 This is Senate government operations and it's Friday the 25th of September and what we're doing is having a very quick unscheduled meeting to look at what the amendments that the house made to our bill s 354. And we have Betsy here with us and Tucker to go through the what is left of 354 and then I would like to ask representative Gannon to just talk to us about why this is the result of the of our work. So, if you can quickly tell us what is in there what is left and then does that make sense committee. Okay. All right. So, Betsy and and Tucker if you want to just whoever is most appropriate to tell us what's what's your I'll quickly do it for the record Betsy and Rask legislative council as you recall as past the Senate as 354 would provide a variety of emergency provisions for the operation of state government, mostly when there is a state of emergency. The House proposed a strike all amendment that was passed and message forth with to the Senate this morning. It's a strike all to contain only one main provision, which would allow municipal legislative bodies to vote to apply the Australian ballot system of meeting to their annual and special meetings in the year 2021 only. Instead of the otherwise underlying law which would require the voters of the municipality to first get together to vote to determine whether to apply the Australian ballot system to any of their upcoming annual special meetings. This language would apply to 2021 town meeting if the town legislative body chose to use this authority. It would also apply to other municipal meetings. In the year 2021. There's also a provision to wave in the year 2021, the requirement for a person to collect voter signatures in order to have the person's name placed on the ballot as a candidate in a local election only in the year 2021. There is language allowing the Secretary of State to wave statutory provisions or other deadlines in statute or in a school district's articles of agreement in order to apply the Australian ballot system to upcoming municipal meetings as necessary with the waiver authority applying to charters and articles of agreement for school district. If it's requested by that municipality. So that language is similar to the language that you enacted in act 92 for local elections in this year. It takes effect on passage. So I guess I would pose a couple questions here that maybe representative again and can talk to us about and I realize that we don't have a lot of time here so I guess we should focus on this but I just am curious about why, why all the other provisions in there were knocked out since we've already passed them and they've already become acts. But, and then primarily around this, I have a couple questions and one is this allows any meeting that's held in 2021 so there could be a meeting a special town meeting in October, and there is no, no issue at all about the ability to meet or not meet but the legislative body could decide that they're going to use the Australian ballot anyway whether there's an emergency or not because this gives them the ability to do that for any election in 2021 and then it also does not give them the ability to change the date so that their meeting has to be held on town meeting day. And this gives them no, no wiggle room around there so though, does anybody else have any kind of questions to pose before so that representative again and can kind of get them in his. Okay. So, john, do you want to. Senator white for the record representative john Gannon from Wilmington. So, one of the reasons I think that we took many or most of the sections out of the bill was just because the time crunch at the end of the session and not having enough time to address them. We asked the legislative council to identify the sections that did not need to pass this year that could be taken up in the next biennium. And so that's how we landed on dealing with just the Australian ballot question. We did hear from the secretary of administration who recommended with respect to that section that we make it mandatory but then after learning that there wasn't money to assist towns with respect to Australian Australian balloting. We, you know, did not make it mandatory. And Betsy and has explained the whole issue around electronic meetings, Secretary of State's office was very concerned about that. Well, we thought that would be a good option that there just wasn't sufficient time to address the concerns of the Secretary of State with respect to that. I think Senator white you asked what would happen, you know, if you know so there was a town meeting say or special town meeting in October or something after after the COVID crisis had had waned. I think our thinking there was that on the legislature will be back in session in January. And, you know, have an opportunity to assess the COVID-19 crisis at that time and could modify the language in this bill. If it appears that the crisis is over. I hope that addressed all your questions but I may have missed one that you did miss the one that I think was the most important their ability to change the dates of their meeting. In that our bill. Yes, it was. And I think I'm just trying to recall and maybe Betsy and has a recollection of what we decided on that I do not recall why we did not take that up. As a psychologist being a focus on the Australian ballot issue I remember at least one of the house gov ops members raising a concern about the authority of a legislative body to decide to move the date and time of the local election. The house gov ops address that local elections were really the main thing that needed to be addressed for 2021, since most of the other provisions are currently covered now during the COVID state of emergency. And so those are section seven and eight of the bill is passed the Senate and house gov ops just ultimately decided to focus on the Australian ballot issue. So that could have been in part of sorry go ahead. That's absolutely correct. One of our members did raise the concern that, you know, a legislative legislative body could choose to move the date for political reasons, not really directly tied to the state of emergency, either speed up or slow down some action. So that's why I think we did not choose to move forward on that provision. But if there is, if there is something going on, they, the only option they have is to do Australian ballot. It isn't tied to an emergency. It is not. So the body could, the legislative body could just decide to do Australian ballot for all the meetings in 2021 without having it be tied to an emergency. Senator White, the reason we decided to go in that direction is that we do not know when the state of the state of emergency may end. And COVID-19 still may be out there. There may not be a vaccine, or even if there is a vaccine, there isn't community immunity yet existing. We wanted to give towns the choice regardless of whether or not there is a state of emergency to make an assessment of the health risks of holding an in-person town meeting versus doing it by Australian balloting if COVID-19 still existed out there. Any questions? Brian. Thank you, Madam Chair. John, what was the committee vote? 11-0-0. Well, I'll offer my opinion. I don't like it. And I would rather see nothing happen this year than to concur. Anthony, I'm sorry. It's okay. So just remind me, if we do nothing, which is what I'm leaning towards as well, we've had some acts already this year. What would be the state of affairs this March for town meeting day in terms of if we just did nothing but had current law in place? That's for Betsy. Yeah. So your Act 92 authority only applied to local elections in the year 2020. So in order, for example, for a town to move to Australian ballot for its 2021 annual meeting, the current law would apply that requires the voters if it's not already conducted by Australian ballot, the voters of the municipality would have to vote in order to apply the Australian ballot to that 2021 annual town meeting. So they have to have a meeting to vote not to have a meeting, one of those things. To go to Australian ballot, yes. Even though we're still in the same state of emergency, assuming we would be in March. All right, because Act 92 also was not contingent upon there being a state of emergency. It was in light of COVID, but it just applied generally to local elections in the year 2020. Thank you. It's kind of a dilemma. So can I just follow up Anthony's question. That's the end. The next legislature will convene on January 6. I believe it's the day. Yes, you do you. I want to ask this so you can answer it. Would there be time for the next legislative legislature to make provisions for the town meeting I see John shaking and said no. Well, we had discussed there's that 60 days that are necessary for town to move to Australian ballot that 60 days preceding March. 2021 town meeting is essentially December 31 of this year. So that's the 60 days that a town would normally need to convert an upcoming meeting to Australian ballot. And then otherwise, if the general assembly needed were to make this decision next year, you would definitely be under that 60 days that is normally necessary to allow a municipality to prepare the ballots, etc. I'm sorry. What would prevent the general assembly, if there were a declaration of emergency again, though, to do pretty much what we did this past year and take care of it that way. I think it would just be the logistics of when the general assembly could get that enacted in time prior to the March 2021 town meeting. I think maybe I think representative Gannon was going to weigh in also in case I didn't cover something that he wanted to address. John. Yeah, no, thank you. No, Betsy and I think you covered it correctly there wouldn't. It takes 60 days and I think there's an issue with the clerks preparing for an Australian ballot that's going to be an issue as well. Anthony. Well, I was good. I think my question was just answer I was going to ask, can we just change the 60 days, but it would not leave the clerks enough time to get ready to do it anyway. If we if we change the 60 days to 20 days or 30 days, I assume that's not on a practical level that's just not possible to get to Australian ballot setup. It's getting the candidates for example on the ballot. If you normally have candidates by floor vote and nominations by floor. Instead, you'd have to get your candidates that would actually appear on the ballot in advance in order to prepare the ballot. Those sort of logistical issues from a logistical perspective without consideration of the policy. Legally, we could change the 60 days if we have the power to change the 60 days just doesn't would make sense. Practical lesson. Not at this point we don't. I mean we run out of time to change that Anthony sadly. And we couldn't get it done fast enough I don't think in January. This just to go back this require this allows this opportunity only for 2021 is that correct. Yes, that is correct. So it's what we're basically doing is mirroring the opportunity we allowed in act what act 9092. Yes, but what we're doing is mirroring the opportunity we allowed in act 92 to basically this one provision we extend through not 2021. With no emergency parameters or anything else, just this opportunity for Australian ballot. Yes. So, any more questions about that or concerns, I have to say that I, I agree with Brian that I don't like it. I don't like the, the entire way the bill was handled and that all the other provisions were taken out, even though we have already passed all of those provisions so the testimony on those provisions was not a heavy lift because we'd already all taken the testimony on them before so I'm very disappointed that we do not have that and I am curious also about why, and I know that this isn't a crucial issue but why you did not leave in the repeal of the highway funds in there because when the towns began to do their budgets in January. They, they will now still be prohibited from mixing their local highway funds with their other local funds. Well, legislative council told us that we didn't need to act on that at this time, especially because I believe the effective date for the highway funds is July 1 of 2021. Yes, but they have to They have to prepare their budgets in January. They have to prepare their budgets. They can, they can, my understanding is that it, they can mix their highway funds starting in jet in July for that year, but they have to do their budget. Before that so what. Anyway, I just, I just was curious as to why, why that wasn't in there. They have to do their budget and then in July. And I mean in January of next year we'll pass this whole but this whole bill. Let's help that and then in July when they actually have their budgets, they can start mixing the funds. Is that right Tucker. Okay. So, Madam chair. Yes. I'm not quite as fussed I mean I'm cross that they didn't. But they didn't act on more because we kind of gave it to them on a silver platter and I think these were good all strong and good and worthy provisions. So I, I am really sad that that they didn't do this. On the other hand, this is one of the provisions we included. It is something that is time sensitive for March, and something we couldn't act on fast enough to affect the vote large. So I guess I'm leaning to concurring with disappointment and profound disappointment, and that we would then commit to, if we're all back, to re addressing these valuable lessons learned and opportunities for towns when we have emergency, when we go into emergency status that we, you know that we act quickly on these lessons learned for other, you know for the for the future. So I would, I would actually think we would want might want to concur on this it's a gives towns a valuable opportunity on the Australian ballot and it's, it's almost nothing of what we wanted, but it's better than nothing. I think. Yeah, I agree with you and it, the bill didn't affect just towns it affected other, it affected. Yeah, it affected a lot of other people and so we'll just have to take it up in January, if we're back but Chris we haven't heard from you yet. You know, I think your cover memo said something like the bill may have been decimated, but that dramatically understates things since decimating is only killing one out of every 10 people. And we're, and we're the ratio is a lot higher here, but despite all that and all the reasons everyone's already noted. I think we're will provide more service to towns if we send them some provisions for instance, in support of timing for orderly town meeting in a conducted in a safe way. That might be challenging, you know, for us to see so much gone. So I would support concurrence. Well, we really have no choice. Yeah. I mean we either don't do anything which leaves the towns in a bind. Yeah, we have no ability to send it back with further amendment. So we have no choice. We are stuck between a rock and a hard place. Yeah, very big rock and a very hard place. So anyway, I would, I would vote to concur just to help keep counts moving and, you know, they'll have to be timely action when we get back. Okay, anybody else. All right, does everybody agree with that. No. I'm still firm on, I think there's some presumptions here that we're still going to be affected by COVID and if you take the whole year of 2021. I don't think that could be true. So I think there's some presumptions being made here. I don't agree with candidates not being required to at least put forth some effort to get on the ballot. I, there's a lot of things I don't like about. Yeah, I don't like either, but I my reason for accepting it would be that we, in order to help towns out with the March town meeting, we, we need to give them some ability to to have it by Australian ballot as much as I hate Australian ballot and I wish no one would ever use it. But we need to give them that option. My, my thought is that when we come back in January, I will not extend that all the way through the year 2021. Okay, and then I will support the committee's decision and vote to concur as long as we are thinking that we would have a chance to refine it with all due respect to representative. Madam chair. So it with Brian's, I mean, I agree with Brian's concern I I don't actually we have seen that it's not ideal but you could certainly get signatures and I do think that getting signatures shows support in your community and whatever district you're running in. But we could. So the only election that it might affect is the current is the town meeting this March 21 and then if we change the law. It would be going forward. That would be the only election that would be affected by that. Okay, I'll go on. But it's not just it's not just the town meeting it's other meetings that they may help throughout the course of years. Right now, I have an issue with that and I think not to be repetitive but we're allowing them to change to Australian ballot even if there's no emergency. Which I think is kind of uncalled for there's no reason to do that but on the other hand I tend to agree that if we can do is very profound disappointment. I mean I'd be willing to go along with it. I think that next year whoever is back needs to take the initiative here to change that during the year 2021 so that needs to be tied to some kind of an emergency or some kind of a reason for them not to be able to meet. I do not want to see them just all throughout the year use Australian ballot just because just because we told them they could. So I, I don't know if I'll be back and I don't know if I'll be in government operations but assuming I am. This will change. I'm thinking about wanting to give towns the ability to do more things just because they want to and now the one thing we're going to allow them to do because they want to something we don't want them to do. We're not, we're allowing the legislative body here to determine the will of the towns. So I'm just wondering about the terms of whether they use Australian. But really just for the first half of the year. I mean because we will hopefully there will be a new law in place. By the time we work on it and house gov off feels more comfortable with hearing the testimony for a third time. Okay. All right. So there we are. Is everybody okay if I report this out on a five. Yeah. I think we have a lot of people with profound disappointment. Yes. The last thing I would throw in as a staff to all of us is that, you know, when it comes to public health things, we, I think we, we have generally heard on the side of being cautious. So if we can't tell what next spring is going to be like. I think it's okay that we're setting people up cautiously in terms of public health. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Representative Ganon for joining. Thank you, John. Do, do no harm over there in the house. Thank you. And I'll know your profound. Unhappiness with what we did. Yes. Yes. Representing the floor in two minutes. Yes. I have a quick question for representative. Senator White asked me. He's the vice chair. Anyway, our last committee meeting of the year, I believe so. Bye. Thank you, Jeanette. And thank you, Betsy Ann and Tucker. We love you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you.