 Welcome to Capital Beat on Orca Media. This year we'll be bringing you weekly updates from the legislature here in the Cedar Creek Room inside the state house. And this week we'll touch upon the suspension of Senator Norm McAllister, the governor's state of the state address and a visit by Donald Trump to Burlington, Vermont. Joining me now is Chittenden County Senator Philip Baruth. Thank you so much. Yeah, thank you. Thanks for being here. The week began, the legislative session began on sort of a down note, a very somber chamber as you addressed the fate of Senator McAllister who last May was arrested here on the grounds of the state house on sex crime charges. You all worked very hard over the off-session period to determine exactly how to address the situation. Run us through how you ended up at the vote for suspension. Sure. So as you said, last May, charges were handed down against Senator McAllister, three felony sexual assault charges, three prohibited acts charges. Very, very serious, multiple charges, multiple victims alleging this sort of activity. So the rules committee last May immediately relieved Senator McAllister of his committee assignments. Right. And I thought that was the right idea at the time. I think the expectation then was that Senator McAllister would resign while his trial ran its course. That didn't happen. He refused throughout this entire episode to resign. Absolutely, and that's his choice. And he made it. So at that point, the options were too. The rules committee, which I sit on along with Minority Leader Joe Benning and some others, we were thinking about two different ways of responding. And that's a way of saying that the committee was of two minds. One was to expel Senator McAllister, which is a very clear power laid out in the Constitution for the Vermont Senate. And the other was proposed by Senator Peg Flory of Rutland. And her idea was that on the contrary side, the Senate should never get involved if there are charges pending, criminal charges pending against the Senate. I thought that was absolutely the wrong thing to do. That is not take action in this case and prevent ourselves going forward from taking action in other cases. So I favored expulsion initially along with at least one other member of the committee. And this was a bipartisan position. Yes. And then break down by party lines. That's right. And so at a certain point, it became clear that the committee was not gonna find a majority with those two options. And so I began using the analogy that holds in almost every workplace in Vermont. So if you are a teacher, you are a cop, you are a middle manager at Sears. If you're accused of abusing an employee, a constituent, a child in the classroom, the first thing that the institution does is to remove you from that environment. Right. So if you imagine a teacher accused of abusing a student, now to make the analogy perfect, imagine that three students have accused the teacher. That would be the analogous situation. You take that teacher out of the classroom, the procedures under their contract run their course, and then if they're found guilty, they're fired. Right. If they're found innocent, they come back to the classroom. So I began wondering, could we in the Senate do the same thing? So I went to the Senate secretary, John Blumer, who has a mind like a steel trap and the longest memory and most comprehensive knowledge of the institution of anyone. And not just our institution, but Senate's nation line. And he determined very quickly that we do have the power to suspend Mason's rules among other rule books, gives us that authority. And the question was, if we were going to suspend, would we need to have due process for Senator McAllister and could that due process derail actually the criminal case? Right. I'm sorry, Secretary Blumer determined that the due process we would need would be limited enough that we could do it without impacting the criminal case. And so I began to try to get support in the rules committee and from there in the full Senate. Right. Now, seeking the expulsion of Senator McAllister would have required a hearing, witnesses, testimony, perhaps evidence. And that is sort of what derailed that effort to expel him. Are you confident that the suspension route will withstand a legal challenge if somebody does try to challenge it? Because one of the arguments made by Senator Florey and Senator McAllister has alluded to this himself is that Franklin County has now denied one of its two Senate seats and does not have full representation. Did you receive enough sound legal advice in your view to think that this will hold up? Absolutely. So again, this was a process that was months coming together. What I will say is that what Senator McAllister was allowed for suspension was limited, but it was falsely. So in other words, he was notified that we were considering a suspension resolution in the rules committee. He was allowed to attend and testify. Which he did? Yes. And then when it, on a 3-2 vote, it came forward to the full Senate. And in that vote, he was allowed to attend, testify and vote on his own suspension. And in addition, he was provided legal counsel throughout. So I'm convinced, and I am not a lawyer, but lawyers that I have consulted believe that that protects us in the event of a challenge. Can I go to your other question about representation? Yes. So no solution in this case was perfect. And that's why I began by saying no matter what we did, no one would feel good at the end of the day. And one of the evils of this suspension idea and its execution is that Franklin County now has one Senator. But what I said to people on the floor was twofold. First, you have different responsibilities in the chamber. Right. Definitely you have the responsibility of protecting the representation of Franklin County. But you also have the responsibility of protecting the people in our care in the building. So we have legislative pages who are in middle school, classes of those pages who rotate in and out of the chamber. We also have ledge counsel, joint fiscal, people who serve us and staff us. So it is not unusual for me to be able to say to someone, I need to work with you on a piece of legislation. I don't want anybody else to know what it is that would ruin the chances of passing it. Can you meet me privately at five o'clock tonight when everybody's left the building? That wouldn't be considered unusual. Right. And yet in this situation, I was convinced that's absolutely not a power that someone charged with multiple felony charges should possess. And so I believe that outweighed the great concern we had over the representation of Franklin County. I actually think that now that we've acted on suspension, the chances are the greatest that they've been that Senator McAllister will retire. Okay. On Tuesday, the resolution that you drafted based on a case in California was introduced. On Wednesday, it was taken up for debate in a vote. The resolution passed 20 to 10. So it was not unanimous. There were some folks who felt very strongly that the Senate should not suspend Norm McAllister. What was it like in the chamber and how have your relationships with folks in that chamber been affected by this process? Well, let me say you had the vote count exactly right. 20 to 10. It was not a partisan vote. A majority of Republican senators voted for it. And about three quarters of Democrats voted for it. That's very strong. Anybody in the Vermont Senate will tell you that a 20 to 10 vote is a very strong vote. With that said, as I had predicted at the beginning, when we did it and Senator McAllister left the chamber, there was a feeling of deflation and just bad feeling. Can't describe it any other way. The next morning, we had a joint training on sexual harassment in the chamber of the house. And I actually thought that did a great deal to change the mood. So the woman who gave that training was very smart, very funny. There was a lot of serious attention to the issues of sexual harassment, but there was also some innocent laughter about the things that otherwise make us afraid. And I thought that and the fact that, as I say, there were opinion leaders on the other side of the aisle. So there was Lieutenant Governor Phil Scott released a statement supporting the action. Joe Benning, the minority leader, myself, John Campbell, the Senate President Pro Tem. There was a lot of official support for it. There was a lot of rank and file support. And so if it had to be a down moment, I think it's destined to be a temporary down moment because there was a general feeling that it was absolutely necessary. Yeah. Was this one of the more difficult issues that the Senate has had to take up during your tenure here? Absolutely. No, I remember the death with dignity fight, which, as you know, went on for years. Right. It was litigated within the chamber at every stage. Every procedural move was a contest and a fight. What you saw this week with Senator McAllister was people didn't necessarily want to openly scrap about it, but their convictions were on both sides, deeply held. And honestly, that's what we're sent to this building to do. There's a reason they built it out of granite. It's fireproof. And when you have really explosive issues, this is where they belong. Has Senator McAllister indicated to you or any other Senate leaders whether or not he intends to return and perhaps sit in the gallery or take in the proceedings at this point? As far as I know, no one's in touch with him on that. He did have a little impromptu press conference. You may have been there in the parking lot. And during that time, he said, as I remember, all things are on the table from resigning his seat to running for reelection to coming to sit in the gallery. One thing that is absolutely certain, he will not be sitting on the Senate floor. He will not be voting. And I think that's correct and proper. All right. Senator Baruch, thank you so much for joining us. Appreciate it. Thanks. Governor Peter Shumlin on Thursday delivered his sixth and final state of the state address. He touched on economic opportunity for the state, creating jobs, and a host of other things. Joining me now is House Minority Leader Don Turner from Milton. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Sure. There were a number of things that the governor mentioned. Support for paid sick leave, expanding the Enterprise Fund, which is a state fund that goes to independent private businesses for job creation. He wants to boost the Grow Local, Eat Local movement. Was that enough of an economic message in a state of the state address? I don't think so, Neil. I think that we need to hear a lot more of the state has some really challenging times ahead of us. And we all know that economic growth is where we really have to focus some energy. If we're going to turn the tide here for Vermont, I don't think that those things that the governor talked to. I mean, again, I'm not opposed to the local movements, those things. I mean, anything we can do to help local Vermonters prosper, we want to do that. The paid sick leave is a little, I couldn't support that in the house. I still don't support it. I kind of hope they hold off on that. On one hand, we try to encourage economic development. And on the other hand, we're putting another burden on the small business to pay people when they're not in work. And are you getting a lot of feedback from small businesses about this new mandate that might pass this year? Well, last year we did. When we were taking it up, I heard from a lot of local business that this is just a little mom and pop store has five or six people. It's a real burden on them to do that. And I'm thinking that these local movements are all small business. They're one, two, three, four people. If you count on those people, you have one person of the three that are not there. It becomes a big burden on those people. So I'm hoping that the Senate really takes some time with that and eases that in. But as far as the programs, local support, I'm all for that. Disappointed in that the governor, like he has year after year after year, has thrown out some really good ideas that sound good to Vermonters, but never really tells us how he's going to pay for them. So here we are sitting here again with the state facing some of the most difficult financial times of any of the recent history, no reserves, and he wants to add programs. Let's talk about a couple of those programs. A couple of them come to mind, deal with education. The governor proposed a $250 account for every child born in Vermont as a college fund starting point. And that would go up to $500 for low-income children. What do you think? Well, we supported the bill last year, but we supported it under the pretense that it was going to be private dollars that we're going to go into this. And again, even today, I think it's a great idea. How will you pay for it? And that's a similar theme that everything the governor's done, if you recall, single-payer help. Great thing. No idea how we're going to pay for it. Then we went in, oh, we need to expand Medicaid. No idea how we're going to pay for it. Well, today we know how we're going to pay for it. We're looking at large gaps in our budget because of expanded Medicaid. So again, this savings for child kids going to college is for every kid born in Vermont. Great idea. Support it. But where does the money come from? I have a feeling your response might be similar. But let me ask you about the step-up program the governor introduced. He would provide a free semester of college for folks who maybe dropped out and never got back to school. What are your thoughts on this program? Again, a great program. I hate to be duplicative, but I think it's a great program. I think that it's good that we're starting to, we're looking at these things. But because of these past programs the governor's brought forth and got passed through this single-party rule, it's sucking the blood out of the state. We don't have any money for other programs. All of our money is going into Medicaid, health care, and all that. Other agencies are suffering because of spending that's happening in the health care and Medicaid field. So again, great idea. Love to support it. Bring us a financing, the ability to bring us a sustainable financing mechanism that doesn't raise taxes or cost for more and I'm for it. The governor throughout his tenure in office has proposed a number of energy-related items. In his speech on Thursday, he called for divesting state assets from ExxonMobil and he called for focusing on small-scale renewable energy projects. Let's start with the divestment from ExxonMobil. Is that something that you and your caucus could get behind? You know, I don't think it divesting of assets from pension funds should be handled by politicians, whether it be the governor or the legislature anyway. I think that that should be left to the financial professionals. And the treasurer has handled that through advice she gets from professional financial experts. I think it should stay there. So I wouldn't be supporting that if the governor brought a bill or some get somebody to introduce a bill. And I should note in the past, treasurer Beth Pierce has come out against divesting from fossil fuels simply because the return would not be as great as other evidence. Exactly, and we already know we have shortfalls in our pension funds. You know, I am very committed to making sure that promises made by the state of Vermont are funded. And pensions to state employees and teachers and so on, it's a big commitment. It's a lot of state dollars that goes in there and we could not afford any more if they were to lose a lot of value because of this divesting. So I can't support that. There are a number of bills floating around in both the house and the Senate that deal with the siting of renewable energy projects. The governor calls for a focus on small scale rather than the larger industrial sized projects that we have seen proposed. Are you comfortable with the expansion of small scale renewable projects? I think that, you know, I think we need a balanced portfolio. And I am all about renewal. I mean, we should have renewables and we should have a balance in our portfolio to make sure we have base load power and so on. So whatever we have to do to make sure that Vermonters can flip the switch and have lights is what I want to do. But they got to be able to afford it. And what we hear, you know, we keep moving in this direction. We got to be sensible. As far as the siting stuff I want to get back to, we have a number of our caucus members who are very concerned about that. Have put in bills that are sitting on walls now that have some, if they were adopted, would have at least allow some local input into these sitings. And I think that that's important. I mean, Vermont local control has always been a big deal. The only place that we don't have local control is in renewable energy. And you know, it's ironic that the governor touts how wonderful that sector of the economy is doing. And the reason is, is because our regulatory process has been loosened up and they can develop. If we took that same model and put it into the rest of our economy, we might see some other growth. So again, we have members that are supporting setting local control, added back into the regulatory process. I support some measures to do that. I don't want to make it where it becomes that you can't develop anything. That doesn't work. Okay. During the off session, as you know, there was a lot of buzz about whether or not the legislature would move forward with legalizing marijuana. There's a bill in the Senate, a couple of bills in the Senate that will be considered this year. And the governor finally took a firm stand on whether or not he believes it should happen. And he said he would sign a bill legalizing pot if it met certain conditions. Are you comfortable with those conditions that the governor laid out? I'm personally, I'm opposed to legalizing marijuana. Our caucus hasn't really taken a position on it. We will, as the session moves on and see what the bills look like, we'll start to weigh in more on that. Personally, I'm opposed to it. I'm the fire and rescue chief in Milton. I'm a public safety guy. I work closely with local law enforcement as well as the state police. They have a difficult job already. Adding one more problem is not the way I think that we need to go. And it was quite ironic. I got a number of emails last night from constituents who said, did we hear the governor, right? He wants to legalize one drug to help fund programs to take people off opiates. I said, I think you heard him. That's the way I heard it. Doesn't make a lot of sense to me either. So I can't support that. And as a public safety official, is your main concern impairment on the roads or does it go beyond that? It goes beyond that. I mean, that's one primary. I mean, over the years I've been in numbers of driving under the influence of accidents, major loss and death and the whole deal. So I have that to fall back on. But we also have, when I go on ambulance calls and you see the way families are impacted by these drugs, it's very, the whole society is being affected by drug abuse. Right. And so the governor's right on the opiate. I get that. And we gotta fix it. But I don't think funding it by legalizing another drug that has a whole nother set of problems is the way to go. Okay. Before I let you run, last night Donald Trump, the Republican front runner in the presidential contest was in Burlington. Good for the state, bad for the state. What's your take? I think it's great for the state. I think it's great that we actually have higher presidential candidates coming to Vermont. I've been to a couple of events. I didn't go last night. I haven't decided on who I'm supporting. I'm not a supporter of Donald Trump. You know, I just, I don't feel that, I wish he was more constituent service base and I don't feel that from him. But I think it was great for Vermont because it puts Vermont on the map. It brings economic development. People come, you have people that gets dialogue. I mean, we've had people talking about it all the time. Vermont's been on the map. But most importantly, I think it's important for the people that do support Donald Trump to have an opportunity to go and actually hear the guy. Hear what he stands. See what he stands for. See him in person. Besides what you're seeing on TV and stuff. So I'm glad he came. I wish every candidate would come. So everybody had that same opportunity. But we'll see how it all plays out. I'm glad it was peaceful and everybody got their say. And I hope the people that support him have this, you know, they learned what they wanted to learn about the candidate. All right. House Minority Leader, Don Turner. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thanks for watching Capitol Beat on Orca Media. You can catch this program on orcamedia.net or vermontpressbureau.com. And we'll be back next week right here in the Cedar Creek Room with another update of the legislative session. Thanks.