SmartTranscript of Senate Judiciary 2025-05-27 - 2:45PM

[27 seconds of silence] [Chair Nader Hashim]: Well, for the record, senator Brian Palomar, representative of Rutland District, this is a bill that originated in the senate and has to do with the open meeting law. We made some changes to it at the request of various entities and send it along to the house, and they came back with the suggestions of amendments. I think there were eight in total. And the one that much concerns this committee here has to do with the disorderly conduct provision. Just to set it up, it was introduced by representative Jim Harrison who represents the Mendon district. Town hall there has had to close on occasion because of one individual who shows up, I don't wanna say every day, but quite often and is disruptive. Meetings aren't necessarily going on when he shows up, but he's disparaging of some of the folks that work in the town offices. And so they felt it prudent to close whenever he showed up and not be able to do a lot of work. So he's very concerned. I don't know whether this happens in other communities around the state or whether other meetings have been interrupted. But and counsel's here as well. So section four and section five of the bill have been amended by the house. And section four is the intent of the general assembly section five to say amend title thirteen, section ten twenty six to conform, subdivision a four of that section with the constitutional requirements that are articulated in the Supreme Court decision. I believe it was two thousand eight. The two thousand nine was when the decision was rendered, and it's the State versus Colby decision and expresses the intent of the general assembly that it would amend the disorderly conduct statute. And then it goes into more detail in section five that indeed a person is guilty of disorderly conduct if the person with intent to cause public inconvenience or annoyance or recklessly creates a risk thereof without lawful authority disturbs any lawful assembly or meeting of persons or as used in this section, disturbs any lawful assembly or meeting of persons means conduct that substantially impairs the effective conduct of an assembly or meeting, including conduct that and these two conditions, either causes an assembly or meaning to terminate prematurely or consists of numerous and sustained efforts to disrupt an assembly or meeting after being asked to desist. And the meeting clearly includes only a meeting of a public body as those terms are defined in title one. So as I understood from counsel, this is already in law. But the specific reference to the Supreme Court decision allays the fears of some law enforcement officers and some board of alderman, board of select board, whatever it is, to, in essence, be able to do something with a person that is just continually trying to disrupt the meeting. So it's a clarifying provision, I think, more than anything. And I'm sure attorney Anderson will let you know a little bit more legal terms whether I've captured the intent of this provision. Senate government operations committee with possible possibly one exception, I think, is ready to incur with the other provisions of suggestions made by the house. But this one seemed to be sort of outside what we have even considered in our meeting. So that's where we are on it. Again, I don't know how frequent this happens, but it seems like if you look at YouTube a lot, there's always a meeting somewhere that somebody stands up and starts yelling and hollering and they're asked to stop and they don't. And then people come in and usher that person out, or the meeting ends prematurely without anything being done. [Vice Chair Robert Norris]: Well, thank you for the for the context of this. And, you know, I mean, I I read through the state versus Colby case during lunch. And Oh. I mean, there's there's even a line on page four. Well, paragraph eight says that they they find that the disorderly conduct statute has worded and permissively sanctions a substantial amount of protected speech even when considered in relation to its legitimate scope. And, you know, oftentimes, issues of vagueness and overbread is an issue in legislation related to fundamental rights. So, you know, with this one, we're dealing with the first amendment of protected speech butting up against freedom of association. So, you know, I I can see how the language basically being copied and pasted from the decision into the statute addresses the overbroad issue. But, yeah, that was thank you. [Chair Nader Hashim]: Yeah. No. I think you've captured that pretty well. It's it's always a balancing act to consider first amendment rights versus, you know, people getting together to get something done and being interrupted. But I think the two conditions that are present, as you said, carve out a piece that I think we can we can, yeah, flood it with at least my committee would put. Glad to bring it forward here. Thank you, Sandro. [Member Philip Baruth]: And one of the things that that allayed my concerns about it was, as I understand it, somebody is disruptive, then they're warned. Then after that, it has to be sustained disruptions. So for instance, if somebody's screaming and then they're warned and then they scream once more, they wouldn't necessarily fall to this. It's once it becomes undeniable that they won't let the meeting get sent to [Chair Nader Hashim]: them. Yes. Causes in assembly are meeting to terminate prematurely. And, again, I'll have Tucker Anderson probably explain that. She's what I was Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, it is up open to interpretation, I'm sure. Someone could say, well, it was just my exercise of my my right to free speech. It really wasn't disorderly. It wasn't intended to be offensive to anybody. I just was striding in my you know, expressing my opinion and my views. But at some point, I think if a a public body wants to continue to do work, they have to be allowed to do that without constant interruption in the returns. But I'll certainly yield to Tucker. And if folks on this committee continue to have issues, we'll probably strike it and then send it back to the house and recur with the rest of what we have, but and we won't. Thank you. K. [Tucker Anderson]: Alright. Good afternoon, Tucker Anderson, legislative counsel. You Heard a great overview and description of sections four and five of s fifty nine as passed by the house, or some of the background and the chair already started to be getting integrated. Subdivision a four of thirteen PSA section ten twenty six already allows for an individual to be cited for disorderly conduct when without lawful authority, that individual's actions cause a disruption of a lawful assembly or meeting persons. The problem is that in state Colby in two thousand nine, Supreme Court Vermont said, and he put this very accurately, that that was overbroad and it captured a whole swath of protected speech and was likely unconstitutional. So the court ordered that section title thirteen, a construction that would meet constitutional requirements. And the construction that the Supreme Court of Vermont put together for ten twenty six subdivision a four is exactly the language that the house has now put into the statute Mhmm. Defining those terms in a form. The intent, as expressed in section four of the bill, is just to do that, to conform the disorderly conduct statute in that subdivision to the state v. Cole v. Cole v. And to communicate primarily to law enforcement officers and the communities that are dealing with these issues what the state of the law is. And the reason that house government operations and house judiciary decided to do this was that there was quite a bit of testimony on the record about concerns over enforcement, particularly with respect to over the years and whether or not it's even a context where this sort of disorderly content citation could be applied. Happy to give you as much background as you would like about Stacey Colby, the words on the page, the issues that arise here. This is definitely a let's break out of popcorn issue for attorneys because of the, conflict between First Amendment interests and rights that arise in this setting. You have primarily discussed with senator Collamore who was giving the lead up in discussion, you know, the First Amendment rights of the individual might be disrupting the meeting, but there are conflicting First amendment rights for others who are in attendance, primarily their right to speak in in ordered way before the assembly and also their first amendment rights to assemble and see that the business of the public body, if they are supportive of it, is done. If Stacy Colby didn't look at that attention, the cases that Stacy Colby cited had, you know, some of the foundation for their decision, particularly in ray k, which is a Ninth Circuit decision from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, really looked at what is the tension between the First Amendment speech rights and assembly rights in the public meetings, and how is that balanced? And at what point is a threshold cross where an individual's conduct, not the content of their expression, but the volume, persistence, and actions of that individual that disrupts the meeting to the point where they decided for disorderly conduct. I will say that heckling is almost certainly allowed in everyday context, and Enrique even said it is part and parcel of the democratic process that representatives from our government should be faced back to a confrontational audience that will heckle them during the conduct of their I'm [Chair Nader Hashim]: thinking I [Member Philip Baruth]: was in a parliament, England. [Chair Nader Hashim]: Yep. [Member Philip Baruth]: You know, where Tony Blair or whoever has to go to the floor, and then people yell at him while he talks. But who answers? Yeah. [Vice Chair Robert Norris]: So that's good. [Member Tanya Vyhovsky]: The headline piece is a little bit helpful. So because what I'm trying to and and what I would understand that to me is that if someone was asking repeated questions and told to stop asking questions, but you need to have questions, but was not yelling or screaming or that that would not rise to the level of the second problem there, the repeated disruption. Some of this is gonna be context specific. [Tucker Anderson]: And the examples that I can't give you, the the narrative of Sandy Colby, individual stood up, interrupted the speech. The interruption lasted about thirty seconds. The speech was eight minutes long. The ceremony was three hours long. Supreme Court said that was not a substantial impairment of the effective conduct or anything because it's such a brief period of time. One of the things that you might be looking at here is that the current state of the law for the open meeting law only allows public participation around the items on the agenda of the meeting, what the business or matters of that meeting are. That's what public participation under that subsection of one visit three twelve is supposed to be constrained to. So if the questions are sustained, you know, disruptive over a long period of time and don't relate to the business of the meeting and either continue for such a long time, then you get the second prong where the person is cited for their sustained, meaningful disruption from the meeting or where the chair, under Robert's rules, has the authority. And in this case, the desire to say, we have to stop because the meeting cannot continue with this individual's actions being so disruptive. [Member Tanya Vyhovsky]: So my other question is if there is a different conflict, if it is an assembly and so I'm thinking of, you know, people assembled to protest the meeting. Are they gonna be cited with disorderly conduct? [Tucker Anderson]: That would be under the current state of the law. Right? That these amendments, when you change that, and the answer is perhaps yes because assembly currently is not defined at all. [Member Philip Baruth]: But that's not a public meeting. You know, that's one and etcetera. [Tucker Anderson]: Right. But public meetings are just one example of the meetings that would fall under this [Member Philip Baruth]: Under the public. Or under this or under the Disorderly conduct. [Tucker Anderson]: So the current language that's in law is any lawful meeting or assembly of persons, [Chair Nader Hashim]: which might [Member Philip Baruth]: include protests. But We're now bringing the public the open meeting law public meeting law under the rubric that's currently existing. We're just. Yeah. Correct. [Member Tanya Vyhovsky]: Well and so I don't know that I asked my question clearly because it would the reason that some of these I think you said quoted a ninth circuit case is because there's a conflict between an individual's right to free speech and the right to assembly. Now what if we were talking about a conflict between a public body and the people to assemble? Which it could be Well, I mean, a a statehouse law is people assembling. That that falls under the right to assemble. So if a bunch of people came together to protest a public meeting, they both have the right to assemble. [Tucker Anderson]: If I'm reading the fact pattern correctly, you're talking about some meeting of a public body happening and then in a separate space, there's a protest happening that perhaps not a separate space. If it disrupts the meeting, it could fall under this. Yes. Because we But [Vice Chair Robert Norris]: it already does fall under it. Great. So I think the so even if this law were to pass, the same elements would have to be met if the property is going to prevail. You know, the the way I'm looking at this, I I think in response to the the hypothetical, which is a very real situation that I'm but, you know, this you know, state versus coal, you know, it talks both about brief outbursts and long, lengthy outbursts. And that if the current law, as it's written, were to be interpreted, it would criminalize heckling, interrupting, harsh questioning, and booing. And all of those are manners of speech that have been tolerated pursuant to the rights according to the peoples of free societies. And then they go on to say that the language as it's written at the current law is essentially unconstitutional. So, I mean, it's my own opinion that this is a good change because overbroad laws are usually not very good. [Member Tanya Vyhovsky]: Is there also some rulemaking or policy setting included in the law for the town to make some sort of policy? [Tucker Anderson]: That is something that was proposed as part of representative Harris' bill in eighteen forty five that is not included here. I obviously can't speak to the policy decisions or the proposals. [Member Tanya Vyhovsky]: But it's not in this bill. [Tucker Anderson]: But the committees that took a look at us in the house focused on this because it wasn't changing the state of the law Okay. And reserved those other components, including the rulemaking and potential guidance for the state as items that would be taken up in the future. [Member Tanya Vyhovsky]: Okay. That is really helpful. I mean, I have concerns in general with disorderly conduct statutes for the same reason the Supreme Court currently does. [Chair Nader Hashim]: So are you going with the courts? Okay. Thank you. [Member Tanya Vyhovsky]: Because I and and we got into this argument last last by anyhow. I find it overly vague, and but this does seem to clarify and narrow, so I think I can reluctantly sit with it. [Tucker Anderson]: Something to keep in mind is they currently under the open meeting law, the chairperson has authority to, unencout reasonable rules for public participation that would actually be binding for any individual's participation in that portion of the meeting. And, you know, so there already is some authority here for public bodies to set goals for public engagement around the CBD. Some public bodies have robust public participation rules, such as time limits or constraining comment to agenda items. Some do not. [Member Tanya Vyhovsky]: Mhmm. Again, as it's as it's clarifying, like, I have I have issues with the underlying disorderly conduct statute. But as it is clarifying, I think I'm okay. [Chair Nader Hashim]: Maybe any other questions or comments for Tucker? No. I'm good with it. Great. [Vice Chair Robert Norris]: So it sounds like we're all good with this. You know, we have to have good. So thank you for coming in on short notice. Appreciate it. [Tucker Anderson]: Thanks for [Vice Chair Robert Norris]: having us. And, senator Collinmore, if I'm happy to discuss our opinion on the floor Sure. Supportive of the change. Yeah. And, yeah, [Chair Nader Hashim]: Yeah. I think I'll let the pro tem and the secretary know that gov ops is going to concur with all the changes. And then after that, you could just stand up and say that that particular provision was taken up earlier today, quick testimony from the ledge council and or also for Strava, one of five zero third supporter. Yeah. Great. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you.

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SmartTranscript of Senate Judiciary 2025-05-27 - 2:45PM

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