Senate counsel says S.209 will be narrowed to public-facing state and municipal buildings

Legislative counsel Sophie Stanny updated the Senate Judiciary committee on S.209 on Jan. 30, saying she and a legislative-counsel attorney discussed narrowing the bill to apply to state, city and municipal buildings used to conduct official public business.

Stanny said the intent is to focus on places where members of the public go for government transactions and servicesfor example, paying taxes, paying a water bill or attending a municipal board meetingand to exclude incidental or nonpublic locations such as salt sheds or dumps.

"We went through what were trying to get, and they were gonna sort of tweak the language, but they felt fairly certain that that would not include, like, dropping off your tracks, like, more official business," Stanny said, describing the effort to narrow scope. She said she had not yet seen the redrafted language but wanted the committee to have the update ahead of further review.

The committee did not vote on S.209; members asked for the redrafted language to be circulated for review at a future meeting.