 Welcome back to Capital Beat from Orca Media and the Vermont Press Bureau. I'm Neil Gaswami and joining me as usual is Josh O'Gorman from the Vermont Press Bureau. Thanks for being here again. Oh, it's always a pleasure Neil. It is Friday, March 11th. It's what's known as crossover day in the legislature where bills that are going to be considered to become law have to clear committee. We've had a little bit of action this week. Earlier this week, I believe on Wednesday, a DCF protection bill passed. You've covered that a little bit. I picked up the ball on Wednesday, but that's a bill that is focused on enhanced penalties for folks who either assaults or threaten DCF workers. Yeah, absolutely. So this is born out of, I mean, there's a number of things it was born out of, but probably what brought this issue to the head was the killing of Larry Sobel, a DCF worker in August, or pardon me, in the summer of 2015. She was shot and killed outside her workplace in Barrie by a disgruntled parent of a child who had been removed from the custody. But there's been an escalation of incidents regarding threats and sometimes assaults upon DCF workers. And so this bill has been the product, I guess, of a series of hearings that was held by Dick Sears Center out of Bennington and others just to try to figure out what we're going to do. And so what they ended up doing is they added the classification of DCF worker to the same group of people that includes doctors and emergency responders and police officers in terms of if you assault one of these people, it carries a stronger penalty than it would if you were to assault, say you were on. And that's like an additional year on the prison term and another $1,000 in fines. And what it also did was criminalize threatening a DCF worker. And in many ways, I think that was the more controversial aspect of it. There was some resistance from the American Civil Liberties Union and in fact from the prosecutor in Washington County who was actually there when Larry was killed. So a concern about actually making criminal the act of threatening somebody. ACLU said, hey, you know, this kind of possibly impedes upon First Amendment free speech issues. And the prosecutor said, you know, people just sometimes are just blowing off steam. We shouldn't necessarily jail them for it. There are some states that have statutes that have criminalized threatening of remontinent never had one before. Before you could be jailed for such things as disorderly conduct or disturbing the peace by telephone. However, this actually makes the act of threatening as long as it's a very specific threat. And as long as the person receiving the threat believes that they are in immediate grave harm, then this is a crime now. And on Wednesday before passage in the Senate, the Senate did approve an amendment from Senator Joe Benning, the Republican Majority Leader and a member of the Minority Leader. And a member of the Judiciary Committee that creates an affirmative defense for people charged with threatening that if they don't have the means to carry out the threat, then they can argue that they shouldn't be charged or convicted of that crime. That bill has now cleared the Senate. It's going on to the House and we'll see what happens from there. But that was one of the priorities of the Senate Judiciary Committee heading into the year. You covered a couple other bills this week. What else is going on? Absolutely. So today the House gave its final approval to a bill related to trying to cut down on what some people call timber rustling, which is the stealing of people's trees, illegally harvesting and logging. And this is something that's been an issue down in our common county where we both grew up in Bennington County. There have been recently a series of arrests of loggers who have gone out and taken trees that they had no business taking. And so right now the state has pretty stiff, like in civil court, you can be sued for triple the value of the damages. And so the civil laws kind of caught up with it. And so what the House approved today was a pilot program that would make it possible and it's still voluntary for landowners to disclose to the state that, hey, I have a logging operation going on. This is who's doing it. This is where it is. This is when it's going to happen. This is how big the area is. And so this way the state is aware of what's going on. And what this does is follows actually another bill that's been kind of debated a fair amount this session and that it would make it mandatory. And so my view of things right now is that this voluntary bill is going to be the eventual compromise and that the mandatory bill it maybe is just going to go away. Now are people going and logging on other people's land just because they don't know that it's not allowed? Or are these business minded people who think, hey, I can go grab some free wood and resell it? You know, that's up to a jury to decide, I think. I just wanted to know what's driving this. One of the questions, it's the one that was actually on my old school farm road growing up in Arlington. There was a logging operation guy I was supposed to take, I don't know, 10 acres or something like that on one guy's property. There was a property that had butted up next to it and he just went over and allegedly grabbed a bunch from over there as well. So you know whether he was legitimately confused about where the boundary line is or whether he decided to help himself to it is going to be something that's going to be sorted out either by jury or by a plea agreement, I expect. But this I think is intended to one, cut down on confusion, but two also hopefully cut down on people who have the intent because it's business. It's money. Easy money for some people. For some for sure. One of the bills that did make the crossover deadline was H171. It deals with regulating e-cigarettes. The House Human Services Committee on Thursday yesterday, they passed it out on a 10 to 1 vote. And what it does is it looks to regulate e-cigarettes or vaping, as they call it, along the same lines as traditional cigarettes. And it will require merchants who sell e-cigarettes and e-cigarette components to keep them either behind the counter out of reach of customers or in a locked case if they're not behind and out of reach of customers. This is something that has been opposed by retailers. It's been opposed by tobacco companies. And for retailers, they say it's just a burden on stores because they don't necessarily have a lot of space behind the counter. If you look behind any sort of convenience store, it's pretty jam-packed with other tobacco products and various other things they sell. So they're concerned about having an undue burden of finding a place to put these things. And tobacco companies are arguing that there's just no scientific or not enough scientific evidence to show that these are actually harmful to you. Right. And remember, that's an argument that they presented all the way through the 90s as well about regular cigarettes. So, you know, and I think there is, if you talk to a committee chairwoman representative, Anne Pugh, she'll tell you there is some competing science out there. But she believes that it should be treated in the same way as traditional cigarettes and should be out of reach of customers. And another point she made was a lot of these e-cigarettes cost $20, $30 for the hardware. And she said merchants should probably want to keep them off the counter anyway, so people aren't stealing them. So that's an interesting point of view. There was one vote representative, Paul Dayma of Essex, Republican. He was the only one to vote against it. And he has cited a similar argument to the tobacco companies saying there's just not enough evidence to show that it's harmful to your health like cigarettes. Is there another component of the bill that has to do with use? Yes. It would basically restrict the use of e-cigarettes anywhere that traditional cigarettes are banned. So if you go to a hospital, if you go to a school, anywhere where traditional cigarettes are not allowed, e-cigarettes can also not be used. So inside any bar pretty much? Right, which is a big thing because if you go to any bar lately, you'll probably see someone puffing on one of these e-cigarettes. And it sort of expels vapor, which is not smoke, and that's the argument people are making. There's no secondhand smoke involved. People should be able to do this where they want the committee thought otherwise. That's now headed to the floor. Should be up for a vote next week and we'll see where that goes. Very good. On the campaign front, an interesting press conference this week. Strange bedfellows perhaps to see talking together. Matt Dunn and former Lieutenant Governor Candidate Dean Korn were talking this week about campaign financing. Peter Galbraith, I'm sorry. Yeah, so Matt Dunn was announced a press conference earlier this week to talk about wanting to ban corporate contributions to candidates. And the very next day there was another press release issued saying that former Wyndham County Senator Peter Galbraith would be joining him. That's been one of Peter Galbraith's big issues. What makes it so interesting is that Peter Galbraith is very much considering his own run for governor and publicly considering his own run for governor. So these two folks who yesterday were together talking about the need to ban corporate contributions very well may be primary opponents in a couple of weeks. So we'll have to wait and see how that goes. But in the meantime, Matt Dunn, one of the two Democratic gubernatorial candidates, he is calling on his fellow candidates to send back any contributions from corporations and reject any future ones. He himself has sent back about $16,000 in contributions from businesses. Of the three other candidates in the race, Democrats, Sue Minter, Republican Lieutenant Governor Phil Scott and former Wall Street executive Bruce Lisman, none of the three basically are jumping on that pledge with Matt Dunn. And they say they'll continue to review each contribution from corporations. And Sue Minter said she will reject anything from Wall Street, but she's happy to take contributions from Vermont small businesses who appreciate her agenda for the state and the others feel largely the same way. So we'll wait and see for now. Matt Dunn is out $16,000 and nobody else is jumping on board with this pledge. And Peter Galbraith may or may not soon be in the race. He told us to watch this space as in the very room we're in right now, the Cedar Creek room, because he might be back in a week or two to announce something. We shall wait and see. Joining us now is Karen Richards, executive director with the Vermont Human Rights Commission, and we're going to talk about a pending bill regarding fair and impartial policing. This is an issue that came up this week, a discussion in the House Judiciary Committee, and they're going to be talking about it and possibly voting on it today. So Karen, tell me, what is the point of this bill? What are you trying to achieve with this? So there was a bill passed last year that ended up, I think it's Act 193, that required all agencies to adopt a model fair and impartial policing policy, and also required them to collect certain data during traffic stops. And that data has to do with age, gender, race, what happened with the stop, whether a ticket was issued, not issued. So it's a laundry list basically of things that are supposed to be collected. And then there was language in the bill that said that the police and agencies should endeavor both to collect this information. They're required to collect it, but also to figure out some way to report it out and analyze it. And so because the legislation only kind of asked them nicely to do this, what's happening is the agencies, as far as we know, are collecting the data, but there's no place where it's actually being sent and collected so that the public can analyze the results of it. So right now, if I want to know what's going on with say Montpelier City Police, there's no clearinghouse. I have to do a records request with Montpelier City Police, right? Right. So you would have to do a Freedom of Information Act request for every single police agency in the state or for the ones that you were interested in doing. So what this bill would do would be to create essentially a central place where all police agencies on an annual basis would have to upload their information into the database and then it would be available in a format, an electronic format and on a website where any member of the public could go on and say, okay, well, I want to know what's going on in Montpelier or I want to look at Washington County as a whole or I want to see what's happening with my police departments on these issues. So that's the main goal of it. And then the other piece of it is to ensure that every police officer in the state receives training on fair and impartial policing. So the way it is right now, the academy teaches it to new recruits and they go through a four-hour course that I've sat in on and think is very good. But then once they're through that recruit process, there's nothing requiring officers who have been on the job to have that training. So this would require all officers to have that training. And right now we're looking at by 2018. What kind of resistance did you get to the act requiring these policies and what kind of ongoing resistance do you feel right now? Really law enforcement, at least at the leadership level, is really on board with this. I think looking around at the things that have happened around the nation, police officers are concerned about their image in the community and their ability to protect and serve if they don't have the trust and respect of the community. So I think law enforcement, they're not really pushing back on the concepts. It's more the resources that it takes to actually make sure that the data is in a collectible form and whether they have the technology and experience, technological experience to be able to upload it and do what they need to do. Most of us wouldn't think that we're biased but we have these inherent biases in things that we subconsciously believe or feel or think. So were you finding that most law enforcement officers or most people in general were not believing that we had an issue here in Vermont? I think that that's kind of, it's not just law enforcement, that's kind of the reaction that I get generally from people in Vermont is that this isn't an issue here. We're all good people and we all take people at face value and this isn't an issue in Vermont. And what the implicit bias training does both for police officers and I've been doing it for the general public now is it shows you that the way that your brain operates and the way that we are programmed as humans, we automatically have bias. And not all bias is bad, but when it affects your perceptions and then goes over into your behavior, that's when it starts to become problematic. And so I think for most people when they do the implicit bias training, whether it's through the academy or just the training that I'm doing, most people have this kind of aha moment about, oh, this isn't me, this is my brain. And I just need to learn what my brain is doing, why my brain is doing it, and then I can start to use these strategies that you're teaching me to try to overcome it. One of the topics of discussion on Wednesday was this idea of making a model policy. And so there was some discussion, should there be a single model policy or should each and every department adopt its own policy to reflect the demographics of its community? Where do you fall on that? Do you think there should be one model policy for all departments? Or do you think Winooski and Colchester should have a different model policy than say, Mobiliar or Bennington? I think everyone should have a single model policy. That's something that I've also been working on and I think the reason that that's important is that you don't want people to have a different experience going from one area of the state to another, right? So you want to have a common set of standards that everyone's applying and using and that way I know whether I'm here in Washington County or I'm in Orange County or I'm down in Bennington that I'm going to be treated the same way by police officers according to at least the essential elements of the policy. No matter where you are, you're going to encounter a difference and really in areas where you're not encountering difference as often are the areas where you're more likely to have a problem because you're not so used to it and that's when those unconscious biases a lot of times can really show their ugly heads. Sure, absolutely. So where do you think this is going to go? I mean, we're now, this is Friday, it's March 11th. This is what they call crossover day at the legislature which is in theory all non-money bills are supposed to be out of their committees by today. Where do you think this is going right now? Well, I'm hoping that House Judiciary is going to be able to take a vote on it this afternoon. We have pretty much after the testimony the other day we did another draft of the bill that we think satisfies most of the concerns that law enforcement expressed and most of the parties or all the parties are pretty much on board, I think. So we're hoping that the committee will vote it out. There's some things that may need to be tweaked in it but we're hoping that we can work on those smaller pieces in the Senate. Very good. Excellent. Well, Karen, thank you so much for being with us. We really appreciate it. Thank you very much. All right, I guess that's pretty much a wrap for this crossover week. We will be back next week with another edition of Capital Beat from Orca Media and the Vermont Press Bureau. Until then, you can find this show on orcamedia.net or vermontpressbureau.com. Thanks again for joining us. Thank you.