Chris Allen:

Welcome to the second season of State AG Pulse. In this season, we will be releasing a new podcast episode every two weeks. In addition to providing a deep dive into news stories that showcase the enormous power and broad authority of state attorneys general, we’ll be talking with new AGs about their transition into office and their priorities. As we did in the last season, we’ll leverage our decades of experience to provide insight and perspective to help business leaders better understand and successfully work with state AGs. Listen for new voices as co-chairs Bernie Nash and Lori Kalani share the host mic with other members of Cozen O’Connor’s State AG Group. So now let’s jump right into this week’s episode.

Stephen Cobb:

Welcome back to another edition of State AG Pulse. My name is Stephen Cobb and I’m joined by my law partner, Ann-Marie Luciano. We’re very excited to bring you another edition of the podcast and super excited because we’re joined by our friend, the new th attorney general of the great state of Vermont, Charity Clark. General Clark, thanks so much for joining the podcast.

AG Clark:

Well, thank you for having me. It’s great to be here.

Stephen Cobb:

So General, one of the things I find incredibly interesting is that you’re not only part of this small cohort of state attorneys general across the country, but you’re part of an even smaller cohort of state AGs who also served in the office that they now have the pleasure of leading. So for those who maybe don’t know a little bit about your background, having served as assistant attorney general and chief of staff to an AG, can you talk a little bit about the path that brought you to be the attorney general and the first female attorney general of the great state of Vermont, and perhaps how those different hats influenced the way that you’re going about leading this office?

AG Clark:

Sure, yes. I feel that I’ve been very fortunate to have a very sturdy foundation before arriving in this role in January of this year. I actually started my career in politics in the governor’s office. That’s where I worked between my undergraduate years and my law school years. Coincidentally, the governor’s office is in this very building where I’m standing now, where the attorney general’s office also sits. So it’s kind of funny, I spent most of my career in this building. But after law school I worked in private practice for a number of years and then found my way to the attorney general’s office where I served as assistant attorney general for a few years until I was made chief of staff. We actually didn’t have a chief of staff before I was made chief of staff, so I was the very first person to even have that role here in our office.

It was really exciting for me because I was making the role and sort of setting standards for the role and what does this role need to do? That was, in a way, I think really exciting and informed my vision for the role. But in doing so, really my vision for the office, because the leadership team was very small. It was the attorney general, the chief of staff, and the deputy attorney general, really guiding the office. What a great foundation to be attorney general to have that. I worked roughly four years as an assistant AG and then four years as chief of staff. So by the time I became attorney general, I really knew, first of all, who the players were, how the office worked. What I learned, particularly when I was running for office, is there really is, at least in Vermont, a gap between what people think the attorney general’s office does and what the attorney general’s office actually does.

That can be a bit of a challenge. I was lucky I knew what we did, so I was able to really hit the ground running, not just with my own initiatives and vision, things I wanted to accomplish, but also making sure that the office was heading in the right direction, well managed. All those management decisions that needed to be made were I think a little smoother because of my foundation.

Ann-Marie Luciano:

So did you need to make many changes then once you were elected?

AG Clark:

I didn’t need to make changes, but there was a few things I wanted to do that I felt would be improvements on how the office was serving Vermonters and on how it was functioning and also opportunities. So one thing I did was I united our Environmental Division and our Public Protection Division where the consumer unit sits. So of course there are opportunities to use consumer laws that effect change in the environmental arena. I wanted us to be taking advantage of those and I thought the cross-pollination, almost like cross, intellectual crossing of mindsets on those two units was going to be helpful for achieving the vision that I have. I’m very into both environmental work and consumer work. So that was something that I did. We also didn’t have a director at our Consumer Assistance Program.

We needed a full-time person who was really talented when it came to constituent services, which is a lot of what you’re doing, but also [with]  knowledge and passion for helping consumers and especially folks who may be elderly or who are consumers who are lower income. So I put someone in that office who is thriving and doing just an incredible job. I’m really pleased. So I made a couple of changes that probably from the outside didn’t look so profound, but I am really pleased about those changes.

Stephen Cobb:

Now I know it’s asking a parent who their favorite kid is, but is it fair to say then that consumer protection is going to be at, if not the top list of your priorities here going into your first term?

AG Clark:

Well, I think that it’s more that I see the potential of consumer issues. Look, I grew up working in a small business, my family’s small business. I’m the daughter, the granddaughter, the great-granddaughter of small town Vermont grocers. I grew up working in our grocery store that was in a ski town, so the grocery store was literally a giant chalet with wooden beams. There was a lot of skiers who would come in the store. I started working when I was  years old. By the time I was , I could finally run the cash register, which was so thrilling compared to the other stuff I was doing. But of course, my mindset when it comes to consumers, isn’t just about protecting consumers, it’s about protecting the marketplace. When I was working as an assistant attorney general, one of my roles in the consumer space was helping small businesses.

In Vermont, businesses are considered consumers. In statute and case law, businesses are also considered consumers. So I was helping when a business would find themselves in a situation where they needed consumer help, they were in a situation where they were getting bilked or cheated from something that they had purchased. Vermont, as you can imagine, has a ton of small businesses. In fact, I think only three dozen of our employers qualify as not a small business, under the definition with the Small Business Administration because it’s huge. It’s like  employees. So I took great pride in that with my background and continue to have that mindset of wanting to help small businesses because in my mind, when you help small businesses, you are helping Vermont communities. When you go into a town in Vermont, most towns, almost all the towns in Vermont, that’s what you see are small, locally owned businesses.

So I feel really strongly about doing what we can to help those folks out. So yes, I feel strongly about consumer issues, but I think it comes more from my knowledge and knowing the potential that we have. I’d like to give one more example. I recently advocated strongly for a bill that isn’t quite across the finish line yet, but I think next year we’re going to get there. It’s halfway across the finish line. It’s a bill that would ban PFAS in cosmetics and menstrual products. For me, that is right in my sweet spot. It’s a consumer issue, it protects health and safety, especially for women, a group traditionally overlooked and it also is an environmental issue where PFAS is dangerous to the environment. So I’m really excited to say that that bill has passed out of our Senate. It’s in the House and I do feel strongly that it should be passed. I think it’ll be passed during the next legislative session that starts in January.

Ann-Marie Luciano:

Wow, so already a lot of progress. I know that in your campaign you talked about women’s rights and reproductive rights. Can you also talk about your priorities in that regard, post Dobbs?

AG Clark:

Sure. So just to sort of lay the foundation, in Vermont, we had put into motion a couple of years ago a constitutional amendment here to make sure that reproductive rights were constitutionally protected here in Vermont. What came out of that was the so-called Liberty Amendment and Vermonters, after the process that it had to go through, voted in November, the same day that I was elected Attorney General, they elected to put that right in our Constitution. Remarkably, every single town in Vermont by majority voted to enshrine the right to reproductive rights in our Constitution. So literally, every single town, even those towns that had previously voted for Donald Trump for President, for example, a town you would think might not be so excited about a pro-choice stance, but everyone in Vermont felt like this was something that should be enshrined in our Constitution. So just to give you a sense of the values here in Vermont, when it comes to that topic, when I was running for office, the Dobbs decision came down.

So I immediately went into action because I wanted to be helpful and I also wanted to show Vermonters the kind of leader that I was. I put together what I call the Safe Harbor Plan to make Vermont a safe harbor from all of those affected by the Dobbs decision, which would include not just people seeking an abortion, but providers who were helping folks who needed an abortion. It frankly included anyone who was pregnant and looking to avail themselves of the “marketplace”. What does that look like? Your hospital? Is it a pregnancy center? Is it a Planned Parenthood? Wherever you’re going, the marketplace should be fair. It should tell the truth. Eventually, the legislature worked on a couple of bills that had many of the components that were in my Safe Harbor Plan. We were here, across the parking lot from my office, the State House, we were over there working with them on those bills. I’m just honestly so proud of how smoothly that went. They were excellent. They worked together really well. The Governor signed those bills and that’s Vermont.

Stephen Cobb:

Yep. It’s interesting. That really is apropo of the trends you saw that entire cycle, not just in Vermont, but you saw other areas, perhaps traditionally conservative areas in Kentucky and Michigan where these issues were on the ballot as well, and seeing those flip voters, which is also very interesting. That’s one of those issues, in particular, women’s reproductive rights, where Democratic AGs across the country have been working together shoulder to shoulder, which I think highlights one of the going trends amongst state attorneys general, which is that sometimes you are the attorney general for your state and you are focusing on those issues that are local and unique to your individual states, and there are times when you are working shoulder to shoulder with state AGs from around the country and regardless of political affiliation.

I know your predecessor, General Donovan, was very active in some of these multistate initiatives. Are there any particular areas of going concern where you see collaboration with state AGs from around the country going to be an area of focus for you as you look into your crystal ball over the next, I don’t know, year and two years?

AG Clark:

Well, sure. I mean, I will just say that we, by necessity, had to get more involved because Donald Trump had very extremist views on things and it impacted our whole country and it impacted Vermont, as well. So I’m glad that we got involved and I think it’s super important to be collaborating with our like-minded states. For a small state like Vermont, that means we can leverage our voice when we’re in harmony with other voices nationally because we’re a really small office. I will give you an example. We brought a lawsuit against a major robocall company that was bringing in scam robocalls to Vermont. It was staggering, the quantity of calls. I mean, millions of calls were coming into Vermont, a state with only , people living here. Many of those calls were made to numbers that were on the “Do Not Call” list. I mean just flagrant violation.

Almost every single state joined that lawsuit. That’s really powerful and especially for a small state like Vermont, it makes a big difference. Another classic example, when I first started in this office, one of my assignments was I worked on tobacco diligent enforcement and of course the tobacco case, I mean talk about a multistate. That was incredibly powerful, bipartisan. It has meant millions and millions and millions of dollars coming into Vermont and Vermont under former Attorney General Bill Sorrell, who first hired me when I came to this office, he was a leader in that and we’re very proud of that. A lot of good has been done with the money that we get from that settlement. So we’re going to continue to collaborate with our friends in other states who see things the way we do. That’s in the consumer space, in the environmental space, in particular. But any opportunity that we have to make sure that Vermont’s voice is heard, to make sure that our values here are reflected nationally, we are going to take.

Ann-Marie Luciano:

So one of the things I want to ask you about in terms of collaboration is regarding privacy. As you know, many states have enacted privacy laws, there’s a growing number. I know Vermont has a privacy law that I’d like to talk to you about. What is your view about how states going forward on a multistate basis may be able to investigate and address privacy issues when there are so many different state laws with any type of federal standard?

AG Clark:

It is a challenge when we have the different state laws, although one of the benefits of that is it allows, as you would expect, every state to have their laws reflect their values and every state might have different values. In Vermont, we take privacy very seriously. I wonder if we have a reputation for that, but we certainly do. We have had different laws that address privacy over the years. We’re learning from other states and other countries about what they’re doing. We currently have a bill that was introduced by the members of our House Commerce Committee. That bill was inspired by work that my office did when I was chief of staff with assistant attorneys general who were experts in privacy and advocated for passage of a law that would address biometric information, data minimization and data brokers. I was thrilled that the committee sought to introduce that bill.

They’re doing something unprecedented right now. They’re coming together over the summer to talk about that bill. I’ve never seen the committee do that. I mean, sometimes they’ll have a study committee on a specific topic, but that committee has decided we don’t have time to address this important issue during the regular session, so they got special permission to come back to look at that bill. So I’m just thrilled that they’re looking at it. The reason why is because the more I learn about some of these issues, the more disturbed I am. What I’m realizing is other people don’t know what I know. If they did, I think they would be really upset. I’m going to give you an example. Clearview AI is a company that my office has sued. Before I learned about them, I was unaware of the practice of screen scraping photos on the internet, creating a database of people in the world and being able to locate those people using a photograph.

They’re literally face mapping is the term I would use. What I found most disturbing is the idea that I could be, my example I always give is I could just be on a bench in downtown Burlington enjoying a sandwich with a friend and end up in the background of a tourist photograph, never know my picture was taken and then that photograph could be used to map my face. Which laws apply to this person? What rights do I have? You can’t necessarily tell that by taking my picture. So there’s a lot to that and I think that as the states continue to learn about technology, we also need to be having a conversation about what the limits should be and what our values should be. We should be codifying those values, in my opinion.

Ann-Marie Luciano:

Do you think then, because they’re meeting this summer, that it’s likely a bill will be passed next session?

AG Clark:

I do. I think that’s the goal anyway. I hope that’s the case. I think that these are important issues. By meeting over the summer, they’re going to be able to dig a little deeper and educate themselves.

Stephen Cobb:

Juxtaposing the new legislation coming through Vermont as it has in Virginia and Colorado and California, what we’re starting to see though is a patchwork of privacy laws from around the country. Do you see that creating some friction when it comes to really what we determine to be best practices or best standards? Because every state, to your point, is going to be a little bit different. Sometimes you’re trying to work together as  AGs and sometimes you’re doing your own thing. How do you see all of these moving parts come together when it frames the entire issues of privacy?

AG Clark:

I think it’s going to be challenging for businesses to comply, especially a smaller business that might operate in more than one state. I mean, they’re going to need to have sophistication and the time to understand what all the rules are wherever they’re doing business. One of the things that I value and think is so important is to use the time and the resources that we have to educate businesses. We’ve done that. For example, when we were the first in the nation to pass a data broker registry, we created a guidance to help folks know, are you even a data broker? What does that mean according to this new law? We worked with businesses who weren’t sure, and we would continue to do that with new legislation to make sure that businesses were given every opportunity to learn and to comply.

Ann-Marie Luciano:

Yeah, and also for national businesses then you have the opposite issue. They may have the bandwidth to comply, but they may have to devise a program that meets this requirement of Colorado and this other requirement of California. Until there’s some federal standard, that will probably continue to be the case as these additional states come online with their laws.

AG Clark:

Yeah.

Stephen Cobb:

I want to draw back on your experience as being an assistant attorney general and chief of staff for a minute. We share that experience of having been in senior staff of an AG office as well as having been in private practice. Obviously, the more and more that state attorneys general play this huge role in the regulatory world, really the top regulatory enforcement agencies around the country, what are some dos and don’ts that you’ve observed through your years as an assistant attorney general, as a chief of staff, now as attorney general, that you would tell businesses working not just in Vermont, but nationally, when it comes to working with the state AG office, maybe here are some things that are helpful and here are some things that are maybe less so?

AG Clark:

I think here in Vermont, we’re very accessible. So I think the important piece of advice that I would give would be to reach out to us and create a dialogue and a conversation. I’m going to give you an example. When I was chief of staff, I oversaw our Public Records Act compliance work. I would help or assign, and sometimes I would handle it myself, depending on who the requester was. I was repeatedly amused by how delighted people were when I would call them. I would be like, “You just made a public records request. I’m the chief of staff. I’m just calling to connect with you. I don’t think you know what you’re asking for here. Can you clarify?”

They would be like, “I literally just made this three hours ago and you are calling me now? You’re the chief of staff.” I was like, “Well, we have three days to respond and I have other stuff to do here, so let’s just get this conversation going.” I think that would be, for Vermont, my big takeaway would be reach out to the office and start a conversation. We want people to comply. We’re not looking to gotcha, right? We want people to comply. If repeatedly people are struggling to comply, well maybe we need to make it easier for them to comply. I mean, getting the feedback is also really important. We want everyone to be successful. We’re willing to work with everyone. So that would be my big tip.

Stephen Cobb:

I think it’s a fantastic note. I think all too often people are too reticent to call and say, “Hey, I have a new business idea, but I want to make sure it’s compliant,” and feel that concern that they’re going to get a regulatory hammer and kind of the “no good deed goes unpunished” concern.

AG Clark:

Right. Yep.

Stephen Cobb:

You’re also a far better person than I, because I don’t think I ever called someone who sent in a FOIA request asking them for further clarification and how I could go about going through my emails for them. So General, again, you’re now almost six months into the full stride of the office. We’ve talked a little bit about some new priorities and some new leadership. Are there any unique initiatives in your office that you’d like to take a moment to highlight?

AG Clark:

Sure. One of my goals this legislative session was with regards to the issue of domestic violence. I ran on this issue. We house here at the attorney general’s office, what’s called the Domestic Violence Fatality Review Commission, which has been going on for almost  years, I think maybe more. The legislature created it and it’s just a group of stakeholders who are reviewing all of the fatalities related to domestic violence, identifying trends and making recommendations to the legislature and the governor on what we can do to improve the situation. So I have always felt that that commission did not get enough coverage and didn’t get enough attention, and their recommendations should be followed and implemented. So I decided when they announced their recommendations the third Tuesday of January, because by statute, that’s when they announce them, I’m going to have press conference, going to work with legislature and amplify the recommendations.

That’s what I did. I’m so pleased. The legislature was so receptive and the relevant chairs of the committees took the time, prioritized the stakeholders, kind of massaged some things as issues were flagged. All of the recommendations have either been implemented or legislation worked its way through so that those could be implemented. It’s just such a big victory because we know that half of murders in Vermont every year are due to domestic violence, whether that be the victim, the abuser, a police officer or family member who’s coming to the aid of the person being abused. Imagine if we could half the murder rate just by addressing some of these issues. So I feel really passionately about this topic, and I do think this of course, is a gendered topic and we’ve never, before me, elected a woman attorney general in Vermont.

Of course, I tried to make some of these issues some of the feature issues early on in my tenure. The other thing that I did, which is this is, talk about inside baseball, but our office did not have a lactation room. So when I came here and in , I had a baby and I didn’t have anywhere to pump. Even last year, I learned there was someone in this office who was pumping in her car. I have a law that you have to provide a locked place, all these requirements. So we put in a lactation room. I was so tickled to do that and have that available. We also applied to be a breastfeeding-friendly employer, which once we get the certification, we’ll put it on our website so that people know this is important to us. I think that it seems probably to sound like a small issue, but for, for example, a new hire or someone who’s thinking of coming to work for us, for her to get a tour of the office and walk by the lactation room, I mean that person is being told “We support all of you. When it comes time for you to have a family, we got your back.” I think that it says a lot, and it helps with recruitment and retention and really, it’s the right thing to do.

Ann-Marie Luciano:

And it’s a great example for the law enforcement to do what the law is and to show the way as to how that can be done and how to be successful. As someone who has had to pump in storage rooms at clients and at courthouse bathrooms, I now walk by lactation rooms and wish they were available when I was having my children.

AG Clark:

Yeah, exactly.

Stephen Cobb:

General, you have been so unbelievably generous with your time. I appreciate that even more because in  minutes, we’ve heard of a new, or renewed, as I’ll put it, priority on consumer protection and the environment, working shoulder to shoulder with your AGs and in Vermont on women’s reproductive health, on domestic violence, and including everything from office structure, to consumer-focused initiatives, to adding a lactation room in your office. Clearly, you have hit the ground running in Vermont, and we are so thankful that you would take the time out of your day to chat with us and provide our listeners with a bit of insight into you, your priorities and where your office is headed for the next three years, three and a half years, pardon me, or maybe longer.

AG Clark:

Yeah, maybe longer. It is a two year term, so technically it’s a year and a half, but yeah, maybe longer. Listen, it’s my pleasure to be here. I love talking about the office. I’m so proud to be a member of the attorney general’s office. We have such wonderful attorneys, staff, investigators, and paralegals who work here. Just honestly, some days, I’m humble to think that I’m the person at the top of the org chart because I just find them all to be so amazing.

Ann-Marie Luciano:

I just want to add one fun fact that I think is so appropriate to this conversation; that you’ve brought in and ushered in a lot of firsts into your office. You’re the first woman AG, you were the first chief, and you come, I understand, you’re descended from the first governor of Vermont.

AG Clark:

That’s right.

Ann-Marie Luciano:

And you’re doing all these firsts with the lactation room, so I think it’s in your blood.

AG Clark:

Oh, I love to hear that. Thank you.

Stephen Cobb:

General Clark, thanks again. My name is Stephen Cobb with my law partner Ann-Marie Luciano. This has been another edition of the State AG Pulse. Please join us in our next episode for our season finale. We will be joined by Attorney General Rokita of Indiana. Until then, thanks for tuning in.

Chris Allen

You have been listening to State AG Pulse, brought to you by Cozen O’Connor’s State AG Group. Research for this podcast was provided by our associates, Ryan Bottegal, Hannah Cornett, Keturah Taylor, and Emily Yu, as well as our policy analyst, Elizabeth Hill Hodish. If you enjoyed this week’s episode, please leave us a five-star rating and review. That will help our visibility and will allow other listeners to learn about the podcast. And of course, please tune in again in two weeks for our next episode.