 I.e., we're now live. We are live. Welcome. This is Thursday afternoon, March 11th, Senate Government Operations Committee. We've been discussing a rather shortened agenda for the day, so we're going to do two things really. We're going to listen to an amendment proposal by Senator Perrin on our S-15, I think it's S-15, right? The elections bill has an amendment to show us. We'll discuss that. Then later, we're going to talk with Michelle Childs from the Legislative Council about what we've done so far around cannabis and whether or not we've prepared to sort of finish up that job in terms of what our committee is going to do around the cannabis bill. The cannabis bill, as you know, is in the Judiciary Committee. We've been asked to take a look at it. We've decided to make a couple of changes to it, none of which are particularly dramatic, I don't think, but Michelle's going to go over them with us. She has drafted some language that she wants to go over with us. She got brought to the call to the House of Representatives a couple of minutes ago, so we're not exactly sure when she'll be back, but we'll do our best to wait for her to come back and then talk through the amendment she wrote for the cannabis bill. Does that make sense? Yeah. So Virginia, I know you're probably here to talk about representing dispensaries and whatnot, so you just can be patient and wait and hope that it's. Michelle said she wouldn't be gone long, but you never know what the other things are on the floor. Okay. Thank you, Senator. So let's turn to Senator Parrant and Amarine's here as well to go through the amendment. Is that okay, Amarine? Yes, for the record, Amarine Amar, Jailie Legislative Council. Senator Corrie, do you want to say anything before we walk through it? No, I think we had our discussion on the purpose, and Amarine and I tried to do our best to put that into language last night, so I'll let her go through it and then be here if you have any questions as to what my thinking was in drafting it this way. Okay. And is everyone able to see the draft amendment? It's posted to the community's web page. Yeah, I got it. Okay, perfect. So this amendment would amend the strike all amendment that the committee is recommending for S-15, specifically a first amendment within section three, which is the Australian ballot system section for local elections under title 17. And this would, I believe... Okay, this version does not have a highlight. So the present strike all amendment that the committee voted out has G1 to... Excuse me, G1 to four and five. And this amendment would insert a new subsection three at the bottom of page one to say that any municipality that has voted to apply the Australian ballot system but did not vote to mail its annual or special meeting ballot to all active registered voters shall mail an absentee ballot request form to all active registered voters. The remainder of subsection G remains the same as the strike all amendment that this committee voted out. So... And I added this piece in, I brought it up briefly yesterday. It wasn't a piece, but while we do this study and go on, I know we did these postcards last year at the primary and this is in light of that because while we're waiting for response from the study committee, I still wanna try to make access to these elections a little bit easier. And I think giving people at least the opportunity to remind them that there's an election they can request an absentee is the least we can do and doesn't really change anything. But there's just, I thought we were talking not being judgmental in the case. The rest of it's the study committee but I put this piece in as well. But this piece doesn't necessarily relate to town meetings. Nope, it's any election. To all the elections. Yep, where we have Australian ballot that you have to just mail voters the ability to request an absentee ballot. I think it's a good reminder with how confusing these next couple of years will be particularly with the primary too. I mean, it's just like we're confusing people. We should, it's like putting up the orange flags on the side of the new stop sign. Like we need to give people some transition time at the very least. Yeah, and the way I look at it we all know that every election is different. We know the primaries are party elections. We know town meeting day are local elections. We know the general elections are general election. The average voter just sees it as an election on all of them. So I, you know, again, I'm, you know the study committee is the rest of it but I just, I think this is just one piece. I don't- Well, tell me how life would be different with this piece. Well, this is what we did for the primary and we saw increased primary turnout this summer. We, we mailed people, we're not mailing them a ballot. So people who are concerned about mailing ballots you're not doing it. You're also starting to build the ability for town clerks to get you because a lot of this is just them seeing and doing the work. And I think by mailing the absentee request people can mail it back and get their ballot. They can choose to go in but we're not mailing them the ballot. So you don't have as expensive of a cost but also to what I find really helpful in a lot of this and what my town clerks have found helpful in mailing these and ballots is cleaning up their checklist. There's a lot of people that they can't find. And so this is just another tool in that. So again, the goal of this bill in my mind is to make it easier to vote. And this is just a small step of making it easier to vote. So the bill that we've been moving forward with would have us do mail in voting for the general elections, the statewide elections but not the primaries but just at statewide red amaran. Is that true? Yes. So this would extend the use of the encouragement of the absentee ballots to other elections meaning the primary elections and potentially town meeting elections. This specifically is around all local elections because the The goal here is I mean, yeah, we could eventually build it, but I think to belabor it, I think we just wanna increase access, especially local, we're heading down this path. So I mean, this isn't to me the guts of the amendment but this is just also keeping pressure in my mind on us as legislators that after this study comes in, we actually do something with it. Right. But like, you know, Senator Rahm said, my biggest fear is you're gonna confuse voters with this bill without doing what I really wanna do but I understand I don't have the support necessarily the committee to do that. I think, I think we're gonna be saying overall, this was a mistake at some level and we're gonna have to do a lot of fixing it in future years, but that's okay. We'll have a study committee to tell us how to fix it. So, nice. So Corey, with this adding number three, you're saying that even if a town currently in the bill may choose to mail out its ballots, as they did this year at town meeting, many towns did as we discussed. And what you're saying here is that even if they've chosen with that option, which will now we know will be discussed pretty fully and my guess is it's like board meetings, if they actively choose not to mail out ballots, they have to mail out an absentee postcard, postcard requesting an absentee ballot. Yes. Yes. Okay, that's all this first piece does is what I understand. Yep. Okay, I understand it better now having heard you say that. Okay. It's more clear. Okay. So they're not gonna mail out ballots to everybody but they have to at least do the mailing of the request for absentee ballots. Yes. Okay. I like it. Anything else on this particular piece before I move on? No, that was the substance. That's the first part of the amendment. Yes. And moving to the second recommended amendment on page two, this would add a new section 21A because I did not want to renumber any other sections of the underlying amendment. So a new section 21A would create a voting access study committee. And the purpose of the study committee would be to evaluate how to expand Vermonter's access to statewide and local elections. Subsection B lays out the membership. The committee shall be composed of the following members, two members of the house, not from the same political party who shall be appointed by the speaker, two current members of the Senate, not from the same political party who shall be appointed by the committee on committees, three, four representatives of municipalities, including a representative of the Vermont League of Cities and Towns and the Towns Clerks Association, four, four representatives representing the interests of voters, including a representative from the Vermont Public Interest Research Group, the Executive Director of Racial Equity or Designee, the National Vote at Home Institute or Designee and a registered Vermont voter. And lastly, the Director of the Secretary of State's Elections Division or Designee. Should I pause for questions or continue? I will continue. Subsection C... Sometimes there are some people who don't like the idea of listing names of organizations and bills. I'm not necessarily feel that way, but there are definitely times when we've done that, people said, well, you shouldn't list them by name. I'm not sure why, but I just say that's something that might come up in some people's minds. Senator Collomar? Thank you, Senator Plena. I agree. I don't, I mean, if you start putting deeper again, why not the League of Women Voters or, you know, there's a whole host of other organizations that you could put in there. There's gotta be a better way to phrase that than to specifically call out however it's worded here. That's just my view. Yeah, I'm not convinced either way, but I think, Brian, you make a good point. I mean, because I've had, it's happened to me in the past when we've put organizational names on things. Could say, you know, four people representing voters or whatever that says. The interest of voters appointed by, well, you know, it comes down to either the governor or the pro tem or the speaker, but somebody would have to point those people. Yeah, I think just here, I was trying to just get to some kind of balance quickly. Yeah, and I think what you did is fine, but it is fine, but I just think something that I was most interested in is getting the director of racial equity and or nothing new because we didn't talk about it much yesterday, but I see this as much as trying to figure out how to expand rights for Vermont minorities and groups that are under, you know, served in across state of Vermont. And so if we can make sure there's a voice just at the table there. So that's where I was trying to get here. But again, this is a quick, my goal is at least to get a study committee into this bill and then work with the house, obviously to refine things, but how do we address things going forward? Well, I'm not necessarily proposing we take those names out. I'm just raising it as a flag because other people may decide to want to take it out. So I just want to make sure that we're aware of that. Yeah, so noted. What was the answer for you, what was the thing we were talking about the other day with the Secretary of State's office when they said they had drafted language that we were talking about? It wasn't this, right? It was something else. It was Joe Bennings. Joe Bennings. All right, right, okay, right. We haven't heard back from him yet. Okay, move on. Subsection C on page three, powers and duties. The committee shall study the ways Vermont can increase its residents access to statewide and local elections, including examination of the following issues. First, whether town meeting day should be moved to a weekend or made a state holiday. Second, whether universal vote by mail should be required for municipalities that vote to apply an Australian ballot system. Third, whether universal vote by mail should be required for Vermont's general and primary elections. I kept it as general just in case the only thing that comes out ultimately is this study committee. I didn't want to exclude general elections on the assumption that the remaining underlying bill will pass. Fourth, whether universal vote by mail for statewide or local elections increases access to voting among Vermonters who are black, indigenous or people of color or among populations or communities with historically low voter, excuse me, voter turnout. I can just say something about that. So I get definitely what the attempt is here. There's some difference between voter, low voter turnout and being disenfranchised from voting. So I don't want it to be tagged that BIPOC people just have low voter turnout. They have a history of having their vote suppressed and having been disenfranchised. So I don't know if we want to say those who have been disenfranchised from the vote and those with historic low voter turnout, but I just wouldn't want it to, I think Cory gets what I'm saying. I just don't want to act like BIPOC haven't voted. But we could change the language a little bit. Would you take out the words black, indigenous or people of color and put just substitute what you said for those words? I think that's fine. Those who have been disenfranchised from voting or those with historic low voter turnout. Historic low voter turnout is like students, if I'm just saying it on the record, right? Young people, they haven't been- Young people are just, yeah. I think I would take out- I'd take out racial, yeah. I'm open to that. Again, the point is I just want to make sure we're increasing access to all groups and look at what the impediments have been for these groups and why they don't vote or, and it might be because, as Senator Rahm said, because we've made it really hard for them to vote and made it, yeah, so on. So yeah, I'm not, that's fine with me if you guys want to make those changes. So I'm sorry, but Keisha, could you just say those again, the phrase you had? Those who have historically been disenfranchised from voting and populations that have historically had low voter turnout. Yeah, without getting out of, getting rid of the specific race references. Getting rid of those race references. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, maybe they're doing it. I just heard two things. I thought we were saying we would take your phrase and put it in there and eliminate the words black, indigenous, or people of color. Correct. Correct. I think that is much better. I mean, when you say that we're going to get the Secretary of State's help, we don't list the Secretary of State as being a member of this committee, I don't think. And it needs to be. It is at the top of page three, subdivision five. Oh, okay. Oh, and the director was, yeah, okay, sorry. I was missing that. So subsection D, assistance, the committee shall have the administrative, technical and legal assistance of the Secretary of State's office in the office of legislative council. And then on page four, there is a report requirement on number four, July 1st, 2022. The committee shall submit a written report to the House and Senate committees on government operations with its findings and any recommendations for legislative action. And just so you guys know, I chose the timing, knowing the groups yesterday, I don't buy the argument that it's going to take them the next year and a half to get ready for next 22 election because we just did the 22 election in 2020 with four months run up. But two, if we don't have a study, they're not, if we do a study in the fall, it's going to be right before the election, they're going to complain about that. If we don't have a study ready to go by 23, we're not going to be able to do this until 25, just with election changes. So that to me was just too long. So in my mind, this gives them a year, a little bit longer than a year to do a study. Yeah, and we're giving them a new position, which I didn't have reference yesterday. Yeah, no one they kind of were saying, we don't have the banlet to do this. I mean, I don't buy it. Yes, ma'am. Which of the many ma'ams? Senator Clarkson, Senator Clarkson. I just, you know, in July of 2022, Corey, ideally no one's going to be around. You know, it just, I absolutely understand that we want to take it up first thing in January, because that January 23, that 23 session is when we can change election law. So in that next biennium. But July, it doesn't give them any chance to benefit and profit from what we learned in the election of 22. So I hate to suggest this, but I would suggest that it be due December 15th, because then it could benefit from everything they learn with their second rollout, and anything we might have learned with the town meeting stuff. So. I'm fine with that. I just was trying to be a little sensitive to that there. I felt they were going to push back on the time whenever we made it. Yeah, I think they will, but we need this. You're absolutely right. We need this in pocket by January of 23. Right. So I was just, I threw a dart at the, honestly at the wall and said, this is one where it's a few months after town meeting and it's really before we get into the, you know, the hot and heavy of the election, but I don't disagree with your point. If you're comfortable asking them to have a final report in December, I certainly am. Yeah. December 1st, Allison. Well, given the general elections, the first week of November, I suggest the 15th. Just it will technically need it until January 1st. But if we get it, ask it to be done by December 15th, then they get it done before the holidays hit. That's a good idea. Yeah. I would be fine with that. Okay, great. Moving on to subsection F on page four, meetings. The director of the secretary of state's election division shall call the first meeting of the committee to occur on and before August 15th, 2021. The committee shall select a chair among its members at its first meeting. A majority of the membership shall constitute a quorum and the committee shall cease to exist on July 1st, 2022, which would need to change if you are changing the date. Till the 15th. Okay. Compensation and reimbursement for attendance at meetings during adjournment of the general assembly, a legislative member of the committee serving in his or her capacity as a legislator shall be entitled to per diem compensation and reimbursement for not more than eight meetings. These payments shall be made for monies appropriated to the general assembly. Was there a reason for eight Corey? No, I was just timing out how often I thought they would meet in a year, two year time piece. And I find I've been on these study committees for like five meetings is probably not enough. But again, it was just trying to get, I fully expect the house to vet this and this process, I get this in amendment, this is coming late. I think it just needs to be a toehold in there that we expect it to grow. But my thought was I didn't think it need to be monthly but fairly regularly to get this done. I think there's a lot we're asking them to consider and the other guys collect data and, you know. Okay, thank you. And then subdivision to members of the committee representing municipalities. You know what that actually probably should be amended a bit. Members of the committee representing municipalities and the interests of voters shall be entitled to per diem compensation and reimbursement of expenses as permitted under 32 VSA section 1010 for not more than eight meetings. These payments shall be made for monies appropriated to the secretary of state's office. Which I'm sure he won't like either, but. No, why would that be the case? Why, why? Put it there. I mean, this part would probably get stripped out if it was going to a prop's anyway and they'd figure it out. So that's how we're in. But study committees are usually paid for by the legislature. But it's the secretary of state's goal to increase voter participation. It may well be, but. Right. It doesn't mean they want to spend their own money doing it. We're giving them a whole position for somebody who has to do something every other year. Hopefully they're working all the time. I actually figured it was funny to leave it in. See if he even picks up on it. Well, if I picked up on it, no pick up on it. I mean, I think at the end of the day, and obviously it looks like we'll have a substitute amendment if you support the concept. To me is we got to get the study committee so that when we come back in 23, we can have the true thoughtful discussion. And I get amendments, unfortunately, when they come in late in the process like this are never as well as having the committee process do it. But at least I think the importance of adding it now is letting the house know that we do want to address this and please take a deeper look that we unfortunately just didn't take a look. And then they're going to send a revised bill back as my guess. And then you guys can take a little deeper dive then and clean up the language a little bit. By no means expect this to be the final language of the study committee. But I think we want to make sure it's in there. I agree. Also, they don't back up to the other part of the amendment. When we talk about mailing out the absentee ballot forms and whatnot, there'll be a discussion about what the form should look like. So the Secretary of State design it. There'll be those kinds of questions as well. So that you don't have different towns doing different forms, different ways of going about it. You don't make it uniform, I would presume. Any other questions, comments, ideas? Well, I just, yeah, this is a question, I think, for a probe. But I'm not sure we can appropriate the Secretary of State's money. We can only appropriate our own money. I mean, I'm not sure we can tell somebody else. But I'm not sure. I just don't know if we have the authority to do that. Well, especially because the Secretary of State, it says so we made for monies appropriated to Secretary of State's office. We don't really appropriate money to Secretary of State's office, they're self-funded. Well, we should change that to the general fund. Anyway, even though it would be fun to keep it in, I think that we don't appropriate money to the Secretary of State's office. Let's not miss on something. And we don't usually appropriate money for study committees. They just, that happens. And we add it all up at the end of the. That's what I figured. I don't know if he made sense just to remove the money section at this piece, because a probes would anyway. But we'd still. Oh, you know, well, because also it's an amendment that Jeanette, correct me if I'm wrong, but Jeanette spent two appropriations to talk about this bill. And if we put this in here with appropriation involved in it, appropriation is going to want to take it back off the floor and add up these numbers. Well, any study committee that directs that people are paid is an unassumed appropriation. So anyway, we can ask Jane, if we decide to do this, Jeanette can have a sidebar with Jane or one of us can. Well, the House can put it back in. Yeah, exactly. So I thought it was customary for someone proposing an amendment that was found favorable by the policy committee to then go to the money committee and ask for a vote as well. Yeah. Or the reporter, either one. OK. I'm just learning. I was like, I thought we could still have a bill that has an appropriation. But it was just channel Obey. We can do whatever we want. Michael Boholsky. The goal is. Well, I would. Well, I would just say that I don't think we I think the committee feels like we shouldn't vote on this without having the chair at least be a part of the conversation. Oh, absolutely. I mean, she's not. So this is her bill, too. So we're not going to vote on it today. Is the bill going to be on the floor then tomorrow? No, we're going to pass. Well, unless Jeanette has a miracle recovery and comes in raring to go. So it sounds like to me might make sense is to ask Amron to make a few of the slight changes we had and then consider it a substitute amendment and then of this amendment. You know, I just was trying to get one in the calendar today, thinking we're going on the floor tomorrow. Right. That was a good thought. A rush. But I think if it looks like we're not taking this up early next week, certainly happy to, you know, maybe grab someone on this committee, too, that I can work with to clean up some of the language and just make it a little smoother just to get that foothold in the bill to send to the house. Because if worse came to worse, time wise, you could always just present this on the floor. Right. So that could work just as well. I mean, I think it'd be better to incorporate it into the bill if that's what we want to do. Yeah, I do too. And I would hope to have your support because usually with people in my party when we present things on the floor without the committee support, it doesn't go very far. Yeah. Well, I know the feeling. So, Amron, if you're able to make these changes in the amendment and send it to Jeanette tonight, she may be solely recovering from her second vaccination. So she might be able to actually look at it tonight. And in case she does. I could send her an email earlier today and she did not respond. But I was earlier today. She might be ready to respond this evening. So you can do that, Amron? Yes, I can. And send us a copy. The only thing I wasn't certain about was where we landed with the funding piece. I would probably. I don't know, you guys, I mean, the time I'd almost remove, because I feel like a probe just removes that stuff anyway. So we might as well just say, hey, we didn't put it in this. And I can say on the floor, we didn't put any of that in this amendment just to avoid that piece. And we knew it would be removed, but something we'd likely, as this works through the process, could we'd be asking could happen. I'm fine leaving it out. Leaving it out? Yep. Yeah, I'm OK with leaving it out. I mean, people like V-Purg, those kinds of organizations, they're going to be sending staff, people anyway, I would think, or board members, people who are not going to need to be reimbursed necessarily. So are we talking about taking out one and two at the bottom of the page? Or are we just talking about taking out two? One and two. Again, I think the House can put it back in if they want. And I don't know that we need to worry about it. And we didn't really decide about whether to put specific groups in it yet either, like V-Purg and... Right. Well, I think that's a discussion with Jen. I would say that you can't really have a study committee without having the prudiums identified. I hear what you're saying. I just I would feel more comfortable leaving one in and taking two out. But it's... No, that'd be OK. All right. I mean, legislators need a prudium. Because they are not paid by anybody else to be there. And this is their work. And everybody else, it's their job, generally, of the other people who I've been identified. So we're taking out two, but we're leaving in one. I would propose that. I would second that. I would third it. And we could have the discussion about what those groups are when we talk with Jenette. Sure. I mean, I'm not, like I said, I'm not I'm not opposed to Kevin, the named organization. I just think that sometimes it opens up a can of worms with people. Yeah, I don't. Well, yeah, I think it's actually a relatively representative group. But anyway, and actually, well, sending. Oh, Carol, the women voters, I don't know. That's a good suggestion. In fact, they, you know, they do a lot of voter outreach. They just sent me actually four pamphlets in other languages about how to vote in Vermont. It's very nice. It's so interesting because they have such a non-presence in our neck of the woods. So I think they must be very active in Washington and Chittenden County, but. That could that could be they heard me say something about language access for voting and mailed me all their little pamphlets. Oh, Lila is so good. She's so she's so good. Yeah, I mean, I'm not again, this was just Amher and I just trying to think of groups quick last night that. Yeah, it's a good I think it's a good start and it's gotten us thinking about it. So that's good. Yeah, that was my goal. And like I said, it's I get amendments a lot of times coming at the end. You know, we didn't have the debate over the people like we would on a normal study committee. But, you know, this still has a little ways to go through the process. This is just its first generation to just get a placeholder. And I think it, you know, sends the message we're serious about actually increasing voter participation across all elections, not just one. Good. Great, I think this is good. And Amher, if you could send this off to Jeanette, now I'll call Jeanette when we're when we're done and just see how she is and give her a heads up. It's coming or Anthony, you can. You can call her that's fine. I have another meeting. I have two more zooms to do before the day is over. I'm really late. Yesterday, I got so zoomed out. I couldn't. I mean, I was like a vegetable by the time I was done. I go to a city council meeting and I mean, it's just, it's just it's your brain out. I know I've been on zooms like the last couple of days till 830 at night. It's been too much. It's too much. I was very glad to be able to skate last night and referee. Oh, how great was it arrest? Was it were you reffing? I have to run. I'm sorry. All right. Thank you very much for coming. That's Allison. I'm too old to play. I left my house for the first time in a week today for like a half an hour. Yeah, it's very strange. Yeah. Yeah, I was really beat yesterday. I bet. But it must have been invigorating to be backskated. Yeah, no, it woke I didn't get home till almost 11. But it it was nice. I drove right through Woodstock. I thought of you. I was on my way to Hartford. You just let you know. I wish you'd let me know when you're playing games in my neck of the woods because I'd actually come and watch them. I'm trying to wear masks. Oh, yeah, everybody had to wear a mask. And we have an electronic whistle. We can't blow the whistle anymore because it throws the virus in the air, supposedly. It does. Well, it's why people are all head out, although I enjoyed being part of your committee. I think I might be. So the other one thing I'll notice is I think I might be the only senator who serves on a committee without a female senator all day long. I'm on two committees that are all male senate, all male senators. So oh my god. Institution diversity. I thought you were on education in the afternoon. Institutions. Weren't you on education? Baster. Good work. Thank you. Thanks a lot, Corey. Thank you, Mocho. So without Michelle.