 Good morning, everyone. It's great to see so many familiar faces, and I realize that some of the faces who aren't familiar, I know by name, so that's great. Welcome. I'm glad you... Oh, I'm closer. Okay. Oh, that's much better. Okay. So, welcome. It's great to see all of you. I'm not used to speaking in a mic. I'm also not used to running in the meeting. Anthony is having surgery, so he said it's going to be a safe surgery, and that's why he's not here. And I always say that... I always get nervous before the meetings, and I say that once I get to the meeting, if I see Anthony and Josh, I'm all set. So you can help out. I would like somebody to help make sure... Anthony's always really good about... he's good about many things, and his chill, wise personality is one of those things. So somebody can help me try to stick to the timeline. I would appreciate that. We have, as usual, a very packed agenda, so we may, you know, we may go over on some things, and we'll just see how it goes. So... I just wanted to let people know that Anthony's surgery went very, very well. Oh, thank you. Okay. That's perfect. That's really good to hear. Yeah. I mean, even though he was... I mean, he had some concerns. Why wouldn't you? But he was pretty calm about it at the same time, so that is really good news, because there are... anyway, that's great news. Okay. So we have lost a couple of ardent progressives, Steve May and Dean Corrin, and I had sent out an email asking if anybody knew them. I didn't know them. I read the obituaries. Josh knows them, but if we have to take just a few minutes to say some nice things about them and let people know about the kind of work that they did, I think that would be a good way to start the meeting. There's a hand up in the back. Sure. Hi. My name is Behar Hartmanaka. I've been involved with the party since the beginnings out as a former city councilor back in the birdie days in the 80s and was actually lived close to Dean, worked on his first campaign, which he lost by eight votes, and then fortunately won all the successive campaigns except when he ran for lieutenant governor. Dean was just devastated by his untimely loss. He was just a wonderful human being. He was way ahead of his time for many years. Dean served for folks who don't know him, served with Terry Beresius, and then also, I think for a while, with Tom Smith, more thought, was at the same time, right? And was, he was one of the people who really, I think, made us very aware of, you know, climate change and the impacts much earlier than, you know, most people became aware of it at the same time that Howard Dean signed civil, civil unions. Dean was already introducing legislation for gay marriage. So way ahead, like years, literally ahead on that. Before he became a rep, he was a Burlington Electric Department commissioner. And this was at a time when Burlington Electric was saying no to Hydro-Quebec because of the damage that it did to indigenous lands up in northern, northern Quebec. It was when BED first issued its first energy conservation bond. First in the state, efficiency Vermont didn't exist yet. So Dean was like at the cutting edge of so many different things. He was a very strong advocate for universal healthcare, single payer, very strong advocate for that. And some of you may know that he ran for lieutenant governor unsuccessfully with both democratic and progressive endorsement. Just wonderful person, brilliant. He was also an inventor. Dean invented a special turbine for harnessing energy. There is actually one or more of them. I can't remember how many are installed in the East River in New York City, generating power for Con Edison. He worked for a fit called Burlington Power. So Dean, yeah, brilliant, brilliant guy, really smart, really ahead of his times. And just a wonderful human being. At least Blum, I just want to add to that. Wonderful. Rememberance of Dean. Vermont does not have deregulation of electricity because of Dean Warren. Yes. And he was amazing. And the other thing is Dean, we couldn't find anybody to run for lieutenant governor. And Dean stepped up and did it. And we got money for him to run public financing. We worked really hard for that. And then Attorney General Sorrell sued Dean, which caused him a lot of money. And he did it as a retribution because this is how I see it. Ellen David Friedman in 1984 defeated his mother for Democratic National Committee for those old people who are everything. And he wanted to get back at the, Bill Sorrell wanted to get back at the progressives. So he sued Dean over nothing, by the way. Right. He was over email early. Costs cost a family. Anyone else? Am I right about that, Martha? I believe so. David. Well, I guess I want to say a couple of things. I want to make sure Steve May isn't sort of left out of the conversation. And what a, you know, two different sudden losses to our community. And Steve was devoted and dedicated and was, you know, always trying to be there and help folks running and put him, he was on the ballot a number of times as well carrying the progressive banner. And so that was, it was a shock to hear. I'm going to, I am going to go back to Dean for a moment. Dean was the person that asked me to run for the house in 1994. And we ran a number of campaigns together. He had been in, I think, one term. And then he served three more, which I lost that first one. So we served two terms together. So those three races, I mean, I lived at his house. Earhart lived at his house quite a bit too. We would doorknock in the neighborhoods from five till eight or 830. And then we would go up to UVM and doorknock from 830 until someone kicked us out sometime, usually between 11 and midnight. And we would do this day after day. And so the dedication to getting young people involved, the effort that he put in to help me, you know, I wouldn't, I wouldn't be where I am right now if he hadn't asked me to run 30 years ago. And it was just mentioned, you know, public financing, end of life choices. He had bills that had co-sponsored in the late 90s, which is why folks came back to me in 2004 to get that ball rolling again. But Dean was the one that put those out for him. Same with marriage equality. I think even before the Civil Union's court case, he had a bill in. And I have to say the state-wide reality for progressives and the state-house reality for progressives was extraordinarily different than it is now. The metaphorical arrows, bullets, slings, punches, whatever violent language you want to use that Dean and Terry took for putting out issues and standing up with firmness for these incredibly important economic and democracy and equality issues was really unbelievable. The Democrats who are doing it now with the election all a little bit, but at the time where progressives are out to destroy the Democrats, we are going to destroy the progressives. And, which was really amazing how the fly could hurt, I was going to say an elephant, but I guess a donkey, that much. But the Dean took it day in and... A donkey. A donkey. What did I say? Did I not say a donkey? A donkey. Yeah, no, I said a donkey. Anyway, I've gone on too long, but much too young, an incredible loss, and not just politically, but just a funny, kind person. He was washing plastic bags in his sink back when I was at his house in the mid-late 90s. Really visionary. Cindy? I have a little bit to say about both, but not too much. Steve would usually call me when he had an issue, or he wanted to do something, or he wanted to run, or he wanted support from the progressives. He felt that he could talk to me, and I would always call him back, and we'd have an interesting conversation, and I would be as pragmatic as I could be with Steve, so I was very surprised to see this today. And as far as Dean, if people know I ran and served and lost and everything else, he supported my last campaign. So, I mean, he's still supporting progressives. And a few years ago, probably eight years ago when I had a big event in Ennisburg, he drove all the way from Chittenden County to Ennisburg, him and his wife to support me. So I, Dean, I wished I had got to know him better, and I was really interested to hear that he was an inventor. My dad was an inventor in the similar vein, so very sad to see about both today. They're both, you know, great people. Oh, okay. So I think I skipped this step, but I should introduce myself. I'm Marielle Bley, and I'm the Vice Chair of the Progressive Party. And I was very relieved since GPS wasn't picking up VTC that when I got here, I saw spoons. I thought, okay, this is the right place. And I recognize a lot of you. I'm, it's kind of like, I was a teacher for many years, and it's a little bit like high school teaching because most of you are in the back. But we're friendly, it's fine if you want to sit in front. And please let me know. I can easily pass the mic if anyone needs it. I don't, I always get annoyed when somebody says, oh, I have a lot of voice. I don't need the mic. And I'm like, no, you need the mic. So I'm happy to jump around. Josh, if you could scroll down to the bottom so we can see the names of the new code. Yes. What I'll actually do is I'll put it, I'll show the website. Okay. That works. Yep. I think that might be easier. So we have five, five or six? Five. We have five new members of the COGO. And I don't know, are any of you here? Okay, great. So we'd like, if you could introduce yourself, that would be great. And then we'll mention the others. Barnes, I live in Waitsfield. And I, I live in Waitsfield. I've been involved with the Progressive Party for several years. And I've worked on a number of campaigns. I really decided to be part of the party's COCO. I'm working on the organizing committee to help build the party and to get more people involved. And we're going to talk more about that later in the meeting. But I'm really happy to be here and by all of you are too. Thanks for volunteering. Just organizing for a few minutes on the agenda. So yeah. So yeah, it's been amazing working with Lynn. She's we're going to talk later, but she's the new chair of our organizing committee as well. So that's been, that's been really awesome to be able to work with her on that. So we're really happy to have Lynn on board. So the other new members of the board meeting committee, and I just want to say too, like, we had a really good process around this and a bunch of people. We had more people applied for this position, these positions that we had more things. And we did a forum, online forum, which I know many people participated in. And we sent out electronic ballots. And I know I was really happy with the process going into it. And I'm also happy that everyone who did not get elected is engaged in a committee in some some way or another. So that's always really good to see. So yeah, we also have Jose Aguayo, who has some friends from Texas in town today, so had reached out and couldn't make it. So that's, you know, he's totally excused on that. And then we have Liz Fiskoff, who is down in the Rutland area. She used to be with the Democrats. And she's been with Rad. And she reached out and expressed interest in getting involved with us. So she's one of the regional advisors. And the regional advisors just, you know, currently they're non voting. And this is something we're working to address in the bylaws, which we'll hear about later, and actually make those kind of voting positions. And then I do actually see Liz Blum is here. So yeah, you thought you were going to get away with not introducing yourself, but not going to let that happen. I'm sure most of you probably know Liz. But Hi, you know who I am now. I live in Norwich. And I'm one of the founders of the party. And I think there's like six or seven of us here, the original people. And I was on the original Coco for about four years. And I want to keep the party strong and grow. So I volunteered to do this. And I am a member of the organizing committee, because I'd rather be an organizer than a fundraiser or a bylaw writer. But thank you, Elijah. Elijah is a second generation progressive. Yeah. Thanks, Liz. Yeah, it's been I've been working with Liz since I started with the party back in 2016. It's been awesome to work with her. And then we also have Will Anderson and will was a recent he also couldn't make it. But he was a recent city council candidate in Burlington. He also works for Vermont State government. He's kind of a policy guru, I would say, really, really good with numbers. And he's been active on our communications committee and really helping us think through, you know, policy issues like a very detailed, detailed oriented way. So he's been like absolutely wonderful to have in this new leadership role, younger guy, maybe, you know, late 20s early 30s, I would say. But will will's really great. And it's really good to have his energy as some of you, you know, doesn't just know the issues, but also knows the numbers. So that's, that's been really, really helpful because so often I think, you know, you have big ideas and we don't necessarily have the, you know, the people who can go through and, you know, write, write a detailed budget and show by something the administration is doing or something that, you know, city government is doing doesn't make sense from like a numbers and an economic perspective. So he's been really helpful in helping us bring issues from that lens. So yeah, those are our new cocoa members. We're going to be everyone's out for election again, coming up in November. So everyone currently on the cocoa will have to run for reelection and we'll have a full open process around that and new people can step up. We haven't gone through or thought through who on the current cocoa is stepping down, but that's going to be coming up in a few months. So if anyone else wants to run, we really encourage it at that point, because we would love to have you and we need a vibrant, healthy, energized, coordinating committee always. So thanks so much. I'd like to introduce, well, I don't know, I don't think she needs a lot of introduction, but Taylor Small is here and she is going to be presenting the legislative update. And Taylor, you told me there might be another House member meeting you, but you're on your own. Oh, you're going to get a six in one here. Oh, right. And David and David. How could I forget David? Here's the mic. Thank you. Thank you. Can I set this down right over here? Wonderful, y'all. Good morning. Wonderful to see you. I'm going to go through just a very legislative speak high level overview of the various bills that we were able to pass this year, and that progressives also worked on. And so good. And we'll have David be my backup here for anything that I might have missed on the Senate side, as we only have one senator over there. These are in just numerical order, not in the order of importance, though, I will start with a bill that I co-sponsored this year, age 89, which was accompanied with S 37. These are Vermont shield law bills declaring reproductive health care and gender affirming care as legally protected health care in the state of Vermont and protecting Vermonters and our providers from any abusive litigation that may be coming from other states that are attacking such access to health care. This really was a preemptive response to some of the restrictive laws that we've seen in other states and really showing Vermont as that safe space for folks to be able to access health care, though, once we get universal health care, that will be even better. Age 165, we passed universal school meals this year. It was a very interesting conversation as it made its way through the House in particular about expanding a universal school meals for all students, not just as students in need. This was two reasons why we did it this way. One, is it allowed for more federal drawdown so that we were able to get a federal match for this program and not have to spend as many state dollars by providing this for all students across the board, as well as recognizing stigma when we only allow students who are in need to be able to access free or reduced lunch and it starts to point out who has and who has not. And so this just makes it an even playing field so everyone can get breakfast in the morning and lunch before they head home at the end of the day. Age 217 became a more complicated bill at the end of the session, started out as a workers comp bill, must pass to update our systems here and ended up also being our child care bill at the end. The Senate tacked on a mixture of our language and regards to policy for child care and their funding mechanism, which was an income tax for the child care program. Really, what this did was expand access to the child care financial assistance program for Vermonters. So it now states that anyone under one hundred and sixty five percent of the federal poverty level will not have to pay a copay for child care in the state of Vermont. And then copays will start at one sixty six percent all the way up to five hundred and fifty percent of the federal poverty level, really expanding who is able to get access to child care. A more important aspect of this bill, I would say, is really supporting our child care workers. We know that this is a very fragile workforce. It is really teetering on the edge of just crumbling apart. And so we want to increase reimbursements for our child care providers. So we have a standard reimbursement across the board instead of basing it on ratings and quality. And then on top of that, we recognize the importance of our family child care homes. So the smaller programs, especially out in rural Vermont and learned about this disparity in reimbursements for child care centers, we're getting a higher reimbursement no matter what, while the family child care homes did not get the same level of reimbursement. So we increase that about 50 percent of the way. So we made it halfway there to bring into parity and are intending in the next session to bring that into parity for child care centers and family child care homes. I'll pause to see if there are questions yet as I do such quick overviews. Yes, everything that I'm describing right now is our past legislation. I will mention the ones that did not pass or are still being worked on. H-222 was our big reducing overdoses bill this year. At first I'll be honest with you, I wasn't very excited to take very meager steps in trying to address an overdose crisis that is really coming before us. Last year we set another record in the number of overdose deaths in the state and we are leading the nation when it comes to overdose deaths overall. And so what this really did was took very incremental steps around creating parity for our hubs and spokes system, trying to reduce the issues that come up with prior authorizations in getting access to medication-assisted treatment. It also looked at expanding access to naloxone and sending out vending machines in various communities so folks can access naloxone more readily. What was really exciting to see added was not only the appropriations through our opioid abatement fund, so the funding that was coming from the pharmaceutical industry to address this crisis, a crisis that they have created. And one piece that was included and that was not in the original recommendations from the committee that put this forward was around drug checking. This is an integral piece in addressing overdoses in Vermont and nationally. And so it really puts us on a leading edge. Not many states have this in place where it's spectrometers that essentially go into our syringe service programs or community health agencies where folks are able to take their pre-obtained drugs, have it tested so they know exactly what they are using before using it. What has become really prevalent in the drugs across Vermont is that we're not really even seeing heroin on the streets now. It is just all fentanyl. It's what we hear up in Canada as well. And now that the inclusion of other drugs such as xylazine, we don't have the reversal medications in place to actually reverse an overdose if someone were to take those drugs. And so the drug checking systems would allow folks to know what they're using and also allow providers to know what they might need to use as an antagonist in case an overdose were to happen. I would also highlight that our Health Human Services Committee also passed out a bill out of our committee but won't be taken up for consideration and appropriations in the Senate until next year to allow for safe consumption sites or previously known as safe injection facilities, supervised facilities for folks to use pre-obtained drugs to reduce overdose death. Of course, this is not the panacea. This isn't the answer to addressing the overdose crisis but it is the answer to addressing our overdose death crisis in Vermont. To really help folks get into treatment and to reduce using overall, we have to make sure they're alive in the first place. Another bill that came up, H230, which was a suicide reduction bill but really was also a firearm safety. And this looked at three ways that we can reduce firearm harm in our communities in particular when it comes to suicide. So looking at red flag laws, so who would be able to initiate whether someone's firearm should be taken away, specifically looking at domestic violence or sexual violence situations, safe storage of various firearms, so promoting safe storage and ensuring that folks have access to safe storage in their homes and then better background checks. So that folks aren't able to get a firearm same day. We know that typically when folks are looking to get a firearm on the same day, it is either to harm themselves or others. So trying to prevent that or put more barriers in place before folks can get access to a firearm. This next one everyone has definitely heard about. 429, the elections bill that I wish would just be done but it's not. So in the house, we really fought against the fusion provision which would eliminate the opportunity for folks to run as fusion candidates. Other pieces that were in the bill is increasing contributions from candidates to their parties. When it left the house, it was at 60,000. As it's leaving the Senate right now, it's down to 20,000. Originally it was 10,000. So we are making incremental change to just roll that one back. Other provisions in there are the quote unquote sore loser law. So if someone were to not win their primary, they wouldn't be able to run another party's general election or be able to run as an independent. And to really solidify that, they've even looked to move the independent filing date up before the general election to make sure that if you are going to run as an independent, you already have to have that registration ahead of time. Something that came out of the bill when it left the house but got put back in the Senate was around writing candidates. This would put a provision in that would say that you would have to register as a writing candidate for your votes to be tally and that they would only be valid if you got at least I believe 10% of the vote or some ridiculous number like that. Do you remember, David? Yeah, I'll go into, because we're going to do some more of the election. So you go right in. Wonderful. I'll let David dig into that one then. And to really try to give it some legs back in the house, they put the range choice voting bill into that one overall, which would implement range choice voting for presidential elections in 2027. Looking over to the Senate. I only have two bills I'm really going to highlight from them. I'm not a senator at all. So, but yeah, not yet. Who knows if I really want to go over there though. That's 100, the omnibus housing bill. I wish I could go into all of the details of what was included in this, but I'm happy to answer any specific questions that folks might have. A couple pieces I will highlight is that it focuses on municipal zoning changes. There are some Act 250 exemptions within this bill, an expansion of development in designated downtowns and for priority housing projects. In the house, some movement that we tried to do was recognizing the impending homelessness crisis that is going to hit our communities starting at the end of this month. And recognizing that municipalities need all the tools that they can to address this crisis. And so we wanted to move up the municipal zoning by-laws so that each municipality is prepared to have zoning for emergency shelters when that program ends on July 1st. Sadly, the committee gave some pushback and so it will be September 1st instead, but at least it is much better than the December 1st of 2024 that was originally in the bill. We also looked to set the standard for when we are going to provide housing for those who are homeless or housing insecure, especially in the winter months. And so we put a proposal forward around what is currently an adverse weather conditions policy put forward by the department. Something I like to highlight about policies in the department is that we actually have no legislative oversight on policies that are created. We don't have any approval, we only learn about them when there's typically an issue with the policy itself, and then we would have to put law or rulemaking in place. And so prior to the pandemic, this adverse weather conditions policy meant that folks could access housing if the weather was under 20 degrees Fahrenheit or it was under 30 degrees Fahrenheit with more than a 50% chance of precipitation. Meaning that someone who was already homeless would have to access the forecast to know whether or not they would get housing for just that one night, and if the weather changed the next day and then they were packed out on the streets. During COVID-19, the department implemented that it was a date to date range. So folks would be in housing from November 15th to April 15th. And we were trying to look at Vermont data. When does the first frost happen and when do we know that winter is most likely ending in the state of Vermont? And so we have two of those data points and we looked at when the first frost happens, which is typically around November 1st, and we thought to look at Joe's pond in the Northeast Kingdom for when the ice out happens, and that is typically around May 1st. So we thought, what a great range to put in there. Sadly, it was not taken out by the committee and the department came forward saying it would be about a $70 million expenditure. But that seems like an inflated number at the end of the day. So we'll take that one with a great assault. Okay, I only have a few more for you, I promise. S103 was expanded employment protections and public accommodations protections. This is something that represented the Hama Mulvaney Stanite worked hard on and expanding who is covered by these protections, in particular, looking at gender identity, race, and disability status. And the House, we also tried to apply this to education and for students, recognizing that what this was about to create was a disparity for, if we look at school districts in particular, teachers would have more protections when it comes to discrimination that they are facing in the school, rather than the students themselves. And so those were questions that we raised on the floor. Is this a disparity where if a teacher and a student were being harassed by the same person, who would have more protections? And it was, it was the teacher time and time again. There was commitment from the House Education Committee that they are going to work on protections for students in the next legislative year. They even put a short form bill forward, but we are gonna hold the pressure on to make sure that we are not continuing that disparity. Last couple of things, 493 are capital budget. Usually we don't take too much into this one, but there were some concerns this year, especially when we're looking at the future of the women's prison. We have pushed hard to really re-examine our industrial complex around keeping folks out of community when they've caused harm. And instead, what we see once again is a $13 million induction of funds to plan and map out a new women's facility in the state of Vermont. They thought it would be a nice prison though, so that is supposed to give us the reassurance. Though the number of beds that they are planning for is much higher than we have seen in the state of Vermont, it is concerning on many levels. And lastly, the budget. Budget, an eight and a half billion dollar budget that we passed out of the General Assembly this year was some great investments, I will say, especially when we think about our local municipalities and supporting them in addressing various crises. But where we have a strong sticking point again was the emergency housing program. We have tried to work with the administration and our colleagues in the House and Senate to really identify a just and humane transition for folks out of the motels as they go into permanent supportive housing. The plan as it currently stands is to give not enough funds to our municipalities to address this crisis, while kicking 3,000 people out onto the streets and saying best of luck because we don't have any shelter beds available, we don't have any affordable housing units. I always look to the Royal County on this one and there is not even a rental that is affordable for someone who is coming up and might even just need a down payment for their facility. So all that to say, we were really pushing for, of course, a full funding of this program, recognizing that if the solutions were put in place, you wouldn't have to use all of those funds and that they could be diverted elsewhere. But what we really need is a continuum and a encapsulation of care and services, which were not there during the pandemic. And then really ended with the sticking point of all we need is a transition plan, which would cost about $25 million. That's 0.3% of the budget overall that we passed to really make sure that folks are not out on the street. We were talking about families with children, 75% of the participants that have a disability. I know I'm preaching to the choir on this one, but it is something that we are continuing to work on right now. Coming up with a new budget proposal that might be considered during the veto session, and that would be dependent on whether or not the governor vetoes the budget in the first place, but otherwise working with the agency as well to see what flexibility and the funding that we did put into the budget could be used to actually keep folks in housing rather than providing them services with no housing. I'll pause there, I threw a lot at y'all to see if you have any questions. Yeah. I work basically as a town planning professional and most of the changes that have been basically mandated by S100, the town I work for, we've done this for years already. I've built nine housing units in a decade. So obviously the zoning changes, while necessary, and I believe they are necessary, are not sufficient. So there needs to be money in the pipeline so that the housing trusts can pencil out projects smaller than 32 units. Andrew Wynner has told me that if you're trying to build less than 32 housing units, they can't help you. Just simply because the subsidy to close the gap funding isn't there. So if you guys could address the gap funding next session, that would be real help for us in the trenches on the town level trying to get housing built. Absolutely, I'm so glad you brought this up because a recognition is that the legislature has not been funding our legislatively mandated amount to the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board, which is about $25 million a year. And so to make up with that with a surplus of funds, we have about $60 million that is being invested in this budget to the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board with about 10 million specifically earmarked for the expansion of emergency shelters, motel reconversions for additional housing and permanent supportive housing for folks who are experiencing homelessness. So a piece of the puzzle is coming in with some funding as well. Excellent. I'm gonna go Carter. Yeah, I'm super appreciative of all the work. Is there things that you found during a legislative session that like we as a party could be doing better to make your life easier because being a progressive in the state house is probably very isolating. And so are there ways that like we've engaged this year that have been good? Are there things that like we could do better or things that didn't work? Things like that. I really appreciate that question, Carter. And you know, I will say it wasn't as lonely this year. I know we have a reduced caucus in the house had seven last year down to five, but really with this turnover and new folks, we've built some really strong connections with our STEM allies who are starting to understand and see how amazing the progressive caucus is and how we don't win votes by threatening, but instead we educate people as to what their votes actually mean on various bills and have brought more folks into either consider being a progressive or to at least work with us as allies to kind of push up against the down establishment. So that has been amazing. Where I've seen you all really turn out and show the force of the progressives is when it came to that elections bill. We would not have made the progress that we made if it was not for you all reaching out to your representatives, to your senators and telling them exactly what you wanted to see. And I think that's where we can really build on the momentum in next year. And I think where we can work together more collaboratively in the off session is seeing what progressive bills haven't had the movement yet. I know I was talking to someone as I came in and thinking about universal primary care and how do we have 70 co-sponsors on this bill and yet it has not been taken up for consideration. That is something we can take movement on and work together in the next session. So I think it's, I want to give a major shout out as well to Sarah, our legislative assistant for this past year, thank you, thank you, thank you. Sarah has done just a phenomenal job in communicating out to you all via email, via our social media and making sure that our work is out there. Cause I will say that it's one of the most challenging pieces in being a small caucus is making sure that we're communicating to you all all the work that we're doing. I think there is a lot that happens behind the scenes that doesn't get captured, but I think Sarah has really helped us in making sure that we can get that information out to you in a better and easier digestible way. So here at our heart. Pat Troxel, Livyn Williston and Ellen's. I want to talk to you about teachers a little bit cause I was a special educator for 37 years, 30 of them at Williston Central School. And I just don't want people to think that teachers are not taking care of their students. And it's a crazy job because like, well at least in Williston you've got the parents who have tons of money and then also parents who are going to the food shelf for their food. So I don't know. I just want us to be easy on the teacher thing. Any teacher I know is doing the best that they can. Oh, by no, I really appreciate you bringing that up. If I know means to, I want to discredit the work that our teachers are doing, especially the way that they're carrying and addressing the mental health crisis for our youth right now. Merely my critique was on our end of legislation and creating those disparities between teachers and students so that we, yes teachers of course deserve robust protection so which is why we did not want to stall or delay this bill but recognizing that our students as well deserve that protection. And I think it really built on a larger conversation when we were looking at independent schools earlier in our legislative session and folks talked a lot about discrimination in independent schools but failed to recognize that this is happening for our students across whether they're in public, private, the various sectors and that there is more that we need to be doing so it doesn't fall onto the shoulders of just the teachers right now. Earhard. Thanks, I'll just join Carter and everyone for thanking you for the amazing work that you guys are doing. Quick, just question about S100. Was there anything in S100 that is gonna help prevent kind of NIMBY appeals at the local zoning level? You mentioned LaMoyle County earlier. They, the shelter and LaMoyle Housing Partnership there are just trying to stand up like the first permanent transitional housing and shelter and it was just, they have all the funding in place, they got plans, they're taking over old, can't remember, I think it's an old building no longer serving its former purpose and it just got appealed and they're involved in a whole appeal's battle. So I'm just wondering if there was anything and not to get totally into the weeds but was there anything in S100 that helps prevent those kinds of appeals? Absolutely, especially when we look at emergency shelters that was the amendment that we put forward and really changing the effective date for the municipal bylaws and having zoning in place for emergency shelters and not being able to appeal or put impediments because of the character of the area or what hours of operation they were gonna have or what services they would provide. So again, sadly that's going into effect in September and not July 1st but much better than December 1st but general for appeals, I don't have to get back to you in other sectors but I do know about the emergency shelter provision. Good. Here. I'm Travis Callis and I'm active with the Vermont AFL-CIO and DSA. I'm wondering what your assessment is of the future of the Vermont Pro Act which I was really pleased passed out of the Senate but the business interests in this state are now quite aware of it and we expect serious pushback from capital. What do you think is necessary to get that actually passed in non-week in the form next year? I really appreciate the question and I would say, I think again, similar to the elections bill, it's really coming out and showing that the constituencies are behind the Pro Act and that legislators need to know that this is a priority for our employees across the state. I have my reservations with the committee that it is going into in general and housing and the movement that or the lack of movement we've seen out of that committee. So I think any pressure that we can apply to make sure that this is taken up beyond what we are already doing in the House would be exceptionally helpful. But I am hopeful that I will move forward. Liz, I'm being cut off on questions but luckily I sit right next to you and can answer them and I'm gonna pass over to David and Mark for that. He might be able to answer questions. Thank you Taylor and I just wanna give a kudos the House Caucus of Five, really with the coalition that they've built with a number of those newer Democrats who've come in over the last two election cycles have really broadened the voice and I think the budget scenario right now is a prime example of that where I alluded to earlier with Dean and Terry in some of those early years. We could get some Democrats to vote for floor amendments on issues and we'd get to 17 or 32 amendments and so it would show that there was a broader issue of support around a labor bill or healthcare and so forth but when it came to the critical vote that was gonna make the difference on a long passing or not or a sustaining of a veto of the governor around a critical economic justice issue which houselessness is sort of fundamentally rooted in that they would never, ever come along. So that's some of that dynamic shift that's happened over the 25 years and Taylor and Emma and the House Caucus have really done a phenomenal job with harnessing that energy and collaborating with that energy in a way that I think is really promising and also has shown results. I wanted to add on a couple different topics. I mean I think one of the big areas with harm reduction and opioids, there's been improvements but some of the things I heard from some of the folks in Burlington anyway is that a lot of times the hub part of the hub and spoke system is still really inaccessible to a lot of people and what that is is that that's the first part where you've got to get the prescription from a doctor after a multiple hour kind of process and a lot of times folks who are struggling with substance abuse disorder can't either meet the window of time that it's open. I think for instance at what's the place in Burlington the biggest one in the state, mental health. Though Howard, Howard, of course. Howard Center, it's like a four hour window. Maybe it's five hours and then the doctors all go off to do other things and so if you aren't sort of getting the support you need to be there in that window you can't get into the hub and spoke system and then even when you do at first you've got to go back every single day in person. You can't get in multiple days worth of medically assisted treatment so you can go about your life in a less impacted way. And so there's a lot of hurdles there that are policy hurdles that still aren't getting quite as addressed as they should be to make these hurdles much lower or non-existent. And that has to do with the head of Department of Health and so forth. But those are some areas on that. Taylor touched on so many of these other issues. I'm gonna skip over most of them. One of them, I will go into more details, elections reform, I just wanna remind people that in other states across the country, I think Vermonters and others all over the place are aghast at what supermajorities are doing to restrict voter access to the polls or to a range of candidates and to participation. And what we have right now is the first supermajority party in the state and as long as I can remember. And what did they do? They tried to push through an elections bill with only votes from that one party. And even at that, they had to twist a lot of arms just to get the votes to get it to pass. And again, thankfully, many within the party have also said, wait, those measures are too far. Those measures are not democratic. Those measures are not broadening democracy. They're narrowing democracy. Now, is the scale or the severity as inflammatory as we're seeing in other states? No. But the fundamental issue is that a supermajority is trying to change election law single-handedly without multi-partisan or bipartisan or independent support to narrow power in politics. And that's the base of what's wrong with the elections bill. Yes, incredible work was done. Thank you, Taylor and Emma. I talked to some housekeepers. This is the one bill I testified on. It wasn't in anybody's radar screen until the media covered the fact that they were putting in this bill to eliminate fusion, to then force fusion a certain way, and then eventually finally take that out. To raise campaign donations, their original proposal was statewide candidates would then be able to give unlimited money to their party. Currently, anybody in this room can give $10,000 to a party. If you've got $10,000, we're going to have to use it. But I wouldn't even ask to give that pitch for what the heck. But what they want to do is, if you're a statewide party official, you've got special rules to be able to give unlimited amounts of money. So that would really reward either people like a raise a huge amount of money or people who independently have a ton of money go, hey, let's get that person to run because then they could fund the party with $100,000. And as Taylor said, in the compromise that was led by House progressives with, again, this cohort, they got that reduced from what came out of the committee at 100 to an amendment that made it 60. And then in the Senate, it's been reduced to 20. But this is about more money in politics when most people are thinking, we're sick of politics being party driven and too much money. The other pieces of the elections bill that were just poison pills is, again, that sore loser provision, which I and many others, so the way it was worded was extremely hard to comprehend, did think, and I'm going to slightly adjust your comment, if you don't mind, because the floor fight was happening in the Senate. And I will admit, I was a part outside of the Senate job of being moderator of the Senate where I'm neutral, talking to individual senators who were really concerned that what they asked progressives to do after Dean Corrin and Steve Hinchin and Marvin and Cassandra Geekus and probably another person, I'll not remember, it all ran for Lieutenant Governor, some of those, and of course, Anthony, at that point running three-way races, they said, don't run three-way races, run in our primary. And I'm giving you this history because these are important things for you to know when you have these conversations in the community. And progressives, such as myself, Taylor and so many others, we run in the Democratic primary to avoid three-way races because the election system is prohibitive to multi-way races. That's why we're pushing for ranked-choice voting and other changes. Because we've done that and been successful, they were like, darn it, we wanted to run in our primary and lose. And so now, because progressives have won, including my last race for Lieutenant Governor and that primary, they were very, very convinced that was the end of a progressive statewide office. That is what this retaliation and retribution is about in this bill. It's completely from the top of the house. That was overheard on the floor of the Senate, if I'm not mistaken. And so they've tried to say, now you either couldn't run a fusion, which a third of all elected people in the state run fusion candidates now. Then they tried to make it where they said, well, whichever primary you file your petitions in, which in Vermont you're limited to only filing in one, they could change that and open up politics more. And I know again, this is detail, but fundamentally, housing, environment, equality, all of that is determined by who's elected. It all boils down to election law. That's why I'm going into this detail. So their second version was, okay, if you run in a party's primary by petition, you are automatically forced to run with that as your primary label in a general election. Which would have made all of us who do this, Democrats slash progressives, which would have by default eliminated the existence of the progressive party as a major party. It's important to know these details. Most people out there don't know them. They won't care unless they realize how it's changing democracy away from what we've created in Vermont, which is the most diverse electoral representation by party and independence anywhere in the country. The only one. And they're trying to change that. But the sore loser provision sounds innocuous, but it is deeply cringey. Because if they have that provision go into law, which says if you file a petition in a primary and you lose it, another party caucus cannot nominate you for the office. What that means is progressives will have to make a choice. Do you run in a primary where the district committee can heavily put their thumb on the scale and make it so that you lose, which has happened a couple times and those are the two times progressives that then run outside in the three-way race. Susan Hatch Davis and Marcy Younger. And those two times in the last eight or 10 years is what they're supposedly so upset about. But that was because the playing field was out level in the primary. If they make it so that you cannot be nominated afterwards after the primary by another party, that gives them free rein to put their thumb on the scale at the district level, whether it's House, Senate or statewide, to make it impossible for a progressive to run collaboratively as we do to avoid three-way races. So what's that lead to? Progressive has to decide. I run in an incredibly unlevel playing field, which we already don't get NGP ban, but we're okay with that because our lists are actually better. Or two, do we run three-way races? Over two or three election cycles, you can imagine that if 10 or 15 progressives run three-way races for the House or the Senate, and a half to two-thirds of those end up being one-by-Republican, it will only take two or three two-year cycles for the story to be if you vote for the progressive, you vote for Ralph Nader, if you vote for, you name the name, they're the spoiler, don't do it. And you know the average voter is going to go, it's not worth the risk. That's why that provision is so insidious because it sounds pretty innocuous, but it's actually a two- to six-year elimination of choice. And the final piece I want to say on that, which is the correction, is I was under the impression that if you won a write-in on another primary, you were also prohibited, which technically you are not. So if you win a primary that you're on the ballot and you win a write-in on the progressive, you would still be able to run that three-way race if you lost the Democratic primary. But that creates even more strategy, especially because of the whole write-in provision that was changed, where now you either need to beat someone else in the write-in or you have to get the number of write-in votes as you needed petition signatures. So for statewide, you would need to get 500 if there was no one on the ballot. For a Senate seat, I believe it's 100, for a House seat, it's 50. That doesn't sound like much, but if you look at how many races are decided in the primaries by that number or fewer, you then have to calculate how many of my voters don't want to say, please take the progressive ballot to write me in because they're putting the finger on the scale. It's already going to be close and now I've got to divert votes to win two primaries. So way too much detail except that that is the foundation of the existence of this party. And I have a couple of other issues, but clearly there's some election questions. So Liz and then. Put pressure on my two state senators who are on the committee. Democrats. What the Democrats nationwide are always yelling about voter suppression. Well, to me, we should build this as voter suppression because that is exactly what it is. So I think we ought to figure it out. Well, I would certainly say if anybody in this room wants to work on an op-ed for Digger to really spell this out, I don't think it's ideal if it comes from Taylor or me now that it's on orbit, I'm kind of screwed. But anyway, we could work on this because I do think it's going to continue. And the thing about the election law is they're really mad because we delayed it enough and we had enough support from the Democrats who ran saying no one talked to me about how bad fusion was. They talked to me about housing, they talked to me about food on the table, they talked about populate, they talked about healthcare. That group helped make it so they couldn't suspend the rules to speed the bill along. So it hasn't actually gotten out of the Senate yet. Both sides, it's limped through. The final vote of the Senate, not the final vote, the last one was 16, 14. Literally one more vote would have been a tie. But the veto session is going to add a couple of days to the process. And if some of the bills take a few extra days, it could work its way into the house and get passed. The governor will probably veto it because they added grand choice voting to it, but it's not really grand choice voting, it's basically a study. So the idea is, sore loser law in exchange for a study of something that might happen someday down the line when we're already gone. But if you want to work on it, that's great. I know I'm getting hooked, but I'm going to override that for a couple of minutes. Yeah. So with this bill, would the state committee still be allowed to give someone the endorsement like this? If no, if you didn't, it could give someone an endorsement. But if the candidate loses a major party primary for which they have filed, the party committee cannot nominate that person for that office in the general election, if this provision is. And then another question I have, 2018, I was like looking through Nalapedia and I saw that Anthony Plena had ran in the Prague primary and got like about 4,000 votes. Did something change between 2018 and recently that incentivized you to do the, like going into the dam primary instead of running the. I don't remember that he got 4,000 votes in the Prague primary. That's what it says on Nalapedia. Well, I don't think, I'm looking around another. I think the most anybody's gotten who's been actively trying to do it was four years, three years ago when I was running for governor and I had to be Chris Erickson and I beat her by like five votes when we calculated like what we needed versus what. And I almost lost, they didn't count the ones from Pollard or down in Middletown Springs and they don't open the thing. So I don't think that's accurate. But, so that they, I have to get off but I wanted to mention briefly, very briefly, two other things. One is I am planning this summer to do two sets of events. One is some town halls around sort of rural economy or seniors issues in a five or six places around the state and Martha and I are working on putting that together. The other is a book reading tour at library sponsored by local bookstores around banned books. And so I put up a shelf outside my office, the state house with banned books or books worth reading. I think this is a broad appeal issue from big government telling you what you can read or not read or access to. It is a critical issue obviously with respect to suppressing racial history as well as gender and life identity. So both of those arenas are highly, highly impacted in the book banning. I think it ties into some of the national narrative and it's a bit of pushback to what's happening in school districts and places in other parts of the country. And it's a First Amendment issue. And so it reaches a pretty broad audience of awareness. I don't know that many people in Vermont who are going, oh, this book banning thing is going really well. We should think about that. And so I think as we as progressives are trying to reach across the state to broad audiences, we really need to think about those issues that we bring straight up front and foremost that can bring in the broadest audience. And I'm not saying that's necessarily it either. It's one of them. But this universal primary care bill is one that I think is critical. The housing issues are critical. Chris and I were just talking about the short-term rentals and the Airbnb. We can build all the housing in the world we want. If it's bought up by investors who are going to rent it out as short-term rentals, it's going to do Jack Diddley for actual affordable housing for working-class people or the missing middle housing. And that's the place we're in in Vermont right now. Martha loves reminding me to use this phrase, we are a playground for the rich and everyday people here cannot afford to stay here. And if we built right now the housing supply demand, pure capitalism, so out of whack, if we had five or two more housing units built next year that were supposedly to help our economy out and everyday folks, the vast majority of those houses are going to be priced right out of range of any everyday person working a 16, 18, 22, $25 an hour job. And unless we do a rental registry and we make those folks who are doing short-term rentals either consider them commercial as Chris and I were just talking about and pay a commercial rate of property taxes and or Erhard and I, we've been out on the homeless awareness day for probably a couple decades saying we need a hotel and rooms tax that is 90% paid by out-of-staters to go into a long-term, every year, annual affordable housing funding to make these developments possible in permanent affordability provisions. These are the kinds of things that if we were out there pounding the pavement on, they're going to resonate really, really broadly. And I know we were trying quite a bit when I say we, I'm speaking for legislators that I'm not, so I'm really going to be on the we. They have been working on is that affordability within the housing provisions and there's a lot more to go there and it takes me money. And that's the big fundamental difference that I want to talk to people between liberals and progressives. Liberals want to do a lot of good things as long as they don't cost a lot of money. And progressives are saying we have an economic system that is fundamentally out of whack. We need to shift that whether it's to raise a minimum wage, universal health care, raising taxes on the wealthy to fund the things that will make an economic justice society. That is the fundamental thing that I believe distinguishes progressives from liberals. Martha and then I got to stop because I'm really sure that I'm going to be like, you're probably right. Very quickly, I want to thank Taylor for being concise and articulate and covering all that ground. Yes. Yes, so I didn't go into too much detail. I also want to point out that the progressive legislative caucus in both the House and Senate has a real challenge now because they are all from Chittenden County. And so they now have to broaden their representation and be the progressive legislators representing all over Vermont because there's nobody like Cindy Weed or Anthony Polina in there to do that. And I was really pleased to hear you talk about leveling the playing field for home daycares. This home daycares around the state are what's out there in rural areas for folks. And so I'm really happy to hear that you guys were really thinking about that. And I would just urge people in this room who are largely not from Chittenden County to be sure and give these guys information that they need that they can use to help represent us. Because I know they would love to do that, but they're not necessarily in touch with the whole of the rest of the state. So thank you. Obviously we'll be back. Thank you. I really appreciate that point, Martha. And we do try our best to have that statewide focus, but it is difficult having all of us be in Burlington and then me just outside of Burlington. Oh yes, Antonia, just even from the outside of Burlington. So one thing I will highlight is that the coalition that we're building is still very inclusive of our either former DPs or PDs. So especially when it came to the budget and other discussions, Heather Sapernaan has still been very much involved with the caucus and highlighting issues for us and also being on our team. She was one of the folks who flipped and voted against the budget. Of course, voted against the elections bill as well. And Molly Burke has been involved in the process sadly to support the budget overall. But we have maintained those connections and really saying that we're not an exclusive club. We are trying as best we can to bring everyone in, whether they are allies on specific issues or across the board. Just wanted to highlight that piece. Great. Thank you, Taylor. Thank you for it. They're doing amazing work. But also, yeah, they did absolutely crushing it. And also, Tanya Bihovsky, I just want to say, has been doing incredible work on the elections bill. She's a huge, both Tanya and David, I think worked hand in hand to really deliver the votes that we needed to both stall and then I think probably we killed it. I think it's more likely than not, it's dead at this point, which is great. And then, yeah, I also just wanted to give a shout out one more time to our legislative staffers, Sarah. Sarah has gone above and beyond. She's been having a lot of fun. They're all incredibly important. She's living half-time and all the votes, like, more hours than she's been allocated and does stuff, not even just within her role, but volunteers regularly to do kind of elections work and organizing work and has just been a huge asset. So she's taking a leave of absence for the next two months and then may come back. I think we're still, she's still deciding if she's going to come back after that as an organizer. So if anyone here can give $10,000 a party, I don't know. Yeah, but yeah, thank you, Sarah. You've been absolutely incredible. So yeah, so the next piece of the agenda, we're going to move through, try to move through the update portions because we're like way, way over and we have until one. So we're going to try to move through some of the other pieces like really quickly. This is a housing-related resolution that Will Anderson, one of the new members of our cocoa, drafted in support from Sarah. I think the House Caucus also had taken a look and made some suggestions on it, I think. I could be wrong on that. And we're hoping to kind of vote on this today. As you heard recently, like this is kind of the major fight right now. Welcome to the Motel Voucher Program. There are some communications in the back from the party and from the House Progressive Caucus on the Motel Voucher Program. So we're hoping that we can take a vote on this and then put it out as a formal statement from the State Committee. And I'm just going to read it real quick. And then if folks want to discuss like briefly, then I'm hoping someone can move in second for a vote on this and then we can actually take a vote. So I'm just going to read through it right now. So the statement says, the Vermont Progressive Party stands against the current iteration of the State budget for fiscal year 2024. A core principle of our platform is that housing is a human right. The current version of the budget would take that away from thousands of homeless Vermonters pushing them out of temporary housing and onto the streets by removing support currently provided by the general assistance program. As it stands, the version of H-494 that sits on Governor Bill Scott's desk would dramatically ramp down the state's housing program for our most vulnerable residents. By the end of July, roughly 3,000 Vermonters will be left without a place to live and forced to seek out already critically limited shelter placements, sleep on streets, or in parks. This can translate into increased rates of incarceration and hospitalization and will create costs far greater than those required to increase Vermont's supply of state-owned temporary housing. What we are faced with now is a symptom of the long-term failure to prioritize real solutions to the housing crisis. For decades, the legislature has kicked the can down the road while burning money in the process on unpopular temporary hotel lodging band-aids that provide ready fodder for our opponents who can easily point to the poor optics and wastefulness of such an approach. We are immensely disappointed that the administration and General Assembly and their failure to create a humane transition out of the emergency housing program into long-term supported housing. With Democrats and progressives having a supermajority in the General Assembly, no one should be coerced into voting for legislation that does not align with their values. Furthermore, giving to such pressure with thousands of lives on the line should not be an option, but here we are. We can simultaneously invest in housing for the future while continuing to shelter those that currently rely on our support. Our party representatives will not support any budget that leaves out thousands of people who they are elected to represent. And our party membership holds strong in our belief that housing is human right. We strive to set a higher standard that prioritizes dignity and safety for all. Well, let's open up for a discussion very quick. That's OK. I see David has his hands up, hand up. Just real quickly, I certainly think the party is a great statement overall. And I'm not a representative who would be voting. And I believe at the moment all five would be voting no. But for the party to tell the world what the legislators are going to do with their vote is slightly potentially constraining. I don't know if that's OK with you. Yeah, we're all voting against the budget. If it doesn't include a just transition. And we've already made that public. Right. So you're OK with this, even if at some point there's some nebulous area there where you are on the edge of doing it one way OK. Yep. All right. So I have to double check. OK. Anything else? Any other conversation? OK. Earhart. This is, I think, overall a great statement. The one thing that struck me as somebody who worked pretty much my entire career in housing and spent many years defending this program as a legislative lobbyist for the Vermont Affordable Housing Coalition, I just want to just caution folks from calling the emergency housing program an unpopular program. It is in some quarters, and it is only a band-aid. But it is what has kept people safe during the pandemic and before. It is what's kept people safe that are unhoused in the winter during our harsh winter. And it has prevented a much greater loss of life of Vermont's homeless population over not just the last three years, but even before that, because it's been around for many, many years. So I just want to caution. I'm not going to word Smith or ask for any kind of change in the wording, but I just want to caution folks from kind of adding into I think the narrative, the digger, and other outlets have, and some politicians have created that this is an unpopular program, because it is literally life-saving. I mean, we could, sorry. Yeah. So I would just, yeah, Sarah, and I would say I could just delete that word unpopular. I would think that there's nothing fundamental about that word that needs to be in the statement. Was that what you were going to say? Well, I was going to say we could just cut out that sentence. Like, I feel like maybe. I don't even think we need to cut out the sentence. I think we can just say. Because your ass kicked the can down the road. Yeah. We want that. Yeah, I think everything else in that statement. Don't start editing the thing. We'll be here for the rest of the day. Yeah. I am comfortable doing that one minor change without getting too far into any of the details, and then Trey. And then I would hope we could move to a vote after that, because we are way over. Obviously, I've been replacing unpopular inefficient, because I think that that is, I mean, it is popular in his life savings, but it's taking the can down the road in the solution that they have put up for a while. It's something that they can purposefully say, this sucks, and we need to get rid of it, instead of putting forward a very solid, permanent plan of calling it a big step in the opposite of what's going to happen. Yeah, I think that could be fine, Taylor. My recommendation would just be to take out the word that's already been taken out. Recognizing that the general assistance emergency housing program is not going anywhere. I think that's the common misconception is that we are getting rid of this program and that it is ending permanently. What's ending are the COVID error rules around this program, but it is still very much a safety net for anyone who is experiencing homelessness and has been in the state program for quite some time. Thanks for that. I was going to say that as well, but it was just, yeah. Because of FEMA funding from the federal government, basically it was able to provide shelter to a lot of folks who were doubled up in couch surfing and living with family and friends prior to the pandemic so that they would have a safe place to shelter and isolate. OK. Yeah, I mean, I think that's fine. So do I hear a motion? Is Steve Carter? What motion would I make together to vote? So I think you would vote to move the statement as a statement of the progressive state committee. As amended. As amended, yeah, as amended. I think you just made that motion. I did. OK. Who's second? Second from Liz Lomb. OK, all in favor? Aye. All opposed? Looks like the ayes have. So it has been so moved. Good work. So we'll work to get that out soon, early next week, I think, or early this week. So yeah, we're going to move through the next few agenda items in the rapid succession, I hope. So we have a financial update and a fundraising report and then a communications committee report. So I'm hoping we can get through the next three of these items in maybe like five to 10 minutes. And yeah, so Robert, do you want to do a quick financial report? We have attached the Robert spring report to the back of your agenda. So if you want to add anything, that would be the time. I can keep it really quick. The finances are good. But we'll accept that. But we could always use more money as they have done. So that's where the end of the envelope is. There's envelopes up there on the table. And we'll definitely have an ask. And our next update is fundraising. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, Robert. Robert's going to be great for now. Robert's been extremely helpful in sending these monthly reports to us. So thank you for that. So the next piece is fundraising, report and reach budget. We're not going to go over the reach budget. We just shared that with the coordinating committee. So essentially, and we have a fundraising committee that's been meeting every other week and now every week in preparation of this June 3 fundraising event. And if you're on the fundraising committee, if you want to stand up real quick, that would be amazing. So thanks, everyone. So Matt Cox has been chairing. And then Cardi B's are in our area. I have all been doing incredible work. So what's going on with this event? So Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield of Ben and Jerry's have made a really generous offer to match up to $10,000 each money raised at an event that we're hosting on June 3. And this event is geared towards, this was their idea, that they worked with us on. The idea is that there's all this money, all these wealthy, progressive donors. And many of them are giving way under what they could. So they're working with us to identify the high capacity donors, bring them to this event. And I'm on David Zacherman's farm. So thank you, David, for allowing us to host. And try to get them to go above and beyond what they've done in the past. So this has been a really good process. The fundraising committee has been meeting regularly. It's been really fun to work with them. I think just in pledges. We're somewhere around $13,000 in pledges for this event. So we're hoping we can bring in another 7, 7 or so, 7 or 8 before the actual event on June 3. And I think there's still a few potential large donors that we can reach out to to get us there. And also, any of you, so the criteria that we had discussed with Ben and Jerry is really people who can afford to give $500 or more for the event. So it's like the higher capacity folks. And that's who we're reaching out to for this. But if any of you know anyone or you yourself would be willing to write a $500 track and one to join, let me know. That will help us get to the event and reach our fundraising goals. So what that would do is that would essentially add $40,000 to our budget. And by comparison, our current budget is only about $90,000. We only spend about $90,000 each year, which is more than we've had in the past. It used to be closer to like $70,000. So this would be a really, really huge step forward for the party. It would allow us to expand our second staff person, currently Sarah's hours to either two-thirds or even full time. It would allow us to fund more events and really do all the things that a party should be doing to build out our capacity statewide. So this is a really exciting opportunity. We're really focused on it for the next few weeks. I would love to get ideas from folks if you have ideas on people who can do a significant track or would like to join. Please let me know. And we're also going to be planning a grassroots fundraiser for later in late July, early August. So that's we're not just reaching out to the really big donors. This is kind of something new that we're doing. We usually do a grassroots fundraiser. We will be doing that again, because we know that the base of our support really comes from the people who are doing $5, $10, $15 a month. And that's what's allowed us to be sustainable and sustain ourselves. So we are going to be doing that as well. And I really appreciate everyone who's been able to donate. I know probably most of you are monthly donors already. If you are not currently a monthly donor, we do have donation uploads. And maybe does someone want to go around and pass those down, as we always do? They're going around. OK, OK, good, good, good, good. Yeah, yeah, so that's perfect. Yeah, so events like this cost a few hundred bucks. So it's great when we can raise the money even just on the event at a meeting like this. So anything you can do is really helpful. And slowly, through this work, we are in a stronger and stronger financial position every year. And that's great. So with that, yeah, I'm going to move right on through. So that's our fundraising and reach budget. And then we're going to talk about the communications committee very quickly. So this is another new committee that we've started with a progressive party. It both are active in the communications committee. Do you want to stand up real quick? I think it's just Sarah, maybe. Well, you're all communicators for the progressive party. So everyone can view themselves in that role as well. Yeah, so the communications committee, we meet every Monday at 11 AM and plan out our kind of weekly communication strategy. And it's been really exciting, partially because of our new staff capacity and new people stepping up into these roles. We've been able to do really a lot more on the communications front. I actually printed out some of the most recent communications that we've sent out in the back. And maybe some of you have grabbed that. So we essentially have three major party updates at this point. So we have a legislative update that's been going out weekly that Sarah works with her house for the rest of caucus on. And that's just really intended to update folks on an issue or issues on a weekly basis that are moving their way through the legislature. And that's kind of focused by the house progressive caucus, works with Sarah on that to draft it. Then we have what we're calling a broad vision or a big idea update. And that's intended to really appeal to a mass base of people and not get into the weeds and not get too into the specifics. So taking an idea like houselessness or housing as a right and really just writing a few paragraphs that have progressive messaging that will appeal to people who aren't closely reading Vermont Digger or following the legislature or don't understand exactly what's going on in the state budget but do support progressive ideas or could be convinced to support progressive ideas. And then I'm calling the progress report. And that's kind of our insider update. And that's really geared towards people who are donors or people who are on a progressive committee. So most of you all should be getting that. And that's kind of the longer update that really talks about all the work we're doing across the party and is intended to give people who really care about the party and the issues we're fighting for all the details on the things that we're doing on a weekly basis. So that's the idea of that. And we're also putting in more stronger, progressive messaging and really trying to frame these issues within the broader context of the organizing work we're doing and applying it to the theory of change that we fight for within the party. So that's the progress report. And I think it's been really great to see we've been getting a lot of positive feedback. And we've also been able to raise money off of some of these emails that we're not even asking for money for. So that's been great as well. So yeah, the next agenda item is the bylaw revision. I do want to stop very briefly and see if there are any questions on the previous three items. I see Carter. It's super helpful. And I think we have limited staff capacity. So if we want this party to run a few hours a week or whatever amount of time we have into helping do these regular tasks and we're skill building through it. So I don't know, even in the last couple of months I've learned a bunch and I've really appreciated being able to see progressives on a weekly basis. And it's been great to get to know Mac. So thanks for doing that. Yeah, Mac's been doing a great job chairing the fundraising committee. So that's been great. Anything else very quickly on any of the previous three? So that's the finance, financial report, fundraising report, communications committee report. Seeing none, we'll move on. So I want to introduce Elijah Burkman. So Elijah has been, while he refused to be the chair of our bylaw change committee, he's effectively been the chair. So we'll call it the convener of the bylaw change committee. So we've been meeting weekly for the past couple of months at this point and gone through the bylaws line by line. We haven't updated the bylaws since I've been in this position in 2016. So it's been, I don't know if it was updated previously, but it's been a while. So we spent significant time going through line by line and soliciting feedback from our members. And Elijah's having a legal background has been very helpful in going through the state law to see what's changed. Because there's actually pieces of our bylaws that are not in line with the state law in going through that. And we, at this point, have a document that Elijah's going to share. And I'm going to pull it out on the big screen. And if you want to take just a few minutes, yeah, and talk about that, that would be great. Thank you. So I know some not everyone here. Technically, I'm actually not. Technically, actually, I'm not a state committee member because last time around, my daughter was born on the day that we were going to be doing. They'll organize it and didn't get it up to do the county caucus and go up from there. What happened with your priorities? Well, to be fair, I told Josh to tell me what the Rullin County caucus was just so we could get there. And he dropped the ball, which I repeatedly reminded him. So yes, as Liz pointed out, my parents were probably founders of the party back 50 years ago, whatever. I grew up going to meetings and doing things. My dad is a current Burlington City Council member. And my mom would be very upset if I didn't also note that she's an elected progressive. Ward clerk. For many years. For many years, yes. And then I am an attorney. If you don't deal with law, just big level. I'm a litigation attorney. So I go into courts and argue about all that. There's transactional attorneys who would actually be much better suited to this because they just write contracts. So that is not my strong suit. So if there are errors in some of the stuff that I didn't think through certain changes, that is very possible. And so I would love it if there was people. You don't have to be an attorney, obviously. But it has that mind for internal consistency, especially with things that are capitalized and so on. Aren't all that stuff, please give us that feedback because that's just not when we're trying to do that. And to be a professional looking document, since we are a major party, that would be helpful. All right, so I have just some general points with some of the bigger changes. Feel free to raise your hand and stop me. I think that that probably would be good. And then, oh, sorry, also Jackie and Mac were also on the committee and they're here. And we can take notes. The idea is I think the process would be, we'll take your feedback, we'll meet after this, and then somebody will give a presentation to the COCO and it'll be on my hands at that point and you all can figure it out. But idea, I think, is that we will get this potentially for a vote. At the next date commit. So the idea is this is the draft. We're taking feedback. There's an online form on our website where people can both view this through a link and also submit feedback. So we're going to spend the next couple of months just letting this all out there. Yeah, I think Mary-El might know the exact date. I don't have it off the top of my head. Sometime in the summer quarter. It's all listed on the agenda. OK, so that's going to be the process here. And we have gotten some feedback. We made the decision before this meeting that it would be too confusing to edit this red line and say, oh, we got some feedback. And so this is not the version that you've seen. So just so you're aware of that. Overall, I think that it's a very confusing process our state has for organizing committees. But just at a basic level, you have a town. Every two years, you have a town caucus. The town caucus immediately ends. And basically, for maybe all towns except for Burlington, your town caucus becomes your town committee. And then you have a town meeting. So you have a caucus and then a meeting. And by law, they're meant to have them one after another. It was the initial meeting. From there, you elect representatives to the county caucus. And those create state committee members. And then you go to the state committee. There's also something called a convention. And so there can be convention delegates. And we'll get into this a little bit later. But basically, your convention is for your party platform. At least that's the only thing that the statute defines. All right. So some of the work we did, and you'll see in the red line, clarifying some of these meetings and this order and everything, we didn't want to go into detail specifically about the initial town caucus and town meeting. There's a lot of statutory laws about that. Josh is thinking that maybe that might potentially be one of the changes that could be made in the next two years. And so we basically just said, go follow the statute, which is not, you know, it's a little annoying to have to go to multiple places. But we didn't want there to be a conflict. There was kind of my implication or maybe a vague reference to the ability to remove members from town, county, or state committee, or the cocoa for bad conduct or any conduct. So we just kind of, rather than defining that people could only be removed for bad conduct or anything, we just said you'd have to have a majority, I think. Or two thirds to remove somebody to keep it, you know, more flexible, but also you don't like somebody and so you're gonna kick them off the committee. We, one of the big changes we made is that currently the bylaws have basically a sex diversity clause that's talking about women and men, or I think one place that says female and male. And so we tried to change that. And Josh reached out to a few key stakeholders and basically Burlington had gone through, the Burlington Steering Committee had gone through some discussion. And so what we basically tried to track their language. And so yes, that's what I was saying. Basically a person whose gender and race are other than that of a cisgendered white man I think I might use some slightly different words but that's basically it. So the idea is no more than half, people can be like me. And so we, yeah, if other people have questions, feedback, wants to improve it, this is how Burlington did it. A lot of us are not from Burlington, feel free to give feedback on it. And this isn't a hard and fast. So it specifically says it possible. So I think there's also an understanding that a lot of the town committees are like three people have been doing it for 20 years and we're not saying that those can't be the three people anymore. But I think the idea is to encourage folks to try to think about diversity, think about inclusion when they're having these meetings and bring in different voices who maybe haven't been part of the conversation previously. But we understand that it wouldn't be feasible to say make this like a hard and fast rule in every scenario. Right, and then one of the things that I have toyed around with, but I'm not a constitutional lawyer, we probably have to get Franco involved to see if this is even legal. But trying to put more teeth on this, I was thinking what if we had a situation, say in the election for officers for cocoa, right? And overall, we didn't reach that threshold. But with rank choice voting or something like you had the person who came in or just missed the cut, did they get to jump in line above somebody who was like me? And so, that's where I have, my lawyer brain dings and says, I don't know, maybe there's some equal protection violations there and discrimination. And so while I think it would be helpful to put some teeth on, actually making like real strides towards diversity and inclusion, I don't know, like, we don't need a little bit, you know, some litigation here, allegedly reviling the 14th amendment. We created something called an executive committee, which is basically just the officers of the cocoa or, and they're also confusingly, the officers of the state committee. So the chair, the vice chair, the treasurer, vice treasurer and secretary. And so the idea is these people can act in between cocoa meetings if some need arises, whether there's, you know, a personnel matter that needs immediately handling or some news event. And, but there's gonna be a provision where it has to go, you know, be transmitted to the full cocoa and review permissions. We also changed some of the language to modernize for storing records on the cloud right now, basically says that the secretary has to have all the files and ensure that they're passed on to their successor, which is not, you know, best practices. So we're modernizing that. We did some other, some minor other things like tweak the number of days for noticing meetings for like a town meeting or the county caucus or some of the cocoa stuff to be more in line with state law and allow some more flexibility there. Then we also, one of the rules or changes that I thought of was we have a provision here saying that meetings are run by Roberts rules. And I basically was suggesting, because it's really coming from me, and so everybody will vote on it, but is eliminating that, but having a reference to due process and fairness with the idea that unless you're Terry Bericius or a very limited number of people, you don't know Roberts rules. I think when I Googled it, like the slimmed down version is 200 pages and how many people have time to read 200 pages? And so that's a barrier. So, yeah, exactly. So there's like one or two people who can control the process. So instead of what we said is there's gonna be a parliamentarian. Everybody can, you know, we'll have the parliamentarian beginning. If there's a dispute about process, okay. And then you can always have the majority, I think we have like a simple majority to overrule the parliamentarian. If Jeremy or whoever it is makes a ruling we don't like. But trying to be transparent also, because we do stuff and, you know, how Carter said, how do I do this? And then we came up with a second and all this stuff. Like we don't need to do a fake process like a photo Roberts rules. So that's what that is for. We added a section on the executive director because we didn't have that in there. And so we try to clarify the powers, duties, reporting of who the executive director reports to, the cocoa, but day-to-day functions is with the chair and vice chair, I think. And so I think we slightly modified or expanded some of the cocoa duties and responsibilities as well. The biggest change, which I say for the last is significantly increasing the size of the cocoa from 11 to 25 members. So this is a bigger one. So currently there are 11, there's the five officers and six at-large people. There are, as Josh mentioned before, there are five regional members who are not voting. And so we would make them voting members. And then we have taking from the Democratic Party, they have a practice of letting the labor community, which is really three of the big unions, select, I think they are like, they give the party a list of people that they want to be on the cocoa, or they're a part of the cocoa. And so we have that, I did a slight twist, which is still requiring that member of the labor or the list of labor be on the state committee. So it's not like they can just take some random person and one that should encourage labor to, if they really know ahead of time who they want, that they can encourage and they can help start us organizing our reorg to get their candidate or their candidates on local committees. So that could be nice. But it's not, and I didn't spell this out because I didn't want to get into much of the weeds, but in theory, these people could probably just, you don't have to, how do I say this? You can be added to a state committee or I think go through the whole process after the fact, it's not just like once, there's a one time window every two years. And so if labor really had something that they wanted, that person was a good fit, they wanted to be on it, we can go through the steps of adding them. Oh, before I get to the last one, our bylaws distributed or specified the number of delegates each county committee has to the state convention. So like Chin and county had roughly 25%. I think they had 25 and then when we added up, there was a hundred and 11 total members. And so that's actually not what state law requires, that it tracks the number of votes for governor, for that party who's candidate for governor. And so because we don't always have a candidate for governor, we added in some provisions like then you go and state governor and we followed whatever the succession was. So we specified like every difference, secretary of state and auditor, treasurer, whatever. We also switched the, who are convention delegates. So right now under the current bylaws, convention delegates who remember these other people voting on the party platform, are any members of any town or any county committee. And so we switched that to be just all members of the state committee. So it's a narrower field, but at the same time, effectively the state committee meets at the same time as the state convention. It's one of those things where we have it back to back. So it's narrower, but I think effectively the same people are going to show up. And I think it's just trying to eliminate confusion. Like state is state. You are a state representative. You're dealing with the state delegates and there's that. I think then we considered going back with like the labor having a dedicated five-hawk member to the cocoa, but basically we didn't know. Like so with labor, there are three unions that basically we can pick. And so we thought about it with five-hawk, but we didn't know like other than NAACP, like what other racial justice organizations that would reach out to. And because we have the new language about half of people, half the cocoa members being non-SIS white men, we thought maybe that would be enough, although we welcome feedback if there's people who have, you know, enough discreet organizations around the state that they want to consider that we certainly would. And then the last one was a request, I think it originated from Martha for having members be selected coming from the House Caucus, the Senate Caucus, and the statewide elected officials. And so, and I'll take, this was mostly my strong feelings. I felt like I didn't think that it was a good idea to put each one of those getting their own person. So what the current version here says is all those three entities, color all people and those have to get together and then they get to select one member. So the idea was, my understanding was part of this, was dealing with communication. And I fundamentally think it doesn't matter whether it's one person or three people, like if communication is a problem between the electives and the cocoa, like that needs to be worked on directly and adding more people, no matter. I also felt like everybody remembers the 2016 super delegate issue with the Dems and Bernie, right? And it kind of felt like that it holds you all over again where you have, you know, we're a grassroots party and having our electives try to choose people who are controlling just felt like, I don't know. I also feel like VDP is very tightly controlled by a few people at the top. And so I didn't like that. And also these are people who are going to be, they're not controlled by whatever the elected person wants, right? So like, even if David got to a point, like say Lisa or, you know, whoever, like Lisa's still gonna have her own thought process and gonna make her own opinion. So that was just my thought. I know Martha has different thoughts on, you know, if we want to let her explain her opinions on that. Great, if other people have other things on what I've said, we'll welcome all other feedback. Yeah, I would just add very quickly. So yeah, so now's the time. Sorry, thanks. So yeah, now's the time. Like this is really the start of the process. Now this draft is out there publicly. We're taking feedback now. We're taking feedback through the online forum. This committee is gonna be meeting over the next couple of months to kind of refine the opinions, look at the opinions people are sending us and the feedback we're getting and make further refinements to this proposal. And then a month before the August State meeting we'll submit the final draft. And then at that point, they'll still be, we're hoping I think to be inclusive of everyone's feedback but also understanding that this is a democratic process and whatever the committee comes up with might still not be what some people in the party want and that's okay. And then, so we'll report the final draft and then people can look at that and if there's still things that they would like to see that are different than what's in the final draft, they can propose amendments to that draft and we can discuss it at that State meeting before a final vote. So this is really the start of the process that shouldn't be seen as the end of the process. With that, let's see if people have discussion or questions or anything. Carter. Well thank you, because I think this is a really good process. And it's been, well thank you. It's been a really good process I think and it's good to have these discussions so I appreciate it. The one piece of feedback I had was, and I know you kind of spoke to it, I think having a representative from the labor community makes a lot of sense. I also think having a representative from the LGBTQ plus advocacy community, BIPOC advocacy community and also environmental advocacy community makes a lot of sense and those are all harder and so I guess I understand that and I think maybe, I don't have a specific proposal but I'd be interested in trying to figure out how we narrow those, right? Because even within the environmental community, there are folks who, and organizations that certainly don't take an intersectional view or movement view to reducing carbon emissions for example. And then there are those that do and we're allies with all of them at different points. So I don't know, it's just a tough problem but I do think we should be working towards getting a position because we're ideally the party that brings together movement organizations and convenes them and is representative of advocacy orgs on the left generally so that's my only big thing. Everything else makes sense to me, I tend to agree with you around one member from representing the elected community on the statewide level. You know, electeds or grassroots partying can be membership and all of these folks and ideally have a good working relationship and are building trust over time with the entire state cocoa. I do think it makes sense to have one person who's really bringing their interests because it's a whole different role that they play and different perspective that they bring, which is really good. But yeah, so those are my thoughts. Anyway, I'll pass it to the next person. Martha. Hi everybody, I'm Martha Abbott. I was chair of the party for 12 years. Emma Mulvaney-Stanik was chair for the next four or five years after that and during that whole time there were many occasions when there was a lack of communication between the elected leadership of the party and the coordinating committee. And there's a lot of reasons for that. I mean, one is everybody's really busy, two is that there just are things that happen quickly and we do not have time to really communicate them all and some of them require some real perspective from the different points of view. There has always been a tension within the party between the people who see our job as going as far in the extreme as we can to lead the state in a direction and the people who want to be cognizant of public opinion and try to lead the majority of people in the state and our main goal really is to elect folks to office and we have done that, we've done a great job of it. But there's often a lot of tension between the people who are elected to office who actually have to go out and talk to the voters and get themselves elected and the people who are not doing that and who have some ideas about issues that they want to see move in a particular direction. That's how it should be, right? And that tension is what creates a path forward that really has worked for this party and has made it grow and has made it be more successful. I kind of started this process because over those years of experience and watching that process happen and talking to Emma Mulvaney Stanek who was the chair and had those issues and now is the progressive caucus leader in the house and now has those issues from the other side and talking with will lieutenant governor who can speak for himself here. There were many occasions when something would pop up in the press that the elected folks didn't know about, hadn't heard about. Somebody turned off my microphone. Perhaps it was me. I have dead battery. Who says that? I can speak. I'll try to speak loud enough. Let me know if I'm not. So it just seemed to me like it would be really helpful to the COCO, which I am currently on, and to the people in office if there could just be a designated communications person who could go to the COCO and represent their point of view. Because a lot of times we don't think through, we don't know exactly what's happening in the legislature and what the kind of tricky little maneuvers and alliances and coalition building and support are being garnered by doing what. And it's often true that you can get in the way of that. So I had proposed three members. One from the house caucus, progressive caucus. One from the Senate progressive caucus which used to be a few more, but now is one person. But hopefully will grow soon. And one from anybody who manages to get themselves elected statewide as a progressive to have the three of them because they're all very different and they have very different points of view and very different roles. To each of them have a member on the COCO that would really facilitate the communication, especially if we're going to 21 members on the COCO from 11, it doesn't seem outrageous to me to have three so that each of those sets of elected folks would have just a voice and just be able to communicate back and forth. Taylor was here and I don't know if she had to leave but I just- I think Earhart is- I'm hoping she would weigh in on that. She's a bigy going on the hall and you grab it. Say Earhart, stop monopolizing. I see David and Trey. Yeah. David. Oh, I also see Ken. So I would just add one piece to that. Which is that the- during this actual- this last year, this year of the session, there has been positive and challenging but also primarily good attention between legislators and me as a statewide official. We have actually very different jobs. Policy makers are different than a person in the administration. Also as a statewide office holder, I would argue that given the current makeup of our House and Senate delegation, which is all from Chittenden County, which I also am, but have an obligation as a statewide office holder both to have campaigned all over the state. We'll be holding town meetings all over the state, these book readings all over the state. There's a breadth of perspective there that is a little bit different maybe than the current caucus scales that maybe having two or three might not be a bad thing because we actually bring very different perspectives. I would also echo what Martha said, which is there are times where it's minute by minute or hour by hour, some of the decisions that are being made amongst different coalitions of the progressive House members with the House or the House and Senators together with various House and Senators. So the nimbleness in that regard, policy makers just got to do what they got to do in the moment. There's no way the scale of bureaucracy of a committee is gonna equate to that. But I would suggest, if possible, adding, making that three people instead of one, as Martha just said, going from 11 to 25, I don't think they're gonna have an overwhelming disproportionate superdelegate power, but it is gonna have a perspective. And there's a difference in activism and governing. That is attention that is really important that we all feel and experience, which is trying to be activists in a governance process. But when I look back at what Bernie did in the 80s in Burlington, radically shifting how governance worked for everyday people, that was bringing that activist perspective in, but it was still actually having to do the management to affect the policy, to affect people's lives on a day-to-day basis, and that is a little bit different than activism. So I've touched on it from a few different angles, but that's my thoughts. I just wanted to point out, I think, yeah, it's actually 18, I think that was, yeah, that was a misstatement. Well, I misspoke it. No, no, no, yeah, exactly, there we go. So, yeah, we're growing from, I believe, 11, although in reality, with the regional advisors, it's currently 16, it's effectively 16. So we're basically adding five people from non-voting-to-voting, but they're already kind of on the cocoa, and then to, this revision adds two kind of totally new positions. So just, yeah, just to frame that as well. But, yeah, any other comments? Earhart? I think you already had Ken was waiting. Oh, yep, Ken. I think you wanted to get Taylor's perspective also. Yep, for sure. So, yeah, let's do maybe Ken, and then Taylor, Earhart, and then I thought Tray had his hand up as well. Ken, you're up. Expanding the size of the cocoa, is there any need for any language or form? I believe there's language already in the bylaws that are in form, that would be just the, I think it's like 50% of them, correct me if I'm wrong. It's half of members of the cocoa are in quorum, so I don't think we need to change any of that, because it's just a percentage rather than a set number. So whatever the new number would be, that quorum rule would still apply, is my understanding? I think that, so I'm looking, and our section 19 has quorum for, although I don't think it specifies this for the cocoa, but maybe it does, and it says any number of members in attendance, and we added either physical or virtual, because we're understanding things are gonna be hybrid or potentially virtual, shall be a quorum, and then there's specific requirements for things like, where endorsements, it requires half, at least 50% of the committee members. So we'll take a couple more, and then we do wanna wrap up in just a minute because we wanna spend significant time planning or summer organizing, and we have to be out at one, but if we wanna take one or two more questions with understanding that, again, this is the start of this process, and then we're gonna be moving forward, and people can still submit online, and there'll still be a chance, the committee's doing really good work, and they're gonna try to incorporate everything, and we still may have disagreements, and then we'll just deal with it through the democratic process at the next meeting, and that's actually really healthy. But Taylor, I think, was next. We'll merely acknowledge that we have a small caucus of six across the House and Senate, and then one in statewide office. So I do agree with David's point that I think we need to have folks at varying levels. We need someone who's in the executive branch, folks who are in the legislative branch, coming together and participating. I think my only amendment to what was said would be to reduce it to two representatives, one from a statewide official, and then one that is serving the legislature, whether that be the House or the Senate, because as it stands right now, we're essentially forcing Tanya to be a part of the cocoa, which I'm sure she would love to do. But if we don't grow our numbers, then we're obligating legislators to do additional work on top of what's already in the session. So it wouldn't just be to clarify, it wouldn't be that you would be on a cocoa, you could select somebody. Oh, so you could select a friend. You could have a delegate. Yes, I would argue that I think the legislative perspective are the folks who are in the building, but I think the original point still remains up. I think it should be someone appointed by the legislative group as a whole, both House and Senate, and then one that is appointed by the executive. Do Earhart, Trey, and then, I see a few more hands up. We'll try to move through very quickly, because this is important, but then we are gonna try to move to the organizing conversation. Earhart? I had the same issue that Ken mentioned around quorum as you're expanding. Did you guys, are you not worried about some meetings not being able to meet quorum? When the Burlington Steering Committee increased its size, there were some concerns about that, and we actually had a provision in our bylaws that basically said elected officials didn't count towards quorum, which reduces the number that you need to meet quorum. I don't know, I'm not a regular attendee at cocoa meetings. If there's no worry about that, fine, but if you're maybe concerned about 50% requirement for a higher number being an issue, just from the Burlington perspective, I'd say you might think about exempting elected officials from being part of that, counting towards that quorum. Is that straight? Yeah, so I had a longer comment, but I'll try to trim it down. I think that we should put an article in there for a formal youth section. I got involved with organizing for the youth section of Democratic Socialists of America. I think the party could really benefit from actively recruiting new generation lifelong progressive organizers and bringing them into the fold. Additionally, adding in language that would guarantee representation at all the different committees where there are members. I have some language written out that I could share with the bylaws group after, but that's the number one note I have. Additionally, with the labor part and labor representation, I am the field organizer for the AFL-CIO, and they have gone out of their way to really go all in on the prox. I've been in there for their endorsement conversations. You guys send a slate, and it says progressive party, and they're like, great, rubber stamp, it's done, and then they'll complain about the Dems and do whatever. I think that the benefit of having representation from the labor movement is involving workers, not just a list of officers, which personally I feel like some of the other labor works outside of the AFL-CIO might just put on a list of their buddies. I know that it's probably the way that this would look in practice as the AFL-CIO determines its list itself, but we could benefit from language that specifies that they are directly elected by union members. You could use an online platform like Hope Vogue, sending that out to the lists of all these membership unions, and then we know exactly who is elected. And if you wanna be a real dedicated working-class party, I think that you should go even further than just one member. Maybe empowering the State Committee when they're filling vacancies to go down the list of anyone else, so you take the number one person, that's the one member, there's another vacancy, the two, another vacancy, the three, and so on. And you had a few other things like Article One, you put the number one instead of Roman numeral one, and a couple of times you say Coco Committee and VPP party, and there are those other notes to have on the bylaws, we're really into bylaws. So for you to give me those edits, the one thing I was just feedback which I think applies to everything with the Coco is you can organize, there's nothing preventing anybody from organizing. So if Burlington feels like, hey, we don't have somebody, then organize, you got 25% of the delegates from Chittenden County coming there, and you're the largest block, organize. Elected officials, you're going to have, like, you're tapped into the party, I'm guessing at the State Committee elections, if you say this is my person, that's gonna carry great weight and organize ahead of time, so in some of it is a lack of, so part of it from my perspective is you can organize just like everybody else, but just that's another point I wanted to throw out there. One more note on that, like this for a while, and it only today did I hear about the actual process for electing the coordinating committee, and so with the process of like caucuses or any like democratic structure, I think you should put in language that some requirement about notifying people well ahead of time, like through electronic notification a month in advance of the meeting, just so it's clear to everyone that we want to be involved that this thing is happening. Yeah, we do, there is language around notification, it's notification to the State Committee members, which is maybe, yeah, and like sometimes we do more public and sometimes it's just the State Committee members, but that's, yeah, that's something. Well, I'm saying the caucuses. The public, yep. The caucuses. Yeah, and the caucuses, the caucuses are notified, yeah, to the public generally, and yeah, just on the youth caucus too, the youth piece as well, I would say that that was something we also considered and that was kind of the same position as the BIPOC piece, so I would encourage you and other folks to kind of submit ideas for how that would actually be structured to us, because I think we did discuss and we are open to all of that stuff. We just like didn't have the wherewithal to like think about specific, like how that would be structured, but that was part of the conversation. And then Spoon and then Traven and then I think we're gonna move on to the organizing piece, Spoon. By way of introduction, I'll just point out that there's been lots and lots of studies recently and more and more all the time pointing to very serious societal problems because of the isolation that we all feel, the atomization of human society, our large, most of it has to do with our electronic age and of course it was made a lot worse through COVID and stuff like that. And all these studies being involved in education a little bit of young people in experiencing clinical depression, loneliness, suicides, et cetera, because they're home in their rooms trying to be friends over a cell phone. So now with that in mind, I'm gonna also get back to the subject that I wanna maintain of solidarity. Solidarity may be impossible if we don't spend more time as human beings with each other. And I think that that is what may become clear in the future. And we're a fairly small party. I enjoy being a part of it. Our progressive values and statements and philosophy mean everything to me and they should mean everything to everybody. And now to get to the exact point, I would like the committee working on these bylaws to think about adding something that would say to have a progressive nomination would require the candidate to appear at at least two of the four state meetings, at least one during the legislative time and one at another time. And in as much as we make our schedules a year in advance and all of the things that a legislature or an administrator will do normally, being able to plan for such a thing is not a problem. It's just a normal part of what they do in those jobs. But it's not just adding, not just trying to add work. I'm trying to create, to set something. If we want to be activists in our party, I like to come to these meetings to talk to, to meet personally, to say hello, to be known, to shake hands, to have a word with my legislators that are up there that I am at home promoting and whom I don't even know. And now it's a little bit more, maybe it's a little bit, I've had a progressive legislature in my district or in my town for many years no longer. But it was somebody who enjoyed being a part of the progressive party for whatever reasons but never really had an, who enjoyed being a progressive in the legislature but never really showed much interest in the party either here among us or at home. And it just felt a shame to me and put a little defeated that this kind of relationship would exist so I'm just looking, I'll stop here to see perhaps to have this committee consider for a vote when the final thing is done, something along the lines that will increase obligations, responsibilities or contact between our legislators and our party. Thank you. Thank you. I want to second the things that Trey said about labor. All of which becomes very complicated. I mean, there's, we name for example, three unions or union federations. There are other unions in the state like UNAP and UE and others. This is important because I mean, politically in terms of our party having us developing a strong base in the organized working class and that's important long term in terms of class formation as well. I just think there's got to be more thought and I don't have any quick answers as that I mean clearly there's very different levels of rank and file engagement and political perspectives in the different unions and how that's all going to work out is important, which is why maybe that suggestion for actually having votes and online vote which will be cumbersome and time-consuming but probably important, I'll leave it there. So yeah, thank you, Travis. Yeah, and again, if folks have further feedback, this is the start of the process. Please submit all of these ideas as well. I think Elijah's been taking notes on this but it would be helpful to have it, have your comments also on the online form that we've sent out and we'll continue to take feedback from as we launch into the process and I think we have a good process going forward. We have another three months to kind of work some of this stuff out before we get to a final vote at the next state meeting and again, we're hoping to get to a point where everyone can be happy and will love what the committee's done and we also know that might not be the case and that's perfectly fine and people can propose amendments to the final draft and we can have that conversation at the next state meeting and just have some good votes and good healthy debate on it and move the party forward but we're gonna try to incorporate as much of this as we can and yeah, with that, we really gotta move on because we wanna spend significant time talking about summer organizing plans but thanks so much, Elijah. You've been awesome. I'm just here to work with you guys. And I do also wanna point out, I think Will came, I think wasn't here when we, maybe you were here, I just didn't see you. No, no, I can't believe Mike, my car broke down on her too. But thanks for, Sarah, let me know that you introduced me in absentia, Josh, thanks for that and I don't wanna take any more time so folks wanna use me and chat after the fact, maybe that would be great to talk, but great to be here, historically. Yeah, and Will drafted the first draft of the housing resolution we passed earlier so he's been incredible to work with. So with that, I wanna introduce Lynn Barnes. Lynn is one of the new members of our coordinating committee who has recently stepped into the chair role for the organizing committee and she's gonna lead us through a process for kind of launching the start of our summer organizing plans and the idea of this is that we're gonna start early and try to kind of set some meetings all around the state where folks can really tie into and we're really looking to all of you to kind of help lead that process. So Lynn's gonna talk more about that so thanks so much, Lynn. Sure, we have a microphone. It's dead, sorry. All right, I'll try to use my outside voice. So once again, I'm Lynn Barnes, I'm in Watesfield and we've been working on the organizing committee since last fall. The organizing committee came out of the state committee sessions two sessions ago where we broke into breakout groups and we have been meeting fairly regularly. It was about every two weeks during the legislative session in order to support legislators and mobilize people around issues and before I get too far into this, I'd like to read what our mission statement is. Our mission is to engage more of our monitors through grassroots organizing to support key issues for our legislators in Montpelier as well as strengthening local town committees building on the ground infrastructure and community. So we're tasked with not only supporting legislators but helping towns and county committees grow and I'd like to acknowledge a few people who have really been instrumental in this beginning part of the organizing session. Sarah, I don't see Sarah. Oh, Sarah. Sarah and Josh have been really helpful especially since I'm new to this so they've been very gracious in helping me move into the position and Chloe Tomlinson was very involved for a while and she's had to move on to some other things. And with that said, we do have a lot of exciting things coming up this summer and so I'm hoping that there are other people here in this room who would like to participate on the organizing committee and certainly come up and see me or contact Josh and the people who have already been involved could you just raise your hands? We've had a number of people who Martha can. Doug, great, great. So thanks for your help with this. And right now our meeting schedule isn't as regular but we're planning to meet this coming Wednesday at 7 p.m. over Zoom. So if you're available Wednesday and you wanna see what it is we discuss, please join us. So one of the things that we did was we organized state house visits and the feedback from that was really good. So roughly once a month we would invite people and we'd get a small number of people who would come to the state house, meet with the lieutenant governor and he was very helpful in explaining how people could get more involved and be activists and then we would go to the Progressive Caucus and observe that process which was very interesting and everyone who participated came back with really great feedback. They felt more connected to their legislators, they felt like they understood the process more, felt like they had more confidence to get involved. So it was a really great exercise and I'm hoping that we can continue that. And we also had people who went to the state house and then became involved in other ways. So it's a really good way to get our membership up. Oh, one of the things that happened during this time was the elections bill and because of getting people out to the state house and meeting regularly as an organizing committee, we were able to mobilize people to really come out and speak out about the elections bill. We had a number of people who made phone calls, we had people who sent emails and we even had some Zoom meetings with legislators and it's really important for legislators to hear what people are thinking about these things because when I contacted my legislators, they just thought it was a done deal and they weren't really interested in hearing more about it, but we kind of pressed the issue and one of the legislators, I'm not sure which way she voted, but it seemed like she was leaning more towards the supporting the progress of parties stand on this. So it's really important for us to educate each other and educate our legislators because there are so many things that they're dealing with and it's helpful for them to know what the definitions are and what some of the ramifications are that they may not have thought of themselves. So we're moving into the next phase of this committee since we've supported the legislature. Now we're going to move into building our communities and prepare for reorganization in the fall and the way we're going to do that is we're asking everyone here to get together with the people in your area and plan an event. It could be a potluck, it could be a barbecue, house party, whatever works best for you and it would be a way to get the people in your area interested in getting involved, get them engaged so that when we do reorganization we already have some people who are thinking about these things. And so that's what we plan to do next. Have I missed anything around this? I don't think so, but I just want to recognize Lynn as being super amazing and having just like been, I feel like by my side through David's campaign and through Josh's side through, and everyone's side, Lynn is just awesome. I'm really excited that she's doing this and I just think that this will be like a great way to really bring us all together again and hopefully get some momentum for elections and also the legislative session and pushing issues and building solidarity and community like Spoon was saying because loneliness is a disease. Sucks, anyway, yeah. Take it away, thanks. So are there any questions before we move to the next part? And thank you for getting that moving. Any other questions? Okay. Before we break up, I just want to, Liz Medina just came, Liz is the ED of the AFL-CIO. So just wanted to give her a shout out and we do love that. We had some good conversation on labor and our relationships with labor earlier. So we always love to have representatives here from our labor sisters and brothers. And yeah, we just want to continue to build those relationships. So thanks for coming. Okay, so we're going to move into the part now where you actually get to stand up. So we're going to break out into small groups by geographical area. So we're going to have a group from Chittenden, a group from Washington County and a group from the Northeast Kingdom. And then I know there are a couple other people who don't fall into those areas and Sarah's going to work with them. So, and during this time, we're going to ask you to think about what kind of summer event you could have to get some excitement going, get people together, kind of a low pressure, but with the focus of really energizing our base. So during the breakout session, what we're going to do is ask you to break up into the groups and then we're going to do just a quick ice breaker where you say your name, your town and what your favorite summer activity is as we move into summer. And each group will need a note taker. So if someone in the group could volunteer to do that and that note taker, you're going to make a list of who is in your breakout group so we can follow up later. Identify who the point person will be. So as we get moving into the summer, people in the organizing committee will be reaching out to that point person to help you with your event. Look at some possible dates and locations and types of gatherings that you could have. Identify who you might want to invite and who will do what and think about what you might need as support from the party in this process too. We know that not everyone can do everything. So we want to make this something that's fun and easy and so think about what kinds of support you might need. And then plan up, excuse me, plan when your next follow up meeting will be. So kind of work on the outline for now of what that event might look like and then when you can meet again as a group and we'll be following up with the organizing committee. So are there questions? Did I cover everything? I think so, yeah. Okay. Thank you, but thanks. Yeah, and again, so yeah, we're bringing out into regions so if folks can get into. We're going to do office. Is this going to happen in 15 minutes or are we staying open? Yeah, so if we can, let's allocate five minutes extra. So let's try to be done by 105 and then we'll call it at that if that's okay with folks. So if you have to take a quick bathroom break, do that and then let's meet into our regions and Sarah, do you want to just direct people to where they're meeting? Yeah, so we don't really have folks from all of our geographic regions which are pretty much just two to three county sections. So I was thinking we could just do Washington County, Chittenden County, Northeast Kingdom slash Franklin County and then our folks from Rutland and Wyndham County could come join me and we could hang out. And if anyone has any qualms with that, that's also fine. Yeah, we're should folks gather. We do like Chittenden over this corner. Many K is already down. Many K bottom left. Southeast Kingdom kind of. And then we could do Washington, maybe over there. Washing over there, yeah. So the idea is that you're setting a time date and thinking about a location for an event and what the parameters of that event will be and you have about 20 minutes to do that. And there could be multiple events if you want.