Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Rep. Kenneth "Ken" Goslant (Clerk)]: We are live. Welcome back to

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: the House Judiciary Committee this Wednesday afternoon.

[Rep. Kenneth "Ken" Goslant (Clerk)]: You're fine. There.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: And continuing testimony on S two zero eight, and we'll have Jimmy Balbilla. And I didn't have your

[Deputy Sheriff Jimmy Baldea (Fraternal Order of Police, National Trustee – Vermont)]: title on my agenda. National Trustee for Thermal Order of Police. Okay.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: All right. Thank you. Go ahead and complete your introduction for the record. Thank you, Ian, for being here. Allow me at least

[Deputy Sheriff Jimmy Baldea (Fraternal Order of Police, National Trustee – Vermont)]: to introduce myself. I am a Rutland County Deputy Sheriff, Jimmy Baldea. I serve as the National Trustee for the State of Vermont to the Fraternal Order of Police. I'm on the National Board of Directors of the Fraternal Order of Police, and also I'm the Board Secretary of Chittenden County's local branch of the FOP. I've been a first responder since 1993. I served at Ground 0 in New York City during September 11. I'm a member of two US Department of Justice committees, one on the NIJ side and one on the COPS side.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: What's the NIJ side?

[Deputy Sheriff Jimmy Baldea (Fraternal Order of Police, National Trustee – Vermont)]: National Institute of Justice. Okay. Thank The National Institute of Justice specifically as a Leeds scholar, l e a d s. They say an elite group of researchers that have access to a tremendous amount of data that influence the public policy on a national level. I am deemed as a subject matter expert in police health by the IACP and the US Department of Justice. The IACP is the International Association of Chiefs of Police. The IACP for the law enforcement community in The United States is the same as the American Medical Association is for a doctor in The United States. K? My work was featured in 2022 at the National Law Enforcement Memorial together with the Los Angeles Police Department, and was the winner of the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund Destination Zero Award in the category of comprehensive wellness. Was also a consultant to the LAPD Labor Union and to the New York City Sheriff's for their mask requirements over the years. Just a little bit of a brief introduction. That being said, I'm here today to advocate for the physical and mental health of our officers, and also for the safety of their families, their loved ones. Okay? Officers, we go through a tremendous amount of stresses on a daily basis, much more than any other profession has ever or will ever face. The question is is it rather, the statement that I'd like to make is it's reasonable to believe that an average everyday officer in fear of this thousand dollar penalty, in fear of possibly losing their certification, their livelihood, their source of income, they may decide to not wear a mask when they're allowed to. Now I know that there's an extensive list of times where you're allowed to wear a mask, medical reasons, carcasses, so on and so forth. But your average everyday officer who doubts and who has possibly seen instances where their coworkers have been penalized for things that they feel is normal every day will possibly not wear a protective mask when they're allowed to do so, and it may jeopardize themselves and their loved ones. Okay? I worked in instances I'll I'll you a couple of quick scenarios. I have a in Southern Vermont, performed a traffic stop. Okay? In full uniform, in a in a in a in a marked police vehicle. Later that day, Vermont State Police Capital Crimes requested my body cam footage to put the defendant that I was stopping on a traffic stop and their passenger to try to place them for a capital crime, a drive by shooting of three people murdered. Okay? Two weeks later, wouldn't you know it, I'm in 711 with my little six year old at the time, autistic, and same person pointed me out, did this, okay? Not fun. I I I can't explain the fear that I felt as a law enforcement officer, and and in civilian clothes, I mean, on my day off. Not a good thing. Couple of weeks, rather a couple of months later, I had a situation where we have had a 27 year old female also in Southern Vermont. Unfortunately, an insatiable thirst for alcohol. Okay? She would break into local restaurants and bars after hours and drink whatever she can drink. We all took turns arresting her. The reports all looked very similar. I mean, it's it's a very sad situation. Again, same son, wanted some pizza that day. Here she is at a pizzeria restaurant on Stratton Mountain consuming alcohol, which was clearly in violation of what the judge said she she could do while being out on Among Us. I was forced to report this to the local police, but there again, I was identified. And this is just simple things. Let's think about the more complex things. I'd like to present what I like to call the Trojan horse, where I said an officer is afraid to wear gear that you say is allowed. Something goes down our throats, we bring it home, we cough, we infect our loved ones. These are the things that I fear most for a law like this. I've worked in situations with undomiciled persons where bugs are crawling on me. My uniform consists of cargo pants. I have two three ms n 95 masks and also a Home Depot black trash bag in my front right pocket. Why do I have the trash bag? Because of the one time where I was doing CPR on somebody and cockroaches were all around the body, crawling on me as I was doing it. I'm afraid to bring these things home. Just like that, we're afraid to bring other things home as well. And the ability to have for justifiable reasons. This legislation of this is fearful. That's what people in the fraternal members are telling me. They're afraid of these things. Anybody know what scabies are? Little critters that crawl into the skin. Someone has to be Narcanned. The scabies hate Narcan to the point where they come out of the skin. All right? It impacts us. All of these things impact us, and they impact our families as well. Certain days, I have to go home, go around the back door, strip, and I'm not even allowed to wash my clothes in the family laundry machine on those days. I've gotta go to a laundromat, depending on the workload, depending on what I did that day. Legislation of stuff that protects us is something that I fear may impact the lives of officers as well as their loved ones. We have a fantastic system in place, a great mechanism already in place with fair and impartial policing. FIP happens to be a fantastic route that the Fraternal Order of Police is overjoyed. We prefer this as the route to go to in terms of regulating for public safety, which we realize is important. We want the public to love us, to respect us, to allow us to do our jobs. But at the same point in time, we cannot be living in fear that we're going to lose our income, we're going to lose our pensions, we're gonna lose our livelihood, and we may endanger our loved ones, as is they put up with enough. They shouldn't have to put up with more than than they already do. K? We echo some of the sentiments of of of the other testimonies. Not all in this legislation is in this proposed legislation, not all of these jobs that require us to have masks were listed. Not all of the exceptions were listed. I don't know how many or how few agencies throughout the state everyone here has interviewed or has a chance to have done ride alongs with, but all of this is very important and is necessary before you make a choice or a decision that impacts the rest of us. Allow us to do our jobs so that we could go ahead and safely, with good consciousness and in a little bit of a stress, a little less stressful manner, be able to serve the needs of the residents of our local communities. Thank you for allowing me to voice the concerns of the officers of the state that I represent.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Appreciate it. Thank you very much. Questions? Ken, go ahead.

[Rep. Kenneth "Ken" Goslant (Clerk)]: Sorry, was coming back. But how

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: long have you been in law enforcement?

[Deputy Sheriff Jimmy Baldea (Fraternal Order of Police, National Trustee – Vermont)]: I started law enforcement in the year 2020. Prior to, I was New York City nine eleven EMS, also served as a capacity deputy sheriff of the City Of New York. I've been a first responder, as I said, since 1993. Between New York City, over five thousand hours of research on the streets in the LAPD, and what I've done in Vermont, I've earned the respect of my colleagues and those who voted me into the position that I've been voted into in order to speak on their behalf.

[Rep. Kenneth "Ken" Goslant (Clerk)]: So we've heard testimony, and we know we have a serious problem getting people that wanna get into law enforcement in this state, bringing them here, retaining and all this stuff. Would you pick this as your career again if you had to do it all over again?

[Deputy Sheriff Jimmy Baldea (Fraternal Order of Police, National Trustee – Vermont)]: I'm not certain if I would, but I would discourage my children from doing it. Okay, and that should speak volumes. As difficult as it has been over the past twenty to thirty years, I think the next twenty to thirty years are going be much more difficult. And keep in mind also, look what we face in terms of recruitment and retention. Even in terms of retaining somebody, someone will be hired at one agency, and they'll be recruited by another agency. Even in Rutland itself, there are a handful of police agencies. They pick from each other. You're destroying the local budgets, the training budgets of each local agency, depending on management and local policy. And there are dangers even with making this a local policy just because of the fact that you'll have an officer that's going to work here one day, work there the next day, and it depletes from the local budgets. I would much rather see, again, as I say, the FIP to be the leading guidance on this matter. But yeah, to answer your question, it'd be tough for me to want my children in That's this tough.

[Julio Thompson (Assistant Attorney General, Co-Director, Civil Rights Unit)]: Thank you.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Are you good, Ken?

[Rep. Zachary Harvey (Member)]: I am now. Apologies for coming in late. Was just finishing something, but I wanna thank you for your service as well. One of the touches I have, and I think this is something that we really haven't double clicked on yet in the testimony of what we're doing today, is what a policy like this would do to really what I think make police more risk averse to actually executing their duties. And I'm wondering if you could comment on that.

[Deputy Sheriff Jimmy Baldea (Fraternal Order of Police, National Trustee – Vermont)]: As stated, it's reasonable to believe that an officer will And hold when I say that, if somebody's life or safety is in jeopardy, we put our own on the line in order to help others, complete strangers. But what will we do for ourselves? I mean, yeah, it's reasonable to believe that we're gonna hold back a little bit. It's reasonable to believe that for ourselves. It's reasonable to believe that we're going to put ourselves in more stressful situations internally. We're going to face much more dangerous possible injuries. And there is no studies here done on what's the possibilities, what are the ramifications to the mental health of the officers? And again, to the physical health of the officers, difficulties here. Where I find fear in is the fact that the things that we're going to be allowed to do, and I don't know again at what point you walked in, there's an exhaustive list of things that we're allowed to wear masks for. And when an officer says, you know, I don't want to lose that thousand dollars. I don't want my agency to be penalized. I don't want to lose my job, my certification. So I'm not going to wear any mask. I'm not going to wear that N95. I don't know what they're saying. I don't trust what they're saying. And this is reasonable. Officers do this all the time. That's why officers right now, even though the resources are available for things like suicide prevention, how many officers actually go through with it and say, Hey, I wanna go put a gun to my head. I mean, they do that. This is, again, this can be considered an extension of that.

[Rep. Zachary Harvey (Member)]: And one of the things I think most concerning for myself is how law enforcement officers in the state are perceiving this legislation, regardless of the intent that we may be attributing, regardless of the macroeconomic factors that are happening in other states far away where we haven't had those same experiences here in the state of Vermont. I'm curious if you can share anecdotally how your colleagues are thinking about this. Is it viewed as anti law enforcement?

[Deputy Sheriff Jimmy Baldea (Fraternal Order of Police, National Trustee – Vermont)]: Is it viewed as discouraging and and another burden, another hurdle for you guys just to do your jobs and try to keep Vermonter safe? My coworkers are all good people. Other officers throughout the state are good people. People I would have at my Thanksgiving table. Why should we have to feel punished? Third class citizens, why should we have to feel like that while we're doing our job? And I understand. There is a lot of In the news, there's a lot of things going on. I get it. I'm not like that. My coworkers are not like that. Other officers that I interact with are not like that. Why should we have to feel like we're being punished? We're being ostracized. We're being additionally burdened for what reason? And although we can intelligently rationalize the goal here, and we agree with the goal, we want the citizens to be happy, safe around us. I once pulled over a couple. I mean, I'm as almost white skin as they come, okay, with the exception of the state trooper, but African American couple, elder couple said to me, wow, I actually felt safe around you. Pulled them over for speeding 20 miles an hour over the limit on Route 7, a little bit south of here. And I I said to them, I said, feel safe around me. I work with some really amazing people that I know you would feel equally safe around, if any of them pulled you over. And they smiled. And I I walked away saying, wow. There are people out there that don't feel safe around me. Don't know me, and it's wrong. And by doing the acts that I do on a daily basis, I hold the door open when I go to the gas station to grab a bottle of water for an elderly couple. I I I, say good morning, thank you, goodbye. I mean, even when I after work at the local supermarket, I do it in uniform. I do it for a reason.

[Julio Thompson (Assistant Attorney General, Co-Director, Civil Rights Unit)]: Right.

[Deputy Sheriff Jimmy Baldea (Fraternal Order of Police, National Trustee – Vermont)]: So that I could say hello to everybody. So that their children could say, oh, there's the police officer that waved to me. You know? We're good people. My coworkers are good people. That I'll swear on a stack of Bibles of.

[Rep. Zachary Harvey (Member)]: And I absolutely agree with you. And I think that's one of the things too that Commissioner Morrison was talking about is the value of not only community policing, being visible in our communities, but remembering that there are families, there are people behind every badge that serves the state of Vermont. And I think another point that was brought up in some of the testimony that was given to us yesterday, and actually representative Oliver was leading that line of questioning, is we couldn't come up, or at least the witness couldn't come up with any other example, whether is a punitive piece of legislation targeting a single group or class within the state of Vermont based on their profession. And I think that to me and it's it's one the most concerning things about this legislation that's written. I just wanna thank you for your testimony, and if there's something you wanna

[Deputy Sheriff Jimmy Baldea (Fraternal Order of Police, National Trustee – Vermont)]: opine on there. Have we considered, you know, and I hate to be devil's advocate, but possible litigation if there is some type of the first case of an infection post, you know, the passing of a possible law like this, you know, to a family member? Have we considered the implications of that? Have we looked at any of that? This is very important.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Yes. Very, very, and devastating to

[Deputy Sheriff Jimmy Baldea (Fraternal Order of Police, National Trustee – Vermont)]: the morale of the officers at this point, you know? Yes, ma'am.

[Rep. Angela Arsenault (Member)]: Angela, go ahead. I'm just curious. I think I'm imagining and projecting that it must be really hard very to earnest in your work and compassionate and caring and know that that's not the experience as you described, but to learn like some people would be fearful around you. Are there conversations happening in the Fraternal Order of Police or elsewhere that you're aware of about behaviors that are leading to bill proposals like this, and shifting that culture? I'm just curious.

[Deputy Sheriff Jimmy Baldea (Fraternal Order of Police, National Trustee – Vermont)]: Award that I spoke about in 2022, what we did is we contacted every officer in a test group in the Los Angeles Police Department once a month, spoke with them on personal matters and whatnot. These people reduced, they completely eliminated their stage three hypertension, they were happier and healthier people, improvements in community policing. Yeah, there's needs to go ahead and help officers, but defunding or adding additional regulations is not the answer. Instead, it's an investment into the ongoing health and continuing education of the officers that's going to lead to the ultimate goal of a happier and a healthier and a more safe feeling community. That's what we don't have. This won't give us that, okay? This is definitely not going to give that to us. The FOP is very concerned about the reputation of police officers, so much so that it has all of these additional trainings that they offer free of charge to all FOP members. That's one of the things that we throughout the state of Vermont, and it's only last year on January 2 that the State Lodge of Vermont was created. There were a bunch of local chapters of the FOP, not anything organized on a state level. Now we have a voice together, unified, to be able to grab from nationals, disseminate this educational material, and we're crawling, but we're going to eventually run. And with it, we feel that we're going to make the state better in terms of the reputation, the feeling that the residents have about us. But in general, I'd like to even before I say that, I'd like to say that I think that the residents around me have a good feeling about me personally. And I'd like to think that my co workers could say the same thing. All right? But yeah, we are working on it. We want to be known as the go to place. Know, if something's wrong, call your police officer. Your police officer will help you. Your police officer will protect you. We also need to know that you guys are protecting us. You know? I hate to be the guy that comes here and says, shred everything up. Let's just put this all into FIP. But according to the FOP, this is the right answer to do it in that manner. Make it so that it's ongoing. Make it so that it's alive and can constantly morph into what we're going to need in five, ten, fifteen, twenty, thirty years from now. Because you all know better than I do what it takes to change a law, to repeal a law. But these policies that the FIP has, the fair and impartial policing, they are fantastic, and they will always grow and modify as needed. And I think that that's ultimately what we're looking for. Right? And just one last thing I have to drive home, we're deathly afraid about penalties. If you take away if if you put something in place that legislates the capability for somebody to take away our certifications and and and impose monetary judgments on us, whether we pay it or whether our agency pays it, it's brutal. You ever see a police officer on an administrative desk? Nobody talks to them. They're lonely. Whether they did something wrong or they didn't, they're already prejudged as the outcast. We don't want that. We've been through too much, and we're going to continue to serve the community and continue to go through what we go through without complaining. We still need some help. That's what we're coming to you guys for.

[Sgt. Ben Herrick (Rutland County Sheriff's Department)]: Thank you.

[Deputy Sheriff Jimmy Baldea (Fraternal Order of Police, National Trustee – Vermont)]: Appreciate that. Thank you all. Thank you very much for your testimony.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: So I'll go to Sergeant who's on Zoom. If you could unmute yourself, sergeant, and join us, and identify yourself for the record and proceed. Thank you for being available.

[Sgt. Ben Herrick (Rutland County Sheriff's Department)]: Good morning. My name is Sergeant Ben Ben Herc. I work for the Rutland County Sheriff's Department. I am a patrol officer here, or I'm sorry, a patrol supervisor here. I'm also a past president of the Police Association. I've been in Vermont law enforcement for twenty seven years, since 1999. A lot of excellent points have been brought up here today. I'm here mostly to, when initially spoke to folks about the bill, my initial subject that I was interested in was specifically to the temperature and weather aspect. Just a couple of quick research points. According to a paper published in the Journal of Special Operations called Frostbite Pathophysiology, Epidemiology, Diagnosis, Treatment, and Prevention. The upper temperature limit that frostbite can begin is actually 32 degrees under the right circumstances. 32 degrees Fahrenheit. Frostbite begins to set in when the skin's surface temperature gets down to approximately 25 degrees, which is when the ice crystals begin to form in the cells in the body. At 32 degrees with wind or moisture, the time it takes can be accelerated. There are a bunch of other resources that I found on the internet or in research that all pointed to the possibility of frostbite at 32 degrees. I have had frostbite on my face as a result of while I was working. And instead of while I was working, I lost a fairly big chunk of skin on my throat area and chin because of it. So I can tell you that it does happen and it is painful. I still get cold and if I get cold it hurts now. So the overwhelming information that I could find was that the ears, lips, nose are the first areas to be in danger, and that everybody, the CDC, and many other places strongly recommend wearing a face covering to protect from that. As it's written right now, the statute says that I can only wear a face mask from December to April 1 and only when the National Weather Service is forecasting a duration of cold weather at or below 10 degrees negative I'm sorry. Negative 10 degrees Fahrenheit. Just some basic information that I got from the National Weather Service website. In 2025 so this proposes that I can't wear a mask after April 1. In 2025, there were ten days in the month of April where temperatures were below freezing. And then I can't wear one until December 1. In 2025, again, there were eight days in October and twenty four days in November where the temperature fell below freezing. According to their website, July and August are the only months that in the state of Vermont, do not often experience temperatures below freezing. This I I when this was written and they said, you know, 10 degrees below zero, I don't think that takes into account the fact that we work at high elevations. We work out in the wilderness. We work at night when the sun is not up. The sun beating on your skin during the day, it may be cold, but you get warmed up a little bit from that. At night, you don't have that. When there are extreme weather events, law enforcement are some of the first people to be exposed to that. We're we're out at crash scenes, directing traffic. We're out helping with community response for various issues. There are times that we have prolonged exposure. There's a missing person or traffic control for not just car accidents, also for instance in our agency, I direct traffic several times throughout the winter at the base of the Killington Access Road up in Killington for a couple of hours at a time. That's a contracted thing. We're scheduled to go up there and do that, but that is a long period of time to be outdoors without some form of protection over our face, which would be, you know, me out in the public dealing with the public. When, if it's a search and rescue type of situation or any kind of situation where we're outdoors moving around, one of the things that really exacerbates the onset of frostbite is moisture, and so if you're sweating, you get a little bit of moisture on your skin, that can have a major effect. I actually just heard about this bill about a week and a half ago. I hadn't read it before that, but in the last week and a half, I have noted seeing people on the road doing traffic control flaggers with the stop signs at construction and so forth, wearing masks at 26 degrees. I did Killington traffic the other day at 27 degrees, and I wore a mask to protect the parts of my face that are painful when it gets cold out. And a couple of days ago, I witnessed a mail carrier walking throughout the city wearing a face mask. So as far as the the temperature aspect of it or the weather aspect of it, I don't think that it should be bracketed within certain months, and I feel that 10 degrees below zero is entirely too low. I I think if if if and it should be up to to the individual person. If you know, if it if I suppose if it said anything below freezing, that would be one thing. But if there's gonna be a temperature set, then it definitely should be above negative 10. I don't want to beat a dead horse. I had some other things that I wanted to bring up. Most of them have been very well covered, but I'll just reiterate that this gives specific exceptions to the child exploitation and drug investigations people. There are a lot of other times where an officer is investigating something, and may want to be non identifiable, or undercover, for a lot of other crimes. So I don't think specifying only specific types of investigations or only specific investigative units should be able to do it. I mean, I'm a uniformed I wear a uniform almost all the time, and there are times that I dress down and go meet with somebody because they don't want to be seen talking to a uniformed police officer. To reiterate another point, there are times where we go into some pretty nasty places. I carry a box of just regular cotton dusk masks and a bottle of Vicks so that I can cover some of that up, keep flies out of my mouth. Another issue that this bill does not cover that would potentially become a problem is when we transport defendants from jail to court for court hearings, if the jury or potential jurors are in the courtroom, we are not allowed to be identifiable as law enforcement. We must be plainclothes with a gun covered, no, you know, handcuffs covered, no badge. We're not allowed to be identifiable, and that's the court's rules, so that's another thing that would need to be considered, And I would also weigh in that I don't think that a bill or law signed into enacted is the way to go. Think it, I think allowing the criminal justice council to propose a policy or add to an existing policy would be the way to go because no matter how long of a list that any group sits down and makes, there's always gonna be something that is missed, and allowing a group of people to review those situations before action is taken, I think would be important. I think that covers all my points that I had written down.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Well, I appreciate that. Thank you for the testimony. Appreciate the input on that. We do have some questions here.

[Rep. Zachary Harvey (Member)]: Go ahead, Thank you. Sergeant, great to see you and thanks for your service to Rutland County and State of Vermont. As a representative of Rutland County, I'm especially grateful for you and your department's service. And I think anecdotally, one of the points that you mentioned walking into spaces that are extremely vile health violations. I was recently with a delegation from the Rutland City Alderman, and they got a tour of the Hotel Motel program in Rutland County. And one of the Alderman had told me that it was so vile and so disgusting in some of these facilities, they had to throw out their entire wardrobe of clothes that they wore to the site visit that day. So I think you're actually understating just how serious some of these site visits can actually be. And obviously, you're there to, and not for a visit, a site tour, to tour the facility, but could be a matter of life or death in protecting members of the community. So I think, you know, obviously different instances, but very severe. I am curious anecdotally, you know, and I and I asked this of other witnesses if you can just maybe talk through the sentiment in the way that this bill is being perceived by the officers in in Rutland County. I know that you have had a lot of turnover in staffing, I'm and wondering if you think something that is punitive like this would further encourage officers to seek employment either in other states or to to leave a professional together.

[Sgt. Ben Herrick (Rutland County Sheriff's Department)]: I think that, well, we do certainly have issues with recruiting and retention. Yeah. And I don't know that this one issue is going to create a situation where somebody does not apply or chooses to leave, but it certainly adds to the list of reasons that somebody might choose not to apply or to leave the state. I I will tell you that in conversations that I've had with officers from several different departments regarding this bill, the overall, the overwhelming reaction is we are not ICE, that this is clearly being proposed as a reaction to what has happened in other other places. I I I did hear this morning that something happened up in Williston. I was unaware of that. Prior prior to that conversation, I would have said, I don't know of any time in the state of Vermont where a police officer has disguised their identity with a mask for the purpose of getting away with something that they shouldn't be doing. I, and I, I feel that way as well. I don't, I don't think that this is really aimed at Vermont law enforcement. I think this is a reaction to something that happened elsewhere.

[Rep. Zachary Harvey (Member)]: And I think too, think, I mean something, you know, we've heard some testimony or I get at least lines of questions from several of my colleagues on the committee who are from Chittenden County and the concerns in Burlington specifically, but I can speak from experience in Rutland County. I know firsthand the work that you and your department are doing on the front lines, especially as it relates to drug trafficking. And they are highly volatile, highly dangerous situations where I assume that either you're operating undercover, you're wearing masks for protection. I'm just wondering if you can kind of explain, like, how serious some of these situations are where you're wearing masks for your own protection and the identities of your officers have to be protected because at the end of the day, if it's, I mean, these are not people that are operators within They operate within the state of Vermont, but they are not Vermont residents. And these are people coming to Vermont or trafficking through Vermont, huge amounts of drug up to Montreal and back down to Springfield, Massachusetts. And I won't get into the litany of the drug trade, but I'm just curious if you can just talk about the severity and the seriousness of some of the situations that your officers find themselves in.

[Sgt. Ben Herrick (Rutland County Sheriff's Department)]: Sure. I personally have not been involved in any, or I shouldn't, I personally have not been undercover in drug investigations, so I can't, I have no experience with that. I have worked with the task force in serving warrants over the course of my career, and we did wear masks when serving some of the warrants, but I can't say that it was to skew my identity. It was to protect us from the smoke from flashbangs or other things that we use, OC spray, whatever. But the masks come off, and everybody knows who we are. Several people have said that this is Vermont. It would be very difficult for me to go out and do something over the course of my job and have it not be able to be determined who I was, regardless of whether I'm wearing a mask or a name tag or a badge or anything else. We've got 25 people that work for the sheriff's firm, and probably 20 of them are sworn personnel that actually go out on the road from time to time and do things. If somebody were to come to me and say, Hey, last Tuesday, I had an interaction with somebody in the town of Tinmouth, and they were wearing a mask. I don't know who they were. I would be able to tell them very quickly who that was, and I think that almost all law enforcement agencies in Vermont are in that same boat, that we're not thousand people strong agencies. We've only got a thousand sworn officers in the entire state.

[Julio Thompson (Assistant Attorney General, Co-Director, Civil Rights Unit)]: Right.

[Sgt. Ben Herrick (Rutland County Sheriff's Department)]: Being able to hide my identity is not, even if I try, is not gonna be very easy for somebody who wants to know who it was that did something because they have a complaint.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Thank you. Any other questions? No. Thank you very much, Sergeant. Really appreciate you being available this morning. Appreciate your testimony. All right. So we'll go to the last witness, Julio Thompson, if you could join us. Identify yourself for the record and proceed. Thank you to be here. Nice to see you.

[Deputy Sheriff Jimmy Baldea (Fraternal Order of Police, National Trustee – Vermont)]: Nice to see you.

[Julio Thompson (Assistant Attorney General, Co-Director, Civil Rights Unit)]: Thank you for inviting me. Good morning. I'm Julio Thompson. I'm an assistant attorney general and co director of the civil rights unit. My background and issues relating to law enforcement predates my arrival in Vermont in 2004. I've worked in the issues relating to police operations and training since, I believe, November 1991. And for over fifteen years, I've periodically engaged by the US Department of Justice as a subject matter expert in a variety of topics related to law enforcement, including arrest, search, and seizure, and also crowd control and crowd management. So the topic that's before the panel or the committee today is an issue that's been a concern of the AG's office since about a month after, maybe a little bit more than a month after the legislature adjourned last year in July 2025, our office along with I believe you know a little less than two dozen states wrote a letter to the House of Representatives urging them to pass legislation that would govern or at least regulate in some part how federal officers were carrying out their duties wearing masks and concealing their identity. The concerns of addressing that letter, you know, observed that that masking officers and and and engagements to the public can make matters less safe for both parties. One of the principles in de escalation, one of the principle tools in de escalating conflict with community are nonverbal communications, and that includes calming gestures, but also communication with the face. And so the kind of standard practice where the demeanor of the federal agents are concealed, and so you have no idea whether a person's listening to you and engaging with you or whether they're hostile to you can exist, can create not only fear, and fear also pervert, can provoke a fight or flight response. And so those were issues that we had our our office and other attorney general's offices had presented to the congress, and, you know, there is federal federal legislation. We're under a partial DHS federal shutdown right now of relating to these issues. But, nonetheless, a lot of states, Vermont included, have taken up the issue on on their own. And so here, I'm they do present some tricky federalism issues, and I thought you had an excellent walk through yesterday by alleged counsel as well as a as a very good overview by the the constitutional law professor and heard a little bit about the district court case in California. There what what I thought I could do today rather than repeat a lot of what they said is add additional pieces that they did not cover perhaps because of time constraints or areas that that they wanted to emphasize or or circumstances have simply changed. And so when you took testimony yesterday, for example, there was testimony, I think, from both witnesses that that we could expect the United States government to appeal. They did, in fact, appeal yesterday afternoon. They filed a motion before the district judge asking the judge to file a preliminary injunction to stay the enforcement of the California ID law, the masking law part as you know, that court struck down Or at a minimum to allow it to be enforced only thirty days because they were immediately going to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to seek a stay of the order. And in fact, yesterday afternoon, they filed with the Ninth Circuit asking the Ninth Circuit to issue a stay. My experience and part of my experience in the AG's office is I've been involved in a lot of the multistate litigation involving the Trump administration, a lot of it relating to issues relating to immigration. For example, we've been successful in freeing up state funds for transportation and public safety that where the federal government was withholding and trying to condition highway funds and FEMA funds based on a desire to have participation in immigration enforcement. So we have a fair amount, in my opinion, we have 40 or so cases that we filed since January involving various actions of the federal government that were unlawful. So we're pretty familiar with the process for temporary restraining orders, preliminary injunctions, emergency stays and the like. And it seems quite likely under these circumstances that we are going to receive some kind of ruling from the Ninth Circuit on the issue of a stay, which within a month, part of one of the standards that would be applied for the Ninth Circuit to issue a stay, to press the pause button on California so they can't enforce the law, is a likelihood of probability of success. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals staffs these cases with three judges. The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, I believe has 39 active judges and were randomly chosen. And so it's anybody's guess whether there would be a majority of two judges who would vote one way or the other on whether the California law was constitutional or not. We have the decision of one federal district judge, but we've also had experiences in different cases, win or lose, where we win at one stage and we lose at the other. So I think you've got very good guidance yesterday from the legislature saying things can happen can happen and and happen dynamically. And I'm just here to say that they are happening. They just happened yesterday afternoon. And so I wanted to provide that that information, and we will be monitoring the federal that federal litigation as it goes.

[Rep. Kenneth "Ken" Goslant (Clerk)]: What does a stay mean again?

[Julio Thompson (Assistant Attorney General, Co-Director, Civil Rights Unit)]: It just means press the pause button on a court order. So under the ruling from the district court, the masking law could not be applied. That was blocked. We would California sounds like it's not going to appeal that, but rather just change the law sort of applies uniformly to get rid of the discrimination issue where state troopers are treated better than federal officers. But but the part of the law that would go into effect would be to have your your name and ID or your ID number and your agency would be visible at all times or or face some, you know, misdemeanor charges. That would ordinarily go into effect. And usually, if you, you know, if if you can't block that law, it goes into effect, and and it can be enforced while you appeal, which can take a year and a half to do a a full appeal. But parties often will say, let's just press the pause button and and maintain the status quo. Right now, nobody's getting cited or for misdemeanors for not having ID, and we should keep it that way and and and until the the appeals court decides whether it's lawful or not. And so the the Ninth Circuit, part of the part of the their evaluation would be is is The United States likely to win overall? And so they are going to dip their toe into the merits of the arguments. And so I would expect within a month right now, have the benefit of one federal judge's thinking, and within a month, we're gonna have the benefit of three additional federal judges in the same circuit who could overrule or at least pause that decision and and have a contrary analysis.

[Rep. Kenneth "Ken" Goslant (Clerk)]: So I know it's been talked about, but just didn't quite understand. So California's law is just geared toward the feds, where our our law, as far as masking goes, is geared toward all.

[Julio Thompson (Assistant Attorney General, Co-Director, Civil Rights Unit)]: There are two laws. One is an ID law, in which it applies to everyone. Okay. And then there is a masking law, which applies to to all local authorities, all federal authorities, but not to state law enforcement. So state liquor control, the California Highway Patrol is not subject to the law. And the district court said on the constitution, states can't, you know, discriminate against the federal government, treat them worse than similarly situated law enforcement. So, you know, the their equivalent of a state trooper can make arrests since and federal authorities can make arrests, but, you know, California highway patrol or or state police can do whatever they want about masking without any consequence at all, but the federal governments are facing federal agents, you know, there are tens of thousands of them could face criminal penalties.

[Rep. Kenneth "Ken" Goslant (Clerk)]: So there's some people that believe that that a state can't regulate federal law enforcement at all. And and I guess gonna be just a guess on your part, but

[Rep. Zachary Harvey (Member)]: Right.

[Rep. Kenneth "Ken" Goslant (Clerk)]: To answer the question. What what do you think the chances are of our say, if we we do pass something out like this, wouldn't the chances of our law being challenged? I I think the chances of

[Julio Thompson (Assistant Attorney General, Co-Director, Civil Rights Unit)]: them being challenged are nearing a 100%. I think the the Department of Homeland Security is on record in the California case that they will not follow any state law that requires masking. And that was and they made that argument in court because they wanted to show, we need a court order from you because our officers do face real jeopardy of being criminally charged because we're telling you now our orders to them are you have you make your own decision about whether to mask. So I think any jurisdiction that passes the law and and California is the only one. I think that second closest state is probably Maryland. Maryland has had one chamber less than two around two weeks ago. It passed one chamber. It's now in the other chamber. Most of the other states it's been assigned to one committee, it hasn't come out of that committee. So Vermont, I think is in probably in third place in terms of the progress in state legislatures as far as I know. But I think the chances of litigation are nearly a 100%. The chances of success, that's when it becomes very difficult. There are, and I testified on this a little bit in the Senate and I provided the materials as well. I mean, are differences among constitutional scholars about the degree to which you can regulate law enforcement. It is true that speed limits apply to all law enforcement officers, but it's also true that there's a supreme court case that says a state couldn't ticket up a a male driver, you know, a postal deliver for not having a a driver's license because he was performing federal duties. And supreme court said, well, now you're regulating how federal employees do federal jobs, and states can't do that. So And the question for this district judge in California and for judges anywhere is going to be, well, how is how is ticketing that postal carrier different from jailing someone who is not wearing a mask? How is that different? And the district court said, well, it, you know, it has to do with how important it is to the job to do that. And and that may be part of the analysis, but there are many court decisions that suggest otherwise. That's why I think, you know, there are there are other, you know, we provided the senate articles from other constitutional law professors that say, you can't do or California can't do that. So Sorry to say.

[Rep. Kenneth "Ken" Goslant (Clerk)]: So I hadn't heard about the Maryland Maryland bill, but is is the Maryland bill closer to what we have than than what the comparison between Vermont and California, Vermont and Maryland?

[Julio Thompson (Assistant Attorney General, Co-Director, Civil Rights Unit)]: It varies. It has I mean, it's I

[Rep. Kenneth "Ken" Goslant (Clerk)]: guess as far as regulating all law enforcement in the state to in the masking.

[Julio Thompson (Assistant Attorney General, Co-Director, Civil Rights Unit)]: Yeah. Most of the bills apply to all law enforcement. I think there's only one I I'd have to look at my notes, and I mean, I don't have it at the top of mind here. I believe there's only one state law I can think or state bill that is expressly only directed towards federal authorities and not state authorities. And even though these are fine grained constitutional issues, I think the chances of that surviving are very low. Right. Because it's expressly attempting to govern how federal agents do it, but state authorities are not. The Maryland bill does cover a lot of topics that you've been talking about today. For example, exceptions. There are exceptions that deal with things like like I have it right here. So that, you know, Vermont has something about transmission of disease or infection and smoke, but it doesn't have anything about other harmful environmental issues. So, you know, there are people in Vermont. Part of my day job is we do employment discrimination law, and that includes Vermont's counterpart that you've enacted. It's that similar to the ADA, and there are people who wear masks, for example, when it's high pollen because they're asthmatic and they have chemical sensitivities. And so the question, the one question that wasn't addressed yesterday in terms of whether federal law conflicts with state law. Again, it's a fine issue that we probably need to look at more, which is that what if you have a federal employee who has asthma and has been granted the use of a mask as a reasonable accommodation under the Federal Americans with Disabilities Act, which obligates employers to accommodate a disability too. And asthma is an intermittent condition. It is a it is ADA covered disability. And and so could a state, you know, supersede the ADA if if, you know, the facts were were such that that person was, you know, needed it to to perform their essential job. And the answer in that scenario, which may be unlikely, but that the answer there would probably be no. So the Maryland Maryland law does address other environmental conditions. It's they're unspecified, but it would include fallen. It would include other types of allergens or substances that are not smoke and that are not that are not viruses or.

[Rep. Kenneth "Ken" Goslant (Clerk)]: So so somebody in that situation as far as the pollen goes under the way this way our law is written, they could be charged, but probably in the long run wouldn't be convicted of any civil or criminal act because because they might have because they might have the the release, I guess, could say from, like, ADA. Well, I

[Julio Thompson (Assistant Attorney General, Co-Director, Civil Rights Unit)]: would say to move away from the word convict because it's purely a civil law that you have here, and I testified

[Rep. Kenneth "Ken" Goslant (Clerk)]: I hesitated when I said that.

[Julio Thompson (Assistant Attorney General, Co-Director, Civil Rights Unit)]: I I I testified in the senate that I think the the law is on stronger constitutional ground where it's a civil offense versus a criminal offense. I think we heard the contrary yesterday from legislative council, which historically has been true. They they treat them the same. But where this is a novel application where you're regulating an area of federal authority that is exclusive to federal authority, which is immigration, the you know, it it it again, we can't tell the future, but I think it would be there would be vigorous, you know, argument that we we would encounter and have to defeat in a litigation, which would be to say that you're not directly regulating federal authorities when the threat of noncompliance is imprisonment, as opposed to a fine.

[Rep. Kenneth "Ken" Goslant (Clerk)]: I got one more. Yeah. No. That's good. Does this law would this law cover the feds if they came into the state? No. I know the answer because the sex crimes was it sex just sex crimes for children? Yes. Yeah. You know, so other sex crimes other than other than children, if if it's some kind of an adult thing and and the feds came into the state to break that up, would they be covered under this law? Because I know this is kind of a gift toward immigration stuff, but that's nothing to do with immigration.

[Julio Thompson (Assistant Attorney General, Co-Director, Civil Rights Unit)]: Yeah. Don't think there's anything in the bill that really speaks to immigration. It's just talking about law enforcement. And I think that's probably places it on a stronger ground. It's because it's less, you know, targeted and treating one type of law enforcement worse than other similar types of law enforcement. On the issue of undercover, for example and again, these are things that didn't come up in committee yesterday, and so I would just, you know, encourage people to take a look at these other bills. Illinois and Michigan, for example, just have a they just have a broad undercover definition. I think Michigan calls it covert operation. We have a definition that says where it's, you know, it's reasonably necessary to be able to carry out surveillance and the like. Illinois has something that is that they refer as general undercover, so it isn't tied to specific crimes, but it's incumbent upon, you know, the individual to demonstrate that that's that's a necessary component Right. As as part of their defense. And so, you know, there are a number of these laws that have many of the exceptions you've been talking about. I would encourage you to take a look at the language and maybe it's suitable for you. We don't we ourselves don't have specific recommendations because it's more in the policy area, but there are, you know, there are a number of them that have this, including this issue about if I if I might, about whether there should be a statewide policy versus a law. Well, California's law has a policy requirement. Every law enforcement agency subject to the law has to have a policy. And so that's gonna be that's and that was upheld because it doesn't apply to federal government. And so for the for the state law enforcement policies. And there there are a couple of other bills that require a statewide policy that can get into the the details, but that have to follow the general parameters of their other you know, their no mask or their or limited mask and or identification laws, which is similar to what you've done in the past with respect to fair and impartial policing, body worn cameras, use of force policy. Those are the three that come top of mind where there is a state statute that sets the parameters. And then there's a much fine grained in a more, you know, very, like, I worked extensively on the statewide Fair and Imperial policing policy where there's hundreds of hours, you know, of engagement with, you know, both law enforcement and prosecutors, you know, community representatives and advocacy groups as well. And so there are a couple of states that, you know, do both. And I don't know whether that's what you wanna do there, but I would

[Deputy Sheriff Jimmy Baldea (Fraternal Order of Police, National Trustee – Vermont)]: encourage you to just to take

[Julio Thompson (Assistant Attorney General, Co-Director, Civil Rights Unit)]: a look at those, that those bills. And I I have some of the bill numbers available if people wanna take a look.

[Rep. Kenneth "Ken" Goslant (Clerk)]: You gotta stop bringing up questions in my mind.

[Julio Thompson (Assistant Attorney General, Co-Director, Civil Rights Unit)]: No. You said surveillance, and

[Rep. Kenneth "Ken" Goslant (Clerk)]: I had a conversation last night with a police officer, and that's the exact words that we used as far as, you know, a bigger umbrella, I guess, could say other than the the two exemptions was to exempt people, law enforcement doing surveillance. But then it comes back to testimony we heard earlier, and I don't know if any of the other states address it or not. The situation situation one of the situations that was brought up this morning was that, you know, police officers may have to go into a workplace to, you know, to address somebody, and they they and they they don't wanna, you know, you know, embarrass the people or or raise any concerns anywhere. They just wanna go in and talk to

[Deputy Sheriff Jimmy Baldea (Fraternal Order of Police, National Trustee – Vermont)]: the

[Rep. Kenneth "Ken" Goslant (Clerk)]: person or maybe they're going into a home and they don't wanna alarm the kids or just situations like that and do any of it the other states have any language that that exempts those types of situations. You know of, I mean. Yeah, there's none of

[Julio Thompson (Assistant Attorney General, Co-Director, Civil Rights Unit)]: the bills that I've looked at active, have anything that's like a plain clothes exception, Right? There isn't. There are they they will have they'll say the broadest I've seen is, like, appropriate identification. That's a name and identification number and an agency name, but it doesn't say where that has to be displayed, whether that's, you know, waist ID on the lapel or anything, but that it has to be visible. Oh, it has? But so in terms of just like being, you know, not undercover, but being kind of like not advertising that you're law enforcement, as I heard in some of the testimony today, I haven't seen that addressed.

[Rep. Kenneth "Ken" Goslant (Clerk)]: Not undercover, but in some instances, being respectful.

[Julio Thompson (Assistant Attorney General, Co-Director, Civil Rights Unit)]: Well, I mean, you know, it is I I you know, that's something I think the law enforcement witnesses can talk to. I certainly have Right. Encountered many federal I don't I don't know that I've ever met an FBI agent. I think there were over 13 or 15,000 of them in the country. I mean so, I mean, just my small sample, they're they're always wearing suits. They always

[Rep. Kenneth "Ken" Goslant (Clerk)]: I'm not even concerned about the fence, really.

[Julio Thompson (Assistant Attorney General, Co-Director, Civil Rights Unit)]: I'm Or police just generally police detectives when they're coming out.

[Rep. Kenneth "Ken" Goslant (Clerk)]: Concerned about the the ramifications for our law enforcement officials who, again, the words I used yesterday, they're kinda collateral damage as as far as this law goes and and trying to not necessarily protect them, but them being able to do their job. The the way they're doing it now because we really don't have a lot of issues with the way they're doing their job now.

[Julio Thompson (Assistant Attorney General, Co-Director, Civil Rights Unit)]: Yeah. I mean, a central focus of the court decision out of the Central District Of California was that, you know, the the masking law went down and was blocked. The judge issued and granted the application for a preliminary injunction because state and federal law enforcement officers were treated differently in some respects Right. Where they were similarly situated. And so, you know, a bill and like I said, I think I've seen one bill that just applies to federal minorities. I think, you know, without

[Rep. Kenneth "Ken" Goslant (Clerk)]: I think time.

[Julio Thompson (Assistant Attorney General, Co-Director, Civil Rights Unit)]: Stating odds stating odds that I would say it's swimming upstream a bit in light of the case. Whether that's why state legislators did or they had their own experience with state or local law mass mass law enforcement, I don't know. I don't know that. But it is most of them do apply to all law enforcement.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: I appreciate it. Tom, Angela, Zach, Ian, if you would like saw the hands raised inside.

[Julio Thompson (Assistant Attorney General, Co-Director, Civil Rights Unit)]: Not benches, we would say.

[Rep. Ian Goodnow (Member)]: Not something we're

[Sgt. Ben Herrick (Rutland County Sheriff's Department)]: all we

[Rep. Ian Goodnow (Member)]: didn't catch the penalty. What is is it

[Julio Thompson (Assistant Attorney General, Co-Director, Civil Rights Unit)]: a misdemeanor tool? Or is it That's a good that's a good question. Yeah. I think Maryland is a it's a civil offense of $1,500.

[Rep. Ian Goodnow (Member)]: Now do you think it's possible or likely that California and Maryland are doing it with those types of offenses because they don't have a statewide mechanism for federal regulation for police officers like Vermont does?

[Julio Thompson (Assistant Attorney General, Co-Director, Civil Rights Unit)]: Well, Vermont, California, I think, notoriously has the peace officer standards training. Right. Well, they

[Rep. Ian Goodnow (Member)]: have sorry. They they have mandated policies, but they don't have an FOP or an FIP policy that's, you know, in a in a criminal justice council to sanction and handle some of these certification and hand down any type of punitive suspensions, anything like that. Do mean for a license? License? License, anything. Yes. Exactly. So if you don't have that mechanism to practice somebody, then you would put in a civil or criminal violation.

[Julio Thompson (Assistant Attorney General, Co-Director, Civil Rights Unit)]: I can't speak to contemporary California practice, but I practiced in California for fifteen years. And I think thirteen of those years, I did some of that law enforcement work. And California does have a mechanism for removing certification for officers. So, know, an officer commits a, you know, a felony or misdemeanor, for example, domestic violence, where there can be, their law enforcement powers can be revoked. If there's persistent if there's persistent refusal to do firearms qualification, the agency can report them to this to the state licensing authority and and suspend their ability to carry a firearm. So so I'm not familiar

[Rep. Ian Goodnow (Member)]: I haven't really the difference I'm looking for, though. I mean, that your employer is likely going to do that. If you're breaking the law, your employer is likely going to remove your certification. Or if you're not fulfilling the standards, they're

[Rep. Kenneth "Ken" Goslant (Clerk)]: going to remove your

[Rep. Ian Goodnow (Member)]: certification. If they know about it, the same thing would be in Vermont. If we enact a statewide policy that applies to all police departments, it can be administered or overseen by the criminal justice council.

[Julio Thompson (Assistant Attorney General, Co-Director, Civil Rights Unit)]: I think in most states, I think most states have set up their law enforcement certification. And again, you're talking about 15,000 police departments. Right. I'm only speaking very broadly here, but most states hold law enforcement accountable as they do other professionals, including architects, dentists, lawyers, physicians, EMTs to multiple layers of accountability for their actions. If they violate the criminal law, their accountability is they go to jail. If they cause a civil injury and it's not subject to immunity, they're civilly liable. And they also, under their licensing authority, could face revocation of their license? So I think there is. I I mean, I just to digress briefly, I mean, heard a few questions about double jeopardy. Double jeopardy is purely a criminal law phenomenon. And so we've had even in Vermont, we've had law enforcement officers who have been criminally charged and lost their certification.

[Rep. Zachary Harvey (Member)]: We've redefined double jeopardy. It's very difficult. I missed that part.

[Rep. Ian Goodnow (Member)]: It's going to fall apart in each individual agency. If if there's a violation in California, whereas in Vermont, it's gonna rely upon one, and that would be the criminal justice council. They can go through the complaints and the reports of violations.

[Julio Thompson (Assistant Attorney General, Co-Director, Civil Rights Unit)]: Again, I can't speak to contemporary practice. I happen to know California law at least very well when I was there, and the state licensing authority accepts complaints from the public. So if you have an allegation that an officer has committed a misdemeanor or multiple misdemeanors, that's enough. That's enough for them to initiate independent investigative and licensed authority just as members of the Vermont and every state bar in the DC bar if they receive a professional responsibility complaint that attorneys violate the rules of ethics. That's enough regardless of whether your employer reports you or not.

[Rep. Ian Goodnow (Member)]: Do they also help create the standard or the policy or is that

[Julio Thompson (Assistant Attorney General, Co-Director, Civil Rights Unit)]: up to different set of people? I think for California, again, it's dated information. So I'm not sure how valuable it is today. But it's yeah. But the licensing authority is in accordance with the peace officer standard training, which is quite extensive. And and indeed California, and I think the next state I'm familiar with would be New Jersey, have much more extensive policies regulating their officers than Vermont does. New Jersey, for example, has a mandatory internal affairs policy that every that every police department must follow that's issued by the attorney general, because in New Jersey, the attorney general has statutory authority to do that. So the models vary quite differently. My larger point, yeah, reporting by referring to my testimony was that there are other models that I would just encourage folks or legislative counsel to take a look at because they may snap up some they may provide solutions to some of the policy issues that you're you're wrestling with here, or you may have a better variation of what you've seen in another state like Illinois or or Pennsylvania or the like.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Angela, then Zach, can you

[Rep. Angela Arsenault (Member)]: I was gonna ask, you mentioned earlier you have those bill numbers.

[Julio Thompson (Assistant Attorney General, Co-Director, Civil Rights Unit)]: Sure. And I can provide a list also. But if you'd like to, I do have a list of Yeah.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: If just you provide that along with the you mentioned some articles from other constitutional scholars. If you could provide that all to Nate so he can put it in Okay.

[Julio Thompson (Assistant Attorney General, Co-Director, Civil Rights Unit)]: And can I just clarify, not a list of them?

[Rep. Zachary Harvey (Member)]: Can you just produce the actual bills? Yeah. If you

[Julio Thompson (Assistant Attorney General, Co-Director, Civil Rights Unit)]: have Yeah. Think I have PDF copies to all of them, and I can send those to Ledge Council. If you'd like, I

[Deputy Sheriff Jimmy Baldea (Fraternal Order of Police, National Trustee – Vermont)]: can Send to Nate.

[Julio Thompson (Assistant Attorney General, Co-Director, Civil Rights Unit)]: Oh, I'm sorry. I can also, if you'd like, I think I have live links to the bill status of each of the pages. So that's how I know, like a bill got out of committee last week. And so that would be helpful. I mean, of what we're trying to do here is to give you all the information you need to make your policy decision and to offer what reason judgments we can about what we think, try to help the legislature get to where it wants to go. And I think there are lots of other issues that haven't been taken up. For example, just to gild the lily a little bit. I mean, are some states there's at least one bill that addresses eyewear, you know, that's permitted to protect against lasers. Some people have been using laser pointers on law enforcement where they've been reported injuries. And so that's something that they're trying to address in the bill or a reflective visor on a motorcycle officer who's on the bike, that sort of thing. So they've been, you know, they've been having the same kind of discussions in their legislation as well. So I encourage you to look and see if there are things on those menus that you want to to pick and modify. I would encourage that.

[Rep. Zachary Harvey (Member)]: Well, actually Follow-up to your

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: question.

[Rep. Angela Arsenault (Member)]: Yeah. Well, no, I have that

[Rep. Zachary Harvey (Member)]: was just that was

[Rep. Angela Arsenault (Member)]: a request. Question is, I think absent in this conversation so far has been the point that I think you and Representative Burditt were talking about briefly, and that is prosecutorial discretion. And in our effort to be really thoughtful and craft a bill that helps and doesn't hurt. Think pretty clear acknowledgement we cannot possibly list all of the necessary exceptions.

[Julio Thompson (Assistant Attorney General, Co-Director, Civil Rights Unit)]: And

[Rep. Angela Arsenault (Member)]: I guess in my mind, that is where discretion comes in. Prosecutorial discretion. I don't know that we Do we actually have to worry about every Given everything I just said about how careful and thoughtful and intentional we need to be, we will miss something. Some one off will happen. But I feel like we haven't acknowledged that then there can be a decision made not to assess the fine, and not to consider it a violation, given the circumstances.

[Rep. Ian Goodnow (Member)]: Is that

[Rep. Angela Arsenault (Member)]: fair to say?

[Julio Thompson (Assistant Attorney General, Co-Director, Civil Rights Unit)]: I think the bill is written, it's a civil violation, so there's discretion both as written in the bill as to the issuance of the citation and as to the enforcement, you know, by the the local authority. I haven't seen I I did not see testimony from the state's attorney's office. You know, some of these bills expressly state who gets to enforce the civil violation. They're usually delegated to the county, you know, the county or city district attorney and state's attorney's office. I didn't hear any test testimony from the Department of State's attorneys about what the what the prosecutors think about about these cases, whether they're likely, you know, or, you know, how they would evaluate those cases. And I guess the larger question for you and really the attorney general's office can't answer, which is what is the ex what are the anticipated community expectations if in a given case, let's say it's vis a vis federal authorities, the defendant decides not to to cite or the person or the federal officer refuses to identify himself. No one's I haven't heard any real testimony about then. Or if the federal officer says, yeah, it's flu season, and so I'm under your flu season exception. I don't know what the law enforcement officer is supposed to do then or what the state's attorney's office would do then. A critical value of having a civil fine is if cases that are going to be pursued are to be pursued under the lower preponderance of the evidence standard rather than reasonable doubt, especially when you have so many exemptions. That's a very, very hard high standard, as you know. I'm sure you've known all for many years.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Zach, think you take us home unless if you have a question or if you do No,

[Deputy Sheriff Jimmy Baldea (Fraternal Order of Police, National Trustee – Vermont)]: I just wanted to clarify that we'd get all of that. So Zach, you've

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: got the last question.

[Rep. Zachary Harvey (Member)]: But I only have about a dozen, so it should be pretty quick. I'm joking.

[Julio Thompson (Assistant Attorney General, Co-Director, Civil Rights Unit)]: I'm being accused of speaking quickly.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Yeah. No. No. No.

[Rep. Zachary Harvey (Member)]: Well, first off, Julio, I appreciate your comment. And I think it's been very informative. And about the double trepanies, that was a joke from yesterday, and so that's why there was laughter. It was not about you.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: So I actually want

[Rep. Zachary Harvey (Member)]: to start with where the question the vice chair was talking about on the ADA discrimination component. If an officer was suing for ADA discrimination, would it be your office that would be representing them in that case? Who, where does the culpability fall there?

[Julio Thompson (Assistant Attorney General, Co-Director, Civil Rights Unit)]: Okay, so there's both a state law called the Fair Employment Practices Act that governs all employers in Vermont except the federal government. We don't regulate the federal government. The Americans with Disabilities Act applies to all employers who have 15 or more employees. So Vermont state law, we call it FIPA for short, Fair Employment Practices Act. FIPA is enforced by our office for all employers except for the state of Vermont. So if they were a complaint about disability discrimination by a municipal employee, a school district employee, county employee, or a private sector employee, those would come to our office. And if it involves an allegation of a violation of federal law, federal agency, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission would investigate.

[Rep. Zachary Harvey (Member)]: Okay. And so I think one of the things that I just wanna opine on quickly is the Ninth Circuit. And I do think that there could possibly be the reasonable expectation that our colleagues in the California State Legislature are legislating policy that they know that would probably be, would sail through an appeals process, given that there's a liberal tint to the Ninth Circuit. 1613 is the breakdown that I lost, knew maybe it's changed. I think one of the things that could be interesting is given the fact that Vermont is in the second circuit and you had recent appointees like Nardini, Manasseh, and Park in the first Trump administration, there probably would be a reasonable expectation that we probably could see a different outcome in the second circuit and obviously and then going to the Supreme Court. So I think I just think it's good for us to point out that there's probably a different expectation between the second circuit and the ninth circuit. Given that uncertainty

[Rep. Kenneth "Ken" Goslant (Clerk)]: I disagree with all

[Rep. Zachary Harvey (Member)]: the decisions. Hold on. Hold on. Me just me just get my question out. Yeah. Let me get the question out and the time. Given that uncertainty at the circuit level, do you think it would be prudent for us as a committee and as a legislature here in Vermont to wait and see how things play out given the constitutional challenges like federal administration is undoubtedly gonna be bringing? You you said it yourself. Near a 100% certainty that the attorney general's office will probably be will file an appeal. Do you think it'd be prudent to wait and see how that plays out before we try to legislate something like this?

[Julio Thompson (Assistant Attorney General, Co-Director, Civil Rights Unit)]: I can't offer you direction on what when he wants to find the balance of risk. Can tell you what the risks are. To start with, I I would strongly disagree with the characters or the the speculation about what the ninth circuit would do. I guess the one marginal qualification I have there is that I was a ninth circuit clerk. I that was right out of law school, Michigan Law School. I went straight to the Ninth Circuit, which had judges going back to appointees from president Nixon. I think there's still one judge, one Nixon appointee who's still there. I think in my experience then and dealing with Ninth Circuit and all the circuits really in appellate jurisdiction, it is very difficult to make assumptions about, especially when you're talking about issues of federalism and constitutional law, especially for judges who haven't encountered the issue and don't have a track record in writing it. And so this is an area, there isn't much case law on states doing regulating things that touch on federal authorities. There's a lot going the other way as to how much the federal government can regulate the state. For example, state employees are subject to title seven. That's federal law affecting state employee operations, and that's permitted under the Commerce Clause. But there isn't there's scant case law on this. And so I would just caution, you know, this idea of like liberal versus conservative judges, because my experience, personal experience was judges who were so called conservative, their brand of conservatism was very libertarian in origin. And so they were the quickest to vote to throw out evidence in a suppression hearing that would otherwise be viewed as, you know, you know, a liberal outcome. So I would I would just caution that. I think, you know, whether you want to wait or not, I think that's a choice I can make. Maybe alleged counsel can inform you there. I think it's quite likely we're gonna hear some we're gonna have to hear from the Ninth Circuit within a month. Right. And whether you want to wait or not, I think that's that's up to you. But I think it will be, you know, it will be coming pretty soon. It's not likely to be and there'll be there'll be briefing. There'll be amicus briefs that will be filed on both sides. And so I think we and the attorney general's office will, within the next month, it might be six weeks, we will have the benefit of additional legal authorities. You know, one of the helpful things when cases go to the court of appeals is those friend of the court briefs start pouring in, including from, know, groups of law professors, 20 law professors will write a brief and go and do a deeper dig into the subject than anybody else was. And we find those very useful. We file those or we join those kind of briefs ourselves all the time, where we do research that no one touched areas of the law that no one or history that no one else has touched. So I think we are gonna get a lot more information. And and in terms of the pace of the progress, I'm just not confident really to tell you.

[Rep. Zachary Harvey (Member)]: Sure. And I

[Julio Thompson (Assistant Attorney General, Co-Director, Civil Rights Unit)]: would just say that I

[Rep. Zachary Harvey (Member)]: appreciate that. And I would just say too, just for the record and for clarification, that is in my characterization of the court. Yeah. And like you said yourself, contemporary California is a very different world than I think probably the one that

[Julio Thompson (Assistant Attorney General, Co-Director, Civil Rights Unit)]: you left there. The last point that I wanna ask is do And by extension, the attorney general herself support the bill as written? We we we support the idea of the bill. We never support a bill that's unconstitutional. So we are So you would think this is constitutional? I haven't said that. I said we're still evaluating it, and we are you know, this bill is still in evolution, and we are looking to find what testimony you're gonna take in terms of articulating the the state's interests. The states do have, as you've heard yesterday. They have very strong authority governing their law enforcement, but you also have other laws that you've been using to to deal with some of those concerns, like impersonation of a police officer who's already an existing state law. So you don't support it? I told you that we're evaluating it, so that means that we haven't reached a final conclusion.

[Rep. Zachary Harvey (Member)]: When do you think that you'll reach that conclusion? Because I think having the attorney general's perspective on this would be I

[Julio Thompson (Assistant Attorney General, Co-Director, Civil Rights Unit)]: think I've given you my perspective, which is that it's a complicated issue. Minds are still their briefs are still being written on the issue, and we're considering all of those voices. And you've heard some of those voices, and I think there are other voices either in legislatures or in academia that you haven't heard. And so we'll see. I think there are, like I said, there are opposing views among academics, and, you know, that could be manifest ed in the judiciary as well. The Ninth Circuit may agree or not. So we're still evaluating that. We as a matter of practice, we rarely when a bill is you know in its earliest stages and it's a developing area of the law just say, yep, it's constitutional now. If if the legislature enacts the law and and sued, we're gonna defend that law in court, and we're gonna make every argument that we possibly can. And that's why we wanna hear in legislate and I think it's it's been very democratic, and I think very fair process in terms of getting a a a broader range of voices. I think the more voices you hear, that builds a stronger record for any piece of legislation. And so I think, you know, I encourage that robust process. And that's why we encourage you to look at other materials that we're aware of rather than just keeping them on our bookshelves and not sharing with you.

[Deputy Sheriff Jimmy Baldea (Fraternal Order of Police, National Trustee – Vermont)]: Thank you.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Yeah. So thank you. Thank you very much. Just for folks following us, we will be taking a pause on S-two 08, and we'll probably take it up again sometime in mid March after crossover. This afternoon, we have Trevor Swirl at 01:00 for ten minutes. We will talk to you about vacancy savings, and then we'll move to the next slide. So please be here at one if you want to hear about vacancy savings.

[Rep. Zachary Harvey (Member)]: Has he got a phone?