Meetings
Transcript: Select text below to play or share a clip
[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: I know they were last All right, everyone. Welcome back after lunch. It is shortly after 1PM, and we are taking up continued work on, S-two 98, an act relating to creating the Voting Rights Act. And our next witness testimony is going to be a repeat customer from the AG's office. How are you?
[Leslie Welch (Assistant Attorney General, Vermont Attorney General's Office)]: Hi, everyone. Hello. My name is Leslie Welch. Hi. Nice to meet you. Meet you.
[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Oh, we have not introduced our new member. Yes. Okay. Representative Scully of Burlington.
[Leslie Welch (Assistant Attorney General, Vermont Attorney General's Office)]: Well, welcome to the fun of the Tops Go Bops military not that I'm really qualified to welcome you, but I will anyway.
[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Thank you.
[Leslie Welch (Assistant Attorney General, Vermont Attorney General's Office)]: My name is Leslie Welch. I am an Assistant Attorney General at the Attorney General's Office. I'm also the Chair of the Attorney General's Office's Campaign Finance Committee that looks at issues related to campaign finance, elections and lobbying laws. So that's why I'm here today, to talk about S-two 98. I think I've testified on this one twice already, this is my third time. And I saw the version that Legis Council introduced this morning. I think it's draft 5.1. Is that the right current version? This looks great. Thank you for incorporating the investigative authority that I requested. I think it really will help a lot in resolving issues without having to go to the court, without using as many resources, and perhaps much faster. So I think it's great. And I'm happy to take questions on that or anything else. But otherwise, I have no other comments.
[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: And that was the which section again? We've been Okay, now we're juggling
[Leslie Welch (Assistant Attorney General, Vermont Attorney General's Office)]: this Yeah, so I was Hang on a second. Let me make sure I know where it is. It was, It's in the section one. That's right.
[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Didn't have
[Leslie Welch (Assistant Attorney General, Vermont Attorney General's Office)]: a push. Yep. Or section two, rather. Sorry, section one is just the title. Section two, and it looks like the both denial or dilution has been folded in under Chapter 35. And because 35 already has the investigative tools that we requested, then that resolves it. Everything in that chapter, we have those investigative tools for. Which is great, because it's not just synthetic media and elections use, but it's also like if there's a double voter question, or now if there's a voter denial or dilution question, we would have those tools available. And for people who aren't familiar with the tools, I'll just share that it's like one way discovery. We're able to ask questions and get responses back. It also holds those responses confidential, so they wouldn't be subject to the Public Records Act, they'd be exempt under that. So it's a way for us to engage with people who have been People or towns or whoever it is that is the subject that the complaint is about. We can get information from them or anyone else that we need to get information from about the complaint. And we can use that. And we're using it quite successfully with campaign finance law right now, when there are suspected alleged violations. So that's great. I think it's helpful to have consistency. All right. So,
[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: no, we appreciate all the input that you and Olivia gave us on that. We just wanted to make that more usable for you. Really appreciate it. Any questions for our guests? No. I think we're creeping up on a boat here. If I I'm not reading the room, right? Let me know. Yeah. I think we're great. Thank you so much for just closing the loop on that one. Appreciate it. All right, committee. We have this scheduled for a vote at 01:30, so I want to stay true to the clock. So, barring objections, we will take the next twenty minutes offline, come back at 01:30, and, see if we can get this thing onto its next stage. Thank you very much for all the hard work on this. This is big lift this week with an ambitious goal of this afternoon, and it appears we're hitting the market. Okay. With that, Nick.