Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: We're live.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Hey, welcome, folks. This is House Corrections and Institutions Committee. It is Thursday, March 12. We're working on H550, and we have draft number 3.1. For the last time. Yeah. Good luck. Good luck. Cheer up. We're gonna do a line by line through this one. And it's gonna take a long time. Yeah. It's gonna take a long time, but I think this one is a long Well,

[Rep. William "Will" Greer (Member)]: it's down to 16, it was. The last draft was 17. So

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Oh, it's

[Rep. William "Will" Greer (Member)]: a shame to pay it off.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: But really, this one, we are gonna need to really do a line better than it and understand it because it's going to be work on the floor, and we're out there as a team. So Hillary, it's all yours. But I don't face up for the record.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Right. For the record, Hillary Chittenden for the Office of Legislative Counsel. I'll go ahead and share my screen. Alright. So we have version 3.1. This version shows in yellow highlights internal edits from version 2.1. So unlike yesterday, you'll see directly the changes that were made. They are fewer than the big changes in version 2.1. This does include at least a start on the changes that the committee was considering based on testimony this morning. So that may require further tweaking, but there is at least some language in response to those points in here. So, chair, my suggestion is that I first go through to note the new changes in this version. And then if there's further line by line of parts or all, we can track that afterwards. So the first change is on page. Four. Page four, lines 19 through 20. This was a change the committee discussed yesterday to make sure that this principle was expressed in a very broad fashion. So the department shall ensure that all individuals are addressed in a manner consistent with their gender identity.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So I know we have some DOC folks here and we have questions. Haley is here for the whole bill and Jen is here just for the pre op piece with the auditing piece of the pre op and also the standards. So if you have questions on the broader piece, it's really more towards Haley. I'm putting you on the hotspot, But that's the plan. Okay?

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Thank you. Moving forward, the next change is on page five, lines 15 through 18. The discussion yesterday was to remove this subdivision four. It's covered by the broad principle in A, and it avoids creating any small questions about applicability. So for some volunteers, this would create some risk. So the committee decided to leave the broad principle in, in A, without this more specific language. On lines 19 through 20 on page five, because Subdivision 4 has been removed, because it's now subdivision four, and the committee discussed adding language about training proportional to the level that staff contractors or volunteers are interacting with inmates. So this now reads, The department shall ensure department staff, contractors and volunteers receive gender responsive training proportional to their level of interaction with inmates. Pause me at any time. Otherwise, I will just keep moving forward through the changes.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yeah, we'll do the line by line. I will get questions.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Excellent. On page six, this is the nondiscrimination provision. After some discussion yesterday about how the broad discriminatory reason or legally protected category language might sweep too broadly, including some things that the department in fact considers, the decision was to remove that second subdivision, but make sure that the first subdivision, which is now the only one and will collapse into B, is expressed in a broad fashion. So the non discrimination section now reads, the department's decision not to accommodate an individual's search, classification, housing or programming placement request shall not be based on the anatomy, including the genitalia or other physical characteristics or diverse gender expression of the individual.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I just have a structured question. Is that gonna be all one sentence instead of looking like a one and a two?

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes. Because you'll see the one and two in parentheses are stricken. There's a striker through those. A statutory drafting rule is that you do not have only one subdivision. So if there's going so this will all be one sentence as subdivision b. Now that there isn't two subdivisions, it will all be b.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Right. So it doesn't look like that now. But when we do this final version of Strikel?

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes. So this is reflecting internal edits. So it looks like it is on a different line, but the clean version Will be Yes. And I do have a version of that. So if if for the line by line, you want to use the new clean version after we've seen the changes, we can also do that, and that might be Yep. Okey dokey. Alright. Moving forward. This next change, this is page six, lines 13 through 18. We're in the searches section, And this is based on some discussion this morning. So this might not capture the committee's intent fully, but this is a start at some of the things the committee was discussing this morning. So someone on the committee noted this morning, this is from the PREA standards, but the discussion was to make some changes for clarity. Submission So, B would read, the department shall not search or physically examine or request that contractors search or physically examine any individual for the sole purpose of determining the individual's genital status. And it would stop there.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Can I

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: just get your perspective legally on your thoughts of striking the rest of that? Because that was my suggestion, and I

[Matthew Valerio (Defender General of Vermont)]: think I'm Okay with it.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So the department, both under the federal standards and under the language of the bill saying that as a matter of state law, the department needs to follow the standards, it will capture that kind of clarification. So removing that sentence, I think that sentence provides additional clarity about what the department may do. But removing it doesn't, I don't see why it would pose a particular problem in this context. Guess it's a

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: may more than a shall.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Well, what's a good way to think about it? Think the first sentence Well, I think it's kind of more of an explanation, right? So the standards have The first sentence is really the prohibition. It's the direction. It's the clear statement of what the department shall not do. And the second sentence is kind of explanation or expansion of, if in the course of a broader medical examination, you determine someone's gender, that's fine. If when you are talking with someone, you determine it, that might be how you determine someone's genital status, or if you are reviewing medical records. But I don't think that removing it from or not including it in the bill changes any of the meaning of the first sentence. So I think if the Department of Corrections in operating under both PREA and this language, if they see a challenge with that direction, then that would be useful to know. But from statutory drafting perspective, I don't see a problem if we're moving it. Okay.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So committee okay with deleting lines 15 through 19. Yes. I think it's much clearer the

[Rep. William "Will" Greer (Member)]: way Yeah. It is Yeah. No, that's good.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Thank you.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Right, moving forward. The next changes are on page seven. We're now in the housing and placement determinations section. This is subsection C. The changes is Yes. I just

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: have a question on some language that is not highlighted. Do you want us to

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: come back to that later? We can take it now.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: When I was reading this last night, the UN C, department considers individualized basis, whether the individual's request as to gender staff form a lawful search, best support the individual, whether a search designation Where are we? On top of page seven, this is during the search. Best support the individual's health and safety and whether a search designation would pose risks to safety and security. What is search designation?

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: That is whether and this will suggest language we could use instead now that we are using the accommodating or not accommodating framework. It means if the department rejects the request. So if the department says this individual will be searched by staff of this gender, that's a search designation. But I think the clear way we could write that, given how we've made some changes in language elsewhere in the bill, is to say, would best support the individual's health and safety and whether accommodating the the inmate's request, would pose risks to safety or security.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: When I read that, I'm saying, what is search designation?

[Matthew Valerio (Defender General of Vermont)]: You catch.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: At 10:00 last night or 11:00.

[Haley [last name unknown] (Vermont Department of Corrections)]: I read

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: it to go to sleep on.

[Rep. William "Will" Greer (Member)]: Obviously, it didn't work.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: It didn't work. It did not work.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Okay. The next draft will work out that change. Okay. So on page seven, this is the next change. This is the classification housing program placement section, subsection C. The department shall make classification and housing placement determinations for transgender, gender diverse or intersex inmates based on review by the department's multidisciplinary review panels. This was a change we talked about yesterday to clarify that the department has these panels and there are two of them and that this is not intended to create something different, but just references requiring the department to use these panels that they have and have been using for this purpose. The next change is based on some of the committee's discussion this morning. So the multidisciplinary review panels shall regularly consult with medical personnel, mental health professionals with experience in gender dysphoria or gender affirming care, and personnel who have received training aligned with nationally recognized standards for gender affirming care. I understood some discussion this morning to ask that all of those individuals for some medical conflict reasons may not be present on the panel, that the way they could be brought into decision making where needed and useful, there would be more of a consultation requirement than a representation on the panel. The next change is on page eight. This is still in the housing section, housing and programming placement. In Subdivision 1, this is where yesterday we had the two alternatives and we talked about our combo platter number one of making sure we mentioned all of these things. So Subdivision 1 now reads, the department shall give serious consideration to the inmate's classification or housing placement request if the department finds that accommodating the inmate's request would pose an unreasonable risk to safety or security, the inmate's health and safety, or the safety and security of other inmates or staff, the department may decide that it cannot accommodate the request. In reading that out, some of those ands might need to be ors.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Must be what? Ors. Ors. Yeah. Because the and means Yep. That's Yeah. It's inclusive.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: It's amazing what strikes me when I'm reading it to myself before committee and what strikes me when I'm reading it aloud.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Right.

[Rep. Brian Minier (Member)]: Well, are we still there on number one? Yes. So, Chair, can we just go? Okay. Yeah. So there was some question this morning, and I don't know if you got to that portion, about and this is probably a DOC question. Is there a moment at which you're considering safety, you're considering security, you're considering placement, then it's a problem that you don't know an inmate's genital status? Is there a place where that would be determinative? Or you need to know and don't? How can decisions be made in that absence? And I'm hoping you can help me frame the question more precisely. But has that ever presented an issue? Can you see an area where it would?

[Jennifer [last name unknown] (Constituent Services Unit Director, Vermont DOC)]: I'm not entirely sure.

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: This is the

[Rep. Brian Minier (Member)]: part about it and maybe I'm doing it too early in the bills, but I brought it up here because of housing security. And this goes back to talking to Doctor. Euler here this morning about you shall not conduct an exam sort of in a forensic way to Chairman General's status. Has that ever presented a problem? And if it's better to bring up later, don't know.

[Haley [last name unknown] (Vermont Department of Corrections)]: I don't think it commonly happens or ever happens in which it would get to that point of determining the housing placement and we wouldn't know their general status based on searches at Indeed.

[Rep. Brian Minier (Member)]: That has never been the case that that would have been determined to be able reveal something that someone needed to know over.

[Haley [last name unknown] (Vermont Department of Corrections)]: Not to my knowledge. I don't know that that's happened previously.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Could you just run that maybe up the flagpole a little bit between now and tomorrow morning? Or not?

[Haley [last name unknown] (Vermont Department of Corrections)]: Yeah, I'd be happy to do that.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Maybe some time between now and the end of the day.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: You need a deadline

[Haley [last name unknown] (Vermont Department of Corrections)]: up. Because it

[Rep. Brian Minier (Member)]: They're doesn't making decision in absence of technology.

[Rep. William "Will" Greer (Member)]: I'm not

[Rep. Brian Minier (Member)]: sure what the right question is, but you got the nexus, obviously.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So we could get something by late this afternoon. And if it needs some tweaking in language, at least get that to Hilary.

[Haley [last name unknown] (Vermont Department of Corrections)]: Okay. I think right now we can work off the assumption that the answer is no. But should that change based on conversations with other folks who are on that panel, I will update the committee.

[Rep. William "Will" Greer (Member)]: I maybe I didn't understand what you said. I think your phrase was it wouldn't get that far.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: By the time In other

[Rep. William "Will" Greer (Member)]: words, non accommodation decision wouldn't get that far because?

[Haley [last name unknown] (Vermont Department of Corrections)]: No, I'm sorry. I don't think that I phrased that.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Clearly, by the time

[Haley [last name unknown] (Vermont Department of Corrections)]: that the housing committee is making these determinations, the individual

[Jennifer [last name unknown] (Constituent Services Unit Director, Vermont DOC)]: would have likely already been searched at intake and you would

[Haley [last name unknown] (Vermont Department of Corrections)]: be aware of their genital status.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: It's a search at intake is not done for medical. The search of intake is done for security and safety. It is not done for medical.

[Rep. William "Will" Greer (Member)]: Got it.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Because they could be bringing in contraband, they could, you know, whatever. And everyone sort of has a search when they're booked.

[Jennifer [last name unknown] (Constituent Services Unit Director, Vermont DOC)]: Whatever your name is. Jen

[Rep. William "Will" Greer (Member)]: and or Kelly. So is it safe to assume that there is a process when that happens during search that whoever's during the search has a box to check that says that person is one sex or the other or not? Is that not what they're doing then? Because that seems to me, if you're doing that kind of a search, you would know that at that point. That That's my question.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Well, they're coming in. I'm just trying to Well, know it's not No, but documents. They're coming in there with either a law enforcement document or a court document that has their name and address. Does it also indicate what their gender or gender identity is, that document?

[Haley [last name unknown] (Vermont Department of Corrections)]: I don't know what the document contains off the top of my head, but I can get that answer.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Because they're not coming in there cold turkey with nothing. I mean, they're coming in there with court papers, law enforcement papers. There's identifiable information on that, I'm assuming.

[Haley [last name unknown] (Vermont Department of Corrections)]: Yeah, it's true. And I think as our staff have spoken to in the past, law enforcement is making their own assumptions based solely on the physical attributes of the individual and that it's very possible that that's not consistent with either their genitalia or their gender expression. So that form is not a be all end all.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So then if you go back to the bill in terms of Page five. Yeah, page five, half of page five, this is gender identification and non discrimination. During initial intake process and then as private as therein as possible, department shall ask each individual to specify the pardon.

[Rep. Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: It's a, b, c. It's up

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: to the individual to answer that. So everything that's asked to put in anyway, regardless if you're transgender or not, it's voluntary information that's given out for anyone. And then it goes on to say that an individual is not disciplined for refusing to answer. No. And then after at any time after intake, an individual may inform designated facility staff of their gender identity. And then that facility staff would promptly repeat the process in Subdivision 1, which is what, folks? What's in Subdivision 1 of this section, of this subsection? Back to the top of page five, line one. Then they have to go back to that intake process. That's how you read the language. So even they may not have come forward at initial intake, and maybe a week later or three months later, they decided to come forward. So then the intake process starts over, specifically for specifying your gender identity. So that, to me, would be how it would be resolved, right? Yes.

[Haley [last name unknown] (Vermont Department of Corrections)]: Although I think the question that Rutlander had was specific to their physical attributes and not their gender expression.

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: That's correct.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: But you do searches. DOC does searches for forensic issues, security issues.

[Haley [last name unknown] (Vermont Department of Corrections)]: WellPath doesn't do any searches. No, they'll do an examination, but they don't do searches for the purpose of security. That's ten years.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So when you said they'll do examination, is it just a regular physical examination? Like we go in for a physical?

[Haley [last name unknown] (Vermont Department of Corrections)]: When an individual is brought into a facility, they're within a certain number of hours, medical staff will do an initial intake. They can speak best to what exactly that intake looks like and walk you through that process and to the extent that there is a either comprehensive or kind of preliminary examination of the person.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: This morning Doctor. Yuen and Gerard indicated they don't do searches. Forensic searches for sure but do they do

[Haley [last name unknown] (Vermont Department of Corrections)]: any examinations? That would be for like medical purposes. I'm not a doctor, so I'm maybe using terms that are misleading, but as part of the intake process.

[Rep. Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: Everyone gets that?

[Haley [last name unknown] (Vermont Department of Corrections)]: Yes, that's for everyone. And that's in statute set by Well,

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I don't wanna do that on YouTube. It's pretty yeah. Got I some questions. I mean, I've got something that you could ask. I just don't want to say it on YouTube.

[Haley [last name unknown] (Vermont Department of Corrections)]: Yeah, I know we've testified to this in the past in terms of what that looks like. We also have a graphic on our website that kind of explains what services that medical will provide in the first few days that they're with us, I'm happy to send that to the committee. Okay.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Brian?

[Rep. Brian Minier (Member)]: It is just I'm 52. Physicals were different when I was a kid. And I think I was suffering under that false impression. I have a different physical now. It does not involve turning my head and coughing.

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: So, I mean, that's what we're

[Rep. Brian Minier (Member)]: talking about. So that is not something that WellPath does as far as I can tell. Unless there were some reason to suspect that the person used that for their health.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: It's very different now. It's not invasive as it used to.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Knowing that the committee wants to hear from a couple other witnesses No, all after this good. And if there's more to discuss, I don't have to move forward. But seeing no other questions. The next change, so we are back on page eight. This is lines 15 through 18. Discussion yesterday was that this was not necessary added language, that having the language that remains on fourteen and fifteen, the department shall base its classification and housing placement determinations on reliable objective evidence. But that captured the instruction well, and the second sentence was not necessary. On line 21, so this is subsection E. Again, this was an edit the committee discussed yesterday. But just for Canadian simplicity, requiring the department document in writing a specific reason, the department is unable to accommodate the inmate's classification or housing placement request captured the necessary substantive content there. So we removed some of the other language. Next edit, this is page nine on line four. This is another edit discussed yesterday. For clarity, this section is covering placement at facilities outside the state. So it says that. The department shall consider on an individualized basis whether placement at a facility outside the state would best support a transgender, gender diverse or intersex inmates' health and safety and whether the placement would pose risks to safety or security. Still on page nine, this is Are

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: you going to line seven? I got a question on line seven.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: We can pause for a question on line seven.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So we took out contracted facility into Schuh's facility outside the state. On line seven, the department shall coordinate with any contracted facility.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Any facility outside the state.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Not contracting anymore. Give

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: me two more years as Legis Council. That's these things earlier.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: No. That's fine.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: That's fine. But yep, the next rep can make that edit.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Matt, when do you need to go into judiciary by now?

[Matthew Valerio (Defender General of Vermont)]: I said I'm so I told I told the Trinity person that I'm going down the hall if you need me to come here.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Okay. Okay. Well, I don't I wanna make sure we have time for you because I know probably won't be too long, but we have time.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: One option is after we finish this walkthrough of the changes, before we do the line by line, the committee can hear from the other witnesses that issues too. So on page nine, lines 15 through 17, this is a PREA regulation. Vermont statutes elsewhere address segregation housing. The discussion yesterday was that this was not needed in the bill. On lines 18 through 20 and running onto page 10, lines one through two we can do that so we can capture all of this in one screen. The discussion here yesterday was whether this first subdivision was adding anything compared to the second. And the decision was that the second subdivision is really where the substance was. Removing that first kind of general subdivision and what remains will just be a new subsection H. So this is page 10, line three. The department shall give a transgender, gender diverse, or intersex inmates perception of health and safety serious consideration in making that assignment, placement, and programming decisions, including, one, housing the inmate with another inmate to best support safety and security, and two, if there is an articulable risk to the inmate, removing the risk where possible or otherwise alleviating the risk. The next changes are at the end of the draft. I'll pause on page 13 and just note that on line four, we still need from the Department of Corrections the date that they submit their federal report so that we can align this requirement with that as a temporal matter in addition to specifying that the substance should be the same?

[Haley [last name unknown] (Vermont Department of Corrections)]: We have Yeah. So for

[Jennifer [last name unknown] (Constituent Services Unit Director, Vermont DOC)]: the report that you're Jennifer, could you just Jennifer Scrappe, Virginia Rebel Nation, Constituent Services Unit Director for the department. The report that you're asking for, are you looking for the survey on sexual victimization that we submit with our annual data of sexual abuse and sexual harassment incidents? So I would love to give you a date, but it is based on when we get it from Justice and Statistics in the Census Bureau. So it's not the same time every year. We typically get this year, we got it in January. And we've gotten it in May, we've gotten it in March. And so it sort of fluctuates. The last time the date changed because of the executive order changes and they had to modify the survey itself. So it is referenced in the standard. So if we want to say that we'd submit it by the deadline that the Census Bureau requires, I don't know if that is language that you would feel comfortable using. One option is to

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: say annually. If the data is shifting, the statute can say, starting in 2027. And maybe our statutory language needs to tweak that a little bit. But starting in 2027, the Commissioner of Corrections shall annually submit a report.

[Jennifer [last name unknown] (Constituent Services Unit Director, Vermont DOC)]: And it's always a year behind, obviously, because of the way it works.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So the report that we're asking is the same report that you need to submit to the authorities, to the feds, pursuant to PREA?

[Jennifer [last name unknown] (Constituent Services Unit Director, Vermont DOC)]: It's one of Yes. It's one of the annual data requirements in PREA.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Because our language that we've written right here, slide seven, eight, nine, is that the report that we get would provide the same information that the Department of Corrections reports to the feds pursuant to PREA 34 USC 3,030 one-three 39.

[Jennifer [last name unknown] (Constituent Services Unit Director, Vermont DOC)]: So pream requires that we do the So when they wrote it, it wasn't called the survey on sexual victimization yet because they had just said, BJS, you have to track it. So that is the mechanism that is required in the standards is the survey on sexual victimization. We also are required within the standards to do an annual report within the department itself of a comparison of incidents so that we're evaluating incidents and harm that's occurred, looking at problem locations, problems within the facility, a facility itself so that we can mitigate any potential additional risk if we find it. So that is also an annual report that's required within the standards.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I think it might be

[Haley [last name unknown] (Vermont Department of Corrections)]: pertinent to include in statute which of those two things, if not

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: both. Would say both. Would say both. Or it's And have new

[Jennifer [last name unknown] (Constituent Services Unit Director, Vermont DOC)]: it's required that those are on our website, which they are. And so there's no identifiable that are connected to any of that information. So it's general review and information for instance. And I point that out because Alice, if you remember from a few years ago with testimony, because they're not the same timeframes, the data ends up being different. And so it's important when folks look at it, the numbers aren't gonna be the same because it's always fluid. It's delayed. Well, and we may have a case where we submitted our annual report in January and then if the survey on sexual victimization didn't ask, let's say we did not just submit it until March, we may have learned of additional incidents that were within that time period that now have been added. So when we reported on it earlier, we said that now we have 13. And so then people say, what do you mean? You have more cases. Nope. Or an investigation might have concluded and the outcome is different. And so the numbers are different.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So I think we want all those reports.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Great. So the new subdivision B will say something very close to, Starting in 2027, the commissioner of corrections shall annually submit a report to the House Committee on Corrections on Institutions and the Senate Committee on Institutions that provides all information that the department reports to federal authorities pursuant to CREA.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: But that second report, do you also provide that to

[Jennifer [last name unknown] (Constituent Services Unit Director, Vermont DOC)]: So the standards require that we have it so the auditor reviews it from the website and ensures that it's on the website. You do vet the report.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: But do you actually submit it to the feds or you just put it on your website so it's available?

[Jennifer [last name unknown] (Constituent Services Unit Director, Vermont DOC)]: So we put it on the website because I'm not auditor. I don't know if the auditor has to then download that and attach it within their documents form. We will typically put it in what's called the system that we use to upload the audit information, we'll put it in there just because we wanna be transparent. So we put the report and we put the link. So we have it, it's a report we do. So it wouldn't be problematic.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I just wanna make sure we encompass this other report that goes into more minutiae in terms of what's happening for facilities.

[Jennifer [last name unknown] (Constituent Services Unit Director, Vermont DOC)]: And then does that, this was my only clarification, the third report would then be the actual audit reports.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I don't think we'd want the audit report.

[Jennifer [last name unknown] (Constituent Services Unit Director, Vermont DOC)]: They're also on the website. And again, PREA requires you audit a third of your facilities each year. So two of our facilities get audited every year and it's several pages, which is not to say you shouldn't have it just quite thorough, and it goes through all of the components. And again, it's on the website.

[Rep. Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: I would do the two, then the available of

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: chaotic would be, we know it's a big And my suggestion for clarity is to, instead of I think when we were considering this language, it was not that there were three different reports, that you might only want some of them. So my suggestion is that we identify by subject the two reports that this indicates. So it would be something like shall submit to the House Committee on Corrections and Institutions and the Senate Committee on Institutions the sexual victimization survey. Was that

[Jennifer [last name unknown] (Constituent Services Unit Director, Vermont DOC)]: the first one? Survey on sexual victimization,

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: yes. And

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: what's the best way without capitalization to identify the second question?

[Jennifer [last name unknown] (Constituent Services Unit Director, Vermont DOC)]: I was actually pulling up the standards to see what standard it was. So only for transparency for this conversation. In the standards themselves, it's called the survey on sexual violence because that was the old term, but it's been updated. In case, because that's in standard 115.87. And then within one, so one option is you could, again, you guys determine how you write bills. Is it's prescribed in standard one hundred fifteen eighty seven. And that refers to the annual reporting data, which is incident based and the survey on sexual victimization. So you could say that we would do that.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Okay. If that would make it easier. It would be clear.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So when you've drafted this, just double check with Jen. Perfect.

[Jennifer [last name unknown] (Constituent Services Unit Director, Vermont DOC)]: I can before I can send you the language from

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: the standard. Great. Thank you so much.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I'm sure we have time for that.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes. So the next draft will reflect language specifying those two reports. Moving forward, the next change, this is page 15. In section 11, this is the report back about any changes to the PREA standards or reporting requirements. This was so that given that the bill in section six requires adopting the standards in effect as of 01/01/2024, and similarly is hinged on each year the reporting required to be submitted to the federal government. This is a way to build in, in two years, a report back about whether any of that has changed so that there is an intent to So if there has been a change to the reporting requirements, there would be a chance to amend the reporting requirements in state statute. Or if there were any changes to the standards, it would be a chance to make sure that there is alignment. So on or before 12/15/2027, the Department of Corrections shall submit a report to the House Committee on Corrections and Institutions and the Senate Committee on Institutions. The report shall identify any changes to the standards or reporting requirements under PREA. As may be amended means under PREA if it is changed. So tracks going forward. Section 12 is a new section after testimony this morning. What I understand, the committee wanted a placeholder for some of the medical care related language. So Section 12, gender affirming care. On or before 12/01/2026, the joint legislative justice oversight committee shall review current practices related to gender affirming care in correctional settings and submit a report to the House Committee on Corrections on Institutions and the Senate Committee on Institutions. The report shall include recommended statutory language.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I would recommend putting October 15. Okay. December is too late in case there needs to be recommendations for statutory language. But it is placeholder one. Just in case this survives a little bit, it's better to be having

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: earlier. Perfect. Any other questions about the changes? It sounds like I will come back for further line by line discussion. But I'll pause here so that the company can hear from

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: our

[Rep. William "Will" Greer (Member)]: other witnesses.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Sounds great. Then we can start our line by line after that, little by little. Thank you, Hillary. So let's put Matt up on the hot seat. I was just curious to reach out to the person who's rights office, which is within the Defender General's office. Just wanna cover our basis in terms of some of the language around the PREA and some of her maybe other language around the bill. I know that this has got the defendant general off guard. I know you do have a lot of work. Maybe

[Matthew Valerio (Defender General of Vermont)]: Well, know, a day before crossover, that's plenty

[Rep. Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: of time.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Like, get you out of that room. Right?

[Matthew Valerio (Defender General of Vermont)]: Temporarily.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I wonder, because the president's rights office is the first time that some of

[Haley [last name unknown] (Vermont Department of Corrections)]: the members here

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: heard that term or even knew it existed. Wonder It is. Okay. Wonder if you just gave a very broad, high level review of what the office does and then how you might resolve some complaints that may be coming in, if any complaints come in, in terms of PREA violations or possible issues maybe around gender equity and within our correctional facilities, if the person's rights office is running into any cases or anything. I just wanted to touch base on that level. So if you could just identify us.

[Matthew Valerio (Defender General of Vermont)]: Sure. Like the chair said, I'm Mad Valerio, defender general. The prisoners' rights office was established very soon after the creation of the Defender General's Office, which is obviously our state public defense, the way we had state public defense services. And it was in the early '70s in response to the Attica riots. States, some states took it on themselves to say, We need people outside of the Agency of Human Services or Department of Corrections keeping an eye on the Department of Corrections and the inmates and people who are in the custody of the Commissioner Corrections. And so by statute, the Defender General's Office is charged with representing anybody who is in the custody of the Commissioner of Corrections, no matter what their status is and actually, irrespective of means. So we are in the public defense system. We are primary public defense systems. There's a means test to determine whether you get a public defender, which, the way it turns out, almost everybody qualifies. Oddly enough, poor people end up in the criminal justice system. Go figure. But we get everybody who's in the custody of the commission of corrections, whether they're on probation or furlough or parole or any other status that might be allowed by statute, and, of course, the people who are incarcerated. As part of that, the duties of the office are to represent those clients relative to issues regarding conditions of confinement and and also anybody who seeks to be released from jail. So sometimes they'll say, you know, I'm being wrongfully held or detained because the Department of Corrections calculated my sentence wrong. And we do some about it, like, calculation work. It used to be about a third of what we did was that, and there used to be huge problems with sentence comps, you know, during my tenure. It's been a long time, so I guess a lot could happen. Nevertheless, one of the big issues we deal with regarding conditions of confinement is medical care. It's one of the primary things that we deal with. The department struggles with its medical providers, and we struggle with the department's medical providers. It's been a conundrum for decades and continues to be. We also deal with, you know, status issues, and we deal with all of these gender identity, anything that arises out of gender identity and the like, we deal with those issues. We deal with pretty much anything that goes on inside a correctional facility that impacts our clients. We represent those clients, and there are various ways we can affect the change that we might want to get for a particular client and sometimes for a group of clients. Filing lawsuits is what lawyers do, and that's one of the ways we do it. One of the things I try to do, especially on the big issues, is to work with the commissioners to resolve issues before we get to lawsuits. There's many issues where there's nothing that we can do, even individually as defender general and as the commissioner, that's gonna prevent that lawsuit. When I was very first defender general, the relationship between the prisoners' rights office and then Commissioner Gorchak under Howard Dean, who was the first guy who appointed me, believe it or not, way back then, was very bad. And then general counsel had the opinion that the defender general and the corrections commissioner were not allowed to speak to each other directly without counsel present. And I asked for a meeting because I was didn't know any better, and met with the corrections commissioner. There was kind of a big blow up, and he threw general counsel out of the room. And he and I resolved seven lawsuits in about an hour and a half that had been pending for years between the two offices, because we were able to sit and talk to each other. Since that time, that is generally how things have gone. I have had regular contact with the commissioners of corrections, and there's been a whole bunch of them since 2001. Gorchak was there for eleven He was there the entire time that Howard Dean was governor, so eleven and a half years, I think. But that, we haven't had people like that since then. We've had lots of people. And I've gotten along with all of them. Probably, as you might expect, I try to do that. But there are some more than others. And, you know, lots of issues have come up. What you're dealing with here is kind of a very discreet issue. Know, at least the title of the bill, you know, the gender identity issue and the like, are more discreet. But all of these issues that are within the bill are something that are within the within my knowledge and within, clearly, the specifics are within the knowledge of the prisoners' rights office. When I first was DG, we had two people, two lawyers, one investigator and one secretary in the prisoners' rights office. And then there were seven suicides in eighteen months in the department, ranging from the end of the Dean administration to the beginning of the Douglas administration. And a commission was convened, created a report, the Marks and Luneau report. For some of you old timers, maybe there's only one of us here, me and you. I said, yeah, you were here doing that that time.

[Rep. William "Will" Greer (Member)]: You were around. Well, alive. In

[Matthew Valerio (Defender General of Vermont)]: any event, different times, different moments. But that one of the things that happened there is they doubled the size of the prisoners' rights office. So now we have four lawyers and two investigators, sometimes three. But it's a and and we have still have one admin person, which is not sometime during the Shumlet administration, we had a rescission, and they took a position from us during that rescission. And that position ended up coming out of the prisoners' rights office based on kind of seniority. And so we never got that position back. But that's where we are now. And the prisoners' rights attorneys are unbelievably swamped, as the Department of Corrections is unbelievably swamped. And they have extraordinary difficulty triaging and keeping up with the various complaints and issues that come up. Would, I you know, I would say that in the event that I, say, doubled the size of the prisoners' rights office, it still wouldn't be enough to handle the complaints that come in. And it also, to be honest, is not a particularly attractive constituency. And as a result, it doesn't get, you know, the financial backing that it perhaps could. And also, opinion is I have to focus on, like, the primary public defense function preliminarily, at least, when I'm trying to advocate for resources and that sort of thing. So I mean, one of the things I've recently done is taken the portion of caseload that we used to do in prisoners' rights and put it into what I now call the post adjudication division, which is basically the appellate division, plus post conviction release case relief cases, which is a whole other issue.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Uh-huh.

[Matthew Valerio (Defender General of Vermont)]: So now the prisoners' rights office is not a 100%, but, you know, 90 plus percent focusing on conditions of confinement and release issues, those rule seventy four and seventy five issues that we've been talking about for furlough revocations. And we've always been doing the parole stuff. And then medical is a huge issue. I don't know how to solve that issue.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So, ma'am, you're

[Matthew Valerio (Defender General of Vermont)]: specific.

[Haley [last name unknown] (Vermont Department of Corrections)]: Mean, we're

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: we've got some medical, but we've got housing, we've got placement of housing, search, and then, of course, the PREA. Are you seeing cases coming in at all All

[Matthew Valerio (Defender General of Vermont)]: the time.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Pertaining to some

[Rep. William "Will" Greer (Member)]: of this and

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: to equity? Yes. Has that increased over the years?

[Matthew Valerio (Defender General of Vermont)]: It waxes and wanes with the size of the population. Yep. And the statuses that people are under when they're if they're on their furlough, if they are the issues and rights are different when they're furloughed and when they're paroled, and, of course, on probation. And, you know, I can talk about very specific things. Like, you wanna talk about people who are, you know, like the trans inmate population, for example. I had a meeting for a couple of hours yesterday in anticipation of trying to talk to you with some level of specificity. And those who've been in prisoners' rights for a little bit longer have advised that at any given time, we're dealing with a dozen or so people in the facility who, you know, are dealing with kind of the transition issues. There are a lot more that have gender identity concerns that are not, like, dealing with, like, the gender reassignment, medical issues and the like. That is a very it's relative But to the whole. It's a small population, but it's also kind of growing, and we see more. And so I asked some questions and did some research, and it's one of the things that it didn't surprise me ultimately, but, you know, it's people who kinda fit in that category category, the LGBTQ plus people, tend to have significantly more, statistically, interaction with law enforcement Mhmm. And end up statistically in jail and in the criminal justice system at a higher rate than the general population. And so it doesn't surprise me that that is growing and that it is So as our population waxes and wanes, whether it's in detention Detention is the biggest growth area, although lately, our senates population is also growing. It kind of waxes and wanes with us. We just don't have a huge population relative to other corrections places. So the difference of 100 people makes a huge percentage difference in our population. But we're talking about 100 people. Now, you're one of the 100, you you don't think it's so cool. But it's one of those things that it's going to be kind of inherent in the demographic, that you're going to see this because of what you see with the interactions with law enforcement, the interactions with the justice system, and then ultimately as it filters down to those who end up being incarcerated. They clearly have. And I know you've I haven't been able to listen to really anybody else's testimony on this or alleged counsel, except for what I just kind of was overhearing today. But I'm sure you've heard that they have various different needs and different concerns dangers and the like, and other concerns that involve, you know, PREA issues. Theirs are unique and not easy. You know, they're not easy anywhere, you know? And that translates into facilities as well. The attitudes of people relative to this population that you see in the general public that aren't always positive or welcoming or inviting translate to the people who work in correctional facilities as well. They're the same people who are in the community. And, you know, some adapt, some don't. It's a struggle, whether you're a corrections officer or whether you're working at a DOT. So it's one of those things, you know? What do you want me to tell you about? Because if you have some I actually have a lot of information, believe it or not. I could probably talk for much longer than you want me to.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I think it's just an opportunity for the committee members to ask questions, to see.

[Matthew Valerio (Defender General of Vermont)]: Your bill is about trying to incorporate PRIA into state law so that when the feds basically gut it, which is going to happen under this it's all come on, let's be real, right? Yeah. Whether it's defunding it or you're not gonna be getting any Rights from the federal level are not going to be looked favorably upon for this population. And so if the states want to do something, they've got to do it locally, which may cause other issues with, you know, with this current administration, as we know, creates us You know, we are already a target for a whole bunch of different ways. You know, I look for there are times when I look for federal money, that kind of thing, where, you know, two months before Vermont gets declared a sanctuary state, and then, you know, and then the defender general's office, you may not know this, is charged with representing people in immigration matters that arise out of, like, all of the cases that we do. And this was based on the Padilla v. Kentucky case. But it was the fact that we codified that and placed the burden in the defendant general's office kind of made us a bit of a target for that issue. And so we have to be very sensitive to how we approach these things. It doesn't mean it's unapproachable, but that's just the immigration side. Well, now, know, prisoners' rights also deals with these issues involving gender identity and the like in the prisons. And we become, again, you know, we you know, now we're a big, glowing judge. I don't know. The the only kind of good thing is that we really don't get any not really. We don't get any federal money anyway, because we're defenders, and nobody gives us money from the federal level.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And we have a question here, Troy.

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Yeah. In addition to codifying GRETA at the state level, let me give you just a little more about the genesis of this bill. And it started when a formerly incarcerated trans identified woman reached out to me saying,

[Rep. William "Will" Greer (Member)]: I want to talk to

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: you about what it was like to be a trans woman in the Department of Corrections custody. She spent most of her time out of state, saw in men's facilities, all Kentucky, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Mississippi, talked a lot about her experiences. She started her transition somewhere between Michigan and Pennsylvania, was able to talk very eloquently about how different that experience was in Pennsylvania as compared to Mississippi, and the harm caused to her because she's a trans woman in a men's facility, especially in Mississippi, and wanted to talk to me about how do we do this better in Vermont, she's released. And when she came back, year and a half prior to her release, she was at CRCF. So she also talked about what it was like to be at CRCF as a trans woman, but also seen how that identity may have been maliciously used to get into CRCF by people who maybe should not be there. So this bill tries to thread that needle, to put in place, put in statute parameters for the Department of Corrections for how we're going to treat trans identified people. That has broadened out to the broader gender diverse, intersex transgender, But also give the department some discretion for saying, it might not be appropriate for, despite the fact that you identify or are now identifying, to move you into, in this case, CRCF immediately. Let's do some more deliberate sort of work on that.

[Matthew Valerio (Defender General of Vermont)]: That's why we're here. That case you're describing is not the only one.

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Right. So yeah.

[Matthew Valerio (Defender General of Vermont)]: I mean, we talked yesterday. I'm not gonna talk about specific people. I actually have, like, some facts about some cases, but changed the names to protect the Mhmm. Confidentiality of the people. But it is Prisons are not designed to deal with this stuff. That's bottom line. And I asked We've advocated on behalf of people to move between the Chittenden facility and one of the male facilities. We've advocated that people go from one place to the other. And once they got to where they were, things got worse, not better, and then they wanted to go back. And it's not because the person's being wishy washy. They don't know what's gonna happen.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yeah.

[Matthew Valerio (Defender General of Vermont)]: You know? And they don't know and they don't it's you know, some of it is the attitudes of fractions officers. Some of it is attitudes of particular people. Some of it is attitudes of the inmates they're with. It is and I asked my two senior people yesterday. I said, you know, So what do you do? Like, what's I mean, I'm not an expert in this particular area. And they said, You know what? They wanted me to tell you this specifically. You should have somebody come in, like, who's in who has knowledge of national not I have a lot of empathy for what the Department of Corrections has to go through in addressing all of the issues that they have to address. It's not easy. But you should get somebody who is a nationally recognized expert on these gender identity and transition issues to come in here and talk to you about what best practices are in housing and addressing the needs of this population. Because I just asked, you know, I'm always thinking and never sleeping. And I asked my people, I said, Well, do we need a separate facility just for the trans population? Like, because they don't seem to fit in a women's facility, and they don't seem to fit in a men's facility. And I don't care which place you put them. They're gonna have problems. And they're like, Well, that's for sure. And they had, you know, talked to me about a few cases. And I said, is that in and of And what ends up happening? And I was told, or what ends up happening in cases, they often end up getting isolated, segregated, so that they don't, you know, to keep them safe, they end up effectively getting punished by being segregated, which only causes kind of damage. They end up losing their ability to do jobs. They end up losing their ability to, you know, participate in particular programs and things like that, because they're being segregated so they can be safe. And don't discount the fact that the segregation sometimes, I believe, is it's not just to be safe. It's to be retaliated against. My opinion. And the opinion of people in prisoners' rights as well. What the truth is, I don't know. There's probably a combination of both, because this can get annoying. Like, when you're trying to run a facility for males and you have a, you know, trans female who is not going to the Chittenden facility, they're put in a male facility, and what do you do? And you can't give them a roommate, or you you know, because the roommate is gonna be male, and they're identifying as female and perhaps have already transitioned or partially transitioned, it's not easy. I just brainstorm, you know, what if we had a different place to the person? It's not that many. There's 12, there's 15, whatever it is. Yeah, and then there's a whole other group that's kind of on the way. And then there are other people who are questioning and don't know what they're doing. And so it's not easy to respond to. And I'm not an expert. So they're like, you should really bring in somebody to talk to who is an expert on this stuff. And in an ideal world, what would you do? Now we might not be able to ever get to the ideal world of how to address this population. We might not be able to fund it, or logistics, or staff it, or whatever it is. But at least you'd have somebody talking to you who really could speak from a as an expert on the subject, you know? Because those the challenges are so unique. And the population you know, when you're dealing with a dozen, you know, people on and off over, you know, they said seven years, a dozen at any given time.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: That goes through your office.

[Matthew Valerio (Defender General of Vermont)]: No. That theirs in the world that they that we're aware of.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: You're aware.

[Matthew Valerio (Defender General of Vermont)]: We tend to be aware of them. I mean, that's that's not that's not the hard part. But it's kind of a consistent dozen. It's not the same 12, but it's always somewhere around there, they say 10 to 15. And depending upon how, you know, it depends on what the medical who the medical contractor is, you know, their complaints about go figure, there's complaints about WellPath, you know, and their amenability to dealing with these medical needs. And, you know, there's a complaint recently that they've set up a There are some people who have been approved for gender assignment surgery eighteen months ago. And WellPath created a committee now to review the decision that was already decided eighteen months ago. It's gonna end up in litigation at some point. And, that's not a DOC thing, that's a WellPath thing. Now, WellPath is a contractor, but there's a medical issue involved here. And so it's like you fighting with your insurance company over, Should I get this mole removed because it might develop into cancer? Or is it just me being vain and I want it off my stupid face? Right? It's much more severe than that. But are you over those things? Try arguing over these things. And that's what you're dealing with, you know, with the medical contractor. You know, relative to Priya, if unless if you have more questions about, like, the

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I got a text from house judiciary. They are taking a break, and they're waiting for you.

[Matthew Valerio (Defender General of Vermont)]: Okay. Do you want me to go and come back? Yes.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: You're going to.

[Matthew Valerio (Defender General of Vermont)]: You want me to just go?

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I know. I think this is really important.

[Rep. William "Will" Greer (Member)]: So helpful.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I don't know. How long would you be over next door?

[Matthew Valerio (Defender General of Vermont)]: I hope not long.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Me you gotta come back here.

[Rep. Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: I want us to come knock on the door and bring me back.

[Matthew Valerio (Defender General of Vermont)]: You know? These these got yeah, these got bills.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I think it's really important to hear hear what you

[Matthew Valerio (Defender General of Vermont)]: I have I do have more to say, so I'm happy to come back. They've been trying to get me in on this gun thing for well, they only started it yesterday, which, by the way, is another good move two days before crossover, to bring up a gun bill, because nobody wants to talk about that. Dick Sears used to say, it's a simple little bill.

[Rep. Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: I know.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: They've already got a plan.

[Matthew Valerio (Defender General of Vermont)]: There's only a thousand people in a line waiting outside the door who want to talk about it, but, you know So it'd probably be good if I go take care of that.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Go take it out.

[Matthew Valerio (Defender General of Vermont)]: And then come back. Know?

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Five minutes, ten minutes. What can we have for you?

[Matthew Valerio (Defender General of Vermont)]: I literally hope it's fifteen, twenty minutes tops. I know I have to do it.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And you're lucky.

[Rep. Brian Minier (Member)]: That's the skill you were talking about? Yeah,

[Matthew Valerio (Defender General of Vermont)]: same thing.

[Rep. Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: Alright. Should we go knock on the door in twenty minutes to get in?

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I can text Karen Dawn and say we need him back. Yes. Thank you, Matt.

[Matthew Valerio (Defender General of Vermont)]: I'll I'll be back.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Thank you. Really appreciate it.

[Rep. William "Will" Greer (Member)]: Smart through there. Can I ask you a question?

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I don't if a can of worms and a can

[Rep. Brian Minier (Member)]: of It's pretty bad.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: While we've got time, let's start our line by line, because that will help us out tomorrow. Great deal. Hillary, you don't need to unless you want to get on that seat.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I'm happy to stay

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: here. So we are on draft

[Rep. Gina Galfetti (Member)]: make sure I

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: got the right draft. 3.1. 3.1. So please start reading on page one, and let's go through A and B first. Let's go through section one, which is the intent. This does not show up in the green books. K? Folks okay? It's

[Rep. Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: well done. It's well done. It's well done.

[Rep. William "Will" Greer (Member)]: It's the higher see. It's okay. I do too. I agree.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So let's go into the next section, which is section two. Well, read c here. Section two. Okay. So, section two lays out definitions, and this is just within title 28, which these definitions are just used here in corrections. And there will be a total, if we add all of these definitions, there will be a total of about 18 terms that will be defined in this section, general. So, we're adding a few. And I do have a question, Hillary, in terms of gender identity has the same meaning as one BSA 144. So what does that mean? I mean, what does that definition in one BSA 144 say? Yeah,

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I'm just curious. Let people start reading a little bit. Yep. In one BSA 144, the term gender identity means an individual's actual or perceived gender identity or gender related characteristics intrinsically related to an individual's gender or gender identity, regardless of the individual's assigned sex at birth. Who's that been? 2007.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: 2007? 02/07.

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Surprising. Yeah. That's impressive.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: That is a thesis. 18,

[Rep. William "Will" Greer (Member)]: definition nine,

[Matthew Valerio (Defender General of Vermont)]: page two. Yeah.

[Rep. William "Will" Greer (Member)]: It may means any person, not a child. What what's the definition of a child? Is is there a is

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: that Is is

[Rep. William "Will" Greer (Member)]: this a cut off?

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: But I can do that.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I just

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: It's meant to exclude juveniles, but I can check what what how, and where are tracked, because I suspect it is if this definition is structured that way.

[Rep. William "Will" Greer (Member)]: I just want to go back to number five on

[Rep. Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: She's a lot looking something on

[Rep. William "Will" Greer (Member)]: Yeah, well.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: You can have a

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: No. No. No. Good. She's yeah. Thank you very well. Yeah.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Karen Karen Dolan just texted me with, thanks, with a big. Here

[Rep. Brian Minier (Member)]: you go.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: We want it back. We want it We want it back. And

[Rep. William "Will" Greer (Member)]: Page three, line 13 is for Troy, which it references work group.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yeah. Right. Well, hang on. Hang on.

[Rep. William "Will" Greer (Member)]: Sounds like it's. It

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: sounds on page two here.

[Rep. William "Will" Greer (Member)]: I thought we were just working Well,

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: we can work through, but Hillary is working on something.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Anything that's not underlined is current law that we're not changing. But because this tries to maintain the alphabetical order of the definition section, it's numbering except for those.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So you're still looking for definition of child?

[Rep. William "Will" Greer (Member)]: If that's going to be

[Matthew Valerio (Defender General of Vermont)]: a big hang up, can

[Rep. William "Will" Greer (Member)]: put that in the parking lot.

[Rep. Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: But we should know because different pieces of legislation have adults or children just because it's different.

[Rep. William "Will" Greer (Member)]: Which is why I asked.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Right. That's what I'm I said to him, and we want him back. And she says to me, perfect. That will help us keep him short and sweet. So

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: the answer to that question is earlier in the same section. So there are those three asterisks at the beginning, and it starts at subdivision five. So there's one through four that the bill doesn't repeat because it's not changing the numbering or anyone else. The trial means any person charged with having committed a delinquent act as defined as being written through DSA 40 one-two or adjudicated a delinquent and committed to the custody of the commissioner or

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So I hope that was updated when we have done the Raise the Age and Youthful of Tender.

[Haley [last name unknown] (Vermont Department of Corrections)]: I hope, I hope. Don't

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: want us to go into that.

[Rep. Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: I did want to put that.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: The other machines are not always updated.

[Matthew Valerio (Defender General of Vermont)]: So if it wasn't, then it could be

[Rep. William "Will" Greer (Member)]: a 19 year old. Well,

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: can hold 19 year old, depending it's a listed, it'd be 13.

[Matthew Valerio (Defender General of Vermont)]: If it's not listed.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So for the bill's purposes, the identification, nondiscrimination, and search sections will apply to an individual. But the housing section will place the ordered inmate. So if there's a concern about whether it certainly captures everyone it's intended to, it would be for the housing section.

[Rep. Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: You're saying it could be any person any age.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Individual. Didn't even I'm not going to do all the corrections. Individual. Because there could be any So we use the term

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: could be it's an individual.

[Rep. Brian Minier (Member)]: Or is it?

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yeah. We use the term an individual because it sort of encompasses sets, detainees. It's kind of more of a petrol. Don't wanna go down this road at this point. Think it's You do. It's just a little that could raise a little flag just in general.

[Rep. William "Will" Greer (Member)]: I wasn't looking to do it line by line. Somebody suggested.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: You suggested.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So if there's a problem with the definition I made, it is true of all of Title 28 at this point. But that's something that we can take a look at, I can take a look at, so that Wait a if there's a challenge to the definition, maybe broader in the spokesman.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: What committee? Justice oversight or silage?

[Rep. Brian Minier (Member)]: Well, there's some opportunities there for litigators.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Let's hope not. Let's not bring that to light. So Will, you had a question?

[Rep. William "Will" Greer (Member)]: Yep. I had a quick question. Going back to Subdivision 5, that culturally diverse identities at the very end, maybe I'm just thinking a bit wrong, but how does that pertain to gender diversity exactly?

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: My understanding, and I'll let other folks in the room try to correct me, is that some gender identities are named culturally, but within a certain cultural context, a particular name for a gender identity or a way of being gender diverse. So instead of listing all of those terms, that bucket is intended to cover someone who is gender diverse, falls into the umbrella of gender diverse, but means a word other than non binary gender space or gender conforming that's specific to our culture.

[Rep. William "Will" Greer (Member)]: But you think that it's pretty well defined what that would mean

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: in our intent, just right now? Because it's fleshing out gender diverse, I think it is appropriately general in the sense that it's supposed to capture a number of things within the gender diverse umbrella, but because it's clearly under the gender diverse umbrella, it would be interpreted in that context. Okay, that satisfies me.

[Rep. William "Will" Greer (Member)]: Good question. We're to keep moving on.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Keep keep looking through the definitions. We're on the definitions doing a line by line.

[Rep. William "Will" Greer (Member)]: Got it.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And, Kevin, I think you were out of the room when I mentioned this. These definitions pertain to title 28, so they only pertain to the world of DOC. Correct. K?

[Rep. William "Will" Greer (Member)]: And you probably answered why, but why did we wanna be a nuke in DOC? Why don't we Is a term that's used everywhere else universally? Why are we trying to be special?

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: We're not trying to be special.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I think it's more that in statutory interpretation, there might be reasons to define terms differently depending on the context. So there are a few definitions that are in Title I that apply, unless otherwise specified, as a default for the entire VSA to all titles. But otherwise, different titles will have their own definition section where they're saying, for purpose of our area, this is what it means, adopting a term in Title I as applicable to all titles is just a bigger endeavor because you want to look at any time that term is used anywhere in any title. And there might be different opinions about how that term should be used in different titles. So I think that's the we start small for definitions and a project to adopt a definition for all titles, which is to be a slightly bigger project.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I think I understand. It's how we do legislation across the board. I mean, there'll be definitions in DCF.

[Rep. William "Will" Greer (Member)]: How do you use the word love? Hilio, agape, whatever, one word. You better define what you're talking about. I got it. I got it. I got

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Let's keep reading through the definition sections.

[Rep. William "Will" Greer (Member)]: Wanting us to look at the ones that are not underlined as well, just in case?

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: If you pick something up like Joe picked up child. Write my summer to do list.

[Rep. William "Will" Greer (Member)]: That's the definition of

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: inmate. It's just not a child, not a child.

[Rep. Brian Minier (Member)]: But that is what the statute says.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Right, we know that, but there was a definition in DOC that does decline child. And then that brought a question of, really, that health really? So I find it interesting that correctional officer title definition of correctional officer is also the duties and job classification, monitoring folks on parole and probation. They're considered correctional officers, but we classify them as P and P folks for hiring purposes. I found that one interesting.

[Rep. William "Will" Greer (Member)]: Only because we're on definitions, is the word line three outside traditional What page

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: are you on?

[Rep. William "Will" Greer (Member)]: Page three.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Okay. Where?

[Rep. William "Will" Greer (Member)]: Is the word traditional as opposed to biological?

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So intersex describes an individual with a medical condition, which the individual sexual or reproductive anatomy or chromosomal patterns fall outside traditional markers of female male. And you're wondering what word?

[Rep. William "Will" Greer (Member)]: Traditional. I think biologicals is a better way to think that's traditional.

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: I think

[Rep. William "Will" Greer (Member)]: that it's better for

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: don't think she can win. Hilary?

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: It has a different meaning. There are some times where we replace a word and it's a different way of saying the same thing. Replacing traditional with biological here would be a different meaning. I guess my understanding of why this medical condition is defined this way is that one of the traditional markers of, or I use traditional math, one way medically that someone could be determined female or male is based on chromosomes. And some intersex individuals have chromosomes that are not what is recognized as male or what is recognized as female, which is why I'm just not sure that biologically captures the medical condition. Because biologically they have Anyway,

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I'm not

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: an expert on this medical condition. I'm happy to look at how other medical societies define it to see if they use the word biological or suggest that there's another way to say this. But before doing that, I would want to check that before offering to the committee changing it.

[Rep. William "Will" Greer (Member)]: I'm not suggesting it. I'm simply questioning it since it's in the definition, and I do understand there's a major difference between traditional and biological. Maybe

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: in the medical field, that's typically quite different.

[Rep. William "Will" Greer (Member)]: Oh, that was an question. I'm wondering, where did you source this definition?

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes, this is the definition used in DOC's policy.

[Rep. William "Will" Greer (Member)]: In DOC's policy, okay.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah, which is the approach taken for the ones that we added. I'm going to check the mean, folks should keep reading. I will look at a few of the sources I originally pulled, which are from a more medical place, and just see if they offer self cover ways of saying this or purposes of answering what work is traditional doing there.

[Jennifer [last name unknown] (Constituent Services Unit Director, Vermont DOC)]: When we use the definition with training, biological, because it's really attached to a medical definition, tends to mean the presence of something or not the presence of something. And as we've gotten better with science, when you're talking about like a chromosomal breakdown, that's not necessarily seen as biologic because it's not necessarily an anatomy. And so those traditional markers tend to be more fluid because it's not things you're seeing. So there may be aspects of a person that don't fit within the older definitions. We don't use the term hermaphrodite anymore, Not because it's discriminatory, because it's just not scientifically accurate. Hermaphrodite means it has to have the presence of both. And what we've since learned is, because we're so good at science, not everybody has both. Some people, they may not have a uterus, but that doesn't mean they have a penis. And so that's why the term, universally, we tend to see the term traditional versus biological, because people tend to think biological means I'm going to see something and you may not see anything.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So Hillary, I just want to be clear for the definitions, the new definitions that are here, have been picked up from DOC policy. For gender diverse,

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: intersex, and transgender? Yes. For gender pronoun and honorific, those were in the bill as introduced. I believe we heard testimony that they are consistent with DOC policy, But I did not draft this bill originally, and so I cannot say that they were taken from the DOC policy. The ones that have been added that are not defined in statute, like gender identity, were taken from DOC policy.

[Rep. Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: Is there any other policy that we listed differently?

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Any other

[Jennifer [last name unknown] (Constituent Services Unit Director, Vermont DOC)]: mean, as a from

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: non agency policy or I did not look at essentially

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I want to

[Rep. Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: keep it consistent if you've not looked at it.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Right. I think that is one reason to keep this in Title 28. But if we are in Title 28, the agency definitions that will apply to the Department of Corrections from a policy perspective. The subcommittee did consider whether to use some other sources of definitions. There are medical organizations to ask for other state definitions, there are options. The crisis will be took, I think, from a won't speak for them, but from maybe a practicality standpoint and ability to implement this, that the department definitions that worked in their policy and that those captured what we were trying to capture.

[Jennifer [last name unknown] (Constituent Services Unit Director, Vermont DOC)]: Korea does have a definition. They use the word definitions as opposed to biologic or characteristics. A person whose sexual or reproductive anatomy or pronk soul syndrome does not seem to fit typical definitions of male or female. Intersex medical conditions are sometimes referred to as disorders of sex. So definitions.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Thank you. So, I

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: missed some of this conversation. Definition one.

[Rep. Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: I was asking if there was other definitions of what tradition or biological of other agencies or states or whatever, and it mostly goes from the language of DOC, but you just read

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: What Jen just offered, which is one of the possible sources, is the federal PREA has some definitions in the regulations. There are some definitions in PREA guidance. And so the definition for intersex, which I'm not sure if that's in the regulations or the guidance, we can double check. It's in the regulations Intersex means a person whose sexual or reproductive anatomy or chromosomal pattern does not seem to fit typical definitions of male or female. Intersex medical conditions are sometimes referred to as disorders of sex development. So one option the committee could consider is if typical better captures the tone or the meaning that the committee wants. It could be patterns fall outside typical markers of female or male, at least based on how PREA defines it, which, as we've talked about, PREA is governing federal law for a lot of these issues. And so how they are using these terms is a useful direction and helps the department be consistent in its obligations of the way it's defining things. So if there's any part of that definition, and I can bring it up on my screen if people want to see it. I was going say see it visually, which is repetitive. But anyway, if anyone wants to see it on the screen, I can bring it up. And if there were parts of that definition that may be preferred or thought were clearer, getting back to be another option.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So I go back to this particular definition as well as gender diverse intersex and transgender were all They're currently all part of DOC policy. This is how they're defined in DOC policy. And I think it would be really important at this point to track what current DOC policy, their directives. I mean, those are actual directives and policies. So no more, so there's any more confusion that we track what currently DOC has in their directives and policies. Not to add any

[Jennifer [last name unknown] (Constituent Services Unit Director, Vermont DOC)]: more confusion.

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: That was the

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Intent. Right?

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Well, that's where the subcommittee landed as well. That needs to align wherever possible.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yeah, it's really important to align with current practices within DOC. Is

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: There's an intention to change how DOC is doing things or thinking about things because a different definition would suggest an intent to change. So if that is not present, then that is an advantage to keep saying the definitions consistent with the departments.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So was the committee okay with the current definition on top of page three?

[Rep. William "Will" Greer (Member)]: Yes.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So, let's keep going here. So the last definition is on page four, lines thirteen fourteen. That one, again, is through the DOC's directives and policies. Okay.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And again, slight modification for statute, as we talked about the other day, but this is not verbatim. We generally, when we put definitions in statute, say either the term describes or the term means. So that's one small difference, but that's not substantive.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Anything else on the definitions before we move to section three? Section three deals with gender identification and nondiscrimination, which first a deals with the overall that the DOC would ensure that I wanna make sure I'm on the right graph. That all individuals are addressed in a manner of consistent with their gender identity. That's the overall overarching statement in terms of how the department addresses folks throughout the system. And then when you go to page five, the top, this is One is the booking. Two deals sort of with the booking. And three deals with after someone has gone through booking. It could be a couple days later. It could be a year later. It could be two years later. That's how this section, I'm thinking, operates.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Two has a double application, like you said, sort of it's booking. So if these questions are asked at booking, the individual will not be disciplined under two. And if the questions are asked later, so three says anytime afterwards, the individual can inform staff. If those questions are asked again, then the individual cannot be disciplined for not to disclose complete information at that point, too. So any time these questions are asked in one or asked, whether at booking or later, based on three, then subdivision two says you cannot explain someone for not answering, giving incomplete information.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So I don't know if number three is that clear. Because number one, during the intake process, it's in a private setting, if possible. And the booking rooms are not private, tell you that, around the common area. What? You're talking about my panel? All these All that happens in booking, regardless of who the person is, what their sexual identity is. They're voluntary. The answer is a volunteer. So just keep that in mind. For anyone coming into booking, you can ask, do you have a driver's license? They don't have to tell you. Are you on medication? They can tell you half of what they're on, not the other half. So it's all voluntary. So just that's true for anybody going through booking. Mhmm. So number one is for folks in booking.

[Rep. William "Will" Greer (Member)]: I'm sorry. When isn't it voluntary? We don't I'm not trying to be funny. We don't interrogate anybody. Isn't it always voluntary? Is there every time where DOC can forcibly get information from someone? I'm trying to understand why you're emphasizing that it's voluntary.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So that everyone knows what the booking process is. Yep. And that it is across the board, whatever information the person who's coming in to be booked, whatever information is given to the booking person, it's all voluntary, the person coming in. Just that's where it works. I just want members to know that this isn't anything specific for folks with gender identity. This is not specific for them, maybe not volunteering how they identify yourself. It's not a carve out. But

[Rep. William "Will" Greer (Member)]: Doctor. Euliger said too, it was either last year or this year, that people do come in and they have walls up initially, but then after a few days, they kind of loop back around and touch base with them if they're going to stay there longer, and they do share more with them when they've come down and stuff. So, you know, human nature, you're gonna go into a place like that. It's not like we're gonna you know, it's probably probably He said it morning. He said that again too. Yeah. Yeah. No. No. That's natural. I was just trying to understand the significance of saying

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Voluntary. Yeah.

[Rep. William "Will" Greer (Member)]: It's always voluntary. You Yep. We don't string anybody up and well, no. I'm not trying to be funny. I'm trying to understand Right. The purpose of I got you.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Straight into something. So I do have a question. Number three, after intake, the individual may inform designated staff of their gender identity. And then you got to repeat the process in subdivision one. It does not refer to to, where the person would not be disturbed.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: The language of two hinges on the language of one. So the way two is drafted, anytime the questions in subdivision one are asked, an individual shall not be disciplined or refusing to answer them or giving incomplete information. So even though three itself does not say ask them again and also two applies, two itself will apply any time one happens, any time the question is about to occur. One option that could make that even clearer is if you swapped the order of two and three, Then you have, it clarifies that two is not just at initial intake. But I don't think that's necessary to make that clear because the language of two, I think, from at least a statutory perspective, is clear that any time the questions in one are asked, individual cannot be disciplined for immediate answers. But putting it after three is one way to kind of signal this isn't just initial intake. It's not like Subdivision 1 is intake, Subdivision 2 is intake at any time, Subdivision 3 is at any time. And you could even add at any time. I'll do it a little differently, but you could also add language about any time to subdivision too. So if you wanted to be super clear that to apply any time, you could say something like, an individual shall not be disciplined for refusing to answer or for not disclosing the in response to the questions pursuant to subdivision 1 of this subsection I don't like any time at any time at the end. But anyway, I could come up with a good place to put at any time in Subdivision 2. That would be another way to signal that it always applies. So if Minnie likes that clarity, I'm happy to do that on the next draft.

[Rep. William "Will" Greer (Member)]: It just says it's on the Subdivision 1, right, of the subsection.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So it says Subdivision 1, which is only

[Rep. William "Will" Greer (Member)]: this. Right.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: It's not this. So if they lie or not lie, but if they yeah. If they refuse to answer Yeah. Any of this in one, this then kicks in. Yeah. Yep. Right? Exactly. So if they refuse, if they're going through that process in one Mhmm. After they've been there a year Mhmm. And then refused to answer, then number two kicks in because number two is kick is connected to number one. Correct.

[Rep. William "Will" Greer (Member)]: Awesome.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Great. Let's just get through number four down on page five, and then we'll go to Matt.

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Did we I'm fine keeping it one, two, and three as is in the same order.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I don't think we I need

[Rep. William "Will" Greer (Member)]: think so,

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: once we understand how it Yeah. Let's go to four, which is a new four. And this was a way to address the volunteer section as well as contractors. Yes. Proportional to their level of interaction with inmates. So that piece right there, A, one, two, three, and four, is for gender identification and how you address the person. That's what it's meant. Okay? That's the overarching process for DOC. And then at the top of page six is your nondiscrimination clause.

[Rep. William "Will" Greer (Member)]: Right? And we got rid of that funky meaning based on what we really protected category. Just left it alone.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yep. That's gonna be one complete

[Rep. William "Will" Greer (Member)]: And that's just one big sentence or paragraph. So

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: you cannot discriminate a person's search classification, their housing or programming placement, based solely on their anatomy.

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Or other physical characteristics.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Or other physical characteristics.

[Rep. Brian Minier (Member)]: Like a sweet mustang.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I'm glad I missed that one. Please.

[Rep. William "Will" Greer (Member)]: Sweet mustang.

[Rep. Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: Oh, Jesus Christ.

[Rep. William "Will" Greer (Member)]: Now that means I get to ask another dumb question.

[Rep. Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: Uh-huh. Uh-oh.

[Rep. William "Will" Greer (Member)]: Uh-oh. Here we go. Uh-huh. Eight. Give me an example, please. Line eight. Line eight of page five. Yep.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Page five.

[Rep. William "Will" Greer (Member)]: Page five. Line eight, page five. What's an example where it's appropriate to discipline someone for refusing to answer?

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: You mean within corrections in general?

[Rep. William "Will" Greer (Member)]: Yeah. Well, yeah. This says we can't discipline them for refusing. So, what would be an example where it is appropriate to discipline someone for not giving you an answer?

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I don't know if Hayley heard this or not.

[Haley [last name unknown] (Vermont Department of Corrections)]: Sorry, where did you hear the question?

[Rep. William "Will" Greer (Member)]: I'm trying to learn. I'm not projecting. Line five, line eight on page five refers to an individual shall not be disciplined for refusing to answer. I'm asking, what would be an example when it is appropriate to discipline someone for not giving an answer? About anything or just a specific reason? Anything throughout the professional Whatever.

[Rep. Gina Galfetti (Member)]: Yeah, like everyone. I represented somebody one time inmate bragged to all his friends that he peed in the guy's iced tea. Correctional officer, right? Said, Did you pee on the iced tea? Uh-huh. I'm not answering you. Right? I'm not answering you. What do you do in that case, right?

[Rep. William "Will" Greer (Member)]: So they do discipline on that?

[Rep. Gina Galfetti (Member)]: My recollection was there was some discipline on that. This was so many Yeah. Years But that would be an example, right?

[Rep. William "Will" Greer (Member)]: That's exactly what I missed. So under a situation like that, refusal is guilty.

[Rep. Gina Galfetti (Member)]: Yeah, I mean, yeah, he said hepatitis is a I'm

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: with you. More hepatitis, yeah. Was more spreading of issues like

[Rep. Brian Minier (Member)]: It's a big

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: deal.

[Haley [last name unknown] (Vermont Department of Corrections)]: You. The languages in the bill is included because that's consistent with what is in Korea standards. But regards to your kind of earlier question of discipline that might extend outside of these circumstances, Lack of answer is not guilty. It's based on a preponderance of evidence.

[Rep. William "Will" Greer (Member)]: Fair enough.

[Haley [last name unknown] (Vermont Department of Corrections)]: But that's not contemplated in adults.

[Rep. William "Will" Greer (Member)]: And that was helpful. Thank you.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Okay. Anything else on the top of page six for the nondiscretion piece? We went through that last one yesterday.

[Haley [last name unknown] (Vermont Department of Corrections)]: Can we backtrack, sorry, to page five? Just identify a slight concern on lines 19 to 21 around the community that volunteers receive, as they do not currently receive comprehensive gender responsive training in the same way that we don't provide volunteers who are there, for example, for religious services, comprehensive training on mental health services. So this would be something that the Department of Caption had for volunteers specifically.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I thought we went round and round on this yesterday. We did. I think it was more so to do with the Doctors? No,

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: the use of gender pronouns in honorific. I think was more of the discussion was focused on the challenges of applying that to volunteers,

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: whereas

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: offering training not necessarily negate the same concerns. But, and Kelly's flagging that, the committee should be aware that if the bill is requiring the department to provide volunteers with gender responsive training, that's not something they currently do for consistency across the board for volunteers. Sounds like all kinds of training provided to volunteers. So if the committee is including this, it would be something the department would need to have.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So are you recommending we should take out volunteers?

[Haley [last name unknown] (Vermont Department of Corrections)]: I think that would be most appropriate, as it's not something that we currently provide, and this would kind of disproportionately add a section to our volunteer training, whereas we don't provide comparable training for other kind of factors in any correctional facilities.

[Rep. William "Will" Greer (Member)]: So maybe like, so line 18, with experience in gender dysphoria or gender affirming care, period, kill the rest.

[Hillary Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: We're on page Page.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I was like, what are you reading?

[Matthew Valerio (Defender General of Vermont)]: I'm reading the wrong

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: thing. Lines 19 to 21.

[Rep. William "Will" Greer (Member)]: I think I can cut I was just looking at the wrong page. I flipped back to the wrong page. So

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: training staff and contractors proportional to their level of interaction with inmates, great. If we want to take volunteers out of there, we're still covered under A. Department shall ensure well, that's addressing training.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: The department shall ensure that all individuals are addressed.

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: You provide every training to volunteer retirement?

[Rep. Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: See, that's what the discussion was. That was so that everyone providing some kind of a service, even volunteers.

[Rep. William "Will" Greer (Member)]: I guess I don't know how switch things. That was.

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Because I think gender responsive training is important if there's gonna be a group of volunteers that are regularly interacting with Department of Corrections inmates that include gender diverse inmates. I don't have a problem with requiring that sort of gender responsive training. But I know where we're going to go with this. We're going to get religious volunteers who have sincerely held religious belief that is in conflict with providing gender responsive contact or services to yeah, I see where I'm sorry, I'm thinking and talking at the same time again.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: You're excused. We're used to it. We all do it. So we went round and round and round on this yesterday and the day before on volunteers. And then we ended focusing more on contractors. I think that's where the language proportional to their level of

[Jennifer [last name unknown] (Constituent Services Unit Director, Vermont DOC)]: interaction with

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: inmates came up was more in terms of contractors.

[Rep. William "Will" Greer (Member)]: Right,

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: right. But we never did resolve the issue of volunteers. Volunteers that come into the facility, there's a variety of volunteers. They have to work with a volunteer coordinator that's there at each facility, and they have to be approved. And there's quite a extensive process for them to be approved.

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Right. So the volunteer coordinator could be well trained.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Volunteer coordinator could be trained, but they're part of DOC staff. Which we

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: already defined. Right. So the volunteer coordinator has been trained, according to this, has received gender response training. And if we find ourselves in a glitch where a certain volunteer who wants to be a volunteer, let's

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: have

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: the volunteer coordinator handle that.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: A takeout volunteer.

[Rep. Brian Minier (Member)]: Think we're okay.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Folks? I

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: think we're okay. And

[Jennifer [last name unknown] (Constituent Services Unit Director, Vermont DOC)]: just to add too,

[Haley [last name unknown] (Vermont Department of Corrections)]: we do provide free of training for our volunteers.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Good. That confirms what you said. Oh, sorry. No, that's good. That works.

[Rep. Brian Minier (Member)]: That's

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: perfect. So let's take out for one chair. Okay. Now what? Contractors. That's all right. Because we advise contractors to proportional to their level of interaction with them.

[Rep. William "Will" Greer (Member)]: Okay. That's alright. Gotcha.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So I'm looking at the time. I know Matt has come back.

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: I'll

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So come let's put you back in the hot seat because I know you wanted to share some more things. So when we come back to Line by Line

[Rep. Brian Minier (Member)]: Section four.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: It will be Section four. They

[Haley [last name unknown] (Vermont Department of Corrections)]: didn't keep you in there very long.

[Rep. Brian Minier (Member)]: The first thing I wanna hear about is that. Mess,

[Matthew Valerio (Defender General of Vermont)]: Mhmm. Well, you know, these it's really hard, as you and I've said this before, I've said it to you folks, when you are trying to legislate around a constitutional right.

[Rep. William "Will" Greer (Member)]: And

[Matthew Valerio (Defender General of Vermont)]: I just say, Hey, you know, when you start dealing with these direct rights issues, you have to tailor it as narrowly as possible, or you're gonna end up having a problem. Even though, you know, Hey, what you wanna do might be a great idea, but it might not be constitutional.

[Rep. Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: And

[Matthew Valerio (Defender General of Vermont)]: so this is what we're gonna And do you do then everybody tries to convince me, you know, Like, they're trying to convince you their idea is good. I don't care

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: what you

[Matthew Valerio (Defender General of Vermont)]: did. I'm

[Rep. William "Will" Greer (Member)]: like, we're Yeah.

[Rep. Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: That's what we love about

[Matthew Valerio (Defender General of Vermont)]: you. Representing we're representing a client who has an interest. And if you're if what you've done has infringed upon some right or work, even if it hasn't, and we have a way to resolve the client's problem through litigation, we're gonna do it. It's not personal. It's just business. But, you know, we I'm not, like I'm not making a judgment.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: That's what I entered to plea deals. I know.

[Matthew Valerio (Defender General of Vermont)]: I'm I'm not I'm not making a judgment about whether you're right or wrong, whether I like you or don't like you. It's just what we do, you know, what lawyers do. So it's possible, though, that

[Rep. William "Will" Greer (Member)]: sometimes you don't like them. Frequently. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. But

[Matthew Valerio (Defender General of Vermont)]: it's not not necessarily. Understood. Yeah.

[Rep. Brian Minier (Member)]: I mean, But something could be a great idea, feel good, and just be like, it could be unconstitutional.

[Matthew Valerio (Defender General of Vermont)]: And, you know, we don't have to love all our clients either.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Or their

[Matthew Valerio (Defender General of Vermont)]: issues. Or the result that we're gonna get for them because they're gonna you know? But it's the job. And you're either gonna do the job or you're not gonna do the job. So if you're not gonna

[Haley [last name unknown] (Vermont Department of Corrections)]: do it, you don't want

[Rep. Brian Minier (Member)]: do this.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Before. Is that what you've said, Mary?

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Then and then what if they're allowed?

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And don't know what what's gonna I think we're gonna have a lot paperwork today.

[Rep. William "Will" Greer (Member)]: Were

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Be prepared tomorrow. We're gonna have a long day.

[Matthew Valerio (Defender General of Vermont)]: I was talking I spent most of the time talking about the gender identity issues and, you know, trans inmate issues, but the PREA issues are significantly more important, more broad, a much more important, broadly broader of an issue. And like the federal implications of, again, you know, being a state that the feds go one way, we go the other way, you understand that. You and I talked for a minute yesterday, because I wanna know what the heck you guys were actually talking about.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: You could be the riot act.

[Matthew Valerio (Defender General of Vermont)]: Oh, no. I just said, what? Were you kidding me two days before I cross over? We've both been here one hundred years. You know this. And so one of the things that you asked me to talk about is, Do we, does the Defender General's Office, get PREA compliance? We don't get PREA complaints. That's not where you complain to make a PREA complaint. People will talk to us about issues that implicate PREA complaints that are then made through the process at the Department of Corrections. Inmates complain to us about the PREA complaint process. They complain to us about the PREA complaint system. They complain to us about what happened to my PREA complaint. So do we get those? All the time, from facilities, all facilities. And we do not investigate complaints. Right? We investigate and sometimes litigate the DOC response to PREA complaints.

[Rep. William "Will" Greer (Member)]: We

[Matthew Valerio (Defender General of Vermont)]: it is something that is inherent in correctional facilities.

[Rep. William "Will" Greer (Member)]: Not Vermont only, but What is inherent? Three of implants. Okay.

[Matthew Valerio (Defender General of Vermont)]: They're everywhere all the time. They're in Vermont. They're everywhere else. And some are legit and some aren't. And my concern as defender general and the prisoners' rights office concern regarding PREA complaints is that they are handled expeditiously, appropriately, and that inmates are not disadvantaged by either making or not making complaints.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Mhmm.

[Matthew Valerio (Defender General of Vermont)]: You don't want them to be deterred from making complaints. And you don't want them to be somehow disadvantaged or retaliated against if they do make them. You wanna make sure that the process is followed and that the result, whatever it is, is fair. And is it always? No. Is it it's a this is a hard area, you know, where you've got power dynamics in a correctional facility. But the power dynamics go both ways. Mhmm. You know? Making a PREA complaint gives inmates power. Being a corrections officer also has clear power dynamic. So this is a very complicated area. This isn't so clean-cut as as that, you know, the inmates are abusing the guards, and as a result, there's a PREA complaint. Or that there's one inmate abusing another inmate, and that creates another prea complaint and another dynamic, or that somebody's ignoring my complaint, or whatever it is. These are very complicated power dynamics that are at work here. The only thing that we can attempt to do is to ensure that the process is good and robust and

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yeah.

[Matthew Valerio (Defender General of Vermont)]: Fair and quick, in my view. DOC, during my tenure, Korea wasn't always as big of a concern. Yeah, I've been, like I said, I've been around twenty five years. Twenty five years ago, it was not as big of a concern as it is now. It's not it hasn't been that long. What do you guys have? Four people who bomb and investigate the office that deals with them? There used to be one person who dealt with all PREA complaints. We're, like, everywhere. And now there's a few people. I don't know the exact number. I think it's, like, four. But they literally used to be, like, one person. We'll see. Yeah.

[Rep. William "Will" Greer (Member)]: Yeah. That's right.

[Jennifer [last name unknown] (Constituent Services Unit Director, Vermont DOC)]: We three. Three in my unit. And traditionally, the corrections yeah, including me. There's three. No, there's three total.

[Matthew Valerio (Defender General of Vermont)]: There's myself and you ballpark. Bottom line is, it's not like you got this giant staff of people dealing with all of these PREA complaints. It's a small group of people. That in and of and, you know, and it is not just like we can't handle all the complaints that come to the prisoners' rights office, they can't handle all the PREA complaints that go to the Department of Corrections. I know that. So what do you gotta do? You have to triage as best you can, investigate as best you can, and then you're gonna have there are inherently going to be problems as a result of that. I get it. You know? And so we have to also sort of triage and figure out what do we know about this inmate? What do we know about, you know, what what are the motivations? What are the power dynamics that person has? It's it's, like I said, this is very complicated stuff. And the only thing I kind of about is you guys, if you guys asked four, we only got four too. How do we look into it? So, you know, I have two investigators and looking into it now, and and and,

[Rep. William "Will" Greer (Member)]: you

[Matthew Valerio (Defender General of Vermont)]: know, they got three people or whatever it is. Bottom line is action does occur when a PREA complaint sets a process in motion that is imperfect. And it doesn't always have the best results. But it also does get good results. Before I was defender general, I had a law practice for fifteen years, more or less. And I used to represent corrections officers who were had disciplinary action, some of which involved PREA violations. Or at then, they were really just talking about, like, frat, fernization kind of issues. It wasn't I don't remember them actually coming up in the context of PREA, per se. But so, you know, relationships, for example, between inmates and corrections officers occurred, do occur, and will continue to occur. And they would be in violation of, you know, if somebody wanted to make a PREA complaint, they could. And I used to represent those folks representing the corrections officers in those administrative proceedings. So these were not unknown to me before I ever became defender general. I just didn't know the context that they would arise, or the fact that it would become more important and more visible as the years went by and PREA became more of a priority, you know, over the last period of years. Some inmates have relayed that they believe that the result of their Ria complaint has resulted in retaliation by the department. And some feel that even though it was not dead on retaliation, the response relative to the complaint disadvantaged them, even though it wasn't a, you know, blatant retaliation, it's just the things that had to be done, transferring them, moving them, taking away a job, taking away or not allowing them to do some activity or privilege or whatever it is, to segregate them from, you know, kind of the investigation or how it responded. Or if an officer ended up being suspended or terminated, What was the response of the other officers, knowing that this person had made a complaint? This is where this is very complicated, least. It is, to me, human nature. And what I say about this, and I've had some number of people come and go from the prisoners' rights office over the last twenty five years. Some have been very, very good lawyers, but could not really stomach this work, those are the ones who want to solve every problem. You can't solve every problem. What we can do our best to do is to make sure that the process is all right. And knowing that it's flawed inherently, that it's under resourced, we just have to put one foot in front of the other and do the best we can every single day for any individual client. And sometimes we can't even do that. But the I think there are things that could be done to make the PREA process more usable and transparent for our clients. I think that they what they think they're going to get by making a complaint is not what they get.

[Rep. Brian Minier (Member)]: Yeah.

[Matthew Valerio (Defender General of Vermont)]: And that's not necessarily that what they get is wrong, but that's not what they thought was gonna happen. I think that they need to understand better kind of what they know, Well, I'm gonna make a preemptive claim. They don't know what happens next. They know Prison Rape Elimination Act. Okay? Fine. Well, what does that entail? You know? So they enter into kind of this abyss of what happens until they go through it. And by the way, it's not the same for everyone. And it also is different in every facility. You know, who you report to also makes a big difference. How you report makes a difference. So I think there's progress that could be made in this area. This is, again, one of those issues where, if there was a best practices expert outside of the department and outside of my office, who could come educate us on maybe what we should do better, or what we could do at all, relative to these complaints, we might be better off. Because right now, we're just doing the best all of us are doing the best we can. And how and that, so we can, you know, get that process in place, how it gets implemented in any individual case and in the field is always going to be a conundrum, as it is, you know, with the differences of any people and how one law enforcement officer enforces the law is different than how another law enforcement officer enforces the law. And how they interact with people, you know, some people are just jerks and some people are perfectly nice. And they're both trying to do the exact same thing, it just comes off different, you know? And so that all of those things go into this process, but it's such a sensitive area that it, you know, that it bears scrutiny and constant review, and not internally. You know, we have to let people from the outside look at what we're doing and advise us. And then, you know, periodically, Not just when, like, kind of the stuff hits the fan. You know? This is a you know, I was talking earlier about, like, the Mark Zuglaffa report. Do you remember the one before that, the Carragher report?

[Haley [last name unknown] (Vermont Department of Corrections)]: Oh, yeah, I remember that one.

[Matthew Valerio (Defender General of Vermont)]: And then you remember the one after that, the, you know, the most like, I've been around now for three levels of reports on similar activity. And, you know, the Downs Rack and Martin report was the next one. Right? So they're one after another after another. Well, it's we shouldn't do it just when we have a crisis or just when we have a know, you part of our job is to try to make sure but, you know, people come and go. I'm around long enough to know about Carriage or Marks McLaughlin and Downs Rack McMartin. And nobody in my current prisoners' rights office was around for anyone except for the it's not one was around for the Downs Rackland one. All the other ones don't know about any of the other stuff. So it's context. And, you know, anything I've learned over time with this context is this kind of this external review of what we do is always a good thing. And, you know, we can't we'll never be able to get I don't think we can implement best all best practices. We don't have the money, we don't have the people, we don't have over just the generalized resources. But we can it gives us something to aspire to. And that ball, it changes, you know, it moves. And so the more we can periodically look at it, the better. I know that, you know, if I had brought in people from the prisoners' rights office, they might have 10 specific things that they wanna do. We're not gonna do that before crossover. Right? So that might be something for joint justice oversight in the future. It might be something for The other thing that they tell me, and this is true, to be honest, they are litigators. They are lawyers. They are not politicians. You know? When lawyers come here to communicate, they talk like lawyers, and it pisses you people off.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I don't understand them.

[Matthew Valerio (Defender General of Vermont)]: Well, they communicate differently, you know? And they mean no harm. But that's why they sent me, because I communicate more like you want to be communicated with. You know, bringing in a litigation prisoner's rights office person, you know, I get them. But I cross over both worlds. They don't. And so that's why you get me instead of them.

[Rep. William "Will" Greer (Member)]: I do appreciate the straight talk.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Well, I appreciate you making the the time, Matt. I hope it's been helpful for the committee to at least get a handle of what's happening with the person that's rights office, also about how that works in with DOC, back and forth. We're scheduled to be on the floor here in about four minutes or so. Are there any questions for you?

[Matthew Valerio (Defender General of Vermont)]: I would just say, overall, that we work I would not always say collaboratively, but it's not hostilely to the Department of Corrections. When we file lawsuits and the like on behalf of clients, they know we're gonna do it. They understand it's what we do. And we do. And when they do the stuff that they do in response to those lawsuits, I know that that's what they're doing too. So this is, again, this is not personal. This is just what we do, fulfilling our roles in government. And, you know, the tension or lack thereof between the corrections commissioners, people at the very highest levels, have been up and down over the years. But since that first incident with John Gorshick and his then general counsel, it went from, like, being really crappy down here to, it's kinda like here. Sometimes it's really good. Sometimes it's a little bit less. But we're kind of working in this gray area, not like in the gutter down here, which is where where it started. So I'm I'm thankful for that. And we always you know, when there are transitions with with commissioners and changes in mayor general counsel and the like, they all need to be reeducated. I have to kind of talk about some of this stuff, because they don't always understand anything. It's very Some people don't like it when I do this, but I will say, I was very thankful for the time that I spent working with Nick Dempsey. He was He did as much that I've And I don't even know if people in the department appreciated it as much, but he was a stand up guy. He was trying to do the right thing and worked very hard to do it. And I know he ruffled some feathers, but it was all with the best of intentions.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Great to hear. I really appreciate those words, Matt. We're gonna have to close, but I wanna thank you, Matt. Now before anybody leaves, we still for Hillary's schedule.

[Matthew Valerio (Defender General of Vermont)]: I leave?

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yes. You can leave. I'm talking about the committee numbers. Oh, okay. Sorry.

[Matthew Valerio (Defender General of Vermont)]: I literally have

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Depending how late we go on the floor. If you're worried about tomorrow, tomorrow's our last day. I don't want to be here till five, 06:00 on Friday. We have to should we come back. I would like to come back if possible. Least I mean, we've got to go through the line by line on the searches, classification of housing and program placement. And then the rest of it is PREA, which I think we're pretty solid on. Yep. And then report back of PREA. Because it would

[Rep. Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: be easier for all of us.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: It'd be easier for her

[Rep. Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: to work tonight so that Hillary Correct. Work. We're You know,

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: we have to work to do that.

[Rep. William "Will" Greer (Member)]: No. Hillary wants to be here until we

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yeah. He's what he does. So if we could come back here after the floor, and even if it's 05:00, if we can come back and see if we can get done in forty five

[Rep. William "Will" Greer (Member)]: minutes or so. Just show attention all night, would you? What time?

[Rep. Gina Galfetti (Member)]: 05:30.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Your excuse if you have to be here.

[Rep. Gina Galfetti (Member)]: Oh, yeah. We got a vote tonight.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Oh, god. We have a joint meeting next we have a joint session next Friday.

[Rep. Gina Galfetti (Member)]: We booked it for the week after.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: It's the twenty sixth.

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: I think it's the Wednesday.

[Rep. Brian Minier (Member)]: Morning. Good.

[Rep. William "Will" Greer (Member)]: So let's

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: go out with you two. We'll be back here.