There are two changes to the bill. The first one is very small. It's on line 16 and 17 of page one. And it just adds a new piece of information that the report has to contain. And that's the number of men and women serving in the National Guard. So it gives you the baseline. The next change is more significant. That starts on page three on line eight. And this adds in the substance of S17 from last year. Yeah, they're still sitting on their wall, right? Yes. And S17 basically, it doesn't change the election of the Agiton General by the General Assembly, but it does add minimum requirements and qualifications for candidates for Agiton General. Do you need me to go through those? Does everybody remember? I think we passed it at least twice. Yes. Maybe three times. Even by the new members of the committee we passed this. Just one, two. So yeah, these have not changed substantially since the end of the last biennium. So. Yes. Do you have any sense, called Stephen and Damian, what the barrier is in the House to embracing this idea? I think that we'll hear in a minute. OK. Jumping the gun, I do that. Yeah, and I'm not sure I can speak for the House Committee on that, so. Do we have any technical questions? Well, there were a couple of little things I thought you uncovered from the original language you're talking about. Yeah. It's different to the number. It's just something about the electric. Oh, no, that's a different bill. Oh, this is a woman. Yeah, I think we were waiting to go over that one to lap. Do you see the OPR bill later this week? This is just the report on promotion. Because we are dealing with this again later in terms of reciprocals. Well, we're not dealing with this. We're dealing with the National Guard. Yes. Armed services. Yes. In another bill. Right. But not this. Right. OK. Sorry, I was in on two bills last week. This is the simpler of the two bills. And I'm glad you added that line 16 and 17 there so that we get a snapshot of what it is when we're starting. Because he added that the report needs to contain on page 16 and 17 the numbers of women and men that are serving. And I think that came from Senator Pearson. Thank you. Thank you, Pearson. So I just have a technical question for you. Not knowing anything about the armed services really at all. Do I refer to you as Major Cray or Major General Cray or Major General Adjutant General Cray? Who are you? So most people just address me as General Cray. General. So General is General. OK. But even though there are different ranks inside the General. So the first one star is a Brigadier General and then a two star is a Major General. And all of the Adjutants General for all of the states are Major General. Two star General. Right. Two star General. So but in sort of normal conversation General Cray. General. OK. I wasn't sure. OK.  And that's totally fine too. That's totally fine too. Thank you. That helps me because I never know what's appropriate. That's totally fine. So I am Major General Stephen Cray. I'm your Adjutant General for the state of Vermont. And happy to add comments to 8771 as we have done already in the House as you know this past out of the House. And Representative O'Sullivan from Burlington is passionate about this as you know. And actually is a very, very strong advocate for the men and women of the National Guard. She chairs our local ESGR supportive guard and reserve in the state of Vermont in a volunteer capacity. So she advocates for employers on how great the men and women of the National Guard are to serve in our, you know, to do have jobs in our communities. Right. Because you know 70% of the men and women that are in the guard are part-time. They have jobs in the state of Vermont and other places. She's an excellent advocate for sort of, you know, highlighting the strengths of what these National Guard men and women bring to the civilian side as well. So this is great. She's obviously also passionate about the gender diversity that we have in our organization and will be clear. Gender diversity in the military is a tough problem but it's a complicated and an issue that I think the military has been trying to address and struggle with and trying to improve on for many, many years. And it's a slow bureaucracy. Just in the recent times have we opened up all of the positions within combat to allow women to serve in those places. And when you do that and specifically when you talk about Vermont and I'm talking about the Army Guard, a lot of the rules that we have are combat arms. They are infantry. And infantry was never opened in the combat piece of it to women before. And now that we've opened that up, it's not as simple to say, you know, you can now serve in that position. But we haven't given you the qualifications and the experience and everything that you need to serve in that position. That takes some time.  So you have to have a proactive plan and that's what we've been doing for a number of years. And I think this will help highlight what we're doing well within the National Guard just as we have done and you have all been involved with the sexual assault and harassment legislation that we've been testifying on for a number of years now. And we can clearly show you that the military, if they're good at anything, it's collecting data and making a plan to move forward. It's pretty good. We're pretty good at that. But we have a long ways to go as society does. And we have a long way to go with gender diversity and being able to increase our numbers. So I guess that's a long way of saying that this data that's requested in the bill is already there. We already do it. We already reported to the federal government through the DOD choice channels. I think it was envision meant to maybe attach this along with the report that we already do with sexual assault and harassment. I think it makes sense. The timing is the same. We could include that on how we're doing because in the end it's all about making our team as strong as possible. So the more diverse, whether it's gender, whether it's race, whether it's all those various backgrounds and experiences just going to make our team stronger. And this is obviously a very important part of it, but it's not the only part of making our team stronger from a diversity perspective. Also we're going to get some help, I think, by being able to increase our numbers with the education, tuition assistance benefit that you know that passed the House on Friday is now here in the Senate. And the reason I bring that up is because by a wide margin young women who are looking at joining the service, whether it's not the National Guard or just any military service, seek education benefits as the number one reason that they want to do it. They buy a long shot, like well into 70% of the reason of why they're joining. So we're going to be able to offer them and that effort combined with this effort is going to make some improvements. So I think it's very well nested. I mean you know me, I'm committed to, I mean my job is to make the National Guard as strong from a personnel background diverse cohesive unit the best I can to be able to do the federal job and the state job. And this is just part of it. So I think this is, now what I don't have, what I didn't know until I just talked to you in the hallway is the S17 part of it. I have really nothing other than to say, this is the third year that we've tried to get qualifications into the Agenda General criteria. It's very, very, in my opinion very, very basic. It's sort of the baseline of what anybody that you would want to talk to that would serve in this capacity should have to serve at the national level. Having done this job for five years, I travel a lot. I interact a lot at the federal level. If you do not have some of these basic qualifications, you're just not going to have a seat at the table and Vermont is going to lose out. It's just not, it's not fair to the people that you and I serve to put someone in here who's not qualified to do the job. And I think that's just pretty basic. We agree.  I didn't catch up with Representative Head, but I did see Representative Stevens. I asked him as he was coming out, he said it's on, it's on the wall. We do intend to talk about it. There's also other legislation that's out there that you know that's included in an omnibus that the House is considering as well. And it also makes some changes to not it being an election, but being an appointment. So I think that's maybe, maybe a little bit confusing for the, for that committee, I'm not sure. But I think the biggest reason why, if you had to ask me why the House or why, why military affairs hasn't pushed on it is because they've been hung up on the other part of the legislation that the House wanted, which was to form a committee to be able to review applicants and make recommendations if there were any issues. If it was appointed. Right. So we're not proposing that. But also, no, even with the election, they wanted, they wanted the committee to be able to be formed. I remember. So if we have an issue that they wanted, they wanted this committee to be stood up to do it. And, and I have testified that that is sort of internal mechanics of how, of how the legislature works. That's not really, I don't have an opinion one way or the other. I understand why you would want to do it, but I don't have an opinion when it's not, it's not essential that that happens. I do think it's essential that, that whatever that candidate has be qualified. And that's, that's what I've testified for three years. And that's where it doesn't change. Well, it hasn't, it hasn't changed because I, I think it's very, very important. I, I don't want the legislature to be put in that position that they were in 2013 again. I, I, you should not, my opinion again, allow people to use this office and this process for their own personal agendas. It would be wrong. And that's what, that's what, that's what was attempted. And I, I don't, I don't think you want to put yourselves in that position again. Now that was an interesting experience and that well. Well, we, we actually, you were on the committee when we went through the election that they proposed. It was the most, it passed the House. It, I have never seen a system set up that was so non-transparent and convoluted. Anyway, so, but. My experience simple is better, right? I mean, as simple as you can make it is, is probably the most understandable and the most transparent that you can be. And so even if. There was a public hearing in the House. What? No. Yes, there was a place where people presented their agendas. Yes. But it was a private. It was a committee that was set up that was private. It was all confidential. They couldn't, they couldn't say who the candidates were. So. Being in the proposed legislation. Yes. Yes. I'm trying to have the actual experience was we had a public hearing with the people presenting. Well, we did too. It was together. I mean, they came and talked to us, but that wasn't the proposed legislation. No. No. No. I'm just talking about the actual event. This was to deal with the issues if they came up. Right. Anyway, so even if we pass these minimum requirements. Yes, ma'am. And even if they then change it to be an appointed position, this would still hold these minimum requirements. Yes. Absolutely. And I think the minimum requirements are will will. We would be valid in either in any process that you have. And if you can maybe send us over some information at the time, one of the questions was, and it will surely come up because it's connected to the gender study here was, won't those minimum requirements rule out women? And you had sent over some statistics about how many women actually would qualify under this. And if we can just have that again. Okay. Sure. Yeah, we can do that. And the rate, the minimum grade is a, is a lieutenant colonel, which is, we have minutes. There's a considerable, it's a, you know, as you know, in the, it's a pyramid, right? But this, this, that rank is two below the top anyway. So there are, there are a number of women that would qualify for sure. And then when you factor in, this doesn't eliminate women that have just or men or women that have just retired. So there's a lot of, there's a lot of nuances to it. So you couldn't be above 55 and be edged in general? No, you could, you could, you could be, yeah, sure. You could, you could do that. Do you don't have the requirement, the retirement age for the, as the state police do? No. No, no.  I think you can actually stay, hold me to this, but I think, I think you gotta actually stay as a two to start general until age 64, maybe something like that. So it's, yeah. It's not sad. No, it's not that, it's not that, no. No, it's not that. I know, I know. Gotta enjoy the retirement. Yeah. What is your term? Two years. Two years? Yeah. So do we, have we approved you in the interim? So, this current term that I'm, I will, will be up again in, in February of next year, 19. So it's every, it's in the odd year. Okay. We do it when we first come back. We do it by voice vote or something. Yeah. Cause it's, Well, we did it by voice vote this last time because you were the only candidate. Right, right. But if there's others that run or if I don't, then it would be. Yeah. We could, Yeah, it's always during session. I just didn't remember. Sergeant at arms.  It was in the UVM trustees. It's like the third week of February issue. Okay. Any more comments? Any more questions? I will make an observation. Okay. Which is on his jacket, it tells you what to call him. No, it doesn't. It says right there what his name is. Well, it says, Well, it says, Well, it says, Well, it says, Well, it says, Well, it says, Well, it says, Well, it sometimes, sometimes protocol demands that you use a title. It's because of respectful, respectfulographer position. Manors. Manors. Manors. I'm actually fairly informal as he knows. Well, I wouldn't expect him to call me senator. I would expect him to call me Alison. In some circumstances, I would expect him to call me Alison. Absolutely. So, thank you for having us helpful at the clarification of why we think there are barriers upstairs, so this is good. That's good. No, thank you so much. I appreciate it. And I will keep my fingers crossed that this will help. They're going to love it. Help. They are going to love it. Wait till she hears. If she hasn't already. Does she know? Probably not. I'll let you break the word. I'm sorry.  I'll let you break the word. I'll let you break the word. I'm sorry.  I'll let you. I'll let you. No, I think we should just wait until it gets on the floor and report it and pass it on. Okay, man. I'll send it over. Thanks. Thank you so much. Enjoy the day. You too. Yeah, I knew that it was connected to that vote thing. The appointment thing. No, not the appointment thing. They want to have this arcane system. I was not even arcane because it's just totally non-transparent. It's, I don't know. It's sort of like the judicial review. No, it isn't at all. And that there's committee that would vac the candidates. But there's, but you can't disclose. They can't, nobody knows who's submitted the names. Wow. I'm sorry. Judicial. Yeah, no. It's the same thing. You don't know who's applied to be a judge. Oh, it is judicial nominee. Nominator. Judicial nominee. It's fair. I'm on that. It's not insane. It's something that we use for a lot of things. But. How does judicial nominating work? People, people have put in their applications. They put in their names and they get vetted and certain names get sent to the governor. Right. And how do they get vetted? And how does the committee call everybody up? No, they interview them. They interview them. They interview them. But that wasn't the, that wasn't the reason for the National Guard Committee. The National Guard Committee was set up so that, and it was clearly in response to the one candidate. No, it was not a response to him. It was in response to FARC. FARC. The other guy that had some kind of. A sexual assault again, a complaint, an allegation against him. And so this committee was set up so that people could come in and testify in private if there were complaints. But they, nobody could release the names. So no one would know that they could go in and testify to the committee because you couldn't say who had submitted their names. Right. So there was no way of getting the word out. Right. So it was very different than judicial nominating. And then they were going to, then they weren't going to recommend names. They were going to then write a report and say, these people are okay and these people aren't. But you still get to vote on all of them. It was crazy. I think it's a lot simpler doing what we do now. Either that or appointing them. I will say that the system sort of takes care of itself. Yeah. I think what we're doing here in this bill will help enormously because it would have helped the situation we went through in 2013. With Jimmy. Yeah. With Jimmy, but not with the cell. Not with the other one. That he was, he wasn't qualified. He meant they had minimum requirements. And Jimmy did. But the other one did. And it was the other one that spurred this. And because he was a good friend of Willem's. And Willem almost pushed me down the stairs because he was so mad at me because we didn't pass it. It was Willem, Tim. We vote on H771 as amended. As soon as Allison finishes. Okay. Claire. Clarkson. Yes. Pearson. Yes. And question mark, Collar. Yes. White. Great. Both motions carry five. Do you want to? No. I'm happy to report this one. I've been reporting this one five times. Unless somebody wants to. I don't really want to. Okay. I'm happy to. Okay. Great. So White is going to report it. Gosh. Yes. Great. Great. Thank you, Damien. Thanks so much for your time. Thank you for your time. No, thank you. It was your time. Okay. Thank you. Okay. All right. So two o'clock we'll be back and we're going to do H700, which is the minutes and the open meeting. Yep. We're on H700. Okay. H700. I'm here. There are two. Yes. There are two open meeting laws. And should we get done with H700? Helena has offered to walk us through H910 because that is also her bill and an open meeting law bill. But right now we're focusing on H700. Thank you.  I did with some of my sisters a while ago. He said okay, everybody? Okay. Backpedal. Okay. So I think we have looked at this bill and we know that they changed it to all they did is add excluding holidays. Correct. Okay. The bill is introduced. It's different. And then this is that you have the as-pass test. Yes. Just excluding. So I think that we can just take testimony on it. Chris, did you have a question? Just what was different did they say? What was the difference? Did they say what was the original? The bill is introduced. Would have excluded or changed five calendar days to five business days. Business days would have excluded not only holidays but also weekends. Now the bill only excludes holidays. Got it. And we're not going to have a discussion about that because we're going to hear room and testimony first. And then we'll have the discussion because Belena just drafted the bill. She doesn't know why they did it or she might know why they did it. But it's not. She's very insightful. She doesn't have to defend their position. I guess you do. Thank you, Holly. Alison, did you have a question? I guess we will have a conversation after we get to our witnesses. Yes. I would suggest that we do it that way. That was very restrained. Okay. All right. That's a double-catcher. Gwynn? Jenny, did you want to testify on this? Or can I do it like me too? I mean... Okay. All right. We'll reverse it. No. Whatever. Hello, David. Gwynn, Zacca, the LCT. So I... We support this bill. We supported the as-introduced bill. And then we support the as amended bill. So... It's called the whatever. It was pushed forward by... It wasn't our bill, but it was pushed forward by a few towns and representatives who had some boards that were having trouble with getting their information out there and on the internet and on their websites on time. And it wasn't necessarily with words like, you know, a select board, but sort of the smaller commissions and boards that meet very infrequently and who do not have professional staff or really scrambling to get their minutes together. And this was the proposal they put forth with getting rid of the weekends and allowing more time to post. And this was the compromise language that I believe was supported by most of them. But it didn't go as far as we would like, but it's something at least those who are writing the minutes and having the responsibility of posting them before free with no compensation won't have to work on Christmas or 4th of July. Madam Chair, I'm sorry, but I am confused. I thought that our underlying bill said five business days. I believe our underlying bill said five days. The very first original bill said five days. We clarified it. But what's in statute? What's in statute right now? It says five calendar days. Oh, okay. But we will... Yes, right? Okay. The LCT supported the original. There was a lot of pushback that... I'll let other folks speak for why there was push-out. How could there be push-out? There was reservation from other folks who felt it wasn't our nearest position to be put in to work with the language as it is. So even this was... Maybe they felt uncomfortable even with this, but it's a compromise. It became an issue... It's been in law since 1970 or something. It became an issue when we said they had to put post-it. Because for some reason there are some towns who can't figure out how to post. But they're draft agendas. They don't have to be drafted or anything. Well, I can speak to that. You're right. There is no requirement that they be finalized. The common theme you hear from those who have issues with that is that... Especially for the committees that don't meet frequently, even on a regular schedule or maybe sort of like an ad hoc meeting, is that there's so much time in between that they want to get it right the first time. There's also the issue of having put out information that the general public sees as sort of a work product that they either see as incomplete, sending the wrong information, but also information that might not look presentable or be exactly what the representation of that committee might be.  I've heard concerns from individual members of committees to look at minutes that are drafted by whomever is in... It generally isn't someone that they hire to do it, but maybe the town clerk steps in or some administrative assistant for the select board. It might be someone that's on that board who might have a biased interpretation and might have minutes to reflect something that might not be what the entire board thinks is actually what happened. So that's where you're kind of getting into sort of, yes, you're correct, technically they don't have to. So there's those concerns as well. It's never pleasing, but those were some of the concerns I heard. So I have a couple questions. There must be more than one occasion where someone is the secretary for the cemetery commission and also for the board of select men and maybe for the recreation committee or department. Is that part of why this becomes somewhat cumbersome to get all? Because they're obviously meeting at different times, but they normally have three meetings worth of minutes to take care of. And depending on where that meeting falls, like if it's on a Wednesday and you have five calendar days, you know, you're working into the weekend because technically you have Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and then you're saturday, sunday. So you're getting it out by Friday if you don't want to be in violation by Monday. So that's part of it. I think you're going to hear...  I've heard concerns from small communities. I've heard concerns from select boards. I've heard concerns from the ad hoc dug committee. You know, so you've heard concerns for a variety of reasons. It's not just that, but that could be part of it. So I have another question. If it's on Wednesday that talks about five days from the day to the meetings, you start day on it Thursday. Okay, so it went so Tuesday. So with that in mind, you must have a sense of how many people sort of feel dual or triple roles somewhat. Do you, the VLCT, offer training to kind of help these people? Sure. I mean, if somebody asked me to take minutes, it would be probably a different kind of look than if they asked me. Right, and you'll see a wide variety of what minutes look like depending on who's taking them because there's a very bare minimum standard in statute for minutes half to, you know, accurately reflect certain instances. But you could literally have minutes be very short and succinct. But then you'll have instances where the minutes are very detailed, show every action, every discussion, and that's really up to the whim of whatever commission or board, you know, what they decide is appropriate for them and what kind of record they want to keep. And that's probably part of why there's concerns is because, you know, it's easy to say, we'll just throw up minutes that show the bare minimum, but that board might say that's not really helping anything. That's the very bare minimum. That's actually stuff you could probably gather from the agenda that's already been put forth. We already kind of know what the agenda items were. We're trying to get a little bit deeper in terms of what the actual outcomes were. So you'll see a wide variety when we get calls in and I know the Secretary of State's office also helps with this. You know, we can tell them this is what the law says. It's actually very minimum in terms of bare standards and that's a pretty easy thing to grasp. It's when you go beyond that. So you guys do? Sure, yeah. Absolutely. That doesn't make it easier necessarily. But am I right here that there are also no requirements that minutes be approved? In the statute, there is no requirement. That's up to the particular body about whether they do that or not. That's not a statutory requirement. No, but boards and commissions do use the minutes. But I'm just saying, there would be, statutorily, there would be no such thing as draft minutes. No requirement. Because there's nothing, no such thing as proof minutes. So there's just minutes. So Allison? So I sent you all the email from our wonderful zoning and planning with Woodstock. It's huge burden when you're expected to do the minutes for all these meetings that are all happening at the same time. At the chair of the Billings Park Commission, our parks commission in Woodstock, I would say that it is, we have noticed that there are often times when we are not complying with the open meeting law just simply because there's no one who's willing to do it. You don't have a secretary on most of those commissions. Irregular commissions aren't even set up to do this. Getting the agenda posted is a pain in the neck. All of it. And I have had now several towns request that we change this to five business days and get rid of calendar days. It is a burden for many towns and busy towns. It's particularly a burden on. And so I would actually have proposed earlier that we change it to seven to 10 days. But I understand that there may not be support for that. But I think if they are minimal, we need to change it to business days rather than calendar days. We, I, okay. This is, I know you supported it. The meeting law is a gift that keeps on giving. It'll keep coming back, whether you like it or not. You tried so many different avenues to sort of provide that flexibility. I know there's a bill on the wall that's not going anywhere in the house that would say that these, there'd be a more lenient standard in terms of these deadlines for postings for, let's say, committees or boards that aren't statutorily created. So not, you know, not your planning commissions and your DRVs, but maybe your ad hoc committees not happening. Well, I think that Mark's commission. We've tried several permutations on it. But it's not going to, we need to hear from Jenny. We're going to hear from two people from the press. But, and I will say that we had the conversation many times about whether other committees should not have to do them on time. And you would be very unhappy if your tree committee met on Wednesday night and they didn't post their minutes until, I don't care when they post. No, listen, and they made the decision to cut down the, the maples on the green. And Saturday morning you got there and all the maples were cut down. And what were you going to do about it? So you knew about it. What were you going to do about it? If you saw it in the minutes, you could probably oppose it. But anyway, okay. Okay, yeah. Exactly. So I think business days is thoughtful for the people who are going to do it. Okay. We're going to hear from these other people. And then we can have the, and then we can have the discussion about what we think should happen. But let's hear from these other, our other witnesses first before we start making up our minds. Okay. Do you want to have the first? Yes. Witnesses now? Yeah. Okay. Well, we'll get them on the phone while we're hearing from Jenny. Okay. Yeah. Thanks. Everybody's a favorite guy. He's your Addison Independent. Jenny. He's not Viewmore. But he's, he's the editor. He's representing the Vermont Press Association. Yes. He called this morning. Yes. Jenny. Yes. And I think we're going to turn it over to the Attorney's office. So we do oppose this bill. We prefer that the law would stay the way it is currently right in five calendar days. We do think that what passed the house is an improvement over what was initially proposed because of our concerns with the business, business day language. And so. I think we recognize that there are small boards with volunteer staff that are having trouble here that needs the need for access to this record of what has happened for the reasons that you were just discussing so that people can understand what has happened, perhaps talk to the legislators, perhaps make sure they attend the next meeting, take whatever recourse they have available to them in this statute or other law. And so we object to any lengthening of that period of time that would make it more difficult for folks to be able to know what's occurred at these public meetings. And I can speak to what our concern with the original business day language was, specifically, that the original proposal didn't define business days. And I think most people have a kind of standard, no, I know, I know, and I can tell you the multiple places in statute where business days is defined and it's not consistent. You know, we have day open provide services, we have calendar days, minus weekends of the specified holidays. We have Mondays through Thursdays excluding legal holidays at any other time or the day before such time municipal offices are not open to the public. That's for municipal water and sewer notice. Very small, you know, very narrow situation where that would occur, but that, you know, that's the definition that is in statute. So it's not consistent. And so our concern would be because, that there would be this opportunity for a much greater length of time, particularly because the Public Records Act talks about, I believe it's days open to provide services that might be paraphrasing a little bit. And so if someone might extrapolate, did that would be the appropriate definition and then you have a town office that's open one, two, three days a week, suddenly you're talking about a lot more than five days. So that was our concern. So what if we defined it? And I think, and that was discussed and I think that would be an improvement if you were going to go that way. And there was some language tossed around on that too, defining it as, I think the moving back to the days class about it as holidays, then there is a definition of the old state holidays, which don't necessarily match what towns are doing, but for consistency's sake. Also exclude weekends, which are holidays. As long as you exclude a weekend, you add an excluding weekend, that might solve it. A weekend, that would be fine. Yeah. No, I'd like to define it, it was fine. Let's hear from John Flowers. He's here with what he has to say. Any more questions for Jenny? Thank you. Thank you. Certainly. Push the button. Push the button and there's another question. Where are we putting you through? Thank you. John? Yes. Good, you're there. Yes, I am. There you are. So, John, we are talking about S700 and I mean H700 and we would like to hear your position on it and what would be acceptable to you if any changes were made. Thank you. Well, just for context, I've been a reporter in Vermont for 28 years, all of them with the independent IMD past president of the Vermont Press Association and still am keenly interested in laws affecting the media and the print reporters. And we, I think I can safely state for the organization that we believe that, continue to believe that the five days, the current five days is adequate for meditators to prepare a rudimentary draft account of the actions taken at a public meeting. I believe the current standards allow the meditators to offer the mere basics, namely the motion, the results of the vote tally, who is for, who is against. This, in turn, by the key heads up to reporters to follow up and to fill in the details in their subsequent reporting and it allows the meditators to flesh out their respective accounts of the meeting for final approval of the board at their next regular meeting. Here at the Independent, we cover 23 communities. We can't be at every meeting. Timely, minutes accessed online are really a key vehicle for our reporting. They provide a stepping stone for us to do research and at the end all be all of what we do. But nonetheless, it's very important to us to get a notification in a timely manner of the decisions that are made at these public meetings. So we believe that five days should be, continue to be adequate for meditators to generate a draft. If it were five business days with a very clear definition of what business days meant so that the town clerk that's only open on Tuesdays and Thursdays didn't have five weeks for their five business days, is that something that the press association would be amenable to? Well, I think we would be willing to be flexible on that. As you mentioned, our concern has been that business days are defined in communities with town clerk's offices that have sporadic hours to be a day that that particular town clerk's office is open. So if it were redefined in another way, but still did not extend too far the minimum timeline for generating those minutes, we'd certainly be, like to be part of that discussion. You are right now. Yeah, I was gonna say. I mean, without being able to take a straw poll of my colleagues on the VGA board, I'm kind of going by the seat of my pants here. Okay. Alison. John, hi, Alison Clarkson, Windsor County. Thank you for being possibly flexible on this. Have you, do you serve on a town board or commission? I do not. And part of that is to boycott what's of interest. So I only, my service has been confined to the VGA board. I don't even sign petitions for a town meeting, proposed town meeting day appropriations for human services or what, so. But I can guarantee you he's been to more meetings than anyone at this table. Yeah, I don't know about that, it's really close. Yeah, and that's your business. So you're being paid for that, and I appreciate that. And I appreciate your work, because I think that as an independent is one fine paper. I also think that for us to, I re-affirmed, I represent 26 towns, and I've heard from many of them that this is a burden and they would really like it to move to business days. I'm happy to help for profit news outlets, but I also think that you are, the people who are actually having to do this work are also need to be weighed. And I think that if we can move it to five business days by defining it, that would be very helpful for the towns that have voiced their concern to me. Yeah, I mean, again, a lot of it would go into the definition of business days, and it's not, I like to think that this is not only for us, you have parties aside from the media that are very interested in decisions that a board takes might not be able to get in touch with a representative of a board for either vacations or some other reason that would like to refer to the minutes quickly to see at least what the basic decision was. I could call somebody. Yeah, in the smaller towns, and you know, I'm talking, sometimes the coverations in Granville and Goshen and places like that, and it can be very hard to get people in the know in a timely manner, especially when you're staring at a deadline. So, and again, the minutes, I can't stress enough how basic the minutes need only be, I mean, just a basic recording of the motion, how the vote turned out, who voted pro, who voted con. And we have examples, I think in Shelburne of the board, it has taken screenshots of handwritten draft minutes and posted those in a very timely manner. And I know some town clerks like to elaborate and include a lot of details, and we certainly appreciate that, but in terms of a first look at how the town has, or town boards have made decisions and so forth, it's very important, I think, to have that first evidence of action taken at a board meeting. You know, some communities, some of the larger communities we cover have cable access, community access, television, and of course, you know, you can access that at any point online through your computer so you can get very timely gratification in that regard, but when it comes to some of the smaller communities that have boards that meet sporadically, the minutes provide really a key first towel on town business. Right. John Bryant Colomore from Rutland County. Um, obviously all Vermonters are very interested in this whole transparency issue and being able to access what's happening in government. So you mentioned that you cover 23 communities with the Addison Independent, right? Correct. So if you had to, without mentioning anyone's town or name, give them sort of a between zero and 100% compliance figure out of those 23 towns, what would you say it is? Is everybody able to kind of live with the way it is or are there constantly sort of commissions or boards that you know are meeting that you're not being able to get the information? I would say we're at about 60 to 70% compliance out of those that aren't complying have either kind of throw out their hands and taken down their website. I believe that the sites of the BLCT or they have officials that simply aren't well versed in the law. They're the volunteers who work very sporadically and they may be maybe unaware of what state law is and we find that it's a gentle reminder of and spurs them into compliance. And I think some people don't know what the basic requirements are for minutes that they can be very skeletal if you will and that making them available within five days shouldn't be that big a deal of at least the way we see it. Okay, I have to say I wonder who's reading them. In other words, if it takes the towns and municipalities I'll want to get them, is there someone at the newspaper that actually reads the minutes of every meeting? I admit that I don't have cause to look at the Hancock conservation commission meetings minutes quite a lot but we do, especially to the more remote towns where we can't be there in person, it is very helpful and handy for us to be able to see them and then follow up from there. Some of these minutes, a couple of lines and minutes become the foundation or precursor to some pretty big stories, whether they be feature stories about trends in local government. So they're important. And I'm sympathetic cause I work at a communications company so I know that part of what you hope to glean from those is a story and as Senator Ayer points out to me that many people read the newspaper so they don't have to read the minutes. I mean that's a fact. Yes, I would agree with our esteemed senator. Very good choice of words. You took the words right out of our mouth. Yeah, you did, you did. Thank you, John. We're also going to hear from Randy Capptani. Oh, great. Well, thanks so much for accepting my testimony over the phone. It saved me a couple of hours commute and I'll get right back to it. Thank you. Thanks, John. Do you want to call Randy? I'd phrase carpet, but. I think it should read the memo if you'll understand. I know, I know, I just, so I did look up while we're dialing Randy here the title one and also in the pub, which is just the kind of general title right for common understanding. And also in the public records, it defines business day means a day that a public agency is open to provide taxes. That means if a town is open two days a week, their business day, if we use business day without a definition, it would be three and a half weeks later. But we don't know what he's talking about. No, no, I'm just saying that that is, there are definitions all over the event. So if we were to change this, we would, we have to use a definition. Yes. What are those things we do in the, we being you doing the summer, you go through all the records business days. No, because they have different meanings in different statutes that we can't change.  Those are technical questions. Yeah. Yeah, just a comment on that. Yeah, okay. If we defined every term that the BSA would be a dictionary, not a set of laws. We defined a term when it seems to be needful, right? Oh, I'm sorry. No, I'm sorry. Yeah, we're here, really. Hang on. And under our principles of statutory construction, when you don't have definition, you use dictionary definitions. That's a court case after court case after court case.  So sometimes definitions are needed for things that are, you know, everyone agrees on the definition on their dictionary. If you wanna deviate from sort of the normal understood dictionary definition, right? That's one reason it defines something. Or if it's likely to be disagreed about, even though it has a dictionary definition, and I think it sounds like this falls into that latter category. There's a clear dictionary definition of business day, which is weekdays, excluding holidays. Right. It's your common understanding of what it means. But because there's been talked about confusion, seems like one of those, even though there's a commonly understood understanding of what it means, then... And why it ever got changed to count in the first place, if you puzzle it to me. I think it always has to be a calendar day. I thought you just said it, but I thought you said it was a five day. It might have just been days, and it was clarified, man, it was clarified in the same thing, the open meaning law to make a calendar day. Well, whether it was a mistake or not, it was done. I don't know that it was a mistake. But, Randy, this is Jeanette. Hi. So here we are, we've heard from, we're looking at H700, and John Flowers just testified to us. Oh, good. And if you would like to tell us where you are on here and what, if we did any changes, what might be acceptable or not? Okay, I'll go through, I got a feeling I'm probably gonna mention some of the same things John had talked about because we've been, I am also on the VPA executive board, so we've been sort of emailing and talking back and forth about some of this. But really, I'm coming down to it from somebody who publishes a weekly newspaper. And if you do make changes, you have to be, I think, cognizant of the time factor in terms of timeliness to get news out. And I think we all want transparency with this stuff, just a matter of how we get there. And Jeanette and I, Senator White and I just speak a little bit yesterday about this. And my feeling is that if, well, my first feeling is, is if we can keep it the same, I think that would be the best solution because it's the law and it's the understanding people work under now. I understand there are problems in terms of turnaround and trying to get minutes out at a time we manner. And I think some of that could be mitigated with some training for people who take minutes. And I think the press association will be willing to work with the LCT if that's something that they're interested in to help people understand what needs to be in minutes. I've covered so many boards, hundreds of boards over the years. I don't think people really understand exactly what needs to go into minutes and what could be a first draft or what could be a final draft. And usually there's time for both. So that would be the first thing. You know, I think if you're looking at extending it to five business days, or it sounds like a certain little discussion about five days, including holiday, that would certainly be a compromise we could live with. And I think Senator White's probably made the point that if you're gonna change it, five is the number to stay with because it's the number that people are used to working with already. Sorry, Randy. No, I haven't made that point yet. Oh, oops, sorry. Oops, that's okay. Randy, would you be kind enough to identify yourself in the record? Hi, yeah, I'm Randy Capitanni. I'm a publisher of the Deerfield Valley News we're based in Wilmington, Vermont. And I'm also a member of the Vermont Press Association Board of Directors. I've been a publisher for 25 years and been a member of the New England Press Association service president of the New England Press Association for a number of years. Been involved in open meeting discussions on a number of different levels. Odd and often, my career. May I ask Randy? So hi, Randy M. Ellison Clarkson, Windsor County. Hi, Ellison, how are you, Senator? It's lovely to have you joining us. Thank you. Have you ever served on a town board or commission? I have not served on a town select board or school board. I have been on a number of sort of smaller lecture boards, if you will. Most recently, I served. I was in the town of Dover and most recently I served on our Act 46 study committee that did recommend a consolidation with the towns of Wartsboro and Laurelboro, which Wartsboro did vote to join in with us. Laurelboro did not. You might be familiar with that. I've also been on a number of economic development committees over the years. But in terms of select board or school board, I've always felt a news reporter shouldn't be part of the newsmaker, so I've been trying for those. You don't need to be on the select board to have to produce minutes. Oh, I understand that. Were you responsible for the minutes for your Act 46 meeting? I was not. We paid somebody to do that and they did a very good job getting them out in that manner. However, I did serve on an economic development committee for the town of Dover and at one point I was Secretary and did take minutes for that. And that's where your newspaper expertise came in handy? Well, you know, certainly I don't have to work with the deadline, so and people in this business tend to work to the deadline. So if it's a day, we tend to get it done in a day. If it's five days, we tend to get it done in four or five days and if it's seven or eight days, we tend to get it done in six, seven or eight days. Work fills the time available. Yeah, exactly. I think that's kind of human nature in many ways. It is, except you're also a professional. And I, serving as a chair with Parks Commission, this is a burden in our, many of the towns I represent, I represent 26 towns. And a number of them have asked to move it to five business days. And it's just, particularly with towns that are very active and have administrators who are staffing several of those committees and commissions, it's a real burden to do it in calendar days. And it would be a much, it would be a big help to move it to business days. And it sounds like you're open if we can define it. Well, I think you ought to be careful not to go down a slippery slope of going too far backwards. I mean, we all want transparency in government. We all understand, particularly in this state, everybody has overworked and underpaid and we don't have enough time to do everything we need to do. But we also need to work together, I think, to find what makes common sense. Right. Yeah, ideally, I think, you know, from the press association perspective, we'd like to keep it the way it is because that's something we all know and work with. If there has to be a compromise, you know, let's keep it within sort of shouting distance of where we're at right now, I guess, is a way to save it. So, Randy, that's, well, Randy and I had this conversation the other day and I said that if there was any kind of a movement, it makes psychologically, I think, more sense to go to five business days than seven calendar days because even though they're the same, moving from five to seven sounds like you're making a huge move. Moving from five to five doesn't. I mean, it's exactly the same thing. Well, in many cases, it's the same thing. But you're not increasing the number, the actual number. So anyway, that was the conversation that Randy and I had the other day. Yeah, and, you know, again, I think we all have to be open-minded about this. You know what's interesting? And I was reading through the draft of the bill this morning. And it's interesting that the, and I had noticed this before, but obviously this has been long for a while, is that the wording allows minutes to be removed from a website after a year, which I think is kind of interesting. They can be long for forever if that happens, you know? But that's not the scope of what you guys are talking about. It is found it interesting that that was in there. But I think they have to have written. They have to keep, they have to keep their minutes. They don't have to keep them on the website. They have to keep them in. It's the secretary of state, the state archivist has a real clear schedule for when records can be destroyed, how long they have to be kept, which are the types of records. But I think that it was keeping them on the website. Yeah, and it is, and I just found that kind of interesting. Here we are discussing about how soon they have to be posted. And you know, 360 days from when they're posted, they can be removed. Right. Anyway, just kind of funny. But no, I appreciate your efforts on this and I appreciate having a chance to have a discussion about this. You know, do you have any questions you want to ask me in terms about what I found over the years as a newspaper publisher or a journalist or a reporter? Because honestly, we don't have a big problem in our particular town, so it's been it's not being posted. We have bigger issues with open meeting laws. People tend to not understand those. I think people get, you know, when there's a deadline whether it's five days or five calendar days or five working days, they understand what that is. So Randy, it's Brian Collin Moore from Rutland. Hello, Senator. Hi. So we just talked to John Flowers and so I'll pose the same question to him. He said the Addison Independent covers about 23 towns in Addison County and he asked him if he could go between zero and 100% compliance without specifying which board or commission or even town doesn't do it well. What would be the number for you in terms of compliance? We cover as the core communities nine towns. Okay. And I know that eight of those are absolutely rigidly compliant. The ninth one, I don't have any direct interaction with so I can't say that I know that. Although I think they are because I don't hear much from our reporters that there are problems. Okay. His number was substantially less. And again, I think he's probably right. He's got a different set of communities to work with. We have a lot of very small towns. Halifax, Searsburg, Wartsboro and they only meet every other week. So they tend to be pre-efficient when they give stuff done. And can I just make for the record sure that I'm saying this correctly that you are representing the Vermont Press Association and John? Yes, I am at this point, Secretary of the Association. Because that'll be important when we go to kind of decide here that both of you have indicated and again, if I'm not saying this correctly, please jump in, that while you would rather have it remain the way it is in law, you would be at least open to changing it the way we've described the five business days. I think that's fair, yes. Okay, thank you. Yeah, I will say one other thing though and this goes back to the news reporting and I might have touched on this earlier. What do you give beyond five calendar days or even when you get to five calendar days depending on how, I'm sorry, five working days, depending on how news cycles break. That might mean something could be reported in a weekly like us or even, well not so much twice a week like the others, but in a weekly like us, certainly it could be two weeks before something is reported because we may not have the time to get to it or to get to it on our website or with our cycle. So for example, if somebody resigns from a town commission or a town board or if a town employee is terminated, that news might go unreported for 10 days or two weeks. So that's something to consider. Yeah, no, I understand that. Then the daily fix it. It's not very, it's not daily. Well, Valley, it's fine, I can always Valley news fix it up. What Phil Camp doesn't do, they find news does. Okay. Yeah, and I just, you know, I think you guys do a great job and I appreciate you taking the time to listen to us today. Thank you. Thank you, Randy. All right, you need anything else from me? Time, staff. I'll get that article to you pretty soon. I hated my first draft. Okay, great. It sounded too awful. All right, well remember, we're on deadline. I know, I know. Thanks. Thank you, everybody. You're too nice, thank you. Thanks. Okay. So I would propose that we change this to five business days and define business days as the way it's defined in one VSA 371, which is a calendar day except Saturday, Sunday, or any day classified as a, I mean, it's in the commerce and trade one, or any day classified as a holiday under one VSA 371. So that means that... It could mean six days. If it's all right. It could mean seven days. If it's, if it starts on, if the meeting is on Monday, right? Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday. Welcome. How are you getting these steps here? Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Monday. Monday's Tuesday. Yeah. They kind of want to publish. If there was a holiday in there, it could be. Yeah. I felt like that's the worst case scenario. And that also helps define it because there are time purposes that are open on Saturday. So that, if you define it as their business day, then that's that game. So I wouldn't define holiday. And then we'll take testimony on where we are. Yes, please. I just would like to ask Helena, is there another definition that we ought to be considering? Cause I think that's a good one, but is there another one that, another business day definition that we might be looking at? Or is that the best option? The ones that I'm familiar with are the ones that are geared towards when time offices are open, which you're clearly not interested in. Yeah, we don't want to go there. So the ones I'm familiar with are kind of a shorter version of what you described as a weekday excluding a holiday. But I'm afraid even that people might misconstrue. I think that if the clear intent is we just want to exclude Saturdays and Sundays and holidays that are officially designated, then say that any calendar day, except Saturday, Sundays, or the holidays. And it's already in statute. Yeah, in a couple different, in it's intent to talk to you today. Chris? The only, I'm happy with that suggestion, I like it. The only question I have in it, I've got advocating strongly for it, is the idea if that deadline ends up being beyond the next meeting. So if the select board meets Monday, and then meets the next Monday, but their prior Monday's minutes aren't due until Tuesday. No, no, this doesn't say that you shouldn't do your minutes for your next meeting. This says when they have to be posted. I understand, but so. It's okay, it's confusing. So what is the difference in the law? How could you have a meeting to review what you did at the last meeting? It's not about being reviewed, it's about having them available to the public before the next meeting. I suppose if you have somebody who just meets every week. It does make it complicated. Does anybody meet every week? Sure, city councilor. Well, every once in a while you'll have a meeting that's for a chance to meet in three or four days when you get the answer to whatever, then you get together against what doesn't happen. I think the route for a select board meets every week. Yeah, a very limited case sometimes does meet every week. I don't, it would make it more complicated for sure. Yeah. I just wondered if it. Well, it doesn't say that they can't be done before in seven, eight. No, right. I think this is five. Maybe it's having it done by the five. Five. Five isn't six. Five, you're right. So just for clarification that chair, are we excluding holidays or including them? Excluding holidays. The way, the definition, what I'm proposing here is that we do this and then we have people testify on it. But the definition that I found in here over the commerce and trade, and it's in a couple of different places, is a business day is any calendar day except Saturday, Sunday, or any day classified as a state holiday under one VSA 371. So sometimes there will be an extra day and there and sometimes not. This is a compromise. I don't know that there's a perfect solution to it. I understand both sides, I really do. And I don't know that there's a perfect solution. I'm not willing to go any farther than that. No, I'm not. No, I think this is a good compromise. I'm willing to support that. Okay, so let's, can we have that drafted?  Claire, did you have? No. I'm gonna ask you a little nitpicky question. It's the, there's a list of definitions in the open meeting law and this would one through five. And if it was their alphabetical right now, if you're gonna move it to be alphabetical to the top of the list, you have to remember everything that follows and then you'll have to change another law to not mess up the cross-reference or I can just stick it at the bottom of the list and have it not be alphabetical. Do you have a preference or are you completely indifferent? Okay, stick it at the bottom. Have it not be alphabetical. Okay. Or define it, use the term in such a way that it falls at the bottom of the alphabet. Well then you do. Right over there because it's me. You're probably working today and I have to use more of that. It's, okay. Thank you. Yeah. I don't think we want your vote through all of that right now. Okay. It would only be one other statute in Title 16 that have to be fixed, but I check it. Whatever you think is the easiest and best way to do it. How about that? Okay. We'll leave it up to you. Okay. I'll stick it at the bottom of the list if nothing else has to change. It won't be alphabetical. We make too much about the alphabet anyway. So grafted is the only one that really needs to be mentioned in the alphabet. Another good one. Okay. We're going to take a little break here.  We're supposed to start here at three, but we're going to take a five minute break. We will be back in here by five minutes after three. So we'll let them in. Thank you. Hello. And I will once again, we're looking at campaign finance law. And I will once again, register my displeasure that we still do not have a report on the summer tour done by the Secretary of State and the Attorney General's Office on campaign finance that was done and completed four meetings. And we still do not have a report. Why not? Is that from the AG's office or Secretary of State? Well, the Secretary of State said he wasn't writing it. It was the AG's office that was writing it. We've heard nothing. And I've written a letter of dismay to both of them and heard nothing back from either of them. I just thought I would get this on the record for anybody who cared, because I thought that if they did have, if any expectations were built up by people who attended those meetings, thinking some of their ideas might be incorporated, we will not be able to incorporate them this year. So anything that happens will not be applicable until the election of 2020 cycle. So I just thought I would put that on the record. Yes, what did we ask them for the input they received based on their tour? Don't ask for the report. I've asked them, could they even give us an idea of what might be in there? And I've heard from neither of them. You're joking. That is unbelievable. Well, we do seem to have somebody here from the AG's office. So maybe she has brought with her a whole bunch right now. Oh, slowly they turned. I don't think that we can put it onto her. I think that this was the AG himself. She's going to be the next. He was the AG himself and the Secretary of State himself that actually did the tour. So I just thought I'd get that off my chest. Betsy, would you like to tell us what we're doing in H828? Sure, for the record. Betsy and Raph, legislative council. As you can see from the title of this bill, it's an act relating to disclosures and campaign finance law. So it is focused on disclosures that have to be filed. There's two main things going on in here. The first would be to add an additional report that local candidates have to file. That's just one part of this bill. And the other part of this. I mean local candidates, for all local, it depends on how you file. Local candidates aren't meeting on your town elections, your local elections. Everybody from select board, town clerk. There's statewide, there's general assembly that are considered state. There's federal and there's local. So they don't do this now? I felt everybody. Yes. Let's just say Betsy walk us through it and tell us what changes are being attempted to be made here. All right, and the second issue that this addresses is essentially updating the definitions of electioneering communication and mass media activity. You'll see the general theme is updating those definitions. Certification in electioneering communications must be provided when we're talking about types of communications in social media and other electron type communications to make it more up to today's standards and ideas of the types of electioneering communications that can happen over things like social media and other forms of communication. So the first thing that you'll see this bill does on page one is amend the definitions section. It starts out by amending the definition of what is an electioneering communication. You can see to review that definition, it's any communication that refers to a clearly identified candidate for office and either promotes or supports a candidate or attacks or opposes a candidate regardless of whether it expressly advocates a vote for or against the candidate. And then it says, including all of these different types of communications. So you've got newspaper publications or ads, radio, TV, or internet ads. And then you can see at the very end, it says, or if it's contained in any direct mailing, robotic phone call or radio access or mass email. So the first update would be to say instead of just mass email, it would include massed electronic or digital communications to acknowledge more of today's technology. And just to remind, when we're talking about the definition of an electioneering communication, what that triggers is an identification requirement within the electioneering communication itself, like a paid for by identification so that when a person sees an electioneering communication, they know who paid for it. Who's trying to talk to me right now when they're having this ad placed in these paper or on social media. Second thing this does at the top of page two is to amend the definition of a mass media activity. And right now it's defined as a TV commercial, radio commercial, mass mailing, mass electronic or digital communication, and it would add in social media advertisement. So that social media ads would be considered a mass media activity under the campaign finance chapter. If there's a mass media activity that is put out within, I believe it's 45 days, pardon me, I'll get to get you that section in a moment. Person has a mass media activity, totaling $500 or more within 45 days before a primary, general, county, or local election. It requires a mass media activity report that gets sent to the Secretary of State's office. A copy which also has to be sent to each candidate whose name or likeness is included in the mass media activity. Let's see, does this mean, I'm sorry, Chris. No, it's okay. The mass media activity includes every candidate for every office. It has to include the name or likeness of a clearly identified candidate for office, I'm sorry. No, but I mean from the Cemetery Commissioner if there was such a race all the way to the governor. Yes, because this addresses all activities for all candidates. And that definition of local election it is defined in our elections title as any election that deals with the selections of persons to fill public office or the settling of public questions within a single municipality. And it also if a municipality covers multiple different municipalities that they all have to incur. So yes, if there's an election for a Cemetery Commissioner and somebody puts out a mass media activity worth at least 500 bucks, it says. They have to fall into it. Okay. So 500 bucks, in fact. But yeah, it happens, it's a lot. True. Our Cemetery Commissioner is a real race. It's a real race. It's brutal. Chris. How? I mean, I have reported Facebook ads already, so this surprises me. And I guess I don't understand how anyone could think of a social media advertisement as anything other than mass electronic or digital communications. Is it this needlessly redundant? It could be.  So is there some distinction there? Why isn't social media advertisement included there? Yeah, it would be, I don't think. I think it could be unconsidered duplicative. It might be a reason to either remove it from mass media activity so that doesn't raise a question of whether a social media advertisement doesn't constitute an electioneering communication. Court may wonder why. Well, I guess what I mean is, I think it's already in both of these definitions. Yes, maybe it's not necessary there. Be probably good to hear from the Secretary of State and ATE's office on how they would interpret that. Why is there that distinction? And to see if they think that it causes a confusion they have in one place and not the other. And doesn't an electronic mass media or mass advertisement digital communication include a social media app. All right, those are the two updates to those definitions. Then on, in the middle of page two, you can see there is the addition to the local candidate reporting schedule to add in a local candidate report four days before the local election. They already have to file reports 30 days or four, 10 days before and two weeks after the local election. This would add an additional requirement to do it four days before. And you can see it's for those candidates for local office who have rolled over any amount of surplus into their new campaign or if they've made expenditures or accepted contributions of $500 or more since the last local election. That's when they have to file these reports and they would be required by all this additional report. I would like, yeah. What is this for? I don't think that Betsy really is the why. I think Betsy is to, well, she's telling us what they pass, but the why is for somebody else to defend. I mean, some of the conversation in committee was that local elections differ from the cemetery commissioner in a very small town to the city councilor in Burlington. Those are all local elections. And part of the conversation was, should some of these larger elections, we should be additional reporting to account for those. Sometimes local elections have big expenditures online. Like you're reporting, you're doing more reporting than you are campaigning here. Well, let's leave the discussion of this because we'll hear from testimony from people because I want Betsy to walk us through the bill as the bill is, but yes, a technical question. Is this parallel what we do, state? It's more similar, I can tell you, you're for all legislative and state offices in the second year of the general election cycle. You have to report on March 15th, July 15th, August 15th, September 1st, October 1st, October 15th, and the Friday before the general election and then two weeks after. All right, at the bottom of page two, it gets into the statute that actually says what an identification requirement is. If you have an electioneering communication, if it meets that definition, here's what your identification has to be that's included in it. And it starts out by saying an electioneering communication has to contain the name and mailing address of the person, candidate, pack, or party that paid for it. And the name and address have to appear prominently in such a manner that a reasonable person could clearly understand by whom the expenditure was made with these couple exceptions. Right now, current law says if it's a radio electioneering communication, you don't have to have the address. The proposal here is to say any audio electioneering communication doesn't have to contain the address. What are their audio? Robocall, answer on the radio. Yeah, well that's... Okay, I never heard, yeah. That's different. I didn't think of the phone. No, that's all you need. And I don't really, I don't have experience with these, because I'm not in a campaign, so there's probably other people who would know more about the options are. Okay. You can see in sub two, just to review with you the current law, if the electioneering communication is paid for by a person acting as an agent or consultant on behalf of somebody else, the electioneering communication has to clearly designate who's actually paying for it. On whose behalf is the public communication published or broadcast? And then under B, if it's a related campaign expenditure, meaning it was coordinated with the candidate, then it also has to clearly designate the candidate on whose behalf it was made, by saying on behalf of such a blank-on candidate. Then there's in sub C that language that if it's an electioneering communication paid for or on behalf of a PAC or a party, it has to contain the name of any contributor who contributed more than 25% of all contributions and more than 2000 bucks to that PAC or party since the beginning of the cycle. And then on page four in New D, it gets into this new language about how to meet the identification requirements of this section when the electioneering communication is a small text-based online electioneering communication. So it says in order to meet those identification requirements to pay for by language, a small text-based online electioneering communication may, a discretionary may provide the required ID info by using an automatic display within the online communication that takes the reader directly to the required identification. So if it's so small, you can't fit in that paid for by language, you can use something like hyperlink to take you to where you can find the identification information to be able to meet the identification requirements. So it starts out in D1 by saying this display has to be clear and conspicuous, unavoidable, you can't miss it, immediately visible, remain visible for at least four seconds and display a color contrast so it has to be legible so you can see it. And then it gives examples in D2. It includes a non-blockable pop-up, a rollover, a separate text box or hyperlink that automatically appears with or in the online electioneering communication that automatically takes the reader to the required ID upon being clicked and any other similar mechanism that provides the ID info required by this section. Why it's easier than this student is for me, Chris. We're here. Hey, Chris. So I want to go back up to D, a small text-based online electioneering communication. Is an interesting delineation because most of your online electioneering communication that I've been involved in would not be text-based, they would be image-based. I had the same question. So did the house wrestle with that or did they mean to exclude a Facebook ad, for instance? I don't know. They meant to exclude that. They talked about what is it called, the skyscrapers, the very thin little ads about the page. Yeah, they were pretty nice. The anorhans, yeah. The anorhans, yeah. But those are tech, those are- Those are mostly image-based. I mean, I would agree with Chris, all of them. So are you saying there's no text in those? Well, they're not, they might be small. I'm not sure how we find that. And I do think they're text-based. They maybe have some text, but I would have said they were image-based or graphic-based. Yeah, I wouldn't say image-based, I would just say. Well, let's hear from- So I just wondered if that was- Let's flag that and hear from people about what they think it means and how we got here. Okay. Something that's not purely audio, for example. Well, sure about that. Well, yeah, let's, I'm going to just say small online communication. Yes, ma'am. But you still have the definition of an electronic communication, so they're text-based. It would. I don't want us to start changing words now, before we hear about it. I'm just making sure we understand that what they want. I know, but I don't want- We're coming back to this, right? We're coming back to this. It is flagged, which is an image. I would just direct you back to the definition of an electronic communication that it has to try to influence you. Promote, sure, sure. Yeah, promote. So just a face alone. Well, it's good to say vote Pearson, but, you know, we'll talk about it later. I just don't want- I don't think Betsy is the person to try to- Right. To defend this. She helped crowd- Yes. I want to hear why they did this and what it is. Instead of trying this, it's substitute language right now, before we hear from everybody. Just a suggestion. Yeah, yeah, we hear. It's flat. It's flat. And then the other- Last thing is just that it takes effect on the beginning of our new two-year general election cycle. The odd date is number 14. Did you see D2 examples? Yes. Do you look at that? Yes. This is how you reply, right? Draft report, but I- Eleanor, we have something here for you to take back to. We want it to eat. Yes, we could not convince her to come, but I couldn't convince her to come either. It's okay. Thank you. Sure. Did you give her chocolate cake or something? Did you give her chocolate cake? Not yet. Her last day is on Thursday, so we'll use it on Thursday. Oh, okay. Eleanor Spotswood from the Attorney General's Office. So, largely the Attorney General's Office is okay with this bill. The committee has already noticed several questions that we have about it. So, on page three, the additional reporting requirement being four days before the election. It's on our page, too. Oh, yeah. I must have their own draft. In any event, the addition of the four days before reporting requirement for local elections, you know, there is this constitutional sort of ceiling that says reporting requirements can't be unduly burdened some. And particularly, given that it's a local election, I guess there might be a question of whether this is edging closer to unduly burdened some. I'm not sure that I would say that it actually is, but that is something to consider. And then the committee also. That's right, Madam Chair. We don't spend any money on a local election. We don't have to file anything. Is that correct? I mean, that's the way it always used to be in our little time history. Yeah, that's right. That's right. That's $500. Yeah. So this only affects people who spend money, which would be. Over 500. Over 500. Which would be quite a lot in Addison County, in any rate. Yeah. And then it's electronic. It would be the same site that we use, which for someone who hasn't ever filed my own favor for it. It's pretty easy. They're all... I don't have the statute in front of me. I believe it's raising or spending. And then the other thing we've noted is, with the committee's already discussed, which is how to define a small text-based online communication. That language seems potentially so much vague to us. It's actually hard to enforce. Otherwise, our office is fairly neutral on this bill. So what would the AG, after their tour, consider adding to this bill, and what are the priorities that you have for reforming or improving campaign finance? I am afraid I'm not prepared to answer that question. We were hoping you'd be the carrier, the messenger. I apologize. I can certainly convey your concerns to the general public.  We have a vehicle for this, and we haven't had one proposal. We could give her a little paper shield that she could probably not find. She could take plenty of time to toss it. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Josh Romsky? Yes, Eleanor. Yes. So my name's Josh Romsky. You know, we'll introduce ourselves because you're relatively new to the committee. Yes, it's the first time. I don't know anybody. So I'm Jeanette White from Wyman County. Brian Caldmore from Rutland County. Claire Erick, Addison County, Huntington and Puell's Corp. I know Josh well with Chris Pearson. Don't prods, you betcha. I met Josh for the first time today. It's good to see you. Allison Parks and Windsor County. You also live in my neighborhood. He does. Some of you was constituent twice over in the house, and it's... That's right. So my name's Josh Romsky. I'm the Executive Director of the Progressive Party, and I wanted to thank you for the opportunity to testify on H-E-28. In general, our position is that it's a fine bill. I don't have too much more to say on the social media reporting aspect of the bill. Generally, we're pretty supportive of that. It's not, I don't see that as onerous to candidates at all. In fact, I think it actually adds, makes it a little bit easier for candidates to report in some situations. The main thing I'm interested in is the local reporting, the addition of a local reporting date for campaign finance. And I'm especially interested in this because we've seen in some areas of the state a lot of money being raised and spent in that period between the final reporting date and the local, the actual election. In small towns, this isn't really an issue, but you could also make the argument that in many small towns, you're not hitting the $500 threshold to qualify for reporting anyway. So really, this would apply to people who are raising over that $500 amount. And just to kind of give you some numbers, I went through campaign finance reports for the last two elections, and I looked at this in Burlington, which of course is a very specific example, but it is also an important one. And I think one of the reasons where we're pretty supportive of this language and just on the council level in the last election, people, council candidates raised $11,000 in the period between the final reporting that line in the actual election. So that's a whole bit of money. And that's just on the council level on the... So did they raise that total or did they raise that each? That's total. So each range... 4.8. Yeah, so each candidate, it was a range of $2,155.12 to zero one candidate did not raise any money. But that's in that window between the... The 10-day. The 10-day window, yeah. And then on the mayoral level, the mayoral candidates raised $32,110 in that 10-day window and spent... 20... Spent $57,760.11 in that 10, and that was split up three ways. Sorry, the total they spent was how much? They spent $57,000, almost $58,000. So it's quite a bit of money and a lot, you are seeing a lot of $1,000 checks and I kind of wonder if people might be holding some checks or encouraging people to donate on day nine rather than on day 11 before the election, if there's some money in there that they would rather not be public before the election. They get $1,000 checks for the mayor. Oh yeah, and city council, yeah. Just in Burlington. In Burlington. I don't know if that's also the case for Wendusky. Yeah. Like so. You know, I just, I also looked at 2017. I was in 2017. In 2017 elections, they were, it was district level races, so it's bigger seats in Burlington and there were people raising $4,000, $5,000 in the period between the 10-day window and the actual election. So it is a pretty significant amount of money that is not being reported and I'm sure many people, I mean the whole point of this is to seek transparency in our elections and I think people would be interested in seeing where some of that money is being, how much money is being spent and who's raising that money before the actual election is over because it's always interesting seeing on the final reports on March 20th what money was raised after the final reporting deadline. And just the one thing I would say, so we are very supportive of that piece. And if. So you're supportive of the burdens in four days. Yes, the burdens in four days, yes. But I would argue that if you're raising $10,000 for a city council race or even $5,000, $6,000 for a city council race, it's probably not, you can probably put that into an extra campaign finance report. And just the one last piece I would say, I believe there's a provision in the statewide law that says if you raise, even in that three-day window, if you raise over a certain amount from a single donor, you'd have to do an extra report and I would support that being included as well. If folks are interested, you can strengthen in this even further. What amount would you put on that? I would even just look at, I'm not sure what the amount is on the statewide level, but I would just look at that and just apply it exactly. Yeah, I don't think it's onerous.  So, you know, given how incredibly varied the stale is of these elections, I mean, Burlington is really running, people are spending what they spend to run for the house and for some people, more than they spend running for the Senate. So it strikes me that there have to be two different standards. I mean, for what you spend, I don't know anybody who spends anything in much in our neck of the woods, maybe in Hartford, maybe in Springfield, but it strikes me that there really ought to be almost like a different standard for towns over 8,000 people and we could come up with whatever. But also, I have forgotten what our spending limits are. What are the- There are no spending limits. I mean, not spending limits. What are the contribution limits? 1500 for the Senate? No, no, can we get local? It's the same as the House. It's the same as the House? For all local elections? Yeah, and my understanding is there was a thought that you couldn't go much lower without running into constitutional questions around putting two owners at a limit. It just says over 500 dollars. If you've raised or spent over 500, so- I realized I was just asking what the contribution limit is. I understand that it's a thousand dollars, but- It's a thousand dollars. Yeah. I'm saying there is two systems. In a small race, you won't have raised or spent 500. You don't have to report anything. No, I realized that. Should we make it higher than 500? I mean, because you're talking about races where they're spending fasts and maybe it would be more appropriate if we raised it to a thousand dollars. I mean, that's just- Well, let's talk about that afterwards. So, I guess that's mine. That's amazing. Yeah, I- Do you have questions for Josh? How long have you been the executive director of the Progressive Party? Two years in May. So, in May, I've been through a whole two-year cycle. Wow. Great. Nice to have you. Just to follow up on the one statute that Mr. Ronsky mentioned, it's 17 BSA section 2967 that provides for state and legislative candidates if within 10 days before a primary or general election, a candidate accepts a monetary contribution in an amount over $2,000. They have to file an additional report within 24 hours. But that only applies to state and legislative. That's only the state-wide because no one else can raise that money. Right. And then we have a limit of 1,500. That's right. But party contributions are- Oh, right. Thank you very much. Appreciate that. So, I need to introduce my- I had everybody introduce my name very briefly. You heard us when we did it before. We're not going to repeat it. Yes. For the record, Brandon Batham. I am the political director of the Vermont Democratic Party. So, yeah, similar to Josh, we really don't have any issues with this bill. You know, I think in general, the more disclosure we can see, especially in local politics, the better. There are, we have, again, similar questions to some of the social media stuff and some of the election-eering communications. So, I'll just start out, I think, where we set out with respect to social media. For some of you who may not be familiar, may not do digital advertising or social media advertising. There are certain vendors that restrict the amount of text that you can place in a paid or sponsored advertisement. That would certainly be a concern for us. We do have many candidates who already rely pretty heavily on text in some of their images and some who may just be skirting the line and Facebook in particular is very strict about the amount of text that they'll allow in a sponsored ad. So, if somebody wants to, say, just have a graphic that's a basic background color and a list of endorsements, they may have to shrink the text size. They have to toy around with some of the different settings to be within the parameters of what Facebook allows as a sponsored ad that they're happy to put up and try to steer away from text-based sponsored ads as much as possible. Again, if we're talking about a way to make a disclosure clear and identifiable, that's definitely something to think about. And how big do you want it to be? How much of the ad space can it really take up? And if there is already text in that ad, would you, you know, with this requirement, would you then be making it potentially not a viable option for somebody to put to Facebook and say, I want to sponsor this ad? With respect to electioneering communications, we do a lot of work outside of electioneers and particularly issues-based but and obviously during the legislative session that largely is specific to thank house Democrats or thanks Senate Democrats to try to promote some of the legislative things happening in both chambers and from time to time, they include a picture or something of an individual member or mention an individual member. With that, would that fall under the standard of promoting or supporting an identified candidate for office? And again, depending on when, you know, if they're a former candidate or they're in the campaign finance system, does that classify? That's certainly a question that we want to be clear on with respect to legislative intent and wanting to make sure that the work that we do outside of elections, that we know how to proceed. What was your question? May I ask a quick answer? No, please do. It is argued that there is no bad press that all press is good press and that there are many things that promote and support candidates that candidates have no control over. The press, for example, does a lot of that. And so that is, you know, it's an interesting question because- But this is the party doing it. It doesn't say that. He just said it's the party. I know, but I'm curious, beyond the party, you're right. I hear that question about the party, but it's a question just generally, which is it would be impossible to get at the amount of press that promotes and supports candidates. Yeah. We did set it up. Well, and as an example, you know, we had the march for our lives this weekend that the party participated and had a, you know, we did voter registration. We did our work. If we had shared on social media, say a picture where you could see Speaker Mitzi Johnson in the corner. We took a picture of all the legislators that moved there. If we had shared that picture and sponsored that as opposed on our social media, it's a clearly identified candidate for public office. The question, I guess, would be how could, it might limit our ability in terms of how we're framing the content that we're presenting. We'd have to be very careful not to say thank you, Speaker Johnson, or thank you so and so for being here. I think that that's a question that we definitely would like to see answered or clarified. And again, it's for us, it is relatively easy to remain in compliance with the standards as they exist right now. And I don't know that we have an opinion one way or another, but it would be probably helpful for us and I would imagine the other major parties if that was clarified. Chris, did you know about that? No, Claire did. Claire, I'm sorry. I wondered, you said you wondered something about board former candidates and I missed the first part of the sentence. Yeah, so the concept of what, you know, what would formally classify a candidate for the current election cycle. You know, if we had put, if we decided we wanted to promote something for you or we wanted to, you know, say, highlight some work that was going through the Senate Health and Welfare Committee, if we did that and you chose not to run in the following election year, would you formally be a candidate? You know, again, a lot of this is limited to them. Would you have to declare that stuff? Exactly, our candidates declared when they filed with the Secretary of State, yes. Our candidates, if a candidate doesn't file with the Secretary of State, doesn't raise that 500 or spend that $500 or more, is are they a candidate when their petition is submitted? And so for us, that might turn into a logistical headache of trying to determine what identifying a candidate is and we do do regular activities and social media and promotion of, particularly our policy during the legislative session that this were to fact. I think Chris had a question. I don't understand why. It was the Ascricating Chris Franck-Claire. I don't understand why it would be complicated. Don't we have to submit our name to the Secretary of State or some such thing after we handed the petition, they said the petition's okay and then you signed something and you're a candidate, whatever that thing was. Could you be a candidate before that? Under Kevin Mayer's laws.  If you spend more than $500. Four raise. Yeah. All right, okay. Yeah. But historically, the promotes or supports a candidate for office has been pretty, as Mayer's saying, has interpreted it as both of Clare-Aire. That's a lot different from hey, check out Clare-Aire's bill on tax. Yeah. And I don't think anything here is changing that, but that's something we need to be able to do. And I think that's the really issue. And when I am sure the rest of our staff think of what supporting or promoting or attacking or opposing a candidate is, we think of that in the terms of vote four. But again, we do a lot of this work, so we just wanna be really, really clear. And we do a lot of it on social media and email. So Betsy Ann raised the question that one of the reasons this is important for transparency is to see who paid for it. You said that to us just a few minutes ago in adding these words electronic or digital communications. Well, quite honestly, some of it you don't pay for. If you did use Facebook to, without buying an ad, but just posted stuff, vote four, you're not paying for it. And that's another good question. And meaning no disrespect to any of the other political parties, and I don't know what their numbers would be, but aren't social media following numbers substantial and potentially in what first time candidate might be paying to have a similar or even fraction of the audience that we have. So then a question would be, if you've got with respect to the party's regular social media presence, how do you regulate that? Do you say in the social media profile that there be a requirement that it be clear that the account is managed and paid for by the Vermont Democratic Party or by whatever? Because we do, we do sponsor ads, but the bulk of our social media presence is not paid. Right, exactly. Paying has always been the delineation, as I understand it, but help me understand this because I've done a lot of ad buys through Facebook, and Twitter, and YouTube. But a lot of where I've spent money on Facebook is not in an ad the way you think of it, click here for Joe's plumbing or whatever, but in a so-called promoted post. So if I'm having an event, I would create an event that's a free thing, I set up that little thing, and then you could put some money behind it. But in that case, you don't have the ability to manipulate the ad in any way. You can just, or even if I got an endorsement, let's, you ever had this, but let's say an endorsement for endorse me. You've had a first hand endorsement for the past time. So that's a news story which I would share and then you could put some money to push that out, but I can't manipulate that post. And that worries me when I think about this because while it seems really straightforward, the mechanics of Facebook might be limited. I don't know if you've thought through that. Yeah, and I guess it would be a good transition to another concern. And we don't, the Vermont Democratic Party doesn't have a large, doesn't have a long experience of working with digital advertisers. When we think about digital advertisements, we think about Facebook and social media and Twitter and YouTube because it's kind of what even some of the candidates who are starting to use digital advertising in Vermont are using. There is a whole nother world of digital advertising vendors and content creators that partner with websites. If I go to the Times-Argus website and I wanted to work with a vendor who purchased an ad and ad space and advertised in that space, the chances are similar to being able to determine what the final product would be with the Facebook ad. There are some cases where there is even less ability to do so with some digital vendors. You may give them, I want it to be like this. I want it to include this picture. But in terms of mandating, say if I scroll over with a mouse on a pop-up ad and there's another text box that pops up and says, this has been paid for by something, something. Chances are there's gonna be very little ability on behalf of the individual candidates and the organizations to determine the final product. So that's, you know, it's, it would be, to say it would be a learning curve for the bulk of candidates and it would certainly be a little less steep of a learning curve for us. But to say it would be a learning curve might be an understatement. It definitely is gonna require attention to detail and level of detail and follow through with vendors and social media ad purchasers that, you know, we talk about, you know, how, how, you know, how most candidates can't raise a certain amount of money. You know, it might be challenging. I think my tendency on this bill is going to, we're gonna hear from Dan next. My tendency on this bill is going to be to support the four additional reporting period and leave the rest up to people who understand what we're even talking about. Because I don't even know what's going on. I could do a little on the block. You can do, no, I don't want to. Any more than I want to understand what block J means. I'm gonna do my newspaper and I'm gonna do whatever. But I really, I can't, I have no ability to weigh in on this because a step he then raised questions for me. But our pictures work a thousand words and I think we can show you just easily. No, I don't even know what he's talking about when he's talking about content, something or others and vendors and so I'm going to, I'm going to leave the decisions about how to word this in it to make it as tight as possible up to people who understand it. That is, I will conduct the meetings. That might be a little dangerous. No, because I think there are people who understand. Yeah, no, I'm beginning to understand because I just, this was the first election I actually used all this stuff. Yeah. I can't read any of it. Well, Chris and I did. So, yeah, so the parties and I'm sure VPREV understands it and I'm sure there are other people in our, in our. What, yeah, what I need to understand is, is this even possible? Right, right. I'm not convinced it is, but. That's because the language is. It's a good goal. Yeah, yeah. I mean, if we have a requirement that effectively you can't do on Facebook, then you can't do Facebook as in that is a choice we better make. Which is a bad choice. So, yeah, that's why I said I'm going to, I think that there are people who understand it who will be able to contribute. And just a final note on the, on the addition of a reporting period for local candidates, one piece that I don't think we got to. I would, I would certainly push back against some of the, you know, some of the thought of what do we want to, is this too generous on local candidates? Money is coming into local races and it's not just in Burlington or Winterskin, Chittenden County. I ran for the city council in Barrie last year and I raised $2,500 which I understand is more than potentially even some senators raised for their elections. And is more than most House members have reported raising.  I did. Congratulations. Yeah, well thank you. You're welcome. Yeah. No, but I will say that, you know, and I certainly didn't take in any money toward the end of the book of my money was early raised, but, and I did take a thousand dollar check from an individual. So it really is not uncommon whether we're talking about the mayor race in Burlington or the city council races in Winterskin, Burlington or Burrie, you know, money is starting to trickle in to these communities. And what I would suggest if you were to do anything changing that threshold of which and basing it on population by town, I would actually argue that it might be better to lower that threshold. So that, you know, if we're thinking that the majority of towns and candidates in small towns are not spending money, lowering that threshold as opposed to potentially doubling it from $500.  But like we said, more disclosure is better. And it, and it does happen, you know, and it's going to continue to happen. And, you know, there are people who aren't here at this table or will never even be in this state who operate on a national level to try to get people elected both, you know, from city council and select board all the way up to the governor's races. Yeah. Certainly saying that. Is the $500 the same for everybody, not just local, but the requirement to report? Yeah. It is, isn't it? Yeah. So for local, it might be that it should be lower. I think for local it should be. Well, why would you make it? This is the threshold at which you have to report. That's what this threshold is. Right. If you raise or spend $500, you have to then file a report. If you do less, you don't have to. So if we raise that to $1,000, then anybody raise it? That would cover 90% of the towns in Vermont would not have to report. You know, I don't. Yeah, I don't think it would be bad. But why would we raise it for them and not for us? We have raised it for us. No, we haven't. It's $500. If you make it. Oh, I see that this reporting is for everybody. I'm happy to keep it for everybody. I was just trying to figure out a way to differentiate between towns of 8,000 and towns of 700. But if you don't, if you're in a town of 700, chances are you're not going to spend $500. Yes, probably not. So even at $500, you can make it the same for everybody than a town of 700. It is $500 for everybody. Just saying. But Brandon just suggests that we think about lowering it. Well, if I was saying, if you're going to do anything to it, is that it would be more transparent than local elections if you lower it. And the thing to keep in mind that I think differentiates town meeting day elections from legislative elections or really any other election that takes place in August or November is that these elections are hyper-concentrated into 30 and sometimes at least 60 days. Six weeks. I mean, you have to declare your candidacy six weeks before. And Burlington, Burlington being the only municipality with partisan local races, has a little bit of a longer time between their party caucuses to nominate for these offices. But yeah, in terms of providing, if the goal is to provide as much transparency with the local elections, with the basic understanding that money is starting to creep into local elections, then one of the key things to remember is that it is such a short election. $500 over the course of six months if it can. Six weeks. No, I'm talking about for a legislative and statewide candidates, that seems like a totally reasonable level. But if we're keeping it limited to 60 or six weeks, they're very different worlds, very different types of campaigns, very different types of elections. And again, they are changing. And they're going to continue to change. And what you could do here may set the tone for transparency and more transparency in local elections. So can I ask you? Josh had suggested that if that you do, because we have this issue around a single money coming from a single entity, if it's over the $2,000, that that has to be specially reported. And he suggested that we might apply that also to local elections. Would you agree that that's a good idea to do? And that is limited to if an individual or organization can contribute. An entity. Yeah, so an entity right now with the exception of political parties cannot give more than $1,000 to these local candidates. Right, so you would limit. I mean, you would put it at $1,000. You wouldn't put it at $2,000. But you have the same concept. I think if there are, I would imagine, outside of some of the larger races in Burlington, like the mayoral race and some of the top tier city council races, within that last final stretch of days, it shouldn't be too burdensome. I would imagine you'd have maybe a handful of situations where that would apply for town meeting day elections, even over the next couple of years. I can see the grandeur. And the only thing I would want to know with respect to that is, again, in the one city where we do have partisan elected local offices, I think the party would want to be very clear about what constitutes our involvement and or a contribution. If the progressive party or the Democratic party or the Republican party in Burlington started a massive social media purchase for a site of candidates, I guess we would want to be very clear again how this might affect our ability to work with, again, just one municipality. Any more questions for Brandon? Thank you. I was going to call on Dan next, but he just left. I'm actually going to take this one anyway. Oh, okay. Madam Chair, that's okay with you. Well, he's budgeting things. All those are okay with me. Do we have, are the Republicans going to comment or should we invite them? I don't know if they've been invited and we decided to decline or, oh, here's, okay. For the record, my name is Paul Burns. I'm the executive director of the Vermont Public Interest Research Group, V-PURG. I wanted to testify today on this since we're dealing with a section of law and a set of proposals that V-PURG has a fairly long history on, and I've had the opportunity to work with you as a committee in the past year, so I appreciate the opportunity. I think it's important from our perspective to recognize that there is one aspect here of House Bill 828 that actually would reduce at least some level of transparency, and that is because if we were to move to, let's say a hyperlink on some of these kinds of ads that you've been discussing, that would actually be less information in the ad itself than would currently be required under existing law because as Betsy Ann noted in walking through the bill, this already applies to electioneering communication made over the internet, so that would include, for instance, Facebook. That means that in Facebook ads today, one is supposed to say this is paid for by, thus and so, a candidate or a PAC or what have you. So it would be less disclosure, less transparency to go to something that is a hyperlink or one of the other various means of click here and find out more information. So that's a concern for us if I'm understanding it correctly because I think fewer people will take advantage of the opportunity to click on something and go to another page and try to find that out. Some will, but my suspicion is that not as many as who would simply look at the ad and see that language if that language appeared. So then the question comes, well, is it possible to have that language included in, say, a Facebook ad? And here we've got some interesting information that should be instructive because it was just in mid-December that the Federal Elections Commission, FEC, issued an opinion on this. And they said that Facebook ads are covered under existing law under the various requirements that would apply to newspaper, television, ad, radio and so forth and they said Facebook is included in here. And there had been some question about that in the past. And in fact, there had even been a previous decision from, I think, 2011 when Facebook ads were different. They called it more thumbnail size and you didn't have as much room. Now, I'm not saying that the room is endless but according, if I may read just a short bit from the FEC opinion, they say, although Facebook ad guidelines warn that image ads with text overlaying more than 20% of the image, quote, will be shown to fewer people, Facebook excludes the overlay of, quote, legal text from this restriction because the text characters of a disclaimer required by law, this being the federal law that requires the paid for by, it says Facebook, it does not appear that the Facebook imposes any restrictions on that kind of disclosure requirement. So whatever Facebook says that they will require or allow or not allow would appear not to apply to anything. I suspect the same would be true of your state law as would apply to a federal law. It says if you must disclose this as part of a political ad, they have to allow that. If I'm reading this correctly, the FEC decision from December 14th is more, I think, useful information here but in the end it basically says the commission concludes that there is no physical or technological limitations of either display medium or internet technology that would make it inherently impracticable to include a disclaimer on proposed Facebook ads. So that just brings me back to my initial take here which is that to move away from what I think is an existing requirement in Vermont to something that would have less immediate disclosure hyperlink or whatever, we're concerned about that. There may be certain kinds of ads or mediums where you really don't have that kind of space and the FEC has included examples on an advertisement on a pen or skywriting or there are a few examples, a peril of certain types where they don't require that kind of disclosure but they've never given an exemption for this kind of disclosure on electronic communications of this sort according to this decision. So that's a concern that we have for any of this stuff. Now we may find or you may find in further digging in, I must say I did not participate in the consideration of this over in the house side. I missed that opportunity, that's my fault so they may have gone through some of this but I'd be interested in either Dan or myself trying to participate in this and learn more about it when I saw that and how it seemed to be in conflict with the direction of the FEC at this point which is not necessarily the greatest defender of transparency in the world. It seemed like we might be going in not the right direction on certain aspects of this. I had some questions about some of the language but it's basically been flagged by others for the most part, what would a small text-based online election hearing communication be? What would the definition of small be for instance? There are some questions that we have about that and if it's text-based does that mean strictly text or images are included in almost all of these things at least to some extent these days. We've had some question under that where it's describing the examples of the permissible automatic displays, something that would appear with or in the online election hearing communication. I wasn't sure what with or in the electronic communication might mean the with there I guess in particular. So those are not nit-picky but just really trying, I know how important it is to really figure out what these definitions mean and if they are going to apply to these ads, you and your colleagues are going to want to know what does it mean for them and so we're happy to try to participate in that process but those are some of the things that we have flagged in the initial read-through of the bill. Well and actually quite honestly that's, I would really love to have the visual for understanding what that would mean because I have a notion but not that I would really mean to see a visual illustration of what applied and then unapplied, you know what this would mean and what it would not, you know, what it was before and what it, who, does anyone know who brought this bill, who's built most of this and why is, why are we considering this? What would be into this behind the bill? Representative Dan and what's the, what the issues are on this bill? I might want to have to. Well I think that two, the one on the first page, there's no, you have no issue with that. No. But the four days before and so forth. No. Well look, there are questions on the first page and there, for two questions I have, which is the, oh sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. I think if my pages may not line up as well but I think there are some question about the, what came up earlier about the definition of mass media activity versus electioneering communication and are we intentionally including different items under each of those as a means of saying, well we clearly don't want it to apply to X and the other definition, I think it's probably worth exploring a little bit more. Whether it should, it belongs in no places or both places. Are you, or else you need some rationale for not being one versus the other, I think. Thank you. Yeah, I mean I think that we'll have to have more coverage. Yes, of course we will. So, this is very limited, this is dealing with fairly limited things. Is there something in campaign finance disclosure or campaign finance that you think we should be addressing that we are? Yes. We, sure the answer is yes and we have testified many times to certain things that we would love to see in campaign finance law. I know that one of the areas that I believe that the Attorney General and the Secretary of State were looking at, for instance, had to do with public financing of elections. You Senator are well aware that there are a great number of restrictions now placed on what you all can do in terms of regulating the elections process and while that's true there are some things that can be done and we think in order to try to limit the influence of money in the process if we could make it possible to have a more robust public financing system here that that is definitely worth exploring. Even short of a broader view and this is something that the Secretary of State had mentioned in the last session that he had hopes to come back with some ideas about how that system could be expanded and improved. Even short of that there were some challenges made clear in the last legislative session to the existing public financing law that we had hoped to change and that had to do with when a candidate can declare or receive initial funds if qualifying for public financing because today it's mid-February and that may be well after the date that opponents would have declared and started to run their campaign as an example. So there are some specific things like that that we had noted. Another was frankly that it appears that it is possible today for a candidate to declare an interest in public financing seek the qualifying contributions for public financing but in the meantime raise funds just from private donors just as anybody else can of $1,500, well of $2,000 because it only applies to the statewide, several statewide raises now and then once qualifying you would go back to using the public financing but you would already have spent perhaps a great deal of private financing up to the amount. I thought we don't put that as a middle element. Did we deal with that? We were talking about it. You did. We had quite robust conversation about public financing earlier this year. So this was one of those things that we had hoped to fix. It was a fixable small piece but it didn't get all the way through last time. Could we do it here? Did we do it here or did we not end up doing it here? I thought we did it and then it would do it. I think last year when we were doing it here. I think you said it. Expenses but. We did it felt a little bit with the shared expenses but then this in the last couple of weeks we actually had it quite. But not about that. Not about that. Not about that piece but could we add that small piece that you were going to add here? I don't think that's a small piece. I mean that's a very complicated. Yeah, not really that. Well, let's, where did we end last year on that issue? I thought we ended that you could, you couldn't do this double dipping and that if you, anything you did would be then subtracted from what you got from public financing. I thought that's where we ended and sent it to the house. Did we not end there? Let me find out where that went. So you think there's a piece that's in the house already? Well, I, I, we had a long conversation with that. We did, we did the S-44 was shared. Yes, here. Well, we're going to add S-44 to this. Well, we did, we, we made S-44 a lot. S-44, that's right, that's right. But maybe we, but I think we debated adding it to that and then didn't in the end. It didn't. That's my memory, but I, but I, I agree with that. Yeah, that's a good generic question. Not necessarily from Paul, but he might have an opinion. My sister called me this morning to practically call me over the phone.  Like arrogant actions. It's the drug important though. Yeah. And she said, that's you, they're talking about, you know. So if that weren't me, they were talking about clear airs taking away your generic drugs. Is that a campaign expense? What do you mean by me? It's a, well, it was the pharmacists of America who happened to be funded by the big pharma. But if we were against one candidate it's not, you're not a candidate. Yeah. Well, as soon as I spend some money then I'll be a candidate, is that right? Well, still, still would be, it's a question of whether it uses this express language of to vote for or against, that it's probably be issue-based. What else? I haven't seen it. Oh, thank you. It has to be like, Claire's taking away your generic prescriptions, don't vote for her. Right. A voter out of office or something that relates to the election. Promoting action for or against you. Your public, your record as a senator is. It doesn't have to have a battery word, but it's meant to. Yeah. Otherwise the election, so that people that will vote for you, then. If they're saying that Senator Ehr's taking away generic drugs from the raunchers. Well. Yeah. You could, there was the case, a couple of cases in 2010, for instance, against both candidate Duby and candidate Shumlin. And I think both the Republicans and the Democrats were found to have been electioneering when they were claiming that they were running issue-based ads. So that does come post-Senator, perhaps to what you're describing. So that's right. I'm not saying it happened. I just sort of, she told me that. I just thought, what would that would be? So Betsy, would you just check and see where we landed last year on that question about the double dipping? Cause I know we had a really long conversation. And that's that, what you're referring to as double dipping is the ability to raise private monies, you know, you've applied for public financing. No, before you applied. So you didn't have to have an S-44 draft, I'm pulling up your former drafts of S-44 that was a shared candidate expenditures. It was in draft 2.2. By the time of draft 3.1, it was no longer in there. So I think it's what you're sort of describing. That we just- We're going to pursue it, but then I'm not sure what happened. You didn't. And we just abandoned the whole idea. Partly because you were waiting on the proposals from the Secretary. Now I'm referring to the Secretary of State. We're going to have this overall proposal. Let's not chip away at public financing. Yeah, that's right. Let's go over all of them. So we've been waiting for the Attorney General and the Secretary of State since last year. And it's the AG office that brought charges and then later dismissed charges about that were related to getting to public funding. With Dean Corners. There was a harm down. We kind of took care of that. Yes. The penalty. The penalty, we took care of that. Right, it's just that they're the ones who said, wait, we want to fix the seven. So poor Eleanor has to go back and face. She's smiling. She's smiling. I'm happy to do any message you all would like me to. Is there a message? Wait. Is there clarity on the message? Do you think you should start with Dufus? Or? Oh, it's boring. I offered you a Clementine. Okay. I guess, so you are expecting next year a full proposal on how we might go forward with a more robust public financing option. Sounds like you're expecting it. I would be pleased to see. Okay. But there's nothing you have to include in this, in this bill to improve campaign finance situation at the moment. Other than public financing. I'd love to put public financing on it. We just have to. No, I think if, no, we have lots of other ideas, but I think realistically at this point. Okay. So, I mean, I just wonder if anybody else has anything other than. Any idea how they're taking to S120? Which one was that? This is the A&M corporate contribution. Our corporate contribution. It has not yet come up. And we are hoping to raise. Do we need a lobby made up? I already feel good. I will. I'll leave that to you. I will be happy to do that. It certainly needs to come up. It should be cake in the room last week. Thank you. Thank you, Paul. So I do think that we should have, although I don't understand a lot of it, I do think there are some issues here around this hyperlink issue, because that is decreasing transparency. Maybe we could have some. Yeah. Maybe we could have some, I wonder if I could find somebody who could have a screen. Just walk us through creating that. Because I hear what Paul's saying that basically if we pass the law, they'll get in line, but what if they, I mean, I just wrap my brain. There's a lot of ways you can do different kinds of ads on Facebook, particularly. And I'm not sure I remember any of them being able to satisfy this. And so I'm not sure how it would be. I agree. I'm not as savvy for a long time. But maybe we could find a consultant that does this who could at least help us think of that. Brenda, do you? I could certainly, if somebody from the party couldn't do it, we could certainly find somebody who could walk you through different ways to create different Facebook ads. If you just want to limit it to Facebook, just for the simplification of the discussion. And Facebook really is probably the most user-friendly approach to social media advertising. So if we, I imagine if we got into some of the other digital vendors when I see some blazed over eyes, I may even glaze over my eyes. So. What if we had one of the smart boys from upstairs kind of like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Now it's them. Well, maybe, to me, it's a different, it's a different level. But create an ad, I think that we want to know how to create an ad. But we don't want to know how to create an ad. We want to know how, we want to see the difference. Well, I mean, it's a three-minute problem. I could not show it, but the question kind of is, is there a place where you would add this disclaimer, or do you have to bake it into the picture, which is kind of not discussed here, but I think it was what they meant.  Well, if you could magnify it, on my lawnside it's as paid for by your son. So, does that cost a muster? I mean, all right, I don't think so, because it's small, because it's tiny. You know, by the time you get the contact, you don't have to blow it up to read it. It's impossible to read. Well, it's a four-five. That would be a prime example of what I had mentioned about Facebook ads. If it's a lawnside, it had the text of Senator Pearson's name, and maybe the website, and making that disclaimer text any larger, might have disqualified my visibility to broadcast and sponsor that ad. So, if you'd like to get somebody who does this, that could come and just illustrate. That's a great answer. Yeah. Okay. Would you see if you can find somebody and if not, we'll try and find somebody. Would you have a preference for it to be somebody? I mean, we have staff who can do it at the party, and I'm certainly comfortable doing it. Just somebody, yeah. Okay. Maybe we know somebody. Yeah. If Gail would like to be in touch with me, at the very least we will find somebody if not I'll do it, or somebody else on staff. Gail probably knows how to do it. On a very superficial level, yes. Gail does. Oh. But, okay. Yeah. So we'll get a screen and stuff right there. All right. Anything else on this that. Okay. Good. Thank you.