Lame it Charlie. Got it. Okay, and we're good here too. All right, all right. I'm gonna call the
full committee of the select committee on ledges ethics to order and it is 237 on January 15th
and the recording is on. Is my understanding? Yes.
Okay. Kevin, could you take roll call please?
Senator Young is not with us yet
Send or representative Galvin here
Representative McCabe I am here. Thank you madam chair
here Connor
I'm here Deb Fancher
She will not be able to make the meeting and skip cook
And Carl White, I'm here.
Madam chair.
OK, we have a quorum.
Great, thank you.
We also have staff present.
We have Jackie Eagle and Jenny Benton from our ethics
office.
And is there anyone online?
Doesn't appear to be.
OK?
There are none.
There aren't none, OK.
Dan Lane was going to try to attend the meeting this morning, but the legislative affairs agency legal staff is having a meeting that's important. And so he was unable to be here. So I just wanted to mention that please committee members, if you can identify yourselves each time you speak, that would be great.
Today we do have a full committee meeting and I do expect the meetings to last the full 12 hours.
So who?
Senator Stevens, any objection?
None. Okay, motion passes.
Item three on the agenda is the chair of the whole committee.
I just wanted to point out that the the Chair selected
by the House subcommittee shall share the full committee
beginning the first day of
the regular session in even number of years.
And that happens to be Connor.
So, congratulations Connor,
beginning with the legislative session.
He will be chair this year.
Um, I will be conducting this meeting since it is before the first day of the regular session and, um, and I send on chair of
the Senate subcommittee, which becomes chairing and an odd number here.
So the next item on the agenda is item four, uh, vacancies, public member vacancies.
You do have a handout in your back and under number four and um.
Just a quick review and then I'll have Kevin speak in a minute here
Public members have three-year terms.
Deb Fancher's term is expired.
She has asked to be considered for another term.
The alternate public member is vacant.
Linda Cox, who was our alternate
public members, has resigned.
So a notice was put in the ethics newsletter announcing
the vacancies and I will have Kevin speak now
until as he was going to.
Kevin, did you check with the chief judges,
Justice Carney to see what's going on there
and if there have been any applications?
I have checked with the Chief Justice Madam Chair.
There was one application from outside the committee.
The Chief justice has acted on that application.
There is one current committee member
that was willing to step up for another term.
That.
Action has not been completed yet, and the Chief Justice was on travel status, but she anticipates
having appointments to
the leadership in the House and Senate
by the 21st, which would be the second day of session. I can provide a little bit more, if you
or it can. Okay. All right. Thank you. Any questions of either Kevin or myself?
Okay, hearing none, we're going to move on to item five, which is the approval of the minutes.
So under five A in your packet is The Full Committee Minutes of November 21st, 2025.
I would ask for a motion to approve the Minutes.
Carl made the motion. Is there any discussion or any changes to the minutes?
See no opposition motion passes. Let's go to item 5B, which is the house subcommittee
minutes of November 21st, 2025. There is one change that needs to be made. It's on the first
Actually, Deb's name is Bancher, not Francher.
So we're going to take the R out of there.
So I would need someone to make a motion
to approve the amendments as amended.
Barrow, is there any discussion?
Any further changes to the minutes?
The House Subcommittee minutes.
A hearing no opposition on the motion passes.
Okay, we are now down to
the Senate Subcommittee Minutes,
which is on 5C in here packet.
These minutes are also from November 21st, 2025.
I could ask for a motion to approve in minutes as presented with
Senator Stevens. Any amendments to the motion?
Okay, hearing none and seeing no opposition, motion passes.
Okay we're moving on. I like this. Item six, public comment.
There is no one here in the room. Is there anyone online for public
There is no one online for public comment.
Thank you, Kevin.
Okay, so no public comments, okay.
What we're gonna do now is we are going to ask,
I'm gonna ask for a motion to go into executive session
to discuss matters which by law must remain confidential
under AS246160, uniform rule 22B regarding executive sessions
and rules of procedure section five executive sections.
And discussion of matters, the immediate knowledge of which would adversely affect the finances of a governmental unit and discussion
of subjects that tend to prejudice the reputation and character of person.
Is there a motion to go into executive session?
Okay, Carl moves and it's two forty four.
Okay.
If we could go ahead and get everything set up so that we're in executive sessions.
You as soon as we're ready to go on into executive session, okay?
We're having a hard time hearing you.
We are on the record.
Okay. Good. All right. So we're back on
the records.
And we are out of executive sessions.
So if I could have a motion that we
are going to move forward with putting a notice
out there for a position in the office.
And we've got the funds for it and so forth.
And I think that's probably all I'm going to say for the motion.
So Carl, Carl will leave that portion.
Go for.
OK.
Any discussion?
Seeing none.
Well, we need to make it clear this full time.
I am sorry.
Yes.
Full time, thank you.
Thank you, Colin.
So we will be putting a notice out for a full-time position
in the office.
Funds are available.
And were hoping to put that out by the end of January.
1st of February and higher as soon as possible, something in March. Okay. You're okay with that
amendment? Yes.
Okay, Carl's okay, with the amendment. Is there any further discussion? Okay hearing none, motion
passes. okay. Now we are into the public session part of our meeting and I don't believe we have
We don't have anybody and there's no one is there anyone in the room
At the Capitol that wants to speak madam chair
There was no on on or in The in-the-building and There is no One
Indicating
You Said There's No One in In The Building do you mean
There No one in No, one In the Room Desiring to make Public Comment There'S no indication of any public comment at this time
I couldn't pass that up.
Okay, we're going to move on to item 10,
which is the Colbo Conference Report.
And Deb and Carl both attended the conference.
Deb is unable to attend this meeting.
She was here for the House meeting,
and there were quite a few of us that were going
to go represent, Galvin was going
to, Kevin was gonna go, I was
gonna skip,
I don't remember if you were gonna
go or not.
It was just going through.
Yeah, but all of the circumstances
changed, not that you want to hear this,
but because I, you know,
cracked my tibia and couldn't walk. That's why I didn't go. But anyway, I'm doing a lot better,
by the way. Um, somebody have Carl give a brief overview of the conference. This was his first time
and and we usually do this at our meeting to just let every other committee member know
what you experienced. So, Carl, before he does, it will have brought some things. Number one,
this is my name and I was the first timer.
Uh, Devin, I'll be brought back things to hand out on her at our meeting.
I gave those to Jackie and this is just a threat assessment, uh,
risk and challenges facing state ethics commissions. Um,
it was a fascinating conference to some of the things that I would want to say.
It was interesting. I learned a whole heck of a lot.
I'm still learning, um, met a lotta great people. Uh.
Vermont and Hawaii. So that was a lot of fun.
David and I, we went to various things. We went
to the Aquarian thing, museums for Martin Luther King and his wife, as well as Jimmy Carter.
But basically it went, one of the conferences was some new kid on the block.
So I figured I'd better go to that one. So learn everything about it.
And just so that we are well planned out, I brought up. This is Denver.
We're planning to do the whole thing in.
In Denver next year and that's December 6th through the 9th.
So.
Anything more? Any questions?
No.
Go ahead, Senator Stevens.
I'm in the French that they're talking about. The French.
I don't want to say this. I mean.
Why don' t you tell them what you were explaining to me earlier about
investigations and so forth?
Yeah. One of the things because not all of them are set up like we are.
Okay. We have.
But there are things I have to look in so many notes here, but.
Basically one of the things that they said said was that we need to keep informal as much as you can be positive
Don't discourage coverage be real keep media well informed at all times
Okay, those are some of them things and this was you know the the handout. You can
Get it on your cell phone or or whatever
But I didn't go to this but they they did talk about that
Do you think you tell me earlier though that some people some states that were doing investigations were receiving threats or yeah, North Dakota is getting a threat to their investigations, so let's see.
This one was how to protect ethics commission from political interference and that was a
moderator by Richard Preffall.
So it was good.
Very good
Well, I'm glad you went as a first-timer to get a little bit more background about ethics.
And I was telling him earlier that every ethics commissioner committee is totally different.
We are one of the few that has both public members and elected officials on ours.
Um, sort of a, uh, oh, what do I want to say, a model or an anomaly, but also a
model for other, whether there are states to look at and many people from the other
states, they were just amazed at how we set it up in the state.
So, you know, that we're kind of special.
Okay. Representative Galvin sent me a text message saying that she would love a photo of
some of the handouts and so forth. So we'll do that. We'll
Okay, well
We'll have to think about next year's conference, but it's always nice to have the report
But we might do Connor think
About it is maybe have Deb talk at the next meeting a little bit about her experience as well since she's not here
And see if there's anything else you want to add
And you know one thing I will mention about Kogel is that a lot of the information is online if you go to their
Website you can download the things that are presented to people at The various
committee meetings and for those of you aren't aware what Colgo means is that
it's a council on governmental ethics laws so it definitely ethics and it
spends a lot of time on that they also spend time
on filing reports and different things as well and sure Carl pulled out so okay
any questions Senator Stephen that's just to give you the discussion I mean it
We are driven in many states and I don't see anything going on there and doing things
that would cause, you know, some members of the public to oppose you and
express you because of what you believe. But I think we're lucky in that, but has it ever been
a threat to any member of, I mean, maybe that's because we are unusual and we don t,
you don' t speak, our threats might be legislated to our set, we'll let you talk.
I don't remember any threats. I certainly dealt with some legislators who weren't happy
with maybe advice that was being given, but yet it was statutory, you know, explaining and so
forth. So no, I I, don t think so. And I remember Jerry Anderson ever saying that either and I'm
sure maybe we would have talked about it. You know what I think, there were some people,
homo members, and they were from states. They weren t from States.
through the intent as well. Yes. Yeah. Okay. Well, I like to think that we just
to comment myself and I've been to many Colgo, but I haven't gotten recently. We
have a unique committee with legislators and public members.
We're also unique in the fact that the public member is always the chair of the
committee and not a legislator. So we're taking it out of
the political arena and making sure that that even though legislators are on the
committee.
That it's a public member that's that really sort of getting everything together, you know, to get to that point.
So I like to think again that we are we're kind of unique and in a good situation.
People thought it was great.
Good. Good, good.
Any other questions?
Okay.
Well, that small amount. We're going to go into the main purpose of the meeting today, which is legislative changes.
Basically, if you look in your packet under item 11,
you will see that Representative Galvin has decided to sponsor the bill.
Thank you, Representative Gallvin.
Representative McCabe has agreed to be a co-sponsor.
So we're really excited about that.
And, um, and that's because Senator Tobin.
was the sponsor of the bill before and and so she and she was on the committee at the time but
not any longer so so that's why she didn't feel she should be doing this so it's great that we've
got two committee members um two legislators on a committee that are going to be sponsoring the
bill so um one of things in the Bill has to do with and has been in there for a while but it has
never been really addressed and I'm just going talk about it for minutes on
that legislative legal stated that a work order
would be needed to be submitted by Representative Galvin
to have uniform rule 22D change
since current ethics statutory language states that,
and this is out of 246170,
it states all meetings of the committee
before the determination of probable cause
are closed to the public and to legislators
who are not members of committee.
And so...
you said if that's going to stay in the bill then we would need to to um
change that uniform rule to say that and I think one of the reasons and
and that that still in The bill but one
of The reasons that was there um and i've talked about it when i'd been at a
colo conference before was if they're not members of
the committee they shouldn't be part of what's
going on internally because it's affecting another legislator
and so we've always done that not realizing we were in opposition to the
legal has looked at that and felt that we need to have another request for that.
So that's that something that that
we're going to think about after this legislation would be passed.
So anyway, let me talk a little bit too.
As I said, Dan Wayne is unavailable to attend the meeting today.
He had a prior commit with with LA legal, but he called and I spent two hours with Dan
on a teleconference. And his thought is that we stay with the current sections of the bill
and revise them. So we kind of went through the Bill and looked at that instead of saying,
you know, repeal this and start over, we felt that,
we could move some things around and continue to keep the sections.
He felt, that that's better at Senator Stephen Sheng. It's it's
better for down the road.
when someone wants to see what changes were made and you can see which changes
were actually made in that particular section versus saying it was repealed.
You're trying to figure out what's going on because we did repeal one section in here and I found it
kind of interesting that I think we missed one thing so I'm going to talk about that later.
So that's how I felt. So we went through the bill
and looked at some changes and so forth. He also talked a little bit about the drafting manual
which are a requirement under legislative counsel, and that there are certain drafting
requirements that have to be met. And so even if we were to suggest some language and it goes
to drafting, it could be changed. That's always been something that I dealt with,
and I'm not sure what the drafting requirements are. But when we
were doing some of this, he was changing some the language around to make it follow what they
He also said, and just for your information,
I found this very interesting that the draft legislation
is reviewed by two of the lawyers.
And then it goes to the revise or to take a look at.
He did say that Monday,
and I'm sure you legislators know that,
Monday January 19th at 3 p.m.
is the deadline for bills to be introduced
on the first day of a legislative session.
He indicated to me that if we move fast on this bill,
such as today we get through it
and we decide some of these changes
make recommendations and of course they've been drafted according to the drafting manual
requirements. But maybe we could meet that January 19 deadline. He wants me to call him
tomorrow morning at 8.15 to say what the committee came up with after I go through some of the
changes that Dan and I did which is we're going to actually just look at the legislation today.
We're not going look anything else. So he suggested that and and he said that most of
L.A. legal staff will be working over the weekend because there are a lot of people
that want to have bills that wanna be introduced at the beginning of session.
So he said he would be willing to take a look at that.
So I was pretty excited about that, so I don't want Representative Gilvin and Representative
McCabe, which I thought are, but I'm just telling you what he's said and then we can
just, the committee can decide or you can just decide how you wanna move forward.
where I'm at. So if it's okay with the committee, what I would like to do is go, first of all,
to the recap of the legislations or the first page in your, not the cover page, I am sorry,
I'll tell you what what down weights comments were. So if you look at on page one of the next handout in your in
your packet where we've got we're already gone through.
You can see right on the back of that page center seems that you just turn the bat turn that
page over there right in there.
So we already got through these sections one through eight.
We already talked about adding this one at our last meeting.
Dan Wayne said there's some problem with the language, so I'm just going to read what he said that he would recommend.
He said if you go down to the last third to last line where after the comma where it says, but are entitled to per diem.
So, so that's what bottom of that page right there. Yeah, that so so I I told him I didn't think the committee was gonna have a problem with that.
It's still covering the same thing. We just know that the public members weren't receiving what everyone else should be receiving. So I'm just letting you know he's fine tuning that language there that that he didn' catch the last time.
page two of seven.
Okay.
If you look at where it says we're going to add 246160A.
And if you see there where
it's says that we wanted to have the 60 day period for issuing an opinion,
maybe extended by the committee.
Dan Lane said that were really putting there two different reasons that
we may extend.
He is suggesting that
we completely delete that language.
and just say the 60 day period issuing or issuing an opinion maybe extended by the committee
because there may be other circumstances that would require us to do that. So
am I hearing an agreement on that one? I thought that was a good idea from him. Any discussion?
That would be a change from what we decided before. Madam Chair. Okay. Yes. Are we
in that change as you proposed, we are taking out the requirement that the
requester agree to the extension. Is that correct? We're still maintaining that?
Yes, that was already taken out. Yes. So basically what we're going to do is
we were taking off the language that
was bold and underlying that we added and we just going
where it says the person requesting the opinion consent we're going to
put that in there and that would be taken out because that's current language.
Is that clear? Thank you. Okay so how's that going
to read Joyce? Okay that is going
to be that will read the 60 day period for issuing an opinion may be extended by the committee
period and then the part that be taking out and would
that's the language we're going to be deleting so that whole everything is
underlying it gets to leave yeah that was our language that
was what we suggested at our last meeting and we are going
to take that out and I like Dan we've already decided to
take out the the person requesting the opinion
consensus that we already we decided take
that last time so all we really do in here
is taking out to bowl language in a his language with
Right. Just extended by the committee period. So, yeah. And I like to suggestion.
So I guess I wanted to bring that up if everybody's in agreement with that.
It made sense to me that we're listing two different things and there could be a could
be some other extenuating circumstance. Okay. All right. The next section actually
So, what I'd like you to do is go to the actual bill itself and turn to page 8 with the v-section 10.
Go to Page 8.
So, so basically what Dan Lane and I did was we went through some of the suggested changes that we had the subcommittee had prepared and we added them to this actual language. So let, let me go through section 10 section, 10, you know, talks about a complaint being that they may be initiated by any person.
Um, seven days, the committee staff would acknowledge receipt of a complaint, which we didn't have a timeframe in there before. So now we're going to add one.
So basically, um, what,
um.
Give me just a second. I'm looking at my notes.
Right. So we're saying, okay, so what we are going to do, where it says,
we were on line 11, it said upon receiving a complaint,
we should close that out and also take the out
and just say committee staff shall within seven days acknowledge receipt of a complaint.
And then what we're also going to say is and then that would be a new sentence.
and then we would also say committee staff shall advise a complaint that the
committee or the subject of the complaint may ask the
complaint to testify at any stage of receding under this section.
So basically we're adding the seven days right here where we are saying the
form is available for filing a
complaint and within seven
days of receiving a complete committee
staff will acknowledge receipt and
then committee's staff should advise the
at any stage of the hearing. Does that make sense?
Well, yeah, but I mean, so you're going to take out the part that says that in terms of
the testimony as to the complaints believed that the subject of
the complaint is violated this chapter. Okay. So the
testimony could be about anything at anytime.
Okay, that that,
that's going be my next thing. I think that
That that that also is something that Dan Wayne and I talked about and
I said that the when they drafted this they had taken that out and and Dan and
I talk about leaving that in there. So I'm glad you brought that up because we
want to decide whether we want keep that. And I think it's important.
Well I mean we've had this come up before and you know the statute as it reads
right now you can you a person can be forced to testify at any stage but it
that the subject of the complaint is violated as chapter with the exception of course the of
the final hearing but we've had it come up in interim parts of
the process where somebody's demanded that somebody testify and if you just leave it open ended they
could go on forever with respect to the the testimony there so I don't know why we would want to open
And like I said, Dan Wayne and I talked about it as well.
What's the, what's, the.
What is the favor of the committee?
Leave that language in there.
So in other words,
what we would say is committee staff shall advise a complaint that the
committee or the subject of that complaint may ask the complaint to
testify at any stage of proceeding under this section.
as to the complaints believe that the subject of the complaint has violated this chapter.
Are we okay with that?
It was Dan thinking it should go out just because it already said that he already signed it in the
complaint form. I don't know what is what he this was a bill that we worked on with Senator Tobin
so I do not know if that was from their office or what but we did address that and I
Dan Wayne said he could go either way, so he says it's the will of the committee.
I mean, we certainly want them to be verifying that they believe the person's body of
the chapter.
But isn't that in the complaint form itself?
It is, but I'm not sure I don't have a complaint for him in front of me to skip.
I do not.
Madam Chair, I believe that.
I think we should. I mean, I can't understand why we would want to open it up to forcing
people to testify maybe multiple times during a process before you actually got to the final
hearing where there's going to be a determination.
It would have been problematic if the person could have gone outside the scope of what's identified here.
Yes.
I mean, it was at a, you know, was that a preliminary, uh,
it, what was confidentiality had been waived and it wasn't a
preliminary part of the hearing. He was demanding that the
person testify, which did happen, but at least they were limited in the
scope.
Madam chair,
Senator Stephen has to,
Senator Stevens has the lead. So I just want to make a note of that on record.
Well, I think we should leave it in there as well.
So what is the committee feeling?
Is it I'm not hearing from everyone?
Is there a consensus that we
should keep that in their and we'll and.
Madam chair, speaking to Skip's concern,
I'd think that having it on the complaint form,
which I believe it to be without back up in the statute.
opens us up to speculation. So I don't think simply having it on the complaint form is adequate
and I 100% support Connors believe that it needs to remain in statute.
That's fine. I'm fine with that. Okay. Well, let's let if I
don' hear anything else, we're going to keep that in there. The one thing that
Dan and i did with also this section is as we we removed online 15 after violating this chapter
So we removed the committee and all the way down to line 20 where it ends with 171B, all has to do with campaigning and we have a whole new section on campaigning now so there's no reason it needs to be in this section.
So I think that's a good idea. We also took out the last sentence where it says,
in this midsection, campaign period has a meaning given into that it out it up.
So we took everything out of here with dealing with campaign and only dealt with
the initiation of a complaint itself. And I
think I that makes it cleaner and clearer. Any comment?
All right, let's go down to section 11, which is what we call more of the preliminary examination.
So if you go to the very first sentence, it says, when the committee.
And Dan Wayne and I suggested because we had talked about this at the subcommittee meeting, starting out that section with within 10 days after receiving a complaint.
under A of this section.
So we're deleting when the committee receives a complaint
and it said we are going to say within 10 days
after receiving a complete under
A, of the section committee staff to dot, dot dot.
So, we were putting in the timeframe
that came up during the subcommittee.
I don't see any problem with that.
Okay, let's turn to page nine.
Dan Wayne and I were trying to put some things more in order,
which is what the subcommittee talked about
and making it clearer when you're reading the statute
and it's following this step, this
step and this stuff.
So after Dan, Wayne, and
I read this, we felt that on line 14,
where it says the committee may ask the complaint
or the subject of the complain to provide care,
clarification or additional information
before it makes a determination under this subsection.
or the committee may ask, I'm sorry.
And then it goes on to go down to line 19
and ending after the word information.
That's all about what the Committee may
ask the complaint and the subject of the
complaint to do.
And we felt that that should be there,
should moved up to Line 4 after
the Word advice because
What comes after that is that we're determining whether the allegations of the complaint, if true,
but what we are also saying up here is what's going to happen before we get to that point.
So I don't know if everybody feels that's a good idea.
We felt it was a bad idea and it follows through saying that.
If you go on line four where it says the committee shall consider the advice the
committee may ask the complaint nor the subject of the complain to provide
clarification or additional information before it makes a determination under
this subsection. The complaint and the
subject have the complaints are not obligated to
provide the clarification and additional
information. So does that make sense moving that up there?
Am I seeing some shaking hands or is that okay?
It seems fine.
Okay.
I appreciate that you're trying to have it make sense and be chronological.
I really appreciate and so I agree with all of this.
I just wanted to comment that in presenting all these changes,
for a lot of people to try to pick it apart as well.
So just keeping in mind that through the committee process,
there's going to be, you know, some, I think it's important
that we present it in such a way that says,
listen, we're not just trying to clean it up and make sure
that the primary piece of this, which was around ensuring
There's confidentiality for all parties. I think I
Just wanted to comment that there's a word. This is like a full cleanup of this whole area of law and
that
We're
Doing the right thing and it's going to it may be
Also picked apart a little bit during process
Is everyone clear on that?
Okay.
Um, so then, um,
So on line five, we're going to,
before the word determine, because we are talking about
online for it, the way the language reads right now,
it says the committee shall consider the advice and determine whether the allegations.
We felt that.
Because we're just talking about the advice and we are moving this other section up about what's going to happen there, that we should start line five with the committee shall determine whether the allegations of the complaint if true.
Okay, if we go down to line 21,
Dan Wayne and I had a long discussion about confidentiality,
which is also something that Representative Gilman just talked about.
And this is during, you know, this was during the, the preliminary stage,
preliminary examination, and we're just missing it. So, um,
Dan felt,
and i'll throw this out to the committee that if
we start on line 19, where it says a proceeding conducted under this
And a dismissal under this subsection are confidential, period done.
They're confidential.
We don't want to say unless, you know, as provided in L and we're not going to
say, unless the subject waves confidentiality because we are dealing with that
on a different page.
So what we were saying here is all these documents are
confidential and what
we've done is we made the confidentiality provision for waving it in a complete
section by itself so that it's not just specifically mentioned.
In one section and maybe in one of these other sections, it wasn't.
So if that makes sense, we're saying the proceeding, the documents,
and the dismissal are all confidential. And basically what happens for those of you,
when we have a preliminary examination and a dismissal,
that doesn't become public. The reason it doesn t become
public is because
We haven't conducted an investigation. We don't feel that there's anything there,
and we don t want that legislator or that legislative staff person to have that
made public that someone filed a complaint that wasn't found to be, you know, a probable cause.
And so that has always been in the statute. So does that make sense that we would just say
No comment okay um and basically um what my note from down Wayne was is that by removing that
this covers all types of confidentiality by moving this particular language so it covers
all kinds of confidentiality that we have we're just saying everything is confidential
so and that's the way it's been done in the past unless the subject waves confidentiality and
Section 12 is the scope of investigation.
So let me just start again.
So first of all, the first section we have
that we've reviewed was who may initiate the complaint.
The second section 11 was the preliminary examination
and the dismissal when we don't do anything.
And then the next section is a scope
of an investigation because we determined
that some are all of the allegations
of a complaint if true with constitutive violations.
So, and that was one of
the things we talked about our self-committing meeting too.
One of the other things we talked about in our subcommittee meeting is on line 31
Where where it says or I starts online 30 a copy of The resolution shall be provided to the complaint and to The subject of
The complaint
Dan Wayne and I had a long discussion about
Legal issues regarding providing the complainant a Copy of a scope of investigation
He does not feel that there's there is any
If we were to remove the complainant and only provide the scope of investigation to the subject of the complaint.
So I want to throw that out for discussion. One of other things we found out is if you go to page 10.
And you look at line 11.
We only provide the amended resolution to the subject of the complaint, and that's been in there all the time.
And so basically what this was, this, was inconsistent between what was in, you know, section 13 and section 12.
So based on the legal discussion with Dan Wayne,
and the part that we just pointed out that I know that the subcommittee talked about removing the complainant.
So, basically, let me throw this out what Dan Wayne and I came up with.
A copy of the resolution shall be provided to the subject of
the complaint, and the complainant shall
be notified that the compliant is being investigated.
Period done. They don't get a copy
of this scope. So I guess I want to throw that out for discussion and see what the
committee feels about that. Well, I don t have any real strong feelings
about it, but what's the reason for it?
For removing the going to the complaint. Yeah, I don't remember. I know and I thought it was discussed
I though it wasn't discussed. Do you remember Carl thought? It was disgusted our madam chair
Yes, yeah, it's it s Kevin.
I remember this discussion completely.
I was the one that brought it up. The bottom line is so if you go to an investigative stage and you tell
if putting it in a more common sense.
If you file a police report,
the police don't come back to you
as the complainant filing the Police Report
and telling you how they're going to do their investigation.
By providing the complaint a scope of investigation,
if there's any deviation from the scope
of the investigation or the investigator
or I as administrator on behalf of
the committee find that
There may not be steps in the scope that are germane whatever it opens the
committee up to second guessing well you had a resolution you said you were
going to do this that and the other thing ABC and now you did XYZ it just
does not teach good sense I I fully agree with Dan that the complainant
perfectly reasonable to tell the complainant, we are moving forward and we're going to a
scope of investigation, but that is a separate and a far lesser step than providing them with
That was, and I was during the subcommittee, the one that brought it up.
It just to me, Kevin, let me get, I need to interject for just a second.
Dan Wayne didn't recommend this. I,
I asked the question and he stated that there was no legal ramification.
If we didn t provide it, so I don t want you.
I thought like you kind of misspoke there.
He's not making the recommendation.
He was responding to my questions.
But I think it avoids problems.
Kevin, what's the reason to give it to the subject?
Well, because we are asking the
subject to respond to
the scope of investigation.
Sure, but why do they have to have
the Scope of Investigation?
I mean, based on your reasoning,
I don't have a strong feeling about it,
but I can't really see why one and not the other.
Because to me, the
Scope Of Investigation, it doesn't,
it identifies the essential elements of information.
that the committee feels they need to deliberate.
It does.
The question is, why should it go to the subject of the complaint?
I mean, using your police report analogy, the police don't give either side of that information.
Okay.
And I was going to that.
to notify the subject that we're moving forward.
They have a right to defend themselves.
And this is the information.
To me, that is information that
is germane to the
subject.
to prepare their quote unquote defense or to be prepared to answer the questions of the committee.
Whether we call that a scope of investigation or if it's an interrogative for information,
I have had issues, we've had that discussion subcommittee whether the scope and investigation
Should be the trigger to notify and put the subject on notice that they need to provide information or that we're moving forward
So
My bigger concern is that it opens the committee up to scrutiny if we provide the complainant the scope of
Investigation what is it that doesn't that same reasoning apply if you if the provide to the subjects
Well, we could do it. I mean, you don't what why why couldn't you just say the same thing?
You're gonna say to the complaint into the subject and then go go about it
I'm mean
I don I want to have a strong feeling about but I dont see a real reason just distinguished between the two here. Well
Connor, I let me let Kevin let, me interject for a sec before you go any further. Do we have comments from
legislators
on how they feel about this
Representative McCabe. I don't think it really matters truthfully, you know, I think that the I
think the subject has a little bit of
Rights is the wrong word, but in a situation like this he's sort of innocent until proven guilty
So we should probably provide him the copy of what we are actually investigating
You kind of do that in discovery and legal terms anyways.
I mean, each side knows what the other sides do,
and that's sort of a legal precedent, right?
So why would we separate it here?
I'm mean why we would want to surprise the subject
on a scope of investigation, so why not tell them?
Okay, Representative Galvin, you have any comments?
I agree with what we just heard from Representative McCabe.
I think the only thing I would add is that
I guess including the complainant to get all of the information might be stirring the pot
in ways that don't need to be stirred as the way I'm thinking about it, that they've
already stated their side of it.
But our committee and ethics then will look at it kind of independently and decide what
really should or should not be the scope.
Give all that information back to them. They then might be
given fuel to complain more or in different ways, and so I'm just not sure that that step is or is not
relevant to the work that we do, but I I very much appreciate hearing from
the members who have much more
history on this than I do
Okay, one thing I want to comment then based on my discussion with Dan Lane, if we decide
to keep the complaint in here, then we will have to add it on line 11 on the next section
because they're inconsistent and we need to be consistent.
So what is the feeling of the committee?
Did you want keep a complaint on Line 31 on page nine?
Do we want it to take it out or what?
Let me just go around and ask Connor what are you feeling?
Leave it in or take it out.
I don't have any real problem with taking it
out, I'm just trying to get to whatever the reason is.
And I do think the subject of the complaint should get it.
I just am trying
to grasp what the real distinction might be,
which I still don' get.
But anyway,
I didn't ever have a real
problem of taking
I think it can be taken out leave it in for the subject take it out for
the complainant. Okay. Carl, so same? Okay, Representative McCabe. Yeah, I agree
with that. Take the complaining out, but leave this subject in.
Okay Representative Galvin? I concur.
Okay all right, well let's go ahead and do that then.
And then what the sentence will read starting on line 30 would be a copy of the resolution
shall be provided to the subject of complaint and the complaint shall not be notified that
the compliant is being investigated.
Okay.
All right.
Okay, all right, let's go into section 13, which is actually expanding the investigation.
All we're doing is saying there that, you know, if the committee discovers facts that
justify expanding it, we would go ahead and do that.
It only mentions the subject of the complaint here, so there's really nothing we need to
do with Section 13.
So again, We're trying to go in order.
We got the scope of investigation.
We've got if we were going to expand the investigation, and then the next section on Section 14 is
on dismissal.
It says if the committee determines after investigation that there is not probable cause
to believe the subject of the complaint violated this chapter, the Committee shall dismiss the
complaint. The Committee may also do dismiss portions of a complaint if it finds no probable
cause to be believed that the Subject of The Complaint has violated the chapter as alleged
in those portions.
The committee shall issue an order explaining its dismissal.
This next sentence here, this talks about deliberations to dismiss and also probable cause, which is confusing because the rest of this whole section is about dismissal.
So, what Dan Wayne and I talked about was, and let me just say this was starting on line 18, where it says committee deliberation or vote concerning probable cost.
or an order to dismiss are not open to the public that
complain, the subject of the complaint.
Basically, Dan Wayne and I are suggesting that we take that out and what we say instead.
is that, and I will explain this,
committee proceedings are subject to the provisions
of AS 2461-72.
And 172 covers, which is on page 16,
covers committee proceeding's closed pending
probable cause determination,
and it goes into the confidentiality provisions.
So instead of mentioning the deliberations and so forth,
We're going to suggest that committee proceedings are subject to the provisions of AS 2461-72.
And we can review that when we get there if we want or we could review it now.
But I guess I'm in agreement with that.
First of all, if you do keep that other language in, we need to take out concerning probable
cause because that whole section actually is on dismissal.
So again, were trying to clean up some language and make it consistent.
So what is the, what does the wish of the committee just put committee proceedings are subject to the provisions of AS 2461 72
Which are a little bit more
Comprehensive than what stated right here that's already in the statute online 18 to 21
I think that just fine reference in 2460
Yeah, I do too. I feel that it just started on.
Yeah. Okay. All right. So we're going to go with that.
All. Right.
All, right, um, let's go down to section 15.
Again, we are trying to be consistent.
That's what Dan Lane is. And those of you that know me,
I'm.
very picky comes to legislation or other things.
So if we look at line one, it says,
if the committee determines that a probable violation,
well, in the sentence on line 13,
it's as if committee determined after investigation.
So we'd like to be consistent and just add those words
after determines to
be consisted with after investigations.
I don't think that's going to
be an issue for anyone.
And then when we get down to the bottom of
Line 31, where we're saying, but let me read them all since.
If the committee determines after investigation
that a probable violation of this chapter exists
that may be corrected by action of the subject
of complaint and does not warrant sanctions
other than correction,
the Committee may issue a written recommendation
of a subject of that complaint
a corrective action within 20 days.
We felt that we should add the same language here
that just added in section 14.
saying committee proceedings are subject to the provisions of the data dot
dot dot. So basically we're saying the same thing here.
When we section 14 was dismissed section 15 is probable cost.
Okay and I think since we did that the other one I
think you'd be be okay with that.
There really was not much elf in here that was
other than what was already in the bill.
You know, what we're doing here is we are saying the recommendation of Gage top of page 11 shall be provided to the complaint and to
the subject of the complete and is open to inspection by the public and then it goes into just sort of updating some of
the language in here about whether they take the correction, correct of action or not. That was really not something that came up
during the subcommittee meeting. So I don't think there's going to be any questions. We were more concerned about
confidentiality and so forth that which we're going to get to in a second here.
So and then if we were okay I'm going move on section 16 had to do with if the complaint
somebody of the complain fails to comply with the recommendation under G which is the one we
were just looking at. We did not have any anything brought up in the subcommittee meeting for that one
Section 17, if a person is charged under H and it goes through what's happening if they're charged
under each and so forth, we also did not have any questions there at the subcommittee meeting.
Section 18 also talks about a formal charge under
H, so we're still going with the formal
Again, updating some language and so forth.
So we really didn't talk about that at all
in the subcommittee meeting.
Please let me know if I'm going too fast.
And then on section 19 following the hearing,
we didn really discuss that
at atal in some committee meeting
because it was talking about following hearing.
The big thing that we spent a lot of discussion on
was confidentiality and that's section 20.
which has been rewritten.
So I wanted to go through this and I know that this was a topic of discussion and so section 170L was repealed in the statute itself.
And so this is what have been put in here regarding confidentiality and
So, this is confidentiality and waiver by the subject.
So why don't I read it slowly?
I know I talked fast.
A complaint filed under this section is confidential.
The complaint shall keep confidential,
the filing of the complaint and
the information that is in the compliant.
Before I go any further,
what I want to point out is there was
some language that wasn't included in here.
And I think this was a discussion maybe that that represented
McCabe that maybe you would have regarding this.
Let me read the section that wasn't included and see if the committee feels that this needs to be included.
So right now it's saying online 14, the complaint shall keep confidential,
the filing of the complaints and the information that is in the
complaint.
What was not included in this section here that's already included
If the committee finds that a complaint and violated this confidentiality provision,
the Committee shall immediately dismiss the complaint.
Dismissal of a complain under this subsection does not affect the right of the
Committee or any other person other than the complainant to initiate a
complaint based on the same factual allegations.
So is that something we want to keep in there?
Yeah. Why did you take it out or why did we take
it in others right?
I don't know.
there's no, yeah, there is no teeth in it.
I mean, Joe Miller is gonna tell you guys to pound sand
and he's gonna release anything you want.
So if we put teeth
in-
I told, I'm sorry, Representative Cabot has you in a row.
I totally agree.
I don't know why it wasn't in there.
Dan Wayne doesn't
know what it was in in their.
So I am throwing it out that personally,
I me not personally but as a committee member.
I feel it should be in there, so I'm saying we should add that.
I think so, too.
Joyce, one question I have about, I totally agree with that, but I thought that this had
come up once before and that he had pointed us to another section where it is included.
Am I wrong about that?
I mean,
I cannot believe we would ever, you know, intentionally take that out.
Me,
I don't see it anywhere. I've read this bill over, um, teen times. Um, I
don' know why it's not in there.
I think it was it must have been an error not to put it in
there, so I feel we need to add that. Okay.
I just thought you told us because I thought we had talked to him once
about that, and he said, oh, it' s somewhere.
I remember now. Could we ask him, uh, pardon me,
action would be firstly to ask him if it is somewhere else, and then if he doesn't have
it anywhere else than why it was taken out, just to better understand what the reasoning
is behind this.
But it sounds like there's a lot of consensus here to make sure that either this gets put
Look at page six item D right in the middle of page
page 6 yeah, if the complainant under
What I'm sorry skip what line is it okay, it's line 17, okay?
Okay, that's where it was
Okay
Okay, okay
Now
That's raised one question. Yeah, that's what I remembered and seen it, but it does say may immediately dismiss
Is that what we want as opposed to shell? I
Don't know and I guess my question is why would it be under oh six oh
Yeah, I think like maybe it would be better located now that we have this confidentiality section
We've moved other things into but probably should move that into it too. I
support the word show
I do too I need to yeah, but I did too and I
Do think it should be with the other section really
Otherwise people are gonna have the same I mean this is the second or third time
I I thank we've had this issue
Okay, well, all six O happens to be confidential information, which makes no sense to me why I would be here. So all right. Well, let's do I agree. It should be shell.
Are we safe? Yeah, we do say shell in the language from before.
And I didn't read all of them over in detail
as much as I did the ones we're doing right now.
So, okay, all right, I think we should take that out.
We'll take it out of six
and put it back in under the confidentiality part.
Does that make sense then?
Yep, yep.
Okay, alright.
Okay.
Alright, let's go through them.
The next sentence here on line 11 on page 14.
where it says accept is otherwise provided in this section or as necessary for the committee
to administer the requirements of this session. Documents produced or disclosed as a result
of a committee investigation under this action are confidential and not subject to inspection
by the public. So we're talking about confidentiality, talking
Other than those limiting disclosure of information that may be used to identify a witness other than the subject of the complaint may
be waived by the Subject of The Complaint.
So if you go down to line 23, you're going to see what witness means because I had to go
down and look at that.
So witness, means the complainant, the subjects of
the Compliant are another person who may give testimony in the matter.
So it's saying again, let me read that the confidentiality provisions of this subsection other than those limiting disclosure of information that may be used to identify a witness other
than the subject of the complaint may
be waived by the Subject of The Complaint.
Okay. Any discussion on that?
I do have a question.
Mr. Wayne suggested, I've not seen it written like this in the past, but then again,
I don't have a lot of experience here,
but what I'm seeing in this subsection,
witness means the complainant.
I do not typically see it like that.
I see up where they mention complainant, they then define it right there.
So I am just trying to understand is this the way they wanted to write it because.
It made sense to mr. Wayne
This is all brand new language in here. So yes, you're to answer your first part of your question
This particular section was repealed and it's been reenacted. so most of this is is new. Language so
Are you saying that you feel?
That maybe it just not written before I I don't have a a grand plan for how to
Change it, but like I said in the past just in fitting the form of legislation that I've been reading and voting on
it typically doesn't
It's say like a basically what this looks like is a glossary
definition at the end of the section as opposed to folding it in I
See does that make sense? Oh, I see what you're saying. Yeah, we could it doesn t read like
the typical statute to me.
So in other words, what you're saying that I think I gather what
you saying, which you are saying is that where it says identify a
witness and then we can do semicolon.
A witness means a complaint to such as a complain and put it up
there versus down in the bottom.
Or are you staying?
Don't use the word witness at all.
I'll just just say that.
identify and then list the people.
Yeah, because I mean, I think that's kind of confusing to use that term.
I agree.
I just say it like it is.
Yeah.
When this is being used in another a couple another spot in here as well.
So that would have to be reworked.
Here's here's what I found confusing and it took me a while to figure this out.
This was after my conversation with Dan Wayne.
We didn't have this Dan way and I didn' have
this conversation.
We're talking about a witness, meaning the complainant, the subject of the complaint,
or another person who may give testimony in the matter. If you go down to line 18,
it says, and I'm just going to read after the comment,
the complaints may not be made public unless information sufficient to disclose the identity
of other persons identified in a complaint. So now they're
first of all they're talking about let's say somebody else is mentioned in the complaint itself
well they are saying that you know that that can't be made public and then they
are using the word witness to name the complainant the subject and another person that may give testimony
so if you're saying it needs to be clarified we can have Dan look at that and clarify that
because I think it's a little confusing I had to read it over several times.
the subject of the complainant can wave the confidentiality requirements for everything
except for the name of witnesses or the names of complainant or any information that could be
used in the complaint to identify them. I like that. Yes, I agree. It should all be listed as one
Okay, why don't we see if he could put something together for that?
And basically what we're saying, because we are saying that the complaint may not be made public unless information is sufficient to disclose the identity of other persons is redacted.
That being, may use to identify a witness.
So to me, that's kind of redundant in not talking about the same thing.
Um, my question that I threw out to Dan Wayne and I'll throw it out
to the committee and then I will tell you what he said is that where it talks
about disclose names or other information.
Um. I asked him if that was sufficient that if it included, you know,
like name address and phone number, I'm not naming address,
but phone name, phone, number and address.
He felt that that would be, because it says other information that may not disclose names
or other informations.
Do you think that needs to be more specific, or do you that general statement is enough
to say that nothing's going to end the issue, is all going be redacted?
I would remove everything after the period on line 20 after redacted.
Who cares?
Okay.
I would just remove all of that.
That just confuses the issue.
It gets permissive in a paragraph
that is supposed to be restrictive.
To me, I don't ever envision a time
where a witness would say,
oh yeah, you can tell anybody you want about
how I testified or that I was on there.
I mean,
I know that it needs to in there,
I guess.
Something just came to mind real quickly, and it had to do with the notary.
I'm wondering if it says it shall not sufficient to disclose the identity of other persons identified in the complaint.
Would include the Notary as well, I would think it would.
Okay. Let's have Dan rework that. Is everybody in agreement with that? It's kind of confusing.
Yep.
Okay, that language should go out and then up above.
Instead of using the term witness probably just include the dentist and you know the wording that
was now
Saying what a witness is move it up and take the word witness out, right?
Okay, yeah, I mean it needs to be very clear that we're where we talking about the
Complaintant
Very clear and this is not
Okay. Okay? I agree
Okay, I'll talk to him about that.
Okay.
The next on the next section is section 21 where all documents issued by the committee after to determine a probable cause to believe that the subject of the plane is violated this chapter, including a recommendation under G of this section and a formal charge under H of
the determination of probable cause under G.
So what we're recommending is is that
this strictly deal with the formal charge under H,
all documents issued by the committee after
and then go down to line 29
where it says a formal charged under each of this section.
Does that make sense?
As we started repeating what
we already said in G
Our one we're dealing with with a recommendation under G again clean up language
Okay, all right
I think I'm I I'd think i dream about this when I go to sleep at night, okay
Um
Okay
We're getting close to the end. I am so excited
Okay, if we go to section 22, which is on page 15, this was in a proceeding under this
section.
And we didn't change. We didnít really look at this at all in the subcommittee.
So I don't know. This talks about the choice of representation. It's not subject to review or approval. Again, it's just some cleanup language.
I think there's anything we really need to do there.
Section 23, this talks about committee proceedings
and campaign periods.
So what we've done is we removed it,
I think I pointed out earlier from one of the sections,
and this all has to do with campaigning
and what happens with a complaint
that comes in during a campaign period.
The only thing that Dan Wayne was suggesting
was that at the end of line 20,
We're saying if the committee receives a complaint concerning the conduct of a candidate for state office,
well, really, it's only those who are covered under the act.
So we decided to add concerning, the content of the candidate
for State Office who is covered by the Act comma during a campaign period comma,
the Committee shall immediately.
So, we're just saying it only goes covered
by The Act.
So that's just kind of, a little minutia thing to
Okay, so that was all, that's all on campaigning.
Okay if we go to page 16, line 26.
That's a 2461-72.
We decided to add the word complaint after the heading where it says committee proceedings
It's actually dealing with committee complaint proceedings to make that clear that that's what it is even though
It is, you know right after that complaint statute. We thought that was important
Joyce I have a quick question if I may
Sorry, sorry to move us back, but I'm back to that kind of the way you're introducing
I think what is obvious, which is that it's only covering incumbent candidates, and I
think, again, we're saying who is covered by the act, but then later, you know,
we keep referring to candidate, candidate candidate.
I'm just wondering if it makes sense to just use the word incumbent candidate or something
Always going to be clear that it is only those who are currently serving
Does that make am I making any sense to you or is that not I think
Representative Galvin makes a really good point that
Conflating candidate because with it needs to say something about covered under the act or incumbent each each time probably
Just as any time it says candidate, it needs to be defined because there could be multiple candidates that are
In a race
In the does safer state office, so it could b governor lieutenant governor
legislator, okay, yeah, like 14 of them right now
Anyway, that was just a thought that came to my mind, but I don't know if that's the best use of that word, so lawyers may know better how to make sure that we're being clear throughout.
That would be much more consistent.
Right. So in other words, what we are saying is maybe use the word incumbent versus who is covered by the act.
Then you'd have to use incumbent with wherever it's used following, incumbent candidate.
Although just thinking about it a little bit further, we have
to be careful because this act, you know, if you had somebody that was a representative
for two years and then he didn't run or he wasn't a representer for
two year and he ran again, he still may be covered by the act for five years, right?
He's not an incumbent. Yeah, and he's
not a incumbent very good point.
Okay, then we are back to the.
Hmm. But if we do say incumbent
candidate for state office,
well, that could mean that, you know,
the governor's running again for another term,
but he is not covered under us.
True. Am I, am I?
Yes. Not looking at that base.
No, no, I see your point
Well, it seems like that might be a pretty good thing to discuss with Dan,
just telling what our concern is.
Yeah. Because those are definitely valid concerns.
Okay. I will do that.
Great. Okay, good point.
Okay let's go back to line 26 on page 16.
So we're going to add the word complaint committee complaint proceedings closed pending probable
cause determination.
This is the one we referred to earlier when we were dealing with whether the committee
was going determine probable cause.
So, we are saying when a complaint, and this is new as well, this a new section, when
a complainant alleging a violation of this chapter has been filed, a meeting of the
I am going to throw out, this was not downwind, but it says to discuss the complaint.
I'm wondering if we should say to deliberate or vote because
is that the same thing as discuss a complaint? Doesn't discuss
the complaints sound pretty generic to me. When we're always saying it's more where we
deliberate our vote and we use that in the statute previously.
I'm on line 28.
We're so line 27 were where it starts under 2461 72 or it says when a complaint alleging a violation of this chapter has been filed a meeting of the committee to discuss the complaint is closed to the public.
in earlier part of the statute.
And again, I'm being consistent.
I don't know what everybody feels.
So you're saying after disgust,
just put a comma, discuss, deliberate,
or vote on the complaint?
Actually,
I was just going to take off,
discuss the complain and just say a meeting
of a committee, actually,
I am sorry, not the complete meeting of
I excuse me to deliberate or vote the complaint or
vote no never mind let me let
me start over after you said that
represent became I got a little confused when I complained
alleging a violation of this chapter has been filed a meeting of the committee
to deliver it or a vote is closed to the public
and i'll go on here in a minute because we're talking about
committee complaint proceedings closed pending probable cause that's the name
I'm fine if we leave this, if
we believe discuss, deliberate or vote.
Yeah, that's fine with me.
Yeah.
I think that I do agree it should be
flushed down a little bit more though.
Yeah okay.
Okay.
Um, and then we do say, um, is closed to the public and legislators who are not.
members or alternate members of the committee,
but I think we need to add there,
which we've had in another part of this section,
and again, I'm being picky, after the word public,
we should say, is closed to the public comma,
the subject of complaint comma the complainant,
and legislators who are not members
or alternative members.
We wanna make sure that we're covering,
and do we consider the complaint,
subject to complaint and the complaints of public?
I would say no, because we're dealing with that term throughout this whole statute again.
So I don't know if you want to add that after the Republic, comma, the subjects of the complaint,
comma the complained and legislators who are not members or alternate members of
the committee.
It's getting very wordy.
There's got to be a quicker, better way of saying that, like,
the complain is closed except for members are alternate.
Members of.
I mean, and we are that's easy. That's
easy and repeating in this next section.
I like that.
Okay, I was making a note. Okay.
Um, that was the only thing I had there.
And basically, I'm pretty much done, except for what, whatever page, what what page was
that on page eight, where we have that, um, oh, page six.
Okay.
I missed that again.
And if you look at section 24, it's referral to the Alaska, uh, to Alaska Public Offices
Commission, if we find a violation, well, that was taken out of.
One, uh, subsection L previously when we rewrote it to deal just with confidentiality, but there also should have been a referral to law enforcement. So now I see on page six that it also says in the course of an investigation, you know, that if there's criminal activity, we shall refer it.
After 2469 75 on page 17 we had I don't know 24 69 76 it says referral to law enforcement and
Use the same language and do every section 6 entirely then yes completely completely fine with that
Okay
all right
well
That is pretty much it
has met and I've um like I said I think I'm dreaming about this so I will get Dan Wayne a call in the
morning and um Representative Galvin and and Representative McKee he's going to go ahead and
work on this and try to get it done I know there were just a couple questions we had and if it um
And if he gets the bill to you, um, does the committee feel they want to take a look at the
bill before it would be introduced after Dan Wayne makes all these changes? Is that the feeling of
the Committee? No, I'm shaking his hand. No. I think we should try to get it to introduced and I
think it won't be difficult to run it back through.
I agree with that. I think Representative Galvin, if it's going to go back to you, maybe you could forward it to me since I've been the one that's been working on this for, I don't know, two years.
I remember. And then see what's up.
And if we have any questions, we could always check with Representative McKay, because he's gonna be the co-sponsored.
Does that sound like a good plan?
Sounds good to me. Sounds
good.
Sounds
good, okay.
What time is it?
Well, geez.
I've got four 28.
Oh, she's.
Okay.
Let's, um.
Madam chair, is there anything on the agenda?
Is there
anything that's on your agenda after this?
After the committee has looked at it that they feel we need to discuss in a few minutes that we have
We've got budget. We got the benefit and loan update. I don't think that that's
Something that is important. That's urgent.
We have the staff advice. we haven't done that
publications
and then we've
item 13 Kevin if you could address if the committee's okay with this I'm going
to jump to item thirteen and have Kevin address that one yes madam chair I
would suggest 13 and then also 14 if we can just take a couple of minutes so
here's the the short version on representative Allen deck he was there
Before the committee in 2012, the complaint was processed,
adjudicated in 2013.
There was a finding for an excess of $18,000.
It was supposed to be resolved by 2014.
Former representative Dick had entered into an agreement,
whereby he was paying approximately $100 a month since that point.
We have spent an entirety, we have spend a lot of time and energy.
Let me rephrase, Jackie has spent a lotta time in energy tracking it down.
In December, there was an outstanding balance of $1,100.
Jackie had worked very conscientiously with former representatives daughter to whittle
Subsequent to this being added is an agenda item.
We received a final payment from former representative Dick in the amount of $1,100 concurrent with that.
I did a little bit of research, found out that we received the check on January 9th.
And at least to the best of my researching ability on the Internet, Representative Dick, former Representative.
deck had passed. He, I found notification that he had
passed on December 31st. The reason I bring this to the
attention of the committee is this. I think that we, we
probably could have handled this in a better fashion rather
than continuing to follow up on an outstanding judgment.
against an individual that was 80 years old at the time of the judgment and at
the times of his passing he was 92 the process ended up itself a hundred
dollars a month us doing repeated follow-up to try and
get resolution
was a huge expenditure of time on the committee's staff's part and
So we have reached resolution, but I would suggest that in future
Situations like this we should have a process that if
Repayment and it's not being made in a timely fashion that we follow the
constraints outlined in the statute and
in our rules of procedure and take it to a formal hearing for resolution or my recommendation
was going to be prior to receipt of the final check that we just we discharged the the outstanding
balance so um madam chair for your comments. I have no comments i'm glad that the situation
At some point, maybe down the road,
it's something that the committee can consider
if they have another complaint
where there's a large amount of dollar amount
of fine.
Any comment from the Committee?
Okay, let's move on to item 14,
which would be our last item.
The complaint confidentiality waiver form.
Looking at the complaint competency waiver for them,
and like I said, there is a handout in your packet.
The form itself did not have the complaint numbers on it.
We added that on there.
So we have two drafts in here.
We have one that talks about,
I have read this particular statute,
I've read these rules of procedure,
I read the other rules
of the procedure and I
wave confidentiality and then I'd read
I read this stuff. Excuse me, read the this information. Boy, can tell it's been a long day.
That's a short and sweet one. The second one actually does list what the statute itself says
and then on the back page it also lists what's the rules of procedure state.
My preference would be to provide that information to the person.
waving the confidentiality so they know what they're doing when they wave versus just referencing the
the actual provisions themselves which which are available on our website and then one is a
statute. I guess I'm throwing that out to the committee. We felt that it was important to include
the complaint numbers and and them sort of relook at the form to make it a little bit clearer as to
Another part of a waiver. What's the other name of the
other waiver? I can't remember whatever it was.
Express. Oh yeah, the express waiver, well this
this isn't the Express Waiver then right?
Implyed.
Oh it's implied. Thank you Connor. I couldn't think of
the name but this is the expressed waiver um so
anyway I'm throwing we're throwing this out to the
committee. We've got two different forms.
I guess my question is would you would
you rather have the form that lists the particular sections?
and have them have that person sign that they freely and voluntarily wait
confidentiality complete process um and um or we'd rather have
listing what the what they uh particular uh sections actually means. I'm a
thrown out for discussion. Knowing that it's going to change if this
legislation passes I would rather to have the second form.
If it if it is up to me the the more extensive form with everything printed
You know, if the person's actually putting their signature on a form that has all the needed information on it, then it's hard to say they didn't read it.
I agree. That's true. I agreed.
I, I.
I also think even among ourselves, it is easy to kind of overlook just exactly what it means when somebody waves confidentiality. So this is helpful that way.
Well, it looks like we have a consensus that the second form is is the best in your packet. And
then we will list the complaints as well. That's not something we've done.
And considering that we had a multitude of complaints, we felt that
we need to keep track of what exactly this particular waiver was referring to, you know,
which complaint and so forth. So, okay, well, looks
like you're going to go with that with the
if we have changes to 170L or two rules of procedure that the committee would
authorize staff to update the sections listed on the form without need to bring
it back to the Committee. Absolutely we've done that in the past so
you may ask that question but yes absolutely so we're fine with that.
I would say it should be no problem with the committee.
It's just been past practice that, of course,
if you're going to have a form,
you've got to the exact language that's there.
So, yes.
Okay.
Joyce, one question I have when you say the second one,
which I'm not sure I am clear on just exactly which one you mean.
Well, I I talking about the one that says page one of two,
and there's two pages.
Yeah. Okay, that just happens to be the first one in my.
Oh, it was. Oh.
Okay? All right.
I thought it was the second one, but page one of two of page two to one in return to. Okay.
Well, we have four thirty seven. I think we did extremely well. We didn't do anything with the
staff report, which we didn t at our last meeting either,
but those items are things that can be brought up at another point. And
do we want to bring up anything in the staff reports? Is everybody comfortable with bringing
I think we should probably adjourn.
That would be my thought as well because I know that sometimes, and it will correct
me if I'm wrong, um, uh, represent became and represent beyond sometimes your meetings
run just a little bit over, but not very much because they've been posted to be at that
particular time.
Am I correct in that?
Well, usually it's just because the room is scheduled pretty tightly, so we try to get
out of there, but in this case, it is because Kevin's stomach is growling.
My Kevin.
I see.
I've seen.
If my brain is scrambled after all that legislation, my, your brain has scrambled.
It's hard.
It is hard to think about anything else.
Madam Chair.
I totally agree.
The one thing we could take off because Representative McCabe had asked about it because he received
So, if you remember, DOT had requested some changes to what they were listing for disclosure
under the benefits of loans.
Because of surge capacity, they did not have the potential to address that due to the
maintained everything current from 2025 to 2026 so there will be no changes
because they simply don't have the time to move forward with it and that way we
can take that off the agenda unless there are any questions on it perfect and the
I would like to just bring up one other quick item, which is going to take one minute and it's item 12 e which has publications we are required by statute to publish the public decisions and advisory opinions.
We did not have any advisory opinion, but we did have some public decision. So there was a booklet and prepared and issued for that. And then also we update our to our standards of conduct handbook with anything.
that needs to be updated like changes and benefit moments and whatever else we see in there. So
that's also been done. Maybe that would be a good thing. I'm going to mention that.
So there's new handbooks out there that say 2026.
So other than that, those are the two things I think on the chair staff report that are
rather quick. And those have been delivered to your offices to the LIOs and for the
Committee members, it will be in your binder that we provide to you at the next meeting.
Nice. Perfect. Thank you. Okay. All right. If there isn't any other business,
is there a motion to adjourn? So moved.
Okay, we'll go with Representative McCain.
Is he signed? Okay and it's for 40. So we are
Thank you. I'm probably not going to talk the rest of the night. My husband will like that.
I hate to say it. You're going into dinner.
I am going in dinner, but yeah.