 All right. So we're back, uh, house govots and military affairs here on, on Thursday morning, not Tuesday. Um, and so what I'd like to do is pick up where we left off, um, Tim and, um, I believe our next set of changes is in section 10. Thank you, chair McCarthy. Yes, that is correct. Again, for the record, my name is Tim Devlin legislative council. And section 10 appears, um, halfway through page seven. And the first change I'd like to know, uh, is that we, um, let's see the reader assistant heading now reads right in candidate registration and minimum thresholds in part primary elections. Um, of significance, what has been added here is, uh, added language to require that writing voters received the higher of 10% of the votes cast by the party plus one additional vote. Or, um, the number of votes as the same number of votes that is as the number of signatures required for the candidates office on a primary petition. And then if no Kate candidate is determined to be the candidate of party persistent to those two minimums, then the candidate shall be not a party committee in accordance with other statutory language, but I'll go into the specifics. So the first additional language appears highlighted in page eight under subsection be specifically subdivision one, and then we add a subdivision to. And subsection be reads as follows, a right in candidate shall not qualify as a primary winner unless the candidate a has complied with subsection a of the section and be receives the higher of I 10% of votes cast by the party plus one additional or I I a, sorry, the same number of votes as the number of signatures required for the candidates office on a primary petition. Subdivision two, if no candidate is determined to be the candidate of the party pursuant to subdivision one of the subsection, the candidate may be nominated by a party committee in accordance with sub chapter two of this chapter. I'll pause there. So the total effect here is, we have a right in consent form. So if if you're going to be a candidate for a major party as a right in fire consent form five o'clock the Friday before the five o'clock the Friday before the Friday before so that's the first piece. And then you have to win the higher of 10% of the votes cast in that primary, or the if there are, for instance, if there were only let's say 200 votes cast in that primary. The minimum threshold is the number of signatures that you have to get to appear that office so for a legislative race, Tim that's 50 right now right for a house race. So you have to get the, at least 50 votes, and if there were over 500 ballots cast, then it would be the 10%. Yes, I agree with that. And does that part make sense to everybody I know there's there's multiple multiple things there in that little section. So this, this piece of the threshold was the reason that I felt like it was 87 was the appropriate vehicle. Right. Let's keep keep going thank you. Okay. So the, that is the last substantial passage of changes, the sorry body of changes to be made but there are some other things I just like to point out as we kind of scroll down. Section 12 on page nine. I apologize this is not highlighted but in section, sorry subdivision to a now reads a vote for writing can a shall be counted as a right in vote that is without consent of candy unless the right in candidate filed a consent of candidate form with the secretary state in reference with section 2370 of this title in the primary election subsection to be of this title for the general election in subsection 2702 f of this title for the presidential primary, and I'll just pause there and say that this is a phrasing of what had been there before which was replaced the term generic right in vote to provide more clarity and avoid ambiguous terminology. Moving on if that's all right. The next change. I'd like to point out is we moved the electronic ballot return sections to the end of the bill now amendment, you'll find those in sections 15 and 16. Was there any change to the language from what we saw yesterday Tim. Yes, there is one slight change there's a highlight on page 13. This is under the return of ballast language in title 17 VSA section 253043 that is so division to a, and this clarifies that all ballots electronically delivered pursuant to subsections 2539 B or C and again that's what people voters with illness or disability and be and military or foreign voters in or abroad voters in C, and those electronically delivered ballots will be returned by means of secure online port developed and maintained by the secretary state state directly to the clerk before the close of business on the last day of the clerk's office is that the last day that the clerk's office is open prior to the election and pause there that is the only new language in that section. We talked about that briefly yesterday anybody have any questions about electronic returns. Language. Anything else we should know on this draft. No, this is just a comment. I certainly can get behind the electronic filing provision in this in this bill I'm concerned with the rest of it. I just, I want to make sure that just an opportunity for this piece to definitely get through and I just, I don't know how we can work that but if I can go back to comment on representative Hooper's scenario. As far as local elections go. I think a lot of times the folks that do get written in. Maybe aren't there, and they wouldn't have that opportunity. The day of, or the day before the actual meeting to, you know, fill out a consent form, they may come back from vacation or wherever it is and say, hey, you know what and I just, that wouldn't give them the opportunity to say yes, it's my understanding that they didn't feel that that could send for correct. But that's right. So the way the way this is written now, and Tim correct me if I'm wrong, but the way this is written now, you have to affirmatively file a consent form in order to have your votes counted. And for locals, it's by the close of the polls and the scenario that bring up representative Lee. No, the even a candidate who was written in but hadn't filed a consent form. Yeah, wouldn't make it through so that I know those are two separate things, but it's just my comments at this point. Yeah. So I'm going to open it up for a community discussion. Just quickly if you might remind me what's our what's the timeline we're shooting for on this bill. I would like to vote this bill out tomorrow morning. That's why I'm spending significant time on it today. Sure. And, and moving to hearing folks thoughts about each section of the bill. Yeah, we're going to come back to this this afternoon. Take it up tomorrow morning. If it's if we haven't come to a place where I feel like there's enough support for the sections. I'm willing to move but we have a lot on our plate next week is going to be in terms of the public safety stuff that we have to consider budget. And so yeah, I don't want to. Well, the reason I asked is just because I wouldn't support this bill as sits right now. I can't. I thought I could be open to the fusion changes, but I'm not into it and I'd rather it just get struck, but that's probably not something that you want me to say. Could you maybe elaborate on the things that you're thinking about? It just feels like we're meddling with a Vermont tradition that happens pretty rarely. And this, there are cases in electoral history in this state where candidates were so popular that the other party wanted to express their support without being prompted. And this would remove that possibility entirely. And I'm not exactly sure why we need to do that. You know, I know that you're making the argument that this bill would heighten the integrity of elections. But I think it would simultaneously place emphasis on partisan politics in the elections process. And I'm never going to support that. Is it specifically the need for candidates to file a right in consent that's that's your concern? No, I mean, I thought that that was probably a reasonable thing. What I'm saying is that you can't now let's say I'm popular enough in my district with the Republicans that they wanted to express that without being without me having to like set about that way. You know, I'm saying that would no longer be allowed, not saying that I'm so presumptuous presumptuous as to expect that. But I'm saying that it's now not going to be possible if this and I'm not going to talk about my I don't care about my race. I'm saying nobody can have that. And I also don't really care about the fighting between progressives and Democrats in Chittenden County. It's not. It's not something that I think this committee should be addressing, but that's obviously I'm sorry. I just wanted before I go to represent the wiki say that I have gone really out of my way to make sure that this bill is not about the fighting between Democrats and progressives in Chittenden County, including the provision that we spent some time on this morning about preserving the ability for candidates to say, you know, I want my right in votes cast or my I want my nomination votes cast toward which other party they want in order for major party status. So this is going to be not about that for me this bill from the beginning has been about I want the party designation to mean something. And even if we're just raising the minimum threshold, like that, that to me is like one of the one of the key things it was a key thing for the folks who sponsored it 97, which is the race threshold. And the pieces around, you know, wanting to say that you should run for the party should pick a lean you should run for the party that totally want to identify with this so that I agree with this sore loser part let's do that. You know, so it really does get the writing piece the piece where it that that seems to be the crux of your concern representative from understand because that's the mechanism. Yeah, causing the problem that you're identifying I think I guess creating barriers to something that happens pretty rarely, because you want to make certain that people are representing themselves accordingly when they seek public office it just seems like a little bit of a disconnect the context isn't. Okay, doesn't line up well enough for me. Thank you. I don't mean I appreciate you doing what you've done. Done. Yes. Thank you for all the sharing it's a good discussion and I keep going back to the Republican primary for Congress last year. It's hard to describe what it was because we haven't seen anything like that before and I don't want to certainly open the door for more of that. I don't think this stops anybody from voting for who they want to in the general election we're talking about the primaries here. Anyone from any party can vote for anyone once we get to the general election so I don't see how that stops people from voting for you or for anyone. I think one of the things that I'm hearing from this portion is that people can still vote for somebody from party A and party B's primary, but this is asking that individual that the candidate to approve that they want that way. So, in your example that you used it if the Republicans in your district wanted to vote for you on the Republican primary. They could do so, but in order for that to be published you just have to say yes I want that label. Yeah, but you can still reject it. Like I could still say no I'm not a Republican so I'm not going to put that next to my name. Yeah, so this is that doesn't, it doesn't solve that problem if you would even call that a problem. Representative Chase says that's something to bring me off a bit, but the thing that, you know, I've had a problem with the designation of a candidate for a while. It has to be proactive. Everything in the world is not proactive. Is there a reason specifically that we would not say that somebody that came back from the Himalayas on December 1. Or no back primary land couldn't proactively say I accept as opposed to having filed first. So I think there's a there's an interrelationship between two things that they're in the bill. And what I'm coming to understand from this conversation is that the writing portion the writing consent portion the requirement for writing consent and the consequential. There are two, two big consequences of that I've heard representative Nugent be very clear that she feels like the name that is written in by the voters should be reported. And then the consequence that you're bringing up representative Hooper, if I understand it right I want to really make sure I understand what the committee saying around this, before we come back this afternoon on this. What I'm hearing you say is that you really deeply believe that someone who is essentially by acclimation by the people of Vermont, the people that in that primary whichever election it is where they come together and they say we want. Joe Smith to be the candidate here. Joe might be in the Himalayas, but he's he's an eligible candidate because his residency, etc meets all the other requirements. You know, that he could accept the nomination for either the primary or even office in the consequence of only recording and counting as as valid, the writings after a consent forum has it causes both of those things to happen. And so what I'm hearing real heartburn with that writing piece that that's the real crux of both of these concerns. I just want to say like I really am hearing it. And I started this and was really supportive of that proposal from the clerks I put that in my initial committee bill proposal, because I really deeply believe that you should have to do something affirmative in order to be a candidate and I'm hearing some deep feelings about democracy and about like what what this process should be. And I want that conversation happening here that's our job when in our elections jurisdiction what we do and go out is to really deeply think about when we're asking the Secretary of State and the clerks to minister elections in a particular way, going so far as to say for the major political parties you you Secretary of State's office and clerks are going to administer these parties elections because you're the only ones who are really fairly qualified to do that. How they do it matters to me all deeply and I'm hearing some real concern from the committee about this so I want to, I want to think about it and process that and talk about it a little more this afternoon before we kind of decide where we're going with this bill but I just I really deeply hear it so other thoughts we've got a little time. My concern to narrow it down is not the mechanics of it is the oh crap moment that we open up the possibility for that in the back of my head now. There's this little dog barking that says, gee, don't go there. I can't put a finger on them and Bruce Springsteen comes and puts in the state tomorrow there's good possibility to get written for anything. But we would under this say no. Yeah, so the. I think that that's valid and I want to sort of think on how we could preserve many of the things we want in the bill and maybe sort of move past this particular piece. It's a great break for lunch, but I want to say that the oh crap moment we had in Franklin County that we talked about when I was really first pitching this bill was that somebody who got less than 5% of the right ends. You know, and we have wide open primaries who knows whether those people will, you know, whether they're Democrats whether they just picked up a Democratic ballot to make sure that their friend or the candidate they supported was on there. That person ended up right after primary had a big major thing happen that made it so that both major parties that he won the nominations didn't want him to be their candidate and there was absolutely nothing they could do about it and at least raising the bar a little bit. So what you're doing in with the minimal increase would make it a little bit more meaningful to get that second nomination and wouldn't prohibit anybody wouldn't prevent anybody from being on the general election ballot. So my key priority with this bill on those sections the piece about access the return of ballots to represented Higley's point, if the miscellaneous bill goes down in flames, we'll have other elections bills that will come through and I'll make sure that that's a priority because that testimony is very compelling, but yeah represent a food bird. Well that example of Franklin County that you used also in the back of the mind that continues to seem to me like party governance state dictate in terms of finding a solution. He decides that a candidate no longer needs their qualifications. George Stephanopoulos or whatever his name was. So that way. So the challenge there and I agree with you I really deeply agree with that the challenge there though, is that we deeply care about. Now I've heard over the committee discussion we care about an open primaries. A lot of our monitors really expect that didn't want to change that in this bill, and we deeply care about the will of the voters. Right. And so, if the voters said in the primary that that's the candidate they wanted. And then we allowed parties to second guess the voters after the primary. I think a lot of them are real deep concern about that I mean even the, even the idea that Chair Dean brought up the chair of the GOP of having like what Connecticut has where there's sort of like a primary plus where you get sort of a check mark or like a, I don't know that for monitors would feel good about us asking the secretary seat to do that so I come back to the place where the the viable thing I think the where we want to make some improvement is to just make the threshold higher and that was the crux of h 97 represent water sevens. Yes. We're just talking about the whole bill so please feel free. We've got six minutes until we have a bill introduction with something completely different. My main one is this way or my main sort of struggle that I'm having is that I think, like, especially yesterday when we were talking about military personnel overseas voting and people with disabilities being able to vote, you know, either remotely or electronically or in their voting station. Those are the things that are important as far as elections are concerned, because in my mind, voting elections on these things are the whole point of having any laws surrounding it is to make it easier, more accessible and more fair and to encourage as many people as possible to vote and give them the access to those things and make it equitable. Right. And so for me a little bit of the struggle and I think it's part a little bit of the struggle is that I feel fundamentally conflicted about placing any limits on any of these things at all like more than what exists already. I'm not saying there's, I know I just saw your eyebrows go ahead. Because we already have minimum thresholds for a team. I'm not saying you should just scrap this all together and have a play for all. That's not what I'm saying at all. But what I'm saying is, I think if we're going to move in a direction, then we should move in a direction of making things easier for people to run for office. Easier for people to vote for the people that they want to vote for and easier for it and just have everything clear and more accessible. You know what I mean? Because maybe it is a little confusing, but I don't see or hear any confusion from voters about when they go to vote and they're like, what is this? Why do I only get a primary ballot? What I hear people say and when I see people write things in is, I know that this I'm a Democrat so I can only vote for Democrats in the primary. But I just want to write this person's name now because I want to use my voice. So if it's annoying for the 10 clerks, I'm sure if your voice is like I want Justin Timberlake to be the secretary of state, super aggravating, right? I totally get it. But I was just saying earlier, and I would like to say officially that the town clerk control is amazing and I understand all the Democrats are awesome. None of us ever want to anger a vote. I think we get that clear. Actually having this conversation. Can we get this clerk sharing? The backbone. I understand completely the hard work and stuff. But I'm saying for me a little bit, it's like I'm a bus driver, but sometimes it's annoying when people get on the bus in the way that I don't like them to. And unfortunately, that's part of the job is being a bus driver, right? Is that like someone might walk up the stairs backwards? You know, am I making an analogy here? You understand? I think it's for the town clerks to have to write down Justin Timberlake and then all the other members that didn't think that's part of the job because it's part of our system. It's part of our, it's our democracy. You know what I'm saying? So that's why you're putting any restriction on those things. And I understand that these are only for state elections, correct? No, no, no, the writing provisions are go, go. We have that's why there are multiple sections. So I want to, yeah, that should be really clear. Yeah, so the writing consent form. We propose that to be the five o'clock Friday before the Friday before the election for presidential primary primary statewide primary and general elections, and then day of for local elections. So that the proposal that's in front of us has that writing consent process for all of our elections as it's written the bill right now. So that brings up the other problem, which is that the primary system, you know, these primary elections are part of driven, right? So what I would say, what I would say more accurately is that in law since, you know, for over 100 years in Vermont. The state has run the major parties primary elections because parties used to have caucuses where just the party insiders pick their candidates and then those were the candidates on the ballot. And I think we deeply value in modern electoral thinking and in modern American politics general. The idea that the selectorate the people who choose the candidates. I'm a deep policy nerd. The selectorate is big right we want to have everybody who affiliates with a party thinks about a party in in Vermont it's so open that really it's anybody who wants to vote in that party's primary that August gets to choose who the candidates are. We have it wide wide wide open so yeah. And there's the inherent conflict right which is that it's the primary is all about the parties but at the same time. We want to lose party wise as possible and that's the tension right between these two ideas which is that it's inherently about what party are you. But also restricting what party a person could be chosen as and when we say things like is this person you know actually a Democrat is a Democrat or whatever that's not a party. In my mind I think it's up to the person running and the people voting for them. Yeah, I think and I guess I would just ask before we we move on and take a break from this. Yes. And then what's in the bill now, if we look at the just raise the minimum threshold. That's still the voters deciding who the party nominee is and that party primary there's nothing about that part has changed in this bill. It's still voters. The only difference is is that the person has more of that in order to automatically get a second nomination. Yes. Yes. All right. I believe we're going to just take a break and we will come back to this after lunch. We're going to do some deep thinking and you all have given me a lot to think about. We're having fun here. We're deep. No, we're deep. We're deeply appreciative of the opportunity to punch our palate and think about something else. Take it with us here. Will and Tim invite you guys to come back. We're not going to talk about the elections. Any more until we come back at one so thank you. All right, everybody. We've been doing some deep thinking about elections. We have been busy in house kevabs military affairs and tried to get representatives yesterday. I got stuck in traffic. There was a lot going on a ways and means as there always is. So really appreciate you being flexible and working with us on the schedule. So representative sins, please tell us about each one of us. Thank you chair and committee really appreciate the opportunity to be here with you all representative sins from Orleans for Albany Crestbreak Greensboro Glover. And I appreciate the opportunity to be here with you all talking about each one of us, which is the act relating to community resilience and disaster mitigation fund. And the purpose of the bill is to create the community resilience and disaster mitigation fund to provide funding to municipalities for disaster mitigation and community resilient infrastructure. So to kind of frame how I got to think about this, bring you back to this summer and folks remember there was like a week when we had really high heat. And you know there were there were warnings about what to do to be to be safe during that time and during that period, I went to the Vermont Department of Health website that had a statewide map of all the cooling sites. And I looked in my region, the Northeast Kingdom, 55 towns. Just take a minute to guess how many cooling sites you think might have been on that map for that region. The answer was none. And, you know, there were a few lakes listed. And as I was thinking about my like elderly neighbor whose wheelchair bound I was like guess I could like figure how to get in the car like drive them down through the sand like into the water but like doesn't really feel sufficient to take care of people. And I'm really worried that we're not prepared for the impacts of extreme weather on our communities and if we don't prepare now, we're going to leave especially our most vulnerable behind. So as you all know, climate change is a fundamental threat to our economy, our environment and our way of life. Over the years there have been large scale shifts in our weather weather patterns, including a measurable increase in the number of catastrophic weather events. Our state is becoming warmer and hotter. And with those escalating weather extremes where we have record temperatures and record rainfall events. We're having increased impacts on property losses. So from 2010 to 2019 extreme weather costs $69 million and insured losses across Vermont, impacting about 12% of policy pairs. And our local municipalities are really the front lines of responding to these challenges. And although we have state and federal funding that is routinely made available to help communities after an event to recover and respond to that disaster. There is no long term consistent source of funds to support investments needed to prevent disasters from happening and mitigate the impacts of those disasters. So again, we're paying a lot now after the fact to clean up. We are not making available those resources up front to help plan. And so what this bill does is it establishes the Community Resilience and Disaster Mitigation Fund to award grants to municipalities to provide support for those disaster mitigation activities. And that might be slope stabilization, watershed restoration, drought mitigation, grid hardening, which I think many Vermonters can relate to who spent many days without power because of events that we've had this winter already. You know, other other activities that would directly reduce, you know, the risk to communities lives and property and decrease costs associated with recovery from events. And so revenue for the fund would be generated by increasing the assessment on certain casualty insurance company premiums. So funding would be awarded to municipalities with priority for projects that use funding to match other grants for projects that are in town hazard mitigation plans and projects that are in communities that are identified as high on the municipal vulnerability index. So right now we're working hard to create this municipal vulnerability index, which will show which communities are at most risk. And that's where it stops. We don't have a next step for those communities are identifying as vulnerable. And this bill seeks to address that. And I do want to be clear that this yes has a cost, but there is also a cost to doing nothing. Making up for us investments will decrease losses that would otherwise be largely paid by insurers and policyholders. So, you know, we're having a lot of conversations in this building about what Vermont can and should do to decrease our emissions. And I really support those conversations also think that it's essential that we work on resilience and adaptation. Even if we stopped burning fossil fuels today, we will still experience more and more severe weather events. And we need to be planning for that now. And we must do it in a way that leaves no community behind. You know, again, we can usually access FEMA dollars to clean up after disaster. And we've had a flood resilient community program in the past help with flood mitigation. But just flood and there's a lot of additional mitigation activities that our communities will benefit from investing in now. And so this provides this long term consistent source of funding to make sure that communities are helping to prevent disasters. So, you know, critical support, I think, especially to our most vulnerable in this time. I know that you have like a lot of bills on your wall. That sounds like maybe you need a distraction from some of those other. I can think of nothing more important than making sure that our communities are prepared for a change in climate that is here. And I hope that you'll consider taking up this bell and I would be happy to answer any questions about it. I have a quick question. Go last. Okay. No, I want to thank you for putting this in here. I'm one of the, you know, the global war solutions act had two parts to it. Right. This is one of the pieces was the being more prepared for the weather that is here and the severity of incoming weather over the years that will continue to be burdensome and catastrophic. So, a thank you for that. This is something I genuinely believe we need to start taking a harder look at my question for you in the within the context of this though is just explain a little bit more in depth about the funding mechanism coming off the existing. Yeah, market structure. Yeah, happy to dive into that. So the bill does include a one time investment from our, you know, one time general fund surplus to sort of seed that fund, and then additional funds from 32 VSA to 557 Vermont fire service training council. And so that is a funds that is currently assessed on all insurance companies that write fire homeowner multiple allied lines farm owners multiple. I mean, I sort of long last a sort of catastrophic coverage. Yeah, and the current assessment raises 1.3 million and 1.2 of that goes to the fire safety special fund, which I believe provides education training and support for fire services, and then 150,000 goes to the emergency medical services special fund. And what this bill does is it increases the assessment on those same insurance companies to generate 4.3 million. So the 1.3 million would continue to go to the fire safety special fund and the EMS special fund. So those would stay as they are with their current allocation and then the additional 3 million would go into a new community resilience disaster mitigation fund that would be used and made available through grants to make those investments that would mitigate disaster and ultimately reduce costs for insurance companies and insurers and policy holders. Okay. No, no, no, that was very detailed what I keep going. So would that be sort of just like one of my overarching life philosophy is like plan for the worst hope for the best, which is I think is a philosophy at least be applied in the overarching context of this. Do I have a last question that no, let's stop and marry me. I'm done. Thank you. So representatives sins. I understand the fund and what it's for. And I understand the funding mechanism you described, although if we were to take up this bill further. I'm sure that it would come right up to your committee and you all would decide actually how to fund it some less concerned about the funding mechanism because that's not our wheelhouse here. I am wondering, who would decide how to spend the money that's in fun. Yeah. So, I think we have a model so we have had in the past with kind of one time or $1 the community flood resiliency program, which was managed by state state emergency management division and so they stood up a fund again, there would be certain criteria communities would apply if you met that criteria. You know, you would be eligible to be awarded a grant and so I think we have, you know, within existing state government. You know, agencies in place with expertise managing funds around disaster mitigation. So, you know, to stand up the program, determine the eligibility the application process and award those funds again my suggestions were that we prioritize projects that we're leveraging other dollars like other FEMA grants were included in town hazard mitigation or had a high rating on the municipal vulnerability index, which is a tool that has been put together by the climate council so, you know, knowing that, you know, one could never fund everything, you know, try to prioritize the planning work that's already happening on the ground in all of our towns. So, I'll stop there. We're next week about a more administrative and committee setup issue with the regional emergency management committees that we set up in the previous biennium. And so I had wanted to think about them in the context of this, do you have you thought about how they might interface in that process of figuring out. I think that's a great question for them. I think there are a lot of partners who would have really great input about how to structure this work. I think what I experience in my communities is often we have no shortage of projects that we have identified as a need and what we often lack are both the capacity to, you know, apply for funds and manage those projects and access to the resources. You know, the reason my community isn't ready for severe weather isn't because we don't necessarily know what to do. It's that we lack the resources to do that. And I think there are lots of partners who have the expertise who know what our community should be doing. I imagine, you know, the groups that you just mentioned would be a part of that. And this gives them a tool to actualize that we know we need to do now. Any other questions for Representative Sims? Representative Maliki? I just want to share my support for this. I can relate to two years ago that summer when we had 18 years of the rain in July and one night our town we had eight inches of rain, like 13 roads, including a bridge that wound up costing a half a million dollars to replace. And we still haven't received FEMA money. We were promised two years later. And the other piece that happened that I think makes it easy to rationalize asking insurance companies is I was inundated with calls from people whose insurance companies turned down their claims to repair driveways, to repair culverts, other storm-related damage. And I've lost count of how many storms of the century we've had already in this century. And I think this is a realization of the reality we're in. And this is going to help recognize that. And I hope that we can support this. Thank you. Yeah, my small town is on its third million dollar bridge on the same section of road. And again, you know, really worried about what happens to Vermonters at the end of long dirt roads when they're without power for a week and, you know, how we're making sure that there are places that people can go to stay warm or to stay cool when they need to. And maybe even figuring out how to make sure that we're hardening our grid so it goes out less often. Thank you very much. I'll be thinking about this when you hear from our MCs next week. And I think we really do need to figure out how we make sure that communities have the capacity. We've already done a little bit of work on that with our support for the rural municipal capacity grants and the BAA. And I think this is going to be the way that we do. Make sure that our communities have access to the programs and resources that we create and whether we have enough resources for them to access is going to be a key question that keeps rolling forward. So this is an important piece for us to be thinking about in our go box world here. So thank you very much for being with us today. Appreciate it by the provider distraction from the public safety world. Thanks. All right, committee. So that is all we have on the agenda before lunch. I am going to have us all come back and we'll continue our work working on the elections bill. And I am working with a couple of folks to try to come up with a way to thread the needle on the domestic violence fatality review recommendations. So I'm hoping that I'll be able to put something before the committee, if not, at the end of our session this afternoon before for tomorrow. And with that, we will adjourn. Good afternoon. We are back at the House Committee on Government Operations, Military Affairs, taking up renewing our conversation with the latest and greatest draft of each 97 our committee's elections bill. And Tim Devlin is here to walk through the changes in draft number 1.2 before he does that. I have heard loud and clear that many folks on our committee have trouble with the writing candidates provisions, the writing consent form provisions, and some of the consequences that we talked about this morning around that. So this draft of the bill has essentially two major changes. One is that it removes all of the writing consent form requirement pieces. So that's big change number one. Big change number two is that with correspondence, some of the testimony that we had last week, the fix to on the campaign finance piece between candidates and parties. I think it's pretty clear that we want to put a cap on that and just raise that cap to something that will still encourage candidates to file campaign contributions that are actually directly to them and have them show what they're filing to the party without going through a pack or doing another legal end run that while a lot of the activity that we see is with the letter of the law. It violates kind of the spirit of it. So those are the two big changes and I'll have Tim walk us through the words on the page. Thank you very much, Jim McCarthy. And good afternoon committee members for the record. My name is Tim Devlin legislative council. The first sorry before you you have a draft 1.2 of the strike all amendment to age 97. The first substantive change from what you were reviewing this morning occurs in on page three at the top. Again, I've highlighted anything that has been altered for the most part except for omissions which have been removed and there's nothing to highlight but I just want to note that. So we have this is in campaign finance limits for state candidates. This is at the bottom of page three to just orient everybody section for amending title 17 VSA section 2941 a sub section a in any election. Skipping some text to subdivision five a political party shall not accept contributions totally more than and just skip down to the relevant part of the top of page three which is highlighted. So the sub section be political party shall not accept contributions totally more than $100,000 from a candidate. I'll pause there seems pretty straightforward. Okay. Thank you. You're very welcome and just like to note that the next section, which pertains to minimum thresholds is now in section 10. The previous sections 10 through 14 were either removed and whole. Were removed and whole with the exception of the minimums, which now appear in section 10. And that can be found on page seven now. And I just like to make a quick note that the reader assistance heading. Section four, I've made a note to modify that so they'll read just minimum thresholds are right in minimum thresholds and primary elections removing the candidate registration form, which is no longer strictly accurate. Section 10 has the language as appears in age 97 represent representative shyce. Bill and reads essentially the same, but now is missing. What was a new subdivision a one. And I can just read through that if you'd like chair McCarthy or I think it was for other questions or directed to directors sending to answer any provide additional context or something like that but I'd be happy to read that through now as well. Tim, am I reading this correctly it's like a self read for intro loop right in candidate show not qualify as primary winner unless the candidate has complied with subsection A of this section, which is yes, I apologize that's oversight that should be removed. Okay, does that mean everything just basically moves up one subcategory. Yes, it does. Okay, thank you. Section 10 is, we just need to get rid of those but yeah. Because we removed this. Yeah, we get and then to most along with the ABC. But the intent here is that we have the thresholds we discussed this morning, but absent all the other language about needing to file a consent form so we were able to do that. Can I ask a question. Mr chair, we have one minute. Yeah, please. Of Tim I noticed that the second clause which was existing language is struck through and I know it wasn't the draft for I was going to raise this before starting trying to get back to what I'm referring to it's the stricken through language on lines 15 and 16 on page seven. If a candidate receives more votes than a candidate whose name is printed on the ballot, he or she may qualify as a primary one correct. Right. Okay. I don't recall discussion Mr chair about this language or it being requested to be taken out. I can tell you it operates. In the case where there is a named candidate, typically the threshold for writing candidates becomes an issue when there's no named candidate on the ballot. Right. Because, as you all are well aware, usually the name candidate gets well more votes than any write in. In cases where there's a name candidate on the ballot and the right end does get more. And so the right end candidate is just called to the committee's attention, whether they want to keep that language that in that case, the candidate would still prevail. The right end candidate, even if not meeting that minimum threshold. Yeah, I wasn't paying attention as closely as you were director sending to that particular piece but I think we should remove the strike and keep the language. If a named candidate can't get as many votes as arriving candidate, I think they do deserve to be the winner. I did not understand that that was smooth. We had done by striking that language. So even if they don't meet the minimum threshold, yes, representatives. So an example would be if somebody was running for state rep, there was named candidate on the ballot, they got 20 votes. They got 30 votes. They're both below the threshold of 50, yes, or 51. Then, in that case, the right end would get the nomination. Yes, exactly. And without such provision, as you can see, you'd be, you'd be saying that the name candidate one with less votes. Okay. Very rare but I have seen it happen before and I've even seen it happen at your house level. So on this section, Tim, I think I, so unless the committee corrects me here, I think what we'd like, we'd like to do is obviously make the correction on line 10 move everything up. And then we'll restore the line to remove the strike on lines 14 through 16. So if, if the named candidate loses to a writing candidate, the, I think the issue that I was trying to solve with the threshold is kind of moot. That seems like a very unlikely, that seems like a very unlikely scenario, but you know, we've got to belt the suspenders with the law here. Just to clarify, so removing the strike would ensure that the person who gets the most out is the winner. Correct. Yes. That's my understanding. Right. Well, I was giving you the thumbs up. Just wanted to be sure. So, I'm going to put the numbers on the page for these two sections that have changed. New gent. How does this affect the rate in votes that are like recorded or not. So by removing all of those provisions that we had had in the bill. We're dispensing with the idea that I believe was the most subject to most of our conversation this morning. So now, with this version of the bill, that entire idea of a consent form for a writing candidate in a qualifying event is gone. The consequences that we talked about the removing the possibility that someone who didn't file to be a candidate that's gone out of the bill. Everything reverts back to normal sort of today underlying statute in this version as it relates to writings, except if the threshold is higher as it was in each 97 and the only modification I would say to him in each 97 I believe all it did was move it so that the number from half of the petition signatures to the full number and I've added this additional idea largely because of what happened in the Franklin County. County elections this past primary of saying the higher of 10% of the ballots cast in that primary or the signature threshold. In a lot of her like legislative primaries down at our level, some of the party ballots, you know, I think there's usually just a couple or three or 400 so 10% for a lot of us is 50 is actually higher than 10%. But counterwide, when we do when we see writings, those are often less than 10%. And one of my key principles that I'm trying to really focus on here is this idea that it should really mean something when you when you get that nomination, especially if it's, you know, the word your second nomination. So you name yourself on ballot, you know, you declare sort of who you are what you fill it with, you win that primary, and you're looking for that second not absent the party itself Party committee, etc, nominating you because there's a vacancy. Yeah, you would really. I think we want to have a higher threshold based on what I've seen in our recent election so this is a long way of saying we took all that stuff out. But Mr chair can I add just a little more wind to that long wind. Yes. Just just because of the nature of representative Evans question was, you know what does it do to write ends I just want to make clear what the status quo is you're right we've taken everything out related to that. We're just back to the current status quo. And that is that the clerks and the local election officials will now continue to be required to write the names and the vote totals of every person written in on every race at every point in the process their tally sheet their summary sheet, their election night reporting in their official return of vote the only exceptions to that are deceased and fictional characters that are recorded as blank. So, so we'll right now as it is, names that even appear to be a real person would be reported, but names that are obviously cartoon character or something to that effects are counted as blank. So, you know, these are the key masses and your Abraham Lincoln's but exactly name you don't recognize but appears to be a real live person, every other cases, recorded and reported. What about like a Hulk Hogan character and in no way she performed obviously resident of a district. That's a judgment call the clerk I would swell Hulk Hogan to me as a real person. That's one tweaks. Claire, the Hulk Hogan's name is Terry Jean Bollet. I have to ask, did you know that or did you Google it? He working overtime over there. Next time you do that, I'll give you a sip of something. John loops. So any further questions about these changes because what I'd like to do is just take a brisk walk through with Tim just to remind folks of what sections are still in this draft that we changed since the last draft but I just want us to holistically look at the thing in total and walk through it together. So, Tim, would you guide us on a tour of what is left in draft number 1.2. Yes, I'd be happy to and just for clarification, a line by line walk through correct. Yes, let's let's do a line by line. We don't need to. So what I would say is we can do more more of a paragraph by paragraph than a line by line and stuff that we've been over today so it can it can be. We don't need to read every word that's on the page but I want to have the committee sort of look at each piece sit with it understand that that that piece that we've looked at in various versions. I'm cognizant of the fact that in a bill that we've been updating and making some edits and compromises on sometimes sort of get lost which pieces are left in the draft and I don't want anybody to accuse me of sort of sliding something in at the last minute I think that we other than the piece we did yesterday on electronic returns, which seem to be a consensus piece that we've been whittling away at the sections primarily. Representative Cooper. How quickly do you think we can get Barbara Murphy to test about you know what I was just about to find a way for the love of God I was thinking the same thing. All right, so she's like a job. Let's pause for just a moment on that representative Cooper. I was asked by by several folks to testify or get the voice of an independent to talk about the movement of the independent filing deadline up. I am hesitant to have sitting members come and testify and grow this committee. We have 150 people working on our bill and that's not a new business in the state house. I also think it's valuable to have that perspective so I've reached out to a couple of independent candidates haven't gotten availability. And this is something that came up this week and hadn't been able to find anybody but Barbara Murphy represents former representative Murphy would be a great voice to add to our conversation. And I believe, Andrea that her. I think I have her contact information will try to send it to you now so. So represent Cooper that's a great suggestion, I will forward some contact info to Andrea that she will do her magic. She could come in today or tomorrow morning. That would be lovely. Tim, are you still scheduled inside go box. I don't want to keep you here. Sorry, let me pull up that schedule. I think what we could do is take a break. I have about 30 things that I need to do. I'm sure other representatives do to. And we could reconvene to just do a orientation section by section, when you're done it's a box before we have to go to floor. Okay. And let's see, I should be in seven go, Senate go box. 215 to 245 but knowing that they always, they tend to run a little delayed. I'd say maybe three o'clock 315. Okay, we'll be on the floor. I think what I'll do is, is give the committee a break floor is going to be really short. So we'll come back with you for maybe half an hour at approximately 345 after we're off the floor. Tim, well that works for your schedule. Okay. Alright, that'll give me time to look for the independent voice that we desperately need in this conversation. And we are working on another piece of Tim, I'll let you go. We'll let you go. Thank you both so much for the time today. Committee one more thing before we break. I am working with stakeholders to try to find a path on the domestic finance fatality review commission language. I have some very strong opinions around the category A versus category B issue law enforcement has a perspective that the network for the prevention of domestic and sexual violence has a perspective attorney general has a perspective. I would really like to try to move that. And at least a couple more days had that on the schedule for tomorrow. I just wanted to let folks know stakeholders are talking and I'm hoping that we can move that next week, but that will not be on our schedule tomorrow. So just wanted to let the committee know that we're trying to work through trying to get the stakeholders to come to a place where everybody feels good and it's an important issue and I don't want to lose it. I also want to try to find a consensus path if we can. So just didn't want anybody to be surprised by that. So is tomorrow's schedule then the elections bill at 830 in the morning, then the floor, then we're not going to hear about anything, the changes to law enforcement officer training. That's, that's right. We're not going to, we're not going to do that piece tomorrow. That's exactly it. We're going to find the common grounds before we get back on it as a committee. So then we still do have to meet at 830 tomorrow morning is my question. I will figure that out while we're on break. And if I can make it later, I absolutely will, but I'm cognizant of the fact that we have a fun field trip to our state archives tomorrow afternoon. I've worked on in advance of that. And I know Andrew has been looking at the logistics of how we're going to get there. So, do you have any news for that's fit to print yet from our center colleagues. It's in middle sex. I will be coming back here. So I am willing to take me plus three. So a third of the committee could go in my right. I can get it right back here. It's in middle sex. Because I would probably just, unless we had some do back here, I'd probably because that's already. Yeah, we had the right track after that. So I'm not coming back. So who would drive themselves and then continue north. Okay. Okay. Okay. So it sounds like I'm the only suck in there. It sounds like if we had to to a volunteer drivers, we would get everybody who's not, you know, and maybe just one based on those numbers. So, all right, well, I think. I'm happy to take some. Yeah, so I'm happy to take folks too. So I think we'll be able to figure this out easily because most folks are headed in that direction. Yeah. We'll take a break.