Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: We're live. Hi. Welcome back to the Health Judiciary Committee. This Thursday afternoon, April ninth, we're going to now turn attention to S209 and activating to prohibiting civil arrest and sensitive locations. And I think three witnesses, if they all show up. We're gonna start with Julio Thompson from the attorney general's office. Go blue. I had to say that.

[Rep. Karen Dolan (Member)]: Go on to the victims. Let's do a round of that.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Thank you for being here. Is this you're

[Rep. Karen Dolan (Member)]: I don't know. Oh, we thought

[Rep. Thomas Burditt (Vice Chair)]: we thought happy to help. We figured.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah. Here.

[Julio Thompson (Assistant Attorney General, Civil Rights Unit Co-Director)]: Good afternoon, and thank you for inviting me. My name for the record is Julio Thompson. I'm an assistant attorney general and co director of the civil rights unit. Part of our responsibility in the civil rights unit relates to constitutional issues, including federalism issues that is legal issues presented between when either state or federal law is being applied and one has a direct or indirect impact on the other. So I'm here to talk about S209. The committee invited me here to speak. I didn't receive a specific request to address it. So I'll leave it to if there's general direction from a chair of the committee, then I'll be happy to move in that direction.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Yeah. Mean, it's just those issues you just mentioned. Mean, how does this work as far as should we have big concerns? We have good arguments if this is challenged as being unconstitutional because of supremacy clause. That's the main thing that I thought that we would like to hear from.

[Julio Thompson (Assistant Attorney General, Civil Rights Unit Co-Director)]: Okay. That is something I'm prepared to speak about today. So s two zero nine, again, for the record, for those who are listening out there, is the proposed act to prohibit civil arrest in so called sensitive locations, which amend the existing statute regarding civil arrests in courthouses and extended areas such as schools, healthcare facilities, places of worship in a variety of other locations that are on property, they're related to the state of Vermont or to areas within the state of Vermont's legal authorities, often in constitutional law called police powers, even though that's not confined to law enforcement, would include things like health and welfare regulation within the state borders. Looking at the bill and also having the benefit of looking at some, but not all the testimony, I think there's good reason to believe in existing law that states do have the authority to regulate locations relating to civil arrests without violating The US supremacy clause. A good deal of S209 relates to areas that are either owned or operated by the state. Those aspects of the law tend to be the easiest, and that doesn't mean easy, but the easiest to defend because there's well settled case law that state and local governments as a proprietor of its own property can regulate those who access that property and the conditions and the activities that are on that property. So I think schools, state municipal buildings, municipal buildings in Vermont, are a subdivision of the state. So I think well within the scope of that authority. This is not an area where it appears there are particularly strong arguments for federal preemption. Preemption remember is a conflict between state and federal law or actions where Congress is either regulated in area and state action would conflict with federal law and under the supremacy clause in Article six of the constitution, federal law would govern. This is not an area where Congress has regulated and there's no clear mandate, at least in our view that Congress has precluded states from governing access as to locations for where it wants to regulate, where certain activity may take place, including immigration enforcement. Is somewhat widely known, there is a federal law that Congress enacted decades ago that specifically addresses location for immigration arrests or when federal agents may enter lands, that specifically addressed to land located very near the international border where Congress authorized officers to go onto open lands, but not at the dwellings. But there's nothing there indicating that Congress precluded any other sort of, you know, precluded states or municipalities to kind of govern activities on the form. And as I think a couple of years ago, more than a few years ago, maybe 2022 when this committee considered the courthouse specific predecessor to this bill, there had long been a common law privilege for courthouses, and there was no real indication that Congress intended in its immigration laws to supersede that common law privilege. So the area of preemption, I think, is just an area where, again, it has to do with Congress. You have to have a law for preemption or a statement that it's basically off limits for state and local governments. We might see that in areas, for example, dealing with private sector labor relations under laws like the National Labor Relations Act or the Labor Management Relations Act, where it's very clear that Congress wanted to govern the area of private sector collective bargaining so as to have a uniform system. And there are similar congressional pronouncements in areas like copyright and trademark law, to name just a couple of examples. And we don't have that really here, except with the extent that only the federal government is authorized to make arrests for civil arrests with respect to immigration. That's exclusively a federal function. There's another type of conflict that can arise where constitutional issue is presented, even where Congress hasn't spoken. It's got a terrible clunky lawyer created or judge created name called intergovernmental immunity. That's a common law, which means judge made law doctrine, where states are generally prohibited from enacting laws that either directly regulate federal officers, or they discriminate against them. And here for two zero nine, we can take the second component first because it's the easiest. On its face, S209 is not discriminatory. It applies to civil arrests, state and local officers are able to carry out, as well as federal immigration officials. There may be other federal civil arrest authorities as well, but it's not targeted exclusively towards ICE. And that's really the test that the court looks at is not what people were thinking, that legislative intent is often difficult to divine, but in terms of what is the effect of the law, does it target only federal activity? And and s two zero nine does not.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: I saw a hand up in

[Rep. Thomas Burditt (Vice Chair)]: my Yeah.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Yeah. Before you I've

[Rep. Thomas Burditt (Vice Chair)]: had a couple. I've gone along. Sure. So to rewind a little bit. So you talked about private or government areas. What about public areas traveling to and from?

[Julio Thompson (Assistant Attorney General, Civil Rights Unit Co-Director)]: So public areas of so you are you referring to language in the bill about traveling to and from? So that has to do, I think, with page one subsection C that talks about subject to civil arrest while traveling to entering, remaining at, or returning from, and then it identifies the various properties. There isn't a lot of law in this area and different states have taken a different approach. Illinois has something called CASPA, which is the Access Safety Protection Act, which the statute creates a 1,000 foot buffer zone that surrounds the protected locations, principally there, it's courthouses. That case is currently under legal challenge, and there hasn't been any, even the first kind of motions filed in the case hadn't been fully briefed. Last year, New York state, which has a 2020 law relating to courthouses called the Protecting Our Courthouses Act, or POCA, uses essentially the same language, going to, remaining at, returning from the place of a court proceeding. The United States sued in that case and saying that it interfered with federal authorities. The district court ruled against the government. So the court, at least in that case, the justice department in that case didn't focus on the travel language, but just objected to the law in general. And the court said that this is something that's within the state's sovereign authority. And so that case is currently on appeal. The decision came out last year, late last year from the Federal District Court for the Northern District of New York. That was when the United States government challenges a law, they usually challenge the entire law and say the whole thing is invalid, which is called a facial challenge. And the standard for that is that there's no application of this law that could be constitution. And that's what the US government challenged. I think in the future in New York, and if S209 passes, we might anticipate that there would be individual cases where a private lawsuit is filed or the attorney general's office files a court action where the question of the application of the law regarded to a specific set of facts would be subject to argument by the state of Vermont or by the federal government. So the idea, for example, that someone traveling from Sponton to a court hearing in Brattleboro, and they're intercepted by immigration authorities while they're stopping at a bathroom break on a rest stop or at a gas station along the way to refuel. If they're apprehended then I think that would be something for the courts to address. The balance of interest really would be the effect of the law on federal operations versus, which I think would largely be de minimis. Those would be relatively rare and infrequent circumstances one could imagine versus the state's interest in having people appear for court hearings. So I can't say in advance what a court would do on that, but those would be the sorts of cases I think where they could come up. I do think if somewhere to I'm not sure the attorney general would bring such an action. But imagine, for example, that someone has a court hearing that's in Delaware and is arrested at Boston Logan Airport. It seems unlikely that a court would find that Vermont state law extends beyond its state's borders. So I think that when a court interprets a statute, it interprets it in a way that's constitutional. It assumes that it's going to be constitutional. So it's conceivable we might have in the future if this bill passed with that language, that we may have some court that will apply more fact specific determinations, which is not uncommon for statutes. I work in civil rights unit when we deal with things like the Americans with Disabilities Act, where there's requirements to provide reasonable accommodation for disability. And people say, well, what does that mean? And it's a very fact specific inquiry. I would expect that it would be in the individual case rather than a lawsuit attacking the whole statute. The government may be in a position to try to make its case that in that case, the interests of the state in court appearances are not nearly at issue. That would certainly be in a case, for example, if someone decides to take an errand, to run an errand, which in the laws tends to be known as a frolic and detour. I think it's the phrases that the courts use where someone abandons their principal purpose in travel to take some other direction. So I think that would be something that courts would probably look at from a state by state basis. But in terms of the language on its own, I don't think it puts the entire statute in jeopardy or the bill. Do you

[Rep. Thomas Burditt (Vice Chair)]: have any opinion on the statute as regards to Vermont law enforcement not making civil arrests in the state of Vermont?

[Julio Thompson (Assistant Attorney General, Civil Rights Unit Co-Director)]: Well, I think the statute prohibits civil arrests for everyone. So it would include state and local law enforcement.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Well, for

[Rep. Thomas Burditt (Vice Chair)]: law enforcement, there's no big civil arrests.

[Julio Thompson (Assistant Attorney General, Civil Rights Unit Co-Director)]: Well, I think there has been historically a Without a warrant? I'm sorry? Without a warrant? Well, this isn't confined to warrantless arrests. It's just speaking of civil arrests. There can be Just to

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: be clear, there is exceptions that it doesn't apply if the arrest is pursuant to a warrant or court order. So Yeah. I'm really

[Julio Thompson (Assistant Attorney General, Civil Rights Unit Co-Director)]: Yeah. So I am talking about Yeah. I'm not really that familiar with what sheriffs I mean, historically, sheriffs have been authorized to execute such warrants, those are court issued. I'm not aware of a civil arrest authority that's akin or analogous to say probable cause misdemeanor. We're regulating one and not

[Rep. Thomas Burditt (Vice Chair)]: the other, though. Mean, because we shouldn't do that. It's not in practice among them.

[Julio Thompson (Assistant Attorney General, Civil Rights Unit Co-Director)]: Yeah, but you know, well, that's a very important point. And the test for whether something discriminates against the federal government is whether the federal government is being treated worse than similarly situated state actors. And so you have to have what the courts call a comparator. You have to show someone who is in a similar situation to the federal officers and how they treat it better. And so if state officers don't have that authority, they can't necessarily be treated better if it only applies to one type of authority. That was part of the reasoning that was used recently in a district court case in the Central District Of California recently, in California's no masking law, where the court in that case was looking at whether state law enforcement officers were similarly situated to federal officers and found that they were, that they did have roughly parallel authority conduct arrests and detentions consistent with the law. So the fact that it, the question would be, is there an activity that Vermont officers could do that the federal authorities can't do? And the answer here, I think, would be no. That they are not they wouldn't be able to make a warrantless civil arrest and neither would the federal officers. So there wouldn't be a basis for discrimination.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Karen, you go tell him, sorry.

[Rep. Karen Dolan (Member)]: If you just answered that. Because it's not that Vermont law enforcement are specifically barred from doing civil arrests. Correct?

[Rep. Thomas Burditt (Vice Chair)]: It's not a practice.

[Rep. Karen Dolan (Member)]: It's not a current practice, but practice can change at any moment. And this makes it specifically clear that this is not allowed. But that's the difference that I see.

[Rep. Thomas Burditt (Vice Chair)]: So it's preemptive. Doesn't make sense.

[Julio Thompson (Assistant Attorney General, Civil Rights Unit Co-Director)]: I think that's right. I mean, typically with and there have been different legal tools that have been used to prohibit civil arrest. Sometimes it's done by executive order in some states. In some states, it's been done by legislation. And in each of those cases, they've all consistently related it to civil arrests versus criminal arrests. And I think, you know, in reading those laws, and I've read, I think most of them that have been enacted, not all the bills, but most of the laws and executive orders. And the balance that has been struck is that public safety, also an arrest warrant is issued by a neutral judge, basically on a higher standard than we would expect for a civil arrest. And so that's kind of the balance that's been struck. Think with the passage of two zero nine, there wouldn't be a mechanism to permit prohibited civil arrest without the legislature going back and basically rescinding that. I think it would, I haven't researched the executive order issues here, but I think it would be challenging, for example, for there to be an executive order that would dictate something contrary to state law. I think the trickier issue rather than non discrimination is whether this directly regulates federal authorities. And the general rule is that states can't direct the functions or control the activities of federal officers. And then there's a flip side to that court. They're generally preserved under the tenth amendment for state officers to do their business without direction by the federal authorities in terms of how they carry out their jobs. There's less case law on that. When you have a law of general application, what the court's looking is to see whether it's something that, how much it actually affects federal officer versus incidentally offensive. For example, federal legal authorities have to follow state traffic laws. They would be subject not only to civil action, but criminal action for state criminal justice laws. And that's not because they're being controlled directly. That's the test, direct control. But rather those are incidental effects of being in the state of Vermont, just like everyone else. So the Supreme Court in a case back in the 1920s said, things like traffic laws, they apply to everybody and that's a permissible area. And so really here we're talking about, so the question will be, if there is a legal challenge, to what extent does this really affect immigration activities? And I think there are strong arguments that the impact is de minimis. Dating back to the Clinton administration, there have been substantial restrictions on immigration authorities' ability to carry out civil enforcement activity, not just for courthouses, but for other places, including places of worship, schools. I think there was a Obama administration directive for homeland security that talked in generally about places where children and their families may congregate, just pretty open ended. So what you're really talking about here isn't like a federal statute or a right that's in federal law or regulation. What you're talking about is an activity that historically has been discretionary for the federal executive branch. And so The United States would have to make the argument that this law would substantially affect those operations where it's clear that Vermont, I don't know what the number is exactly, but I think it's close to 1,500 square miles. That's kind of flat, traversable land. The rest is mountains and water. And you're really talking about less than one or 2% of landmass that would be affected on a generous estimate. So you've got better than roughly 99% of the state where the law doesn't touch federal law enforcement activity, doesn't address the ability to make arrests at other places where people might be found in public. It's just either at or going to or from these places, really relate to state sovereign interests, which is like health and welfare, law enforcement, schools, education, and services available to people either related to the education, health, or criminal justice system. So I think there are good arguments to be made there. It doesn't mean that the courts will necessarily agree. There isn't a lot of case law on that. But in the context of courthouses, we do have the most recent decision by the federal court in New York, and we expect to see other decisions. Similarly, it'll just be a question, I think, as to how far that authority extends. As I started out with, when you're talking about state controlled property or property where state mandated or supported programs are, I think that tends to be the stronger end of the spectrum and we'll see how far the courts take it in the other direction. So those are my comments about that.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Any other questions for Abuja? Don't see any. Thank you, Admiral. That's what I wanted you to cover, I really appreciate your input on this. So thank you. We will then go to Beth St. James. It is delightful having you back. What did you hear last? Last Best question. Last year, I think. Yeah.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I it was last biennium.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Bienniums go by so quick. Impeachment. Well, yeah, we did. Yes.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Did not get into fights at

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

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: on impeachment. Coach, go ahead. I didn't see your hand till just now.

[Rep. Kevin "Coach" Christie (Ranking Member)]: I just had a quick just had a quick question, Martin, about, you know, we haven't seen as many of them as, You know, this often, but when they would customs would come down and add Exit 1 and create a a full stop, You know, had to you know, stop, you know, go through the lane and usually the customs police and customs officers and the state police would be at that.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Julio, just in case it's is this a question for for Julio Thompson?

[Rep. Kevin "Coach" Christie (Ranking Member)]: Probably more regarding Julio's comments.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Okay. Alright. What what's the question?

[Rep. Kevin "Coach" Christie (Ranking Member)]: So the question is, in those situations where the border patrol would have a roadside stop in White River And all traffic would be stopped and have to go through that gauntlet, so to speak. And, you know, you know, are you a US citizen? Blah blah blah. You know, or are you a Vermont citizen, you know, etcetera? And those were the general questions that were asked.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: What's the question, though?

[Rep. Kevin "Coach" Christie (Ranking Member)]: No. Is that a situation that would be affected by this, you know, this new statute?

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: So I don't think we cover roadside stops. Oh, you mean if somebody's traveling and they get stopped?

[Rep. Kevin "Coach" Christie (Ranking Member)]: No. They're

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: like traveling to the courthouse or something like that and they get stopped in one of those?

[Rep. Thomas Burditt (Vice Chair)]: Not a outbound and inbound check. Right.

[Rep. Kevin "Coach" Christie (Ranking Member)]: You know, let let's say because, you know, we also have a courthouse, you know, in White River and let's say they're going down 91, you know, from Queechee, you know, to White River and they get stopped in that stop on their way to the courthouse.

[Julio Thompson (Assistant Attorney General, Civil Rights Unit Co-Director)]: Yeah. Yeah. So again, Julio Thompson, attorney general's office. It's possible that there could be an application there. I think the bill, which I've put away in my backpack, I think talks about legal action where they knowingly are making the arrest to or from. So I think either an individual who's suing for violation of the law or the attorney general's office who we're going into court, we've had some burden of proof, I think, to show that the officers making a civil arrest were aware of it. And that could be fact specific. Someone could say, Look, I am a summons. I'm due in court in half an hour. So that's possible. Happen case by case. There could be other instances where deviating from, again, you're trying to look at hypothetical cases in the future. If for example, in response to some enforcement prerogative, federal government decides it's going to set up roadblocks down the road from every courthouse and school, off of school property, you're gonna, order to get to school, you're gonna have to go through a traffic check. That would be something that I think that kind of practice would be something our office, if we saw that really did affect people's ability to go to school or to other sensitive locations would be subject to a legal challenge from the court to to, you know, to to surround.

[Rep. Kevin "Coach" Christie (Ranking Member)]: Okay. Thank you. You know, because that's more of what could very well, you know just happen, you know because I'm thinking about that intersection and where it's been set up, you know over the last you know twenty thirty years of going through and then running into one of those And, you know, now being on, you know, this committee, you go, what the heck? You know, what if? So thank you.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Alright. Thank you, Leo, and thank you, coach. And how's it different now than it was twenty or

[Rep. Thomas Burditt (Vice Chair)]: thirty years ago? Oh, god.

[Rep. Kevin "Coach" Christie (Ranking Member)]: Well, you know, the the the thing is they still set up the stop. So, you know, you have to go through it. And, you know, if unfortunately, you know, you're, you know, you know, you have migrant status of any range, for example,

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: now what they were doing twenty or thirty years ago.

[Rep. Kevin "Coach" Christie (Ranking Member)]: Well, you know, I'm not sure what they were looking for. If it was people contraband, you know, because they got a lot of good stuff during those times, you know? So, you know, it was just a general question, though.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Alright. So thank you, Julio, and thank you for being here, Beth. Welcome back to the committee. Thank you. We had questions for you, but I can't remember who the questions were, so maybe just tell us about this.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Bethany James, Office of Legislative Council. I am your education policy attorney.

[Julio Thompson (Assistant Attorney General, Civil Rights Unit Co-Director)]: I already heard about you a whole lot.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: You finding me? Here I am.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Is this like a nice break being here to talk?

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes, it is, actually. It's very lovely.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: You still have some what do they use called? Legacy hand. Legacy hand.

[Rep. Thomas Burditt (Vice Chair)]: Sorry for your name.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I believe you have invited me to your committee to talk about the definitions in S209 related to educational institution. Is that

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

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So, I'm going to stay as far away from the underlying policy of this bill as I can, just because I don't wanna step on my colleague's toes who has already shepherded this bill so far. And all I am here for is to talk about educational institutions. So in Title 16, we do not have a generalized definition for educational institution. We've got one off types of definitions, and we don't even have a definition for the term school. Although your colleagues in Ways and Means are working on that right now. So in order to rope everything into one term, what the Senate did was they created a new term of educational institution, which is not a new term, but it is a newly defined term, and then defined that term on page four, line 16 of S209 as passed by the Senate. And what I did to come up with this definition was I basically combed through Title 16 and found everywhere where there was some sort of educational program that may have some sort of physical location where folks might be going and referenced the Title So 16 educational institution, for the purposes of this statute, is a Actually, it's as used in this subsection. Educational institution means a public school, which is a defined term in Title 16, and we refer to that statute. An independent school, which is a defined term in Title 16, we refer to that statute. The term independent school will sweep in both approved and recognized independent schools. Educational institution includes a regional career and technical education center, defined term in Title 16. An approved education program. Those are the types of approved education programs that I am most familiar with are teen parenting programs. Again, defined term in Title 16. Pre qualified private pre K providers, so pre K that is pre qualified under your pre kindergarten statute, most of those programs are in childcare centers. A post secondary school, that term is defined in Title 16, and that's going to be all your secondary education institutions, whether they are public or private. And education, this is a fun one because it is changing by the day. An educational program operated by a board of cooperative education services. Two years ago, you all created BOCES in this state, which are just what their name suggests, boards of cooperative education services, and they can run their own programs. They are not a municipality. They are not a governance unit. They are a cooperative of supervisory unions who are supposed to share services. And the bill that your colleagues in voted out just last week changes the name of this program to Seesaws. Instead of BOCES, we're working with Seesaws now. So just to be aware that this is change that is very much alive. Tutorial programs, I am, to be quite honest with you, not sure if they have brick and mortar locations or if tutorial programs are something that kids are doing at home on their computer, but to the extent that we wanted to sweep in tutorial programs, we have referred to tutorial programs and referenced them in their definition in Title 16. Adult education and secondary credential programs, again, referring to the program in Title 16. There are adult education and literacy providers located, I think there's four of them that the state contracts with throughout the state. So there are brick and mortar places where folks are going for adult ed. So those are all of the different types of educational programs that I was able to think of in Title 16. And then all I did was reference their defined definitions to create that giant term of educational institution. And then we've also added here on page five, line 13, educational institution also extends to the grounds operated by, activities sponsored transportation provided by, and programs related to educational institutions.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Angela?

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I have one, well, and a half questions. So I just wanted to make sure on page five, lines three and four, the pre qualified private pre kindergarten provider, do those I know you mentioned those are basically in child care centers. Would that include in home providers and church locations? Oh, let's I believe if you are prequalified, then yes. But let me pull up section eight twenty nine. Actually, if I couldn't wait to hold. I think that's fair. So pre qualified private provider means a private provider of pre kindergarten education that is qualified pursuant to subsection C. So nice, circuitous definition there. Prequalification, pursuant to rules jointly developed and overseen by the secretaries, yada yada yada. I believe and then that subsection just lays out what you need to do to become prequalified. I think because there's no separate definition for a licensed home provider, I think they are swept in through the private provider definition. But I hear you on it is not as clear as it could be. And church locations was a concern as well. If it is a prequalified private provider, whether it is nondenominational or it doesn't matter. Is there a list of prequalified providers? I believe yes on DCF's website. And then would you recommend at this time that we change Board of Collective Education Services to Cooperative Education Service Area? My answer is going to be reflective of the week I've had, and that's why I said it's three forty five. Depends on how confident you are that age nine fifty five is going to go anywhere. And so that I couldn't recall. Was that name change also in this late set bill? It was, and then it was removed by an amendment from Ways and Means, and so it did not actually travel. It was voted out of education. Ways and Means removed it so that education could put it in nine five five, which is the big ed bill this year.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Good? Any more questions?

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah, mean, it's an answer.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Yeah, somehow we got sucked into that whole world of the other education stuff through this It's a

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: long tentacles.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Yeah, that long tentacle. You couldn't escape that after all by coming in here.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: My job security is so Excellent.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Any other questions for Beth? I don't see any, so thank you very much. For folks, I did have I did reach out to BGS to see if they would want to weigh in state buildings, and they didn't show up or get back to us if they didn't ask me what I wanted to hear. So so I'm gonna work I'm gonna work with Rick on on some things that we've learned. I just wanna run through those for another draft for us to look at. Just kind of walking through here. One of the biggest issues is whether all these locations should have the traveling to returning from language. I mean, can understand it with courts and hospitals and a couple others that one could say, hey, I got a sums, I have to go to court or my legs bleeding or whatever. But some of these others that may not make sense. Although I kind of want to also be looking at the fact that at least with respect to the remedies and 3A, and this is something that Julio just kind of mentioned, the knowing and willingly, that the person violates this knowingly and willingly, that the person would have to know the person's on their way to the court. And I think that one can show them the summons, but it's something you know, it's it's a standard that would have to be proved in in that kind of case. But I need to look into that a little bit more. But my What's going on? That's been in there. That was when we

[Rep. Thomas Burditt (Vice Chair)]: did the court. This is our first draft?

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Yeah. Yeah. We haven't touched that. Didn't know anything wrong.

[Rep. Thomas Burditt (Vice Chair)]: Came from the Senate. No.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: It came from the current law. Current law on the court that we have with the So I'm also gonna look and try to encourage finding something, a more better definition of establishment distributing through our assumptions of life. When I looked at that, I thought food bank, but as Tom says, grocery store seems to fit.

[Rep. Karen Dolan (Member)]: And I don't think we wanted to

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: have to distribute that broad. Well, I'm gonna ask Rick about that. I'm gonna flag that for Rick. I'm also gonna flag as far as the definition of place of worship. We had something related to the five zero one c three tax code. I am also just gonna put in a couple of additional locations that we heard that people encouraged us so we can take some more testimony on that. That's libraries, DMV, or maybe state buildings.

[Rep. Karen Dolan (Member)]: I don't think we wanna put it

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: in municipalities. That's up to them. I think those are the things that I have to kinda just to look at for next. Yeah.

[Rep. Thomas Burditt (Vice Chair)]: I was under the impression what what the senate the agreement was, State Building, was not gonna be in the spill. That's what

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: I was told directly. Yeah. From from the senate.

[Rep. Thomas Burditt (Vice Chair)]: Okay. So we put it in?

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: We'll look at it, now and and and take some testimony on it. I think it's easier to take testimony if we actually have this in here. And it depends on where we are. Yep. I think that You're looking at the senate bill. Yeah. This is the senate bill. Yeah. But apparently it's not if something's been added. No, it's not been added. I'm suggesting given testimony that for a version that we would look at that.

[Rep. Thomas Burditt (Vice Chair)]: They'll send it on that document, doesn't it?

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: No. As

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: far as what? No, doesn't From my building? No, it doesn't have No, it doesn't have different top on the header.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: It might be a header from where they took it out.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: No, it doesn't. Don't see building the building center. No.

[Rep. Thomas Burditt (Vice Chair)]: I can see it in the Senate version online.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Is it as introduced or the Senate has passed the Senate? Passed. Look now. Official. Yeah, no, tell me where you're looking at.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: The official has the original language too.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Did they change the name of it when they passed it out? Yeah. Then they

[Rep. Thomas Burditt (Vice Chair)]: The government building s two zero nine bill as introduced and passed by the senate. Would it wouldn't it be

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: in the bill that they changed the name of that? They're safe. I do agree.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: No. It said the act relating to prohibiting civil arrest in sensitive locations.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Yeah. No, I think that that's just a description that that's in the ads introduced. You're looking at probably the official version of the bill as introduced, Yeah, I see that at the top, the court procedure. But that doesn't mean it's in the body of the bill because it's not actually in the bill itself. So I'm just suggesting that these are some of the things that I thought we should look at in the next version. Is there anything else that people would want to look at?

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I don't know what folks think about getting a little more specific or clear about the pre K thing, since we do have so many different things.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Do have ideas of

[Julio Thompson (Assistant Attorney General, Civil Rights Unit Co-Director)]: that Well, just looking at the work licensed programs.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I don't know how that changes it. It might, and I just

[Rep. Karen Dolan (Member)]: don't know. But I'm sure.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Or There's a they just have a list of public and private pre K providers list. But interestingly, that's on the agency of it from the agency of education. But we only say a pre qualified private kindergarten. I guess that's because the public are in schools, and so they're covered. But I'm just trying to figure out if we need to add something specific, like, including in home providers or something. You know? I just I don't know.

[Rep. Karen Dolan (Member)]: Somehow, I didn't

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I didn't feel like remember.

[Rep. Thomas Burditt (Vice Chair)]: What's that? 20 more things for us to have to remember.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I didn't feel like that means

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: We get into the final group where we list the opposite side. Yes, it might be easier. So yeah, we can think about that a little bit more. Have more testimony on that. But this is just to kind of move this along. Think it's helping presumably it helps if we take care of that traveling or returning to. Most of the locations, hopefully that helps. Some of those definitions. And we'll see where it goes. Just one other thing, S208. DPS has been working. Ian's kind been the part of the person with DPS. And we're gonna have a version that is mostly what we got back from DPS. We have a couple of word things that we'll talk about, but I just wanna give, we'll make sure we flag those couple word things that we think are a little bit better. But that we'll look at on Wednesday. So hopefully this event's moving along fairly well. And thank you again to the Department of Public Safety for doing the work on that. But that's it for now. Have one witness after the floor tomorrow and that is, yeah. It's back on on the forensic facility. We're adjourned until tomorrow for Florida.