Week 15 - April 10th to April 13th

Immigration ?

Governor Scott Signs Gun Related Legislation

Is was sunny the day Governor Scott signed gun-related legislation: S.55, H.422 and S.221. while on the steps of the capitol. That was Wednesday. The session on floor adjourned early so all members could attend the signing. My impression was that there were a good deal more of those in favor of the regulations than there were of those against it, a newspaper account I read said the opposite,

I've heard Governor Scott speak several times and he always seemed a bit wooden. This time he was much better . Though there was a continuous series of insults from the gun advocates, he continued unfazed. I did not stick around for Speaker Mitzi's speech.

Immigration

It took me by surprise. I didn't think there was a big controversy. With all the complaints about Vermont's dwindling population and difficulty finding and retaining workers I did not think immigration would be a controversial issue. Apparently, I was wrong.

S.237 began in the Senate. As introduced it had the following statement of purpose

This bill proposes to require that needy persons be provided with representation concerning immigration matters.

It was about six pages long and proposed several changes to Title 13 of the Vermont statutes. Basically it said that the law would not prohibit a Defender General attorney from defending needy people with regard to immigration issues.

The Senate trashed the whole thing and replaced it with a half page of text as follows:

[This chapter] does not prohibit the defender general Defender General, the deputy defender general Deputy Defender General, or public defenders from representing a needy person in a federal court of the United States, if:

• (1) The the matter arises out of or is related to an action pending or recently pending in a court of criminal jurisdiction of the state State; or
• (2) Representation representation is under a plan of the United States U.S. District Court as required by the Criminal Justice Act of 1964 (18 U.S.C.§ 3006A); or
• (3) representation is in or with respect to a matter arising out of or relating to immigration status.

Which basically says that if there is a state case already in the court then the attorney in the Defender General's office can take on any related immigration issues that come up. Apparently, these attorneys are already doing it, but on their own time and separate from the Defender General's office. Keep in mind that immigration is a federal issue. Immigration crimes are federal crimes tried in federal courts. Vermont's Defender General's office deal with state crimes. Without there being a charge of a state crime the Defender General does not get involved. If a person is picked up by federal officials and charged with being in the country illegally, the defender general would not be contacted. However, if a person is charged with petty theft and while defending that person the Defender General discovers that the charge will effect the person's immigration status then the Defender General is not prohibited from representing that person in federal court. I'm pretty sure I have that right. It all came up in the three hours of floor debate of that one paragraph.

There were plenty of misunderstandings. The Sixth Amendment of the  US Constitution was referred to as guaranteeing criminal defense to everyone which, I believe, is not necessarily true in immigration matters. Another member referred to Article 10 of the Vermont Constitution was also deals with criminal defense. And there were some pretty broad statements like "If you're not in the country legally, you have no constitutional rights" which runs contrary to my understanding of the law.

The debate ended with a roll-call vote: 97 in favor and 40 opposed. This was second reading of the bill in the House, so it would come up again, and did, on Wednesday.  An amendment was proposed clarifying that this change would not overburden the Defender General's office, The amendment and the bill passed by voice vote and was sent back to the Senate. The three hours of debate on Tuesday was interesting and informative.

Working toward the end-of-session

I'm told that, behind the scenes, leadership is looking to the end of the session. The target is now May 11th, which is only a month away. The leadership of both the House and the Senate along with various committee chairs go off somewhere and prioritize the bills that need work and might make it to the governor's desk. Committees look to find ways to get favored items attached to bills that are likely to move. This last month is when all the trading, shuffling, negotiating, speculation and rumors take place. Fortunately, as a freshman legislator, I am not an active participant. Similar to a year ago there will be a lot of waiting and idling and then feverish work, then waiting again. It may not be fun, but it is interesting.

Karen Richard, Me and Dawn Francis

Resolution for Dawn Francis and Karen Richard

This week the concurrent (that's House and Senate) resolution I was working on to honor our retiring town manager came to the floor and was read to the chamber. A resolution honoring our town clerk was also presented. During the announcements portion of the calendar I announced Dawn Francis. Colchester's Representative Pat Brennan announced Karen Richard. They came down from Colchester and witnessed the reading and received the applause of the House. Rep. Brennan did a better job than I on the announcement, but I'm still learning. It's not a lot of work to get a resolution done, but it does take some sustained effort.

The Colchester Charter Change bill

Me Testifying to Gov Ops

Friday was busy. There were the two resolutions just mentioned and H.926 which changes Colchester's charter to make the town clerk and treasurer positions appointed rather than elected. It had been read for the first time and assigned to the House Committee on Government Operations. Friday, that committee took testimony on the bill, so I got to sit in and make a few statements. I had submitted written testimony so didn't plan to say much. It also seemed like a pretty easy committee decision. As a result, my presentation was lacking. No one ever reads the testimony in advance. I should have known that. And any committee can make a simple bill more complicated.

There was some interest in changing the bill so that firing the appointed clerk would require just cause. After some discussion, they decided to do that elsewhere for all charters so the Colchester bill was not changes. H.926 received the unanimous support of the committee. It will go back to the House floor this coming week for second and third reading. Then on to the Senate. I may have a chance to improve my testimony there.

Weekly Summary

• Tuesday 
• 10:00 Basically the three hours of debate on S.237 described above
• 1:00 break
• 1:45 Public caucus
• S.203 regarding mental health was presented and reviewed.
• 2:45 In room 11 for public discussion of a new proposal by UVM Health Network and the Secretary of Human Services. This is part of a plan to relieve the pressure of mental health issues in hospital emergency departments. 
• 4:15 Back in committee for discussion 
• 6:30 In Colchester for the Select Board meeting and public hearing on Green Play's proposed changes to Malletts Bay.
• 10:00 Done for the day.
• Wednesday
• 9:00 In committee with Leg Council attorney going over the problems of access to Offender Files; what should be made available to the inmate, to the public or only to the corrections people.
• 10:30 Quick discussion and committee vote on the H.551. This is the one from way back in January about flying a special flag one day a year.
• 10:40 Break - During this time I'm running around trying to get that resolution for Dawn Francis finalized. I showed it to Dawn during the Select Board meeting Tuesday and she suggested some small changes. So I had to chase down the lawyer in charge of resolutions and get him to change it. When he was finished I needed to get it to the House clerk's office so that it would be read in on Friday.
• 11:00 More on Offender Files.
• 12:00 Break
• 1:00 On the floor for nothing crucial
• 1:45 Adjourn for the day. Everyone was outside for the Governor's bill-signing on the capitol steps.
• 2:53 Back in committee for more talk and some Offender Files work. 
• 4:30 Done - A disjointed day.
• Thursday
• 8:00 - Arrived for IT Advisory Committee meeting. After about 15 minutes we were told that the meeting had been cancelled.
• 9:00 In committee. Going through S.234 having to do with Youthful Offenders. This is the bill that changes the age of those that can have a Youthful Offender status and thereby go though family court and avoid prisons and a criminal record. There was also some talk of the Essex Woodside facility.
• 9:52 Break
• 10:10 Back to S.179 and Restorative Justice Centers. This bill took an interesting turn. It began as just a cleanup, but the more questions we asked about how all this works the more it became apparent that more work needed to be done. A bit of re-thinking was in order. So everyone is talking about dumping the bill and starting over next session.
• 10:54 Done with Restorative Justice Centers. Looks like this will come up next session.
• 11:05 H.806 began as a request by the Windsor Select Board to have some sort of commission decide what happens to the now defunct Windsor Corrections Facility. It has morphed into a directive for Buildings and General Services to figure it out and report back to us. The discussion got a little heated as the Commission of Buildings and General Services resists too much meddling by our committee. Several members of our committee think the Commission needs more guidelines. 
• 12:05 Break
• 1:00 On the floor. H.R.23. That's House Resolution 23. It has been peculating in the background of the gun debate. It's a resolution directing the governor to "use available funds to examine the connection between excessive video game playing and the propensity to engage in gun violence and to propose restrictions on the rental or sale of violent video games to persons under a designated age." This issue has been studied a bit and, I believe, no connection found. But that seems counter-intuitive. The resolution was controversial because it mentioned Dave Grossman's book Assassination Generation and there are those that think this promotes the wrong approach to policing. An amendment was introduced to remove reference to the man and the book. The resolution passed without much trouble.
• 2:40 Back in Committee for discussion of Home Detention program in Corrections. Home detention combined with real-time electronic monitoring is something we instigated last year in hopes of saving about $700,000. It hasn't worked out that way and we're now thinking of ending the whole program. There are about 14 offenders now in the program and they are a group that committed serious crimes. We had hoped for about 50 and only those with low-risk crimes. We heard from a number of people including a victim advocate.
• 4:20 Done with Home Detention 
• 5:00 Discussion outside committee on H.260 regarding Clean Water Initiative funding. The House Committee on Natural Resources is proposing changing the bill. They want an added $2.00 a day room tax to raise money for Clean Water projects. The tax would not take effect for two years and would be the default funding mechanism if nothing else is approved by then.
• 6:00 Done for the day
• Friday
• 9:00 In committee for discussion of various bills
• 9:30 On the floor
• Dawn Francis and Karen Richard resolutions read to the House
• I introduced Dawn to the House
• Some back and forth on the fine points of a Judiciary bill.
• 10:25 Done on the floor
• 11:30 My testimony to House Government Operations about Colchester's Charter change.
• 12:00 Back to committee to find we're done for the week.

Wrap Up

Last week was a bit disjointed. We made some progress on a couple bills but, in general, things did not progress smoothly. I'm afraid next week will be more of the same. The closer we get to the end of the session the less predictable things are. We'll see.