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[Matt Cota (Meadow Hill Consulting)]: Alright, we're live.
[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Alright, welcome back everyone. We are picking up the Senate proposal amendment, a little bit of testimony on H-six 86 in act to act relating to expanding identification of certain lobbying advertisements. And just here to get a better understanding of the proposal of amendments, so we will open up with Senator Vahovsky, who's a reporter of the bill from government operations. Good morning, Senator.
[Sen. Tanya Vahovsky]: Good morning. It's Senator Tanya Vahovsky for the record. So what the Senate largely did was shrink the bill. We left in place the extension of the disclosures to be year round, and we added some language describing what was meant by brief description. Some of the stuff we saw from advocates of the Secretary of State's office was that in the brief description, people were writing things like advertising, which, of course, we know because it's an advertising disclosure. So we put in some specific language about, you know, what is the advertisement about? Who is doing it, what's the opinion being expressed. Really, I think that was the intent way back when that brief description language was put into law, but we felt the need to define it a little more clearly as it was not happening. What we did take out was the sort of redefinition of what is advertising. We heard a lot of testimony that there was a lot of concern and discomfort and not a lot of understanding as to what that new definition might apply to or might not apply to. And given how late it was in the session, we made the decision to move forward with the full year disclosure and come back next year when we have more time to take more testimony to sort of redefine what is advertising. And that is really Those were the changes.
[Rep. Lucy Boyden (Clerk)]: I saw a hand for a breathwater sentence. From whom did you hear confusion about the definition?
[Sen. Tanya Vahovsky]: We heard some confusion from Matt Coda, who wears many hats, towards the end Right there. There he is. He can express his concern. We also heard sort of at the last minute after we'd actually taken the language out from Matt Musgraves, He felt much better with the language taken out. Again, I fully want to look at how we define advertising. It just felt sort of late to be trying to hash all of that out. So the hope is to take that aspect of next year.
[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: And for those of who out there or in here who aren't familiar with Musgrave, he's with the
[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: Contractors? Correct.
[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Yes. Just wanted to say that for the record.
[Sen. Tanya Vahovsky]: Okay. So it's a lot of yes. Yes. Confused.
[Rep. Lucy Boyden (Clerk)]: Got it.
[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Yes. Trade associations, yes. Sure.
[Sen. Tanya Vahovsky]: Yes.
[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: And, okay.
[Sen. Tanya Vahovsky]: There was some question as to whether or not, as the language was worded, it might apply to newsletters, it might apply to education. I personally agree that I don't think it did. But in order to get it out of my committee, we needed to shrink it down. What a wonderful time of year. I know.
[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Any other questions from the Senator?
[Sen. Tanya Vahovsky]: No. Thank you for the time. Thank you.
[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: All right, up next, we are going to go Sean Cheahan, the Director of Elections and Campaign Finance Secretary of State's office. Good morning.
[Sean Sheehan (Elections Director, Vermont Secretary of State’s Office)]: Good morning. Sean Chea, elections director, secretary of state's office.
[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Freshly shaved.
[Sean Sheehan (Elections Director, Vermont Secretary of State’s Office)]: Yep. I'm, yep, traveling to a training, but happy to testify to all of you here. We've as we testified in sending government out for variations, we we support these the changes. We can we can implement them on our side. We support transparency and disclosing, this this information in the description, a more descriptive description, will be greater transparency. And we think it, makes sense to in that uncommon scenario where a advertisement might meet the definition of both lobbying and and campaign finance that disclosing it. As long as it's disclosed in campaign finance, that's meeting the transparency guideline. My understanding is that's why senate government operations made the additional amendment. That works for us. We can work that guidance into our campaign finance guide and into our lobbying information guide and instruct lobbyists and and campaign finance accordingly.
[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Alright. Any questions for Sean? Okay, thank you very much for the time, sir. Good luck with the with the training and we appreciate you being available to run this one real quick.
[Sean Sheehan (Elections Director, Vermont Secretary of State’s Office)]: Thank you all. Yes.
[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Up next, have Matt Director of Meadow Hill Consulting. How are you doing?
[Sen. Tanya Vahovsky]: Good morning.
[Matt Cota (Meadow Hill Consulting)]: My name is Matt Cota with Meadow Hill Consulting. Thank you for having me here. Apologize for not testifying earlier on this bill. I've tried in the Senate and encouraged the amendments, and I would encourage this committee to adopt that. So that's adopted by the Senate.
[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: I'm saying, hey, ahead, SDN.
[Rep. Lucy Boyden (Clerk)]: Thank you. I just wanna make sure for people who are looking for it, the Senate amendment had not been posted yet to our committee page. So is it now?
[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Yeah. No. It's on there.
[Rep. Lucy Boyden (Clerk)]: Okay, thank you. I was just looking for it too.
[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Yeah, I also have it on Fridays actually.
[Sen. Tanya Vahovsky]: Yes, it's on there. Thanks.
[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: There's the cleanest rule. I guess sort of with changes, I guess could you detail what the concern was? Because I know I heard it from other groups, not just isolated to you.
[Matt Cota (Meadow Hill Consulting)]: Wear Senator Butchowski's right. Do wear a couple different hats. Run campaigns. I've been a candidate. I file campaign finance reports. I've run PACs. I run a media company. I publish newsletters. I publish directories. I publish magazines and newsletters. I'm also a lobbyist. So, the confusion was when do I file where? In what? Understood, paid advertisements crystal clear, should be around, good change, let's do it. A newsletter that I send out to one group of people that encourages them to contact the legislators to learn more about a particular issue, would that qualified as an advertisement? This clearly, the way that comes out of the Senate, ensures that it's paid advertisement, not individuals paid to send out information on digital communication marketing. We like the changes. We think it's clear. Should there be opportunities in the future to further clarify what is meant by paid advertisements, fine. But I think this bill makes a lot of sense, particularly now, and that lobbyists should disclose year round any paid advertisements, which this bill corrects.
[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Thanks.
[Rep. Lucy Boyden (Clerk)]: Can you just give an example of a paid advertisement that would it be an ad saying vote for such and such? I'm just trying to get the difference between that and your newsletter.
[Matt Cota (Meadow Hill Consulting)]: So a common example of what we would disclose as a lobbyist or in a campaign finance report, but I appreciate Sean Sheehan's description of it needs to be in one or the other, particularly in campaign finance, which is when you would buy something, a radio ad on WBMT or TV ad on CDX or a Digger post, paid posts there. That's clearly paid advertisement meant to encourage individuals to contact their lawmakers or to convince lawmakers themselves to vote a certain way.
[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Red Boyden?
[Rep. Lucy Boyden (Clerk)]: Actually, I think my question's for ten.
[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Okay. Any other questions for Mr. Coda? If I will shift over to council. Nope. Thank you for the time, sir. Good morning, counsel.
[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: Thank you very much, Ryan. My name is Tim Devlin, the Legislative Counsel. Yes. Kind of questions can I ask, Andrea?
[Rep. Lucy Boyden (Clerk)]: So here, when we're talking about paid advertising, I just want to make sure that I'm reading the existing statute within section two properly that it would be a paid advertisement totaling $1,000 or more. I know that wouldn't be part of the reporting requirements, or would it be?
[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: Yes, when you have to identify and then subsequently report the activity. So the identification, if we skip over, what's kind of in there? One moment while I pull up the entire statute. Cool. So here we go. So it is good. So let's see. Sorry. Yeah, no worries. So there we are. Okay, yes. So what's kind of omitted here under section A doesn't really have any monetary thresholds. We find that in B, where we have reports. So A requires that there be identifications, and then B says, Okay, we have to or yes, subsequent reports filed. One, we have the triggering event. So that's where we have the monetary threshold of $1,000 for either the advertisement or the advertising campaign. Then we have subdivision two, which entails what needs to go into it. That's where we have the additional detail of this amendment being kind of briefed into that 2C there for the brief description. And then we have a new subsection three, which would clarify that the reporting all needs to happen once if it falls into the purple of the Venn diagram of election hearing communication overlapping with an advertisement. So I'm just saying, look, you have to post it in file in according to the campaign finance laws. You can file here, but you're not necessarily required to as well. So yes, that $1,000 threshold is what triggers when there needs to be reported of that. Could there be an advertisement that it's less than $1,000 Sure, but then it wouldn't need to be reported. But then again, numerous smaller advertisers might fall into actually the cumulative idea of what becomes an advertisement campaign.
[Rep. Lucy Boyden (Clerk)]: Yeah, and if I'm remembering correctly, there is existing judge here on, like, a $500 total.
[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: For registration as a lobbyist, yeah.
[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Yep.
[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: A lobby employer.
[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Any other questions or counsels?
[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: Happy to come back up.
[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Yeah, after that I got a clearer understanding of what the changes were. Open the table up for conversation. No. We comfortable taking a position. So I will call for favorable thumbs to accept the Senate proposal amendment on page six eighty six of act relating to expanding identification of certain lobbying advertisements. Favorable thumbs. Rep Stone? Thank you. So up. Awesome. That is ten zero one favorable. So we have the floor creeping up on us, but I'm gonna take us offline so we can see if we have an update on the cannabis conversation.