Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Nader Hashim (Chair)]: All right, good morning. It is 01/06/2026. We're in Senate Judiciary, first day back from the session, and we have Leg Council with us. We're just getting back into the swing of things, trying to make sure we have our feet underneath us as we get back into doing this job. And so technically we have a quorum, but we do have two members visiting at the moment. I just wanted to hear from the Ledge Council, see if there's any questions that the committee might have, generally speaking, as we start the session. And also, we have a new member of Ledge Council here as well, Hillary. And yeah, so I'll just give the floor to you and then after that, our committee will be discussing our priorities and

[Michelle Childs (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So good morning. For the record, Michelle Childs, Office of Legislative Council, and nice to see everyone back. As the chair mentioned, we've got the whole team here for Legislative Council that is usually here in the judiciary team, myself, Erica Fitzpatrick back here, and then our newest member, Hillary Chittenden Ames, who has literally just started yesterday. She finished up her job in Washington, D. C. Last week and high tailed it up to stay with her brother and ran off, then she's coming back to Vermont after being gone for several years, and so she's gonna be working with us, and she, yesterday was her first day, and so we're gonna kind of slow roll her into all of these bills. She'll eventually be taking over the portfolio that Ben previously handled, so things around correction and pre trial services, juvenile law, children in need of care supervision, child abuse, and loyalty, things like that. You have your list, I think, up on the web about the cover spot, but you can always reach out to Eric or I if you're not sure if you can can cover something. But you'll see a lot of Hillary in here, who's going to be kind of sitting in committee a lot, just soak it all in. It's the best way to not It's do just getting some experience here in the building. So, I think you should have, in terms of bills that are coming in, most have, I think most Senate bills have been okay for release and you're going to be getting them over the next few days, but you do still, there is still time, as you probably know, to be getting co sponsors and approving bills for introductions. You you'll be getting bills probably for the next couple of weeks until that window closes. And then you've got all the ones that still on the wall from last year.

[Nader Hashim (Chair)]: Indeed, it's a long list. Committee, do you have any general questions for Ledger Council as we're getting started here? I just got

[Robert Norris (Vice Chair)]: a quick one with Sean. In reference to co sponsors, is that something that we have to pass the paper and we send an email to let Sylvia have the money?

[Michelle Childs (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: You could do either. So whatever works for you. So you want to identify who you've been working with on the draft. So let's say if it's for me, you can just send me an email and let me know who your co sponsors are on that and then I can file a form and submit it for you. Or some people like to have that little sheet of paper to kind of walk around and show people with the legislation, and you can have them do that and initial that, and then submit that to our office, we can do the funding.

[Robert Norris (Vice Chair)]: But generally What date?

[Michelle Childs (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I think it's the fifteenth, but I'll double check. '12?

[Christopher Mattos (Clerk)]: Of January? Maybe.

[Michelle Childs (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah.

[Christopher Mattos (Clerk)]: I was here.

[Michelle Childs (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: No. Yeah. I think you're right. Twelve. It's in the Fridays. At the Monday. So Okay. I have it on I have it posted right next to my desk, but it's over it's around there, but I'll double check.

[Robert Norris (Vice Chair)]: Okay. Senator

[Nader Hashim (Chair)]: Baruth, we're just getting reacquainted with Ledge Council, meeting our new Ledge Council, Hillary. Nice to meet you, sir. Hillary?

[Robert Norris (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. K.

[Nader Hashim (Chair)]: So is there just a general question, is there anything that we as individual legislators or as a committee can do to make your jobs easier, if this session works easier and more efficient? Anything that's

[Michelle Childs (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I think it's very kind of you to ask. We have been a little strapped the last few months with having a vacancy, and like I had mentioned a little earlier, Eric and I have taken over the third portfolio and are gonna continue to work on that. Hillary just started yesterday, but I think she's gonna be a really fast learner, and she's gonna be here, and she will gradually start to pass off bills But I would say for now, unless you've been directed to work directly with Hillary, please reach out Eric or I about whatever the considerations are and we'll figure out who's going to staff it. But I think something that we have been doing, which I think is really great, is the kind of biweekly meetings with the house to kind of look at the flow of bills, things that you have in common, especially about who's going to take up which bill first, the House or the Senate, so that because generally it's just going to be Eric and I, that just coordination with the house so that we're not already, you know, we're not like double booked in both places all the time, will help us out a lot.

[Eric FitzPatrick (Legislative Counsel)]: Chuck, can I add something to this? One thing I would add, as Michelle was saying, Eric is Patrick, legislative counsel. Just as Michelle noted, for the last couple of months, we've been tracking Mobility Invest's portfolio, many of which we didn't have as much experience with recently as

[Michelle Childs (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: had Because it used to be built in our friends before that.

[Nader Hashim (Chair)]: Right.

[Michelle Childs (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Some of these issues Eric and I worked on fifteen years ago, but we're having to get a little refresher on them. So be kind to us when we appear before you go on something that we haven't been regularly for working more than a decade.

[Robert Norris (Vice Chair)]: So if I'm going to walk

[Eric FitzPatrick (Legislative Counsel)]: through an animal cruelty bill, for example, you might hear me more frequently than usual say, Good question, I'll get back to you. Just to sort of forecast that prayer coding thing.

[Nader Hashim (Chair)]: Maybe anything else for Lecce Council? You want a little world of

[Robert Norris (Vice Chair)]: things? No.

[Nader Hashim (Chair)]: Great. Well, thank you. It's good to see you guys again.

[Michelle Childs (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Great to

[Nader Hashim (Chair)]: see you all.

[Eric FitzPatrick (Legislative Counsel)]: Thanks for the better. Yeah.

[Nader Hashim (Chair)]: Thank you. So we can shift gears to just a general committee discussion about our individual priorities, what we want to see done this session, and would like to start, with the vice chair of the committee go around. I'm happy to go last. Senator Norris, please take it over.

[Robert Norris (Vice Chair)]: Well, it's gonna be a very busy session. Let that come to surprise anybody. Personally speaking, I had put in three bills. One was at least on the floor today, which is the home improvement, land fraud bill. I guess there's some people who may or may not be interested in pursuing this, but we'll see where it goes. I reached out to this agency and said that they're gonna be a unit testament to that. Basically, what's happening is that the constituent, they have a certain amount money, some individual, and he or she left the state, and they couldn't go after them criminally because the way the statute does not read on the books now, and we had a couple different decisions from judges throughout Vermont, which differed from one another. One of them bordered on the line of indentured servitude, so on and so forth, so we need to, in my personal opinion, we need to kinda look at this again and see if goes back into the statutes as criminal versus civil or victims of a crime, which is not listed as such. They don't have to go to court so on and so forth. Might believe they respond to that. The second one, which will probably land on a wall someplace and sit here for a while, was the removal of taxation and social security independent state of Omaha. I think that that's a good full disclosure of my social security. Let me put that up there. But I was approached. And I think it beckons to the rather than to entice people in the state of Vermont by offering them a certain amount of money is that we simply stop taxing Social Security. We're one of seven states. Believe that still does. We have to see us the people that we have, our demographics are aging, shall we say. There's a cost that comes with it, but I don't have the fiscal note as of yet, but I think it will put more money back into our economy as far as people need to get to the state, if we're not taxing, social security,

[Christopher Mattos (Clerk)]: no more, whatever else if you get any.

[Robert Norris (Vice Chair)]: So that's my second one. I could go on forever about that one. Third one is, I see we got the house bill today, the payment bill of Americans to use survivor benefits. It's only paid for us for law enforcement, emergency personnel, other family that's identified. I it's I didn't see the amount of money in that house bill, but I believe it's up to $80,000 through the treasurer's office. It doesn't funded already exists there. And I was asked to put forth another bill, but they want to delve into retirement and so on and so forth, which, is my personal opinion, is supposed to be able to do that, so if we can put something on the table for these survivors or the victims of the deaths, we don't use We did have the Milton and St. Johnsbury incident took place last year, so it's probably something they couldn't use. So those are the two things that are on the front page of my my my book my book here, but I would like to see us and I know it's not gonna happen. I would like to see us move past a lot of the things that have been taken nationally here. I really don't think that we're have a a voice in many of the things that have taken place throughout the nation here. As much as we would like to have a voice, I don't believe that we do. I'd like to see us work more for the best interest in commerce, doing a decent amount as far as affordability, public safety, housing, and so on and so forth. So how we get there, don't have that answer. I wish I did. But both are things that are followed by my mother. So for me or anything. Okay.

[Philip Baruth (Member)]: Just to pick up on where you stopped, senator Norris, I'm very the the chair has a bill in on masking, law enforcement officers, masking. There's a lot of things that are being propagated from DC that we can't affect but I do believe that there's a narrow way in which we can get at the problem of masked officers who refuse to identify themselves who also claim the right to grab people off the street, put them in their car, and then sometimes they disappear from site and due process, I'm saying all the time, but it's very worrisome to me, and I believe, chair can correct me if I'm wrong, believe it's based on California's work in this area?

[Nader Hashim (Chair)]: Yes, there's similarities. It's not an identical flow of development. Right, so

[Philip Baruth (Member)]: in other words, I think multiple states are in the process of, know,

[Robert Norris (Vice Chair)]: one of

[Philip Baruth (Member)]: the hallmarks of this administration is that it works very, very quickly, and sometimes chaotically. It's hard after the fact, figure out what we can do and what we can do. But I think after a year, there's enough jurisprudence out there to show that we we can require that law officers identify themselves and wear that, stop wearing masks as they perform arrests unless there's some, you know, it's undercover work or something like that. So that's one thing. The other thing is I have a bill in on a certain technical adjustment that can be made to a firearm to make it act like a machine gun. And so it's I believe it's in line with the intentions of bills we already passed. It's just one of those cases where technology has allowed a loophole. So that's gonna be before us. I also believe that the house is coming forward with an omnibus bill with different pieces around firearm legislation. I'll be very interested in how that moves and what's in it. But those

[Robert Norris (Vice Chair)]: are my priorities for the moms. For

[Christopher Mattos (Clerk)]: me, you know, it was towards the end of the last session when we started talking about and hearing about just drug trafficking coming up through and how that kind of interplays with our raise the age log and by sending out adults, you know, with new routes, whatever, know, 18, 19, 20 years old because they'll be trying differently than a dog would in another state. And my wife works in healthcare and I guess there's a new strain of something out that doesn't respond to

[Robert Norris (Vice Chair)]: Yeah.

[Christopher Mattos (Clerk)]: Narcan and these things are ever changing, so if we can slow and hopefully stop the influx of drugs coming into our our state, that'd be a major help just by hearing how these I don't even know how they're developed, but hearing what these things are is a little scary to me, especially with the issues that we face in Burlington and things like that. Into more things like that with the traffic being assessed, That's gonna be up there for me, and just, you know, bail revocation that we talked about last year, continuing on the path of where we left off last year. We're just talking about you just sharing, right? Yeah, we'll talk about it.

[Philip Baruth (Member)]: I wanna give us a heads up.

[Robert Norris (Vice Chair)]: No. I'm I'm good. I'm good with that. Great.

[Nader Hashim (Chair)]: Well, thank you all. Yeah. So as was alluded to earlier, no surprise, I think, to folks that immigration is going to be personally one of my top priorities. There is the masking bill that we just discussed. We'll be hearing about that tomorrow. And there are there's also, senator Vyhovsky allowed me to say this. One of her bills is the, sensitive places bill. A lot of these have just were introduced today, I don't have the number, but this involves the, enforcement of immigration immigration enforcement at certain sensitive areas. So right now, courthouses are covered in that enforcement can't happen there unless there's a warrant, and the hope is that that bill that the bill will expand where some of those protections are, such as churches, schools, leave hospitals. But we'll hear more about it, I believe, tomorrow. And moving beyond that, there is a speed trial bill that I believe will help address our backlog. Essentially, it creates a system in which the state will have to justify why there are some nonviolent misdemeanors or felonies lingering beyond two years. So there are cases, all across the state, nonviolent misdemeanors that have been pending on the court calendar for three, four, sometimes five years. And my hope is that this bill, without getting into weeds right now, will create a system that will, in a way, create greater accountability for the government when it comes to deciding what cases they want to keep lingering for a long time. Because these cases that are four or five years old, they cost time and money for both defenders and prosecutors and the judiciary. And if they need to be prosecuted, that's that's fine, but there needs to be some justification. And then, of course, the defense will have the opportunity to explain why a seven case can be dismissed in the interest of justice. Beyond that, there are a laundry list of bills that I've introduced related to, I want to say smaller fixes that I think would make sense, smaller fixes that I've learned about a little. I've only been practicing for two years now, but over the last two years, there have been a lot of small things that just haven't made sense in the courtroom that, I don't want to jinx it, but I think that both sides and courts are generally a scratch on your head at some of the issues that I've seen, and looking for smaller, so Excuse me. So there'll be a list of those bills coming up as well. Yeah. So that's that's pretty much it, for me at the moment. Obviously oh, we'll also have a prop for the equal rights amendment. So that'll be coming up probably in the next two weeks or so. And I think everybody in this committee was here except senator Mattos when we first went through that. So I don't think it'll be there there won't really be anything new. But we'll still because it's a constitutional amendment, obviously, we're gonna go through the list of witnesses again and, refresh our recollection about, how it works, what it may or may not change in the future. And And yeah, so that's that's more or less it. And are there any additional questions or thoughts?

[Robert Norris (Vice Chair)]: No. Should look at the comment on I said after, Baruth's statements that appears I wanna thank you for always bringing up areas of concern for the audience and generating a very robust conversation.

[Philip Baruth (Member)]: Thank you. Yeah. I see that as.

[Nader Hashim (Chair)]: Anything else? Okay. Great. Well, we'll be back here tomorrow at 09:30.

[Christopher Mattos (Clerk)]: So

[Robert Norris (Vice Chair)]: Good time.