 Julie, we are changing subjects and we have the Secretary of State's office and we have Chris Winters and Louise Corliss and a review of the Secretary of State's Constitutional Amendment Procedures. And Topper, this was your great idea. So and I appreciate that. That's very helpful. Chris, welcome to House Human Services Committee. This is probably the first time you have been in front of our committee. So why don't we just quickly say our names and introduce ourselves to to Mr. Winters, who is the Deputy Secretary in the Secretary of State's office. I'm Anne Pugh from South Burlington. And I'm Teresa Wood from Wattebury and also represent Bolton Beals Gore and Huntington. And I'm Taylor Small from Monewski and also represent Burlington. And I'm Ray Garofano from Essex. And they're Dane Whitman, Bennington. Topper and Carl. Topper McFarlane, I represent Barry Town. Carl Rosenquist and I represent the town of Georgia. And Franklin County. Kelly Cayala, I represent London, Gary Weston, Stratton, Jamaica and Winhall. James Greggwater, I represent Fairfield, Fletcher and Biggaston. Morning, Dan Noyes from Wilkett and I represent Wilkett, Hyde Park, Johnson and Belvedere. Hi there, I'm Jessica Bermstead and I represent Children in St. George and it's good to see you, Chris. Thank you. And before you even start, I see that Representative McFawn has his hand up. Madam Chair, thank you for recognizing me. Prior to the representative from the Secretary of State's office, we we already got some testimony in terms of what the Secretary of State's office is supposed to do. I'm wondering if it would be appropriate to have that somewhere so we can check all the boxes as we go through. Thank you, Representative McFawn. I think we can find if we go to our webpage, we can find that. And I believe that Mr. Winters is maybe talking a little bit about that again, going through those steps again, which will be helpful because we do have a new member of our committee who not only was not here two years ago, but was not here last week. So I'm going to use use her newness probably all year, but I think that the rest of us could use a review. Go ahead. Thank you, Mr. Winters. Excellent. Thank you. And thank you for all the introductions. It's great to be in this committee. I think it's been a few years at least since I've been into your committee. I think every once in a while, some of your health care responsibilities cross paths with our office of professional regulation. And so every once in a while, I make it into the committee, but not nearly often enough. Thank you for the introduction. My name is Chris Winters for the record. I am the Deputy Secretary of State. I've been in the Secretary of State's office about 25 years now. I don't know how that happened, but I'm still there. I've been the deputy for about eight years now. Also with me is Louise Corliss. And Louise wears many hats in our office. Legislative Clerk, one of them she receives all of your bills and resolutions and processes those for our state archives. And she's also our Administrative Procedure Act person who processes all the administrative rules that get filed. And she makes sure all those trains run on time and all those publications happen. And Louise, did you want to say anything before I get started on this summary? Not really. Just glad to be here and have a lot of information to relay. Great. Thank you, Louise. So I'll start, I'll keep this very high level and talk about the Secretary of State's responsibilities and what we have done. And please stop me anywhere along the way if you have some questions. And I know you've gotten some information already. So as you've probably heard, the process for amending the Vermont Constitution is found in Chapter 2, Section 72 in the Constitution itself. And then beyond that, some of the specific duties assigned to the Secretary of State are found in Title 17 in the elections statutes under Chapter 32. We do maintain a web presentation relating to the History of Amendments to the Vermont Constitution. You can find that in our State Archives section of our website at sos.vermont.gov. Currently, of course, as you know, there are two current proposals that began with the 2019 biennium and have made it through. There were nine total that were proposed. And of those nine, two of them Prop 2 and Prop 5 passed the Senate and the House, and were picked up for consideration in the next biennium, the 2021-2022 biennium that we're currently in. So to date, those two proposals have passed the Senate in this biennium and await concurrence with you. Of course, you all know that and you're having your public hearings very soon on those. As to the specific duties of the Secretary of State in between those two bienniums, or is it biennia, I don't know, but in between the two bienniums, there's an interim publication that has to happen for the public. And that's where the Secretary of State's office comes in. You can find the duties of that interim publication are located in Title 17, Section 1840, 1840 of the Vermont Statutes. And that directs us to within 90 days of adjournment signed die, which was on, I believe, September 25th of 2020. Within that 90 days of that adjournment, where amendments have been proposed by the Senate and concurred by the House, the Secretary of State shall publish an interim notice of the proposals, which are to be passed in the next successive session. And so we have to do that. And it's prescribed right there in the statute for three successive weeks in a minimum of two newspapers having general circulation in the state. So three weeks in a row published in at least two newspapers having general circulation in the state. And as I mentioned before, Louise has responsibilities for the administrative rules, and those all get published in newspapers across the state. So we maintain a list of newspapers that we typically use as newspapers of record, we call them, under the Administrative Procedures Act. And so we did publish the proposals in between bienniums on December 3rd, December 10th, and December 17th of 2020. And the papers that we use to do that were Seven Days, The Caledonian Record, The Times Argus, Rutland-Herald, Valley News, Bennington Banner, Brattleboro Reformer, Newport Daily Express, St. Albans Messenger, and the Vermont Lawyer. Louise can talk to you a little more about any one of those if you have any questions about it. She also, we worked with your clerk of the House and Bryn Hare, I believe, also was involved at the time, to work on the language that should go into those publications. The language of the amendments is rather short, I guess, maybe relatively speaking or historically speaking. The statute does allow for a summary, but we decided the language was short enough that we just posted the actual language itself in those three publications on December 3rd, December 10th, and December 17th of 2020. And Louise has the receipts for all those publications, including the tear sheets that came back from the papers themselves showing proof of the advertising that happened those three times in those multiple papers across the state. So maybe I can pause there. And then we would go on to the future duties of perhaps of the governor's proclamation in the Secretary of State's office if you want to talk about that, but that's what we've done to date on these two proposals. Thank you. And we have a question from Representative McFawn. Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate the testimony so far in terms of the number of newspapers that you used. It appears to me that pretty much the whole state was covered. My only question is, I want to make sure that this thing is done exactly as it's supposed to be done. And my understanding is it has to be published for three weeks in general newspapers that have general circulation in the state. My question is this. I noticed the Burlington Free Press wasn't used. The Rotland Herald Times August was. What is the second paper in that list of papers that you submitted that has general circulation in the state? They all seem to be local papers except for the Times August, Rotland Herald. Representative McFawn, that's a good question. I'm not certain of the answer actually. So when we talk about general circulation, I don't know that it means coverage across the entire state. It's hard to know what was in the mind of the drafters when it was drafted. So I think technically it could say you could only put it into two newspapers. General circulation might just mean in a region, not the entire state. And so that's why I think we use more newspapers to make sure we have coverage of the entire state. I would imagine the intent is that every Vermonter knows or as many Vermonters as possible knows that there's a proposal to amend the Constitution. And that's why it takes so long over to biennium. And that's why the governor also issues a proclamation. And that's why we also have to give notice if this passes the House this year. We have to give notice. It would be in late September and early October and put the ballots out to all of the towns. So I think if the intent is to make sure as many people as possible know about this general circulation by two newspapers, maybe when this was written there weren't very many newspapers, I'm not sure I can answer your question as to what general circulation really means. But we did our best to cover as much of the state as possible with the newspapers that we would typically use as newspapers of record, which are done for things like legal notices, rulemaking, things that affect all Vermonters in all corners of the state. We use these newspapers of record the same list that I just read off to you to publish things like a new administrative rules. Representative McFawn, I just did a little quick research. It is on the internet. I will put that a quote newspaper of general circulation close quote is a newspaper published for the dissemination of local or telegraphic news and intelligence of a general character, which has a bona fide subscription list of paying subscribers and has been established, printed and published at regular intervals in the state, county or city. So each, I mean, in my mind with that internet definition, sorry, I will say that that's where it came from, the newspapers to say this. Is what that definition, which is similarly also in several places in terms of other places, they talk about general circulation does not necessarily mean statewide. And I might argue, and I'm sorry, free press, if you are listening, that the free press probably has a smaller distribution now than the Times Argus or the St. Albans messenger. But general circulation is not limited to statewide. And then I should now keep my mouth shut. And perhaps, Louise, you have something to add to that. With all due respect, Madam Chair, definition on the internet means absolutely nothing to me. As I said when I get into this, I want to make sure that this is done the way it's supposed to be so it never comes back to bite us again. And is there a definition associated with the state? We will get legislative counsel to respond to that. Mr. McFawn, Representative McFawn, and there are Cornell Law School has a definition. And there are several definitions that are comport with what I just read. And we will have legislative counsel respond to your question. I might argue, Representative McFawn, that in fact, this is something that the Secretary of State's office has to do on a practically quarterly basis for every single legal notice to post them in places of general circulation. And they have been doing this, and they know what they're doing. We will get the information that you want. I have full confidence that what they've been doing for the past, I'm not sure how many years in terms of every single legal notice that they have to post in regular, in newspapers of general circulation that they have been following what in fact is that means. And Madam Chair, if I may add one thing. Yes. Now that you've said this and I've had a little more time to think about it, I think you're on the right track with in terms of general circulation. I'm sorry, I don't know the definition of it off the top of my head. But I think it's probably referring to newspapers that are generally available to the public. Maybe not like a private newsletter or a members only sort of a subscription service. And then with respect to the free press, we have found that their publication numbers have been going down seven days is more widely distributed in Chittenden County than Burlington Free Press is. And so a few years ago, we made that choice to go to move to seven days either in addition to or instead of the Burlington Free Press, which is why you don't see it on the list there. That's great. Yes, Rep. John McFawn. Yes, just for the record. In my statement, I did say that I was pleased with the number of newspapers and the coverage that those newspapers got. My only question was that the way the thing is written, it says two newspapers with general circulation. That's all I was trying to establish. If this is what the Secretary of State does with everything, then I don't think there's going to be a question about it. But I think it was important to clear that up because it's been brought up to me. I think it's cleared up. Okay, thank you. And thank you, Mr. Winters and Ms. Corliss. Do you have anything you'd like to add? I would just add that the statute also requires a publication on the websites of the Secretary of State's office and the legislature. We have a page dedicated to constitutional amendments. And as I'm sure you're all aware, both Proposition 2 and Proposition 5 have their own section of the legislature's website where you in the bill tracking section where you can see everything that's happened with those two propositions throughout. So I think those two websites also meet the requirements of that statute I cited to you earlier, 17 BSA section 1840. And other than that, I don't have anything else to add. Just happy to answer any other questions you might have. Certainly, thank you. Representative McFawn, do you have a new question or is that an old question? We're going to have, we're going to make yellow hands for us around the room. That's an old hand that was up. Thank you. And thank the two of you for coming to the Human Services Committee and for clarifying that. Representative Rosenquist, do you have any questions? Not at this moment. Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm not quite sure how to do this when we're both on screen and in the room. It's easier for me to see, to understand the body language of the folks around the room. So that's why I probably will call on the two of you to double check so that you can participate. Thank you. Thank you very much. And committee, why don't we, one of our witnesses for this morning and continuation is here, but our other witness is not and is not expected. Julie, would you be able to see if Eleanor could come at 1035? Yes, I will check. Okay. And I want to, I appreciate, I see that our witness from the ACLU is here. We are about to take a 15 minute committee break. And we will come back at 1035.