 The House has passed its version of S119. The version 119 that the House passed was done in consultation with members of your committee. The House, Bryn, can walk us through it, but our choices today are to concur, to concur with further proposal amendment or to ask for a committee of conference. I don't think we have a choice to just sit here and ignore it. So those are our choices. No matter how I feel about it, no matter what I think about it, this is a democracy. And if it's a three to two vote to do anything, then that's what we go with. You know, we may have differences on the floor and how we vote, but whatever the majority says is why we'll deal with it. And I hope that's acceptable to everybody on the committee. That's why we've always operated on any other way to operate. Makes sense. I mean, I think you're right. That is the way we do things. That's why we do it in our committee also. Well, I don't know of any other way to deal with it. So we do have Bryn here to kind of walk us through what they've done, what they ended up doing rather than we walked through a number of changes that they made, but we could walk through that. And we have suggestions from the Commissioner of Public Safety for changes to our version of S119 that we passed back in June. Then we have, in my opinion, political reality that the governor would probably veto the House bill as it stands today. That's just my feeling, knowing calls have been made to several senators by law enforcement organizations in opposition to the House passed bill. So I think, I mean, Bill. So I just, before we go into a walkthrough, if that's where we're going, I just want to express one thing I'm thinking. So there's been a lot of worry on the committee about time. And I think if you go back a couple of weeks, I was talking about not wanting to get into a situation where we were 48 hours from adjournment and trying to amend or radically change a bill, because that always winds up with a meeting in the Speaker's office or in the Pro Tem's office. And I wouldn't want it to end that way. So of the options concurring, I think I could do with what I know today, looking through the bill, asking Bryn questions without the need for further witnesses. If nothing were to happen and the bill died, then that would be what it is. What I can't see doing is at this point trying to create a new version of the bill that goes back to the House. I really just don't think there's time for that. Okay. Well, are there many members? I mean, I think Phillip is right. There isn't, there really isn't time because if we created a new version and sent it back, a new version either of our original version or further amended the House version, it would not go back until tomorrow. And we're done on Friday, I understand. So, if Phillip is right. All right, I think. Okay. Well, let's continue to, Bryn, if you could go through the changes to 119, the House made, perhaps using the side-by-side that you have on the best vehicle. I'm still dealing with an old side-by-side, so I have to continue. Peggy, you put that up on the screen. Sure. Give me one second. Okay. So, good morning, committee. For the record, Bryn here from Legislative Council. So, you have here an updated side-by-side. So, I know that you've looked at this document a few times. The middle column now contains the language from the draft that was passed by the House. So, I think that you all look at draft 4.1. So, I'm going to point out the changes between draft 4.1 and draft 5.1 that was passed by House Judiciary Committee and also the changes that were made on the floor. There are two floor amendments that passed. So, I'll try and point out all of the differences between what you saw before and what you have before you now in the middle column, which is the House passed column. So, Peggy, you'll just have to scroll when I ask you to if you don't mind and thank you. So, you see on page one, section one, we've talked about that definition force as physical coercion employed by law enforcement to compel a person's compliance with the officer's instructions. That was not in the Senate version. Peggy, you can scroll down to the next page, please. So, no changes were made to that definition. Imminent threat of death or serious bodily injury. No changes made there. You can scroll down to the next page, please. The committee talked a little bit about that language that appeared at the end of that definition. Peggy, if you don't mind scrolling up a little so we can see that full sentence there. So, this is sort of putting some parameters on that definition. And the only change here that was made is to change the word instantly. So, this is when you're talking about an imminent threat. All apparent from all appearances, that threat must be instantly confronted and addressed appeared in the Senate version. The House version changed that to immediately addressed and confronted. They just swapped the order of those two words and they changed instantly to immediately as that's a term that's more frequently used in jurisprudence about police use of force. Thank you, Peggy. So, if you could scroll down some more now. Law enforcement officer definition is the same. Prohibited restraint definition is the same. They went back to the Senate version of that definition. And then here, if you'll stay here for a minute, the definition of totality of the circumstances changed from the last version that you saw. If you remember there was that qualifying language that included whether or not a person was experiencing either some sort of disability or if their behaviors were impacted by factors outside of the person's control, all of that language was removed. So, now the totality of the circumstances definition is really quite similar to the Senate past version. Conducting decisions of law enforcement leading up to the use of force and all facts known to law enforcement at the time. So, it really is the same as the Senate version. It just swaps the order of those two clauses. I'm going to keep going to use of force. So, this is all the same as you saw in the last version. If you could scroll down to the next page, please, Peggy. Thank you. So, here in subdivision two, this is the standard that set forth for a law enforcement officer using force. And you went over this language a little bit the last time you looked at this bill. The House version does provide for some expanded circumstances under which law enforcement may use force. So, if you remember the language that was in the Senate version provided that law enforcement shall only use that force that's objectively reasonable and proportional when they're affecting an arrest. And so, the House added that language there in yellow or to achieve any other lawful law enforcement objective. So, that's different from the House, from the Senate version. Subsection four here. If you scroll down a little bit more, Peggy, so we can see the full sentence there. This is the language that says that what that decision by law enforcement to use force is objectively reasonable. That analysis has to be evaluated from the perspective of a reasonable officer in the same situation. And then the House added that language that that can sit that evaluation has to include the fact that an officer's failure to use some feasible or reasonable alternative to force is a part of shall be a consideration. So, it has to be a part of that analysis about whether or not their action was objectively reasonable. So, that language does. Go over that again, please. That's confusing to me. Sure. So, Peggy, if you scroll up just a little so we can see that full sentence. So, this is the part of the use of force section that talks about what the reasonable officer analysis looks like. So, it provides some specific language that that decision to use force has to be objectively reasonable. If you remember from B2, there's that the objectively reasonable proportional and necessary. But this is trying to put some parameters on what it means to be objectively reasonable. So, I don't remember that new language. That's the first I've seen it, isn't it? That language, I believe, did appear in draft 4.1. I highlighted it here to indicate that it did not appear in this picture. Yeah. So, shall I keep going? Yeah. But what that basically, what does that basically do? And it basically provides, it sets some guideposts for what reasonable law enforcement use of force looks like. So, as a part of that analysis about whether law enforcement use of force was objectively reasonable, you have to consider whether or not the officer failed to use feasible and reasonable alternatives to the use of force prior to using force. So, if there was another option for that law enforcement officer, meaning it was feasible for a law enforcement officer to use some other tactic apart from force, and it was reasonable that they do so, then that's considered that may work towards a decision that the law enforcement use of force was not reasonable, not objectively reasonable. And can I ask a question? That's totally confusing to me, I'm sorry. The last minute, second guessing, but I don't understand. Well, okay. Well, those words reasonable and feasible are modify, whether modify that clause. So, any alternatives that the law enforcement officer could use to the use of force would have to be reasonable alternatives and feasible alternatives within the law enforcement officer's power to use instead of force. And I ask a question. Oh, go ahead. So, that decision is made afterward by somebody reviewing the situation in the case, right? So, that if we don't know, it isn't the officer him or herself making that decision that there's some other feasible means here. It's somebody afterwards making a determination that in their opinion, there would have been other actions that could have been taken. Is that, do I understand that right? Well, I think both are true. So, you know, law enforcement will be trained on this, and it's part of what is considered reasonable behavior by a law enforcement officer. So, this is all putting some standards in place that are supposed to guide what officers understand about the appropriate use of force. So, B2 provides that the use of force has to be objectively reasonable, has to be proportional, and has to be necessary. So, what this subdivision four is saying is what does objectively reasonable mean? So, the House added that sentence saying it's part of the analysis of whether that use of force was reasonable. If the law enforcement officer had reasonable and feasible alternatives to the use of force, but went ahead and used force anyway. Bryn, so as an example, if there's someone pulled over for a traffic stop and an officer comes up and asks them to get out of the car, they say no, and the officer strikes them with the butt of their gun and knocks them out. An ex post facto analysis might say you had several other reasonable alternatives for dealing with that situation, but you skipped over them and you went to a much higher level of deadly force than you needed. Is that correct? Yeah, that's a fair analysis. I think that, yeah, that also would look to the proportionality component of the standard. Yes. Okay. Not just deadly force, though. It's a force. Yeah. Okay, thanks. I don't think feasible works, but okay. Yeah. Well, I guess, am I wrong that this is Monday morning quarterbacking? Well, again, I think what Senator White pointed out is an important point that this is not just a part of the analysis undertaken by a fact finder after the fact, but it also is providing some explanation for what a reasonable, objectively reasonable person means for when law enforcement are trained on the standard. So it's not just that analysis is undertaken by the court, but it's also what analysis does a law enforcement officer undertake when they're deciding whether or not to use force. That would be fair then to say that it would require training manuals to discuss this topic beforehand. Just trying to play out in my head. I know this language will end up in jury instructions. A judge who's doing a judge trial would be using it to make Monday morning quarterback decisions, but I'm just trying to figure out how it would work its way into the training of a police officer. Well, just wrong. There there's a and I'm I might be wrong, but I believe there was an amendment added that speaks directly to training. So there are going to be significant shifts and training required if this is adopted. And this would be one of them, but continues through the run through. So at the bottom of this page, you'll see the subdivision five is in yellow. You've looked at this language before. I highlighted it in yellow because it doesn't appear in the Senate version. And this is that provision that law enforcement officer when when the law enforcement officer knows that the subject's conduct is the results of some type of impairment. Medical condition, developmental disability, physical limitation, language barrier, drug or alcohol impairment or other factor beyond subjects control. The officer has to take that information into account in determining whether or not to use force. And if they do use force, what amount of force is appropriate? You can keep going Peggy, please. So now we're getting into subsection C. This is the use of deadly force section. And all of this is the same language that you have seen in the drafts that have been before you. You can keep going Peggy. So subsection two here, this is the explanation of the word necessary. Again, this is language that you've seen in the previous drafts you've looked at. It's in yellow because it's not included in the Senate version. Same with subdivision three, that's that provision that law enforcement have to stop using deadly force. Law enforcement shall cease to use of deadly force as soon as the subject is under the officer's control or no longer poses an imminent threat of death or serious bodily injury to the officer or another person. So that language is a little bit different than what you saw in the last version. They changed, they changed some words there to make it that language more closely aligned with the standard for the use of deadly forces set forth in section C one. You can keep going. Section four and five are the same as the Senate, same as Senate language except for swapped in order. You can keep going. This is all the same as you've seen before. And if you'd stop here Peggy, this is another, this is a change from the last version you saw. Subdivision five was that prohibition on law enforcement use of prohibited restraint. So in the Senate version, subdivision five says law enforcement shall not use a prohibited restraint on a person for any reason. The last version of the House bill had that same language in but that was removed as a result of the floor amendment. So the House pass version no longer contains that prohibition on prohibited restraint within the standards for law enforcement use of force. So now we're going to move into this section two. So this is the amendment to the justifiable homicide statute. You scroll down just a little bit more Peggy. So we can see that sub subdivision three here. Thank you. So this is the language subdivision three. Remember, this is the language that in current statute applies to law enforcement. So the change made here says that law enforcement officers must be using force and compliance with those standards that we set out in section one in order to be able to use this justifiable homicide defense. And it refers specifically to the standards set out in B2, 4 and 5 and C1 through 4. So we talked about that a little bit at the last hearing. Section three, these are the repeals of the sunsets that were enacted in S219. So if you remember law enforcement used the prohibited restraint. That's the new crime S219 sunset that that new provision in July of next year. And at the same time at sunset subdivision three of the justifiable homicide statute. So what section three does is it repeals those sunsets so they will no longer sunset in July of next year. Thank you Peggy. So section four, this I believe is new language that you haven't seen yet. This is a session law directive to DPS and the executive executive director of racial equity to report back to the standing committees in February of next year on their on the process that they understood to create the uniform statewide policy on law enforcement use of force that was directed as a part of the executive order. So if you stop here Peggy, you'll see that report has to specifically include the process that was undertaken, including a list of all of the community representatives and other stakeholders that were present and included in the development of that policy. And how many times they met number of times is for number of times that the stakeholders met any opportunity given for public comment. And then also on the final proposed policy. Section 4a, this is a new section that was you haven't seen yet. So this adds a subdivision to the minimum training standard statute that specifically provides that the criminal justice training council shall not offer or approve any training on the use of a prohibited restraint as it's defined elsewhere in the bill except for training this design to identify and prevent the use of prohibited restraint. And then lastly if you scroll down to the I think the last page Peggy the effective date section provides the standards that are set out in section one for law enforcement use of force and the changes to the justifiable homicide statute take effect on January 1st of next year. I think the previous version you saw the standards took effect on July 1st. So they moved that back a little bit and that's it. Thank you for doing that Peggy. You're muted. Commissioner Schirling is here if you would like to hear the administration's or the commissioner of public safety's concerns with the house version he's here to offer that but also to offer some alternatives. Good. I offer him a few minutes here to talk about is there concerns with what the house passed version. Commissioner. Good morning Senator. Thank you for the opportunity to participate briefly. I'd probably make the most sense to respond to any committee questions or inquiries. The overall response to the house version is that it differs substantially from the Senate's past version by adding a variety of language that will create uncertainty and an inability to craft training also observed that I believe it takes effect on January 1st of 2021 and it will take us months to craft our best guess at what the training would have to look like as a result of the House bill if it were to become law. I'm happy to do a line by line if it's useful but I know you're limited in time. I'm not sure that's the most constructive use of my feedback. We have a copy of your email from to me last night which basically says that. Correct. So we took another really hard look at the Senate's version yesterday and believe that it's pretty close. Again, well we think the best approach to this is to direct a policy overlay. In the absence of that, the Senate's version with a couple of small tweaks one of which the House made so it's really three additional things would put us on the most stable footing to be able to operationalize what's being directed to be able to craft training to use the basis of the extensive training that's available now. Hundreds of slides and over 100 pages of written material that is in existence today on training for the use of deadly force that would be able to be directly ported in large part with the slightly tweaked version of the Senate's bill but if we were if you were to adopt the House version we would have to take a wholesale new look at literally hundreds of pages of material and then do our best to guess at what the courts may interpret much of this new language to be to mean excuse me. I will just add I did hear the committee mention that there are some sections that will lead to second guessing and we concur with that that the courts have been very thoughtful in the way that they've crafted direction to law enforcement both nationally and in Vermont in a manner that directs doing things appropriately but stops short of second guessing fast moving events on the ground that you often hear the phrase you can't make this stuff up but if you've ever spent time responding to calls in a police car you really can't make up the pace the types of things that you encounter and the fast moving nature of the evolution of things that we're consistently trying to slow down but that is not always in the control of the responding officers. Questions for the commissioner. Thank you very much. Okay. Leave this right back where we started. I don't know if this is time the time to weigh in. So I have to say that and I think you know this senator Sears but I don't think the rest of the committee knows where I stand on this but I have kind of two major issues with it and one is the bill itself and one is the process that we went through to get here and I'm just going to do a kind of a couple couple instances here around the bill and it we have heard that it makes major standards to the currently the standards that are currently applied by the courts. Now the house told us that it doesn't that it merely codifies the current standards but then on the other hand we heard that it does have a made it does make major changes. I have no time to decide which is right here. Does it make major standard or major changes or does it not because we don't have the time to do that and I know that lots of people have weighed in. So I also have a problem with setting the standards before the policy and think that but I know that I watched the house version the other day and I also was in a meeting the other day and I know one of the things that was said was that we need to have guidelines and parameters before we can have a policy set and I think we're selling our law enforcement community very short here by assuming that they would not have set in place the standards in their policy that we would want to see. So I have some problems with that and one of the things that I fear around that is that we will end up having those law enforcement officials who really are trying to make changes and are trying to move in the direction where we're hopefully moving are going to be so beaten down that they're going to leave and we're going to end up with law enforcement officers that are not moving or don't want to move in the what I consider the right direction. I will just one thing about training we have asked in 124 we asked the academy to look at all their training what is necessary what isn't necessary how they need to change it what they need to do do they need to add more weeks to training do they need to so we've asked them to do that and this is clearly part of that review that they would do. I just want to make a couple comments about the procedure that the changes were being made so rapidly that I couldn't I couldn't keep up with them and I watched the House versions I mean I watched the House committee meetings and there were changes being made as they were speaking and I it was hard to keep up and we didn't even know which version we were addressing and now there are floor amendments and there's other things in here that are new to us today and the House did give us a long list of witnesses but we didn't hear from those witnesses and I don't know what they said when they testified so the fact that there were all those witnesses is meaningless to me because I don't know what they said when they testified and there was a lot of I thought it was very confusing the way there was a lot of interplay between 219, 119, and 124 and things were moving back and forth so I the only section of this bill that I can support is section four so there are there you have it. Make me. Dallas. So I'm wondering maybe Bryn said this already and I missed it but what are the two amendments specifically. So there was a there was a floor amendment that had four separate instances of amendment that I believe was the results of working with members of the of the Senate on achieving. Yeah I I asked for several amendments one was to ban prohibited restraint from training. Okay. The other was the change to the definition of totality of the circumstances to simplify that and make it so that definition was the same as the Senate version. Okay. And the other was to add the training requirement and also to take out reasonably should have known in the provision that would impose a duty on law enforcement to include information about whether or not the subject's conduct was due to some kind of impairment in their decision about whether or not to use force so they have to use all facts known to the officer not reasonably known or that the officer should have known. Okay. Thank you. And also the one other was the effective date section. There was also the Donahue amendment. Exactly and then there was a second separate floor amendment introduced by a representative Donahue that removed that provision B6 or C6 that would prohibit law enforcement from using a prohibited restraint for any reason. So that language that was in the Senate version was struck. And I'll just say about that. I I wasn't necessarily happy to see that go. I don't think it hurt the bill but I think that in a way spoke to what Joe was saying last time out which is that it seemed contradictory to have a sentence that said you will not use one for any reason and then to allow defenses in court of the action. So getting rid of that I thought made the bill. It wasn't as strong on prohibited restraint but it's a little more coherent now I think. So if we're using this time to weigh in I will have to admit that I think the House version has been moving in a better direction. I am very much sympathetic to Jeanette's argument that we haven't had time to hear all the witnesses. I am also sympathetic to Commissioner Schirling's argument that this will require a substantial amount of rebuilding their training materials in order to accommodate the language. The words feasible and reasonable to me make perfect sense from a criminal defense lawyer's perspective because I can make arguments to a jury if I'm sitting next to a police officer who has been charged and get into finer details about what was going on there and whether or not the officer should have been expected to use force or not. Having some sympathy for Commissioner Schirling I have a suggestion if we're going to adopt the House version and that is we push the effective date out to say July 1 of next year. I am not interested in pushing through a bill that places law enforcement at a terrible situation in trying to not only come up with reports but reconstitute their entire training manual in order to make sure they're on top of this. So giving them seven, eight months to do that makes a lot of sense to me. It also gives the legislature an opportunity to make tweaks if they recognize right away that it is impossible to do X, Y, or Z. I'm not sure politically any of us is in a position to say let's do nothing. That part doesn't leave me comfortable at all. I think that there is a mindset out there and this begins to change the mindset but I want to make sure that when we do this we do it right. I can read the House language. I think it's better than our original language but I want to accommodate the potential problematic provisions that might force law enforcement into a bad situation and I think extending the effective date is the best way to do that under all circumstances. I'll leave it at that. Mr. Chair, may I? Joe, if I could just ask, I don't want to misunderstand what you're saying, are you saying that you could concur with the House bill with a change in effective date? Yes. If that gets your vote, I could go along with that. Mind you, having said that, I'm still very sympathetic to Jeanette's argument and somewhat angry that we are literally put into this position at the last minute. But I think the issue is too important to just leave out their hanging for the next legislative session to begin and I see this as a work in progress and pushing that effective date out gives people the ability to continue that work. So, if I can- You're talking sections one and two, right? Joe? Yeah. Just to put my two cents in, I think the House began in a place I didn't like, but then they consistently moved in the direction of our bill and I think they did that with a sense that, as Joe just said, we have to act on this issue. It's always a question about, do you try to make the bill something that the administration will enjoy signing or not? I think in this case, given what we're talking about, which is to use Commissioner Sterling's phrase, a statutory overlay on public safety and the police writ large, I honestly, I have a hard time believing that we could produce a bill that they would be happy with. What they've made clear again and again is that they would prefer to have it be left to policymaking and training changes. I don't think we're in a place where that will be enough. The reason for that is that we again and again have found ourselves in a place where use of force by the police is creating outrage in the general public. Now, I'll just add parenthetically, I've been referring to the Jason Belivance case in Burlington throughout this process. Burlington just announced that they've more or less reached a settlement with him to move him off the force on October 5th in exchange for a large payout. I think there's legislation that needs to be written next session to deal with the idea that union contracts protect people who have used excessive force and then you have taxpayers on the hook for big payouts for someone who really should be off the force for other reasons. I agree with Joe. I think this is a work in progress. I do think the House bill as it stands gives me a lot of what I was after in the Senate bill and some things that we didn't do. I really like the training ban. I think that that's an absolute necessity. That actually came from Terry Lynn. From Terry Lynn. That's CSD Justice Sutter, remember? Yeah. Well, I like it. I think it's as the House bill stands now with that training ban and the other standards that it puts in place, I think it sits very comfortably beside 219. If Joe can vote for it with pushing those sections effective data out, I can go along with that. The only thing I would want to say is that that involves proposal of further amendment or I suppose the House could be asked whether or not they would amend on third reading. Have they passed third reading yet, Brynne? Yes, they have. Okay. So if we do concur with further proposal of amendment to change the date, I would hope that I would only go along with that if that's all we're changing. I wouldn't want to get into trying to rewrite wording or remove or add sections in a concur for the proposal amendment. But so that's a long way of saying I support what Joe proposed. Well, that would be going back on what I had suggested that the House do this as of January 1. But I can live with it. If that's what it takes to get three votes. And what was the date that repeal of the just file homicide was in 219? Was that October or July? July of next year. So that would so having this take effect July 1 would be would be in line with that, right? So this 119, the latest version has the repeal of that sunset taking effect on passage. Okay. Right. But that is sort of neither here nor there because that would go ahead and take effect on passage, but it wouldn't have a sunset until next July. Right. I just want to go back to something Jeanette said earlier and that is the hope of law enforcement not to have a statutory overlay of policy. I don't believe it's law enforcement's prerogative established policy. I think that's our job. And I know it's uncomfortable for a cultural change. But the nutshell is we are responsible for the policy push to make that cultural change. And my hope here in extending the rollout time is to give law enforcement enough time to deal with what we have decided is going to be the policy change. Jeanette, I think you were next. Thank you. I think that is true, Joe. And we have almost always asked law enforcement to come back to the legislature with the policy, so that the legislature ends up approving the policy. And I think that that could be the case here and probably I don't know if it is in the bill or not that they're to come back with their policy. But I do think that we are, it is our job to do it. And I think that they've heard where we want to go. I'm not sure. And I just, I'm going to say this, just this one last vast thing here. And we keep talking about all the really horrible cases out there of misuse of force. And there are some really horrible cases. But I think we also need to remember that just the Vermont State Police alone last year had 115,000 different incidents that they responded to, which ended up being a little over 300,000 different people in those incidences. And only 183 times was there any force used beyond compliant handcuffing. So that's a half a percent of the time that that was used. So we are, in my opinion, and I know that this is politically probably suicide for me. But in my opinion, we are responding to some really egregious cases here that and we're letting ourselves make policy quickly because of the optics out there. And I just think that I want to have this discussion, but I want to have this discussion in real time when we can all sit and have it and have the discussion with people in the room and have it in a thorough and meaningful way. And I don't believe that we've been able to do that in this case. And I, whether I agree with some of the things that are in the bill or not, I don't think we've had that the procedure has been conducive to being thoughtful and anyway, I'll just leave it at that. Any other comments? I take responsibility for scheduling the committee, trying to schedule witnesses and trying to keep abreast of what is going on in the other body. We tried to pass legislation last June, if you remember, S219 and S119. We ended up separating them at the request of the other body in order to give them more time to take witnesses and hear from witnesses. They did. They held three public hearings. They held a number of hearings on the bill. In my view, what they came back with is some changes to our version of S119, but they're actually today closer to our version of S119 than they were a week ago. We're in the middle at, doesn't, I don't need to say this, but we all know we're in the middle of a pandemic. Nobody's ever tried to legislate in the middle of a pandemic that I know of, at least since 1900s, 1918 and 19. And we're trying to do that remotely, which doesn't afford us the same opportunities to chat amongst ourselves to see where everybody's at. And we have a split in the committee. I'm ready to support Joe's motion to concur with further proposals of amendment that would change the date. Now, my preference would be to do a bill at this point that would have public safety and other groups on board, but I don't see it as that being possible. I would not be surprised to see the governor. You know this bill? And while we can't worry about that and what we do, we're at a point where our options are three, concur with further proposal amendment, as I said in the beginning, incur or ask for a committee of conference. I've heard Joe, I think, is a motion to concur with further proposal. I don't know if you see Commissioner Shirley has his hand up. I did not see that. Commissioner, you wanted to comment? That's fine. Thank you. Although I'm not sure it's helpful at this stage of the committee's deliberation, but I wanted to respond to Senator Baruch's comments that we do very much understand that the General Assembly sets the parameters under which we operate. All we're suggesting is that there's a mechanism to do that that the General Assembly has used on a variety of occasions before to direct the development of policy that then comes back for essentially concurrence by the General Assembly. And to the point that there may be a future look at collective bargaining agreements and accountability, that's certainly in your purview, but I would point to 124 and historic work done on the part of Senate government operations led by Senator White to ensure accountability through the decertification process. You already have a mechanism in place to make modifications and decertify officers for violations of use force policies, especially if you go to the extent of directing a statewide policy and then tying compliance with that policy to decertification, the mechanism already exists. So I say those things just to illustrate that we're not standing in the way. We are offering a variety of alternatives using mechanisms that the General Assembly has already crafted, both on other topics and on this topic as a way forward, both in this arena, but also in officer certification, and if you'll recall in accountability for agencies as well. So I'm not sure that's neither here nor there, but I appreciate the opportunity to tell you that. Thank you. So, Alice, did you have a comment? I have a question with regard to concurring with further proposal of amendment. Is that I mean, it's not clear to me whether Joe could just do a simple amendment and then the thought then the next vote would be do we concur with this further proposal of amendment or can he or would he be amending it prior to that vote and there would be a separate I believe the way it would work is that we are concurring with further proposal amendment. The amendment is offered and voted up or down by the body, assuming that it's supported. It would then go to the house as concurring with further proposal amendment. They would have to have a vote on it to concur. So we would have one vote and they would have one vote. Right. We would have one vote only, not a separate vote of Joe. I don't believe so, but we could check with Bloomer. We should check, please. Maggie, can you check with John Bloomer? Let's see if he's available. I believe I'm right, actually. Yeah, because what's the meeting? If he was. I mean, I might be wrong, but I believe the way it works is the house appears, the house bill appears on the calendar. And then there's the lieutenant governor looks to the chair of the committee for what is the direction the committee wants to pursue. Dick would offer the concur with further proposal of amendment explain it and we'd have a single vote. Yes, I'm concerned with draft draft and it proposed to the house to concur with further proposal amendment. And that's that one line change. Okay, I'm back in the committee process. Right. My question is that I understood Alice to say can Joe make his move to amend it with the new date and we can vote on that. And then do we? Okay. Yeah. Oh, I'm sorry. I misunderstood you. Alice. Do you mean in any committee, Alice? Yes. I know. Senator Benning has moved that we concur with further proposal amendment. That amendment would be that the date is extended for sections one and two to July 1, 2021. I, okay. I misunderstood that again. I thought that Alice said can Joe move to amend and then have a vote on that and then move to concur with that new amendment. So that's two votes. Is that? Yes, I'm looking for two votes in the committee. Okay. Joe has moved that we amend the effective date of the bill of sections one and two. I need to be specific. Sections one and two to July 1, 2021. Oh, I understand, Alice. You're always one step ahead of us. Is there any further discussion? Now we maybe have John Bloomer. I don't know. No, I don't think we need him anymore. We don't need him. I invited him, but I, you know, I don't know. No, this is a committee issue. Absolutely. I'll tell him maybe we don't need him. Right. So I thought Alice was talking about the floor vote. So is there any further discussion? Hearing none. Peggy, could you please call the roll on Senator Benning's amendment to change the date in sections one and two? Yes. Senator White. Yes. Senator Baruth. Yes. Senator Benning. Yes. Senator Nica. Yes. Senator Sears. Yes. Now the question would be a report to recommend to the Senate that we concur with further proposal amendment that we just voted on, I believe. And Marley is barking his approval in the background. So moved. So Senator Baruth has moved that we report favorably as amended. I think it's, we report with further, we concur with further proposal amendment S119 as we just voted. Is there any further discussion of that? Hearing none. Peggy, would you please call the roll? Senator White. No. Senator Baruth. Yes. Senator Benning. Yes. Senator Nica. No. Senator Sears. Yes. Okay. Sure. I'm not going to make everybody happy, but I will do my best to prepare a floor report for, is it today or tomorrow? No. I can get you the materials for today. Great. Okay. Ryn, you'll send me the, to me too. Yes. Would you send me the section by section? Do we have the bill changed side by, the newest side by side? Please, the, the, the side, without the change of date, the side by side that we've been, that you just showed on the screen. Sure. I don't have that. At least I can't find it. And obviously I can understand the change in date. So, do we have the bill? I'm not sure if it's on the calendar. It's on, I believe it would be on the notice calendar. It may be tomorrow before we take it up. Okay. I think the plan was to be ready for tomorrow. I have to go back to Tim's message. I thank you all very much. I was going to say this has been a tremendously, a tremendously rewarding year. We had a tremendous vote on the floor yesterday on a bill that many of us have worked on, although it was not a unanimous decision of this committee. We have finally put action and regulate the bed. I'm sure we'll be dealing with it. Whoever's here next year will be dealing with it. But you know, that I was thinking this morning how little time they give us to celebrate pictures when you're on to the next crisis. And I guess it's ivory now. Well, could I just take a minute and thank the three of you, Dick, Jeanette and Joe, the tax and regulate bill. I've never seen a bill be dogged that much and dragged and slowed down. And you guys just kept at it and kept at it. So I really appreciate it. Thank you. And Senator Sears, it did make the front page of the reformer. And climate climate change made the second page or third. Of course, they credited Campion. So right. Yeah, that's true. Absolutely. Yeah, but it was nice. It can't be the crime of me. Well, you know, we will meet tomorrow on S24. I don't know what that will be an interesting mess. Peggy, could you see if Jim Baker is available for tomorrow along with either representative Edmunds or representative Shaw to explain that? Yes. S24. And you might also I mean, it's a Rutland Bridge. So I don't know what whether they approved the Rutland Bridge name or but you might want to ask Susanna Davis. Okay, because I believe it, it has to do with systemic racism and sexism in corrections. And for some reason, they thought they needed legislature legislative approval to look at it. Well, your committee or my committee? No, it's not in my committee. We don't have it. I just heard that from somebody on the corrections House Corrections Committee. Oh, what's the topic of this bill? Racial equity within the correction of the correction system. So somehow the house pulled out of the House of Institutions and Corrections Committee um, added to a bridge bill, um, a whole bunch of stuff on corrections. Yeah. Since corrections policy is our purview, we need to look at it. But I mean, we had no testimony on it. I didn't even know. I knew it was coming a week ago. I heard about it. And I'm concerned about what it might do. So yeah, if you can get any of those folks, Peggy, that would be great for tomorrow morning at 10 o'clock. Yep. All right. Thank you all very much. I'm going to go make some lasagna and get ready for the committee and bring a wait for the version from you. Okay. All right. Thank you. Bye.