Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Unidentified speaker]: Alright. I guess I Alright, everyone. Welcome back. It is quarter. You'd let's do

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: yes. We before we pick up our first or this our final order of business before lunch, I would like to acknowledge and welcome our newest member, representative Scully. How are you, sir?

[Representative Scully (first name unknown)]: I'm fine. I am fine. And the ride was lovely this

[Lucy Boyden (Clerk)]: morning. Good.

[Representative Scully (first name unknown)]: The fog banks were a source of comfort as I passed through. And I saw one of my fellow legislature legislators whom I have not yet met in in person, but I really was concerned about the swiftness with which he was exercising, to have an arrival here at the State House, certainly that exceeded mine.

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: State form is I'm

[Representative Scully (first name unknown)]: not bashful. I'm not bashful.

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Observation.

[VL Coffin IV (Member)]: They've had a great sense of urgency.

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Great. That could be. Yeah. House or Senate, got a number or seat number off that 10, sir? Yeah. It's fine. Okay.

[VL Coffin IV (Member)]: So we'll we'll we'll go to

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: the sergeant at arms and get you a tie after and we'll chitchat about a plate number. So with that, let's just take a quick second to introduce ourselves formally at the table for you, sir. And we'll start to my right.

[Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: Sorry. Representative Lisa Hango, I'm vice chair of the committee. I serve Franklin V, which is four towns on the Canadian border in Northwestern Vermont. Hi, Representative Lucy Boyden, the clerk of

[Lucy Boyden (Clerk)]: the committee. I serve Lamoille 3, which is Cambridge, a while ago. Sandy Pinsonault, I serve Bennington Rutland one which is five towns in the Southwestern corner.

[Michael Morgan (Member)]: I'm Michael Morgan and I'm all of Grand Isle County towns in Western Glen Mills.

[VL Coffin IV (Member)]: I'm VL Coffin, and I serve Windsor District 2, which is Cavendish, Weathersfield in Baltimore.

[Mary-Katherine Stone (Member)]: Mary-Katherine Stone, Chittenden Fourteen Burlington, part of the Hill section, Champlain College, gateway to downtown.

[Kate Nugent (Member)]: Yeah, the representative of Hooper, Randolph is en route. He will introduce himself later. I'm Kate Nugent, I represent a part of South Burlington.

[Chea Waters Evans (Ranking Member)]: I'm Chea Waters Evans, I'm a ranking member of the committee. I'm from Charlotte, and I represent Charlotte. I'm part of Hinesburg. I

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: represent Matt Birong, chair of the committee, Northwest Addison County, Virginia's, Waltham, Panton, Ferrisburg, Addison, and about a third of New Haven. So that's my church. Thank you all. Yeah.

[Representative Scully (first name unknown)]: And thank you for your service.

[Lucy Boyden (Clerk)]: Welcome. You, sir.

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Yeah. You as

[Lucy Boyden (Clerk)]: well. Stepping up. Alright.

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Now onto onto matters of state. So we have with us, Rutland now, and he is going to discuss with us some language from eight 05:41 that, his committee and senate judiciary had asked us to consider for inclusion in our Voting Rights Act. So with that, representative, walk us through what we're considering. Yes. So hello, everyone.

[Representative Ian Goodnow]: My name is Ian Goodnow. I am a representative from Wyndham District 9, which is, a third of Rattleboro, the downtown portion. So as you'll recall back before crossover, at some point, I did a walk through with alleged counsel for House Bill H five forty one, which is an act related to voter and election official intimidation. And that passed out of the House and went to the Senate. And now I think what we're hoping to do is put that language back into S two ninety eight, which is your Vermont Voting Rights Act bill. Mr. Chair, happy to kind of I can go back through a walkthrough of the bill, or I I think I would start with just saying that having gone through S-two 98 briefly before coming to talk to you all, you're looking at things like interference with voting, intimidation of election officials, intimidation of voters. This all matches and is pretty logical to put this language in. It looks like from the Senate side, was an attempt to do this already, as far as I can tell. If you guys are looking at S-two 98, they're on page four and five. Starting on lines 16, there's an intimidation of election official officers. And then on page five, on line three, intimidation of voters with a civil cause of action. So it looks like they bifurcated the H-five 41 into two separate things, intimidation for voters and interference with election officials. As you'll recall, age five forty one was a singular criminal penalty for any kind of interference with a voter, be them an election any voter or election official, and did it as a singular thing. I think I would just suggest for the committee, when you're looking at this, that you think about what we did with H541 was mimic the federal voter intimidation law. And that is important because we are dancing in a pretty dangerous territory when it comes to free speech, First Amendment rights, and the potential for a chilling effect when it comes to poll stations and voters. So as we move further away from what constitutionally has been tested and is considered constitutional to federal crime, as we make the language more different or varied from what that was, there could be a potential constitutional challenge. And these will get challenged. I think that's our understanding from testimony. So that's my only thing. Having reviewed it, the language is fairly similar, but what we did is we basically took the language exactly and then updated it a little bit based on some fairly recent case law. This has changed it a little bit more than that. And so I think that would be my only concern or you might want to just hear a little bit about that.

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Based on the conversation with Senate Judiciary Chair, was more of a focus on Section one, perhaps. Yeah. Yeah. This language in and around from yeah. The ballots. Sorry. I just I got so many tabs open. Yeah. They're showing the ballot.

[Representative Ian Goodnow]: That that's what so sorry. What as that was conversation in the senate that they

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: That was the one to really like, he was clear that that was, like, the one section that he wanted us to focus on, but I didn't know if that made sense to you folks having busy shepherds of the original bill.

[Representative Ian Goodnow]: Oh, interesting. Because that's not in this new S-two 98 at all. No, no, no. That's the inclusion of that Oh, I apologize. So I misunderstood. I mean, showing it's existing law. I guess it would probably make sense for it to go in the voter Vermont Voting Rights Act. That would be pretty logical. I think I did talk about this when I did the walkthrough. Some of this language is antiquated. Showing the ballot language. It had to do with a lot of laws across the country back at the turn of the century when there was a lot of concern about buying people's votes. And so they were trying to figure out ways to protect against that type of voting fraud. And one of the ways that people were buying votes, they were enforcing a purchase of a vote, to show the ballot to the person that was buying the vote from you. And so the criminalizing showing the ballot was a way to try to address it. So it's an old law. When we looked at it as part of our bill, we updated the language, and then we took out anything that was relevant to what we were adding into a new section. And then we just left it alone because it hasn't been doing any harm, and there could be a potential reason to use it. But I know if it's ever been used in Vermont. Does that make sense? So I don't know if you guys to add it in, Ken.

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: That seems to be the conversation. That was the direct request from Senate Judiciary, hey, and this is your bill. So I wanted to just talk about the continuity of that.

[Representative Ian Goodnow]: Yeah. I think it would make sense. Object. Yes. Yes. Okay. Yeah. And I guess I would say with section two, you did change it. Wanna Looking at that. Might wanna look at that a little bit. I guess I and I apologize, mister chair. I didn't realize we were just talking about section one. Yeah. No. No.

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: No. That was I forwarded an email a little while ago that I had only received a little while ago with a clarification from senate judiciary. Sure. I see. So we have a lot of moving parts going this week, so that is not a problem at all. Okay. So that's what we're clearing up right here. Yeah. You know, because we're gonna forward to new drafts of the bill itself for, review next week. So this is just one of the one of the components that we're poking at right now. So section two as well. Okay.

[Representative Ian Goodnow]: Yeah. I I think the last thing I would say on section one as far as, so I think it's relevant to put in for sure. I would say we did not take a lot of testimony on section one, because if you look at age five forty one, all we did was update the language to use gender neutral pronouns and remove language from section one. That was now going to be in session two. So we took a little bit of testimony on it, but not a ton. I guess if you're going to poke around with that and decide whether you want to put it in, you might need to.

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Yeah, and I'm thinking I need to check back in Senate Judiciary's chair just to make sure that we're all thinking the same thoughts right now. Yeah. I would I'm I'm all curious. Yeah.

[Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: Curious too.

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Yeah. Okay.

[VL Coffin IV (Member)]: Wrapped off. And I just wanna go back because when you were talking about section two

[Representative Scully (first name unknown)]: Yeah.

[VL Coffin IV (Member)]: Talking on five forty one Yep. Interference with voters and election officials. Yes. That is a closer look at what is federal statute and has been proven to be constitutionally acceptable?

[Representative Ian Goodnow]: Yes. I want to correct myself. It hasn't been found unconstitutional. I think actually the testimony was it has never really been challenged, but it's been on the books for a while. Yes, so the language in H541, Section two is very similar. The only thing it changed was, if you're looking at H541, line 19 on page one, no person shall intentionally or recklessly intimidate for intercourse. So the intentionally or recklessly language came from a 2,000 think, do you think it was 2024 case that was about this question around chilling effect of voter intimidation. And we pulled that to put it in Europe so that we actually had the most upstate what was consistent constitutional language. That, if you look at S-two 98, I think they do keep that.

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: No, actually they don't.

[Mary-Katherine Stone (Member)]: Person will intentionally recklessly intimidate, it is in there.

[VL Coffin IV (Member)]: Intentionally. Yeah. They threaten coerced intentionally.

[Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: Yep. That word is. But

[Representative Ian Goodnow]: they took out the

[VL Coffin IV (Member)]: reckless Took out the recklessly.

[Representative Ian Goodnow]: So so they did some changes. I don't really know totally why. So I haven't really talked to judiciary.

[Unidentified speaker]: The usual question as it pertains to

[Representative Ian Goodnow]: the upper chamber. Yeah, so I'd be curious about that. And I would be I just noted it as a little bit of an asterisk, oh, just make sure that was there for We really intentionally did it this way to protect against a constitutional challenge.

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Okay. I guess that gives us something to work on with this. Yes. Another question. Just another footnote for us to discuss and take testimony on as we consider the inclusion of this stuff into the health. So yeah. Yeah.

[VL Coffin IV (Member)]: For me, I'd like to stay, know, make sure we're within the constitution. We're not

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: That is always going

[VL Coffin IV (Member)]: out that that's why I wanna had to ask that question.

[Representative Ian Goodnow]: Yeah. Yeah. And maybe and they may have heard additional testimony in senate judiciary that narrowed it. Maybe this narrowing language actually is protects it more. I would just wanna hear that. Yeah.

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Any other question? Do have a question?

[Mary-Katherine Stone (Member)]: No, I was just pointing that out.

[Lucy Boyden (Clerk)]: Okay. Gotcha.

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Yeah. Else we're up to doing right now? No. Thank you, member. We appreciate your time.

[Representative Ian Goodnow]: Thank you very much. Great to meet

[Representative Scully (first name unknown)]: You too. Good to meet you.

[Lucy Boyden (Clerk)]: Thank you. Alright,

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: team. Yeah. I mean, I guess if, folks have curiosities about the sessions and the testimony we've talked about this, I think the goal, and we can talk about this more, tomorrow, during committee, is to really start honing some stuff in for revisions in and around this bill. And so

[Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: Yes? Counsel had Nick post a side by side of the two bills, which is really helpful, it's color coded. So I think that will help us in our discussion. Yes.

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: So, with that, barring any further questions or commentary on this subject matter or others. All right, we will that's it for today. We're anticipating, a decent amount of time on the floor today. So we have nothing scheduled for committee work this afternoon. We will be back tomorrow morning. And 09:30? 09:30 on the floor. Yeah. And then the only thing we have lined up for testimony right now is 01:00, continued testimony on the charter proposal.

[Lucy Boyden (Clerk)]: So we have an estimated time of

[Representative Scully (first name unknown)]: 05:00 before we're

[Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: done. Betsy Han.

[Lucy Boyden (Clerk)]: No. Tomorrow.

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: When we're done.

[Lucy Boyden (Clerk)]: Probably 05:00 on Friday.

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: When we're done, probably an hour when we're finished.

[Lucy Boyden (Clerk)]: Is there any way in the future when you talk about, we don't know how long the floors in the HR could be long, but since winter is in the season and Fridays are short on the floor, we could maybe do something like 11:15 to start before lunch.

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: I mean, we have the berth in the morning with the first offshore, I mean, I'd like to do that, but then we wind up sometimes. Yes. I mean, I think it's a worthy goal. In short. Yep.