 Representative Stevens, thank you for coming today. Thanks for having me. We're on the record, Ron. We are on the record, sir. Thank you. Representative Stevens, take it away. Thank you, Ron. This is age 492. And this is short, short title would be Homeless Bill of Rights. This was a homeless bill of rights. This is something that we considered two years ago that would essentially put together a basic bill of rights for homeless people under human discrimination against people without homes. We have heard specifically about some very difficult times for homeless folks in Chitton County, Burlington in particular, but we know that this happens in local valley. We know that. And what happens? It's the stigma of being homeless. And so, and what that means, all the way up and down, that life, that they are living. And so, the first portion of this bill is simplified. I'm going to let the walkthrough go to the attorney who's here to get into the specific things. But this is something that has fit in with our, the goals of our legislation over the years to try to provide more housing for homeless individuals, people suffering through homelessness. We have been given the privilege to really stand with people in the front steps of the building when we've had homelessness awareness day. We have had the privilege of hearing testimony from folks who are formerly homeless who have related their stories of lived experience that these are things that we, unless you live that experience, it's very, very hard to understand. And so, what happens when you don't understand is that you try to at least provide protection to the law or let people know that they're seen in the law. And this is just one, I don't feel, that fits into that category for me. So, I think you all know, again, how passionately I feel about housing in particular. We know that. We don't do enough that we're possible of doing more than what we do. And that's an endless battle. But in this particular case, we have to take people where they are and we have to try to do what we can do in creating a statement of purpose that says that people who are going through homelessness deserve the right to be heard and the right not to be abused by the people who have more power than they do. So, with that, I will slide this way about the attorney, Mark, on the table from that little walkthrough. Thank you. Questions or should we wait until then? Thank you very much. We'll hold the questions for you. Good afternoon, everybody. I'm Luke Marland, Director of Legislative Council and Chief Counsel of the General Assembly. And I'm here today to do a walkthrough of the bill. This is the as-introduced version from 2019. As representative Stevens referenced, this matter was taken up in a prior biennium. But there were different versions at this time. We're only looking at the as-introduced version from 2019. And what I'll do is walk through the bill. As always, please stop me asking questions. If anything I say is unclear. But I will not be reading the bill to you. I'll try to highlight sections and at other times I'll just summarize or skip over. But there's anything that's unclear. If you want me to go back and cover, please just let me know. So the bill has three main sections. Number one is a finding section. Number two is what is entitled The Homeless Bill of Rights. And then number three are various changes to existing non-discrimination statutes. I would like to take them in a slightly different order where I very quickly look at the findings. I read them, but just go over them. And then jump to the existing non-discrimination statutes. And then last of all, go back and look at The Homeless Bill of Rights law. So starting with the finding section, which is do all you have this on your iPads? So finding start on page one and continue on to page two. I do not intend to repeat these. Are there any questions about these? Are there any summary of what the General Assembly believes, the rationale for the bill, but it has little or no legal weight? It's an expression of your point of view of why you think this bill is important to us. And as it appears, just as a reminder, if this bill were to become law, this material might be found in the white books, but not in the green books. That is correct. This would be what we call session law, which is in the white books. And it is law. So people wait. It's just it doesn't specifically tell any party to do or not do anything or an expression of your rationale for any bill that you attach context to. Oh, yeah. Very well done. Just as a result of economic hardship, I'm sure if you can say it to the floor, it's so complex with substance use issues and mental illness, is that not factored in? Or is this a pretty narrow to the definition of a finding? Well, I think the findings is what the sponsor of the bill or the committee, if it passes that, the bill decides to include. It could be short. It could be long. I really look that up to you. It's an expression of your policy point of view. Correct. So what you include is actually... Okay. Great. Thanks. As I indicated earlier, this would be amendments to existing non-discrimination law. So this would be going to Section 3, which is on page 4. So as background, Title IX and Chapter 139 concerns discrimination, for example, public accommodations. The next three sections of this bill, three that we're looking at right now, 4 and 5, which amend 9 VSA 4501, 4502, and 4503, are all part of that same chapter. So when we start with 4501, we're adding in a new definition of housing status. And you'll see the same definition repeated in other titles later on. Because this applies to the whole chapter, it's not only this definitional section that we're amending, but also applies to Section 4 and Section 5 that we'll get to in a moment. And this is a new definition in statute or a new definition for these sections? It's in statute. It applies to this chapter of Title IX, which includes public accommodations and unfair housing practices that we'll get to in a moment. You'll see in subsequent sections, there's an identical definition that applies to other non-discrimination statutes and other titles. And what all these things do, is they add a new protected class to various anti-discrimination laws. So right now, in various anti-discrimination laws, you have race, religion, national or origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, et cetera. You have these various protected classes or protected categories under specific anti-discrimination statutes that are remarkable. What this bill does is use some of those anti-discrimination statutes. It adds in a new protected class of housing status. So let's look at the definition of housing status. Now, if you say 4501, this is on page 4 of the bottom line, 16, housing status means the status of being homeless, being a homeless individual or being a homeless person, as defined in, and there's a cross-reference to a federal law. Now, as an aside, this is 11. If this bill go forward, it would have to be renumbered as 12, because in 2019, this same section of law was already amended and now it is 11. So looking at 42 BSA 11302, I want to read you this definition of homeless or I should say housing status because this will then be repeated in the later sections of the bill. For purposes of this chapter, the term homeless, homeless individual and homeless person means an individual or family who lacks a fixed, regular and adequate nighttime residence, an individual or family with a primary nighttime residence that is a public or private place not designed for or ordinarily used as a regular sleeping accommodation for human beings, including the car, abandoned building, bus or train station, et cetera. Three, an individual or family living in a supervised publicly or privately operated shelter designed to provide temporary residence. Four, an individual who resides in a shelter a place not meant for human habitation and who's existing, I'm sorry, exiting an institution where he or she was temporarily residing. And then under a five, an individual or family who will imminently lose their housing including housing, their own rent for living, et cetera. So what this does, this is a federal definition, there's more to it, but I think you know the gist of it. By adding number 11, which would be number 12, housing status in this section of law, it pulls in that federal definition of those criteria that I just went through. And once again, this same language will be repeated again and again. Now I would point out that there is a definition or are definitions of homelessness in various Vermont laws, they're not as lengthy or as detailed as the federal definition I just read to you. For example, in Title 16, which concerns education, 1075, there's a definition of a child of homeless parents. And then there's a definition of what a homeless parent is including lacking a fixed, regular, inadequate residence or having a primary and nighttime residence in a supervised, publicly or privately operated shelter or temporary accommodation, et cetera. So it includes some of the same themes, some even the same phrasing, but it's not as long as detailed as a federal definition. Any questions about that federal definition before we go forward? Now the state, this bill pulls it within a new state definition. Any questions? Representative Collac? I visited a child of Burlington, you know, a hotel's rehab and it's now half a thousand, I think 20 people have been chronic homeless and it's pretty amazing. But one of the residents I spoke to said he had lived in a tent all over or attracts for five years. And because it was, the city couldn't because it was on, I guess, federal land and it was on the railroad. And he said there's a whole group of people that have lived there quite successfully. And so it seems to me would they be considered homeless in these definitions if they lived for years in a community in a tent? Are they in houses? I believe they would fold in that federal definition that I read to you. Did they would? Yes, they would. They would also therefore be folded within the new state definition. I believe so. Yes, thank you. And that state definition would, that definition would apply simply to these chapters that wouldn't necessarily cross over to the education. No, so it applies, good question, it applies right now to Title IX in this chapter of Title IX and when I talk about public accommodation and unfair housing practices, you'll see what it impacts. Then later in the bill there's other different titles where it's also applies. But it doesn't apply to all Vermont law, it's only to the chapter of the title that it's put within. So this is, I mean we've had explanations where there's a dozen different definitions of employer or employee that applies simply to those sectional things. This is like that. Except we don't often, well this committee doesn't often pull in federal law as its base definition. Yes, that is a little unusual. And you're right sometimes there's terms that are defined very differently in different titles. I think you'll see for this bill, it's the same words in every title that is impacted. And in terms of what's going to come forward in each of these separate sections where these anti-discrimination language are becoming protected status, I mean that's just... Yes, then it's really repeating the term. So let's continue and I think you'll see how it shakes out. So we once again were Title IX, let's now look at section four which is on page five. So this is Title IX, 90 say 4502. This is anti-discrimination law pertaining to public accommodation. Let me read you the definition of public accommodation which is defined in a separate statute. Public accommodation means a school, restaurant, store, establishment, or other facility at which services, facilities, goods, privileges, advantages, benefits or accommodations are offered to the general public. So it's a broad definition. 4502 says that an owner or operator of a place of public accommodation or an agent or employee, etc. shall not because of and then enlist various categories that you cannot discriminate on the basis of. And what this bill does on line five is add housing status to that list. So this bill becomes law as to public accommodation you cannot discriminate on that basis. Section five, which is 90 BSA 4503, same chapter, same title is now referring to unfair housing practices. And I'll summarize, I won't read this for you because this section continues for the next two pages but what it does is list various situations in which you cannot discriminate to people. And each of those paragraphs and now as housing status as one of those protected categories. For example, under A, it states it shall be unlawful for a person to, number one, refuse to sell or rent or refuse to negotiate for the sale or rental of or otherwise make unavailable or deny a dwelling or other real estate to any person because of then there's a list of protected categories. You'll see in line 16 housing status is now added to that list. On the bottom of page five and continuing on page six there's various situations that once again you cannot discriminate on the basis of the protected categories and for each of those housing status is now added in. Is that clear? Okay. If you proceed to page eight we're now in section six so we've dealt with title nine now we're jumping to title ten and this section of law pertains Vermont Housing Finance Authority. If you look at the bottom of page eight you'll see housing status is defined just as we looked at earlier same words, same definition and what happens in the middle of page under eleven is it basically what this does is says that Vermont Housing Finance Authority is carrying out its normal duties which are not changed by this bill cannot discriminate on the basis of housing status. Section seven on the top of page nine now we're jumping to title 21 so we're jumping to a different title a different anti-discrimination statute Title 21 is the well-known deals of labor and employment and we're in a chapter in a sub-chapter dealing with unlawful employment practices if you're familiar with these statutes what this does in 21 VSA 495 in the list of unlawful employment practices it includes housing status the definition of housing status is actually the subsequent section it's on page ten it's in 21 VSA 495D that's just the way the title is organized but it's the same definition it's later in the bill later in the title but it refers to what we're looking at right now so what these amendments 21 VSA 495 will do is once again make it illegal for to make it illegal employment practice discriminate on the basis of housing status housing status is the same definition we looked at earlier is that clear to everyone I want to go back now and look at the homeless bill right section but is that clear to everyone could I ask the clarification of public accommodations yes so the restaurants on church streets are burnt this means that they could not tell someone they're not welcome to come into the restaurant that is accurate because they're homeless got it if they were coming in to do the business of the restaurant right this is the fine line of discrimination I've always been told that we still discriminate against people in fact we just heard the recovery residence bill where we may create an exemption to these discrimination laws in order to make recovery residences work but this is each of those protected statuses are for the individual things that we're protecting against and in the sense that in a public place it is about the business that they're doing they could tell them not to come in if they can't pay the bill they can come in and say you can't come in if there's other reasons why they might ask you to leave but they cannot simply ask you to leave because they're homeless is the way I understand that that is accurate going down to section 2 which starts on page 2 so this is the section it would create a new section of law in title 1 which is sort of the general provisions in title 1 we say 2, 74 in title the homeless fill the rights and once again we'll leave it word for word but because this is more new law go through it and try to summarize it for you if there's anything unclear please let me know and stop it so begin by under subsection A stating that a person's rights, privileges or access to public services may not be denied or abridged solely because he or she is without housing or because of housing status such a person shall be granted the same rights and privileges as any other resident of the state so that's a general state, general law under B this gets more specific a person without housing shall have the right, number 1 to use and move freely in public spaces including sidewalks parks, transportation etc number 2 to equal treatment by all state and municipal agencies without discrimination 3 not to face discrimination while seeking or maintaining employment including on the basis of lack of permanent address on page 3 number 4 to emergency medical care 3 from discrimination based on housing status 5 to vote register to vote and receive documentation necessary to prove it and promoting without discrimination 6 to confidentiality of personal records and information in accordance with various laws 7 to a reasonable expectation of privacy and personal property 8 to immediate and continued enrollment of school aged children and then if you proceed to page 4 subsection C states that no person shall be subject to civil or criminal sanctions for soliciting sharing, accepting or offering food, water, money or other donations in public places D no law shall target persons without housing for the harmless activity associated with homelessness or the provision of supports or services to persons without housing or perceived to be without housing in traditional public forum traditional public forum is public spaces parks etc is a term that's defined in litigation but I think that's a public space sidewalk etc E, a person agreed by the violation of this section so everything that I paraphrase for you under section 2 may bring an action in spirit work for broken relief including injunctive relief and actual damages sustained as a result of the violation cost and reasonable attorneys fees so it gives a right of action to your rights of infighting so the wording there is different than perceived to be without housing because previously I guess the distinction I was trying to understand was like in the case of public accommodations in the other section it says you can't discriminate on the basis of housing status but it doesn't say that you can't discriminate on the basis of the perception of housing status in other words does the law make that distinction between this is someone who is disheveled and I made the distinction based on that not on whether or not I had any concern whether they had a home or not so you are right that this phrasing is different because it says you're actually right and if there was an actual case involving this you can ask the other witnesses also about this but there is an actual indication concerning discrimination on the basis of housing status and homelessness where the line is why you thought they were homeless whether it was accurate or not might be very fact specific so I can't really give you a hard and fast answer but you are right that this part of the bill has been perceived that's a phrasing now present in the rest of the bill so again I guess taking the South Burlington example if I was a particularly cagey restaurant owner I could say I asked them to leave because they were disheveled I had no concern whether they had a home or not so that would be that's the case in core fact specific and that's probably better for some other witnesses to ask them but yes you can always try to defeat the cause of action by claiming you weren't acting on a certain basis whether it works or not another issue the perceived language just seems so much stronger because then you could speak more with it yes I think you're right on H2 yep section user move freely in public spaces including both sidewalks parks transfer to that line 13 in Burlington I often see the police come in in the city hall park and ask people to keep moving and not congregate in the park or not sleep in the park so and then when people sit up tent communities in different places they are then raised and so this is usually there's a lot of people congregate and be somewhere to stand I think you're very well might I think it might either prevent or make it very difficult to have the police tell someone to move on and of course there's under CD there's language that person cannot be subject to civil or criminal sanctions or soliciting or accepting certain things in public space and no law to get persons associated for engaged in activities associated with homelessness or supports etc. so that might apply too but I think all of this language as a whole might make it unlikely to please order someone to move on or certainly bar any law that prevent people from soliciting in public spaces I'm Luke Sanner in Burlington for eight years and is one of my favorite and often at night people would sleep on the marquee to be protected but then when we were opening for business and the school kids were coming in to ask the people who had slept there for the night to move so that the kids there was an access issue that thousands of kids come and spend buses and so for business orders is that alright to ask people to move I don't know if the law prohibits someone from asking someone to move or may prohibit follow up actions especially by law enforcement authority I think these are good questions but they're very fact specific and so it's hard to give a black answer because it might depend on a whole bunch of circumstances so it's a good question but I don't know if I can definitely you can do this but definitely you can't do that I think it might be very fact specific clarity in the law is always the goal as far as I'm concerned because then there's always going to be exceptions to the rule but people are supposed to know what is allowable what is allowable when you guys start getting into the area of it depends on how to use your judgment that gets remarky I'm not saying I have a solution for it I'm just saying I think John's example under this law if this were passed would a business owner have the right to say to people or can't we now please move because I'm opening for business because of whatever I don't think so that's why I'm reading and you're asking me a question or you want to ask in your I'm asking you a question I'm stressing my opinion and asking you if my interpretation would be correct I think this would make it this would limit the ability to do so yes I can see that I would not say 100% definite that they could never do it or would never be lawful I don't think anyone could everything is back specific but yes this would limit the ability of business owners to tell someone a little longer if they're in the sidewalk outside your shop I can see that and of course if a community wants to define certain circumstances more narrowly this sort of where do my rights begin your rights begin my stuff almost and it's an understanding as well of what public accommodations or public spaces are I think we I know that all of our neighborhoods perhaps someone thinks that this is on our sidewalk and you're like well it may not be your sidewalk my property line stops on just this side sidewalk is a public space but it gets to that point of can I tell someone to leave sitting in front of my house or even parked in front of my house or is that or public accommodation which again is a space are we a public accommodation in this building is your house that's used as an Airbnb a public accommodation while it's being used as an Airbnb I mean there's just understanding that I think the size of those questions will be important as we try as we try to craft the language that's that gets to what you're asking for which is to be as simple or to be as clear as possible clarity is always helpful no one will argue with that because I don't think anybody wants to make because I would hope not it wouldn't be people that would want to make life for homeless people or severely disadvantaged people make it more difficult for them but there's that gray shade which is if you're a business owner sticking to that particular at what point at what point if that is starting to interfere with your conducting business sure at what point do you have the right to say wait a minute I'm not trying to do your problem but you know can I just jump in I mean we're using these hypotheticals with public spaces, eateries and that access public so since I checked all those boxes I've been in a restaurant so in a scenario like this because I run into things of this nature it's about you know at what point does like management feel like individuals maybe making others uncomfortable and or harassing a situation or blocking fire egress so to speak to a council's point they're so sort of like situational it's hard to like nail it down you know you create this like modern realism with their situations they're all unique so you know the question really is asking it's like public spaces I have no control over what happened on the sidewalk unless it's crossing a different boundary and legality oh mine was I don't know can I jump in for a second I'm starting to think our kids were coming in yours I almost brought up that egress conversation right because then that's actually you're talking about a fire commission so in that situation it's totally valid oh man I'm sorry any legal questions for me for people to walk through these are all good points but the more policy and more feedback so any legal questions for me about the bill I have one which I think is a legal question if you don't mind did I understand you to say that letters number page 4 line 1 letter C no person shall be subject to civil or criminal sanctions for soliciting, sharing, accepting or offering does that supersede would that if this became law supersede any laws that municipality would already have on their books regarding that type of solicitation yes it would yes thank you thank you very much alright who do we have next I don't have the thing I don't have the agenda in front of me I left the downstairs we have we have in order Fulio so Fulio constantly joining us Fulio you were here you visited us last year I believe I briefly found a prior version of the bill that did not include a fair and abundant presence as a section so if you could just reintroduce yourself to the community actually we'll do a circle around it in case you don't know yeah there are people I haven't met so which means that you didn't spend quality time okay representative Topsy which is from Waterbury representative background for gents are you not doing the lobby for any of the different ones representative Lisa Hango from Berkshire representing Berkshire Brinkley representative Marianne representative Swansea I'm colliding so Tommy Walsh Mary Howard Rotten City George Royale standard my name is Fulio I'm an assistant attorney general and director of the Attorney General Civil with respect to Vermont state law we enforce Vermont's Fair Implement Practices law for all employers except the state of Vermont where it's the employer for Yang is here and the Human Rights Commission for which she's the executive director she can talk about the other aspects of the bill that are addressed here like housing and public accommodations we don't have enforcement in all these areas enforcement under Vermont's our office has concurrent criminal enforcement under the hate crimes law as well as civil enforcement under the hate crimes law I mentioned that because there was discussion earlier about actual or perceived Vermont's hate crimes law does contain the phrase actual or perceived before listing protected categories that might provide enhancements for hate crimes offenses of the Fair Implement Practices Act does not include that phrase there's questions about that about what our enforcement position is where there isn't that language there and be happy to talk about that so I'm just going to confine my remarks really to the Fair Implement Practice areas so our office is I think we're supportive of this idea of including housing status as a protected category I can't tell you as an empirical matter whether it would give us additional cases to enforce or not it's really something we haven't examined we don't really have much experience with individuals claiming that their housing status was a reason for being denied either employment or being treated in an inferior way in the employment that they do have as a practical matter and I should also say it's the obvious which is I'm not an expert or policy expert on the problem of homelessness on a state lawyer that enforces a law dealing with employment discrimination our experience though in dealing with some of these issues relating to housing status I just wanted to point out that there are several protected categories already covered by the Fair Implement Practices Act that I think may overlap to some extent with housing status and in fact adding housing status may make it in some sense easier to prove the already already prohibited areas of discrimination so individuals may be homeless for any number of reasons but some of them that relate to areas that we already in the Human Rights Commission already protects would be individuals with physical and mental disabilities under the law disability is defined as an actual or perceived disability that can be a physical or mental disability so it's conceivable that employers might perceive if they perceive someone to be homeless they might perceive that person to be disabled if they are treating the person not hiring them or treating them in an inferior way because they think the person is disabled that's already illegal and disability under state and federal law would include addiction or a history of addiction of mental illness or a history of mental illness and so forth another reason in our enforcement experience why individuals might be homeless temporarily might be because they are a member of the LGBTQ community these are young adults who might have come out to their families and are thrown out it's unlawful, it's been unlawful for a long time to discriminate against individuals because of their sexual orientation or gender identity but again sometimes it may be hard to prove that that is the reason but it is an area where we already offer protection recently the legislature added a new category of protection which we supported which was crime victim status that's another reason why people may be homeless either on the short term or the long term someone is the victim of violence and they are in a shelter trying to stay away from their abuser trying to line up some other housing situation and sometimes that homelessness can be chronic so Vermont law would prohibit an employer from discriminating against an individual because that person is a crime victim another area and this one's a little hard I just don't think the law has very good terminology for it but another area of law that I think could be that may have a little bit of overlap with housing status discrimination is something called associational discrimination it might it occurs in our experience in two ways one is where someone is in a relationship with a person of a different race or color or nationality so I may be white but my significant other is my fiance whatever is a person of color and especially with younger people they might be thrown out of the house because of that association or it may be differences about religious so I am in a house where it's very strict on religious or faith or a combination of faiths but I'm associating with people of a different faith religious discrimination has long been unlawful in Vermont as well under federal law but sometimes again it's hard to prove that all of these different protections so to some extent housing may be if an employer sees that an individual is homeless what may be going on is that they're viewing homelessness as a proxy for mental illness and crime victims so maybe a violent spouse is going to come into the workplace maybe the person is it may reinforce the person who is a member of the LGBT community so I think adding housing status I'm not sure whether there are people who do not belong in those categories I don't know how many additional individuals we would have coming to our office for protection because we have several areas of overlap but I do think that in some of those cases you may have both going on in this regard it's your housing status and I also think you must have a drug problem if you've been homeless this long or some kind of mental illness disability so I think that I can't say it would be a great burden in our case so I'm not really sure what it would do to our numbers but it is it is an area that I think there is a lot of stigma for and I think we have some questions about how the law would apply in practice and I'm going to get to in a second but some of the issues some of the questions that I heard earlier I just wanted to briefly address I think there were good questions that might require a bit of clarification and discussion but not with other witnesses on the sidewalk that is associated with homelessness but not uniquely so so last April I and our solicitor general went down to Washington, D.C. to watch Vermont represented in a case before the U.S. Supreme Court we got there early in the morning we were representing the state so we were guaranteed admission but there were scores of law students and a number of law professors who were sleeping on the sidewalk waiting for war large so people sleep on the sidewalk for any number of reasons unrelated to their housing status they may be queuing up for in that case it was the Supreme Court there were rules about where you can sleep you can't sleep on the Supreme Court grounds you can sleep on the sidewalk there are people who sleep in front of theaters to get tickets who may come from very well wealthy backgrounds and so there are addressed this in the public accommodations context but it's by no means clear to me that a business couldn't clear its exits and entrances for fire code purposes and so forth but I think if you encountered a case where some people with the law students or they were perceived as being law students were long asleep in front of an entrance unless we're not then I think it would implicate that statute because it's not the sleeping on the sidewalk that might seem to be in play with something else judgments about the person's income status or mental health or so forth I think there are some questions that we have about how this bill would apply I think it's clear to us that clearly not hiring somebody or giving them inferior wages because of their housing status would clearly be unlawful but there are other aspects of the Fair Employment Practices Act that come into play where something might be viewed as evidence of discrimination or even prohibited to give you an example let's talk about employment applications most employment applications ask for an address now employment applications ask people as a general matter what their religion is and it's not per se unlawful or Vermont law to ask for religion although it can be quite strong evidence that there's an intent to discriminate I think the way we would read this law if an employer continued to add for address information because that's a traditional means of contacting individuals find out if they're the paycheck is not provided electronically and the paycheck and so forth at least at first blush we wouldn't consider that to be as suspect as asking about someone about their HIV status or their religion or something else but if the legislature were inclined to say that we do have a problem with that then I would recommend that the law be a little bit more explicit there is a separate statute a ban the box statute that the legislature passed and it's trustly prohibited at putting a criminal history question on a questionnaire so it's a matter of telling you how we would interpret the law absent of that more specific prohibition we wouldn't consider that to be necessarily on its own as indicative of a problem as it would be like a religion or disability question another question would be for us an application would be whether there's whether the legislature intends to be any sort of duty to accommodate the employees homelessness in any way and this question really arises from our enforcement of the religious discrimination provisions for many years so decades the prohibition against discriminating against someone on the basis of religion has been interpreted to include a pretty light duty very light duty I would say to accommodate that person's religion in terms of scheduling and so forth provided it doesn't the employer has a duty to accommodate unless it imposes more than a minimal burden on the employer so you might have an employee who's a say you know belongs to religion that prohibits them from working on a given day to the week under existing law including Vermont law which follows the federal law if that employee asks not to work that day the employer's duty would basically be limited to asking other employees to volunteer to switch shifts but it would not be so it's not so strict a burden that it would have to force employees to cover that shift so it's considered a kind of an accommodation light that stands in contrast to the disability law where someone needs a reasonable accommodation for disability employers Vermont employers a lot have had to provide the accommodation unless it imposes an undue hardship which is a much more serious burden to show for most of the other protected categories like race and national origin there's really nothing about that status that would require any form of accommodation religious because there are days and hours perhaps of religious observance that's one where courts have addressed that and even though there's accommodates not in the statute with respect to religion courts have said it's fairly implied and so the question for us would be whether there will be factual situations where an employee who is homeless would require some minimal accommodation by the employer to account for their status and that could be a temporary one time change or reporting hours to work because maybe they have an interview for an apartment they're trying to get some an apartment I think that we would absent some language that's added to the statute we would think that the case law would consistently require us to interpret that as meaning if there's some minimal accommodation an employer would have to make that's not disruptive that doesn't require you know that doesn't basically would treat it on the same footing as the other sorts of accommodation typically associated with religion I think we would interpret that if an employer had a case they said look we can't do it for these reasons and they're more than minimally disruptive on the employer then again absent language to the contrary we would probably say the employer's articulated a sufficient burden but I mention that because it's not obvious just from having it in the statute religious accommodation isn't that phrase is not in the statute but courts have read the duty not to discriminate to encompass not just intentionally punishing someone but failing to basically be slightly flexible to accommodate that status so that's how I think we would interpret that the last question we would have in practice just for something to think about and I think this relates to the duty to accommodate would be instances where the employer there the state of Vermont has a teleworking program and so we could imagine cases where if someone is living in a shelter a case where an employer may be less willing to allow that employee to take work home like proprietary materials or if they have a job a laptop or something like that absent some assurance of security that would be a question I think we I think our enforcement position would be the employer would have to have more reason other than the fact that you resided a shelter to believe that you couldn't do that again I think that's related to accommodation but that may be something if you ask businesses about that or advocates or people who actually deal with trying to transition people back into the labor force about that because when I when I are you work inside your home materials are generally secure a lot more secure than if they're just you know if you were living in a space where there are many other residents and you don't control as an individual you don't control their comings or going so I just those are ones that I would just let you know the final point I guess I would make which is really in the area of Ward Smith in here but you know last July the Department of Motor Vehicles adopted a non binary designations for driver's licenses so people do not identify as male or female can choose X and so I think that you know in terms of the legislation here where you can avoid the he or she and either rely upon the plural or avoid using the pronoun and all the probability is more inclusive and consistent with state policy I think I've been going on for a long time I'll stop there and answer any questions or try to so when you say that there are questions to be raised are they on the scale of objections or things that just need to be clarified or things that need to just be looked at again so that we feel like there's a sufficient answer to them I think when I'm not articulating them as objections to the law I think the fact patterns that I've given you I think might be predictable fact patterns and I'm telling you or trying to tell you how I think we would interpret the law as written so because it just says you can't discriminate because of religion that includes a light duty to accommodate religion you know religion in terms of scheduling and we would treat housing status in a similar way unless you think that there should be no duty to accommodate if you think that there should be no duty to accommodate as a matter of policy then I think you ought to say so because as an enforcement matter I think we would treat you know on the same line it's just by the way it's drafted in the statute that's really what I'm saying sure I mean and that speaks to the fact that when we create law we don't necessarily interpret it later you know that which is not our responsibility it's your responsibility the court's responsibility to interpret it and we see this all the time where loopholes are found or interpretations of law are found that people either being creative or they're actually interpreting it as it was written and I'm not sure we'll ever be perfect in our law writing but that's what an enforcement is that's what a court is for but if we don't like that interpretation then we clarify well in fact I'm just giving you a dry run and telling you like if an employee said I have to be 15 minutes late today because I have an interview to get my first department in five years and employer says no you're fired we can't do that we would probably take that case we would view as implied if the employer shows that those 15 minutes were somehow mission critical maybe they could sustain their defense in our investigation but my telling you that or what our enforcement position is is a way of giving you an opportunity if you don't think that that would be the right result or you wouldn't be comfortable with that result this is a great time for the committee to address that that's what I'm saying on the issue of actual or perceived I mentioned earlier is kind of a bookmark that the hate crime statute includes actual or perceived race Fair Plumbing Practices Act does not but our enforcement position is that we would we would take perceived as implied I don't know that we would win in court because we haven't had a case that we've had to take but it has come up in our office in this way and it might be illustrative for example it would it has come up in other places in the country on the basis of religious discrimination John Eisenberg applies for a job and the employer thinks John Eisenberg is Jewish in fact John Eisenberg is not maybe a better example is Julio Thompson I'm not I am a Spanish first thing but so if they say well we wouldn't hire Julio because we just don't think people who are Latino or they're troublemakers or whatever the bias is that they articulate I think our office would I think our office would I would want to take that case to say that you're basically judging me I was denied an opportunity it was the product of religious bias even though I wasn't part of or national origin bias in that example so we would take that but there have been courts in other parts of the country that have taken different views so there have been cases for example where someone who's a Sikh and wears a turban isn't hired or receives portrayment because they were incorrectly viewed as Muslim and some courts in different parts of the country said well you're not Muslim so you can't say you were being discriminated against because you're Muslim I think our office is positioned even though perceived isn't in the statute we would still take that case I can't say we would win it because we haven't had it and I don't think Vermont's Supreme Court's addressed it but I just wanted to state what our enforcement position would be and if the committee wants to add it I don't think it would change our enforcement at all I can't say for Human Rights Commission I'll leave it to that but she's right here so to clarify it wouldn't change your enforcement position but it might change your chance for success in court I don't know like I said it's an unknown to me because I write court opinions where courts say it's obvious answer A or answer B you win or you lose but yeah it would certainly take that argument away but in terms of a case most of our cases virtual all of our cases don't end up in court we do investigations usually if we find there's evidence or employer knows if we found evidence usually the case is resolved so I don't know that it would actually I mean that's perhaps the reason why it hasn't come up it hasn't come into play that's what I meant by not enforcing our position and I don't know though we've had an employer make that argument they may disagree whether there's any discrimination at all any other questions okay this minute thank you thank you that was quality time thank you I'm Bo Yang when you're ready thank you and welcome back thank you thank you for having me absolutely how are we it's tired it's Friday afternoon yes so just for the record Bo Yang I am the executive director and legal counsel for the Human Rights Commission and Julio just testified about the difference between our offices but I thought I sort of bring you a little bit again about that if you'd like or I want to be respectful of your time too so I think it's important to understand what slivers of enforcement and what changes thank you the Vermont Human Rights Commission has jurisdiction to enforce the laws that are being amended here including places of public accommodations housing and employment and as Julio mentioned we do all state government employment so anyone that works for the state who feels like they have been discriminated against by their employer or their department or agency or whatever they would come to us whereas Julio's office would do the civil rights unit at the AG's office would handle the private employers as well as municipalities and so forth places of public accommodations is very broad as Luke mentioned earlier it does include not just businesses or restaurants but it also includes roads and it also includes prisons so any place and it would include the state house any place that is open to the public provides any sort of services or benefits to the public is a place of public accommodation so any questions about the jurisdiction of the Human Rights Commission so our job is to investigate claims of discrimination in those three primary areas and then we investigate those claims we write a report if we find that discrimination occurred we try to settle it then we litigate if we are unable to settle those cases so generally the Human Rights Commission supports age 492 it is a very good bill and although I'm always hesitant to add more protected statuses because it could mean more work selfishly but it also means what does this do to the housing crisis in Vermont but I do say that this is a very important protected status last year we also supported adding victims of domestic and sexual violence to the bill I certainly and we certainly support adding housing status to it I would only recommend a few changes and I also would like to talk as Julio has talked about application of the law and then answer any questions that you have so being that we will be applying this statute and these statutes I think the first thing I would suggest is removing the reference to the federal law in terms of the definition of housing status generally when lawyers are reading this this suggests that the intent of the legislature is to have this statute be interpreted similarly to a federal law and so if the federal law changes that potentially it raises the question do you mean to have the definition be what it was at the time or do you mean to have the definition be what it is now or whatever court has interpreted 42 USC 11302 do you mean for our court to interpret it the same way as federal courts and I would say that's don't do that so you could borrow the same exact language that exists right now and just add it but generally I don't like referencing or I don't like when statutes reference to other statutes particularly federal statutes that are subject to change so what you're saying is that if X was illegal in 1999 and I committed that crime but it was marijuana is a classic case if I smoked marijuana in 1999 I was arrested and convicted for possession but in 2019 it's no longer illegal can I be convicted for that similarly can I go back do you apply the law that was in place at the time is that what you're saying so we're always when the law is not clear as clear as we would like as much as we would like to be perfectionist I appreciate what you said earlier too the reality is is that you have lawyers interpreting this years from now and years from now they might look at this and go oh 42 USC has changed do we follow what 42 USC was like in 2020 or do we follow what it is now and depending on that definition that could that could fall on the side of a respondent winning in a case or a complainant winning in a case the plaintiff and so because it could open the door to what housing status it meet homelessness means it could also narrow the definition of homelessness so usually if you actually reference another state statute it's probably okay because I would hope that when the committee is charged with reviewing that and they were ever interested in they would see that we have reference to those in other statutes so generally I just say don't reference a federal statute actually just borrow that language if you like that language and then include it here and we did an abridged version of that in other definitions of what homelessness means as a testimony we took from the attorney that in the education it has similarities but it's much abridged from what the federal statute is so that would be my first preference and hope that you would do that the other thing that has come up which is housing status being an actual or perceived I absolutely recommend that you do include actual and perceived as language for clarification purposes and also because we know that in order to prove any kind of discrimination case you have to prove that the adverse action so whatever the adverse action is kicking someone out or not hiring someone whatever it may be it has to be connected to the protected status the law requires that it be because of the protected status and most of the time I think we wouldn't know what someone's housing status is but we might be perceiving that someone is homeless without actually knowing that and so it's going to be really hard to prove housing status discrimination because most of the time the employer or the place of public accommodation or the landlord doesn't actually know this person is homeless but they perceive them to be so perception is actually I think what you intend to hear and we should include that so that's the second thing I appreciated what Julio said earlier about is there duty to accommodate here and you want to clarify that I'm not sure I necessarily interpret the statute to include a duty to accommodate there's no duty to accommodate race national origin mental health issues disability or anything else I'm not sure that I would necessarily include that we specifically have here a duty to accommodate people with disabilities and the statute sets forth to that and so unless the statute says that there's a duty to accommodate I don't know if I would interpret it that way and also I think generally we should be encouraging employers to accommodate employees regardless so you know if it's late because they are looking for housing generally we should kind of encourage that adding a no duty to accommodate in fact discourages employers potentially to accommodate where they really should and so my suggestion would be not to include any language about accommodation in here also I think that adding housing status as a protected category while there may be overlap between mental health issues or disability or victims of domestic violence and housing status it is another category that someone could prevail on and so that's important so for example when someone comes before the Human Rights Commission they check and we check all the boxes that could potentially be a violation race housing status potentially disability we might find that there was no proof that discrimination occurred based on race but there was proof that discrimination occurred based on housing status so I do think having it as a separate protected status is important and I certainly would support it for that purposes so having said all the things that I like would you like to ask a question? Are you at a punctuation point when you cut in? Yes, sure, absolutely. This is very clarifying, I really appreciate what you're telling us and I've learned it a lot but I want to go back to this definition on the 5.51 page among the present time many persons have been rented homes as a result of your entrepreneurship and safety in formal housing so is that, given that you talked about the people coming in there's multiple boxes is that the right definition for us to be using in this bill from your perspective? So you're reading line 15, at present time many persons have been rented homes. Oh yeah so that isn't the definition of housing that is sort of what I think Luke mentioned earlier the findings. Yes, the definition is found under that USC federal statue that you do and that was what I was suggesting should be just scratched and add in the actual language that you intend and and I apologize that I didn't read that federal statue I want to make sure that we also include people who are transient they might be sleeping on the couch in a facility of some sort but they are still homeless and I don't know that federal law includes that but that's because I haven't read that federal law so I apologize. Did you have a follow up? Alright, so in terms of application I think the biggest concern that the Human Rights Commission has is not to public accommodations or unfair housing practices but it is to employment the employment sector which is what really what would be a legitimate non-discriminatory basis to defeat a discrimination claim here and so the scenario that I could think of the address was really interesting too but what if someone shows up for an interview and they look really unprofessional or they look unkempt or they look like they might be homeless right now as employers we could go I don't like that. We shouldn't by the way but we might and it's still okay to not like the way someone is dressed but right now that's not unlawful right? If you don't like an applicant because of the way they're dressed that could constitute potentially discrimination based on housing status if you interpret the way they dress to be housing status that they're homeless so could an employer defeat that kind of discrimination claim if they say we just didn't like him because of the way he dressed let's say they admit that sometimes they do he smelled bad he was unkempt and he looked unprofessional and generally we don't like that is that housing status discrimination I don't know I'm not sure so we probably look into it. I don't know if we would end up finding that it is discrimination or not discrimination and might be most of the time they're not asking where do you live that shows up in the application process with the address but during an interview I could see that Dr. B is it legitimate or is it not legitimate it's kind of like the struggle that we have currently about mental health issues and psychiatric disabilities when a psychiatric disability causes someone to behave a certain way in housing or places of public accommodations or in the employment arena the group which cause of the behavior problems is the mental health issue but the employer says I don't like your behavior is that discrimination because the group causes mental health or psychiatric disability or is it not is that a legitimate non-discriminatory reason it's a very muddy area it really is and it's very hard having said that just because it's muddy doesn't mean we don't go forward I mean I support it I don't want to throw that out there I certainly am happy to think more about that and maybe to even suggest potential language that might address that but this is a new area and so it does mean that despite our best intent that it's going to be subject to lots of interpretation Julio's office could interpret it completely different from the way we interpret it and unless that court case goes all the way to the Supreme Court we don't know how a court would really even interpret it and so we don't have that most of the time in Vermont and so there is a gray area here which is okay because sometimes gray areas actually help the people who are most vulnerable and it allows us to engage in conversations about policy and it allows us to have conversations about settlement and things that are helpful so yes I just wanted to be honest about all of those things and also answer any questions that you might have I think there was a question earlier about could we could a restaurant owner tell people to leave so that they could make room for other customers well sure on lets they're telling them to leave because they're homeless that's the because of the way if you tell someone to leave Starbucks because they're black that's a problem right so if you tell someone to leave because they're homeless that's a problem but if you just tell them to leave the way you would tell anybody else to leave because it's closing time then that's okay but in that scenario you're actually telling homeless people to leave so you can make room for non homeless people and that's potentially very problematic and if a restaurant sees someone who's on counten walks in the restaurant and the restaurant owner says oh you can't pay you need to leave that's discrimination you don't know that person can't pay right there was a very of there was a very I don't want to say famous but it was a highly publicized case that came out about a Chinese restaurant the total black man to leave because they just or they asked him to pay first right everyone else pays after they get the meal they asked him to pay first because they didn't trust that he could that's discrimination so yes if a restaurant owner sees someone coming in and they're like you have to leave that's discrimination and I think that's exactly what we need to to support here and that's okay but any other questions well I think there was a distinction I just want to make sure I wasn't misunderstood I wasn't the chair mentioned there's a business so the restaurant is someone's coming in to take the meal at a restaurant but I was talking about if you're blocking the church streets if you are blocking the entrances of the restaurant or the Flynn theater or the Roxy theater or something today because you would be asking anybody else to move out of the way not to block your decision there is not based on housing status your decision there is access and so that's completely non discriminatory yes yeah I'll ask the question that I'm sure is on other people's minds too in your example of a restaurant yes by asking somebody to pay first because you perceive that they can't afford to pay for the meal is certainly discriminatory especially if the person is a person of color or any other protected class so what about the asking people to leave after they have had their meal or whatever they're having and they've sat there for hours and you as a restaurant owner would you mention clothes but not even close the business at that point it's just these people have been there for hours I would ask as a restaurant owner anybody do you want anything else how do you ask somebody to get up and leave how do you without it being discriminatory well this is a really great scenario in fact we had a kind of similar case but it involved disability so it depends on the culture and the norms of that restaurant so like we know that if I were in Paris right now I could sit there after a cup of coffee for two to three hours nobody's asking me to leave if the restaurant is very busy and people sign their checks and they're out of there and they ask everyone to leave as soon as the check is signed that's not discriminatory if the restaurant is small and it's in a little town in Vermont and nobody is coming in and no one needs that table and they're asking them to leave we don't know quite yet whether it is because of the housing status so it would depend so we had a kind of similar case where it was a gentleman who actually had a psychiatric disability that caused him to engage a lot with the owners and he talked a lot and they asked him to leave after several hours of being there but we did discover during the investigation that many people sit around for hours they sit there and do their homework it's not a busy place they sit there and do other things they use the Wi-Fi for free and those owners never asked anybody else to leave they're just asking this person to leave because they don't like the way that he engages and he's not disturbing the peace he just is talkative but maybe he was disturbing the no maybe he was disturbing the operation of the employees that's where it gets very jerky and there's no language that you can put here that would necessarily address the case-by-case situation like that so what we would be looking at is what is the culture and norms of that restaurant and is there another individual outside of the protected class that you treat differently or the same so we're looking to see do you ask other customers to leave too because if you think about it they are asking other customers to leave as well after an hour then they're not doing it for any discriminatory purpose that's fine but if they only are asking this person to leave that seems like it could implicate discrimination but you can't there's nothing about this bill that would answer that question one way or the other not passing it or passing it doesn't change that necessarily could that answer um I don't think you have an answer for one more question thank you representative Dimash yes I'm looking for this it mentions this station most food that's in the bill rights I think it was page 3 I might guess page 4 the top um soliciting for food, water, money or other donations in public places that to me sounds like the classic definition of panhandler okay I don't know if it would be but people tend to who are engaged in their own business in a public space for whatever their reason generally don't like being approached and so what would then constitute discrimination against somebody who is soliciting if somebody is bothering me and I will and I say to them please move away from me and worse than that is that discrimination is not necessarily no but if you're only bothered because they look homeless no I said if they approach this is different somebody who is soliciting is engaging whether that would be discrimination under the public accommodations act this says no person who is soliciting person has a right to solicit me or anybody else for the purpose of hoping to get food, money, water or what have you and if I brush them off let's say that's discriminating against them so for the statute here that says places of public accommodations in order for there to be discrimination and the responding party has to be in place of public accommodation you would be an individual and so we wouldn't be investigating that claim because you say that's the bill of rights so the laws that we enforce are under public accommodations housing and employment so the purpose of the bill of rights is separate and different in terms of what we could enforce under the three statutes that are before us so if you as an individual says get away from me, don't solicit me that's not something we would enforce but it's not a restaurant owner alright I just want to kind of bring this back to the fact that this is the introductory on this bill these are questions that we're going to get to and we can ask them again I think when we want to focus on spend some time focusing on some specific sections of the bill so keep your questions in mind I'm not trying to shut down the fact that there are questions it's Friday afternoon I just want to sort of bring us home now Julian did you have a comment or did board cover that do you think I just wanted to expand on the point that she made about the bill of rights so there have been many court decisions holding that laws that restrict panhandling where you're asking people for money to be unconstitutional because where the laws are directed towards the content of what is said rather than the manner of asking so cities may lawfully prohibit individuals from following or closing in on people or harassing them following you through town that sort of thing that might be kind of quasi stalking behavior but where the restriction is based upon the content of the message so if a person is persistently following you to tell you about their favorite political candidate and that wouldn't be prohibited but the person is persistently following you but they're asking for money courts have by and large said that that's a content based restriction on speech so cities may protect members from the public from being they may have legitimate disturbance of the peace laws where the aim is to protect people to avoid a public disturbance to protect people's individual individual safety because you're regulating the time, place or manner of speech but not the content of speech that's what I'm going to say you can't, there are laws that can say you can't ask people for money but you could ask them for other things that would likely be viewed as unconstitutional restriction on the content of speech I just need clarification because I can't go home for the weekend without knowing the answer to this so Luke Martlin said that this wording would supersede any municipal law and that people would not people would be allowed to solicit even if the municipality had a law at one point in time on their books if this became statute so I'm confused are you asking whether it's a law or whether it's a personal thing if a store says no soliciting on it and that applies to everybody but you're asking so for the town of Jonesville that said we as a town decided that we don't want people soliciting they passed that law that there's a no soliciting no pain handling whatever you want to call it they passed a law and then this becomes law how does this affect that person who stands outside an establishment and asks for money or food or water or whatever they're asking so the first question I would have is that passing and this is probably a general question would they be passing a law or would they be passing an ordinance I don't know the answer to that because I don't have any towns to my knowledge that have an ordinance or a law like this so I don't know I don't know like in Burlington they talked about having something on Church Street solicitation and I don't know where they went with that whether it became an ordinance or not or being a law so again I think the basic answer to your question is that if there is a state law in place that is stronger than a local law in this case my interpretation is that the state law would take effect unless the state granted that exemption through charter process or through what have you we do have limitations towns have limitations on what laws they can put in force and they're run by their charters whether this applies I mean this goes hand in hand with the conversation we had about minimum wage our minimum wage is more generous than the federal minimum wage so therefore that law is upheld however our laws versus time and a half are far more draconian than federal law so federal law applies so I think that what you can walk away with is basically while we do have to do more research on it generally speaking a state law would trump a local law when it comes to laws like this my question is if it's in ordinance an ordinance does not have the same effect as it's a little bit lower on this scale but nevertheless it would be ordinances have been found to be discriminatory or have been supported over time but we can delve into that deeper Ehrhard Monk is here as well represents many different home housing type organizations did you have a comment from the peanut gallery or short of full testimony I can, I can also come in when you take up the bill again but for the record Ehrhard Monk of Monteforil Housing Coalition we were one of the proponents of this bill two years ago and I'm not a lawyer so disclaimer my understanding is that ordinances that have been passed by municipalities at the local level that prohibit panhandling generally are ruled unconstitutional and one of our goals in this is to prevent municipalities from having to provide some guidelines for municipalities that might want to pass ordinances that ultimately are unconstitutional and there's a history of municipalities having done that that wind up getting sued and losing so there's an effort here to provide some guidelines for municipalities as in Vermont law as to what they can and can't do so as to in effect help both out of safe the rights of folks who are homeless the rights to free speech and panhandling is generally considered a form of free speech that's constitutionally protected so simultaneously help guarantee some of those rights and also provide some guidelines for municipalities so they don't get themselves in trouble with long and costly litigation I'd like to just end with why I think this bill is so important and I regret that I didn't talk about it earlier but discrimination against people who are poor is a very real thing and there are studies that have shown that when we see someone and we judge them as being poor we think they're not as competent as and capable and that we feel very different feelings towards them so someone who is asking for help that looks homeless we treat them and feel very differently about them than if it was someone who doesn't look as poor there was an experiment where they had a little girl who was acting they dressed her up as being having money and they dressed her up as poor they looked lost in a restaurant in a place of public accommodations and when she was dressed as poor people were like stay away from her or ignoring her even though she looked lost when she looked rich people said hey can I help you what can I do for you can I call somebody for you we feel very differently about people based on the way they look if they look rich or if they look poor around implicit bias where they ask the participants to judge whether a little girl by the name of Hannah was smart or not smart and based on the fact that they knew some information about her whether she received free and reduced lunch or whether she didn't and most participants says we can't judge whether someone's smart or not based on the fact that she is poor or rich then they had them watch a 10 minute video of Hannah answering questions and then they asked them well now that you've watched her for 10 minutes do you can you now think you can evaluate whether she is smart or not and the participants were then very comfortable evaluating whether she was smart or not what they didn't realize is they were all watching the same video and the only difference was that they were either primed with the fact that she was rich or that she was poor and those who believed that she was rich watched the same video and said she is smart and those who watched the video and had been told that she was poor said this is evidence that she's not smart we do discriminate explicitly and implicitly against homeless people and people who are poor this is why this bill is really good to close I think on that note what we're saying in this bill is about behavior in the public sphere this does not make a comment on someone's personal biases except as how they act in public how they may act in public and that policies set by people who work in the public the world of public accommodations must provide a level field of acceptance of these conditions but it's not universal it's not again we can there are still levels where people can be discriminated against legally that's fine but it just brings it home that this is about the public sphere again if someone who acts this way or feels this way or believes this way for their own selves this is no comment on that except as they are except as policies are promulgated in the public space correct yes thank you this is obviously this reminds me of a lot of the testimony that happened two years ago it's not going to be an easy bill necessarily we will take it up further next week with further testimony and we will always balance testimony before making a decision on the bill