Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[John Morley III (Clerk)]: It's more like so we're not coming soon. Right?

[Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Welcome back to the Senate Committee on Government Operations Committee meeting of the last day of April 2026. Well, August, May 1. Up for our consideration next is the return of Senate Bill two ninety eight, which has been over in the other chamber for, I don't know, seems like five, six weeks. Okay. Something like that. It's been a while. And they have amended it, I would say substantially. And there will be, although we won't get into it today, potential further proposal amendment regarding the change of definition of PACS, what we call fluid whole action committees. We're not gonna get into that today, but because it's not in this amended version, it will be something this committee, should we choose to do it, will put in. One of the things that was added to this bill has to do with the disclosure requirements for candidates for state legislative and county office. And I'm sure everybody in the room is well aware of the unfortunate tension that is existing between the secretary of state's office and the state ethics commission as to who will be responsible for a financial disclosure form. This this amended version does suspend through 05/10/2027 any enforcement and or penalties for any candidates for state legislative or county office who deliberately files financial disclosure form required by type 17. So while at least two, three of us here will be putting forms in, one of us won't be, you need to put your consent form in, your signatures, your petitions, and then also your financial disclosure.

[Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: Two financial

[Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Correct. One goes to the Secretary of State and one goes to the Ethics Commission. And I asked yesterday, and I think I could say it out loud, it was in private meeting, but I said it. If someone doesn't fire, they just say, hey. I'm not putting anything in this year. That keep that person's name off the ballot? The answer is no. Their name still goes on, but it becomes a rather messy campaign issue for your opponent at that point. Yeah. So it sure does. And your

[Alison Clarkson (Member)]: current law, there's a fine.

[Brian Collamore (Chair)]: This would spend $10 a day?

[Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Yeah. I don't know that.

[Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Up to a thousand dollars.

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: No. That's not bad. But

[Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Anyway, Tim Devlin is here to hopefully get us through what is now called the Voter Protections Act of 2026, and you all have in your possession a printed copy of the Senate version, was in red, and then the changes therein. So that's in the separate document. Welcome in, Tim.

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: Thank you very much for having me. I appreciate it, committee members. For the record, my name is Tim Dutland, Legislative Counsel. And then you should have a, let's see, draft 5.1, a historic all amendment coming from the House, and so it's an overview of that. It was just passed out of the house about half an hour ago, so we don't quite have the view as introduced yet, but they are at that call. So if it's all right with you, Chair Collamore, I'll just work off the overview, and if wanted, jump into the recap. And Phil, again, is not too long. The strike all over

[Brian Collamore (Chair)]: the phone is eight pages. So,

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: a couple of the bill, the first change you'll notice, and all the changes between the Senate and House origins of it became in red ink here, for use of reference, will be the change of the title of the act, will now be decoloned the Voter Protections Act of 2026. And then section two, where we have amendments to 17 VSA, chapter 35, that is a preexisting chapter titled Offenses Against the Purity of Election. That's where you find both civil and criminal sanctions against elections violations like voter fraud, misconduct by election officials, etcetera. And this, let's see, the House will now add some new sections in here, and let's see. One will be criminal prohibitions on interfering with voters and election officials, and the second one will be civil prohibitions on vote denial and vote dilution. Both of those will ring familiar. The vote dilution language actually is substantially similar. Here, there's only one small adjustment made regarding the addition for protected classes, including race, color, or language minority group, which also includes individuals with disabilities as defined in Title IX. They'll look the same. The voter intimidation election interference will look shorter than this committee remembers. As it came out of the bill came out of this committee, there were actually four distinct sanctions, and this bill substitutes, those are just a singular one that covers, broadly speaking, most of the same remedy, conduct, and activity as the four others did. I can just describe it as four others are much more particular, this is more generalized, but does address, again, the same conduct more or less. If the committee's interested, I can introduce the side by side of the old language and the new language. The new language came over from another House bill, the judiciary committee, which was for, say, May, an act related to interference of its letters of election professions. The, so what, yes?

[John Morley III (Clerk)]: What page is the new interference plaintiff language on?

[Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Page two or Page two. So we can just look at it. Absolutely.

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: Happy to read that. So this will be I should just add that 1972, an existing law, is being have some language removed from it. That's essentially not the most clear language, and it would be made redundant by the to be added section nineteen seventy five, so that's the remove the signs. Nineteen seventy five, interference with voters and election officials will read, no person shall intentionally or recklessly intimidate, threaten, or force, or attempt to intimidate, threaten, or force, One, any other person for the purpose of obstructing the right of the other person to vote or to vote as the other person may choose, or b, causing another person to vote for or not to vote for any candidate in public office or public question at any election. Or, you know, I'm just gonna read the top part again, no person shall intentionally or implicitly intend to do so, a public servant, an election official or a public employee for the purpose of obstructing administration for election. We have there, one, obstructing the voter, two, obstructing election officials, as well as the election administration. Then B, line B, of age two, have the same case. A person who violates subsection A in a section should be imprisoned not more than two years or fined not more than a few thousand dollars So, senator Vyhovsky?

[Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Can I

[Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: just ask, like, intentionality relate those sections? Like, I think what I've heard from other legislators and what we've heard on the floor from senator Ingalls was less like a concern about not doing the form or avoiding doing a form or intentionally sharing bad information on the form, but rather which form? How do I do it? Does the language in the house or the senate version have anything with, like, intentionality? Like, if you didn't know or weren't given proper information, is there anything to that? Or maybe that's something to change?

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: What I just read for the committee was really just the voter interference The voter disclosures are just later on in the bill,

[Brian Collamore (Chair)]: and

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: the, how to properly file a form, that language isn't really being changed by this at all.

[Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: At all, okay.

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: The enforcement mechanism behind that, delinquent or improperly filing it, that's being suspended for a year before.

[Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: Oh, my fault.

[Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Sorry, everyone.

[Alison Clarkson (Member)]: I also have a question about intent, but it is on this section. Sure thing. And it is and I may have actually asked a similar question when we walked through the bill a little bit in judiciary. But in a sort of as I'm thinking about, like, the levels of intent, and I think there were three of them, and it includes recklessly. And I guess I'm having a hard time understanding how one recklessly interferes with voting. Sure.

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: It does lend itself more to criminal threatening, kind of, and the but true threats, since we're gonna unpack that in a bit, can certainly occur in efforts to either intimidate voters or intimidate those individuals who are charged with conducting administrative elections too. Election official receiving a threat, which the reckless he's in as a mens rea Yes. Could, those reasons, not do their job or do their job in a way otherwise, if one of them have done properly. So the standard, in terms language here, involves a potentially more reckless living, intimidating, threatening, or coercing either individuals trying to vote any way they choose, or public servants, elected officials, public employees who are obstructed from the curious election. That, because it's a criminal statute here. And you consider both the mens rea, which is the mental state of the person in fact, again, and the actus rea, the actual conduct coming out here. But the, when it comes to what should that mental state be, the US Supreme Court has weighed in on that, and this is where we're getting to, who we were reporting to before about the three layers of levels of how intentionally should a person be acting if they're to be held currently liable here. And so the first one, the highest the wronging of the men's array of labs, is purposely or intentionally, as we use it our biometrics here, synonymous. And that only means somebody consciously desires a physiology. So whether that's, and then you can kind of apply this as you will to other beings to intimidate or to make it worse. Next one is knowledge or knowingly, and that is being aware that the result is practically certain to follow. Third is recklessness, and that is the conscious disregard. Somebody who consciously disregards a substantial and forgives the viable risk that the conduct will cause harm to another. In the threats context, this means that the speaker is aware that the that others could regard his statements as threatening violence and just delivers them anyways. So it's, you know better, you just don't care. And then negligence is actually four points below that, and that's if you're not aware of the risk of the violation of the right of the risk. So this is knowing the risk, not caring, but it offers here two different rents for areas which they could choose. Recklessness is the lowest you can get while having a criminal statute piece constitutionally viable, that's another case called point 23, Colorado being counterfeit when they established that. It can be criminal threats have to be dismissed or higher. This reflects that constitutional bare minimum as well as provides an option for a high risk level.

[John Morley III (Clerk)]: I I looked up recklessly. I looked up and it's good because it and these actions should be caught here. Recklessly is an adverb describing actions done without caution, like not thinking about care or regard for dangerous consequences. So spontaneous of the moment, not really fully thinking out and yet harmful.

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: And it's even further defined in common law, the judiciary will treat it as a term of art.

[John Morley III (Clerk)]: You can be recklessly driving, and you could be pulled over for that. I mean, that's a mis

[Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Yeah.

[John Morley III (Clerk)]: So it's it's it's commonly used in context regarding dangerous driving, irresponsible speed, or causing harm. So

[Alison Clarkson (Member)]: No. And I appreciate that. And I I have cut cut sort of an additional question that doesn't have to do with that, but then a statement sort of has to do with that. I I understand spending my mornings in judiciary, the the concept of reckless behavior from a legal context. What I'm having a hard time understanding in the context of the behavior we are talking about is how one engages in that behavior without intent. Like, I if I'm threatening someone, I intend to threaten them. Like, how how do I recklessly threaten someone?

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: Sure. That would be example of that would be an individual who, may disagree whether they think they are threatening you or not.

[Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Right. Like,

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: I, you know, person A says something pretty off color, person B says, Oh, you're threatening me, and then there's an immediate disagreement, No, I'm not. You're thin skinned. You know, it's there. Where does it come into? The recklessness standard states that the speaker, whatever they say, if they knew that, it probably would've been considered by, a threat by the other person, but they just didn't care whether or not, so they didn't conduct themselves in a manner that was respectful of that idea that what I'd say could easily be considered a threat by most reasonable people. It's a reasonable person standing on the head of that show that, you know, the person's like, nobody's gonna consider that threat, you know, by saying, I'm like, you know, it's, it is Thursday. It's, alright, that's not a threat. But if I make something about, you you can choose your thing, and so far as most people consider that a threat, the person no longer has a two: Well, I didn't mean it. It's really like, oh, well, everybody else would have assumed that's what you meant. I probably didn't know that, but you just didn't care. You went ahead and said that twice. That's what you got, this is discussed

[Alison Clarkson (Member)]: in So my this sort of follow-up to the larger conversation around Venz Reia is, so we include intentionally and recklessly, why would we leave out knowingly, which is in between the two, or is it sort of automatically looped in because we think the book ends?

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: It's really only need reckless, and then you could, and if you're doing something intentionally, it would be shown by the recklessness, Bob, because recklessness is a looser standard. Okay. It's lower down. So it's intentionally redundant, arguably yes. Okay. Yeah, they just have to prove beyond have recklessness and beyond that. Okay. Can touch on it with you. Senator White?

[Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: Yeah. To that point, I'm trying

[Alison Clarkson (Member)]: to think of, like because I think a real I'm trying

[Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: to give a real world example. It's always helped in this situation. Could recklessly be like if I'm in this scenario, a person at the front of the voting area, and it's my job to give people the ballots. And I know that this person lives in town, and I'm going through the checklist and I say, I don't think I see you on here. Can you even prove that you're on here? Or, like, I kind of hassle them. Would that be considered? I mean, giving that person that feeling of like, maybe you shouldn't be here, but not saying, oh, no. You're not on the list.

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: That would probably be caught up in one of her

[Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: That would

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: of the other preexisting offensive Okay. Security of officials where you're materially misrepresenting somebody or preventing their lying about

[John Morley III (Clerk)]: That would all agree. That's already there.

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: Okay. Here

[Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: Yeah. I guess I that's not a good example. It's already covered. It would it be, like, even be standing outside and be well, no. I guess that would be the other one as well. Because time and date was so important when we talked about this before and specifically giving inaccurate information related to that.

[Alison Clarkson (Member)]: So that was about actual facts for the AI stuff. And we had it in this bill as well.

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: So when there was four different distinct violations, that was some of language we've been in. Yeah.

[Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: Okay.

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: Well this manner.

[John Morley III (Clerk)]: Will get a lot of something happens and you erupt in an unexpect you know, that something triggers a response and you are you go into a rage or something and and intimidated that way. That would be right. It's it's kind of like bring caution in wind and just responding in some or close to irrational way. Okay.

[Brian Collamore (Chair)]: They was like

[Alison Clarkson (Member)]: follow along the lines. Can't be proven, but there's no plan. Right. I argue that was gonna plan.

[John Morley III (Clerk)]: Capture it, something triggered it, and I

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: If I come up to somebody at or if I encounter an election official or I intercept somebody going to vote and I say, You're a cat. If I say, You're a dead man. Oh. That's suddenly gonna be well understood by everybody. I should know that that is gonna absolutely be considered a threat by most people. But because I didn't care about what you thought and said it anyways, that's reckless.

[Alison Clarkson (Member)]: So is the marks for the moment that things that lacked intense. The behavior may be ultimately the same, but without the planning and intent behind it.

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: The premeditation isn't really feasible It's just whether, I mean, yeah, it's yeah, yeah. Okay. It's less important, should say.

[Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Interesting. Okay.

[Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Do you want another example?

[Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: I mean, here, if you've got one.

[Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Yeah, so you're standing out in front of the pole and maybe you have your lawn sign in some areas, allow that something. Yes. And somebody comes up with vote and they're waving their arms and saying, You're a horrible candidate. Nobody should vote for the department. I would think that's pretty reckless.

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: Preach. Let's see.

[Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Well, yeah, you're waving your arms. You're physically

[Alison Clarkson (Member)]: But there's no feel reckless

[Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: or misinformation. Knock it out of my hand.

[Brian Collamore (Chair)]: And let me reread the Okay. Maybe we'll do that, Patricia.

[Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: Maybe I thought

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: So recklessness is the conscience. When one consciously disregards a substantial and unjustifiable risk that the conduct will cause harm to another, some press context. It means that a speaker is aware that others can regard their statements as threatening to silence So if you're swinging your arms around, you're consciously disregarding a substantial and unjustifiable risk, that will cause harm to another person. That's likely if you're Okay. Coming close to making contact with someone, people are dodging you and preventing them from actually voting. Oh my god. That was a good experience. Or you scare them away or something like that. Yeah. Well, like, official runs away because it's so It's true.

[Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: Well, love that example actually because we did have a situation in Springfield where I would have argued there was reckless behavior without And a it yeah. We're people were using a flag that felt inappropriate and threatening.

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: So What happened before?

[Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: I would say is a blocking tool. Very large flag. Very, very large. Like, as large as a human being. We had a

[Alison Clarkson (Member)]: reckless slip. They were physically impeding people from entering the bowling ball game.

[Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: They were in an unlit area, weaving the flag very close to the entrance in a way that felt intimidating to me.

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: And

[John Morley III (Clerk)]: it was a

[Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: giant American flag and a giant Trump flag. So you basically had to go around them to access the polling. That's my view. In a very unlit area.

[John Morley III (Clerk)]: There, would Coach and I were attacked by that wreck what I would call reckless behavior by the guy the member coach took it, and then he had to do diversion.

[Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: Yeah. Yeah. That was the guy that's the guy who I report to the yeah.

[John Morley III (Clerk)]: That was

[Alison Clarkson (Member)]: That was reckless.

[Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Okay. So page three?

[John Morley III (Clerk)]: Sure. So We're back to your summary. I have

[Alison Clarkson (Member)]: I was telling So because it

[John Morley III (Clerk)]: was you were on the second red the first red pair.

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: Yes. From the bottom of page one of the overview, we have a new section to the 17 B and C, 1976, impairment of voting rights of registered voters, and this is actually was part of the voting rights, that's the left portion of bill that's left here, to reorganize here. So Okay. It's the same effect as it applies to the entire chapter, but it just seems to fit better here. It reads, let's see, it's added stating that nothing in this chapter, the defenses against jury selection shall be construed to deny impair, otherwise adversely affect the right of voter to vote of any registered voter. And then we move on to a new subchapter six, voter protections. And if you flip over to page three of the bill, you'll see I just include the other subchapters that were added by S and L, I through the synthetic media bill, just to give you frame of reference where things are. So we have the use of synthetic media will be subchapter four, subchapter five, enforcement investigation, or the enforcement investigation, civil enforcement investigation, but powers provided to the attorney general's office to look into any misconduct under the name of this chapter. We will add a new subchapter six, having new voter protections. And this is the almost identical language that was carried forward from this committee's bill. The House is just gonna reorganize into chapter 35. So this AG enforcement investigation, however, will apply. They had asked numerous times. But given those, and so this is somewhat elegance and usually just moving around and putting into a chapter that had that applied. The only difference between the two we added 17 VSA, twenty, forty five, and 46, as of probably how it looks here, is that we have, let's see, Well, you can see on page four, the the definition of protected class means a group of citizens protected from discrimination based on race or color, membership and language minority group, is the same is the new language, or having a disability as defined by nine DSA 4,501, and then that language is also duplicated. How

[Alison Clarkson (Member)]: does that language intersect with the constitution? Because we have a whole constitutional provision and an amendment to that provision in process that defines what is a protected class. So can we say constitutionally that members that we include in our constitution as a protected class don't have protections here.

[John Morley III (Clerk)]: So are you referring to Vermont constitution? Yes. Probate to the floor.

[Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Probate floor. Is that what you're trying to say? Yes.

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: I apologize. I'm unaware of the language of probate floor.

[Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Probate floor just expand. We have an it's an it's an equal rights amendment, but we all it's it's expanding existing language that, oh, I think I have a copy of the constitution in here. Get in there.

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: So I guess if prop four were to pass and so you're saying that it affects, I have to leave the constitution to follow-up the executive order?

[Alison Clarkson (Member)]: I'm looking right now, and I will but

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: my I'll just look up my opinion.

[John Morley III (Clerk)]: So if

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: there's a question about if it's defined in constitution, can the definition of statute differ?

[Alison Clarkson (Member)]: And not include it as being less protective than the constitution? It

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: on the context in which the constitution uses the term. It strikes me as it possibly could be the same context here. We're dealing with fundamental rights of equal protection and vote. Probably not the one. Let me put a pin in that right now. I can look into mortgage profit and constitution

[Brian Collamore (Chair)]: to Could get you a you put another pin into what is membership in a language minority group? Oh, sure.

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: That's not defined in statute or elsewhere and not statute expanitated. It's something that's been explored, I believe. It's a part of the federal Voting Rights Act, and I'm trying to think of it, I don't think it's defined in the statute, it might be defined in regulation there. But I can say it's essentially, we're not further defined here, because I know there was further defined in prior hearings that came out of this, that this committee was contemplating. You're probably read by some plain language, meaning, okay, what is the language majority of this country English? Language minority would be all others.

[Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Yeah. Wow.

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: But it's open interpretation because of

[Brian Collamore (Chair)]: different bodies. Is, I think. So I'm just following that logic through. Does that mean that the ballot has to be printed in a language minority group's language?

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: No, it does not necessarily tell that.

[John Morley III (Clerk)]: Although there are I mean, the translators generally There

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: are other divisions in Title 17 getting to that. Actually, maybe more local ones. But this, really, the new bit will be kind of returning to, returning to page three, 2045A. No voting qualification or prerequisite to vote or to voting or standard practice or procedure shall impose or apply or apply by the state or in disbelief in the manner that results in denial or abridgment of the right to vote based citizen in The United States based on membership in the language minority domain. So then we return to, okay, what is meant by a standard practice or procedure? We don't define that in statute. However, federal case law sweeps in everything from reapportionment practices, as we see in Title II of the VRA, where the slang rejection comes from. The things like tests for methods for registration, the placement of certain infrastructure, drop boxes for things like that. It's broad language, I think really intended. I was wondering, it's introduced to the federal and other state ERAs to be brought so it captures a bunch of different things. Whether that requires ballots to be printed in various languages that are not English, there's, the statute is silent. I'll have to look into other statutes in 17 to see if there's a similar language. I think there is, I don't know off the top my head exactly what that entails about providing sample ballots in different languages versus printing all ballots and making them a bail horse, something like that. I'd to take

[Brian Collamore (Chair)]: a look. Well, I think with additional costs in the municipality, have to have a Taiwanese ballot. That's just as an example. Well, I

[John Morley III (Clerk)]: think it reflects the community. You print them in the languages of the of the people in your community, and I have to

[Brian Collamore (Chair)]: they haven't signed up what it says.

[John Morley III (Clerk)]: Well, you're not gonna well, that's why I'm asking Yeah. Yeah. No. Good question. Because it's less expensive to print things in other languages than it is to hire a translator to be there all day to wait for people who might need translation

[Brian Collamore (Chair)]: help. Senator Wind?

[Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: I was just gonna know. I think we had we had some extensive conversation when it came to what percentage a language minority had to be without the redistricting conversation. It

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: was Yes.

[John Morley III (Clerk)]: Good memory.

[Brian Collamore (Chair)]: That's

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: Right. So the original bill did have mechanisms for identifying what constituted a

[Brian Collamore (Chair)]: minority enliquid group. Yeah.

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: And it was, there's two kind of competing mechanisms between different versions of the show. One, I think, had it just based on demographics. Yeah. And then others would, the other one who had it, like the Secretary of State would designate and then provide additional resources and services for producing resources in different languages to qualify for that. I think both were somewhat tied how much of the, what proportion of the population speaks a language, and also maybe there's contemplation of limited proficiency in English too versus just having a little bit of bilingual population or something like that. And

[Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: we took both of those out of the bill, if I remember correctly, towards the end of our time, so I don't

[Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Alright, just almost said, and I

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: went, sure. And I can look into that more and think about it. Okay. That

[John Morley III (Clerk)]: is a big burden if you I mean, it should be determined by community who has what languages spoken in their communities.

[Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Office of Racial Security might be able to weigh in some on that given that that office has done extensive work on language justice or the lack thereof in the state of Vermont.

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: Well, the house took some testimony on this matter. I'm not sure if it was I know that the secretary of state's office provides some information. I don't know. I have no people who live in a juke's office or

[John Morley III (Clerk)]: To tag on to that, the refugee resettlement group knows where people are living,

[Brian Collamore (Chair)]: so they know the communities they are living. Okay.

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: Would be Just in the

[Brian Collamore (Chair)]: interest of time, we probably ought to move along here.

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: That's it. Now, gonna say one last note on that. It would be created by a premium basis just because that's how Florida is administered for the most part of the local level. So let's see. That being made made the same. Page two, they don't find. Okay. Section three of the bill has to do voter checklists. So this will amend 17 USA twenty one fifty four statewide voter checklists, particularly subsection c. It will require that any person wishing to obtain a copy of the municipality's portion of the statewide voter checklist or any other municipal voter shall swear or affirm a penalty in poetry that the person will not, a, use the checklist for commercial purposes, or B, knowingly disclose the checklist to any foreign government or to a federal agency or commission or to a person acting on behalf of the federal government or such a federal entity Foreign Foreign Foreign government. Government, yes. Okay. In circumvention of the prohibited purpose or using a checklist. And so the existing law only explicitly requires this to happen for statewide voter checklists. So basically, mimics mechanisms for the local. And it would fall upon the municipality provided? Yes, yep. And then there's some filing requirements about or secretary, so you can see depending on the district. Part three of the bill, and this is where we have sections four and five. This has to do with disclosures for counties for state, legislative, and county offices. Section four will amend 17BSA 2,414, that is the statute that requires those disclosure terms to be completed and submitted by candidates for state and legislative, I'm sorry, and county office. And this will add a new subsection F that will require the state ethics commission to provide informational resources to candidates and answer their questions. There's some describes hyper specific requirements about posting, what they have to post, including not only the disclosure form, but basically FAQs and other informational resources to those candidates. The Secretary of State's Office shall provide hyperlinks, to the materials that are to be hosted by the State Ethics Commission on their Oblodi Benjamin. Section five will suspend for approximately year as through 05/30/2027 enforcement and penalties for candidates in order to be filing those aforementioned disclosures. If they file them improperly or delinquent in filing them. I should note that the provisions of twenty four fourteen have not been suspended, so they are still required to file them, but there'll be no penalty for for a year. Part four of the bill has to do with safety protections for the candidates. This will look familiar, this idea, can pass it on to the disc body, but some of the tech verbiage has changed. And so whereas before, and we just situate ourselves where in the campaign finance definitions here, 17 BSA twenty nine zero one, specifically seven, or the definition of expenditure, and expenditures may include, right, the definition shall include, those expenditures that are encouraged for the provision of monitoring systems, protective detail, and cybersecurity related to candidates' and not just for the provision of security of candidates' cybersecurity. So for those who

[Brian Collamore (Chair)]: may not remember, original language, and it was brought up in the House Government Operations Committee, just said protection. So someone said, so I can use my campaign finance to buy a gun? And the answer is, yeah. You can. So this is an attempt to further clarify that. My question now is protective detail. Does that mean I can hire two bodyguards?

[John Morley III (Clerk)]: Just maybe for a special event,

[Brian Collamore (Chair)]: you might wanna do that. Oh, Essentially, she had security. Well, I picked Morley and you.

[Alison Clarkson (Member)]: We are

[Brian Collamore (Chair)]: a team.

[Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: Why do you think I haven't bought security

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: yet? I was

[Brian Collamore (Chair)]: just curious. It just seems like an odd mean, the only one that I know that has a detail is the governor. Yes.

[Alison Clarkson (Member)]: There are associations argued where about this.

[Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Yes, I remember. I remember. And I'm glad we didn't pursue

[John Morley III (Clerk)]: it because it But I I can see saying yes to being present for an occasion is a a a very possibly quite Real dangerous situation now. Okay.

[Alison Clarkson (Member)]: In the last election cycle, I had someone who was threatening me and stalking me, and we were I was asked to speak at an event that happened in the park that was across the street from his house. Okay. I asked people who I know who are stronger individuals, to be there with me. Should that person who had threatened to harm me Okay. Stalked me at my place of work and home, cross the street and come to the event? But

[Brian Collamore (Chair)]: you didn't pay it?

[Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Nope. Well, I didn't because I because

[John Morley III (Clerk)]: you luckily knew strong people. Because I'm

[Alison Clarkson (Member)]: not I luckily was able to put the call out to people who had asked me to be there, and friends of mine Okay. Able to beef up

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: the number of people.

[Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Yeah. I'm sorry to hear that. That's really disturbing. Yeah.

[Alison Clarkson (Member)]: It is.

[Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Luckily, I've never I mean, not somebody's driving by and flipping me off and yell at me, but that is a I can't hire a bodyguard for that. I said, I can't believe that. It was probably from a referee,

[Alison Clarkson (Member)]: man. Yeah. An anger.

[Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Monitoring systems, I assume, means you put a camera on your garage door and you have Yes. Cybersecurity.

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: I don't

[Brian Collamore (Chair)]: know what that means, but

[Alison Clarkson (Member)]: might be something that's Shut off your information from

[John Morley III (Clerk)]: a data broker site. Oh,

[Brian Collamore (Chair)]: okay. Well, if you guys are happy with protected

[John Morley III (Clerk)]: detail and I think that's all fine. And, women, that's an issue set. Senator Farneson.

[Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: So if I just understand, because I did hear the gov ops committee had, like, a lot of debate about the gun piece. And my understanding is, yes, you could buy a gun in both versions of In both versions of the language. In our original language, they had to change that.

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: Yes. The way our campaign finance statutes are written, we define what it is, but we actually don't prohibit uses of campaign funds for things like personal abuse, a lot of other states do, then define what is personal abuse, distinguish what are allowable things to spend your money on and what warranty. They don't do that here. Okay. Well So

[Alison Clarkson (Member)]: if I wanted to pay my rents with my family and finances funds, I could do that?

[Brian Collamore (Chair)]: You'd have to be a pretty good salesman.

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: Yes. To that point, even if there's no real prohibition on how to spend that money, there's disclosure requirements, and so I suppose you can get them to the public. Yeah, that's good idea. So

[Brian Collamore (Chair)]: we arrived at 02:55. We were supposed to take up the dog sled testimony He's at two

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: in Oregon. Okay.

[Brian Collamore (Chair)]: So the other thing, and I know people have strong passion feelings about the spreefork ruling of yesterday.

[John Morley III (Clerk)]: I mean, the outrageous Supreme Court ruling.

[Brian Collamore (Chair)]: But I would ask you not to display those too strongly when we start talking about the bill. But there is an intersection with this bill and that ruling. I'll just make that Yes. Statement. I don't think we have time today to go into it. We don't have possession of the bill anyway. We won't till Tuesday, but it will be something that we should talk about. Yep. And I'm referring specifically the section about voter dilution. I think that's where the intersection exists. I'm not sure that Vermont you know, when we reapportion, for the most part, it's geographical and population based. It's not based on race as opposed to other states where that may or may not happen. So I don't know that there's a severe intersection, but there are parts of the voter whatever we're calling it now, the voter protection bill that could potentially come up in a legal world. And we can look at those when we go further. That's all I'll say. And I know I understand. Trust me. I understand that you feel very passionately about the decision, but I don't know that it serves the purpose of moving this bill along to kinda refer to that constant. Nope. I think it just underscores its importance. So that's Okay. And that's fair. And that is something fair. But this will be something that and I'm not trying to presuppose anything, but it probably is gonna go to conflict someday. I Mhmm. I don't know that we can iron it out in the next week or so. If

[John Morley III (Clerk)]: the