Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Speaker 0]: Alright. We are live. Everyone. Welcome back. It's shortly after 02:30 on Wednesday, April 22. We are picking up continued work on s c 98 acts relating to creating the Vermont Voting Voting Rights Act. We are gonna start things off with legislative council and then get into a slug of witness testimony.

[Unidentified committee member (various brief interjections)]: Testimony. Committee members, for

[Tim Devlin, Legislative Counsel]: the record, my name is Tim Dublin, last night council. We're returning to, s two ninety eight, what was called the elections bills, and there is a draft 2.1 for your consideration posted online. Other materials, posted since yesterday include the full text of the Voting Rights Act as it's modifying the US code, reorganized, as well as the majority and relevant text from the Virginia statute, which this, bill was originally based on coming from the senate as introduced. The updated language in draft 2.1 of this committee's amendment two s two ninety eight will appear the bottom of page five, breaking the top of page six. And just to orient the committee members, this is where we're discussing, the disclosures for candidates for state legislative and county office. We had section four, which pertained to additional duties being passed to the ethics commission. Then we had section five having to do with the suspension of some various aspects of law that is in 17 PSA of 2415 having to do with disclosure requirements for those candidates and then its sister, it's 2414, then its sister provision, enforcements, being found in 17 BSA twenty four fifteen. The new language, will read, notwithstanding 17 BSA twenty four fifteen for the period from 06/01/2026 to 05/30/2027. The office of the secretary of state and the state ethics commission shall not enforce the provisions of 17 BSA twenty four fifteen, nor shall candidates for the state office, county office, state senator, and state representative shall be penalized pursuant to 17 BSA twenty four fifteen. I see there's an extra shell in there. We'll remove that for next time. The change being that yesterday's text, didn't require candidates to provide their complete and submit their disclosure forms, and there was no, enforcement for that year. This corrects it so that there's still the requirement for the candidate to provide that disclosure form. However, there don't penalties or enforcement provisions for one year. That's the extent of the updated text for it now. Also, I was giving a little bit of homework regarding one of the cases that Professor Stone raised, and I'd be happy to speak to that. This was in the context of the conversation of federal case law and totality of circumstances when examining what federal law has in both section two offenses. These are the racial gerrymandering cases there. The case in particular was Thorneford v. Gingells or Gingells, say it either way, and this is, the principles inside that case were revisited in another case called Allen v. Milligan somewhat recently in 2023. The importance of what we're calling the factors or the analysis applied to these type of cases, there are two tests. One is a threshold test, which has three factors. Those are called Jingles factors. And then followed by a subsequent examination of totality of circumstances, which the court now v Milligan described as, they enumerated some of those and named them Zimmer factors based on some legislative intent, really a report that was issued alongside legislatures federal legislatures consideration of the Voting Rights Act and its subsequent amendments. So happy to go through what that test actually looks like to provide a little bit of idea of how the federal courts have considered these things. So those three threshold considerations, that must be met in order to show that there is, part of the test to see if there's a section two violation of additional gerrymandering. So the jingles factors, those three threshold conditions are that a minority group is sufficiently large and geographically compact, they constitute a majority in a single member district. Second, that the minority group is politically cohesive. And third, that the majority vote sufficiently sorry. That the majority vote sufficiently as a block to enable it to defeat the minority's preferred candidate. So if all three of those are shown, then the court goes on to the totality of circumstances test in which, of those examining those Zimmer factors. And, yes, court proceeds to analyze whether a violation has occurred based on the totality of circumstances that members of an identified racial group have less opportunities than do other members of the electorate to participate sorry, to elect a candidate of their choice. And let's see. The court listed, I think, just seven examples here. And, these are certain factors. It's a nonexclusive list, however. So the examples here they have, let's see. Or could consider to the extent of any historical sorry. The extent of any history of official discrimination in the state or political subdivision that touched the right of the members of the minority group to register, to vote, or otherwise participate in the democratic process. Two, the extent to which voting in the elections of a state or political subdivision is racially polarized. Three, the extent to which the state or political subdivision has used unusually large election districts, majority vote requirements, anti single shot provisions, other voting practices or other procedures that may enhance the opportunity for discrimination against other minority group. Or I'll just stop here after this one. If the if there is a candidate slating process, one of the members of the minority group have been denied access to that process. So these are varied examples of, certain certain things that either have, in history of history of Jim Crow or other perhaps even newer instances or examples of both dilution, voter oppression, things of those nature, but particularly in the, context of reapportionment and redistricting you see here. So when we look to, what we have in the bill here, we were talking yesterday about draft 1.1, from the senate government operations committee where they actually did enumerate various examples or items that could be considered as part of the totality of circumstances. They're different than the ones I just read, but to give a flavor of those, a history of discrimination with respect to the protected class issue. So Bennington, similar to the history. Let's see. And actually, I'm thinking that some of these occurred. I have a note here. It's certainly is perhaps but I'd have to double check that. Sorry. Those are the Zimmer factors, actually. That's never mind. That sounds like it's your problem. Pardon me. But the factor would be to the extent which members of the relevant protected class or disadvantaged or otherwise bear the effects of public or private discrimination in areas such as education, employment, health, criminal justice, housing, transportation, land use, or environmental protection. I'll just read one more of these. There's more. The use of any election policy or practice that may enhance the discrimination or dilutive effects of the relevant election policy or practice or method of election municipality. So these have been removed and now we just simply have a totality of the circumstances test standard put in, and then kind of one example that remains in there. That one example and that language is of a carbon copy really verbatim appears in the federal and the Virginia law, And I will say when it comes to enforcement of it, how will the DAG's office interpret the totality of the circumstances? Of course, I did refer to them for much more particular lines to answer, but I can speak to how the courts may interpret that as well. It's a matter of they will look to, okay, what is legislative history? When they search for legislative intent? They'll look to various versions of this. They'll look to testimony. We'll see that it has been removed. They may read into that. They may not. They've got transcripts produced from this or any subsequent reports coming from this committee. They'll certainly probably look at those. But they certainly very well may return to the deliberations of this particular committee or any sort of hints or they missed miscount it significantly. They may also look to federal case law in the past and see, Okay, well, if the committee was discussing these shingles and Zimmer factors, is it appropriate to apply those? Although I should make a distinguishing here between jingles being a threshold test and then moving on to the totality of circumstances analysis following that. That's not the jingles special conditions and tests aren't necessarily explicit or I should say they are not explicitly written into the law here. It's possible that a court could sweep it into various considerations, just knowing that there is at least in the federal stage a commonality when it comes to analyzing what are the totality circumstances in these book dilution kind of cases here. Sorry, a long winded answer to yesterday's, but I hope you find that helpful to some degree.

[Speaker 0]: No, it's definitely, yeah, I found it useful. Anything for counsel at this stage of the game? No. K. Thank you, sir. Okay. That takes us into our witness testimony. We're gonna start off with secretary of state's office. And would you like to come up together?

[Paul Dame, Chair, Vermont Republican Party]: Yes. Yes.

[Speaker 0]: All right. Now that we No, thank you very much, gentlemen. That would be a great help.

[Lauren Hibbert, Deputy Secretary of State]: Hi, how are you?

[Unidentified committee member (various brief interjections)]: Wonderful, how are you?

[Lauren Hibbert, Deputy Secretary of State]: Good afternoon. For the record, my name is Lauren Hooper, and I'm the Deputy Secretary of State, and it's very nice to meet you in particular, sir. Thank you so much. Thank you so much.

[Speaker 0]: But, yes, our newest member. Thank you for helping me do my job. I completely forgot to introduce the new member to

[Lauren Hibbert, Deputy Secretary of State]: you too.

[Unidentified committee member (various brief interjections)]: To this group.

[Rep. Sandra "Sandy" Pinsonault (Member)]: I agree.

[Unidentified committee member (various brief interjections)]: They're like the weave of a violet shirt. It's for gentlemen and ladies only.

[Lauren Hibbert, Deputy Secretary of State]: I think I'm precluded from being able to

[Rep. Sandra "Sandy" Pinsonault (Member)]: wear it. Oh, no. Alright.

[Lauren Hibbert, Deputy Secretary of State]: Well, we'll see. I'm very lucky because I'm joined by

[Sean [surname uncertain], Director of Elections, Office of the Vermont Secretary of State]: Sean Cheams, elections director and secretary of state.

[Unidentified committee member (various brief interjections)]: Nice to meet you as well. Thank you so much. Nice to meet

[Lauren Hibbert, Deputy Secretary of State]: Thank you so much for having us on S two ninety eight. We have testified quite a bit about this bill, and I think we'll just testify to the new sections or the sections that have changed. Specifically, again, just to affirm, we strongly support this bill. We think given the national landscape, the threat of the Supreme Court, and, the fear, concern, what have you from Vermonters, this is a good first step in a larger conversation to make sure that Vermonters' right to vote, access to the ballot, access to determine who gets to speak for you in this building and at the statewide level and at the national level is protected on an ongoing basis. So with that, we also know that there's some provisions in this bill that we care about and have been added, and we're going to speak to those specifically. The first is the new sections related to the Ethics Commission's Candidate Disclosure Form. We have been engaged with the Ethics Commission since the summer about the Candidate Financial Disclosure Form. As you all know, since you have run for office, you need to obtain your petitions, and you need to fill out a financial disclosure form. Those two things are provided to the clerk. Who the clerk is differs depending on which role you're running for. We post those financial disclosures to the Secretary of State. And we tell the Ethics Commission who has not filed the candidate financial disclosure. We have for you a flow diagram that is based solely on the statute. And you can see that the tasks that are in yellow are the tasks of the Ethics Commission. The tasks that are in purple are the task of the clerk. The task that is in blue is the task that's for the candidate. And the tasks that are in green are the secretary of state.

[Rep. Sandra "Sandy" Pinsonault (Member)]: Do you

[Sean [surname uncertain], Director of Elections, Office of the Vermont Secretary of State]: need more? I apologize, too, if I

[Speaker 0]: One more.

[Lauren Hibbert, Deputy Secretary of State]: I I can give out mine. Can.

[Rep. Sandra "Sandy" Pinsonault (Member)]: Online as well. Oh, it's posted on website.

[Sean [surname uncertain], Director of Elections, Office of the Vermont Secretary of State]: And it is.

[Speaker 0]: Right, cool.

[Lauren Hibbert, Deputy Secretary of State]: Nick, you can

[Rep. Chea Waters Evans (Ranking Member)]: have this all come.

[Lauren Hibbert, Deputy Secretary of State]: Thank you.

[Rep. Chea Waters Evans (Ranking Member)]: You're welcome. So,

[Lauren Hibbert, Deputy Secretary of State]: the candidate's financial disclosure has been a requirement in the law for quite some time. And the questions of the candidate financial disclosure are the same questions as the financial disclosures that executive officers need to fulfill. So me, as Deputy Secretary of State, I have to fill out a financial disclosure as an executive officer. The questions in the executive officer financial disclosure and the candidate financial disclosure are the same questions. And from the Secretary of State's perspective, the statute's very clear. The statute says and this committee helped modify the statute, it used to say that the Ethics Commission shall prepare the Candidate Financial Disclosure Form. The executive director for the Ethics Commission testified seeking clarity on the language in the statute. And as her filed testimony last session said, because there was ambiguity about the role of the Ethics Commission, they proposed that the language be that the Ethics Commission draft the form. What this body did, what this body decided, was that the Ethics Commission shall create and maintain the Candidate Financial Disclosure Form. For the Secretary of State, from our perspective, we believe that the statute is clear, that is not Section four is not a change in the role of the Ethics Commission, but instead clarifies that the Ethics Commission should create and maintain the Candidate Financial Disclosure Form. Why this matters to us is we are more than happy to describe to the candidate where they file it. So if you look at your flowchart, the purple, we're happy to describe the green, what we do with the form. And we're happy to point people to the statute, which very clearly outlines the yellow, which is the ethics commission's duties of enforcing the candidate financial disclosure. What we are not comfortable doing is answering, what tax forms do I need to provide? What assets do I need to disclose? How do I answer this question if this is my particular financial scenario? We are not experts in that. We don't want to be in the business of giving people advice on how to fill out their financial disclosure. We believe that that is properly the role of the Ethics Commission. We've heard very clearly from them that they don't have staff or capability to answer those questions. Our request has been post the candidate financial disclosure form on your website. And if you can't answer questions, come up with some FAQs, provide answers to the candidates, And we'll point people to those FAQs. But we cannot answer those questions for candidates.

[Sean [surname uncertain], Director of Elections, Office of the Vermont Secretary of State]: Representative Hango.

[Rep. Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: Thank you. So when I was looking at what I needed to fill out for this election cycle and didn't find the disclosure form. There are FAQs on the Secretary of State website. Would you be opposed to posting FAQs that refer to the disclosure, the specific disclosure form on the ethics website? Or would you not even be comfortable having that on your website? So our ask is that the Ethics Commission post the form and FAQs on their website, and that we refer, if you have a question about the specifics of how to answer the questions, that we would point to the Ethics Commission. That is our strong preference. I think I phrased that poorly. If a candidate is looking on your website because that's where a candidate goes first, they have no idea the Ethics Commission even exists, would there be something on their website that would direct them to the ethics committee?

[Lauren Hibbert, Deputy Secretary of State]: Yes. Yes, absolutely. And that's why we have been asking that the Ethics Commission have this information on their website, so that we can point to it. And we would indicate to candidates that they need to complete, obviously obtain the petitions and complete the financial disclosure form. Now, is a I'm

[Rep. Sandra "Sandy" Pinsonault (Member)]: Can

[Lauren Hibbert, Deputy Secretary of State]: I just finish This my is a particular issue for us, because at this moment, we do not, as a state, have a finalized disclosure form? And candidates are going to start filing on Monday. So we need to have the full window of time so that candidates who are early, which we know they're on time, at the very beginning, can complete their whole process on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday of next week. If we don't have this form available to the public collectively as a state, then that puts candidates filing later, which puts an extreme amount of crunch on our office to process the petitions and the candidate financial disclosures. So that's why for us, we have really been trying to get this clarified with the Ethics Commission. If the Ethics Commission absolutely cannot provide the form, we will create the form, but we will indicate that it's the Ethics Commission's form and tell the public to contact the Ethics Commission because we cannot answer specifics about how to answer the questions. But that's really out of sheer desperation at this moment. And I want to be very, very clear that's not going to happen on an ongoing basis. Because I am asking this body to clarify what the role of the Ethics Commission is. And really, at this point, our back is against the wall because candidates are calling our office to say, where is this form? And this is frankly embarrassing. This should not be an issue. And we should have a form available to candidates right now.

[Unidentified committee member (various brief interjections)]: Do have a follow-up?

[Rep. Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: Yes. So the form is not available. We don't know when it's going to be available. If we postpone, if this language takes effect and we do postpone or suspend for a year, would your office be averse to having a link on the campaign finance website or where a candidate files a link to the Ethics Commission website? No. Representative Pango, I

[Lauren Hibbert, Deputy Secretary of State]: think our office is always going to have to be hand in hand with the Ethics Commission so that candidates know. And I want to be clear, from the Secretary of State's perspective, we would prefer that Section five not be that the penalties not be suspended. Because we think the Ethics Commission has a really important role. And the enforcement of having candidates provide this financial disclosure is important to Vermonters. Now that being said, I understand why this committee might want to do that. Because what they're hearing is the Ethics Commission doesn't have staff to help answer questions on a form. So if you don't have staff to answer questions on the form, how do you have staff to enforce the requirement? I think it's a rational question. But I do, want to just make sure that we are on record saying we support this requirement. We support enforcement of this requirement. What we cannot support is our office taking on responsibility for answering questions about the specifics of the form. What happens if candidates don't file the form? We're happy to answer that question. The statute's really clear. But financial advice on what needs to be disclosed, we are not comfortable answering. And to that point, on section five, there is it says that, from the period of 06/01/2026 through May 2027, we think it would be clearer to just say for the period through 05/30/2007, because we want to make sure that it's clear that you have to do it for this whole filing period. We want to make it very clear that when you start filing on April 27 all the way through this year. That's required. And the other is we would ask that the Office of the Secretary of State be removed from that section. We do not have any enforcement power whatsoever in this statute. It is only the ethics commission who has enforcement power. We provide information to them, but we do not enforce. And

[Speaker 0]: if I sorry,

[Sean [surname uncertain], Director of Elections, Office of the Vermont Secretary of State]: to if I could just represent Hango's prior question about adding the link to commission, we actually, that's something that is up on our site on the candidacy page. A place right there. We reference the ethics commission financial disclosure form, and we provide a link to the ethics Commission right now. And we say when the form is ready, we will provide a link from this location. There is a link to the Commission website right now. Actually, that was a change we made maybe a month, a couple months ago. We previously had a link to the Ethics Commission's email address. The Ethics Commission asked us to remove the email because of capacity of email. So we replaced it with a link to the Ethics Commission's website, but also made that coming soon place so that when candidates would be coming and they'd be finding the other information about the consent, about the petitions, the other packet they need, that they would know where the ethics commission financial disclosure form could be found on our site once it is ready.

[Rep. Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: We looked for it, and it took quite a while to find that on your website. So I would hope that if going forward, there is the requirement to fill it out and submit it somewhere, that the link is right there next to or with the candidate petitions and consent of candidacy form. Just from a layperson's perspective, it was very difficult to find. But thank you for pointing out that it's there. The link is there. It just doesn't really go to anything right now. Not

[Lauren Hibbert, Deputy Secretary of State]: right now.

[Sean [surname uncertain], Director of Elections, Office of the Vermont Secretary of State]: Well, goes to the Ethics Commission's website, but not to find the actual form. Correct. And also on the construction of those petition packets too, we we do have a set of FAQs of what needs to be submitted, how they have to be wet ink, all those kinds of things. And we we do reference both the ethics commission financial disclosure, as well as referencing people to 17 BSA 2415 as far as what is the consequence if they don't fill out the form. But I certainly take your point into advisement, I appreciate it's hard to find. We'll add the location to those additional links as well. Rev. Art Evans, do

[Unidentified committee member (various brief interjections)]: you have

[Rep. Sandra "Sandy" Pinsonault (Member)]: a question?

[Lauren Hibbert, Deputy Secretary of State]: I do have a question.

[Rep. Chea Waters Evans (Ranking Member)]: Can you please speak to the idea of an elected official? The Secretary of State is an elected official, so it's a political office. Can you speak to the conflict of having an elected official be in charge of and managing people who are managing these forums? Yes, I thank you for

[Lauren Hibbert, Deputy Secretary of State]: that question. I think that's one of our core, besides capacity, which this committee knows well, men's duties on our small elections division in this upcoming couple of months. Our second largest concern is having an elected official oversee the functions of what we see as the Ethics Commission's duties, because we believe that the Ethics Commission was created to be independent by the legislature. That that decision to have the Ethics Commission be independent was a conscious choice of this legislature, and that it would be inappropriate for an elected official to oversee its core

[Rep. Chea Waters Evans (Ranking Member)]: functions. Okay, thank you.

[Sean [surname uncertain], Director of Elections, Office of the Vermont Secretary of State]: Alright.

[Lauren Hibbert, Deputy Secretary of State]: So if there's no more on the ethics commission, I'm going to turn it over to Sean to talk about safety protections and clarity on the voter checklist.

[Sean [surname uncertain], Director of Elections, Office of the Vermont Secretary of State]: Thank you. Again, think so. When I was in last week, we spoke about the campaign finance provision relating to the safety protections for candidates. We heard the feedback, I think, had a robust conversation. Last week was helpful to see what NCSL and others talk about other states having. I think from where we came out of that location was, again, back of what's been our litmus test for everything in this bill is not wanting to change election rules and procedures in the middle of an election year. And so some of the things that other states do about specifically noting what can and can't be spent or having a dollar cap on certain types of expenditures, saw as being a change to the way elections are conducted. Whereas the way our elections right now, the campaign finance law allows campaign expenditures to be acceptable if necessary to allow a candidate to campaign. So really, we would see that those expenditures on safety protections would be acceptable under current law. As I testified just how in prior session was, that was explicitly called out for dependent care, we felt it would be helpful to explicitly call out security measures as that's an area we've increasingly gotten questions about. And so we met with legislative counsel after that testimony. We thought that the language legislative counsel came up with that's reflected here in version 2.1. We thought it was sufficient. We thought it

[Unidentified committee member (various brief interjections)]: would be

[Sean [surname uncertain], Director of Elections, Office of the Vermont Secretary of State]: helpful for giving that guidance to candidates for empowering our office to be able to appoint candidates to that language, and very importantly, changing what we see is currently allowed under state law. We think that language is straightforward. We think it provides clarity, and we're supportive of it.

[Lauren Hibbert, Deputy Secretary of State]: Any questions on security campaign finance?

[Rep. Sandra "Sandy" Pinsonault (Member)]: In the testimony that we heard from NCSL, they have several states have tackles that they could spend. I'd really like to see a cap on this, whether it be up to and not more than $2,000 I think one state had $2,000 most states had $2,000 I would like to see something in here for that expenditure. I don't want somebody just going out there and spending a whole lot of money in protective detail. We don't know.

[Sean [surname uncertain], Director of Elections, Office of the Vermont Secretary of State]: Yeah, I think certainly understandable on that. I think if you work with legislative counsel, if there is language, we'd be happy to review

[Tim Devlin, Legislative Counsel]: that.

[Sean [surname uncertain], Director of Elections, Office of the Vermont Secretary of State]: I think it's not something that the office is opposed to in any particular way. I think it really more comes back to, would it be doing that during this election time when people are already in the middle of cycle when there aren't those dollar gaps? Would that be problematic in that sense? Whereas right now, making this change to the changes just in the definitions section 29.017 is definition section. So I think anything that got into more specifics or either prohibiting expenditures in a certain area as opposed to clarifying the definition and or instilling caps or maximums that would, I think, have to be in the body of the campaign finance chapter, which, again, I think long term, we have no problems with. I think there can be a lot lot of of improvements, lot of specificity as we think we saw from what other states do with the NCSL presentation. But again, that being a pretty substantial change to how campaign finances expenditures, I think, are defined and then in chapter how limits and things are set. So that was where, I know, its face, our thought was it seemed like appropriate change for 2026 to make this clarification. And certainly going into the 2027 session, if we feel we want to overhaul how the campaign finance is done, or not even overhaul, but make in smaller, we've got some things that would be

[Lauren Hibbert, Deputy Secretary of State]: the case. And just to put a fine point on it, putting a cap in this area would be a deviation from how we do campaign finance. We don't have spending caps on anything else. So I think it would open a broader conversation of, should we have spending caps on mass media? Should we have spending caps on childcare? Should we have spending caps on other categories? And I think from the Secretary of State's perspective, we'd rather hold that conversation until it's not an election year.

[Rep. Sandra "Sandy" Pinsonault (Member)]: Well, I'm just going to object, because in this day of this expenditure, the sentence says, Expenditures may include those expenses that are necessary to allow an independent campaign, such as expenses for an independent family member that occurred to dissolve campaigning or for the provision of monitoring system protective, that section right there is the problem that I have. Original monitoring systems, protective detail, and cybersecurity. That section alone could say with a maximum of up to $2,000 It doesn't affect any other part of the bill as far as campaign finance bills, it's just those activities.

[Lauren Hibbert, Deputy Secretary of State]: Yeah, I'm not saying that we don't understand you, representative. What I'm just saying is, it's a different model, adding the cap. And in other areas of campaign finance, we don't have any caps. So, if we're going to start adding caps, I think it could lead to a broader, should lead to a broader conversation. And we would prefer to have the broader conversation, not at this particular moment.

[Sean [surname uncertain], Director of Elections, Office of the Vermont Secretary of State]: And I think in addition to that, I don't want to speak for legislative counsel either, but I learned, I think in our conversation that I think with really that expenditures may include because everything after that they include is because they may include is used at the beginning. Everything after that is really just a may. It's not limited. It's not exclusively to this point. So my understanding is if you were to have a dollar value in there, it would be fighting back with the with the May include because it's not limited to what follows the rest of Section A. Section A is specifically calling out examples, whereas if you were to have a cap, it would require either a restructuring of the way that definition section is written, or else instilling that cap later in the actual body of the chapter that controls expenditures. And why have Section A at all? Because

[Speaker 0]: of, you're talking about the expenditures for the purpose of the monitoring systems, I mean, there is a lot of security concerns that have come up these days. I mean, I can speak to

[Sean [surname uncertain], Director of Elections, Office of the Vermont Secretary of State]: that

[Speaker 0]: personally in multiple election cycles now. I got my first aggressive set towards violence towards me in campaign twenty '20. It seems weird. And I've had to put cameras on my home and other things, and as other constitutional officers, statewide positions, I personally feel if they feel the need for security detail for campaign purposes, it is unfortunately worthy. And I think putting a cap on it, quite frankly, don't think that the cost will vary so much with what you need to do, especially within the realm of personal security detail. And it is fully disclosed on the campaign forums, so people can make judgment if they want to about how those monies are being allocated and dispensed throughout for the purpose of that. So

[Tim Devlin, Legislative Counsel]: I think that's what my end of that.

[Rep. Sandra "Sandy" Pinsonault (Member)]: Well, I'm not discrediting the security purposes of the campaign and nobody should be threatened. That's not my point. My point is that somebody could do a very, very expensive security system in their home with a lot, a lot of money, not win their campaign, and their campaign finance money just put a huge security system into their home then.

[Speaker 0]: I think you're speaking to a hypothetical that is

[Rep. Sandra "Sandy" Pinsonault (Member)]: That's why he needs to have a cap.

[Speaker 0]: I'm gonna disagree, because I think you're speaking to a hypothetical that's possible, but I don't want to hold back on the possibility of other people using the dollars, this is all publicly disclosed, It's their choice to do it. People donated monies to the campaigns for whatever execution charges purposes. So I and not knowing, like, what these costs could be, because this is a new thing, I to the point of the Secretary of State's office reevaluating this next year, next cycle, we can see how this plays out now with expenditures and other things, utilize that information to make a grant more granular decision moving forward. But right now, I am going to echo the Secretary of State's office position on that.

[Tim Devlin, Legislative Counsel]: Rep Waters Evans?

[Rep. Chea Waters Evans (Ranking Member)]: My concern about starting, Rep Pinsonault, I totally see your point. The thing that I worry about is the fact that we haven't done this in any other area of campaign finance legislation. And that if we put a cap on this, like the deputy secretary mentioned, then all of a sudden, all of these other things that people are spending their campaign finance money on is like, I guess the equivalent would be saying, okay, we have allowed people to use this for childcare. Can we allow someone to hire nanny from Switzerland and use that money to fly her over here and then work full time and live in a house that they pay rent for? You know what I mean? There are no, we don't quite have a

[Rep. Sandra "Sandy" Pinsonault (Member)]: Payer policy.

[Rep. Chea Waters Evans (Ranking Member)]: Sure. We don't have a policy for that. So technically somebody could do it, but nobody has yet. I believe people use it for a babysitter, for daycare, or preschool, or whatever it is. So it's just like, I see their point that and it I see your point too. Like, it seems like something that we really think about. But once we start doing it for one thing, it's another case of these what abouts and it's like, what about every?

[Rep. Mary-Katherine Stone (Member)]: And then it's all the can of works that we can't do in an election year. And I was just going to point out, it will change like the website when you're putting your information in for us, 20 on it. Can, you will add these things. So it'll be easy for us to look back and get that data to have a more robust conversation next year. If we're seeing that people are spending $10,000 a person on ADT home care, we can figure that out pretty easily. We're happy to

[Lauren Hibbert, Deputy Secretary of State]: come back at it. It's

[Rep. Sandra "Sandy" Pinsonault (Member)]: an come back and talk about that with this committee after that. I guess my big problem is that we're putting through a bill that is not 100%. We've got to come back to it. So, we can't do the campaign finance for everything, then I don't know, I just have a really hard time putting through a bill that doesn't, again, it's election season, which we said, we wouldn't do bills during election season, doing a bill, then we don't want to talk about it because it affects other parts of the bill. It makes us all stick. That's all.

[Unidentified committee member (various brief interjections)]: We're going to do a lot

[Speaker 0]: of work on this this week, so we'll have more time to touch on this.

[Rep. Chea Waters Evans (Ranking Member)]: No, good paper. Okay.

[Lauren Hibbert, Deputy Secretary of State]: All right. Can we move to the voter checklist?

[Sean [surname uncertain], Director of Elections, Office of the Vermont Secretary of State]: This one, I spoke to last time as well. This was area that again, I think in the realm of not providing clarity, of being in the bill in the election year, the bill is trying to provide clarity and consistency to not be having unclear rules and procedures, but also not changing on the way things are things are done on the on the checklist side was the question we spoke last time, but we just have specific language that we'll have in our written testimony this time last week. Spoke to it that we'd heard from a number of number of clerks with with concern that while 17 VSA 2,154, it's very clear for how the Secretary of State's office needs to handle requests for public records requests for the voter checklist and how that should be found having an affidavit for the person to sign, they'll follow the law, not using it for commercial purposes, foreign governments, federal agencies, that the statute is vaguer, it's more vague on the for clerks. It forbids them from exposing the checklist to those same prohibited uses, but it doesn't stipulate a process. So that's a piece that we've been working since last summer when it really came up, sharing our affidavit with clerks, have been adopting it. We've also heard that if they had the language in statute, that was a clear directive to them, provided that same consistency, that it would be appreciated. And so the language we provide here in our testimony specific to 17 BSA 2,154 C, just making that very clear in statute, the same process that the Secretary of State's office goes through, and we get a records request that the that same process applies to the Clerk's as well. And we think that would provide that consistency across the board.

[Unidentified committee member (various brief interjections)]: Vice Presidents.

[Rep. Chea Waters Evans (Ranking Member)]: I think we're going to hear from town clerk in a minute. I just wanted to verify that you consulted with town clerks and worked with them to come up with.

[Lauren Hibbert, Deputy Secretary of State]: We've consulted with some. I wouldn't say

[Rep. Sandra "Sandy" Pinsonault (Member)]: that we've consulted with all. Sure. But we have consulted with some. Okay, thank you.

[Sean [surname uncertain], Director of Elections, Office of the Vermont Secretary of State]: That was what led us to

[Rep. Chea Waters Evans (Ranking Member)]: Yeah, okay. And

[Lauren Hibbert, Deputy Secretary of State]: I think the other thing that's just fair to say is that we have been hearing not only from town clerks, but also from Vermonters on a fairly steady basis to protect the voter checklist. And if anybody is able to go, and of course, recently it's been about the federal government protecting the voter checklist from the federal government. And we have been standing very firm on that and filing lawsuits and all sorts of things. But it's not just the federal government. The voter checklist has a lot of personal data for everybody. And that's why this statute is there. This is to ensure that it's not for professional purposes, that it's not to be used in certain circumstances. And that's because Vermont has decided that this information should be secure. And if someone's able to go municipality to municipality and basically create their own voter checklist, we think that is a problem and an oversight in the way that this law was originally crafted. Or perhaps just the opportunities for the misuse of this data was not foreseen when this law was drafted previously. We think this is a corrective measure that it protects Vermonters' data without a huge burden on town clerks and provides town clerks the support to say, I need this affidavit before I can give you this information.

[Sean [surname uncertain], Director of Elections, Office of the Vermont Secretary of State]: Protection, taking them out of the jeopardy. If you have a requirement not to share something, but not a mechanism to share it, then you're left in the bind of potentially being in jeopardy and at risk of breaking the law if you give out that data, but on the other hand, not having the protection of if you even ask someone for the affidavit, which we know many are doing now after sharing, which they're not stopped from doing. Current law does not, it doesn't specify the mechanism, and we've communicated that all the clerics have asked. There's nothing stopping you from doing this. You can use our affidavit as a model, but still finding that puts you in a position if it feels like to the person requesting from you that you're providing more obstacles than the law requires, and yet you're not having the protection of properly vetting it and potentially violating the law if you give

[Tim Devlin, Legislative Counsel]: it to somebody you shouldn't.

[Speaker 0]: Any questions from the table?

[Lauren Hibbert, Deputy Secretary of State]: Great. Thank you so much. If you have any further questions, we're happy to come back and test them.

[Speaker 0]: Thank you so much. You're definitely committing a lot of table time to this bill this week. Alright. Up next, Paul Erwobb, commissioner, Vermont State Ethics Commission. How are you doing, Paul? It's been a little

[Unidentified committee member (various brief interjections)]: while. Yeah. And hi. Nice to meet you. That's it.

[Paul [surname uncertain], Chair, Vermont State Ethics Commission]: It's sweet. Hi. And for everybody else, you'll know that I've been here before, but record, my name is Paul Earlbound. I'm the chair of Vermont State Ethics Commission, and I'll skip my autobiography unless you really wanna hear it. And so just really thank you first for inviting me to text and follow. And I'd I'd like to relay a message from Jim Condos, our prior secretary of state, who is now our newest commissioner on the state ethics commission. I I invited him and the our other commissioners, to attend today. None were able to. I heard from Jim asking me to relay a message to you folks saying that although he won't is not able to attend today, he would welcome the opportunity to address you in the future, especially about this bill. So just tell me if you'd like, Jim. A conversation I had with Jim, it was day before yesterday, I told him the argument that, you just heard from Lauren Hooper, that it the secretary of state, as an elected official and affiliated with the political party, is not an appropriate person to be advising on how to fill out this financial disclosure form. Jim Condos completely disagrees with that. He said he never had a problem with that, and he he thinks the concern is overblown. Frankly, I do too. I don't really see any reason why the election division of the secretary of state's office couldn't continue what it's been doing for years, answering candidates' questions. You've all I've been here before. I've told you before, we don't have the staff to do what's already been assigned to us. We've already put on the home page of our our website. It says, we can no we cannot provide municipal services to towns because we don't have the staff. This would be yet another thing that we simply cannot do. So and and I'm maybe I should have been clear from the get go. I'm only addressing section four of of this bill. It's the part that directs the ethics commission to provide candidates with information and advice about, financial disclosure law. I I'd like to take a little step back. Lauren, correctly, said that before act one seventy one kicked in a couple of years ago, the statute said that the ethics commission will prepare this form, the financial disclosure form. That led to some misunderstandings, people calling us saying, oh, you're gonna help us prepare the form. No. So our executive director, Chris Sivrett, in senate gov op gov ops, government operations, talked with them about that, and senate government operations created the new language that instead of the word prepare, it will say create and maintain. And create that's clear. We'll we'll draft it. Alright. You want us to do it, we'll draft it. Maintain was intended solely to mean that when there were legislative updates, statutory updates, the Vermont State Ethics Commission would modify the form. Chris, what I was not present, so I'm getting the second hand from Chris Sivrett. She said, that was made clear that there'd be no additional duties given to the ethics commission. Haven't been doing it, and it wasn't intended. So, when this question came up, I wrote to all twenty twenty four members of the senate government operations committee, and asked, so what what's your memory of the legislative history? How do we get to create a create and maintain, and what does maintain mean? I heard back from senator Ruth Hardy who said she discussed this with the other members of senate go ups from 2024. She discussed it with legislative council. And and what it meant was that, you know, people ultimately could ask questions to the ethics commission, but the ethics commission would not be required to do to respond. So, basically, maintaining the way it's it has been. This is an altogether new assignment for the ethics commission that doesn't have the staff to do it anyway. Alright. Let me look at my notes and see what by the way, we do have TJ Jones. Yes. We do. I hope you'll hear from him. TJ, you've heard from before. TJ is a nationwide, well respected expert in state ethics matters. He can talk to us about what other states do with regard to mixing ethics commissions with electoral candidates in politics. Just looking at my notes. So as already mentioned to you, we we already struggle to provide timely responses to questions from and about state public servants. We have one half time executive director, one half time administrative assistant. And by the way, I haven't seen the chart that, Sean and and you know, Frank has out, but from the oral description I I'll thank you. I'll I'll see it on the website. From the oral description, it it sounded different than our understanding because, again, we've never done this task that would be assigned in s two ninety eight. My understanding, and folks from secretary of state's office, please correct me if I'm wrong, with only one exception, I believe that the secretary of state's election division takes care of just about everything to do with elections. The one exception is that the ethics commission creates this financial disclosure form, but otherwise, secretary of state's office has and continues to do everything else regarding elections. Correct me if I'm wrong. So if if the legislature expressly assigns this election related duty to the commission, we'll only be able to implement it if we're given more staff. We've already requested two additional staff. And well, I'm gonna take a segue, and I think I I did. I mentioned it in my written write up in my write up. So the the big bill, the budget bill did something unusual. It not only provided, unfortunately, only one attorney, but that was sweet, one attorney to the, ethics commission. Not enough, but, you know, a nice tip of the hat that, okay, it's not in the right direction. Although that that one attorney's duties were constrained to be primarily municipal work. But the bill also, to me, strangely, also assigned us yet another duty to create a handbook for to base you know, to put the ethics, the state code of ethics into accessible language. Now some very large states with very complex ethics codes do have a handbook, but we're a relatively small state with, compared to other states, a relatively simple set of ethics code. So what really works and what we've heard from other state ethics commissions, and TJ Jones can address this too, what's most important for an ethics commission is is to do in person trainings with people. It's going to conferences and speaking with folks from other state ethics commissions. They're very clear that training is the most important. Second on the on the list of priorities is informal resolutions and then may then investigations are third on the list, and fourth of their priorities is enforcement. But they don't wanna get to enforcement. They wanna get to training so that there are less ethics violations and so there are less ethics complaints. And if we had the staff, we would love to do more in person trainings.

[Speaker 0]: Hold hold on one second while I think I have

[Paul [surname uncertain], Chair, Vermont State Ethics Commission]: I was thinking, wait, can can we kinda, like, focus on the form and Yeah. Sort who's responsible for delivering that to

[Speaker 0]: whom? Thank you, member.

[Paul [surname uncertain], Chair, Vermont State Ethics Commission]: I'm glad to address that. So months ago, we provided the ethic the secretary of state's election division with a revised form. There was a change in the statute. Just like the statute says, we maintained it. We updated it. I think it was in January we sent it. They have it. Just within the last couple of days, I updated the FAQs. I And can mention that because I believe that it contains an interim solution to this kerfuffle. We have hesitated to post the the forum on our website because we don't want people to think that we're in charge of answering the questions. Questions. We We haven't haven't been. Been. We We don't don't have the capacity to. So we don't wanna post it on our website. If you know, I mean, we we could yield on that if if both the secretary of state's office and we both post it? And then if we end up getting calls, we could say, consult a private attorney. And this was the interim solution I've suggested in the FAQs, just basically saying neither the secretary of state's office nor the ethics commission is able currently to respond to questions about this form. If you have questions, contact a a private attorney. If you need to contact a private attorney but don't have one, here's the phone number for the Vermont Bar Association lawyer referral service. Great. I don't know if you're following.

[Speaker 0]: Let's start with rep Waters Evans, and it looked like his all hangover read the hands correctly.

[Rep. Chea Waters Evans (Ranking Member)]: Thank you for coming. So here's my question for you. I have a couple, but my first one is, it sounds like, and it's really clear to me that you are having some struggles and don't have faith in your ability to actually answer the questions that people might ask. This is what I'm understanding from you, but that you do already have a form that exists in some way.

[Paul [surname uncertain], Chair, Vermont State Ethics Commission]: Oh, yeah. We've submitted it months ago.

[Rep. Chea Waters Evans (Ranking Member)]: Okay. Now is that ready to be posted online? Or is there

[Paul [surname uncertain], Chair, Vermont State Ethics Commission]: Yes. It's PDF fillable online.

[Rep. Chea Waters Evans (Ranking Member)]: Good, clean copy. Everything's

[Paul [surname uncertain], Chair, Vermont State Ethics Commission]: Yes. Yes. Absolutely. Been in in their hands for months.

[Rep. Chea Waters Evans (Ranking Member)]: Okay. All right. And the next question is, and you have an FAQ document for questions that people might have, you've already created this?

[Paul [surname uncertain], Chair, Vermont State Ethics Commission]: Yes. They they've, for months as well, had one with three FAQs, frequently asked questions. Just the other day, I submitted to them a suggestion for two or actually three more, I believe. FAQs. Yes.

[Rep. Chea Waters Evans (Ranking Member)]: Alright. Well, this is good news, I think, because it seems like if we have if we have a forum that exists Yes. Like, you know, fulfills these statutory requirements, and we have some answers to questions that people might have already. It might be being too optimistic, but maybe that document or those questions would help people from having to call and ask for further advice, and to ease the burden on you. So I guess my question is, if we are so almost there, we've got this insight here, and we do have a deadline that's coming up in not too many days from now.

[Paul [surname uncertain], Chair, Vermont State Ethics Commission]: Understood.

[Rep. Chea Waters Evans (Ranking Member)]: So then, I guess, I would say, what do you what do you need? Like, what kind of compromise is is appropriate or would be available to you and your staff or to like, where's kind of that that line between maybe nobody gets exactly what they want, but but there's a middle ground that could work for everyone.

[Paul [surname uncertain], Chair, Vermont State Ethics Commission]: Understood. And I forgive me. I'll be repeating myself. I included it in the the latest round of FAQs that I proposed. It was number six, last on the list. Just basically a statement, neither the secretary of state's office nor the ethics commission is currently capable of responding to your questions. If you have questions, contact a private attorney to ask your questions. If you don't have a private attorney, here's the number for the our association's lawyer referral service. That that's I mean, we we simply can't. I'm not being stubborn. I'm just saying, we don't have this we just can't do it. And and Lauren and Sean have said, frankly, they don't have the staff either, that they're already pressed. So if that's the situation, to me, it seems only reasonable that we both say, we can't do it. Contact a private attorney.

[Speaker 0]: I got piss off, hangoed, stoned.

[Rep. Sandra "Sandy" Pinsonault (Member)]: Yes. My question is, why is the form so difficult that you would need assistance? I mean, it's pretty straightforward, if I remember correctly.

[Paul [surname uncertain], Chair, Vermont State Ethics Commission]: I I think so too. You know, the questions in the past that have come, but we we've only had a few people, few candidates rather, contacting us. And those few questions have mostly been, what happens if I don't submit this form? And the answer is, as you know, probably, that you can still get on the ballot. You know, the public will know that you didn't submit the form, and most recently, you are liable for financial penalty. That's that's new. Yet another unfunded mandate, something we don't have the staff to implement, but, we haven't gotten a request yet. Does that answer your question?

[Speaker 0]: Yes. It does. Thank you. Thank you, Hango.

[Rep. Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: So, I know I saw on the Secretary of State's website, I can't find it again, a link to the Ethics Commission. And then when I'm on the Ethics Commission website, And sorry, long tab. Ethics Commission under Financial Disclosures, it says who needs to file a financial disclosure form, candidates for state and legislative office. It says that these forms, along with filing instructions, are available on the Secretary of State Elections Division web page. So you're both referring each other to each other. There's no form. And if there were a form that you have designed, why would you not be able to answer questions about a form that you designed?

[Paul [surname uncertain], Chair, Vermont State Ethics Commission]: Because we don't have the staff to do it. We're already trying to respond to requests for advice, requests for guidance from state excuse me, from state public servants. Chris Sibbard, our executive director and if you have questions on why she's on leave of absence, I'll be glad to address that. But our our executive director I'm sorry, I forgot It's okay. Train of thought. I was going to

[Rep. Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: say it's about time.

[Paul [surname uncertain], Chair, Vermont State Ethics Commission]: Yeah. I know that's

[Rep. Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: personnel time. Yes. It's not because you lack the expertise to answer the forms. It's the time. As you all designed the forms, so you must know what you're asking.

[Paul [surname uncertain], Chair, Vermont State Ethics Commission]: Yes. And we'd be absolutely, the language of the form that we've drafted, we'd be glad to answer questions about. In years past, my understanding for Chris Sifert, our executive director, is that somebody from the elections division would call us. She said this happened, like, two or three times and said, would you clarify whatever the wording was? And and then that person from elections division got back to the candidate. And what I was going to say a moment ago, and forgive me, because it's about not having enough staff, our executive director has been working more than full time for half time pay several years, going on five years. That's just just one example of, you know, we just don't have the staff to

[Heather Thomas, Executive Director, Vermont Progressive Party]: Okay.

[Speaker 0]: Right.

[Rep. Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: Understood. So it's personnel time that is constraining you at this moment, and we will hear from your executive director tomorrow morning at the least.

[Rep. Sandra "Sandy" Pinsonault (Member)]: So I

[Paul [surname uncertain], Chair, Vermont State Ethics Commission]: heard that's wonderful. You.

[Speaker 0]: Brad Stone?

[Rep. Mary-Katherine Stone (Member)]: I was just wondering if you could speak to some of the information that I've done research on from the Campaign Legal Center and Bipartisan Policy Center saying that it's widely considered unethical for an elected official to oversee a form like this, just to, you know, an inherent conflict of interest, appearance of corruption, political self interest, all of those things. Number two,

[Lauren Hibbert, Deputy Secretary of State]: I want to just

[Rep. Mary-Katherine Stone (Member)]: say aloud that it's already really prohibitive to run for office, especially in a state where our legislature is one of the lowest paying in the nation.

[Paul [surname uncertain], Chair, Vermont State Ethics Commission]: We don't

[Rep. Mary-Katherine Stone (Member)]: have office, we don't have staff, we don't have healthcare insurance. So the assumption that we could hire private attorneys is wild. You're gonna see way fewer people, especially way fewer people who look like me in this building, if that's what it takes to run for office is hire a private attorney. So don't like that idea. And then I was just wondering, because you are the ones who created this form, if you feel like it's too complicated or it's something that's going to require a legal professional to be able to read and parse through, couldn't you just make it simpler? Because you've kind of like the master of your own destiny. So I'm wondering if you're like, well, this is too complicated. It's gonna usher in a bunch of questions. Could you not just make it more simple?

[Paul [surname uncertain], Chair, Vermont State Ethics Commission]: I'd be glad to respond to that. I think it's already simple. I don't think that we are getting, particular questions about what does this mean, what does that mean? What we are getting, again, the few questions that have come to this office and that have also come from executive officers. You know, basically a question, what happens if I don't fill out this form? As Lauren mentioned, the two forms are essentially identical. Just the heading is different. Candidate form, executive officer form. The questions are identical. And I I'm repeating. I think, really, rather simple to understand. I think the FAQs that we're adding this year, that I have added this year, you know, should clarify and answer maybe most of the questions that might come in. So and if I could just take a a step back to representative Hango's comment or question, do do we feel qualified to respond to these questions? Certainly, we feel qualified to respond to questions about the language of the forum itself. We created it. The questions about, candidate qualifications, and anything else having to do with their elections, is just outside of our camp. It's within the the bailiwick of the secretary of state's office.

[Speaker 0]: Yeah. Yeah. We got hands popping up. I but I got

[Paul [surname uncertain], Chair, Vermont State Ethics Commission]: a question.

[Speaker 0]: I'm on the ethics commission's web page right now, and it's directing me to the elections division web page for the form. There is the form where I wanna look at the forum.

[Paul [surname uncertain], Chair, Vermont State Ethics Commission]: I I I I I I We don't

[Speaker 0]: Most current incarnation of the forum.

[Paul [surname uncertain], Chair, Vermont State Ethics Commission]: So if you didn't send the link post, they wouldn't do that. Right? We would prefer not to post it because we don't think questions should be coming to us. I think Lauren wants to say something. So we've been we've

[Speaker 0]: I would love to give the table over to the deputy secretary of state.

[Lauren Hibbert, Deputy Secretary of State]: So I just want to be really clear to the committee. We don't want the Ethics Commission to answer questions about petitions or the process for filing your petitions or what is a valid signature on a petition. We don't want that. What we want the ethics commission to answer is, how do I answer this question on the candidate financial disclosure form? And I think it's very simple for a candidate to know, I need to ask these questions of the Elections Division and these questions of the Ethics Commission. And we're happy to say to a candidate that it sounds like you're asking a question about the form itself. You need to go to the Ethics Commission. If you're asking us what happens if you don't file the candidate disclosure forms, I think the Ethics Commission can answer that question. I think the Election Commission can answer that question. The statute answers that question, quite frankly. It's not complicated. But it's, how do I answer this question about my responsibility to fill out this form candidly and truthfully? And I have a complicated tax situation. That is not the elections division's responsibility. That's the commission's responsibility and knowledge set. If it's how many signatures do I need on my petition? What constitutes a clear signature on a petition? How do you review a petition? Where do I file a petition? That's us. And we're not asking the ethics commission to get into that water at all. And I've said this to the commission very clearly. We don't want them to answer questions related to that. We don't want them to give elections filing advice. What we want them to do is answer questions about the form that they are responsible for and are responsible for enforcing under Bill Barr. Thank you. And I have a couple

[Speaker 0]: of members who have questions. We're gonna start with Brett Boyden, we're gonna go with Hooper, we're gonna go Lawrence Evans. I do wanna be conscious of time because we have a lot of other witnesses. I have chairs meeting at 04:30. We will have director Civard in tomorrow. We can continue this q and a then. But I want to be respectful of the questions that members want to ask now. So

[Rep. Sandra "Sandy" Pinsonault (Member)]: it sounds like we have a forum ready. We have an FAQ just about ready as well. Already. Yeah. Wondering if you can speak to you know, so the language of the bill where we're looking to suspend the disclosure penalties for candidates in section five.

[Paul [surname uncertain], Chair, Vermont State Ethics Commission]: In section five, I can't whether it's suspended or not, we won't be in a position to enforce it. Maybe that's the best answer. So, you know, I I respect Lauren Hooper's position that it should not be suspended. You know, at least that puts it maybe a little a little fear in the heart of somebody who's not planning to file with all of full of everything, that they should. But you know what? Because we can't really enforce it, I feel neutral about it.

[Sean [surname uncertain], Director of Elections, Office of the Vermont Secretary of State]: Hooper.

[Paul [surname uncertain], Chair, Vermont State Ethics Commission]: How may how soon could we get that form in front of us to be? Minutes ago? I I minutes ago, proposed, and I think this would be fine. I think, you know, both the ethics commission and the secretary of state's office could could, post it. Why not? You know? And if we get questions, the secretary of state's office wants to you know, if if it's about the language of the form, I or somebody will be glad to respond. But more general questions or qualifications and all this sort of stuff, we're we're gonna say we can't respond to those kind of questions. You know, contact the private attorney unless the secretary of state's office is willing to handle those questions. So if I were seeking to have a printout of it Yes. Could that happen, like, today or tomorrow? Do we do what? I I suspect so. I mean, again, I you know, I'm I'm not a tech person. I don't know how to post, but But there's a few

[Speaker 0]: people do. Very quickly needs to be printed. Absolutely. So why are I'm gonna go to rep Waters Evans, and then we're gonna move on to the next business because we have the ethics commission coming back tomorrow.

[Rep. Chea Waters Evans (Ranking Member)]: Yes. They are coming back tomorrow just while we are on this and discussing You

[Paul Dame, Chair, Vermont Republican Party]: got things now.

[Rep. Chea Waters Evans (Ranking Member)]: Yep. I got it.

[Speaker 0]: So Okay. In circles. Okay, folks. Yes. Okay. Hands for questions. Hands for questions. Reporters Evans is asking the question of the witness.

[Rep. Chea Waters Evans (Ranking Member)]: So I I had a question that I had a comment. And and my first question is, so how many you don't you don't currently have posted on your website that people should call a private attorney, do you? No. Okay, you're just saying that you would do that.

[Paul [surname uncertain], Chair, Vermont State Ethics Commission]: I would do that. Okay.

[Rep. Chea Waters Evans (Ranking Member)]: All right, we can discuss that before it happens, maybe. But so my question is, how many questions would you say you get? Can you estimate how many questions you get usually about financial disclosure forms? We've gotten very few, but because the law has changed and things are kicking in this year, I expect that there will be many more. Okay. So I guess my question is, you get few questions, and with the full understanding that you are in a bind right now, your executive director is on a sabbatical, and you don't really have anyone to do the work, which is maybe seems to me partly like a staffing issue and partly not having enough staff and partly just the staff that you do have isn't available at the moment, which is like a different

[Paul [surname uncertain], Chair, Vermont State Ethics Commission]: issue. Probably to address that. But go ahead.

[Rep. Chea Waters Evans (Ranking Member)]: Oh, no, that's Okay. We're going hear from her tomorrow. We can talk to her about it. But so I guess my question is, I'm not how are you gauging? How you're not going to have time to answer questions if you already get few questions about it? Understanding that it's gonna be election year, people are gonna start filling out and filing forms next week, and there will be an uptick in it. But I guess I'm saying, how do you know that you're not gonna be able to handle it?

[Paul [surname uncertain], Chair, Vermont State Ethics Commission]: Be because I don't have the number of the law in my mind, but there's a change as of this year. More people will be filing, and it's a new form. So I'm guessing that there will be more inquiries. Sure. I I I don't have a way to gauge it yet. Okay. Alright.

[Rep. Chea Waters Evans (Ranking Member)]: I it's so I guess

[Paul [surname uncertain], Chair, Vermont State Ethics Commission]: And and for that matter, it's just not our bailiwick. It's not an area of of questions we've we've we've responded to in the past beyond the language of the form itself.

[Rep. Chea Waters Evans (Ranking Member)]: Yeah. I I guess this is where I'm getting stuck a little bit is that it it seems like to me, like, you know, we do have more testimony to hear. I'll stop it. No, no, no. Like, we do have more people that we need to hear from. But it just seems like there's a fundamental disagreement right now between ethics commission and secretary of state's office about who's responsible for this. And it seems to me like we've gotten to the point where it's up to the legislature to decide because. Correct me if I'm wrong, but when I said what kind of compromise would work for you, I I'm not quite sure I got, like, a a solid answer on that. Oh. And it would it would just be good to have, like, something that we could start with that would be acceptable to you if this decision is left in our hands.

[Paul [surname uncertain], Chair, Vermont State Ethics Commission]: And what I propose, and forgive me if I was not clear enough, that secretary of state's office and the ethics commission both post promptly post that form, completed the FAQs, whether or not it includes consultant attorney, but, you know and maybe just to say, the ethics commission is not prepared to respond to questions at this point in time. Okay. Unless they have to do with the language of the form itself.

[Rep. Chea Waters Evans (Ranking Member)]: All right. That's okay. So can I get one last thing and then I'm gonna ask? So it seems to me that. Yeah, but that doesn't seem like actually a compromise if we said to you need to do X, Y, Z. If we said, let's just say, for example, you both post the form, you both post the FAQs. And then if someone has a further question, it's really now, I think that our job is probably just to decide who has to answer that question. And so if we say the ethics commissioner has to answer the question, I don't know. I guess I don't think it's okay or appropriate for the Ethics Commission to say, even though we are required by law to answer these questions, we are not going to do it. That seems to me like a tricky spot to put us in right now to say, if you present a compromise, it doesn't matter to us because we will not compromise. Like, do you see how that is difficult on our end or at least on my end?

[Paul [surname uncertain], Chair, Vermont State Ethics Commission]: Totally understand. At the same time, we've already done that with municipal services to say, we can't do it.

[Rep. Chea Waters Evans (Ranking Member)]: Yes. Yes.

[Speaker 0]: We're gonna have plenty of time to just leave the Ethics Commission work tomorrow. I do, I'm going to use a little chair's prerogative right now. And I saw a hand come up from Deputy Secretary of State. Did you have something here?

[Lauren Hibbert, Deputy Secretary of State]: Yes, just wanted to say that we're sharing the form as we received it from the Ethics Commission, your committee assistant, so that the committee can see it providing that technical advice. And what you'll see is that the form has the questions and blank spaces for someone to provide the answers. It does not have any information about who prepared the form, where to direct questions about the form. It does not say the ethics commission at the top of the form, and it says draft on it. So we do not feel like it's ready for posting at this moment. If we were to post it, it would need a lot of or not a lot it would need to identify whose form it is, what form it is, and where to get answers to questions. Perhaps the FAQs, but it would require some work if it's not ready for the state at this.

[Paul [surname uncertain], Chair, Vermont State Ethics Commission]: And if I may respond, in years past, that's just what we've sent to elections division, and they have modified it to say candidate disclosure form, just the basic, very simple modifications. They and then they included it in their, candidate packets. So this is a new task that's being given to us.

[Speaker 0]: Yeah. We will pick this up more robustly tomorrow.

[Paul [surname uncertain], Chair, Vermont State Ethics Commission]: Is there any time now to catch, TJ Jones? No. Okay. Sorry, TJ.

[Speaker 0]: We'll put him on the punch list for tomorrow.

[Tim Devlin, Legislative Counsel]: Mhmm.

[Paul [surname uncertain], Chair, Vermont State Ethics Commission]: Alright. Thank you, folks. Thanks for hearing me.

[Speaker 0]: Sorry. Didn't worry. Alright. Next up, we got Carol Doss. Carol, how are you doing?

[Carol Dawes, Barre City Clerk/Treasurer; Chair, Legislative Committee, Vermont Municipal Clerks and Treasurers Association]: Good afternoon. I'm doing well. How about all of you?

[Speaker 0]: Not bad.

[Carol Dawes, Barre City Clerk/Treasurer; Chair, Legislative Committee, Vermont Municipal Clerks and Treasurers Association]: There was a cheerful good.

[Rep. Chea Waters Evans (Ranking Member)]: Aggressively so.

[Carol Dawes, Barre City Clerk/Treasurer; Chair, Legislative Committee, Vermont Municipal Clerks and Treasurers Association]: There we go. For the record, I'm Carol Dodds, I'm the Barrie City Treasurer, and I'm Chair of the Legislative Committee for the Clerk and Treasurer's Association. And I know that you're running low on time. So I do want to just take up three quick points. First of all, we appreciate that the new draft has removed the language that we found concerning associated with intimidation, which was really subject to interpretation and very subjective. We appreciate that that language is no longer in the bill. It does still include the language that adds to the definitions of protected class, the phrase membership in a language minority group. And our big concern with that is not so much providing those protections. We fully believe in providing those protections. Our big concern is how does that roll out? How does that how is that actually done? Will there be a requirement? I'm sorry, did you have a

[Speaker 0]: Yeah, I think Reporters Evans had a question.

[Rep. Chea Waters Evans (Ranking Member)]: Yeah, did you? I don't think we did remove the intimidation section.

[Carol Dawes, Barre City Clerk/Treasurer; Chair, Legislative Committee, Vermont Municipal Clerks and Treasurers Association]: I'm looking at 2.1, and I don't

[Rep. Sandra "Sandy" Pinsonault (Member)]: see the

[Carol Dawes, Barre City Clerk/Treasurer; Chair, Legislative Committee, Vermont Municipal Clerks and Treasurers Association]: word in there. Intimidation.

[Sean [surname uncertain], Director of Elections, Office of the Vermont Secretary of State]: What line, Paige?

[Carol Dawes, Barre City Clerk/Treasurer; Chair, Legislative Committee, Vermont Municipal Clerks and Treasurers Association]: I just searched the whole document for the word intimidation.

[Rep. Sandra "Sandy" Pinsonault (Member)]: That's low.

[Speaker 0]: And counsel has left the

[Rep. Sandra "Sandy" Pinsonault (Member)]: room. Cheryl, it's on page, if I may, page four, line 16.

[Carol Dawes, Barre City Clerk/Treasurer; Chair, Legislative Committee, Vermont Municipal Clerks and Treasurers Association]: Okay, but it's

[Rep. Sandra "Sandy" Pinsonault (Member)]: Line 16, it says, Or had this the intimidate.

[Carol Dawes, Barre City Clerk/Treasurer; Chair, Legislative Committee, Vermont Municipal Clerks and Treasurers Association]: It's, right, but it's the whole section associated with penalties upon officers has been removed. And that was the section that it was in that we were concerned about. Sorry, I wasn't clear about that.

[Rep. Sandra "Sandy" Pinsonault (Member)]: Oh, okay. That's COVID hit me. Sorry,

[Carol Dawes, Barre City Clerk/Treasurer; Chair, Legislative Committee, Vermont Municipal Clerks and Treasurers Association]: I wasn't clear

[Rep. Chea Waters Evans (Ranking Member)]: Sorry, I just got confused for a second. Was like, wait, we didn't remove that. Okay. Carry on. Sorry, Carol.

[Carol Dawes, Barre City Clerk/Treasurer; Chair, Legislative Committee, Vermont Municipal Clerks and Treasurers Association]: So, with regards to the membership in the language minority group, we're just concerned about how that goes into effect and how that might impact the actual duties that clerks and election workers have to perform. But with regards to changes to voter applications and warnings and materials and interpretive services and training and funding for the actual practical applications of that language and what that might look like. And the fact that the language is in there just seems to open it up for interpretation with no guardrails. So that that is something that we continue to have some concerns about. And the last thing we wanted to mention, and and I was happy that that, Lauren mentioned it, is the the language that the secretary of state's office has proposed for 17 VSA twenty one fifty four, that would help clarify the process for municipal clerks with regards to municipal voter checklists. It really does give, good guidelines, to municipal clerks on how to respond to those public records requests, and we would fully support that language.

[Speaker 0]: I got a hand from Brett Hango.

[Rep. Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: Thank you. Thanks, Carol. Thanks for bringing up the question about the membership in a language minority group. Are you concerned that if you don't offer multiple languages at a polling place or materials in multiple languages that you will be in violation of this statute? Is that what the clerks are concerned about?

[Carol Dawes, Barre City Clerk/Treasurer; Chair, Legislative Committee, Vermont Municipal Clerks and Treasurers Association]: That is, yes, that is what the concern, know, the concern is what does compliance look like? And how do we afford it? How do we gear up for it? How do we train for it? How do we determine what languages are the right ones? There's just a lot of open ended questions.

[Rep. Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: Okay. Thank you for bringing that up. I hadn't thought about that part of that sentence, but we can certainly speak to counsel about that. I

[Rep. Chea Waters Evans (Ranking Member)]: just wanted to clarify, is that section that we're talking about with the language, that is something that came from the federal language, correct? If so, yeah. Okay.

[Paul Dame, Chair, Vermont Republican Party]: That's what I did. Yeah,

[Carol Dawes, Barre City Clerk/Treasurer; Chair, Legislative Committee, Vermont Municipal Clerks and Treasurers Association]: this is in section two. In the definitions and the vote denial or delusion. Yeah.

[Rep. Chea Waters Evans (Ranking Member)]: Okay. Thank you.

[Rep. Sandra "Sandy" Pinsonault (Member)]: If I remember correctly, the attorney general's office, when they were testifying about that section, I think that they said that the federal language has a lot more parameters around it so that it's easier to comply with, that they could work with us on or to build.

[Unidentified committee member (various brief interjections)]: If we

[Rep. Sandra "Sandy" Pinsonault (Member)]: have time to do that before this goes out.

[Speaker 0]: Yes. And

[Carol Dawes, Barre City Clerk/Treasurer; Chair, Legislative Committee, Vermont Municipal Clerks and Treasurers Association]: there was additional language in the original version of the bill that that has been stripped out as this bill has been sort of narrowed down for for this particular session. So I don't know whether that might be something that that could be reviewed. So in conjunction with the Attorney General's Office.

[Unidentified committee member (various brief interjections)]: That's it.

[Speaker 0]: That's it? All right. Straight into the point. Thank you, girl.

[Carol Dawes, Barre City Clerk/Treasurer; Chair, Legislative Committee, Vermont Municipal Clerks and Treasurers Association]: Thank you. I tried.

[Speaker 0]: Any other questions while we have her here? Yeah. I know she's a frequent flyer. Alright. Seeing no hands. Alright. Thank you so much, Carol. We'll definitely reach out to you if you have any other thoughts or things we wanna bounce off you.

[Carol Dawes, Barre City Clerk/Treasurer; Chair, Legislative Committee, Vermont Municipal Clerks and Treasurers Association]: Thank you very much.

[Speaker 0]: Awesome. Alright. Up next, we have, Heather Thomas, executive director from Progressive Party. How are you, Heather?

[Heather Thomas, Executive Director, Vermont Progressive Party]: Good. How are you?

[Speaker 0]: Not bad. So, yeah, we were just having the executive directors from the three major parties in to just offer insight perspective onto the, onto the bill itself. But, obviously, one of the conversations that's been really focused on today is the, disclosure form and also the, candidate a candidate security expenses. I almost slipped into cannabis there for a minute.

[Heather Thomas, Executive Director, Vermont Progressive Party]: Great. Thank you for having me. Good afternoon, members of the committee. I prepared some few remarks that I'll just share with you in general about, the bill, kind of where it started and where it is now. So voting is one of the most significant freedoms in American democracy, and it's a fundamental First Amendment right guaranteed to its citizens. Sadly, it took generations for us to guarantee the right to vote for certain populations. Now is not the time to move backwards. Democracy is on the line. In this moment, we know what is at stake if the current administration has their way. We appreciate the spirit of the Vermont Voting Rights Act. This act is essential to protect Vermonters' right to vote. As we know, the Save America Act is a threat to a democracy, and if passed in the senate, will likely disenfranchise millions of Americans by upending ongoing primary elections as requirements would come into effect immediately upon signing the bill into law, effectively ending vote by mail processes, including in states that already have similar voter ID laws in place, creating obstacles for voters who need to register or update voter registry where their current name does not match their name at birth. If disenfranchising voters, especially rural voters who are less likely to have a passport, requiring states to submit voter registration lists to the Department of Homeland Security for verification. The secretary of state in each state is responsible for ensuring access to voting for all eligible voters. Sending voter registration lists to the federal government is not part of the responsibility of that office. At every turn, we are bearing witness to the ways the federal government intends to interfere with upcoming elections. Our United States postal system has been compromised with changes in the location, manner, and time of outgoing mail when outgoing mail is postmarked. There are very serious consequences for the many methods to disenfranchise and challenge voting rights and invalidate ballots and votes cast. The Vermont Progressive Party believes that much the spirit of the original senate bill provided a more comprehensive approach to protecting voting rights in Vermont, though it left out a critical protected class. The current version in the house is a skeleton of the original bill and is now titled Voter Protections Act rather than Voting Rights Act. One significant feature that needs to be added into the bill is the recognition of the serious structural disadvantages people living with disabilities face in both registering to vote and voting in Vermont. Vermont ranks forty ninth in access to the ballot for people with disabilities and fiftieth in the nation for the voter turnout gap for disabled voters. Language needs to be added to classify Vermonters living with disabilities as a protected class under definitions to spell out protected class means a group of citizens protected from discrimination based on race, color, disability, or membership in a language minority group. Title two of the federal Americans with Disabilities Act provides all people with disabilities an equal opportunity to participate in all services, programs, activities of state and local governments. Voting and meeting access is a huge cornerstone of this. This is further underscored by four other federal laws, including the Federal Voting Rights Act. As previously shared by Laura Cushman, staff attorney at Disability Rights Vermont, The disabled community is one of the most underrepresented groups in our society, and they deserve equal access to voting rights as their peers. Bless you. Vermont's VRA will address systemic barriers that prevent fair and representative participation in democracy. Laura was referring to a previous version of the Senate bill. The legislative priorities of the Vermont Human Rights Commission included recommendations for universal Australian ballot and universal hybrid meeting access for local elections. In my document that I'll send to you, I also have included, some draft language for that to be included. We encourage all members of the committee to review the disability rights addendum to act one thirty three working group executive summary report, which I will also include. There are other features that were included in the s two ninety eight as introduced that should be reconsidered. Vermonters need to have access with language assistance to vote. Voters, over the age of 65 should have accommodations at polling sites. There should be a private cause of action for voters who are intimidated, threatened, or coerced by another person. Section twenty eight fifty three of s two ninety eight as introduced regarding communication of false information to registered voters should be included. We would like to see the house work to include additional protections in this legislation and work with the senate judiciary committee to include language from h five forty one originally introduced by reps Good Now and Jake Nugent. Respectfully, as written, the Voter Protections Act of 2026 has been diluted and needs to be rewritten to guarantee voting rights for all Vermonters and protect Vermonters at the polls. Thank you.

[Speaker 0]: Any questions for our guests? All right, seeing no hands. No, thank you very much. Oh, I'm sorry, Rev Nugent.

[Unidentified committee member (various brief interjections)]: Here we go.

[Rep. Sandra "Sandy" Pinsonault (Member)]: I just wanna clarify. Did you say that disability is not a protected class in Vermont?

[Heather Thomas, Executive Director, Vermont Progressive Party]: It is not a protected class in the bill.

[Rep. Sandra "Sandy" Pinsonault (Member)]: If it's if it says protected class, I think I guess this may be a question for Tim, but it would assume I believe it is a protected class in Vermont for housing.

[Heather Thomas, Executive Director, Vermont Progressive Party]: Under the definition section here, it says protected class means a group of citizens protected from discrimination based on race or color or membership in a language minority group.

[Lauren Hibbert, Deputy Secretary of State]: That's that's

[Heather Thomas, Executive Director, Vermont Progressive Party]: what the definition section says.

[Speaker 0]: Yeah. That's question for counsel. Yep. Yeah. Yes. Tomorrow. Anything else?

[Heather Thomas, Executive Director, Vermont Progressive Party]: I would just encourage you all to I can also send this along, to look. You can look at the town by town voter participation, and the methods used for voting in those towns. A lot of meeting day in particular has a very low rate of attendance.

[Speaker 0]: Oh, is there you just got a little glitchy there. We lost you.

[Heather Thomas, Executive Director, Vermont Progressive Party]: To sort of, like, include yeah. The the voting voter participation is it varies by town, but it also the methods of voting vary by town. Some things are floor votes in some towns. Some things are ballot universal ballot. In my town, we have a meeting the day before town meeting day, and then, the following day, we have a universal Australian ballot for all ballot items. This is obviously one small piece of a much larger discussion about voter rights, but, I I thank you for your time. And, if there's any other questions, happy to answer them.

[Speaker 0]: In no hands? Alright. Thank you so much.

[Rep. Chea Waters Evans (Ranking Member)]: Thank you.

[Speaker 0]: And we will move over to our next witness now. We have Executive Director of Vermont Democratic Party, May Hamlin. How you doing, May?

[May Hanlon, Executive Director, Vermont Democratic Party]: Doing well. How are you? Please

[Speaker 0]: join us.

[May Hanlon, Executive Director, Vermont Democratic Party]: Thanks everyone. Good afternoon, Chair Birong, members of the committee. My name is May Hanlon and I serve as the Executive Director of the Vermont Democratic Party. I'm here to testify on S-two 98, which is now titled the Voter Protections Act of 2026. I want to be clear from the outset that I'm not here as a partisan. The right to vote is foundational for everything else that we fight for. And that's a principle that belongs to all Vermonters regardless of party. Vermont has long prided itself on the strength of its democratic traditions. We have high turnout. We have a secretary of state who has consistently made access a priority. We have an attorney general who stood up for Vermonters' right to vote, and we should be proud of that. But pride in what we've built shouldn't make us complacent about the threats that we're currently facing. At the federal level, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which is the law that Doctor. Martin Luther King Jr. Helped bring into existence, has been systematically weakened. With a series of Supreme Court decisions and the Trump administration pushing aggressively to restrict mail in voting, cut election security infrastructure, and demand sensitive voter data from states. We can't assume that the protections that have held for sixty years will simply hold for sixty more. In recent years, Republicans have subsystematically rolled back voting rights. Under Donald Trump's watch, his extreme Supreme Court has led the charge to gut the Voting Rights Act, empowering Republican elected officials to purge voter rolls and pass laws that make voting far more difficult. We've witnessed MAGA Republican attacks on election officials and infrastructure, their spread of disinformation, and the endless pursuit of countless failed lawsuits to overturn secure elections. He refuses to accept the twenty twenty election results. He incited the January. He's repeatedly claimed that after November, we will not have to vote again. And this follows years of Republican efforts to create unnecessarily harsher voting restrictions. So, you know, our own secretary of state was actually in federal court fighting to keep the administration's hands off Vermonter's personal voter data. The attorney general is defending her. Vermont law is on her side. But what makes this moment very clear is that the threat to our elections are not hypothetical. They are active, they are ongoing, and they require a response. Draft 2.1 is a meaningful step. The new voter and election official intimidation provisions are broader, and they explicitly protect public servants and election officials, not just voters. And in a moment when election workers are being threatened and harassed across the country, that matters. I understand that this bill has had a long road and that the legislature has done real work to move it forward. And let's agree that this is the beginning of that work, not the end of it. The foundation that this draft establishes is strong and deeply important. Like I've talked about, the protections for election officials and voters. We're living in a moment when those workers across the country are being threatened, harassed, and driven out of public service. Election officials are doing this work under conditions that would have been unimaginable ten years ago. Protecting the people who run our elections is foundational. You can't have a functioning democracy if the people responsible for administering it are afraid to do their jobs, if the voters are scared to go to the polls, or if people are uneasy to put their names on the ballot. So that work that the legislature has done thus far has been very meaningful, and I believe it is right, and we should be proud of it. Also, we've heard a little bit about Louisiana v. Cali, And no ruling has come down yet. It would very likely come soon. And I'm concerned about what a bad ruling would mean for our country, but because the federal back stop in the VRA that we've relied on for decades may not be there. Now, I'm not asking this committee to solve CALA today. I'm asking it to be aware that the conversation for what we're going to have to do may become significantly more urgent. So let's not wait too long to have the rest of that conversation. The Secretary of State has demonstrated a genuine and sustained commitment to improving voter protections in Vermont, And that commitment really matters. Vermonters should feel confident that the person responsible for administering our elections is paying attention, is fighting for them, and is not going to let Washington's dysfunction become Vermont's problem. We saw that commitment on display when she refused to hand over Vermonters' personal data, and that is the kind of leadership that this moment requires. The core goal here is simple: Vermonters should feel secure that they have access to their elections. They should know that no one will intimidate them, mislead them, or make it harder for them to participate than it needs to be. And I believe that this bill moves us closer to that goal. It's a real step in the right direction, taken at a moment when steps in the right direction are not something that we can take for granted. Now, I want to speak specifically to the candidate disclosure and security provisions that are in sections four, five, and six. I think they deserve more attention than they've maybe gotten thus far, and I have a direct stake in them as a party leader. So on Section four, the candidate disclosure section, I support the goal of this section. The candidates need to know their obligations, and the state ethics commission providing guidance or answering questions or helping candidates navigate the disclosure process would certainly be very valuable if someone could answer questions about the form that they have to fill out. That would be awesome. And as someone who works with candidates every day, I can tell you that confusion about disclosure requirements is real, and that is also not partisan. It affects everyone running up and down the ballot. I want to flag a concern here that I know others have raised, that there has been considerable disagreements between the Secretary of State's office and the Ethics Commission about whose responsibility the form actually is. Who creates it and who hosts it and thereby who answers questions about it. That disagreement needs to be resolved before this section can work the way it's intended to. Candidates can't be held to a standard that the agencies responsible for it have not agreed on, and if there's no resources available to them to figure out what that standard is. And I believe, from my reading of past law, that that responsibility largely rests with the Ethics Commission. It's my understanding that the Ethics Commission has to prepare and maintain the form. And they have enforcement authority, and it is therefore the logical conclusion that the Ethics Commission owns the form. If they make the form, if they update the form, and then they enforce the standards, they should answer questions regarding the form that they put together for everyone and also host. So I also want to respond to some things that we've heard in previous testimony today, if I may. We've heard that the solution of the Ethics Commission is to tell my candidates to consult a private lawyer. I'm going to be candid. That's a wild recommendation. Recruiting candidates is already incredibly difficult, especially for young people. Mary-Katherine talking about people that look like us in this room. Telling them to get a private lawyer to have someone to answer questions about the form that the ethics commission is already required by law to make and maintain. That seems kind of crazy to me, but maybe I'm an outlier. So in previous legislation, as we've established, the Ethics Commission has to draft and maintain the form. And you just heard from the Deputy Secretary that the version of the form as it is right now apparently says draft on it. And they're trying to perform modifications to the Secretary of State's office. So from my reading of what has been previously established already, that sounds to me like it runs afoul of what has already been laid out before them, given that they have to create and maintain the form. So why would the Secretary of State's office have to update the form before they can post the form? And I would also ask this committee to ensure that before this bill moves, there's real clarity about which office owns this process, because candidates deserve to know. And as a party leader who has to help them navigate it, I need to be able to point them somewhere with confidence. And right now, I can't do that. And that's a problem. I understand the legislature's prerogative here. I also want to talk about section five. I want to be direct that suspending disclosure requirements is not in the best interest of Vermont voters. Disclosure requirements exist for a reason. They're part of how the public knows who is running for office and whether candidates are meeting their obligations under the law. And I believe that the secretary of State does not have enforcement authority under the section of the law in relation to the disclosures. So that belongs elsewhere. And from my reading, that belongs with the Ethics Commission. So the principle still stands, right? It's already in law that they own enforcement. And I'm quite frankly shocked that they said they would not enforce it, regardless of what happens in this room. I do think we heard that earlier and I wanna call that out because that also seems kind of crazy to me. If we're suspending penalties because the system is confusing, or if the form is unclear, the answer is to fix the system, not to stop enforcing it. And I would encourage this committee to think very carefully about what signal that suspension would send and whether there's a better path forward. And I would also encourage the committee to very critically interrogate about how we got to this point, where we have candidates who are filing eminently, and we are all sitting in this room at 04:20PM on Wednesday, April 22, debating this form. And then I want to talk a little bit about candidate security. Very glad that this is in the bill. The reality of running for office in 2026 is very different than it was ten years ago, and we should say that plainly. Across the country, legislators, we've seen legislators that have been killed. Campaign offices have been vandalized. Candidates have been stalked, doxxed, threatened, and driven out of public service entirely. Party officials, candidates, and elected representatives in the state have received threats that have required law enforcement involvement. And in particular, women candidates have faced targeted harassment campaigns that are designed not to debate their ideas, but to make them afraid. This is not an abstract concern. So far, we've seen Democratic Party offices. Well, know this is about candidates, but this is a broader conversation where offices have been broken into, vandalized in Texas, Wisconsin, New Mexico in the last few months. The DNC is threatened concerningly often. The New Mexico Democratic Party headquarters was broken into and burglarized. Security footage, because they had cameras, showed an individual breaking through the front door. They weren't able to rule out political motivation, given these times of heightened political rhetoric. In late twenty twenty five, five Democratic lawmakers received bomb threats after President Trump posted that they had engaged in seditious behavior that he called punishable by death. Senator Alyssa Slotkin's home was threatened. Michigan State Police responded while she was away. Representative Jason Crow's district in Aurora, Colorado was targeted. Representative Chrissy Houlihan's district office in Westchester, Pennsylvania received a bomb threat. Her office noted that it was treating Trump's post as they treat all threats targeting representative Houlihan. Representative Chris DeLuzio had two offices targeted in Carnegie and Beaver County, Pennsylvania. And police in Concord, New Hampshire responded to a bomb threat at representative Maggie Goodlander's office. And Capitol Police recently down in DC told a house subcommittee just in March that threats against members of congress are growing at an alarming rate on pace to exceed previous years. Just one month before that testimony, Capitol Police arrested an 18 year old wearing a tactical vest running towards the Capitol Building with shotgun. So all that to say, this is not politics as usual. This is a different environment, and I believe that the law should reflect it. Expanding the definition of expenditures to include security costs, so monitoring systems, protective details, cybersecurity, is a recognition of that reality. It says that Vermont takes seriously the safety of the people willing to put their names on a ballot. It says that running for office should not require you to choose between your safety and serving your neighbors. I would only add one practical note that the committee should ensure that guidance is available to candidates about what this provision covers so that people who need it can actually use it. The goal is safety, so let's make sure that the implementation request reflects that. My work every day is about organizing. It's about building the grassroots infrastructure that makes democracy function. So knocking on doors, registering voters, running field programs, and helping people feel like their voice matters. My job is to help people believe that democracy works for them. This bill matters to every organizer, every canvasser, every volunteer who has ever stood on a doorstep trying to make the case that democracy delivers. This committee has heard that the federal administration responsible for enforcing civil rights law has instead been in court trying to seize Vermont's voter rolls. People wanna know that our elections will remain fair, free, accessible, and secure. The question before this committee is not just whether Vermont needs these protections today, but the question is also whether Vermont will have them tomorrow. While Washington is busy harder making to vote, cutting election security funding, demanding voter data from states, and pushing to end mail in voting. Vermont is in this room right now standing up for our freedom, so I want to commend all of you for your work. The federal government is not a reliable partner in protecting Vermont voters right now, and Vermont should stop governing like it is. This committee moved the ball forward, and I'm asking you to finish their drive. Does anyone have questions for me?

[Speaker 0]: Nope, seeing no hands, we are going move on to our last final witness. Thank you for Yes, please join us, Paul. All right.

[Paul Dame, Chair, Vermont Republican Party]: Thank you. My name is Paul Dame. I'm the chairman of the Vermont Republican Party. So I apologize, coming a little bit late to the conversation here. I don't have a campaign speech as good as May's. So I'll just get right into the the issue. I I think, earlier, Carol Dawes had mentioned a concern that I had had in terms of understanding the application of that phrase, language group. Because later in that same language, it talks about the political process for becoming candidates. So I didn't know if that is a new burden on anybody who creates training materials like a party, major or minor party, that we need to produce campaign materials in multiple languages. So if there's something else that's not in the bill that's like in the definition somewhere, you know, I I missed that. But I think that's that's a one thing I was looking at. In terms of the the overall concept of that section of the bill, right, we're trying to make sure people aren't discriminated in the way we set up the politic or, you know, the the electoral process. And I'd be remiss if I didn't mention one of my biggest concerns and, is is the way that we draw our state maps and the multi member districts. Rimand is the last state in the country to have not only multi member districts, but a mix. I think, if we wait until the next map has to get redrawn, you get everybody who's an incumbent, and there's a lot of angling, and that's the worst time to try to come up with fair rules. So I'm hoping that I know it's too late this season, this session, but I'm sure many of you will be back. And I hope that in the next time we can think about creating a map that either has all single member, all two member, whatever it is, let's come up with an equal number, do it across the board, and do it a couple years before we have to redraw that map. I had a good conversation with my colleague in New Hampshire. Says one of the ways that we try to eliminate gerrymandering in New Hampshire is we put so many rules in how you have to make the map, but it doesn't give whichever political party has power a lot of room to twist the rules. So when you have broad rules, there's a lot more subjective work there. If you've got narrow rules, it keeps everybody in a box. So the the new info or the new proposal about sharing you know, about sharing border checklists. You know, I hadn't seen that. I don't I don't think there's, you know, if the Secretary of State has a process that's working well, and they want to share it with the town committees, I think that's great. Again, I wouldn't be remiss if I didn't identify a problem that I've had with the fact that we have a number a handful of municipalities now who have a separate voter checklist, those who allow non citizens to vote in municipal elections. What we've done, unfortunately, is we've created a very simple and easy way to identify non citizens in municipalities that offer that. Any person who's a voter can go get a voter checklist, and if I can pull the one from the secretary of state who can vote in a federal election, and one who can vote in my town election in Burlington, Montpelier, wherever else gets added, and I compare those lists. You got a Excel spreadsheet. You can compare those lists and find out who's on one and not on the other. So I think that's a concern that never really got got addressed by those municipalities who chose to enforce that. And then, you know, the the big issue that that's been discussed, the financial disclosures, you know, I think it is a burden for regular Vermonters. It's a lot just to figure out, do I want to run? What does that mean? What's that mean for my family, my business? And then say, oh yeah, give me a copy of your tax return. One of the most sensitive pieces of information, and I think there were some current concerns in the beginning of last cycle. The auditor put up his IRS form, and because it's a new process that was publicly observable. I think the Secretary of State's office addressed that when it was brought to their attention. But I think that moving that to another organization that hasn't done that before presents some potential privacy concerns. I think that whoever is going to enforce the provisions of the financial disclosure ought to be the one answering the questions. It's not fair to candidates go to one group or one entity and get guidance, and then have somebody else enforce it, and say, well, so and so told me this was fine, and then the enforcement action comes, that creates a lot of potential problems that I think could be resolved by putting them in the same place. The ethics committee is kinda new. You know, there's not a lot of continuity there. You know, I've got you know, if there's anybody who who should be concerned about, you know, the partisanship of, you know, the the former majority speaker being secretary of state, it should be the Republican party chair. But I don't I don't think that that we've seen, there's a lot of opportunity to influence that process in an inappropriate way. I think for the most part, a lot of those things are being dealt with by staff, and most of those staff are are career people. And I'm suspecting that we're going to have more longevity in a Secretary of State's office than in the ethics committee. But know, it's kinda too soon to tell in some of those cases. I think there's a lot of wisdom in having the ethics committee figure out what are the kinds of things that we need to have in the financial disclosure, like coming up with that content idea. The secretary of state is pretty good at administering that stuff. So if they wanna say, like, here's what you need to have, any any potential partisanship from the secretary of state gets taken off the table. Right? Because you're thinking, what's the worst thing that could happen if you had a terrible secretary of state in that position? They wanna use this financial process to their benefit. They would ask questions that are hard for their opponent to answer that are easy for them. But if you have a neutral process designed by the ethics committee that says, this is what we're asking, and we're not changing it, unless you get our permission, I think it really eliminates what I could think of as potential problems with an over an overtly partisan, SOS. And then on on one of the the I'm trying to see where there was one section where there were a couple of fines let's see, page three sixteen, I'll get to get context for that again. Related to the civil actions by the Attorney General. There's clearly outlined penalties in section two of that. This is again, you know, anybody who's who's, been discriminated against, the voter groups discriminated against. In section three, it says that the attorney general can issue an order requiring reimbursement, the state of Vermont for the reasonable value of its services and its expenses in investigating and prosecuting the action. I just want to draw to attention, there's no limit on what that could be. Right? The fines in civil penalty in the category before is limited, 5,025 thousand for a second violation. But if you're basically forcing the person who's who's violated to pay legal fees to the attorney general, I

[Lauren Hibbert, Deputy Secretary of State]: don't know

[Paul Dame, Chair, Vermont Republican Party]: that there's a cap on that. So I think that's something that you may wanna address, or if there's other places in legislation that I just didn't see in the bill, that's something to to take a look at. And then the last piece, I noticed that there was language removed where, the election officer, had a duty to prosecute or, a duty to ensure prosecution to the fullest extent, not to the fullest extent, but duty to to prosecute the ballot revealing portion. And, I can I can see why you can't ask the town clerk to get engaged in prosecutions, but it may make sense that they're they're the they're the front line? They're in the eyes and the ears of any potential problems at a polling place, and maybe what you need to do is have some kind of like mandatory reporting standard. I I think if you have election officers who aren't reporting these things to the attorney general, then nobody ever knows that that they have. What the attorney general does with them, that's that's their scenario. But I think having some kind of accountability for that election official to make sure if there's an issue, it gets passed along, think is is important, even if they are involved in full prosecution of it. So those are those are my thoughts.

[Sean [surname uncertain], Director of Elections, Office of the Vermont Secretary of State]: Okay. No. Appreciate it, Paul. Any questions? Anything from the table?

[May Hanlon, Executive Director, Vermont Democratic Party]: Can I?

[Speaker 0]: Hold on one moment, please. Just wanna make sure there's no direct questions here. All right, any questions from the table for Mr. Dane? No? Could you please identify yourself again for the record?

[May Hanlon, Executive Director, Vermont Democratic Party]: May I hand the ED, Vermont Democratic Company. Something that I've heard that is concerning to me is that because the Secretary of State's office is run well, that they should now do even more work. Whereas because the ethics commission is new, it's tweet reading what has already been passed. The ethics commission already largely owns the form. So again, to be frank, because the Secretary of State's office has been on it with distributing resources to candidates to be able to answer questions, to provide a centralized hub for other things, that they should now also be expected to pick up slack in other areas. I don't buy that argument. And I think that we should critically interrogate about the message that would also send. But truly, don't really care as long as my candidates get this form eventually and someone can tell them what to do with it.

[Speaker 0]: And I'm trying to stay focused on the policy and less the external politics right now, because that's our job right now, is to make sure this function within statute is applied guys are really hard to Cerebral is possible. So, yeah. All right.

[Sean [surname uncertain], Director of Elections, Office of the Vermont Secretary of State]: Rep. Pinsonault.

[Rep. Sandra "Sandy" Pinsonault (Member)]: So, don't want to talk about the disclosure form? We do.

[Speaker 0]: But that's like the primary no, that is the policy. Okay.

[Rep. Sandra "Sandy" Pinsonault (Member)]: Yeah. So, question is, I don't understand why it can't be really simple. Everybody has a phone system. Call the secretary's office. You go to the elections division. They have an answering machine that says, if you want this, push this. Can't you just say And then the ethics department could do the same thing. If you're calling about the disclosure form, you must call the ethics committee at 802 blah, blah, blah. You call the ethics division, and that answer machine can say, if you're calling about election questions, please hang up and dial blah, blah, blah, blah. They don't make the answer to the phone, because it's not going go into an internal phone call. So let's keep it simple. They're in charge of this form, let the ethics division get the form right. And this form that we disguised, excuse me, a tier, there's no boxes, there's nothing. It's just questioned. There needs to be some graphics done to it, just so that you can follow it. But it's that they're in charge of the ethics, and the ethics committee is so hard at the disclosure that keeps the secretary of state's office out of it? Secretary of state's office deals with election questions as they should. I mean, I'm just trying to keep it as simple as possible.

[Unidentified committee member (various brief interjections)]: Can can I just quickly try

[Speaker 0]: to Hold on one second. Okay. Yeah. So we're gonna have a ton of time to talk about that tomorrow. Yep. Tons of time. Like, are absolutely, this is just, like, you know, the, the cocktail hour right now for this party. Maybe we haven't even got the dinner course. Sorry for my lazy analysis back into my profession. But yes. So there'll be plenty of time to have this conversation to, like, hone it in. But I understand what you're saying. You gotta make this as digestible and easy to understand for the candidates, given what exists in the statute. That's the ultimate goal. Right?

[Unidentified committee member (various brief interjections)]: Alright. Paul, you had a comment? Yes. You do not have the most recent version of the report. And and Lauren, I think you just received an email with the more recent version

[Lauren Hibbert, Deputy Secretary of State]: of I didn't I'm not

[Unidentified committee member (various brief interjections)]: Okay. But it was sent to you a little while ago.

[Speaker 0]: If you could send that to my committee assistant, that would be fabulous.

[Rep. Sandra "Sandy" Pinsonault (Member)]: Yeah.

[Speaker 0]: Yes. That would be a great resource for us.

[Unidentified committee member (various brief interjections)]: And and Lauren has it right now. I I it's on my little phone.

[Rep. Mary-Katherine Stone (Member)]: My Thank

[Speaker 0]: you, madam deputy. Okay. That That's a you have broken record. We're gonna do a lot of work on this tomorrow.

[Rep. Chea Waters Evans (Ranking Member)]: So We're back at 09:30.

[Speaker 0]: We're back at 09:30 with another slow We we have our entire morning dedicated to this conversation.

[Rep. Sandra "Sandy" Pinsonault (Member)]: Oh, hippy.

[Speaker 0]: Yep. Redbox says live. Redbox. Alright. That was a lot in a short period of time. Good work, folks, and thank you for your patience with that. I know we all had, other engagements from the 04:30 hour. So with that,