that? Is that what you were? I was just appointed by the governor as the commission's new chair. OK, so now there is. Now, in the last three years, I have to admit. Could you give me a couple of examples of what systemic racism looks like, say within state government, as far as maybe would be more probably your personal observation? Well, I'll give you an example of just weird situations, for lack of a better adjective. A few days ago, I was in the motel and went to breakfast. And I was the last person in the little breakfast up there. And this woman comes up and says, do you work here? And I went on to say, why do you ask? And she couldn't. I mean, then she started blah, blah, blah, blah. And I said, why do you ask if I work here? And she couldn't really answer the question. So basically I said to her, I said, you know, think about it. If you had said that to someone else, we might have had a whole different outcome to this conversation. I don't work here. Your assumption was inaccurate. When you look at situations and the number of times that people respond differently to you as a person of color, depending on how I dress, if I'm in my work clothes, today's work clothes, sir, I mean, people go out of their way to do that. When I'm more casually dressed, the responses change. And I rarely dress like I'm working out my car unless I go to a car place. But there's a whole different range of reactions that people have. And that's fact. It's part of my reality as being a person of color. I've been in Vermont since 1973. And if I shared some of those, it's changed since the early 70s. Back in the 70s, besides epithets used. And it was hard to tell where it was coming from. Was it mean-spirited? Was it just total ignorance? Or were they trying to see my reaction? But that has changed over time. Some of it's become more subversive. And you can sense when there's a different tone that's being used, simple things like people not wanting to put your change directly in your hand, like throw it on the counter, things like that. I mean, when you're living it is a whole another ball game, so to speak. And it's real. Talking to people on the phone is because of where I went to school and the fact that I went to an appropriate school. My speaking patterns aren't necessarily, let's say, neighborhood patterns. So talking to someone on the phone, I'll get a certain response. Once I meet that person, a whole different response. So it's fascinating in a way. Pain in the butt sometimes, but it is what it is. People are really trying to get a better understanding, I think. People with open minds, people that feel that. Like Senator Calamor said, you know when you see it, and then it's pretty apparent, it's not easy sometimes. Sometimes you want to just lose it and you can understand why people do. I choose not to, because I don't like that side of my personality when I lose it. So I keep it under control. But I do know folks who don't. And that creates a pretty hairy situation, so to speak. But that's the reality. And that's what we're looking for. Now, when as a trainer, because I have helped school districts especially, work through issues of bias, as I said, just general bias. And when people start to understand that we all have biases, it might be a bias for a person with a handicap or it could be any number of different situations. But as we start to learn about ourselves and about how we can sometimes misdirect our feelings about certain things, that's when the door really opens to change. And that's what this training piece we're talking about. That's what the Human Rights Commission over time has found itself in that role throughout the state, be it with schools, be it with businesses. I remember a case when I was on the commission before. And it was one of the last cases we had where two people went into a denny's. And one was a person of color. And another one was his salesperson partner. And so they were seated in a closed section of the restaurant. And I remember that case like it was yesterday. Needless to say, denny's, even with the litigation power that they had lost the case. But it was clearly a case of discrimination. Other cases where an interracial couple at the sheriff in Burlington went out. And the husband made the reservation. The wife came in later to get her room key. And they wouldn't give her the key. It's stupid stuff. For lack of a better way to put it, those kinds of things still happen, still go on. And I think that we have an opportunity with our work legislatively to try to help mitigate some of these problems. And that's what it's about. I think the better we understand each other, the better we understand what these problems are, the easier it is for us to do our work collectively. And that's what it's about. And you couldn't ask for a better time to be doing this bill than the anniversary of Dr. King's death. Because he got it done. And that's a tribute. And I think for all of us. So I guess that's all I've got to share at this point. I'm just curious to hear that you're going to be the new chair of the Human Rights Commission. I'm just curious if you see that if this were to go through, that you would try and work together, to some degree, would the Human Rights Commission and this new board have any relationship together? Well, I guess the dream piece would be that not only would the Human Rights Commission, but all of the commissions that are dealing with protected classes. But to look at that racism, systemic racism component initially, looking to work with the AG's division of civil rights, as well as this new civil rights officer, would be a goal, one of the goals of the commission. And as we move forward. Would you be available to us also? Sure. I'd be happy to. Perfect. Great. Thank you very much. And thank you very much. Because this isn't easy. I mean, stuff that tugs on our hearts and kind of get into places in there that are kind of gushy, for lack of a better adjective, it isn't easy. But I think the fact that we're taking this opportunity to work on it says a lot of love for mom. It's what makes it special. Sorry? Just woke up. No, you were lying in the way. Have other states set up what we're talking about here? Not that I'm aware of. So sometimes it's helpful to look at someone's structure or something. And who is it report to? How is it funded? What have the results been? Has it made a difference? And that would be really interesting to know. Well, I guess it's something that we could always do a little work with NCSL or one of those entities, at least make an inquiry to see we're in the process of developing our work and what do you have available. Yeah, good point. Thank you. You all come here. I hope that we have time to do a full walk through about me at all. Nine pages. But it sounds like you've got a little bit of a walk through our day through the night. If you would mind, I wanted two questions I wanted to ask. Sure. We need to go downstairs. One, do you have any flexibility later today to come into an honest-to-God walk through with us? Yes. I'm booked in committee, I think, from 2 to 4.30. But outside of that? I'm thinking much before. Because I gather a floor for the house is also going to be very short today. And I think we're all going to go directly into caucuses, which opens up right after lunch for committee discussion type stuff if we didn't have people coming. So we'll say if this transpires as such, we'll say 115 be possible for you to do a full walk through with us. Committee, does that seem reasonable? If indeed this plays out the way I've been given to understand, it might, if nothing's ever for sure, it happens around here. OK, so we'll try for 115 for an honest-to-goodness walk through. The other thing I wanted to ask right now, so at least in my mind, chew on this, this business about it's on page, come, come, come, come. It's right at the beginning of section 3, thereabouts. Dagnabbit. Oh, here it is. This business about the chief civil rights officer. So when there's talk about it being independent, is it truly meant to be entirely independent of everything out there? It's like a free-flowing atom or something. The language in the bill does suggest that it's intended to be independent as a governor's cabinet. Although it's housed within the executive branch, it is intended to operate independently of it. And that all the departments and agencies are basically told in this language, you will cooperate face to face. Yes. And just informal. Yes. Yes. I just wanted to get back here and I'm going to go on. OK, OK. Folks, any short questions for understanding 115 will do the formal walk-through. Warren? I just wanted to, one of the last questions your coach was aware of things in other states. And I just wondered, as you were looking at it, did you, I assume that other states have faced this question in different ways? Yes. So I'm not aware of any other states that have instituted something similar, but I am aware of some initiatives to put something similar into place. So I can work with NCSL to find out if there are some samples that we can look at of other legislation. That would be great. So when you say initiatives, I guess ours would be an initiative because we're actively looking at it but haven't enacted anything. So other states have perhaps something similar going through? That is what I'm not sure of, but I will work with NCSL to find out how far along the process of other states gone. OK, great. Thank you. That would be helpful. We all set till 1.15, assuming things unfold as predicted. If not, watch for notes from me or spend it on the floor and say something off the cuff. OK, what will work? What will work? All right, and then thank you, Brad. Thank you. Till later, till later. So at 1.15, here's my plan for the moment subject to potential change. At 1.15, we get things squared away in our heads as to what the bill actually says with Bryn. And then after Bryn finishes, and we finish with our questions for Bryn, if we could then have some committee discussion time before 2.30 arrives regarding the Waterbury Charter. OK, because at 2.30, we have to move into formal discussion of the charter again. Understanding that anybody and everybody is welcome to sit in the room and listen to said discussions. OK? Down on the floor in five minutes. Interesting. Welcome back to having most of the seats grilled, Brown. Yeah.