Alaska Legislature: JETH-260626-1300

That's what I need to be seeing myself eating.

Hmm? I need to be seeing myself eating. Well, it's not good. You're not going to show up on air though, are you? Yeah, the whole committee did.

Okay. Thank you all. I'm calling to order the Select Committee— Your line is muted. Your line is unmuted. Once again, calling to order the Select Committee on Legislative Ethics.

Sorry for the slight delay. The time is 1:25. Today's date is June 26, 2026. Thank you all for being timely. We're the ones that were late.

So anyway, with that, I would ask Kevin to call the roll, please.

All right, Mr. Chair, we'll start with Senator Stevens. I believe you're on the line or on Teams. Yeah, I'm here. If you can hear me.

We have you loud and clear, Senator. Senator Young. Here. Representative Galvin? Here.

Representative McCabe? Here. Skip Cook? Here. Joyce Anderson?

Here. Carl White? Here. Deb Fansher? Here.

And Mr. Chair? Here. Thank you. We have a quorum.

Thank you.

Couple of things before we get started. Just want to advise people that may or may not know that the ethics bill was passed, became law on the 24th. Is that correct? So anyway, congratulations to Representative McCabe, Representative Galvin for helping us with that, and of course Joyce Anderson who really, really helped push the matter through.

Also want to make note, which I did in the last meeting, that this is Jackie's last meeting with us, and we appreciate her assistance. She just walked off.

And Keeley, remind me again, pronounce your last name. Haller. Haller. Okay. My mistake.

Anyway, she's joined the committee, and so once again, thank you. For the whole committee. We also have with us— not with us, but we have a new alternate for the committee, and I'm afraid his name is—. Chase. Chase—.

Berenson. Berenson. Okay, Chase Berenson from Gertwood, and I did have a little bit of information about him, but it's gotten lost in all my documents here, so I apologize for that. Otherwise, I would— would read that. So anyway, with that, oh yeah, anyway, I did find the information on Mr. Berenson, our new alderman, and I'll read that in.

Chase Berenson is a resident of Girdwood, works as a business leader with Alaska Native Corporations supporting business growth in remote Alaska to benefit Alaska Native shareholders. Mr. Bernson holds a Master's of Business Administration from Louisiana State University and has served on several boards and commissions focused on governance and organizational oversight. He and his wife are active in the Girtwood community where he enjoys snowboarding and hiking. So we welcome him as an alternate to the, to the committee. So one other item I'd like to mention for those of you who have been either on the committee or around the committee for a while, Long-term committee member Gary Turner passed away relatively recently.

We— April 3rd, Joyce reminds me of this past year. For those of you who may or may not have known, he was president of the Kenai Community College in— or Kenai Community— Kenai College in Kenai. And as I said, served for a number of years on the committee. Appreciate his service and are sorry to his family with respect to his passing. So, and so with that, I would now move to the— I don't have mine now.

Go on. Here you go. There it is. This was just leaning against—. Mine was against my—.

No, it was leaning— Yours was leaning against mine. I'm sorry, we had a mix-up on packet books here, so my mistake. So the next item is approval of the agenda, and I would entertain a motion to approve the agenda for the full committee meeting. This is Deb Vander. So moved.

Any objections to the agenda? Mr. Chair, just to call out item 5 and item 6, executive session. We place those in as placeholders for a contingency. We have nothing for executive session for today.

Okay. So those items will be deleted from our agenda. So we're 1, 2, 3, 4, then 7 and 8.

9, 10, And 11. 11 Is adjourned. So anyway, that's where we are.

The next item on here is approval of minutes. The first minutes to be reviewed and approved or revised are the full committee meeting minutes from January 15th, 2026. So I would entertain a motion to either approve or revise Those minutes, you'll find them in your packet under 3A, it looks like.

Any revisions?

A motion to approve?

I'll move to approve this, Skip. Okay. Any objections? Any revisions? Hearings?

None. Seeing none, move on to the House Subcommittee meeting of January 15th, 2026. Once again, it's in Tab 3B of your packet.

And Any revisions, suggested revisions? Otherwise, entertain a motion to approve. This is Joyce. I move to approve as presented. Any objections?

Hearing none, seeing none, those are approved. So both minutes, full committee meeting of January 15th, 2026, approved. House subcommittee meeting minutes of January 15th, 2026 are also approved. The next item is public comment. I don't see anybody in the room with respect to comment, and Kevin, is there anybody online?

Mr. Chair, we have no one online. Okay. Seeing nobody here, nobody online, public comment section is closed.

The next section, Section 7 in your agenda says public session, which is what we are. So we're really on 8, which is the chair staff report starting with the budget status. So I'll turn this over to Kevin. And there are a number of items here which really I think he's going to be addressing all of them. But once again, we'll start first with the fiscal year 2026 budget status.

So Kevin. So the member— for the members of the committee, you will notice that the attachment at 8A May is significantly out of date. I had requested an update. Unfortunately, due to prior scheduled leave on the folks down in Juneau, we were not able to get an updated budget. Short answer is I can assure you that we are fine financially.

We have significant funds remaining under our obligation for the outside legal counsel. We are good on the Payroll expenses, we still have outstanding balances for travel and for our miscellaneous office purchases and whatnot. If it meets with your concurrence, Mr. Chair, I can send out an updated budget summary to the committee members if they so desire to see that. I guess we can take a quick poll.

Anybody that's interested in getting an updated budget status can mention that now and Kevin can get it out to you. So anybody that wants one, let us know.

I'll just send it out, Mr. Chair, with your concurrence. All right.

That takes us to tab B, 8B, as I was. This is the— A summary of the informal advice provided by staff.

I would just call out a couple of items for the committee.

On page 2 of tab 8A or 8B, item number 9, there was a lot of going— ongoing confusion about campaign contributions, whether they could be done online, whether they could be done, et cetera. This identified a gap in our current policies and statute. We really don't have anything that addresses at all online campaign solicitations. There were also questions about texting campaign solicitations. And the fear or the danger there of texting is if the person is in Juneau or the location where the legislature is convened, that might be a potential problem or issue.

So I think we need to spend some additional time clearing, or we need to make time to clear up and get a better codification, particularly of online campaign and text, the different media campaign solicitations.

Item number 11 on page 2, and the italicized text in that item, again, speaks to social media. That's a big gap that I I think the committee would be well served by closing on page 3, item number 3 under disclosures. This is a new requirement based on the recently passed changes to the legislative act that Member Anderson will talk to a little bit later, but we need to have some discussions and consideration Since now we have a hard statutory requirement for agendas to be attached for gifts of travel and hospitality, that opens some questions that we need to address, such as, um, now it is a hard requirement. We need to let, uh, covered employees know of that, and then we need to process if, um, they do not meet that criteria. And then we also need to have a discussion of what does or does not constitute a legislative concern.

It's been my past position that, uh, the committee staff should not be arbiters of legislative concern, so we need some guidance from the committee about how to address the now required agendas and what would be acceptable or not. So those are my general comments on the staff informal advice. Mr. Chair, if I could interject for a second. Sure.

I see, Kevin, that you said in one instance there was a flat refusal to submit an agenda. That is correct. Who was that legislator?

I don't know if that's appropriate for public comment or I can share with that— that information afterwards. I don't know why it's not appropriate for public comment. I don't know what, what would make it—. Yeah, it's a public disclosure. I mean, what, what— I'm, I'm curious as to what the reason was and who it was.

They felt that it was an— they felt that what they had submitted was adequate. It listed arrival time, opening ceremonies, and departure times for the Arctic Winter Games. So they did not submit one? They did not submit any further clarification, and at that time it was a committee policy to require the agendas, but it was not a hard requirement, so I did not feel that I could push harder and farther. Well, I think we should have a discussion.

I think that that legislator, if it's a legislator or legislative employee, I'm assuming a legislator. It was both. It was both? Yes. Okay.

I feel that there should be some sort of a letter of stating that this is a requirement, and if you don't, you— I don't know what the consequences would be, but it was a policy of the committee, and now, of course, like you said, it is statute. But— and we certainly— I don't see any reason why we not— we the committee couldn't know who it is. What is the feeling of the committee?

There's nothing that makes it confidential that I'm aware of. I agree. Go ahead. Well, I'm just going to say process-wise, I would like to know in the future, it might make sense for us to have better ways of learning what— I really appreciate these— this report, but in the future maybe there could be, and it would be almost like a spreadsheet of what calls have been taken and then kind of a summary of each along with the timing and such. That's what I have my staff do when they're dealing with constituents so that when I get to find out how when I want to know what's going on, I get to look at this report.

And this report sort of goes over a lot of problems without many details that are helping to ascertain, like, who's getting what advice when. And I know that from my end anyway, it— there's so much that's gray and a lot of phone calls I know that Kevin and Jackie have to take in. So it just might be helpful in general that there be a process. I understand right now you're asking for a specific name and so forth, and I don't have any feelings one way or another about whether or not that's shared, although if it is something that we know is public record, then why wouldn't we be able to talk about it? I would think—.

I just want to know the process. Okay. I was going to say, I would think that that is an incomplete disclosure and that it should be treated as such. I know that the Rules of Procedure Committee is going to get back in place because of, you know, HB 298 being passed, and we can certainly put some, some guidelines in there regarding agendas, you know, like you said, addressing what is, what is actually an agenda with some ideas and some suggestions and stuff. I guess I'm going to let it go, but I do feel that that is an incomplete disclosure from both of those individuals, and maybe we need to address something in our rules of procedures to what happens when it's incomplete.

Well, you, Kevin, you did follow up Right. I did follow up multiple times.

I do not feel comfortable going into details, but there was an adversarial— there were inappropriate comments made to Keeley. There were a number of issues. But that is to say that bottom line is there was no hard requirement. It was a policy of the committee It was— there was no criteria for us to assess whether or not— there was no criteria for us to assess whether or not the agenda was complete. And it was a committee policy.

It was not something that I had statutorily. So yes, the chair is correct. We followed up. We did the best we could. And that was not included in the informal advice report as a means of calling out a legislator or a— and a legislative employee.

It was raised in the informal advice to say we need some criteria. Okay. And I guess one thing I would say, I mean, when you say, you know, what to do about following up, I mean, isn't the answer— I mean, the The reason that people are filing these things is because they're exempt. And so isn't the response, well, if you don't turn this in, then it's not exempt from the gift statute?

So in other words, you're saying that they shouldn't have accepted the gift? Well, I mean, isn't that—. Yes. Isn't that—. That's basically what it is.

That's the reason that this requirement exists. So that we know it was for a legislative purpose. We know that it was for a legislative purpose. If they can't provide that it was— I agree with you. If they can't provide it was a legislative purpose, then they need to reimburse the money.

Then the response is, well, okay, it's not exempt from the gift statute. Right. So that's— it seems like what I assumed all along, that's what we were getting at. I was just a little concerned that they refused and that's the reason we need to know that it was for a legislative purpose. So, all right, I will move on.

I will include that in when we discuss our rules of procedure meeting, committee meeting again. Subcommittee, I should say. Do you think—. Is there something that you think that should be done to follow up with respect to this particular person? I, I— after what you said, Mr.

Chair, I agree. I think, I think they should be told that their, their disclosures are incomplete and therefore doesn't fall within the legislative purpose category because there was no agenda submitted. And maybe they need to reimburse for whatever they were Filing as a gift of hospitality and travel for a legislative purpose. Member Anderson, through the chair, as I mentioned, an agenda was provided regarding a charter flight and the landing time, opening ceremonies time, and returning flight. The matter at issue was that there was no— there was no they're there.

And so it was a dispute of whether or not this is an adequate agenda or not. I've given you what you need, and I have no criteria, no policy, no documentation of what to do. I just raise it as an issue that we need further guidance, further information in the future now that it is a statutory requirement. Requirement to submit an agenda, and some of the trips do not have specific agendas, and traditionally we have accepted a short narrative. I was just going to suggest that.

Did they submit a narrative as to what this trip was about? They did not. No. Well, what they submitted was basically a travel itinerary with opening ceremonies. And the opening ceremonies had a legislative purpose?

Member Anderson. I've addressed the issue.

All right. I'll leave it to the committee. If they feel we should move on, we'll move on. I'm a little upset that they adamantly refused to, you know, their refusal to submit. That's, that's not basically in their best interest.

And I'm sorry, through the chair, this is Deb Bancher Joyce. It's Arctic Winter Games. So I'm asking myself, the legislative purpose of the Arctic Winter Games would be to say, we're thrilled that the Alaska athletes are able to participate. That's right. So I mean, that's all they would need to do.

Yeah. Why do we need— I mean, by handing you an agenda for the Arctic Winter Games, it's kind of like, I mean, on the small scale of the Olympics, you really need an agenda.

I guess that's why I asked if they submitted anything as to why they were there, and he said no. Well, you know, he said that they gave a ceremony, but it was—. Yeah, well, well, what do you need? I mean, what do you— from the Arctic Winter Games, if Representative Galvin was going to introduce the Mayor's Marathon, what more do you need than she flew to the Mayor's Marathon to say welcome to the Mayor's Marathon? Well, that's not what they said.

They just submitted what the, what the event was. They didn't submit why they were there. Did they Did they introduce the athletes? Did they welcome them? Do you see what I mean?

Yeah. I mean, to me, that's a difference than just saying, okay, this is the Winter Games. I'm fine. I'm done. I, in all my years, I don't think I've ever had anybody just do that.

Why refuse? Why wouldn't they not say, well, I was there to welcome the athletes. I was there, you know, to welcome them to Alaska and, you know, da da da da da da. That's simple. Yeah.

I mean, in this case, I mean, she didn't say why she went. The person didn't say. So that's, that's the problem as I see it. Well, why— I mean, Kevin, when she asked, did you just— she say it's none of your business?

I would typify not in so many words. Uh, I was told you were given what you need, I'm not giving you any more.

Wow. So I, I'm happy to show you the email string after. Again, I do not think at this point, nor am I asking at this point to go back. I'm just trying to highlight the need that as we go forward and we have a statutory requirement, that we need to have some criteria of what is acceptable or not acceptable. And if it's not acceptable, then what is the protocol, uh, if we don't receive the agenda?

Because that is not called out in rules of procedure, in statute, or any other document that I can locate. Okay, here's my recommendation, Mr. Chair. I suggest you get in touch with these individuals, tell them it was discussed at the committee meeting and that they need to submit a narrative as to why they were there. Well, I, I agree with that.

I think we should say that the committee has requested— that you submit. Yes. But I think that's an appropriate response. And then if she doesn't or the person doesn't, then we'll decide. But then in terms of Kevin's bigger picture, you know, it sounds like it's a matter for the Procedures Committee to sort of address.

Right. Okay. Mr. Chair, so Representative McCabe here. Is there a specific statute we're leaning on or is it just some sort of opinion that the Ethics Committee has had that we're going to have members supply their legislative reasoning?

I mean— At this time, it was a policy by the— it was a policy that was by the Ethics Committee. Of course, now it's in statute. But this was prior to that, so it's not retroactive. So was that policy written down anywhere or— I mean, did we have it available for legislators? I believe a newsletter went out when that was passed stating that it was a requirement to submit that with your disclosures.

You mean when the policy was passed? Yes. Okay. And people have been reminded before, but one thing you're— I think you're correct about is that it wasn't law at this time. So I think it would be helpful instead of being adversarial— you know, if we put something out that says it's helpful in determining whether or not this meets our ethics statute, if you could provide the legislative purpose more than just your travel itinerary.

You know, maybe be a little bit—. Instead of— Representative McCabe, through the Chair, 100%. The plan is in the very near future to go out with and highlight the changes that were made to the statute that would be applicable to legislators or staff. The requirement, the hard statutory requirement for an agenda is first and foremost one of those because that's a major change for covered employees in complying with gifts of travel for legislative concern. But I think in this case we're talking about two different things.

One is the new law and getting information out. Right. And then specifically how to address this. I mean, I am fine with that kind of language. I think it ought to be brought at least to the attention of the person that the committee discussed this as the policy of the committee to provide more than just a travel log and ask for the legislative purpose.

But even under the new statute, it is still going to be a bit subjective because I mean, I'm sort of familiar with this one, and in this case it's just going to be because I was invited to be the Alaska rep and attend the opening ceremonies. Would that be enough of a legislative purpose? It might be for you and I, but in 10 years from now, is it? I don't know. I mean, I would say it would be.

I mean, but in this case, that was not even provided. I get it. Yeah. I mean, it wouldn't have taken much. And we will—.

You're on the Rules of Procedure Subcommittee, so we can work on that issue.

Okay. All right, Kevin, you're okay with that? I'm absolutely fine. I was just identifying it as an action item, Mr. Chair.

Other than that, those are the only comments that I have on the informal advice report, and I would solicit any edits or changes. Yeah. Or questions that people might have. No comment on page 6, number 9.

Too soon?

I have a couple questions too, but go ahead. That was one of mine as well. So based on what came before us, has come before us, and Since we started this committee, I think we need to— Advisory Opinion 07-02 isn't quite enough. I mean, apparently we need to further flesh that out with either policy or requested statute change or something to be more specific on the use of state letterhead. What state letterhead is and what we're— what we can and cannot use it for.

So I don't know how we do that. I'm happy to put forth another bill or amendment if we have to. Hopefully it doesn't take 4 years to talk about. Or an advisory opinion. Yeah, an advisory opinion.

Yeah, well, that would be great. I was also going to suggest that, and I also was going to ask Kevin what was the matter. Support of a matter? Was it regarding a— I don't know what the RCA does, to tell you the truth. So, I mean, was it the Regulatory Commission of Alaska?

Well, I know that, but I don't know what they do. I'm sorry. Go ahead.

So it was— I don't have the specific details. And to Representative Galvin's previous comment and to your comment, past practices, what I was told when, when I came into the position was we give a high-level depersonalized unidentified summary in here. It was a matter on gas prices, to the best of my recollection, and they were The requester for the informal advice was saying, can I send a letter supporting the matter that was before the Regulatory Commission of Alaska, saying why it was important for passage? It was clearly in line with legislative duties and constituent services, and hence the response that we provided to the request. If I remember right, I think it had to actually do with storage of gas.

Yes, it was. You know, down in the Kenai, there was really only one facility. I'm not sure exactly the relationship with the regulatory commission, but the question was whether or not it was going to be appropriate to store gas there when there was no other place, and there was no competing Mr. Chair, you're 100% correct, and it was an issue of two different entities and whether it was endorsing one over the other. And the answer was it was not.

They were two different, completely different functions. And so the legislator had asked and was informed that it would be appropriate to provide his comments on letterhead. And the concern of the legislators was whether or not it was going to— if they didn't have storage facilities, whether or not that was going to impact the gas, especially down on the price of gas down on the peninsula. So, and there wasn't a— as Kevin said, there wasn't another— it wasn't competing against anybody for that storage space.

Mr. Chair, I only have one other question, and it's on number 2 on page 6. You said a legislative employee asked if members on the Ethics Committee— are they talking about both the public members and legislators? Yes. Okay.

Wasn't sure if that meant both or not. Okay. Thank you. Go ahead. So thanks, Mr.

Chair. Page 2, number 8, it seems like we're still dealing with this. We dealt with it last year, I thought, where we talked about newsletters and the use of state state funds to put out newsletters. So I thought we had agreed that you can't use an Electra, you know, the state email to put out your newsletter, but if you wrote a newsletter and sent it to your constituents from your personal account, which would not seem to cost any money, state money, so it would be de minimis to the state, that that was acceptable. Is that still not our position?

Mr. Representative McCabe, through the chair. So there are a number of different components to the responses that we've provided on this. Number one, if it— if no state funds are used, you don't pay for your email account, you don't— no state funds are used, then the whole requirement under 303 don't apply. Okay. So during the campaign period, if you want to send letterheads from email that is not provided or paid for by state funds, that's acceptable.

There are others that identified that they were using a mass mailing service that they actually paid for. If they don't use state funds, then that's fine. That's still acceptable. There was a lot of clarification about does office allowance account constitute state funds. And in 03-OC, it specifically calls out that funds under 24.10.110, office allowance accounts, are not considered state funds.

So that would be acceptable, to use office allowance funds. There was a lot of confusion and a lot of mis— or even personal funds. If you use your personal funds, you can do it that way. But there was a lot of confusion about what the baseline requirement is, and that is you cannot use state funds during the campaign period or you cannot use state funds for items that are produced, procured, or distributed during the campaign period with state funds. Uh, that is a matter that was addressed in a previous decision.

That would be S-2401. You can't pay for the print shop in March to send it out during the campaign period. It gives a disparate advantage to the incumbents and use of state funds for campaign activities. So each of the instances and inquiries that we receive are very detail-specific, and we go through that whole flowchart, if you will, and we ask the questions. Did you use this?

Did you use that? When's it going to be sent out and to try and capture that level of detail here in the informal advice would have been about 20 pages long. So— Sure. —I can amend the format that we provide you informal advice summaries if you so wish as the committee. No, I was just curious because there is still some information running around that you can never put out a newsletter within 60 days of the election date of the election.

And then there was an add-on to that that said, oh, and by the way, and I don't know, this might have been, maybe Joyce remembers, but there was an add-on to that, and maybe it's APOC, I don't know, but it said, and oh, by the way, the campaign season doesn't end on October, or on August 19th and start up again, you know, 60 days before November. So one would think that It would, but it doesn't. So point being is there are a lot of people that are sending out newsletters de minimis, not at state costs, and that's okay. Okay. Mm-hmm.

Okay. I have one— Thank you. This is Rep. Galvin, and my ask for clarification is if the emails were obtained, so the list of emails were obtained as a sitting legislator, as an incumbent, then they have a list which I could easily transfer my list over to a personal account, pay for it myself, and then I would be still enjoying the incumbent advantage by paying for that mass email. I have a lot of different lists, so for me it's sort of a different thing, but I could imagine that this gets more difficult for you, Kevin, as you're trying to articulate whether or not they have used— because it is— sure, I paid for my own, I paid for it all by myself, but where did that list come from?

Oh, when I was sending out emails as the legislator. So then I transferred into a separate account, the same list, and that's my mass email. So that's where it gets fuzzy. And I think that's why I can understand that there has been questions about that. And I want to make sure there's clarity for all involved.

Mr. Chair, if I could answer that question. There is an advisory opinion that addresses that issue. Okay. And the advisory opinion says that it is okay for a legislator to use their legislative email list for campaign purposes.

I don't know what the advisory opinion number is, but I know it's out there. So maybe Kevin can follow up on that and let you know, but it was during my time. So it's definitely something out there that had come up as a question before. So is that answering your question? Yes.

And the other caveat I wondered is at one point— And it could go vice versa. Okay. Your campaign list could be used as your—. Okay. Okay, thank you.

And then the other question was related to when there is an emergency announcement, something happening in your district. I think under those circumstances there has been an exception, and I just wanted to make sure that that's still true. Okay, thank you, Calvin, through the chair. That's 100%. And also under O3O There are a list of exceptions to use, and one of them— and I don't have it right off the top of my head, but it's used— it addresses lists that are constituent lists and whatnot.

So—. Are we going to address the door hanger thing anywhere else, or is it here where we're going to talk about that? That was a general— one of— I did not go into that level of specificity. Representative McCabe, Mr. Chair, if you want, I can flesh that out a little bit.

Yeah, go ahead.

Because of the lack of clear understanding of the prohibitions on using print shop for distribution of materials during the campaign period, the print shop has been wonderful. John and the manager at the print shop has been wonderful. They had established a self-imposed May 30th deadline for submitting requests for print shop materials for distribution. I had discussions with him, offered assistance, because the key thing is, okay, if you're getting stuff printed that late, is it going to go out during the campaign period? And wanted to have the opportunity to have discussion with the legislators about what was permitted or not permitted.

Um, as recently as two Mondays ago, so the 15th, the week of the 15th, I received multiple requests about, uh, printed materials from the print shop and from various staffers and legislators.

One of those was inadvertently— I guess it's to Representative McCabe's great chagrin that we share a first name. So it was sent to him by mistake instead of coming to me for comment. It was a matter of a print shop request for 6,300 door hangers that were going to contain nothing more than contact information. For the legislature. When I received that from the print shop, I had discussion with the legislator's staff, asked them when they were going to be hanging them, had discussion about the prohibition on using state funds and state resources, that being, uh, staff hours, to put those kind of door hangers on people's residence.

I inquired, uh, if they were actually thinking they could get that many out before, uh, the campaign period, which started on the 19th. Um, and so they subsequently reduced the number, uh, of copies that had been requested, and they stated their intent and Estimation is that they could get them all, all distributed, uh, no later than midnight on the 18th. Does that help, sir? So yeah, it helps a little bit, but, but let me read you a couple things from that particular flyer just because I still happen to have it. It doesn't just contain contact information.

It says, I've spent the last 2 years focused on lower energy costs, strengthening schools, and building a resilient economy. As I continue my work following the regular and special sessions, I want to hear what matters most to you. It's probably all right. Then he says, I'm proud of what I've accomplished in the last 2 years, but this work is far from finished. So I am wondering if you review these things before, or if they are supposed to be reviewed.

Frankly, I have never used the print shop. I've never even thought to use the print shop to print out 6,300 mailers a week before the election and try to get them or not mailers but door hangers and get them on people's doors. This is 100% a campaign door hanger. And if it's going to be provided, that service is going to be provided to him, then it needs to be provided to his opponent and as well as all of the rest of us. And I'm unclear how— I think it has to go through the Speaker's office.

And I just want to be very clear that all of us as legislators were given an email. We were sent an email. I think it was in probably in April that you have until— I think it was date certain, April 29th or May 30th, whatever the date was. It was all clear and given to all of us. So I am not sure why we are here discussing a June 15th when it was— you said it was 2 Mondays ago, something like that.

To me, the deadline is the deadline, and I'm just confused about why we're entertaining it, because that's not like life or death where we need to, you know, give an exception because— to me, we just stick with our deadlines because they're put in there for a certain reason, to be well in advance of any kind of a campaign season. And I do think it's deadline to have a report out to, here's what we were— we did this session. That's great communication to our constituents, but we're given a deadline and we have to follow that just because it's, I think, helping to protect us from getting into those muddy waters. And I think the deadline was to have them printed. No.

Kevin, was it to have them printed and distributed? No. Representative McCabe and Representative Galvin through the chair, that was a submission date. May 30 was a submission date to the print shop to allow for large print jobs. That was self-imposed.

It is not in our statutes. It's not in our requirements. The print shop simply said, hey, if you're going to send us a big print request, it may take us a week or more to print them. And so they knew about our 60-day prior to the election issue. So they were trying to help the covered employees comply with our requirements.

So that was not a hard— it was not a set-in-stone date. And that's why after May 30th, John in the print shop, if there were a request, he would at least refer the staff or legislator to me for discussion.

This does identify and reinforce the issue that there are covered employees that have tried to circumvent the requirement by having documents printed as early as March for known distribution during the campaign period. And then they are saying that, well, we didn't use state funds during the campaign period. No, but you used state funds for materials that were produced. And I think that is another thing that needs some clarification, is you cannot use state funds to procure, produce, or distribute materials. To your question, Representative McCabe, do I review all of those?

The answer is no, I do not. The Rules Committee request— print shop requests that are, are being submitted have to go through the Rules Committee. Matt Groening in Representative Stutes' office is very good. If he's got questions, he thinks it might be an ethics issue, he will call, he will discuss the matters with me. Um, so it is not 100%, and God help us if you want me to review 100% of the door knockers, flyers, newsletters, postcards.

I'm going to need about 5 more staff members to do that. We just don't have the resources. We review them by exception if there is a question, issue that comes up with either the Rules Committee or the print shop and they have questions, then they refer the covered employees back to us so that we can weigh in. But again, we offer informal advice, which is not binding on the committee, and the covered employees have the option of either abiding or not. With the informal advice that we provide.

So we try to keep them and help them stay out of issues, but we cannot, as staff, mandate compliance with our advice. So referencing the newsletter and the 60-day deadline, what I'm worried about is one guy taking advantage of this regulation is going to cause us, the ethics Committee to come down in a hard line and say— None. You cannot use state funds to take unfair advantage of your competitor regardless of whether it's a newsletter. You can't do any of that. Doesn't matter if you use your own Gmail account.

You can't do any of it because it's unfair advantage putting out a newsletter under your rep letterhead, if you will, right? That's what I'm concerned about with this. This looks to me uncannily like— other than the word, it doesn't say please vote for me. It says everything but please vote for me. And so I'm concerned that this kind of thing is going to cause a stricter pendulum to swing to the stricter area, which is why maybe we just need to come out as an ethics committee, you, and have an advisory opinion that says, sorry, but any door hangers that are produced by state state money need to be distributed prior to 60 days before the election.

Representative McCabe, through the chair, I 100% agree with you. That makes it a whole lot easier for me. And then I'm not having to have discussions. Okay, you're going to— when are you going to be done distributing them? Well, midnight on the 18th.

I agree. And that's one of the things I'm asking for is some, some additional clarity. We address these kind of issues in the advisor. We address these issues in informal advice. Representative Galvin, to your point, you received notification from the print shop.

I would say you're probably in the minority who read it.

Our advisors, we get people calling about the exact issue that we just put in the advisor yesterday. Because they don't read them. So we do our best to keep people informed and out of trouble, but we've got limitations. Is that a fair statement, Jackie? Yes, absolutely.

Thanks. Appreciate the discussion. Okay. Any other comments with respect to the staff report, uh, on regarding informal advice? Hearing none, seeing none, then on to the next item.

All right, the next item in your packets, and I just want to take a real quick highlight. We spent a fair amount of, uh, state dollars last year for a long-term non-permanent employee, Jamie Bent. She did absolute yeoman's work. We actually now, we've had a chance to go through all of our files establishing And please, this is not derogatory or towards anyone. We just didn't have the time and the staff.

Jamie has established a solid filing system. She's ensured that all of the items that we need to retain are backed up both in paper copy and in print version.

It did identify a couple of Things that we might want to consider at some point. We've got over 60 audio cassettes, and the current requirement is we have to maintain audio recordings. These are for committee meetings that were early 2000s, and I guess I could go find an audio cassette player, but we can't archive them because we don't know if they have executive session not on those cassettes. We really don't have a means of accessing them. And so that's something we'll talk about during the retention period.

But the current requirement is that we maintain copies of the minutes and audio recordings of committee meetings in perpetuity. And we simply don't— it's— It's just a hole that fills up a— or a volume that fills up the file cabinet without a lot of payback. So, we'll talk about a couple of these items later on. We are recommending a change to the format on the ethics page. It's just not very user-friendly.

It's hard to find. It has outdated material and things like that.

We are also working on the process for sharing disclosures. This is something that is very cumbersome. We, 3, 4, 5 different entities touch the disclosures that go into a specific, you know, into the computer online record reporting system.

We've had complaints from legislators saying, "Well, that doesn't work for me," and wanting us to do a PDF or paper copy for them, but we simply can't do that because of the interconnectedness with other agencies, the Secretary and Clerk in particular. Other items that Jamie had started working on, we continue as standardization and templating. I mentioned this previously. A lot of our documents don't have a standard format or, or contents. We're working on that.

I mentioned the web page, and that kind of leads me to— welcome, Keeley. These are your projects to follow up as our new employee. So I just wanted to give you a very quick update on some of the outcomes of Jamie's tenure and some of the items that were still ongoing activities. That's all I have on that, Mr. Chair, unless there are questions.

Okay. Unless there are questions, and on to the retention schedule. Okay. I have one quick question with regard to the cassette tapes. I'm sure you've dug into whether it could be digitalized and just keep it up in the cloud.

And I don't know if it, again, creates the same sort of problems if you don't have a wall between yourselves and the clerk or what have you. But it sounds like that might also be an ongoing problem with regard to confidentiality. Anyhow, I appreciate the work and thank you for that. And I also do support using our newer technology. If possible.

Representative Galvin, through the chair, if I can address that. So the short answer is yes, and it's a good segue into the retention schedule. Um, Jamie worked extensively both with the Legislative Library, she worked with State Archives to determine what the hard requirements might be in state statute. There were some things that the archives have to keep for 50 years. There are some things the library wanted.

In those discussions specifically to those cassette recordings, the library's response was, we don't want them. We don't even have a means. There's no easy means available to us to digitize those. We could potentially explore whether we can digitize them. And then store them that way.

But yes, we did look at that. And Joyce, Mr. Chair, if I could comment as well. Kevin, when I came on board in 2001, I would say any of the cassette tapes from 2001 forward did not have any executive sessions on the tapes. I don't know previously before that.

I don't know. So I don't know how many years, you know, how many goes back, but there would not be any executive sessions on the ones when I came on board.

And I do want to thank you for everything you've done. I just want the committee to know that I started out at the LIO down where the police station is right now, and then I was moved over to a temporary location because there were things going on at the— at that LIO. And then from there, I've moved back to that LIO, and then from there we moved over here. So we have had stored boxes and boxes of stuff, and I really appreciate, you know, what Jamie has done and gone through all that, because basically the boxes were just stored, and then once they got over here, it sounds like they were just kind of put in the file. You know, there was no staff, there was nothing, you know, no time to do that.

So this is just wonderful that all that stuff has been gone through and sorted and organized and so forth. So I just I just want to say that's wonderful. So thank you. Thank you for that. And I guess that brings us to the records retention, which is really part of the same thing.

Right? I mean, should we be keeping these forever? Well, in that, one of the things that we identified in discussion with the library and with State Archives, there is a cost for digital storage records as well as a physical storage requirement for hard records, and then just maintenance costs to maintain those files and whatnot. Um, in all of those discussions with the library and the archives, we had given them the different types of categories of documents that we maintain., and we asked them, Archives in specific, is there a value, is there a requirement, is there a purpose to keep those? And for the vast majority of them, as you will see there in page 2, under tab 8D, they said no.

Part of the reason I am asking for approval of the retention retention schedule is because in our rules of procedure it is very fragmented, it's inconsistent, it doesn't address a lot of the items. The retention schedule as listed here, we have problems. We've got public member and staff applicants going back with Social Security and PII for employees that applied for the position after Joyce left in 2011. We shouldn't have things like that. We've got hard copies of checks that were submitted to us for late disclosure fees or fees pursuant to a corrective action.

I don't think we should keep those. I think it's absolutely I think it's absolutely wrong for us to have checks in our files with bank accounts and routing numbers. I think that puts us at risk. So, those are some of the types of things that we are looking to clean up, so we don't have to physically retain them or pay for digital storage. Informal advice, currently we keep it in perpetuity, and one of the dangers The other issue that I see with that, the statute change— changes the way we interpret the statute and provide informal advice changes.

And there have been occasions that Jackie and Keeley can weigh in if they desire, but we find informal advice from 20 years ago that is not consistent with the current statute. Statute or current interpretation thereof. So what we're— you're seeing there, and I just give those as a couple of ideas, um, 2 years. The reason for 2 years on staff application— applications, or for public members, uh, for staff applications primarily, there's a 2-year moratorium on EEO complaints. So once we've exceeded that We should be able to get rid of those.

We don't need them. Shouldn't be retaining them. Informal advice, the 5.5 years is kind of the standard that's identified in the rules of procedure. Advisory opinions, I would recommend going 5.5 years as well. I know that may generate some discussion because there is some merit to having some of the old advisory opinions.

However, again, the outcomes in the advisory opinions may have changed because the statute has changed. So I think at 5.5 years that we ought to review those AOs, determine whether it's still valid or not, and if so, then we reissue a new advisory opinion with any tweaking that may be required. To be consistent with the current statutes or statute.

The published— publishable advisory opinions, we do— we can maintain those electronically, but I think it's very important to have an update, a refresh cycle on the advisory opinions. Because there are a number of them that are out of date. On the next page, disclosures, I would suggest 5 years and— 5.5 years. That's basically 2 legislative sessions.

So, that does introduce some interesting wrinkles because it resets. If we dispose of those disclosures and someone had a late disclosure in 2 2005, you know, long-term senator, as opposed to a new representative, they are held to a higher standard on if they file a late submission. I just don't see why we need to maintain disclosures for 5 years or beyond 5 years. Potential complaints the same way.

Paper copies of the complaints the The same way, 5.5 years. So, this is just an introduction. It's to highlight that we have some potential for additional improvements and efficiencies in our records retention process. Keeley, do you have anything you'd like to add?

Mr. Chair, I do have one question for Kevin. I don't see anything listed here that talks about legal opinions. I think there should be a separate section on legal opinions because legal opinions should be kept on file as well, and maybe the timeframe needs to be determined, but I think it should be a separate category. I see you've got legal analysis on here under number 7.

I didn't know if that meant the same thing as legal opinions or not. But anyway, I have a couple questions. I don't think now is the appropriate time, but I did want to bring up the legal opinions part because we do have legal opinions from outside counsel, inside legal counsel, and I think that's always been sort of a— that has not been really looked at over the years, especially from inside legal counsel maybe, but outside legal counsel, I'm talking back when I was in '01 and, you know, that was all paper at that time. So anyway, I don't know where they all are and so forth. Anyway, I think this— you've got a good start on this.

That would be the one category that I would add. And I had a couple other comments, but I think I'll wait and bring them up after the committee has had a chance to maybe review it and we bring it up again. Mr. Chair, if I can, I would offer this as a thought-provoking, discussion-provoking, not a specific action item, approve or disapprove. Approve at this point, allow for further follow-up discussion and add it to the agenda for our next meeting?

Yes, ma'am. Yeah, that was my question is what did you really think we ought to do? But we ought— I mean, at some point we should be prepared to vote on it. I would just say in response to Joyce's— I mean, looking at number 8, it does reference legal opinions there. But that's under public decisions.

Right. There's a lot of legal opinions that don't count. That are not, yeah. My suggestion might be, and I hate to set up another subcommittee, but maybe we should set up a subcommittee to take a review of this. Well, shouldn't this be part of the rules of procedure?

Yeah, we could do this as the rules of procedure. I mean, it seems to me that it ought to be. It's already part in the rules with some of this. Yeah. We could do that.

Mr. Chair, I 100% agree. Support that. As I mentioned, there are very, very fragmented references, and you've got to dig through the Rules of Procedure. And if we could have a table such as this, we may need to add some additional language or add opinions under complaint files or whatnot.

But that gives us a one-stop shop to actually know what we need to retain, how long, when we can dispose of them so we don't become a hoarder. Yeah, I think that's a good part. And so we wouldn't necessarily— I mean, when it should be brought up again is when we look, look at the, you know, any revisions to the rules of procedure, and hopefully that'd be part of it. Okay, good with that. That sounds good.

Any other comments, questions? All right, on to the next item, which is Harassment and civility training. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So, just a little backstory on this.

Traditionally, we get saddled with scheduling, arranging for civility and sexual harassment training during employee training at the beginning of every new legislature. Uh, I'm going to let a little my personality show. I'm professionally embarrassed by the fact that the same videos have been used the entire time that I'm here. They are not live presentations, they are video trainings. They're not updated.

I don't think it's a, a wonderful use of legislator or staff's time to see the same thing over and over. So a little bit of the genesis of how it came to be that we inherited this. Uh, so if you look there at tab, um, E1, back in 2018, Ledge Counsel, um, adopted an— adopted a policy stating that sexual harassment and civility training was required.

They loosely interpreted that we, the Ethics Committee, had responsibility for compliance with sexual harassment and civility training, and therefore in their policy they assigned that responsibility to us.

At tab E1, we had asked for for a legal opinion about whether that would be acceptable. The question asked though is whether sexual harassment training— whether it may be included. It wasn't— are we the right ones to do it?

And the answer was, yeah, it would be acceptable to include it. But we, as you will see in tab E2, and then in tab E3, we have no— the ethics committee does not have play in resolution of sexual harassment complaints or other workplace harassment. That is firmly placed with the manager of personnel, and there's a whole process spelled out, particularly in the sexual harassment and workplace harassment policy as noted at tab E3. What I am asking the committee for is your input and your concurrence that allows me to go back and talk to ledge counsel. Counsel and to talk to personnel and see if it— if we can find a better way to address the sexual harassment and civility components.

It is not something that I feel personally qualified to do. We use NCSL now, but like I said, and pretty much since COVID times, We have used the same tired video recordings with the same examples every 2 years, and we may have a more productive means, a more effective means of delivering the message. And with that, Mr. Chair, I'd open for questions. Okay.

Anybody have any opinions with respect to Kevin's—. Mr. Chair, I hate to keep— I hate being the only person talking, but when I came on board as administrator in 2001, we were not charged with this particular training, and it came about during Jerry Anderson's time, which— when he replaced— not replaced, but filled the position when I retired. I have always felt that adding this to the ethics training has reduced the ethics training which has limited then the information that is given to both legislators and staff. And sometimes I think ethics is very complicated.

I think as Representative Galvin has mentioned a couple times. And so I personally, based on my experience, don't feel that it is within the ethics purview to conduct these two types of training classes or for work professional workplace and then sexual harassment and so forth, because I agree with Kevin, that is not something that we do. That is not part of our statute. We do have a harassment section in our statute, which was mentioned in the legal opinion that was issued by the director at that time. And I'm trying to think of his name, but I know it's on the email or on the thing here.

It's Doug Gardner, for any of you that know him. Or knew him. And so I just feel that it's not within our purview. It takes away from the ethics area, and I think it should go back to— and I don't know, Kevin mentioned that we didn't do that before that. I think we might have, but I'm not sure, Kevin, so I'm not going to go one way or the other.

But I think that training was there, but maybe it was not— we certainly didn't do it. Anyway, my recommendation—. Madam Chair, point of clarification. Prior to COVID, it was in-person training. Stacy and— it was okay, and in person, okay, would come and they would interact and they would engage in the— but since COVID times, uh, they have used, like I said, and I hate to beat a dead horse, but they use the same examples.

It's the same discussion examples of of Inhofe and different things in it. To me, it sets— it denigrates our training. It takes it over an hour away from our training. It does. It does.

And it does not provide anything substantive for folks after they've seen it the same thing— the first time. And the other thing is, The hook that ledge counsel used was that the training teaches the means of compliance with AS 1880.220-280, which is not a statute that we have authority or jurisdiction over. What I would say to the committee is that I don't feel I should— we should go with Kevin's recommendation just to be able to talk to, you know, personnel and whoever else and ledge counsel. I think the committee should make a directive and vote that we should not be conducting this training because it's not in our purview. So I want to give Kevin more leverage than just saying, you know, go ahead and do that.

I would rather not conduct the training because I don't feel we aren't qualified. We don't do it. It takes away from our training and that would be my recommendation. You know, I want to say I agree with that. I don't think we should be doing it either, but there is this opinion.

And so the question really is how do we get out from under it?

If I may, I came into this a little bit late, but I wanted to add I concur this is not in the purview of what this committee's work is and it does make sense to me to have some sort of a vote that sort sort of an advisory vote saying we are not wanting to do this, and then maybe a letter accompanies our declaration or whatever it might be that says we understand that this is important to the state of Alaska. It doesn't meet our purview. We have voted on this. And it's because, you know, we all understand that when legislators and staff come in at the beginning of session, It is so convenient to have all this stuff thrown in at once. I appreciate where they are, but it's time, I guess, to make it clear that that's not— while that we appreciate that, it's— we hope that it's covered elsewhere by other means and more appropriate means of those who would be better suited to cover this sort of training.

Maybe something along those lines in the letter would make sense. Mr. Chair, if I could, speaking to your point about the legal opinion, the question asked was, "May the training be included?" And the answer was yes. The question wasn't whether it's appropriate or whether the Ethics Committee was the right method for delivering it. It was a permissive question.

Hey, can we do this? And the answer was yes. It was permissive, it was not directive in my mind.

I agree with the idea that we should get close to just refusing to do it. Yeah. Because it reminds me of when we attorneys, they used to appoint attorneys to represent indigents and one of my partners got appointed to represent a murder case and he said, "I'm not capable of this." I am not doing this. And that went up to the Supreme Court and they said, yeah, that is involuntary servitude. And, you know, then the Public Defenders Agency came along and took that over.

But some of the same here. We are not— it is not in our purview and we made that known at the time, but it didn't get anywhere. So it is probably time to just get really serious about it. Yeah, I agree with that, too. And that is a good catch on the May there.

I mean, I think that makes it a lot easier to argue that it should not be us. Yeah, we asked the wrong question and we got an answer.

So anyway, Joyce, if you want to make the motion.

I make a motion that the Ethics Committee send a letter to the Human Resources Manager and let them know that the Ethics Committee has discussed and determined that the training for the— or what are we calling it? The— Sexual harassment training. —Professional workplace and sexual harassment workplace policy is not within the purview of the Ethics Committee and that it does put a limit on the information that can be provided to legislators and legislative staff about ethics, which is very important.

That would be my motion. Mr. Chair? Go ahead. One— Mr.

Chair, one objection. I think the letter should not only go to HR, I think it should also go to Ledge Counsel because it's Ledge Counsel that assigned the training to us in their sexual and other workplace harassment policy dated April 23, 2018. So I think it needs to go to both agencies. I'll add that to my motion. Any further discussion?

Kevin, if you want to call the roll, please.

Uh, we'll come to Senator Stevens last. So, Senator Yunt.

Yay or nay?

Um, could you rephrase that again? So the question before us is, shall the committee direct me as the administrator to send a letter to HR and Ledge Counsel stating that the committee's position is that sexual harassment civility training is not consistently or appropriately assigned as a training requirement for the committee and seek relief from the requirement that we conduct the training. Senator Young. Is that caps? I think that's correct.

In addition, Senator Young, that means somebody else would do the training, not just—. But it would just not be done. It wouldn't, yeah, it wouldn't not be done. It would just be by somebody else other than us. Thank you for clarifying that, because I was going to say it absolutely needs to be done.

Who it's performed by, I guess, would be whoever we think would do the most professional job.

Would that be affirmative or a yay or nay?

So a yay, you guys continue to do the training, and a nay? No, the other way around. Yay is we're asking if— well, It's not really going to totally be up to us, but a yay would be we're going to try to get out from under it basically and have somebody else do it. Not that it would be suspended, but that a more appropriate agency conduct a sexual and— a civility training since HR is the responsible party for adjudicating and addressing any harassment claims. Well, if we're even questioning whether our staff should be doing it or not, then I would say they probably shouldn't.

So I'd say yay. Thank you. Representative Galvin? Yes. Representative McCabe?

Yes. Skip? Yes.

Joyce? Yes. Carl? Yes.

Deb? Yes.

Senator Stevens?

Yes. Thank you, sir. And Chair? Yes. Thomas.

Mr. Chair, on a unanimous vote, the measure passes— or the motion passes, I'm sorry. Okay, the next item, Kevin, is outside attorney update.

Um, I had occasion I needed to talk to Brent about a different issue. When I met with him, he reinforced that during 2025, at about this time, he had informed Joyce that he did not, uh, envision continuing with the committee beyond this FY. Uh, during my conversation with him A couple of months ago, I asked him if that was still his position, and he stated it was. He is basically retiring. He thinks that there are pros and cons both ways, uh, because of his longstanding relationship with the committee, he can do things very quickly, efficiently, but on the other side, he feels that seeking out a different outside counsel may bring fresh eyes and closer inspection to items.

So the matter that I bring before the committee at this point is we need to move forward, I think expeditiously, to identify, um, outside counsel because even after we solicit, there will have to be a set-aside. Traditionally, we do $20,000, not to exceed $20,000 contract. With Brent on an annual basis. So it's multiple parts. We need solicit, we need select, and we need to get a, a contract in place.

A huge con to this loss of Brent Cole is he has given us a phenomenal rate. He bills us at $225 an hour, which is probably 50% of what we will end up paying for new counsel. So, the request to the committee is for authority— authorization to go forward and some parameters because I have not gone through a similar process with the committee. I would solicit potentially a subcommittee to select a new outside legal counsel. To help identify vetting criteria, selection criteria, and work through that process.

Mr. Chair. And again, this is Joyce. I'm sorry, I keep talking, but Brent was hired the same year I came on board. So he came on board in 2001.

So he has been with us for 25 years. And so he does have a lot of history there, probably raised his rate once. During that time period, you know, but still minimal what it is. So I guess I have a question for Kevin. When did he say that he would no longer want to be as our legal counsel?

Do we have— what amount of time do we have to, you know, prepare a job description and bids— not bids, but I mean, you know what I mean, to go out and ask for anyone who's interested? What's the timeframe? Through the chair, the end of the FY is is next Tuesday. Yeah, but did he say that, or is that just when we don't want to renew his contract because it's the end of the fiscal year? No, he's— what he told me— now, he may soften that if we go back to him and talk to him.

Okay. But he said the end of this FY would be the end of his, his service to the committee. Now, understanding that I got that information when I thought we could discuss that in, in April and May, and now it's June. I do have a call into him. He had not returned my call as of this morning, but I could ask him if he would be willing to stay available to the committee until such time as we have a replacement in place.

That will require establishing, uh, not to exceed contract with Brent and then transitioning to new outside counsel once selected. But, and you might also ask him if he has any suggestions with respect to people that we might consider. Mr. Chair, I already did that. And what'd he say?

He had no recommendations. Okay. Well, I know when I talked to him earlier, now I don't know, I don't know if it was this year or not, he said that he did have someone in mind, so maybe that person is no longer available. Okay. I don't know.

I just remember him telling me that. Yeah. And this was when he came to our committee meeting one time and was here in person when I talked to him. Yeah. I'm happy to call him and talk to him about it, but—.

He may have recanted. The other person may have retired. I don't know. But I did specifically ask. And it— again, it may have been we had a relatively short discussion and he may just not have— thought through the process and gave me a quick response.

And Mr. Chair, one other comment. Since he has been with the committee so long, I'm going to throw it out to the committee as to whether we should have a letter thanking him for his service or a resolution. I know the legislature does resolutions. We've never done one, but I guess that doesn't mean we can't, you know, thanking him for his service and so forth.

I think, I think that might be a good thing to do. Considering he's been with us for 25 years. So I'm just offering that as a suggestion. I think first we should try to convince him to stay a little while. He's starting to pack up his office, but anything might work.

Anyway, I think the resolution idea is fine, but what I would suggest that we do is talk to him and then, you know, anybody if anybody on the committee has any ideas of people that we might consider. Nobody, of course, would be hired until there's a— we vet them, but there might be some names that we can at least approach.

So. I have to throw something funny out. So Herman Walker was a member of this committee, and he is also with the Bar Association, but he's also a judge. I talked to Herman recently about— nothing to do with ethics, but he is retiring in November. I'm sure he wouldn't want to be our attorney, but I just thought it'd be funny if I said that.

So he is retiring. He might have some suggestions. Well, he might. I mean, I could certainly give him a call as well. Maybe I'll— thank you, Connor.

I may do that. Okay. Well, if I may, Mr. Chair, I would suggest that we, we consider whether or not there's a subcommittee. And I would suggest that possibly some of that outreach would best be accomplished by the subcommittee.

Why? Just so everyone's in the loop. Well, yeah, but I mean, we're not talking about hiring somebody without the subcommittee. I agree a subcommittee seems appropriate to determine about hiring, but is that going to bog us down trying to find somebody if we have to get committee meetings together?

I don't think it should, and since there's nothing in in the statute or in rules of procedure about meeting in person for a selection committee such as that. I think it could be done Teams, and that would greatly facilitate setting meetings and whatnot. I don't think we should have to have all committee members for the interview or whatever it is. I— just my thoughts, sir. Okay.

Any other opinions about that? I mean, should we go ahead with the subcommittee now, do people think, or should we try to get some names and then vet those names through a subcommittee? Connor, why don't we see first if he's going to stay? And that kind of puts us on a timeline. If he's going to stick around for 6 months, I mean, we can act on it, we can put a committee together, but if he's going to stay for 6 months, then we don't have to do it tomorrow.

Good thing. I would— Mr. Chair, I would recommend against that. And I go back to my hiring process. It took 6 months to get— or 4 months to get an interview.

Well, and that's what worries me about having the subcommittee, is it might take 4 months to get some names. Whereas if we have some names and then vet those names, I mean, that would be my thought about it. But if we have a subcommittee identified, the chair can act as Or the members could reach out and start doing that to solicit interest before we meet to entertain—. I see your point. —Matters.

But otherwise, if it's Carl talking to his buddy and Representative Galvin talking to their friend, we have no cohesiveness. We have a subcommittee that can— interact, they can reach out informally to folks, and then we can also identify a process for this selection. Mr. Chairman, I wondered if it would be appropriate for me to make a motion that we move that the current attorney on contract be month-to-month until one is found, and that we just right now ask for yourself and the administrator to begin a search. And that would be inclusive of looking into whether or not the current lawyer is willing to stay for any particular period of time and just call that what good, because I think I think that to add on a whole bunch of bureaucracy may be unnecessary, but yet to help us feel like we are moving ahead and we are not left in the lurch with no contract, we will have something going if we have agreed to a month-to-month until we have—. Assuming he will agree to it.

Okay. Any questions or comments regarding that suggestion?

Okay, if you want to make the motion, then— which I guess you did. Okay, I will make a motion that the chair and the administrator explore options for our attorney contract, including extending the current one at least month to month for now, and report back to us at the next meeting. I really think that may be too late, Mr. Chair. Well, yeah, we may have information prior to the next meeting, but I think that would be a good way to get us going.

So I guess at least you have been given authority by all of us to start moving is what the goal of that motion is. Mr. Chair, this is Joyce. My question is, are we going through the formal process or are we doing this informally? I'm not quite understanding.

When you say the formal process, what do you mean? I mean, we're going to go out and we're going to put it on, on the legislature's website and a few other websites saying that we're seeking an attorney and waiting for some applications to come in, or are we going through informally, meaning word of mouth, and vetting them that way? I'm a little confused. Well, how do we get Brent? I have no idea.

I think Brent came informally. Informally? I think he did too. Yeah, and that's the—. And you too might know.

I know he He started— he told me he started just before I did, so I have no idea. It's not like an employee that you would go out and get. It's right. My motion is that you get it started and you make decisions based on how it works. Okay, sure.

Done. Okay, I'll second it. Yeah, okay. Do you want to call the roll, Kevin? Yeah, absolutely, Mr.

Chair. Senator Stevens, uh, yay or nay? Yes. Senator Young. Yes.

Senator— or Representative Galvin. Yes. Representative McCabe. Yes. Skip.

Yes. Joyce. Yes. Carl. Yes.

Deb. Yes. Mr. Chair. Yes.

Mr. Chair, the motion passes unanimously. Could I just make a comment? I think that we can now be in the informal stage of putting out the word that we're looking for somebody. With Brent, he took the job on because he really thought the work of the committee was important, and that's what he kept his— if we just go out and advertise this, we're going to get bids that are terribly high.

If we can find somebody like Brent who really felt strongly about the work of the committee and wanted to do it and would keep it at a decent rate, that would be wonderful, I think. And I also think based on what you've just said, if we just put it out for biz, like if we're going to get people that are interested in having the job as opposed to this job. And I agree with you, Skip. He said that many times, that he did it because he felt the work was important. And maybe he knows someone, like you guys brought up earlier, maybe he knows someone that's willing to take this on.

Right. Well, I will. And I— there's a guy that I know that represents judges that are in trouble that does this kind of work exactly like this.

Okay, the next item I guess is travel policy, and I think that's Deb. If I may, Mr. Chair, just a brief introduction. Introduction. The travel policy for the legislative members, it really doesn't apply to you, okay, because you have your own travel regulations and requirements and whatnot.

The travel policy is primarily for our public members. It's two-pronged. One, it's public members, and it affords them or informs them of what they can and cannot as far as executing Ethics Committee travel. The other component of it is— it's hugely important— the other half of the travel policy is it informs us as the staff what is approved, what isn't approved, what we can do, what we can't do. There are portions of it such as the P-card, which many of you will say, what the heck is at.

We have a purchase card that we can use for incidental expenses. It tells us what we can do for that with use of that card for travel. This is only an introduction. It is not an action item at this point, but we, at the request of the travel policy subcommittee, we wanted to introduce this. So you could read it, digest it, and then potentially at our next meeting we could go through it line by line.

Deb? Ditto to what Kevin said. Kevin wanted a travel policy. He felt like he was shooting in the dark. So what I did, Skip did, and Carl did is the first thing we did is we went to COGEL, talked to people that would have situations similar to ours, a.k.a.

Hawaii and Guam. Uh, Hawaii graciously gave us their travel policy. I spent a good amount of time with the gentleman in charge of the Hawaii Ethics Committee, and basically he said, we were dealing with a lot of the same things that you were dealing with. We solved 99% of our problems by making meetings remote and allowing us to be remote and allowing executive sessions to be remote. There's no way you can get everybody here in It's just too hard.

So number 1, my overarching recommendation in all of this would be that we really need to examine, with technology being what it is and Skip being in Utah and Fairbanks, Connor being in Nome, Joyce and I being in Mexico, considering being able to go remote would be huge. That said, we put together a policy. You guys need to know, if you could just read over this and mark it up as you see fit, but here were the sticking points. The first thing is, one of our sticking points was, if I am in Mexico, should you be paying for me to fly back here to a meeting? My answer to that is not only no, but heck no.

I think that's ridiculous. I think that that's wrong. That is in here. Who does the booking? In Carl's world, Carl is used to school districts doing his booking.

I've never had that in my life, but that is in here. The other thing is I find myself sitting in the middle row next to the toilets because I have to book a bargain basement fare in order to get reimbursed. I'm sorry, I am too old to sit in the middle row in the back seat. I'm not asking for first class. I'm not even asking for premium class.

I'm just asking for a seat where I'm not in the middle row next to the toilet. That's in here. Rental cars. We had somebody come up a couple of years ago. They rented a car in Anchorage in the summer at a rate of $600 a day for 2 days.

That's egregious. That's not okay. But we didn't have anything in the policy. We do now. And last but not least, something that Kevin and I disagree with.

But, you know, that's okay because that's why we're here. And that is when we are down in Los Angeles and you want to go 20 miles and check out a, you know, a restaurant to have dinner. Is that okay or is that not okay? And that's in here. So if you would just take it, read it, whack it apart, we can come to a consensus and then Kevin and Keeley will have something to operate by.

And Skip or Carl, did I miss anything?

Nope. That's in here. I mean, that's what we were trying to do is give these guys parameters. But overall, again, going back to Hawaii, Guam, both saying, hey, we're spread out. We're here, there, and everywhere.

You've got to do remote, and technology allows you to do that. Yeah. I don't— if I might just say, I do disagree a little bit with that as an overall approach. I think decisions like the ones that we made today should be, if possible, made in person. I don't think that that kind of thing should be done where people are checking their email or, or doing other things, which is what you do when you're online.

Now, I understand it, and this might have been a case because of the the difficulty we had with the meetings that there might— there should be some exception that allows that. But I would not want it to be the default position that decisions—. We have a travel policy for that. Well, I'm not saying it shouldn't—. There shouldn't be some sort of wiggle room in there that would allow it if needed.

But the other things, I mean, I don't think that that's a problem, the other things that the committee does. There is good stuff in here, you guys. There is a clause where you can have the state book your reservation for you. We've got that in here now. So it does make it cleaner, if you will.

There will be gray area, I'm sure. But we did the best we could and we want your feedback on what we didn't get in there. Mr. Chair, the one thing I would add, and this was a discussion point between Deb and I, So she— there was— there were thoughts that potentially the travel policy was too long. But I would defer back to Carl.

You know, he had no operating parameters when he— as the most recent addition to the committee. All of the documents, the Ethics Act, the handbook, all of that to give him an orientation introduction in addition to his ethics training. The travel policy would be included, and then it would be a rapid resource for him to look at specific topics. The problem we have right now is in the absence of any guidance, we make up decisions on the spur of the moment, in the heat of the moment, whatever you want to talk about, often in consultation with Joyce or others. For historical perspective.

But, and for Keeley, I've, I've had numerous discussions with her. More in some cases is better because then you have a reference to go back to, and we try and cover everything we can. So just food for your thought as you review it.

Mr. Chair, I do have one question. Is there a travel policy that's in place for LAA and for legislators? Is that, is that something that could be sent out when I'm reviewing this to see what their policy is? Because I feel, why should we reinvent the wheel when it's in their policy?

And that maybe our policy should be strictly for, you know, like our internal policies, um, or internal policy and procedures, and not reinvent the wheel, but what, what they've already done. Does that make sense? Largely incorporated into this? Yeah, I don't know. That's what I'm asking.

I just feel having 16 pages as a travel policy is way, way, way too much. Well, I would— through the chair, the way I would address that is this: LA's travel policy does not address the type of travel that we do. It does not address some of the nuances as having public members that are not employees. There are a number of items there. So the travel policy that you have in front of you is an amalgamation of information from the executive branch travel reg, AAM 60, LAA travel policy, Joint Travel Regulation, the JTR.

It's the federal., and there are applicable portions there with lodging rates and whatnot, mileage rates and whatnot. So this is not— this travel policy was not created out of thin air. It was with due consideration to the norm and standard practices of LAA and also the executive branch. If you would like, particularly Joyce, I can send you a copy of the LAA travel policy. It's about 2 pages and it doesn't address what we need.

It doesn't address what to do, where we're authorized to travel public members from. It doesn't address rental cars. It doesn't address hotel rates and things like that. But I will send it to you if you would like. Let me think about it.

I did notice, though, in reading the policy that there were— the term legislators were used several times. So if this is strictly for us, I think we should remove that. And that would be my one suggestion.

That may be— I'll take a look at it.

I just wanted to figure out where we all came from and Okay, thank you, Kevin.

Okay, anything else on the travel policy? Okay, moving on.

The next item Kevin has down here is conflicting informal advice, APOC and ethics. So, Kevin? So, this is an example of— that I wanted to bring to the committee's attention. This is, again, speaks to the lack of specificity in our statute.

We had put out the advisory and we said that, okay, special session is starting, you can do campaign. And I'm paraphrasing, of course. You can start campaigning at locations other than in Juneau, which is where the legislature is. Legislature is convened. However, the House Finance Committee was meeting here in Anchorage.

We said, as long as you're not campaigning in Juneau, you're good to go. APOC came out with a different opinion and felt that since the Finance Committee was meeting here in Anchorage, that for their purposes, that constituted convening the legislature. The documents you saw there, the initial email from Kim Stone at APOC, and then an ongoing stream of emails between myself and Ms. Commissioner Hebden, and I think we've resolved it, but these are some of the They're very infrequent things that come up, but my interpretation, the governor's proclamation said that the legislature, legislature was convening in Juneau, and our interpretation was then you can't campaign there, but you can campaign elsewhere in the state. So I just wanted to bring that to the committee's attention and solicit any feedback or comments on that or suggestions on a way forward.

I have one comment. Again, this is one of those many times when communication is really helpful. And I say that because I didn't know of this going on, but for me, I took the very conservative approach and did nothing for that period of time. I'm still doing nothing with regard to fundraising, because to me the special session is still taking place, even if I'm not in it in Juneau. So it's complicated.

But if, if you make a ruling like this, it would be super helpful to me if you would send that, if you didn't already, and you may have, to the minority leader and the majority leader so that that could be dispersed, or even to members here so that we could then disperse it. I'm often asking for something in writing because that's what my caucus wants right now. I'll give them what I think is the current statute, but they want it in writing because there have been mixed messages, particularly about fundraising. It's a big deal for this time period. And so I'm just going to put that out there as much as it's possible.

I I don't think this is confidential, that perhaps want to— if you know that something's simmering out there that folks are interested in, if you could please help, you know, stir the pot and get that communication going out there to as many, at least the leadership and perhaps to the current members here who are serving in the legislature. Representative Galvin, through the chair. We sent the initial notification as an all users email address, which goes to all legislators and legislative staff. I think it goes to the ombudsman and, and others. So we did that, and then within a couple of days later, we followed it up with another all users email that had— the advisor in it.

Not these particular emails, but we—. If there are certain questions that are clearly out there hanging, it would be helpful. I appreciate the broad emails, but I'm asking if you know there are specific questions that are hot to help us by sending something in writing. Okay. Mr.

Chair, two things. First of all, Heather is not a commissioner, she's the executive director. So I'm sorry, I know you know that. I just want to put that on the record. The second thing is I am wondering if it would be in our best interest as a committee to request an advisory opinion asking for what does that mean, the legis— you know, the special session is convened in Juneau.

Does that mean that that's where the legislature meets? And makes their decisions. Does that include committee meetings or not? And I think it's probably important to obtain that legal opinion if we're going to have this, you know, little discord between APOC and the Ethics Committee. So I would make a motion that the Ethics Committee ask for an advisory opinion clarifying what does that mean.

Does that mean that the legislative session, anything that occurs in Juneau, or does it include committee meetings as well, which are held in different parts of the state. Mr. Chair, if I could. Go ahead. So at this point, we do not have a dispute between APOC.

That was—. I mean, that's what I thought you said. Yeah. Yeah. We came to resolution.

We came to agreement on page 2 and page 3 of that tab. You will see page 2, it starts— it's from Executive Director Hebden. Uh, and then the next page is an email that I had sent to her after having a conversation. She said that in her 17 years, never been such a situation, so they were kind of shooting in the blind. And initially, when I had conversation with her, she was not aware that her staff had been disseminating information that would suggest that no, because the House Finance Committee was meeting here, that constituted convening the legislature.

So I think at this point we have come to agreement. There may be merit to asking for an advisory opinion, but I'm just updating that I believe we've reached concurrence. Mr. Chair, I apologize. I must have missed when you Having said that, I withdraw my motion.

Mr. Chair, if I could add again a bit more color and context as a legislator. The other sorts of questions that I know came up over and over, at least to me, were things like, am I allowed to help the U.S. senator's race if I'm here in Juneau? And I believe the answer is yes. You just cannot deal with state races, but there were a lot of things that came up over and over again where I would say when we know the period is hot, and I imagine you all get questions at certain times of the year, and if you see a recurring trend, it makes sense to— like you've apparently you did do, Kevin, I appreciate that.

But if we could keep that in mind to keep those things coming because It really stirs the pot among our caucuses where we hear different answers and then we end up in disagreement about where to go. For example, there's the party, the Republican or the Democratic Party events. Well, apparently you could be active in that, but you couldn't be active in other things, or people actually had two completely different opinions about that, fundraising for party versus fundraising for candidate, and then there was fundraising for state candidate versus a U.S. candidate versus even a local mayoral or assembly, for example. So those sorts of questions do come up often, especially at certain times of the year. I'm seeing my colleagues shake their head.

So I'm telling you, it is something that would be helpful if we— and I understand APOC also is related to this, so it's not just the Ethics Committee, but if we know Ethics is getting calls, I would be— I'm encouraging us as a member to please consider putting out more. Yes, you may have sent out an email. I'm not saying it didn't happen. I'm just asking if we could be— hyper-communicative during these times when there are hot questions. Okay.

Thank you.

Anything else on that topic?

Okay. Okay. The next item it looks like is disclosures, which is I. So we're tab 8I. This just is past practice for the committee to provide comparative information on ethics disclosures year to year.

I think as you go through the number— number of different types of disclosures, there are no significant order of magnitude type of differences that I note.

Um, so I would entertain any questions that you might have. Why is it up 30%, Kevin?

The number of disclosures went up from '24 to '25 by over 30%. Why? Any idea? In '24, we had a low number. If you'll notice on the back page, so in '24 it was reasonably unusually low at $360.

In 2023, it was a high of $583, and this year we're kind of back in the middle. But I, I don't have any specific, um, reasons for that.

We are subject to receipt. We process them when we receive. Yeah, maybe that's it, but there's a big jump on board membership.

If I may interject, I think hospitality too. This is Joyce. This happens to be a non-election year that we're looking at in '25 and '23. '24 Is an election year, so they— so there's less travel in an election year because there's a— they're campaigning, and so they're not traveling so much the last half of the year. Okay, that would be my— that's what I've always thought over the years.

It doesn't matter. Let's Yeah, that's probably part of it. This year I think we've had pretty good number of travel, but anyway. All right, any other discussion? All right, moving on then.

The next item is the website. Okay, so on this one, uh, there's no action, not asking for action on the committee's part. I believe this is something that lies in my purview. Uh, you will see on that first page of the tab on the left is an example or is a screenshot of our current Ethics Committee webpage. It's hard to find things.

It's hard to find what you need. On the right is different format that we're looking to go to. This is consistent with the type of webpages used by LAA and others. It just makes it a little bit easier to navigate. It's more topical instead of having to look for a specific by-name line item to find your resources and your materials.

As part of that, we are going to go through and do a scrub. We've found some random out-of-date information from as far back as It's 2023 and there's some things that have changed. And so unless there's strong objection, Mr. Chair, I would suggest that this is something that would lie in the purview— my purview as the administrator to update the web page and make it more user-friendly. Yeah.

Anybody have any objections to that or comments? I think that's appropriate. And then, then once you do that, we do it, then people could say, why'd you do it that way? Of course. All right, with that, next item is alternative public member participation during meetings.

Uh, that's real—. Just a real quick highlight and a reminder. So at the end of 2025, um, we will have some vacancies, uh, or appointments that are expiring.

So I would solicit those appointees, or the public members whose appointments are expiring, to consider their desire to go forward or not. The other thing is, for the first time in my tenure, and Joyce and I have talked about a little bit, unusually, we actually have two apparently very qualified candidates for a public public membership that have both expressed interest. And as the appointee— the appointments expire, if the members would let me know, I can reach out and reinforce to the two folks that there would be vacancies. One was an applicant for Keeley's position, and she later rescinded her application. And the other, strangely enough, was a reference, one of Keeley's references, that she had a lot of interest.

And so for the first time in a long time, or at least I know of, we've got some interest from the public for potential participation. Participation in the committee. That's all I have, Mr. Chair. But I thought we were talking about the alternate public member participation.

Oh, I'm sorry. I got myself out of schedule. I'm sorry. I'm speaking to Item M and we're on Item K. And you might also mention it back to Item M then, I mean, whose terms are up?

And— You again? Joyce and Skip. It seemed like it was just yesterday. Yeah.

Would you care to say— I couldn't hear you. Yeah, with my present circumstances, I will not be seeking a new term on the committee.

That's quite unfortunate. Thank you. Um, okay, so if I can get myself back in line, the alternate public member participation during meetings, folks, Chase Berenson has been a public member, uh, alternate public member now since January. Understandably, we've had problems with getting our meeting scheduled, but what I would suggest is that to the extent possible we should afford alternate public members the opportunity to participate in all committee meetings that they are available to participate in. I would suggest that that would be true for executive session as well.

To have an alternate member that has never been in executive session, never worked on hearing a complaint or issues matters before the committee and then to have someone resign, die, leave the state, whatever, and have that alternate member thrust into executive session and acting on matters before the committee. I think that ill-prepares them and causes them a lot of trepidation. I would— Carl may be able to speak to that more since his recent appointment and some of the issues that he's— he faced as a new public member. But I would like to highly encourage that we consider involving the alternate public members much more in the deliberative process, in the committee meeting process. That's all I have, Mr.

Chair. So I don't think we need to limit it to just alternate public members. I think that the alternate legislative members also should at least be getting invitations to when these meetings are so they could tune in online, for instance, to this one. I think that's important to include that. I mean, I could get in a car wreck on the way here and Bynum could be ready to take over if I wasn't here.

So it might be important that they know that we are meeting and I don't think they got this one necessarily, if not previous ones. So—. Yeah, I think you are right. I mean, I think that all sounds like a good idea. I am not sure about the executive session part, but I will have to ponder that.

Agreed. But that involvement would concern me, but yeah, I think that is totally appropriate.

So, Mr. Chair, how would we like to go forward? Well, I think the way we go forward, my suggestion would be that we notify all the alternates the next time we're having committee meetings. And I guess we'll have to make a determination about whether or not people want to have them in executive session. But like this meeting today, all of them could have been here.

So, I mean, I— right now, if I I had to vote, I would vote no on executive sessions, but I could change my mind on that. Well, do— oh, go ahead. I'm sorry. No, I just wanted to concur. I think executive session is a different beast, and I've not heard of— even when we meet in legislature and executive sessions, there are certain committees that do that, and they typically are very careful in terms of who is permitted in the room for those.

So I would encourage us to have just the committee members unless the committee members are not able to be there, and in which case the alternates make sense. But that's all I would add to that conversation. Okay. Representative Galvin, through the chair, the question would be then particularly for the public member— members, alternates. The legislative members are more familiar with the process because your involvement in committees and whatnot.

But for the public member who before being appointed to the committee has— have no idea of the process— I appreciate it. Yeah, thank you. Through the chair, I think that ideally a candidate who would be applying for this position would have had some sort of either board experience or committee experience or experience as an executive of some sort and will have had that, or they're learning it on the fly. I appreciate that that's not always easy, but I also think it's I mean, the activity itself is the same in terms of our deliberating. It's just that it becomes a different level of confidentiality.

That to me is what we're trying to hold and keep respectful of. So if you don't mind, Mr. Chair, in the legislative bodies, the House and the Senate, when they go into executive committee The verbiage is, you know, executive committee and everybody is excluded except for legislators. Even if you're another legislator, if LB&A or some other committee goes into executive committee, they allow fellow legislators to stay there in virtually all committees except this one, I think. And I think that's a mistake.

I think maybe we don't want to in this committee include all legislators, But we certainly might want to include our alternates unless they're the subject of whatever we're discussing. But, you know, it actually might help move things along in the case of an unexplained absence. Or we have this, you know, we have this issue where when you start— Right. —As an investigation, you stay on it the whole time. Well, what if I— what if one of us got in the hospital or, you know, just was on— it would be helpful to have another legislator that was informed that could just kind of step in instead of delaying a meeting because it would just be another reason for us to delay a meeting, in my opinion.

So I might consider that. Maybe we ought to talk about it a little bit more, including fellow legislators, the alternate legislators and the alternate public members. In executive session. Yeah, I agree with—. I mean, I think further discussion is warranted on the executive session part.

I think everybody is in agreement here that for future meetings, they ought to be notified, invited to attend, you know, at least the parts that are public, and then we can make a decision, discuss and make a decision on whether or not executive session would be appropriate for legislators and, you know, one alternate that we have as a public member at the next meeting. Is that acceptable? So we are forestalling this as an agenda item for the next meeting? No, that is not what I said. Okay.

I mean, we are going to invite people to the public sessions. Okay. I didn't quite hear. Okay.

The next item is falsified complaint.

For those on the committee, you will remember that we had a complaint that was filed by an individual, and they had forged, falsified, pick your term, the notary's signature on the complaint. I brought that to the committee for your information and your action. The direction received was to, in, in, boy, if I could speak, in accordance with the statute and our rules, it was forwarded to the appropriate law enforcement agency, which was the State Troopers. They have conducted an investigation.

The individual has been charged, and it is going to trial, uh, the mid to later part of July. Um, I, acting on behalf of the committee, I am seeing— I'm the complainant, so I will be testifying during that hearing whenever they schedule that. It's fairly easy testimony on my part, uh, simply a factual statement of what we received when we received it. Uh, we were— that I referred it to the committee and we took action as appropriate. But just wanted to provide an update on that, Mr.

Chair. Unless there are questions, that's all I have. Okay. Um, Mr. Chair, I do have one question.

I know, um, during the FBI investigations of legislators here, I did testify before a federal jury— not jury, excuse me, a federal judge. And, uh, Brent Cole went with me as the attorney. I'm going to ask the chair or anyone else if they feel that when Kevin goes to testify, if Brent is still on board, that he should go with Kevin, or is it okay, um, if Kevin feels he should go by himself? I know that I felt very comfortable with our attorney there because I was being asked questions, so I'm just throwing that out for discussion. Well, I guess At least in my view, the question would be whether or not there could be some cross-examination that would get into matters for one reason or another that might be confidential, which you would have somebody there to assert that privilege.

So that makes some sense. Kevin, you have a thought about it?

I don't think that would be the case. I think that at this point it's going to be a factual what happened, how did it happen, how did it get to the court.

I'm open to either way. I've stood for depositions and testimony before. I'm not uncomfortable with that, but if the committee feels it's warranted backup. Legal support is never a bad thing. But I don't know if I'm testifying as a witness if legal counsel can provide me on the spot recommendations or don't answer that or do answer that.

I just don't know, and I would raise that for the lawyers in the group to clarify, but I'm not opposed either way. My own thought about it is that this is a relatively minor matter and the subject, you know, the facts that Kevin is aware of are relatively limited. My own feeling about it is that there could be a confidentiality issue. On the other hand, I think if he's comfortable doing it, then—. Yep, I agree.

I think it's very— Pretty much cut and dry. We received the complaint, we reviewed the complaint for our process, we noted the anomalies with the notary signature, we reached— I reached out to the Notary Commission, they verified that it was not a valid signature and corroborated that the notary did not sign it, and that's pretty much, I think, in my mind, where the the questioning is going to go. It just serves as the genesis of the complaint. And when's the proceeding?

They were asking— I received an email from the clerk asking for my availability July 14th through, I think, July 26th, and then some other dates in August.

Any other questions, concerns about that? Okay. Next item is the recently passed and now law legislative changes. And of course, as you all know, Joyce has been working on that for quite a while. So it's all yours, Joyce.

Well, first of all, I'd like to thank Representative Galvin and Representative McCabe for sponsoring and co-sponsoring the bill. And it's been years in the making, as well as Senator Tobin, who's not here, so I will mention her name as well. And then also Monica in your office, who's been very on point with it, and we've had many conversations between the two of us. I would have to say that this bill has been— it's been wonderful. There were actually no amendments in the House at all, which just floored me.

I don't think we've ever, in my term, there's ever been an ethics bill that didn't have amendments. So that was something wonderful. Of course, then it went over to the Senate and Senator Keele had a couple questions. There were a couple amendments made which were areas that were not quite picked up by anybody, which I have to give his office credit for. So we made those technical changes to make it look good.

And so I'm excited that the bill, it went to the governor's desk. Governor's office and the governor did not sign it. So it became effective on the day, the last day that he didn't, that he would have had to sign it, which was on Wednesday, June 24th. Section 28 of the bill says this act takes effect immediately. And so it became effective on June 24th, which is also exciting.

And be working on something with the rules of procedure and so forth. I think most of it has to do with the complaint section. Kevin, what I'm going to do is I'm going to look through it and see if there's anything you need to send out in a newsletter, you know, with any update. But I don't think there's anything at all, but I will double-check it just to make sure. Um, I would, through the chair, I would suggest the, the agenda.

That is something because people are traveling right now, so I think we ought to send that out. A hard stack statutory requirement. Oh, on the agenda? Yes, that was, that was in there. Yes, yes, thank you.

Um, I've completely forgot about that one. I was going to go through it and look. I think that might be the only one. It's like I said, the rest was more, um— oh, and the use of the legislature's title was also in here, so we can just mention that statute as well. Joyce, why the tabs?

What are the tabs? Am I supposed to look at something specific with those yellow tabs? I don't know. No, those were a tool that I put in there because I didn't know which documents that Joyce was going to talk to. There are 5 documents there just to make it easy if Joyce was referencing a specific document.

I put the little—. Okay. I do think that the presentation that was put together and the introduction both by you and And Representative McCabe really hit it. I listened to those when you were talking before the House Committee, and I think that was wonderful how you talked about the fact that we don't have the authority to promulgate— I have a hard time with that word, so you know what I mean. Promulgate.

Promulgate. Thank you. Regulations. So that's why we have our rules of procedure. And so I think that was important to point out.

That's why we're more specific in our statute. Statute, you know, than they are in some other places because we don't have that authority. And the PowerPoint that was put together was great. So I would have to say that everything that was discussed at our committee meetings and also with the subcommittee meetings were definitely in this bill. And, um, I'm just very excited that, that it went through with, like I said, no amendments in the House and only, only one amendment— well, amendment that covered several areas in the Senate.

So I'm going to open it up to the two of you, Representative McCabe or Representative Galvin, if you want to say any other comments, but I'm excited. Wonderful. And I would like to again say thank you to you. Thank you to Ledge Legal. Wayne, I think— Dan Wayne.

Dan Wayne, I think deserves credit too for being in constant contact and also helping us when we had questions. Of course, Monica Schringendorf is very helpful. I want to kudos to Senator Keel for picking up on a couple of things. And then I— the other point that I wanted to make is that President Stevens, we were at the very end of session by the time we were getting this all the way through. And were it not for the President's support to make sure that this got calendared, that's really a lot of the game is making sure we get the timing just right.

And so I want to thank leadership for that to help move this along so that it made all the way— made it all the way across the finish line. And thanks to Kevin. It was great being on a dais with you and kind of finding the different approaches to talking about how important ethics really is. And Kevin gave the context like nobody's business, and all of that was just great. So thank you.

Yeah, thanks, Joyce and Elise. I will say that Representative Galvin did the heavy lifting and Monica as well. I was just the arm candy, but I do appreciate the opportunity to help.

I also want to thank Dan Wayne because Dan Wayne and I talked as well because I had permission to talk to him. So Dan Wayne and I would talk about some issues, and he has a long history as well, like with me. So we were able to kind of go back and talk about some things. So, so that worked great. So again, um, I'll work with Kevin and definitely those two things, the title and the agenda.

I'll see if there's anything else that needs to go out, but most of it, like I said, the majority of it had to do to do with the complaint part itself.

Oh, yes. From the PowerPoint? Yes. I think that would be great. Yes.

So I've got that here. Again, thank you and thank the subcommittee as well because I know it was Representative Galvin, Representative McCabe, myself, Skip— no, I don't think it was Skip. Connor was on the committee. I'm trying to think who else. Okay.

Anyway, thank all the committee members. So anyway, how exciting. Speaking of Dan Wayne, did— was there a rumor that he's retiring? For the second time? I don't know.

I haven't heard that.

All right. Well, thank you everybody for the successful push on the legislative changes. It's quite amazing that it's that got through and got through without being modified in any significant way. So with that, the next item is any other business before the committee? I see nobody speaking up, so then I will now entertain a motion to adjourn.

I move that we adjourn. Any objection? Hearing none, the committee is adjourned at 4:45.

Thank you.