Final legislative alert for 2024:

Both the NH House and Senate met Thursday to vote on bills as recommended by the Committees of Conference. Some were easy, passing with a unanimous voice vote in the House. Others engendered debate on the floor. Here are some of the major results:

Legalization of marijuana, HB1633, was voted down by the House 178-173. Opponents claimed the bill would have been the most complicated in the country (re where it could be sold, etc.)

School vouchers expansion bill, HB1665, would have raised the income eligibility level and made 60% of students’ families eligible for vouchers for private schools and homeschooling (that statistic comes from a bill sponsor’s testimony on the floor 6/14). It did not require families to qualify each year, merely once and then remain eligible through graduation. It could have doubled the cost to $54-60 million for the first year. That bill was killed, with168 House members voting to concur, and185 opposed.

HB2024, a tossed salad of several earlier bills, passed the House on a voice vote. It includes the 10-year transportation improvement plan; adding a speed limit of 45 miles per hour on rural highways; disability pensions for public safety employees who are victims of violence; and it makes a capital appropriation to the dept of corrections toward the replacement of the state prison for men.

Drum roll please: HB1370, a very restrictive voter registration bill with the added problem of a costly “hotline” to be used on election day (not yet defined, designed, set up, or staffed), was tabled 223 to 141. This bill is dead for this year.Yippee!

However, the evil stepsister of the voter registration bill, HB1569, will head to the governor’s desk sometime soon. Thank you to all who emailed, phoned, or wrote postcards urging a veto of HB1569. If you haven’t yet, please so now:

Here’s the governor’s email: governorsununu@nh.gov

or call his office and leave your message: 603-271-2121

Or write a postcard and mail it to Governor Chris Sununu, State House, 107 North Main Street, Concord NH 03301.

Message: please veto HB1569. HB1569 is a bad bill. Share any of these points…

• New Hampshire’s election systems work. Period. This bill was introduced because of voter fraud lies pushed by bad faith actors and conspiracy theorists.

• Experts agree that by passing this law New Hampshire would have the most restrictive voter registration system in the country. 

• Every other state allows voters to register and vote by attesting, under penalty of perjury, to their U.S. citizenship.

• Kansas’s brief, disastrous experiment with a documentary proof of citizenship law resulted in over 30,000 disenfranchised voters in 2 years, approximately12% of voter registrations submitted during that time. And of those voters, investigation showed, well over 99% were indeed citizens who should have been allowed to vote. It was found unconstitutional.

• Proof of domicile can be hard to obtain, especially for voters experiencing homelessness or young voters who do not yet have a driver’s license.

What happens next: Bills will be doubled checked by the Office of Legislative Services, then get signed off by House and Senate leadership, and eventually reach the Governor, who has 5 days to sign a bill, veto it, or let it pass without his signature. Bills then become effective depending on what each bill says: upon passage, or a specific date. In the fall, the legislature could meet to try to override any gubernatorial vetoes. But they don’t have to, and as it takes a 2/3 vote in each body to override, it’s not often successful.

What do we do with ourselves in the meantime? Well, candidate filings for state, county, and federal offices close today. So we can start finding out about the candidates who will be on our Sept. 10 primary ballot. Look for local events where candidates meet with voters, and candidate letters in your local papers. Check out social media.

Plan for candidate forums in the fall. Contact League if you want to discuss possibilities.

Encourage new neighbors and young people to register at their town clerk’s office in advance of September.

Keep in mind that you can’t believe all you see, hear, or read. Fake candidate statements, misleading voter information – AI and election disruptors can cause problems. Check it out before you share news.

The League of Women Voters NH is around all summer. If you have questions, email us or visit our website: LWVNH.org

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Legislative update for early June 2024.

In voting sessions on May 30, both the House and the Senate had the opportunity to deal with bills amended by the other body.

The Senate started out cranky, it seemed, and voted “non-concur” on a bunch of Senate bills that the House had amended. But later in the day they agreed to appointing a “committee of conference” for a whole bunch of bills.

The House spent more time debating the various bills. But ultimately there is a list of bills that have not yet been resolved. Each will be debated next week in a Committee of Conference for session for a specific bill.

Committee of Conference – each committee has members from both the House and the Senate, appointed by the leadership of each body, representing both parties. These committees will meet next week. You can see the list and eventually the time of the committee meeting at this link on the General Court’s website: https://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/committee_of_conference/

We think the website will also have the version of each bill that the committee eventually agrees on.

The House Speaker and the Senate President have the power to replace members of the Committee of Conference if they impede progress to agreement. In theory the recommendation coming from a committee of conference must be unanimous.

Eventually, before June 13, each of these bills will have been debated, maybe tweaked, and on that fateful day of June 13 will go to the floor of each body for another vote. The House and the Senate members can vote to accept the committee of conference’s report (which may be an amended version) or not, but they cannot amend whatever the committee agreed on. It will be an up or down vote only.

Update on some bills that have been in the news:

HB1633 legalizing recreational marijuana will go to a committee of conference, in spite of the House arguing that the Senate added way too many regulations to the bill.

CACR13, prohibiting slavery including “involuntary servitude” such as working while incarcerated for below normal wages. Senate added “except while incarcerated”; House believes the Senate won’t budge, so they voted “non-concur” and killed the bill. It will not appear on our November ballots.

Several of our election law bills that we’ve told you about will go to Committees of Conference:

HB1370, which would make voter registration a challenge for those without documents to prove citizenship and where they live (see story below). The addition of the hotline does not guarantee that eligible voters won’t be denied the right to register. Neither is it easy to implement in just a few months before the big election this fall.

**This NHBulletin article, dated May 30, explains why League and other voting rights advocates are so staunchly opposed to HB1569 and its near-twin HB1370. https://newhampshirebulletin.com/2024/05/30/bill-to-require-citizenship-documents-for-nh-voter-registration-would-be-unique-in-us/ **

HB463, the voter information portal bill: As amended by the House, this bill we supported has weakened the effectiveness of the portal for voters wanting to begin the voter registration process or to get an absentee ballot, at the same time as it adds $500,000 for the “hotline” (see HB1370) and setting up the portal. We’re disappointed.

HB1369 changes the time period from every 10 years to every 4 years to “clean” the voting rolls of people who haven’t voted in that time. League is concerned that infrequent voters – those who vote only in presidential elections for example – might be caught in the purge and would then have to re-register. But many might think they are still registered and certainly wouldn’t have documents such as passports or tax bills with them when they go to vote. The point of contention between House and Senate is when this bill would be implemented.

HB1596, an attempt to regulate the use of deepfakes in political ads, was tweaked by the Senate at the suggestion of the Secretary of State. It will go to a Committee of Conference. League supports.

HB2024 is an attempt to fund the planning/design of the new men’s prison, after the original bill to do that (different number) was mangled by the Senate with a non-germane amendment. This bill includes the 10-year highway plan. It goes to a Committee of Conference.

Some bills were killed on Thursday when either the House or the Senate voted to “non-concur” with the other body’s version. SB431 about wake-surfing regulations was a bill so killed. HB476 about a second recount in elections was also killed, with the House calling the bill pointless as amended and they “would not waste further time on it in a committee of conference.” There were probably others; it was a fast-paced day and we couldn’t track everything in both chambers.

Call to Action on voter registration: Let’s start a barrage of calls, emails, and postcards to Governor Sununu, urging him to veto HB1569. Here’s his email: governorsununu@nh.gov or call his office and leave your message: 603-271-2121 Or write a postcard and mail it to Governor Chris Sununu, State House, 107 North Main Street, Concord NH 03301. We don’t know when he will get this awful bill, so we may repeat this request in a few weeks. But just in case the wheels of government are well oiled and this happens quickly, we want the Governor to know the following:

HB1569 is a bad bill. Share any of these points…

• New Hampshire’s election systems work. Period. This bill is being introduced because voter fraud lies that are being pushed by bad faith actors and conspiracy theorists in Concord. 

• Experts agree that by passing this law New Hampshire would have the most restrictive voter registration system in the country.  

• Every other state allows voters to register and vote by attesting, under penalty of perjury, to their U.S. citizenship.

• Kansas’s brief, disastrous experiment with a documentary proof of citizenship law resulted in over 30,000 disenfranchised voters in 2 years, approximately 12% of voter registrations submitted during that time. And of those voters, investigation showed, more than 99% were indeed citizens who should have been allowed to vote.

• Proof of domicile can be hard to obtain especially for voters experiencing homelessness or young voters who do not yet have a license.  

***Don’t expect a legislative alert on June 6. Just keep checking the Committee of Conference link on the General Court’s website, to see what is planned for June 13 on bills you care about.

***Also a final reminder from the NH Secretary of State: Four days to go before the deadline to change party affiliation before the State Primary. Visit app.sos.nh.gov to check your voter registration. Change you party affiliation at your town/city clerk’s office or at a meeting of the supervisors of the checklist – many towns are holding a meeting in the evening on June 4. (This may be most relevant to those who were “undeclared” voters and then voted in the presidential primary last January, thus becoming a member of the party whose ballot you chose. Visit the link above to check, if you’re not sure you reverted to “undeclared” on your out of the polling place.)

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Legislative alert #21- for late May 2024

The NH House was in a very long voting session on May 23. Among the bills they addressed are these:

CACR22 proposed constitutional amendments making NH the FITN primary, failed to get needed 3/5 vote. It will NOT be on the November ballot. [note: it is already in state law that NH must hold the first in the nation presidential primary.]

SB476 to fund the design of a new prison got amended with a non-germane amendment. Passed on a voice vote. Amendment has to do with limiting gun accessibility of mentally ill individuals, language of a bill that the Senate killed earlier. [Non-germane amendments should be outlawed!] Sadly this puts the much needed prison design funding in jeopardy, as Senate will need to agree with the amended version for the bill to move forward.

SB453 to fund the voter information portal was voted to Interim Study on a voice vote. Killed for this year.

The NH Senate also met, on Wednesday and Thursday. They took up dreaded HB1569, the awful voter registration bill. They voted to pass this bill, in the form it passed the House, by 13-11 along party lines with the exception of Sen. Carson, who voted with the Democrats to oppose the bill. [this was the League of Women Voters’ priority bill to kill this year. Eventually we’ll ask you to pressure the Governor to veto it. Not yet though.]

The Senate also, for the first time in history, passed a recreational marijuana legalization bill. But they put on 3 amendments so it’s anyone’s guess what the House will do with that. That’s HB1633

The Senate killed HB1291 that would have allowed 2 ADUs (Accessory Dwelling Units) by right, which is currently one ADU per household. [We need some good evidence of how well that ADU right is being used by people who want to stay in their own homes but need income from it too. Maybe having 2 ADUs would help some; maybe some homeowners don’t even know they are allowed to have one.]

**

NH House and Senate will each meet in session on Thursday May 30 to vote on bills passed by the other body with new amendments, and to form committees of conference (see last week’s alert where the process was explained.) The Calendar doesn’t list the bills. If you’ve been following particular legislation, look it up on the General Court’s homepage by bill number, click on the bill number, then click on “Docket” to see the status. Scan to the bottom of the list. Safe guess is that if the last action was to pass “as amended” (by the action just before) it will come before the other body on Thursday.

Calls to Action:

The evil almost twin to HB1569 is HB1370, which is completely altered from the trivial bill that passed the House months ago. We are asking voting rights supporters to email your own state reps (and any others with whom you have a personal relationship) to ask them to vote against concurring with the Senate’s version. Below is sample text you could use in an email; the more you personalize it, the better. Thanks!

My name is [YOUR NAME] and I’m a voter from [YOUR TOWN]. I am writing  to oppose HB1370,  a bill that could cost any voter their right to register and vote in an election simply for lacking a passport, birth certificate, or documents showing their address naturalization papers if those documents aren’t able to be found in state databases. Further, this bill would completely overhaul our elections just months before the presidential election, causing confusion and chaos for your constituents, other New Hampshire voters, and election officials across the state.  HB1370  would also create a new, expensive, untested system where election officials would call a “hotline” to confirm qualifications of voters who do not have documentation with them. Sounds like a good idea, but is there time? This process creates a significant burden on election officials as well as state departments, while increasing the time it takes to register and increasing lines at the polls. Please take a stand for voters’ rights and oppose HB1370.

Another call to action, especially for anyone involved in municipal government or other organizations subject to Right To Know laws: This alert from the NH Municipal Assn is about HB1069, which just passed in the Senate with a ridiculous amendment that could force towns, libraries, state agencies, other organizations to spend huge sums of money on fulfilling either print or electronic Right To Know requests from anyone anywhere in the world. By changing “any citizen of New Hampshire” to “any person” (and remember, SCOTUS ruled that corporations are persons too) we open ourselves us to costly, time-consuming and disruptive requests. [League was a driving force behind Right To Know legislation years ago, but we should draw the line at this.] Call your state reps and ask them to “non-concur” when it comes to the floor on May 30.

**On a non-legislative matter, For those who have been following the NH Dept of Education controversial public education standards revisions:

The NHED and the State Board of Education will discuss the proposed 306 rules changes at a public work session on Tuesday, May 28 from 10 am – 2 pm at the NHED offices, 25 Hall Street, Concord. The meeting is open to the public, but the State Board is not expected to allow public comment during the work session. The meeting will also be live streamed via Zoom.  “For the public wishing to listen to the meeting, please register in advance via this link: Register here for the NH State Board of Education Meeting. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.” Even though there will be no public comment, a good turnout of education supporters may influence the state board of education when they come to vote on the proposed changes.

For more background on the issue, Reaching Higher NH has an excellent article

** NH Voting Rights in the news: Affidavit ballots – NHPR by Todd Bookman, 5/23/24 League was interviewed for this article, but what makes it compelling is the voice of the 18 year old first time voter whose secret ballot was violated, by the 2022 “affidavit ballot” law passed by the NH Legislature.

https://www.nhpr.org/politics/2024-05-22/one-casualty-of-nhs-new-voting-rules-the-right-to-a-secret-ballot

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Legislative alert and update #20, May 27, 2024

On May 16 the NH Senate spent the morning debating two bills: HB1283 that would allow for medication assistance in dying for the terminally ill who meet the criteria. This bill was killed (sentenced to a slow quiet death) by a vote of 17-7 to send it to “Interim Study.” As we explained last week, there will be no actual study. A new bill would have to be submitted for the January 2025 session for this to be discussed and examined again.

Also long debate on HB1205, banning transgender girls from participating on girls teams in high school sports. The vote to pass this bill was 13-10 (one senator was excused for the rest of the day with a medical emergency—she is recovering). It goes to the Governor next (not soon; preparing bills for signing can take a while.)

Our election law priority bill, HB1569, which would make voter registration much more difficult for people without all their documents at hand, came to the floor with a 3-2 partisan recommendation of Ought To Pass as Amended by the Senate Election Law Committee. It disagrees substantially with the House-passed version. League doesn’t like either version and we consider it a voter suppression bill. Senate voted down the committee amendment, at the request of Sen. Gray who had proposed it. Sen. Gray says his goal is “easy to vote, hard to cheat,” while admitting that voter fraud is not a big problem in NH. Then the Senate passed the bill 12 to 11, sending it to Finance where Sen. Gray intends another amendment. (thank you to Sen. Carson who crossed party lines to oppose this bad bill.)

A related Election Law bill, HB1370, that messes with registration and challenged ballots and creates “ballots subject to judicial review” in order to be counted, also passed as amended in the Senate. [we’d like this bill to be opposed when the competing versions have to go to the House for concurrence. See end of this email for info on concurrence process—oh, it’s fun reading, I promise.]

Also in Election Law, the Senate amended the election information portal bill HB463 by a vote of 12-ll, in a way that makes it less effective, in our opinion. It too now goes to the Senate Finance, who were already wavering on it.

The marijuana legalization bill HB1633 was amended in the Senate and passed, but it now goes to Finance because a tax was added. [Seems like this topic just keeps smokin’ along, without any idea whether the Governor would sign this bill.]

A bit of good news: HB1264 passed the Senate and goes to the Governor. The bill allows towns to use the ADA approved voting systems at municipal elections as well as state/federal elections. This makes independent voting possible for those with vision impairments.

Coming up:

NH House will meet in voting session on Thursday, May 23. At this point they are looking at bills already passed by the Senate. The House Calendar lists 12 pages of bills “on consent” meaning they come with unanimous recommendations from their committee hearings. Not on consent are a number of other bills. Contact your own state reps to weigh in on these; be sure to identify yourself as a constituent. Here’s the link to find your reps and senators and their contact info: https://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/house/members/

CACR22, a proposed constitutional amendment making the NH presidential primary the “first in the nation.” Committee was split, with the opponents pointing out “…We already have a statute in NH that accomplishes the same purpose as this proposed constitutional amendment, which has worked well since it was enacted in 1975. Both major political parties have faced resistance from their national leaders about NH being the FITN primary and have been successful each time in having their delegates seated–without a constitutional amendment. Placing this into the NH Constitution does not bind other states or the leadership of any party.”

SB476 to pay for a plan and design for a new men’s prison in Concord, got a 24-1 recommendation for Ought To Pass from the House Finance committee. We expect it to pass.

NH Senate will have a very long session again on May 22 and 23 to wrap up the bills before them. Contact your own senator to make your voice heard.

On the Senate Consent Calendar, 11 pages of bills, including:

HB 115, relative to changing the date of the state primary election to 3^rd Tuesday in June, starting in 2026. Committee recommends Ought to Pass with Amendment, Vote 5-0. What do you think? Do candidates need 5 months to convince you to vote for them?

HB 1175, requiring a switch to SB2 town government status to be a question on the official ballot rather than discussion and a vote at town in-person business meetings. Committee recommended Interim Study unanimously.

On the regular Calendar’s long list are these bills:

HB 1014 as amended, requiring high schools to offer “instruction in government and civics, including information on election laws and voting.” Committee recommends Ought to Pass as amended in the House by a vote of 4-1. [Well duh. We already have civics required. We heartily supported this bill in its original form. It would have required high schools to give students practical information and even assistance in voter registration and voting. But the amendment is dumb, and we hope it fails so a good bill can be made next year.]

HB 1119 as amended by the House, cleaning up language on the application form for absentee ballots used when a winter storm warning is issued. Senate committee voted Interim Study by a vote of 3-2. [League really wants this bill passed so people can better understand their options when election day and a blizzard come together. We urge Ought To Pass.]

HB 1665 raises student eligibility for the education freedom accounts program (school vouchers) from 350% to 400% of poverty level. Committee recommends Ought to Pass with Amendment by a vote 3-1. They amended it from 500% which is what the House passed.

HB1291 as amended in the House increases the number of accessory dwelling units allowed by right from one to two, adds definitions, and increases the maximum square footage.  It also gives municipalities the right to require accessory units meet the definition for workforce housing. Committee recommends Interim Study (a slow death) to this bi-partisan effort to increase housing options.

* * *   Below is the press release from the NH Campaign for Voting Rights following this week’s Senate session on two key voting rights bills:

New Hampshire Campaign for Voting Rights Statement on Senate Vote Passing House Bill 1569 and House Bill 1370

Concord, N.H. — Today, the New Hampshire Senate voted Ought to Pass on House Bill 1569 as well as House Bill 1370 as amended, both of which would remove the use of sworn legal affidavits used by voters to attest to their eligibility to vote. 

McKenzie St. Germain, Campaign Director for the New Hampshire Campaign for Voting Rights, released the following statement: 

“We are deeply concerned and disappointed that the Senate chose to advance two versions of this extreme legislation that would roll back voting access for eligible Granite Staters and could result in any voter being turned away from the polls if they did not have the correct documents, creating a massive change to New Hampshire’s registration system only months before an election. 

“New Hampshire’s elections are safe and secure, as confirmed by a broad bipartisan coalition including Secretary of State Scanlan, our local election officials, and Governor Sununu, who, when asked about House Bill 1569 said ‘our system works very well.’ Despite our current system working, HB1370 as amended would create a complicated and burdensome “hotline” process for election officials to use, a process that could drastically increase wait times for voter registration and still turn away eligible voters without documents.”

* * *    What happens as the June end of legislative session approaches? Because the House and the Senate don’t often look at things the same way, bills are amended in the second body frequently. They then get sent back to the originating body, with a polite request to “concur” with the latest version. Let’s say it’s a bill that started life as HB12345 in the House. The House passed it months ago. It went to the Senate and came out of the Senate amended. So it goes back to House as amended for another vote on the floor.

–The reps’ choices are to “concur”–sometimes they like what the Senate did. In that case in due time the bill goes to the Governor for signing (or veto).

–The reps can also be really annoyed by the changes the Senate made and vote to “non-concur.” Essentially they are telling the Senate no way, your changes are bad, and we’re not going to discuss them. At that point the bill is dead.

–Or the House could vote to send the bill to a “committee of conference.” The House and Senate leaderships each appoint some interested members to a committee to try to reach agreement on the details of the bill. Like the kindergarten teacher who sends squabbling kids to the corner of the room to work it out.

–If the committee can reach agreement on revised wording, it goes back to the House and to the Senate for one more vote, which is usually supportive of what the committee of conference recommended.

–Then the new version can be sent to the Governor.

Flip-flop all that for SBxxx bills, which originated in the Senate. Same process. We are nearing the time when that all happens. This is not a budget year, so getting bills over the finish line will be the focus of the legislature’s work in the next several weeks (I first typed “years” – it only feels that way.)

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The NH Senate will meet on Wednesday May 15 and Thursday May 16 to vote on a lot of important bills. Note that all these bills have already passed in the House. Ten pages of this week’s Calendar are bills on the Consent Calendar. The bills up for debate are nearly as many. This is the time to contact your own state senator, make clear you are a constituent, and share your views and hopes for the senator’s vote. Find their emails here. https://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/senate/members/wml.aspx

Top priority from League’s perspective is HB1569:

Election law bill HB1569, the bill requiring paper proof of everything for voter registration, was amended by the Senate Election Law Committee, in some ways we hadn’t expected. Sen. Gray insisted he was trying to improve it; we’re doubtful it does. So once again we are calling on people who care about voting rights to send email or make a call, in this case to your own senator, to ask that the bill be killed when it comes to the floor on May 15 or 16. If your senator is a Democrat, the ask is easy; Democrats oppose this bill. If your senator is a Republican, share some reasons to to oppose it. League opposes.Here are some talking points you can use: HB1569 This bill would require some documents to be provided every time someone registers to vote – even if they are updating their registration with a new address, or had been removed from the rolls because they did not vote for multiple elections. The bill would create a new, untested system where election officials would call a “hotline” to confirm qualifications of voters who do not have documentation with them. This process creates a significant burden on election officials as well as state departments, while increasing the time it takes to register and increasing lines at the polls.

Election law bill HB463, the voter information portal, received a fatal blow from the Senate Election Law committee in the form of an amendment that made everything more complicated. The committee recommends “Interim Study” – which at this point in the legislative cycle is like shoving it into a box in the attic. There will be no “study.” It will just gather dust. We doubt we can change this now. Try again next year. League is bummed.

However, a related bill to fund the election info portal (SB453) is still alive and will be exec’d by House Finance on Monday, May 13 at 1 pm. This bill would allow the Secretary of State to use that funding to create an online system for voters to change addresses, request absentee ballots, etc. without the legislature playing games with it. League supports.

Election law bill HB1098 has a very slight amendment. This bill lets election officials bring absentee ballots to nursing homes and assist the residents, if necessary, with completing the ballots. The bill is at the request of the Secretary of State. League supports; we hope the Senate does too. Committee recommended Ought To Pass with Amendment by a 3-2 vote. League supports.

Election law bill HB1264 would let voters with vision disabilities vote independently in local elections using the One4All accessible voting machines (used now only in state and federal elections in NH). Committee recommends Ought To Pass 3-0. League supports.

Election law bill HB 1596-FN, requiring a disclosure of deceptive artificial intelligence usage in political advertising. Committee unanimously recommended Ought to Pass with Amendment. “This bill as amended requires the disclosure of media that uses artificial intelligence and deepfakes in political advertising. It prohibits the dissemination of misinformation when it is in the form of media manipulated by technology capable of making it appear that something was done or said in real life when it did not actually occur. The committee amendment added ‘election officials’ with candidates and political party as those protected from deceptive political messages.” League supports.

Health & Human Services bill HB 1283-FN, end of life options to include medication assistance in dying. We clucked about this weak-kneed committee vote last week. It goes to the floor with an Interim Study recommendation, vote 3-2. Does the Senate need help moving this big box to the attic to gather dust? Still time to contact your own Senator and demand this come up for a vote one way or the other. No more “study” is needed.

Judiciary marijuana legalization bill: HB 1633 Committee recommends Ought to Pass with Amendment, Voted 3-2.

Judiciary violence prevention: HB 1711 called the “Chief Bradley Haas Mental Health Firearms Reporting Act” “authorizing the state to report mental health data for firearms background check purposes and providing for processes for confiscation of firearms following certain mental health-related court proceedings and for relief from mental health-related firearms disabilities” Although this passed the House, the Senate may kill it. Committee recommends Inexpedient to Legislate by a partisan vote of 3-2. You may want to contact your own senator on this one.

School vouchers bill HB1665 as amended by the Senate changes family eligibility from 350% of poverty level income to 400%. The House passed this bill as 500%. Committee voted Ought To Pass as amended 3-1.

Energy and Natural Resources bill HB 602, landfill siting. Committee recommended Interim Study, (another box gathering dust in the attic). Looks like nearly all the other energy/natural resources bills are unanimous in committee, so don’t know why they are not on Consent Calendar.

Proposed constitutional amendment CACR 13, banning slavery. Providing that slavery and involuntary servitude shall be prohibited in NH. Ought to Pass with Amendment, Vote 3-2. If this passes both bodies with more than 60%, you’ll see it as a ballot question next November.

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Legislative alert #18, for May 6-17, 2024

The NH House and NH Senate each met in voting session on Thursday, May 2.

In the House, it was a long day—7 hours. They killed two bills we mentioned last week by voting “indefinitely postpone”–SB380 to move the state primary date to June and SB341 mandatory disclosure by school personnel to parents. They also killed SB538, the zoning bill that included tax credits and parking requirements (an attempt to make work force housing easier to build).

Other votes in the House on May 2: age of marriage was raised to 18 (tell the grandkids to cool it); allocation for design of a new men’s prison passed and now goes to Finance committee; SB376 passed, creating a planning group for education and vocational training at the state prisons.

In the NH Senate HB1186 passed, prohibiting sellers from identifying gun/ammo purchases with a special code on credit card purchases. Goes to Finance committee probably later in May, apparently because the bill requires the Attorney General to investigate sellers who violate the prohibition.

The House will meet again on May 9, in what seems like a less weighty session. None of the League’s priority bills are on the regular Calendar. But if you are an election official or poll worker, note that SB537 comes to the floor without recommendation (tied vote in House Election Law Committee.) This bill allows for early pre-processing of absentee ballots, to reduce the stress on election day. This is processing only, not counting. Read the bill for details, then call your own state representatives to share your views.

Next Senate voting session is Thursday, May 16. We don’t have the bills list yet, but expect that some important election laws bills will be up for a vote. Among them are

HB1264, making accessible voting machines available for municipal elections. The sentiment was so strongly in favor of this bill in Senate Election Law Committee this week that Chair Gray said, “We don’t need to hear more testimony.” And all committee members present voted Ought To Pass. (nice to start off with some good news, eh?)

Also on the agenda for Senators on May 16 is HB1283, allowing terminally ill people to get medicines to hasten their dying. The Senate Health & Human Affairs punted on this bill, [cluck cluck cluck] in spite of huge public turnout on both sides of the issue. They voted 3-2 along party lines to recommend “Interim Study” which, as Sen. Avard noted, will “give it a slow death.” Ironic. And at this point in the legislative cycle, “interim study” does not earn it a study committee. The bill just lies around untouched. But this recommendation could be turned around by the senators when it comes to the floor, so if this bill matters to you, contact your own senator and make your case before May 16. List of NH senators can be found here. [note: unless you happen to have your senator’s own phone number, it is best to email them. The phone numbers listed for senators on this site are for their offices, and you’ll likely just get their secretary.]

Committee hearings coming up:

In both bodies committees will be holding a lot of executive sessions on bills already heard, and Finance committees will be struggling with the grim reality of paying for the bills that passed. After Finance hearings these bill go back to the floor in the next few weeks for another vote with the Finance committee’s recommendation.

We are waiting for an executive session in Senate Election Law (could be Tuesday) on SB1569 (our top priority to defeat this year, re voter registration requirements). It might be amended. “Put lipstick on a pig, it’s still a pig” comes to mind.

A bill we support, HB463, is in the same committee and may be amended. This is the election information portal bill, and an amendment could be helpful or harmful to making online voter info & one’s own data access easier.

Also in Senate Election Law waiting to be exec’d: HB1596, banning use of AI-generated materials falsely impersonating or attributing comments in political ads.

HB1119 will be heard in Senate Election on Tuesday, May 7 at 9:45. This is a good bill, cleaning up the absentee ballot application to be used when a storm warning is issued for election day [remember March town election days in 2018, 2022 and 2023?] It passed the House easily, so we hope the Senate doesn’t tinker with it. League supports and will so testify.

Also looking forward to exec session in Senate Education Committee on HB1583 to raise state funding of public schools. [could happen Tuesday. It is not required to post which bills will be exec’d on any given committee meeting day.]

HB1014 will be heard in Senate Education Committee on Tuesday, postponed from last week. We had high hopes for this bill, requiring high schools to give students practical information about voting and voter registration, suggesting holding registration drives if practical, etc. It got amended in the House, watered down to be perhaps worse than nothing. We’’d like to think that we could fight for the original version in Senate Education, but that doesn’t usually work.

A reproductive privacy rights bill was heard in House Human Services and Elderly Affairs Committee earlier. SB461 got a new title and replaced all previous language thru an amendment. The bill had multiple Democratic sponsors; the amendment had only Republican senators voting for it. As phrased now, the bill would require “health care providers to report certain information about abortions performed to their medical facility, and requiring those medical facilities to report the information to the department of health and human services.” In that way (as a completely amended bill) it passed the Senate without a public hearing. [we hate this sneaky tactic as much as “non-germane” amendments because they are hard to anticipate and to track. I bet the sponsors hate it too when their bill is flipped on its head.] We expect it will come to the House floor later in May. House committee has not yet exec’d it, and unfortunately there is no easy online way to urge them to recommend Inexpedient To Legislate for this invasion of personal medical privacy.

On a separate note: from NH School Funding Fairness Project: Save the date! The courtroom trial on school funding for the Rand lawsuit will take place over two weeks starting September 30! While the part of the Rand case about SWEPT [statewide education property tax] is headed to the NH Supreme Court, the suit covers more than just SWEPT. The taxpayer plaintiffs in Rand also argue that the State’s share of education funding is unconstitutionally low. Like the ConVal case, they argue that base adequacy is too low, but the Rand case also includes differentiated aid [for special needs students, low income schools, ESL students] in their arguments, claiming those funds also fall far short of what is actually necessary to provide students with an adequate education.

Legislative alert for April 29-May 3, 2024

Thank you to all who signed in to oppose HB1569, the bill mandating paper documentation of eligibility, including citizenship, at voter registration. We had a good hearing; start watching at 36 minutes. No date for the Senate Election Law Committee to exec this bill has yet been set. There’s still time to email the entire committee if you have a story to share about difficulties getting documents to prove ID, citizenship or residence.

**  The NH Senate will meet in voting session on Thursday, May 2. There are over 80 bills on the Consent Calendar! These are House-passed bills that got unanimous recommendations from their Senate committees, and the Senators can just vote in one fell swoop to adopt them as recommended. If you’ve been following a bill that started in the House, you might want to check the Senate Calendar this week to see if it’s there on Consent (pp. 3-15).

Bills on which we can expect floor debate include these:

HB 1252, establishing a committee to study the needs of Native Americans in New Hampshire. Committee recommended Inexpedient to Legislate, Vote 3-2.

HB 1186-FN, relative to firearm purchaser’s privacy. Committee recommended Ought to Pass with Amendment, Vote 3-2 We think this is the bill that prohibits sellers from identifying the purchase of firearms or ammo with a special code when someone uses a credit card.

**  The NH House will meet in voting session on Thursday, May 2 (and at least 3 more voting sessions in May are planned.) The House also has a long list of bill on the Consent Calendar. Many of them have committee recommendations of Ought To Pass. But in a number of cases, the Senate bills they are now asked to vote on are similar to bills earlier passed as House bills, and the House seems to be standing firm that they like their own versions better. Apparently the wall between the House and the Senate is too high for legislators to consider compromise before these things come to the floor.

On the House Regular Calendar are these are bills of note. Consider contacting your own state rep before then and asking them to support or oppose. To find your own state reps and their contact info, go to this link.

In Education: SB 341, relative to mandatory disclosure by school district employees to parents. Desire to have open communication between schools and parents is at war with needs of some students to confide in teachers as trusted adults if relations with parents are not good. Committee was split, so this goes to the House floor without recommendation.

In Election Law, SB 380, moving the state primary date from early September to June. If enacted, this would not take effect until 2026. Committee was tied; goes to the floor without recommendation. Another bill HB115 to change the primary date to 3^rd week of August is still under consideration in the Senate..

In Municipal and County Govt: SB538, regarding zoning for residential housing, including tax credits and parking requirements. The committee voted 9-8 to kill this bill, but expect a big floor fight. Read the details on p. 24 of the House Calendar.

In Public Works, SB 476-FN, making a capital appropriation to the Dept of Corrections toward the replacement of the NH state prison for men. Vote was 15-4 Ought To Pass in committee. The amount asked for, $40 million, is for the design and planning etc. Part of the explanation lists needed repairs to the present aged building and explains: “The estimated costs for these improvements exceed $400 million over the next ten years, more than half the cost of building a new, more-modernized utilitarian facility which is estimated to cost, at this writing, $584 million.”

In Education is this prison education/rehab bill: SB 376, relative to establishing a corrections education and vocational planning group. This bill goes to the floor without a committee recommendation because the Senate Education Committee was tied in executive session. Committee Statement in support of Ought to Pass: “This bill seeks to establish a planning group in order to design programs for education in our state corrections facilities, utilizing federal funding specifically for this purpose, in conjunction with NH’s community colleges. The committee heard testimony about the many benefits of such education, most notably a reduction in recidivism…” [League supports SB376 based on our 2012-2015 study of women incarcerated in NH.]

**  House committee hearings this week include work sessions or executive sessions. None of the League’s priority bills are having hearings.

Senate committee hearings this week include the following major bills. You can express your support at this link.

CALL TO ACTION: Ask Senate Finance to Support Increased School Funding

The Senate Finance Committee will have a public hearing on HB1583 on Tuesday, April 30 at 2:00pm in room 101 of the State House. This bill adds over $60 million in aid to school districts with low property values and high numbers of free & reduced lunch eligible students and increases state funding to schools from $4,100 to $4,404 for every student in the state. This bill does not modify SWEPT in any way and is paid for by surplus money in the Education Trust Fund. HB 1583 has had strong bipartisan support every step of the way, receiving a 16-4 vote in House Education and an 18-7 vote in House Finance.

In Senate Election Law and Municipal Affairs Committee: HB1264 will be heard on Tuesday, April 30, at 9:45. This bill would direct the state to provide towns & cities holding municipal elections with the “accessible voting devices” the state already uses for state and federal elections. CALL TO ACTION: If you or someone you know has vision problems that make a regular ballot impossible to use independently, please send testimony to the committee or find a ride to testify in person (Legislative Office Bldg Room 103). The rest of us can express our support for this voting rights bill by using this simple link to the remote sign in sheet.

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Legislative alert #16, issued April 19, 2024

Neither the NH House nor the Senate will meet in voting session next week. But there are lots of committee hearings happening April 22-26. We highlight a few here. Check the Calendars for others.

**A shout-out to League member and passionate voting rights advocate Phil Hatcher of Dover, who had an excellent op ed in the NH Bulletin this week explaining voter affidavits (the issue behind HB1569, which we oppose). Read it here: https://newhampshirebulletin.com/2024/04/15/access-vs-security-the-use-of-affidavits-in-new-hampshire-election-law/

HB1569 is the League’s top priority anti-voter bill. We vehemently oppose it. HB1569 will have its hearing in the NH Senate Election Law Committee on Tuesday, April 23, at 9:40 am in the Legislative Office Bldg rm 103. CALL TO ACTION: sign in “I oppose” at this link for HB1569. . https://gencourt.state.nh.us/remotecommittee/senate.aspx April 23, Election Law & Municipal Affairs.

If you have a powerful personal story to tell, plan to testify at the hearing. Limit your oral testimony to 2 minutes, but you can also prepare more extensive written testimony and submit 7 copies to the committee at the end of your oral testimony.

Can’t make it to the hearing? You may email the entire committee with your written testimony. Just put your testimony in the body of the email, and be sure to use the bill number in the heading: HB1569. The link to the “email the entire committee” is on this page; https://gencourt.state.nh.us/Senate/committees/committee_details.aspx?cc=1421

Hearings coming up for some other bills of broad public interest:

**HB 1649, prohibiting certain products with intentionally added PFAS, will be heard in the Senate Energy & Natural Resources Committee on Tuesday morning. This bill just recently passed in the House. Sign in to support or oppose at this link: https://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/remotecommittee/senate.aspx

**The bill allowing for medication assistance in dying for terminally ill people, at their request and with their own administration, is coming up for its Senate hearing on Wednesday, April 24, at 10 am in the Senate Health & Human Services committee (room 103 in the State House. This is a room change, slightly bigger). You can use this link to voice your “I support” or “I oppose” view for HB1283: https://gencourt.state.nh.us/remotecommittee/senate.aspx Again if you have a personal story to share, either plan to testify on Wednesday or send an email to the entire committee at the link on this page: https://gencourt.state.nh.us/Senate/committees/committee_details.aspx?cc=46

**In the House Education Committee, a hearing on SB375, “This bill requires school sports teams to be expressly designated as male, female, or coed, prohibits biologically male students from participating in female designated sports or entering female locker rooms, and creates a cause of action for athletes harmed as a result of violations of these requirements.” This will be heard on Monday, April 22, at 10:45. You can sign in to support or oppose at this webpage: https://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/house/committees/remotetestimony/default.aspx

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Legislative alert # 15, for April 15-19, 2024

What happened April 11 in the NH Legislature:

NH House met in a long session on April 11. Among the bills they passed are HB1633, legalizing cannabis for recreational use by adults and a plan for who could sell it. Vote was 239-136. Many years of failed bills behind this. Now goes to the Senate for a hearing.

Also passed, just a day after the federal govt announced restrictions on PFAs contaminants, is HB1649 as amended, prohibiting products with added PFAs from sale in NH. That passed on a 233-140 vote.

The House passed the two school funding bills we mentioned last week, increasing state spending on education by about $100 million. Just found this good summary of the April 11 House votes: https://indepthnh.org/2024/04/11/nh-house-increases-education-aid-backs-legalizing-pot-and-pfa-ban/

House tabled and thus killed, by a one-vote margin, HB1212, to provide free lunch to children whose families earn up to 350% of the poverty level. The House Finance committee had recommended killing the bill because it would cost too much.

NH Senate also met on April 11. They killed SB593, prohibiting guns in a safe school zone, by a 14-10 vote.

Next Thursday:

NH Senate will meet at 10 am on Thursday, April 18. Among the bills they will vote on are two health bills below. Now is the time to make your opinions known to your own state senator, via an email or phone call. Be sure to identify yourself as a constituent.

All the bills on the calendar for this week come with unanimous recommendations of their committees, so it is likely to be a short and agreeable voting session.

HB 1088, enabling schools to maintain a supply of epinephrine auto-injectors. Committee recommends Ought to Pass, Vote 5-0.

HB 1296, relative to insurance coverage for diagnostic and supplemental breast examinations. Committee recommends Ought to Pass, Vote 5-0.

NH House will not meet next week. Likely session April 25.

Hearings coming up April 15-19:

April 11 is “crossover” day. Any bill still languishing in the House or Senate where it originated is now deserving of requiem music. Only bills that passed their first body will move on to the other for a hearing and further vote. The bill numbers stay the same.

Hearings on bills coming up. You may watch in person or online, and also offer your opinions either by testifying or signing the paper at the hearing or sign in “I Support” or “I Oppose” online at this link for bills in Senate committees: https://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/remotecommittee/senate.aspx

Tuesday, April 16, starting at 9:15 am: In Senate Election law these bills will be heard:

HB1098, delivery of ballots to elder care facilities; expands the list of who may deliver ballots to ballot clerks, assistant clerks, or clerks pro tem. Sec. of State requested this bill. (LWVNH supports. If you have a chance, please use the Senate sign in link above to register “I Support”.)

HB1369 verification of voter rolls every 4 years (currently we do that purge every 10 years) This passed in the House by 10 votes. [LWVNH doesn’t take a formal position on this, but we do see that infrequent voters who perhaps vote only in presidential election years might find themselves suddenly removed from their town’s voting list. If they discover this at the polls, their only recourse is to register again right then, assuming they have proof of ID and where they live on them. Could be a sticky wicket for some.]

HB1126 candidate requests for absentee ballot information and HB1313 re candidate access to voter checklist. Both of these bills make it easier for candidates to get names and addresses of voters so they can send us targeted campaign literature, we assume.

Tuesday, April 16, starting at 9 am: in Senate Education these bills are on the list.

HB 546 requires a minimum of $50,000,000 per fiscal year to be transferred to the school building aid fund, in addition to any debt service payments, for school building aid grants. Squeaked by in the House.

HB1665 raises the income threshold for school vouchers eligibility to 500% of the federal poverty level (originally it was 300%) and still requires a family qualify only once and then would be eligible until student graduates, no matter how much family income may increase. [this squeaked by in the House by one vote! If passed about 20,000 more students would be eligible, and the cost could be $45 million more according to Reaching Higher NH and to the EFA administration program representative.]

Tuesday, April 16, at 2 pm in Senate Judiciary:

HB 1711, authorizing the state to report mental health data for firearms background check purposes and providing for processes for confiscation of firearms following certain mental health-related court proceedings and for relief from mental health-related firearms disabilities. Passed the House 204-149. [Note: this is the last of the gun violence prevention bills still standing for 2024. All others have been killed or tabled. To express your opinion to the committee, sign in at the Senate remote testimony link.]

For bills below in House committees, you can sign in to support or oppose at this link: House remote sign on.

Tuesday, April 16 at 11 am, in House Education Committee:

SB 442 expands the school vouchers program to families earning 400% of poverty level incomes from current 350%. [sorry, but I’m getting twitchy about all this proposed school vouchers increased spending coming right after the House refused to provide free lunch to its public school students coming from even lower income families.]

Wednesday, April 17 at 1 pm, in House Finance: SB453 makes an appropriation to the dept of state for the statewide voter registration system. [League supports—this relates to the voter information portal we talked about earlier. Sign in “I support’ if you have a chance. Liz T. will testify in support on behalf of LWVNH.]

Wednesday, April 17: House Public Works and Highways committee will tour the men’s prison in Concord in the morning, then have a work session followed by executive session in the afternoon on SB476 to appropriate funds for design etc. of a new men’s prison to replace existing deteriorating prison.

Longer range CALL TO ACTION: election law. The Senate hearing on our public enemy number one bill this year, HB1569, has not yet been scheduled. But we are marshalling our forces to fight it. This bill would require paper documentation of ID, age, citizenship, and where one lives for anyone registering to vote in NH for the first time, even those people who might have unusual difficulty proving citizenship or where they live but are in fact NH citizens. Read more at this link. It includes a form you can fill out if you or someone you know might fall into the category of people who could be denied registration if this bill passes. Please: take a moment to read the material at the link below. https://www.nhvotingrights.org/hb1569story

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Legislative alert #14, April 5-12, 2024

Coming up in the April 11 session of the NH House are several school funding bills. Copied here from FairFundingNH.org are alerts about these bills coming out of committee with bipartisan support. Call or email your own state rep if you believe that NH has an obligation to fund public education; ask them to support these bills:

HB 1583 adds $64 million in aid starting next school year, with $39 million for fiscal disparity aid, directing funds to communities with low property values, and $25 million for districts with high proportions of students eligible for Free & Reduced Lunch. It also increases base adequacy aid for every student from $4,100 to $4,404 in July 2025.

HB 1656 increases the State’s total differentiated aid for special education by $17.5 million and introduces categories of aid to the adequacy formula, so the State provides more money for students with more intensive needs.

Also on the House floor for a vote on April 11:

HB 1633, legalizing recreational cannabis use and regulating its sale. This has been much in the news; to read the pro/con arguments from the committee, see page 15 of the House Calendar. Finance Committee recommends Ought To Pass with Amendment by vote of 19-6.

The NH Senate postponed its voting session to Friday, April 5 because of weather and road conditions.

NH Senate will also meet next Thursday, but have a light agenda of bills, none of which are League priorities.

Hearings on bills coming up:

NH House seems not to have any of our priority bills up for hearings in the coming week.

NH Senate hearings include the following (note: all these bills have already passed the full House)

Senate Election Law and Municipal Affairs on Tuesday, April 9,

10 am HB 1399, allowing municipalities to permit 2 residential units in certain single-family residential zones..

Senate Judiciary on Tuesday, April 9,

1:30 pm HB 1012 “exempting from criminal penalty certain parenting decisions intended to encourage a child’s independence and freedom.” The bill says very little besides that line; what kind of testimony will be offered?

Reminder that you can offer your support or opposition on bills being heard in Senate committees at this website. You’ll need date of hearing, committee, and bill number: https://gencourt.state.nh.us/remotecommittee/senate.aspx

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Legislative Alert # 13, for early April 2024

First, apologies for an inaccuracy in last week’s alert, when I reported that the House had passed HB1283, allowing for medication assistance in dying for the terminally ill. I was right that the bill passed by 3 votes, without regard to party. But then later that night, one rep changed his mind and filed for “reconsideration,” which will be taken up when the House next meets on March 28. My assumption had been that reconsideration could happen only during a session. But I have since found out that, at least in the House, a rep who voted on the winning side can file for reconsideration by noon of the day after the vote was taken. So HB1283 will be on the March 28 House session for reconsideration, along with two election law bills (HB1119 that passed 282-92 and HB1523 that was killed—but I guess in this case it was just stunned). I learn something new every year around the State House. Thanks for learning with me. Liz T. for LWVNH

What happened in the House on March 28:

The above bill, HB1283, allowing for medication assistance in dying for the terminally ill, was brought to the floor when all else was done, about 7 pm. The reconsideration motion failed, 147-210, so last week’s passage stands and this bill moves on to the Senate later this month or next.

The election law bills mentioned above were not brought to the floor. Maybe April 11 when House next meets in voting session?

Election Law bill HB1596, requiring disclosure on political ads created with AI of scenes, etc. that never occurred, passed on a loud voice vote.

Election Law bill HB1092, a campaign finance reform bill, also passed on a loud voice vote as amended.

Education bill HB1084, establishing qualifications for the commissioner of education (which is an appointed position), was tabled before it could be discussed. Nor could the amendment proposed be discussed which would have exempted the sitting commissioner from meeting these requirements.

Also tabled was HB1592 restricting school vouchers from being used in religious schools. It was tabled by vote of 191-168.

Overlapping election law and education, HB1014 requiring high schools to adopt policies that promote student voter registration. Conflicting versions. Result was the amended version passed by three votes. Sadly the amended version does just about nothing, strips out the recommendation in the original bill that high schools give specific information on voter registration and assist students to register. What a shame that this bill failed, as fewer than 16% of 18 year olds in NH are registered to vote (nationwide it’s closer to 50%). Open Democracy’s webinar on high school voter registration has been recorded, and the slides are available. Email League or Open Democracy if you want the link to see what students/teachers/activists can do to help new young voters get registered.

A big school building aid bill, HB546, was removed from the table where it had slumbered since January, and then passed, 182-172. This bill would provide $50 million annually in building aid to schools. Not sure about the details of the plan.

The two housing bills we mentioned last week, HB1291 expanding the right to have an accessory dwelling unit from one to two units, and HB1399, calling on towns to permit two dwellings in certain single family residential zones, both passed resoundingly, 220-143 or 220-140.

Thank you to our state reps who were working hard on Thursday, from 9 am until after 7 pm. Some bills were tabled before debate; others were argued on the floor. Grueling day.

Hearings on bills in House week of April 1-5:

We don’t see any priority bills on the list for next week. House will not be in session on April 4. Next session is April 11.

On April 11, expect the House to consider two major school funding bills. This from the NH Municipal Assn, who explain it well: “The House Finance Division II Committee offered significant amendments to HB 1583, relative to the per pupil cost of an opportunity for an adequate education, and  HB 1656, relative to adequate education grant amounts for pupils receiving special education services. Although NHMA typically does not take positions on education funding bills, these issues are of great relevance to cities and towns. Both bills are seeking to address recent court decisions that have been appealed by the state.” You’ll likely see news reports of these two bills before the House votes on them April 11.

Hearings on bills in the Senate week of April 1-5:

On Tuesday, April 2:

ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES, Room 103 in the State House, starting at 9 am, several bills about landfills and construction debris.

The NH Senate will meet in voting session on Thursday, April 4, beginning at 10 am.

SB 375, relative to biological sex in student athletics. Committee recommends OTPA, 3-2. Another “only girls may play on girls teams” bill.

SB 523 requires schools to adopt a procedure for parents/guardians to object to public school library materials. OTP-A 3-2.

SB342, relative to school building aid funding. Senate Finance Committee recommends Ought to Pass, Vote 5-2. This building aid program includes charter schools, which are public schools in NH though funded differently from your district schools.

Here’s an interesting bill: SB 366 “prohibits the purchase of real property by the People’s Republic of China on or within 10 miles of any military installations or critical infrastructure facilities.” Finance Committee recommends Ought to Pass, Vote 6-0.

Other bills coming out of Finance have 7-0 recommendations, so should go the way Finance recommends.

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Correction to report below about passage of the medication assisted death bill, HB1283. Turns out a motion to “reconsider” will be on the March 28 calendar. Article explaining why is here: https://indepthnh.org/2024/03/22/death-with-dignity-bill-vote-in-favor-will-be-re-considered-at-next-house-session/

Legislative alert for March 25-29, 2024 in the NH Legislature

Both the NH House and NH Senate met to vote on bills on Thursday, March 21. Here are some results of that day:

Sadly the House voted to “indefinitely postpone” a vote on the two campaign finance bills we highlighted last week, HB1074 and HB1147. That means they are dead for this year.

House members did approve HB1264 to direct the state to let municipalities use the “accessible voting systems” in town elections. These machines help visually impaired voters cast ballots independently.

On a vote of 173-163, the House narrowly passed  HB 1175, which would place the question of adopting the official ballot referendum form of town meeting (SB 2) on the paper ballot on election day rather at the in-person town meeting discussion session. [last week we argued this major change in town governance seems too important to pop up on the ballot without discussion]

They also voted to “indefinitely postpone” a vote on HB1650 in Education, a Democratic party sponsored bill about alternative credits for HS graduation.

Overwhelmingly the House also voted to “indefinitely postpone” HB1479, which the NH Municipal Assn had warned would be a gag order on town/school boards in legislative testimony.

Big news, because the vote crossed party lines conspicuously, is that HB1283, allowing the terminally ill access to medication to assist in their own dying, passed 179-176. It will move to the Senate for a hearing in April or May.

The House narrowly passed HB1205, which would ban trans-gender athletes from competing on girls’ teams (grades 5-12). Vote was 189-182. This bill will move on to the Senate next month.

In the Senate SB525 requiring school voucher recipients to qualify annually (to meet the low income threshold), it seems the bill is being held over until April 4.

Senators voted 19-4 across party lines in favor of the capital appropriation for the engineering/design work for a new men’s prison to replace the aged facility in Concord. Parts of that prison date to 1878 and can no longer be repaired.

NH House will meet in voting session on Thursday, March 28. Among the bills on the consent calendar with a unanimous Ought To Pass recommendation from the committee is this healthcare bill:

HB 1296, which “would expand an existing mandate and require fully-insured employer-sponsored health plans to cover diagnostic and supplemental breast examinations without cost sharing to the individual when such services are medically necessary and appropriate and are delivered by an in-network provider.” No need for action on this bill, but perhaps thank legislators after they pass it.

A bill overlapping election law and education is HB 1014, “The intent of this bipartisan bill is to require school districts and private high schools to adopt policies to promote student voter registration.” Disagreement is in the details, so there is an amendment also proposed. But the intent has the support of the entire Education committee. [League supports]

Also from Education, with committee split on recommendation, is HB 1084, establishing specific qualifications for the commissioner of education.

In Election Law, this bill comes with no recommendation because the committee split along party lines: HB 1596-FN, requiring a disclosure of deceptive artificial intelligence usage in political advertising. Bill would require AI generated ads have this disclaimer: “this [image, video, or audio] has been manipulated or generated by artificial intelligence technology and depicts speech or conduct that did not occur.”

[no matter what happens with this bill, the League’s lawsuit against the perpetrators of the faked Biden robocalls last January goes forward.]

Special Committee on Housing supports Ought to Pass on HB 1291, expanding accessory dwelling unit uses allowed by right from one unit to two. Vote of the committee was 8-2.

Same committee voted 9-1 Ought To Pass as Amended on HB 1399, allowing municipalities to permit 2 residential units in certain single-family residential zones.

To share your thoughts on the above House bills, call or email your own state representatives. Their emails and sometimes phone numbers can be found at this site: https://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/house/members/

House hearings coming up:

Tuesday, March 26 FINANCE will hear an important school funding bill amendment, #2024-1005h to HB 1583-FN-A, relative to the per pupil cost of an opportunity for an adequate education. This bill increases the base annual cost of providing an adequate education, establishes relief aid funding and fiscal disparity aid, and requires municipalities to remit excess SWEPT payments to the department of revenue administration. Share your “support” or “oppose” at this website: https://gencourt.state.nh.us/house/committees/remotetestimony/default.aspx

Light week in the Senate coming up. One bill of note being heard in committee is

CACR13, proposed constitutional amendment that passed the House 366-5 (no typo—nearly unanimous vote) to “prohibit slavery and involuntary servitude.” Hearing in Senate Executive Departments and Administration on Wed. March 27. If this passes in the Senate, it will appear on our November ballots for us to decide. You can comment on this bill online, before noon on March 27, at this link: https://gencourt.state.nh.us/remotecommittee/senate.aspx

Good news! If you missed the webinar on the 306 educational standards hosted by Reaching Higher NH, they recorded the one-hour event and you can watch at your leisure. Here’s the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QoA5yoQJTE

You’ll want to do this in advance of the April 3 public hearing on the first half of the proposed minimum standards, which will be held at Granite State College, 25 Hall St., Concord from 1 to 4 pm. Teachers, school administrators, parents of students, and others who care about public education in NH will want to attend to make their views known. Or “submit written commentary to Angela.Adams@doe.nh.gov. All submitted commentary is provided to the board.”

April 11 is tentatively set for a public hearing on the rest of the standards, which deal with the actual school programs. Eventually the state board of education will vote on the standards, then they move to the state legislature. But this is our chance to express our concerns!

Here’s where you can read the standards: https://reachinghighernh.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/initial-proposal-minimum-standards-for-public-school-approval-ed-306.pdf

League members care about helping first time voters navigate vote registration. Join Open Democracy and our friends from The Civics Center for our High School Voter Registration Volunteer Workshop this Tuesday, March 26th at 6pm. You’ll learn how to help improve New Hampshire’s youth voter under-representation. Share this with young people you know, who may be inspired to do something in their own schools. Sign up for the zoom link at https://www.opendemocracynh.org/hs_voter_reg_wkshp_20240326

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Legislative Alert for March 18-22, 2024

Disappointing day last Thursday in the NH House when all the election law bills we told you about were voted opposite our wishes. Drat. But thank you for your calls to your reps on those. That list includes HB1569, to eliminate all use of affidavits to prove voter eligibility when registering to vote. It passed 189-185. We’ll fight anew when the Senate Election Law Committee takes it up. A ray of hope: Governor Sununu thinks our present voter registration system is fine, and we hope he would not sign HB1569 if it comes to his desk. [note: contrary to some news reports, HB1569 is not solely about paperwork for proving voter ID for voting. It would also require documents to prove age, citizenship, and where you live when registering—those last two can be a challenge for some people to prove with documents].

The House also defeated two common sense bills about school vouchers: to set a budget limit on spending on vouchers and to require families to meet income eligibility requirements annually rather than just once when they join the program.

In such a closely divided (R-D) House, why did the votes go strongly one way? It depends on who shows up. At the start of last Thursday’s session, according to the Union Leader, there were 190 Republicans there and only 176 of the Democrats plus one Independent. A few came later…but where were the rest?

NH Senate will meet to vote on bills on Thursday, March 21, at 10 am. A long list of bills are on the “consent calendar” meaning the committee recommendations were unanimous and no debate is expected. But the following bills (among many others) will lead to floor debate, so if you wish to make your own views known, before Thursday contact your own state senator by phone or email.

Education bills:

SB 522, establishing an early childhood education scholarship account ([voucher program] and making an appropriation therefor. Committee recommended Ought to Pass with Amendment, Vote 3-2. [this is not the public quality pre-K education that many League members support]

SB 525, administration of the education freedom accounts program. Committee recommended Inexpedient to Legislate, Vote 3-1. This changes income eligibility and reporting requirements for the education freedom account program (so that families must apply and meet low income requirements annually) and modifies the program’s administration and oversight. [makes sense to us]

Election law bills:

SB 536, enabling no-excuse absentee registration and voting. Committee recommended Inexpedient to Legislate, Vote 3-2. [disappointing but not a surprise.]

Finance:

SB 476-FN, making a capital appropriation of $40 million for all the engineering & design etc. plans to the dept of corrections toward the replacement of the NH state prison for men. Committee recommended Ought to Pass, Vote 5-2. [the men’s prison in Concord is a very old building with serious maintenance issues. This is a first step toward a replacement facility.]

NH House will also meet Thursday in voting session. Again there are many bills on the Consent Calendar, which we won’t mention, except for HB 1691, relative to the definition of an adequate public education. This bill has unanimous consent to be “referred to interim study” meaning no action this year, possible study committee looking at it next fall. How is it possible that NH Legislature has not yet, 30 years after the Claremont cases decreed the state must fund an “adequate education,” still not defined “adequate”?

Also mentioning CACR 26 In Election Law, the proposed constitutional amendment requiring hand counting of all ballots is on Consent to be killed. Committee says “this bill was overly broad and unworkable as written.” Whew!

HB 1264-FN, accessible voting systems for voters with print/visual disabilities, which already exist and are used in our state elections. This bill directs they be available for town/school elections too. Recommended Ought To Pass unanimously by House Election Law Committee. Thank you!

On the regular House Calendar, meaning there will be floor debate and your own reps’ minds can be changed, are the following bills of particular concern. If you care about these bills, please email or phone your own state representatives before Thursday. You can find their contact info here: https://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/house/members/

Several bills in Election Law with no recommendation (meaning, the committee was split on this) League has strong Ought To Pass recommendations. Two of them are campaign finance reform measures we’ve mentioned before: HB1074 that applies to LLCs and keeps people from making multiple campaign donations from multiple single-owner LLCs to get around the campaign donation individual limits, and HB1174 that applies to labor unions as well as corporations. League supports Ought To Pass

HB 1175 would change the way a town can vote to become an SB2 town. In traditional town meeting towns, many very important decisions are made at the in-person meeting by attendees voting. This bill would allow the motion to become an SB2 town to be on the same ballot as electing the town clerk and selectboard. It’s too important to be done that way, this major change to how a town governs itself. The NH Municipal Assn and many other groups ask reps to vote against this bill. The bill comes without committee recommendation (meaning, the committee was split on this).

HB 1479, which the NHMA has warned about, is in effect a gag order on town officials, school personnel, and others to keep them from testifying on bills in the legislature. League of Women Voters would not be affected as we are all volunteers, receive no government funding. But we stand by the need for those who could be affected by legislation to have the opportunity to advocate for their organizations.

HB 1283 is the end of life medical assistance bill we mentioned earlier. It comes with a committee recommendation of 13-7 Ought To Pass as Amended. If you are torn about this bill, read the lengthy pro/con arguments on pp. 25-26 of this week’s House Calendar.

To see all the bills to be voted on Thursday, check the House Calendar for this week:

https://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/house/calendars_journals/

NH House committee hearings in the coming week: most are work sessions or executive sessions on bills already heard. Some are Senate bills that have already “crossed over” to the House.

Here’s one we care about: In House Election Law on Tuesday at 10 am:

SB489 (post-election audits) Please sign in online in support of the bill in advance of the hearing. Maybe next week there will be more to highlight in hearings.

NH Senate hearings in the coming week:

You can testify or observe in person, or sign in online to make your views known on these bills:

Tuesday, March 19, in Senate Judiciary:

SB593 prohibits carrying a firearm in a safe school zone. [exceptions for student pick-up, for example, if gun is secured in a locked case or rack]

HB 314 This is the amended “expectation of privacy” bill already passed by the House. One line reads “I.  An individual shall have a reasonable expectation of privacy in personal information, including content and usage, given to or held by third party providers of information and services, and not available to the public.  Unless specifically authorized by law, third party providers of information and services shall not disclose personal information of an individual to anyone unless: “ and then of course the various “unless” clauses follow. League has not been following this bill, but some of you are. Now is the time to influence the Senate Judiciary Committee by signing in or testifying.

Log in at this link to support or oppose the above bills (before Tuesday noon): https://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/remotecommittee/senate.aspx

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Legislative Alert for March 10-17, 2024

Apologies for this legislative alert being both short and late in getting to you. Personal reasons and busy town meeting schedule of candidate forums to blame. But here are some bills on which you may want to call or email your own representatives in advance of their busy NH House voting session on Thursday, March 14:

Education bills that come to the floor with no recommendation from committee because the vote in committee tied along party lines:

HB 1512-FN, limiting education freedom account funding to budgeted amounts. This is an attempt to put controls on the school voucher program by limiting it to a budgeted number. There is no limit now to the amount of taxpayer dollars diverted from public education to private school vouchers. 

HB 1594-FN, establishing an annual review to determine families’ eligibility to participate in the education freedom accounts program (school vouchers). The system now calls for qualifying (income level) once, and that guarantees eligibility for a family as long as their student is in school, no matter how their income might go up. The bill would require reapplication every year for participants, just like food stamp programs, rental assistance, or free and reduced price lunch.

Election Law bills:

HB1569, eliminating the use of affidavits in voter registration for those who may not have all necessary documents available and with them. Election Law committee split along party lines. This is League’s top priority bill to defeat this year! Please—call or email your own state reps and ask them to vote AGAINST HB1569 on Thursday! Please. If you need talking points, below is the statement from Rep. Heath Howard (D-Strafford) that appears in opposition to this bill in the House Calendar:

“Statement in support of Inexpedient to Legislate: This bill fundamentally changes the voter registration process in New Hampshire at the cost of preventing thousands of people from voting by eliminating the opportunity to execute an affidavit in lieu of photo identification. Under this bill, everybody who registers to vote will need to present a birth certificate, passport (which costs over a hundred dollars and takes 10-12 weeks to get), or naturalization papers. Based on data provided to the committee, if this law had been in effect in 2022, up to 3,000 New Hampshire voters may not have been able to register and vote. Now in 2024, that number will be much higher because of the Presidential election, meaning even more people could be disenfranchised. As of April 2022, the Attorney General’s office has not brought a single enforcement action for wrongful voting in the 2020 September and November Elections where more than one million votes were cast. This bill also expands the ability for voter challenges to disqualify people from voting without adequate safeguards or adequate due process. Any registered voter can challenge the eligibility of someone who is attempting to register on election day. The challenge is decided under the lowest burden of proof in the law–preponderance of the evidence–virtually guaranteeing that there will be people prevented from voting who are in fact eligible. Opponents of the bill feel that the legislation will encourage challenges and the remedy is inadequate in light of the denial of the right to vote by the person challenged. A similar Kansas law that required registrants to provide this proof of citizenship was struck down by the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals in 2020, and we can expect this law will meet the same fate. Opponents of the bill do not want to encourage more litigation – the last time a law was passed like this–SB 3–the State ended up paying over $4,000,000 in legal fees. Rep. Heath Howard”

CACR19, relating to redistricting. Proposed constitutional amendment creating an independent redistricting commission to draw boundaries for state and federal offices. Came out of committee with a tied (partisan) vote, so there is little chance of getting the required 3/5 vote in the House to move forward. We’ll try again another time. Still believe that Fair Maps are possible.

To find the name and email/phone of your town’s state representatives, go to this webpage: https://gencourt.state.nh.us/house/members/

To see other bills on which the House will vote on March 14, check the Calendar: https://gencourt.state.nh.us/house/calendars_journals/viewer.aspx?fileName=Calendars\2024\No10%20March%2008%202024.PDF

The Senate is starting to hold hearings on bills that have already passed the House, including one that League very much supports, the election information portal (meaning, a big step toward managing your own voter registration updates online,)

Tuesday, March 12, in Senate Election Law, at 9:40 am:

HB 463, establishment of an election information portal. Please, before noon on Tuesday, sign in online IN SUPPORT of HB463, at this link: https://gencourt.state.nh.us/remotecommittee/senate.aspx

Note date (March 12), Committee (Election Law & Municipal Affairs) and bill number (HB463-FN) and fill in the rest of the information, clicking “I support”

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Legislative alert for early March, 2024

The NH House and Senate will each meet in voting session on Thursday, March 7. You can use your influence with your own state reps and state senator by calling or emailing them on legislation that matters to you. Here’s where you can look up who they are, by town. https://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/house/members/

The complete lists of bills are in the Calendars, but we’ll highlight some bills coming up.

In the House (contact your reps on these) are these bills, see the Calendar for details:

Several proposed constitutional amendments (CACRs), most of which are not recommended by their committees. As they need a 3/5 vote to move on to the Senate, we’re not getting excited by them at this point.

None of our priority education or election law or reproductive rights bills are up for vote this week. We’re looking to March 14 for several priority bills, listed under the “hearings” section below.

Energy: This bill should generate lots of floor discussion, as the committee was split in its recommendation: HB 1623-FN, relative to the state energy policy. League has not followed this, but you may want to.

For electic car owners, you may have been following this bill: HB 1332-FN, prohibiting electric vehicles from parking in parking garages. Commited voted, MAJORITY: Ought To Pass. MINORITY: Inexpedient To Legislate

In the Senate (contact your own state senator) are only a few bills, all of them from the Judiciary Committee, one of which is SB 570-FN, reducing the severity from felony to a misdemeanor for first-offense controlled drug possession. Committee voted Inexpedient to Legislate by 3-2.

Another is SB 533, about meetings of public bodies such as school boards, planning board, etc: The bill enables public bodies to allow one or more members of the body to participate in a meeting by electronic means and still meet its quorum requirement.

Committee recommends Inexpedient to Legislate by 3-2 vote.

Senate Hearings coming up:

Tuesday, March 5, in Senate Election Law at 9:30, HB115 (already passed the House) a bill to change the date of the state primary from early September to 3^rd Tuesday in August. League takes no position.

House hearings coming up:

Monday, March 4: HOUSE EDUCATION, Room 205-207, LOB starting at 9 am

HB 1608 providing an induction program for new teachers.

HB 1605 alternative education programs for granting credit leading to graduation.

HB 1592, prohibiting the use of education freedom account funds [school vouchers] in religious schools.

HB 1084, creating more specific qualifications for the commissioner of education.

HB 1610, standardized assessment data for participants in the school vouchers program (the above bills have all Democratic sponsors)

More bills in Education on Tuesday as well.

Tuesday, March 5: HOUSE ELECTION LAW will hold executive session on several bills on our priority list, including HB1569, that would get rid of the affidavit option for people to register to vote if they don’t have every single paper document with them. We oppose this voter suppression bill. This will come up for a vote on March 14 in the House, so if you see your state reps at town meeting or wherever over the next two weeks, encourage them to vote against HB1569. It’s trying to solve a problem that doesn’t exist, and making voting registration much harder for some potential voters.

Also HB 1557, requiring the sec of state to enter into a membership agreement

with the Electronic Registration Information Center aka ERIC [which we see as a logical way to keep our voting rolls up to date and discourage fraudulent double voting. So encourage state reps to support this bill on March 14.]

Here’s another Executive Session of importance, copied from NH Municipal Assn. If you value your local officials’ ability to testify in the legislature…On Wednesday, March 6 at 10:00 a.m., the House Legislative Administration Committee will hold its executive session on HB 1479, the anti-lobbying bill that we covered in depth in Bulletin #6. … this bill would not only prohibit organizations like NHMA from representing their members, but it would also prohibit local officials (and many others, including nonprofits) from participating in the legislative process.

HOUSE FINANCE AND HOUSE WAYS & MEANS will be holding hearings over the next few weeks on the fiscal aspects of bills that have already passed the House. After the hearings and committee recommendations, the bills go back to the full House for another vote. Passage a second time is not guaranteed.

Now, for some things completely different…

Reminder of the big “Remembering Selma” event on Sunday, March 3, in Manchester. All invited. Details here: https://www.opendemocracynh.org/2024selma

The civil rights & voting rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, in March of 1965 came to be known as “bloody Sunday” and spurred Pres. Lyndon Johnson to pressure Congress to pass the Voting Rights Act, which they did by August 1965. For a fairly quick retelling of the events, Britannica.com has an article you may want to read.

School Funding Issues: This lengthy article by Garry Rayno of InDepth NH talks about the recent court demands for the state to increase per pupil adequacy aid. https://indepthnh.org/2024/02/20/state-told-to-pay-up-now-on-ed-funding/ The state, of course, wants to wait to change the funding formula until their appeal of the court’s decision. Nope, ya gotta pay up now, the judge says.

Protect Voting Rights
Follow this Legislative Toolkit from the NH Campaign For Voting Rights to stay up to date on bills that would impact elections this session.

Looking ahead a month:

Mark your calendars for a public hearing for the ED 306s (minimum standards for public school approval) at the State Board of Education on Wednesday April 3, from 1 PM to 3 PM, at Granite State College on Hall Street in Concord. The ED 306s will then go to the Joint Legislative Committee on Administrative Rules. Add your name to this action letter from Granite State Progress. Learn more about the ED 306 rules here.

On the federal level, we’re sharing this news and a request to call New Hampshire’s US Senators to support. Yesterday, the U.S. Senate introduced the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. The introduction of this bill moves America one step closer to realizing the promise of democracy by adapting the 1965 Voting Rights Act (VRA) to today’s challenges and restoring its ability to protect Americans’ right to vote.

We need your help to send a message to the Senate: they must swiftly pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and Freedom to Vote Act to protect our democracy! Send an email now>>

At least 11 states enacted 13 restrictive voting laws in 2023 alone and the trend is set to continue. We need national standards to ensure every voice is heard and every vote is counted. Join us in emailing your Senator today!

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Legislative alert #8, Feb. 20–March 1, 2024

First, a brief update on votes in the NH House and Senate this week:

NH Senate voted along party lines to kill two abortion rights bills, but did approve an amended bill to study access to medication abortions. Also along party lines they killed 3 firearms bills that would have closed a backgrounds check loophole, created a waiting period for gun purchase,s and created a kind of red-flag law.

The NH House by close votes killed the local school voucher bill and killed another bill to expand eligibility for school vouchers. They did approve the bill to increase the income cap for free & reduced price school meals, by 18 votes, and that bill now goes on to House Finance for another hearing. The bill to formalize statewide a process for public complaints about explicit books available in schools created heated debate but was eventually “postponed indefinitely” so we won’t see it again in 2024.

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Election Law Call to Action before Tuesday morning: Sign in “I oppose” on HB 1569 being heard on Tuesday morning, Feb. 20, in House Election Law Committee. Details of the bill are below. This is one of our priority bills for 2024 and must be defeated.Sign in at this link: https://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/house/committees/remotetestimony/default.aspx

After you press “submit” you can go on to express your opinion on two more bills, same date and committee:

We urge to press check “I support” on HB1557, which would have NH join the voter registry database called ERIC, creating cleaner voting rolls and catching out of state double voters. Also “I support” on CACR19, the proposed constitutional amendment to create an independent redistricting commission.

**More on HB1569: This really bad voter suppression bill would eliminate the use of affidavits for proving eligibility to register to vote. Of most concern in my opinion is proving citizenship. If a person does not have a passport—and let’s be real, many people can’t afford to travel internationally and never get a passport—how does a married woman, for example, prove citizenship? Birth certificate has a different last name. Does she have to present that with her marriage license to prove she’s one and the same? And where is that birth certificate and marriage license after all these years? Just for the record, a driver’s license does not prove citizenship. Other potential voters could also be affected: People who became naturalized citizens as minors did so under their family’s aegis. They may not have those papers. Young first time registrants may, like my grandson, text their moms from the polls and ask, “Do I have a birth certificate?” Well of course they do, but they don’t carry it around and mom and the certificate may be many miles away.

The fact is that most people now register on the day of the election, at the polling place. If they arrive without paper proof of each of the four qualifications—ID, age, citizenship, and where they live—they will be denied the right to register if this bill passes. Voter registration should not be a gauntlet! Affidavits are legally binding documents and have worked for NH registrants for years. This bill is still hunting for a problem to solve.

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NH Senate will meet in voting session on Wed., Feb. 21 at 1 pm. None of the League’s priority bills are up for a vote. But there is one amended bill that caught our attention. It’s worth reading the whole amendment. See p. 7 of the Senate Calendar. The amendment changes the entire language of SB 211 and mostly the bill merely requires public reporting of various school expenses. Here’s the beginning that grabbed me: “The United States spends far more on education per student than any other nation in the world except Luxembourg. At the same time, the United States lags behind other developed nations in teacher salaries, paying its teachers 75 percent of the salary of German teachers. The United States allocates a greater share of its education spending to non-teaching staff than any other country in the world—nearly double the average among developed nations of 15 percent.” The amendment goes on to explain where money goes in our schools. Fascinating data. This bill in in Senate Finance and the amended bill goes to the Senate floor with a 4-2 vote of Ought To Pass as Amended.

No priority bills are being heard in Senate committees this coming week. Mostly executive sessions.

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NH House will meet in voting session on Thursday, Feb. 22, starting at 9 pm. Any bills that need to go on to a second House committee, such as Finance, must be resolved by close of this day’s session. Fourteen pages of bills on the Consent Calendar; is that a record? Most of the bills send a topic for further study or recommend Inexpedient To Legislate (meaning kill the bill). Fewer are labeled Ought To Pass.

Bills on the Regular Calendar can expect floor debate. Note that you can read the committee’s pro-con statements in the House Calendar.

HB1633 would regulate and legalize sale and use of marijuana by those over 21. Bill has been years in the study/redrafting state, finally comes up for a vote with an Ought To Pass as Amended recommendation of the committee 17-3.

HB 1686 comes without recommendation from the Education Committee on whether or not the Statewide Property Tax (SWEPT) moneys raised in a town in excess of school expenditures can be retained or must be sent to the state education trust fund. Expect lots of discussion!

HB1426, to create an advisory independent redistricting commission, comes from a split Election Law committee (split is along party lines.) League supports this bill completely!

HB1322 sets a new minimum wage for NH workers.

HB1377 is the right to work bill. Both of these bills come from committee without recommendation (meaning the committee tied in its votes.)

To find the text of these or any bills, go to this webpage and type in the bill number, such as HB1234. Ignore any FN designation. https://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/bill_Status/quickSearch.aspx

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NH House committees will be meeting, mostly in executive session, which is public; you can observe or even watch from home on your computer at this link: https://www.youtube.com/@NHHouseofRepresentatives/featured

House Education Committee begins at 9:15 on Feb. 20 with exec session on some very high profile school voucher and other bills, continues on Wed, Feb. 21.

NH House Election Law will also meet on Feb. 20. In addition to the bills we highlighted for action, they will be hearing HB1264, to allow the state-owned “All4One” accessible voting systems to be used for municipal elections too. That bill is at 10:15.

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No legislative alert next week. We expect the week of Feb. 26-March 1 will be quiet at the state house. It’s NH school vacation week and the legislators take some well-earned time off from hearings too.

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Housing Study: The League’s study of housing in NH is moving along as we try to follow progress in the legislature and in communities. A webinar will be hosted by NH Business Review on Feb. 21 at 11 am that will help us all get up to speed. Consider registering for this online event: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_k3IqYn-jTSWkJllImBfKQQ#/registration

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Legislative alert #7 for Feb. 12-16, 2024

The NH House will meet in voting session after the Governor’s “state of the state” address at 1 pm on Thursday, Feb. 15. You should be able to watch the governor’s presentation live at this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnCVtpVzfyU

On the House “Consent Calendar” agenda are a large number of bills recommended “Refer to Interim Study” or “Inexpedient To Legislate” by their respective committees. In either case, these bills in the estimation of the House members are not ready to be taken out of the oven. So we’ll stop fussing about them.

On the House “Regular Calendar” are a number of bills likely to produce floor debate. Feel free to contact your own representative before Thursday to weigh in on these and others. They include:

HB1212 that would raise the income eligibity for free and reduced price school meals. Raising it would not get federal reimbursement, so some legislators are opposed. [ironic given the inclination of some to grant school vouchers to ever more familes, including those who are well-off.]

HB1652 is one of those school voucher bills, this time to be paid for by local property taxes and could be granted in addition to state vouchers. This tied in committee along party lines.

HB1667 opens up state vouchers to any family in a district where the public schools score in the bottom 25% of proficiency.

If you’re curious about the other bills to be voted on, check the NH House Calendar.

The NH Senate will meet in voting session on Thursday, Feb. 15 at 10 am, finishing in time for the Governor’s address to both bodies at 1 pm.

On the Senate’s “Consent Calendar” almost all the bills are recommended “Ought To Pass.” [opposite of the House. Verrrry interesting, as Artie Johnson used to say.]

On the Senate “Regular Calendar” first up is the proposed constitutional amendment: CACR24 providing that “all persons have the right to make their own reproductive decisions.” It comes from committee with a 3-2 party-line recommendation to kill the bill.

Soon after is SB567 with an Ought To Pass as Amended bi-partisan recommendation. This bill as amended merely creates a committee to study access to reproductive medications, including the abortion drug mifepristone. The original bill guaranteed the right to reproductive medications.

That’s followed by SB575, SB577, and SB579 all dealing with either firearms or abortion rights and all recommend Inexpedient to Legislate.

See other bills up for a vote in the Senate Calendar.

*Reminder, if you wish to email or phone your own senator or representative on any of the bills they’ll vote on Thursday, you can find their names and emails, maybe even phone numbers, on this legislative webpage: https://gencourt.state.nh.us/house/members/

NH House committee hearings coming up include…

Mon., Feb. 12, in House Education, several bills seeking to increase control over school voucher expenditures (HB1594 and HB1512.)

Tues., Feb. 13 in House Election Law, a proposed constitutional amendment CACR26 on election protocols, with only one sponsor. Complicated. The other bills being heard that day in Election are also mostly technical bills. At 3 pm they shift to executive session on bills we’ve mentioned earlier. See the whole list on pages 22 and 23 of the House Calendar.

Friday, Feb. 16, in House Special Committee on Housing, a number of bills being heard. List is on page 26 of the House Calendar.

Here’s the link to sign in supporting or opposing any House bills being heard: https://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/house/committees/remotetestimony/default.aspx

You’ll need the date of the hearing, the committee name, and the bill number.

NH Senate committee hearings include:

Tuesday, Feb. 13, at 9:30 in LOB103, SB536 allowing “no excuse” absentee voting.” [League supports the ability of adults to decide whether in-person or absentee is how they want to vote. This bill seems to have only Democratic sponsors. To express your views, sign in online at this link: https://gencourt.state.nh.us/remotecommittee/senate.aspx

What happened with key bills voted on Feb. 8? The ones that made the news are mostly the school voucher bills. The most extreme, HB1634, would have removed all income eligibility rules for families to get vouchers for private schools and home schooling. That bill lost by only 8 votes.

HB1561, creating 9 new categories of eligibility, lost by 12 votes.

HB1665, which raises the income cap to 500% of poverty level (that would be $156,000 for a family of 4), squeaked by with one vote, 190-189. Normally it would now go to House Finance for a hearing and then another House vote, because the cost estimate is an extra $66 million per year. But in an odd move it will go directly to the Senate and be assigned a hearing date. We’ll let you know when.

From NH Municipal Assn comes this update: “On Thursday, the House reconsidered its prior vote on HB 1002, the local option Right-to-Know Law bill supported by NHMA. Although the House passed the bill last week by a 14-vote margin, the reconsideration motion passed by a 12-vote margin this week – and a supermajority of House members agreed to send it back to the House Judiciary Committee for further work.” This bill allows and caps the fees that municipalities can charge for large & labor-intensive Right To Know requests.

The NH Senate passed SB380 to change the state primary date from early September to early June. This would not take effect until the 2026 election. It will move on to the House for another hearing this spring.

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Legislative alert #6, early Feb. 2024.

The NH House Education Committee held executive session on 47 bills this week, several of which have large fiscal implications if they are enacted. The committee’s 20 members are evenly split between Republicans and Democrats, and the outcome of their executive session votes reflect that. This article by Ethan Dewitt of the NH Bulletin gives the details of the school voucher bills. The bill that would eliminate any income qualification would, according to Reaching Higher NH research, “result in the program costing $104 million per year, using existing home school and private school enrollment figures. That price tag could decrease if not all eligible families participate.” https://newhampshirebulletin.com/2024/01/31/house-republicans-recommend-extending-education-freedom-accounts-to-all/?emci=98a84f41-72c0-ee11-b660-002248223197&emdi=fbbf9c7d-f9c0-ee11-b660-002248223197&ceid=149126 These voucher bills will come up for a vote in the full House on Feb. 8, then will need to go to House Finance for another hearing.

*    What happened in the Legislature this week:

League testified on Tuesday in favor of HB1426, a bill to create an advisory independent redistricting commission. NH will next draw maps for our county/state/and congressional districts after the 2030 census; it would be wonderful if the people doing that work were a non-partisan (or at least bi-partisan) group who are not sitting legislators with their own re-election interests. And doing this work with public input and in the public eye would also be wonderful. With fingers crossed for luck…

Thursday Feb 1 the NH House met to vote on bills. Here are the results of some. Only those bills that get voted Ought To Pass will move on to the Senate for further hearings and votes.

CACR23 is a proposed constitutional amendment making the right to have an abortion a constitutional right until 24 weeks gestation. Needed a 3/5 vote; received only 193 in support, 184 opposed, so this CACR is dead for this year. Legislators speaking on both sides mentioned that this protection of the right to an abortion is currently in statute in state law.

HB1248 is effectively a ban on abortion (specifies after 15 days gestation). It was “indefinitely postponed” by a vote of 363-11. (There was no floor debate. This bill had been recommended Inexpedient To Legislate by the Judiciary committee 19-1, with a statement that this was an “extreme” bill. Why did the legislature not simply vote ITL and kill it? Don’t know. “Indefinite postponement” means we won’t see it again in 2025.)

HB1541 was on the Consent Calendar as Inexpedient to Legislate and was killed on a voice vote. This would have applied to pregnancies after 15 weeks and its regulations would have effectively made it very hard to get an abortion.

CACR 13 banning slavery and involuntary servitude is another proposed constitutional amendment. Amended language was debated on the floor, exactly 159 years after the day the matching federal amendment (13^th) was debated in Congress. The amended language failed, Then legislators voted on the Ought To Pass committee recommendation (which was 20-0). Bill passed 366-5 and will move on to the Senate for another hearing and vote. If it passes in the Senate it will be on the November ballot for voters to decide.

*        NH Senate will meet in voting session on Feb. 8. Here are some of the bills they’ll consider, in addition to a long list on the Consent Calendar that will likely be handled without debate. Contact your own state senator to voice your support or opposition to any of these bills you consider important:

Election Law bills:

SB 380, moves the state primary date from September to early June. Committee recommends Ought to Pass, Vote 3-1 [League is neutral about when primaries are held.]

SB 445, establishing a voter-owned elections fund for eligible candidates to Executive Council and

making an appropriation to the fund. Committee recommends Inexpedient to Legislate, Vote 3-1 [League supports this bill as one step in election finance reform]

SB 535, simplifying the absentee ballot application forms regarding voting absentee the day before an election (in person, at your town clerk’s office) when a winter storm warning has been issued for election day. [League testified in support and encourages passing this common sense bill.] Committee recommends Ought to Pass, Vote 2-1.

•     * NH House will meet in voting session on Feb. 8. Contact your own state representatives, identify yourself as a constituent, and urge them to support bills you care about. You can find your state reps and state senator at this page of the gencourt website: Discover a town or city’s Representative.

House Education Committee split along party lines on three bills that would increase which families are eligible for the school vouchers program. They go to the floor “without recommendation.” For details see the NHBulletin article linked at the start of this alert. Most serious is HB1634 which would create universal eligibility for the Education Freedom Accounts vouchers. The others are HB1561 and HB1665.

You can see the complete House Calendar at this link.

** Committee hearings for the week of Feb. 5-9. If you’d like to voice your support or opposition to any of these bills, you may so online at this link. Be sure you know the date of the hearing, the committee, and the bill number. You may not post support or opposition for executive sessions.

Tuesday, Feb. 6, in LOB rm 306 House Election Law committee will hear these bills:

10:00 am. HB 1074, campaign contributions by limited liability companies [League has testified in support of similar bills. This would require donations from LLCs to be credited to the individuals who own the LLCs, and thus hold everyone to the same standard of allowable campaign deductions.]

10:30 am. HB 1119, simplifying absentee ballot application form for use on the day before an election when there is a winter storm warning. [League supports]

11:00 am. HB 1133, enabling UOCAVA voters to email back completed ballots [overseas voters, including those serving in war zones where mail may not be available.]

1:00 pm. HB 1369, verification of voter rolls every 4 years (currently this is done every 10 years, the required “purge” from a town’s voting rolls of anyone who didn’t vote in the last 10 years. Keeps the lists more accurate, but if reduced to 4 years might take a registered voter off the list if they missed an election and typically vote only in presidential elections.)

1:30 pm. HB 1442-FN, This bill creates a new criterion for voter fraud that may scare off people from serving at the polls. Any election officer may be charged with fraud if they knowingly or unknowingly “performs as an election officer in any election and violates any election law”

penalties for failure of election officers to adhere to election law.

2:00 pm. HB 1596-FN, requiring a disclosure of deceptive artificial intelligence usage in political advertising.

3:15 pm. Executive session on HB 1426, establishing an advisory redistricting commission [which League strongly supports]

Wed., Feb. 7. House Education Committee will hold executive session on another big batch of bills, including one LWVNH supports, ,HB1014 which requires that information about how to register to vote be part of the school curriculum and assistance be given to students in registering. Could include voter registration drives at the high schools. No grade or credit may be awarded for actually registering.

Wed. Feb. 7 House Judiciary in LOB Room 210-211

10:00 am. HB 1283-FN, procedure for an individual with terminal illness to receive medical assistance in dying through the self administration of medication

Wed., Feb. 7 House Legislative Administrative Committee in Room 203, LOB

11:00 am. HB 1479-FN, relative to prohibiting the use of federal, state, or local funds for lobbying activities. NH Municipal Assn alerted town and school board officials to this bill that would essentially crush their ability to testify on legislation that impacts their communities. If you are an elected or appointed local official, read and consider the impact of this bill.

***

The NH House will meet in voting session on Thursday, Feb. 1. Among the bills they will vote on are several of broad interest or League priority, which we mention below. You can make your voice heard by emailing or phoning your own state rep in advance of the vote. Identify yourself as a constituent (say which town you live in) and tell your representative(s) how you would like to see them vote. Give a brief reason; you might even get an answer!

To find your state rep’s email and maybe their phone number, go to the House roster, use the “select a town” pull down menu, and then click on each rep’s name to get a bit of bio (maybe) and their official email. You should be able to click on the email and compose your short plea. Use the bill number and mention the content; they have a long list of bills to consider.

Don’t be surprised if you see two House districts listed for your town. You may be part of a floterial district as well as a base district. Contact all your reps.

Procedural lesson for the day. Skip this part if you already know this:

The bills being heard come with recommendations from the House committees that heard the bills over the past few weeks. Those recommendations are often abbeviated thus:

OTP = Ought To Pass

OTP-A = Ought To Pass as Amended. The committee tinkered with the language and now likes it better.

ITL = Inexpedient To Legislate which is a super-polite way of saying “kill the bill.” In this case, a rep’s yes vote would be to kill the bill.

Interim Study = we don’t want to kill the bill, but it’s not ready to be passed.

There will also be bills with no recommendations because the committee was split. Prepare for a floor fight on voting day.

Bills with unanimous committee agreement go on the Consent Calendar. These bills get passed with a single vote by the body…unless someone pulls the bill off Consent for floor debate. In this alert, we will not list any bills on the Consent Calendar

All other bills are on the Regular Calendar beginning on page 12.

Here are some important bills on this week’s Regular Calendar, on which the House will vote Feb. 1. Anything in italics is a League comment; anything in quotation marks comes from the pro-con statements printed in the Calendar and authorized by the House committee.

Proposed constitutional amendment CACR 23, providing that all persons shall have the right to abortion prior to 24 weeks. WITHOUT RECOMMENDATION [that is, the committee vote was tied. This bill needs a 3/5 vote in the House to move on to the Senate]

HB1248, a ban on abortions after 15 days of gestation, [which the committee regarded as extreme and voted 19 to 1 Inexpedient To Legislate]

CACR 13, providing that slavery and involuntary servitude shall be prohibited in the state of New Hampshire. OUGHT TO PASS., by a vote of 20-0. [Normally that unanimous vote would put this bill on the Consent Calendar; someone must be pushing for discussion.] “Slavery and involuntary servitude are morally repugnant and a stain on our nation’s history. Ensuring that the state and its businesses do not economically benefit from incarceration is in line with our commitment to advancing freedom and justice for all. Concerns about the possible impact of this measure on Department of Corrections (DOC) policies were alleviated by a supportive letter from DOC Commissioner Helen Hanks.” [Note: this is a proposed constitutional amendment, needs a 3/5 vote to move on to the senate.]

Committees holding hearings Jan. 29-Feb 2 plus 2 bills of broad interest later in February:

Tuesday, Jan. 30:

House Education will hold executive session on 40 or more bills that have already been heard, continuing on Wed., Jan. 31.

Senate Education, at 9:15 (may start later) in LOB 101, SB523 “This bill prohibits material that is obscene or harmful to minors in schools, requires vendors of school library materials to develop appropriate ratings, and creates a procedure for removal and cause of action.”

House Election Law committee will hear several bills, of which League urges your support for HB1426 to create an advisory independent redistricting commission. Please sign in “I support” preferably by noon on Tuesday. Thank you!

Senate Election Law, 9 am in LOB room 103: SB535 cleans up language on the absentee ballot application regarding voting early when a “winter storm warning” is issued for election. The law allowing this was passed a few years ago after two consecutive years of March town elections taking place during blizzards. League supports this language clarification.

House Municipal and County Govt: Attention Belknap county residents: 1:30 pm in Legislative Office Building room 301-303: HB 1414-FN, changes oversight of the Gunstock Area Commission and ski resort.

Wednesday, Jan. 31:

House Judiciary beginning at 9 am, LOB room 206, will hear the proposed constitutional amendment that changes the word “cherish” in the NH constitution from its 1784 meaning to its 2024 meaning. [This is all about the state’s obligation – think $$$) re public education.]

Friday, Feb 2:

House Criminal Justice and Public Safety, in LOB 202 starting at 9:30, will hear several firearms related bills, including one we alerted you to last week: HB1711 [which seems, at least in part, to be a “red flag” gun bill.]

Wednesday, Feb. 7

House Judiciary at 10 am in LOB 210. HB1283 allowing medical assistance in dying for terminally ill people. [bi-partisan sponsors]

Friday, Feb. 16

House Special Committee on Housing will hear a number of bills on housing in NH. LOB room 302 starting at 9 am. See the list on page 27 of the House Calendar.

***

Legislative alert #4 Jan. 22-26 plus early Feb. previews, 2024

See the second column of this alert for some upcoming events.

Tuesday, Jan. 23 is the Presidential Primary. Visit the LWVNH.org website for information about voter registration, voting, absentee ballots, and specific information about the primary.

All registered voters in NH may vote in this primary: Democrats vote the Democratic ballot, Republicans vote the Republican ballot, and “undeclared” voters may choose a party’s ballot at the voter check-in table. All ballots will be counted; write-in ballots will be hand-counted. Results may take longer than usual, but all will be done by the next day…and then NH goes back to normal and the press and candidates move on.

NH Legislature –

The NH House will meet in voting sessions on Feb. 1, 8, and 15. List of bills to be voted on will be posted next week. That means some committees are having work sessions and executive sessions on bills in the coming weeks. We remind you that those committee meetings are public, and the public may attend (but not speak) and may watch online.

Your government at work should hear from you. – For any of the House bill hearings listed below and the more extensive list in the House Calendar, you may express your “support” or “oppose” views online at this link: https://gencourt.state.nh.us/house/committees/remotetestimony/default.aspx

House committees hearing bills in the coming weeks include these of interest:

House Education, Monday Jan. 22, 10:15 am

HB1652 This bill allows school districts to adopt a program for local education freedom accounts [school vouchers] for a parent of an eligible student to receive a grant from a scholarship organization for qualifying educational expenses at a public school, chartered public school, nonpublic school, or program approved by the department of education. … The local education freedom account shall be funded by the local district at an original amount equal to twice the per pupil adequate education grant amount under RSA 198:40-a, plus any differentiated aid that would have been provided to a public school for that eligible student. The scholarship amount shall be recalculated annually. …

[this would be a locally funded program in addition to the current state school voucher program. Local public tax money would go to private schools or home schooling expenses. Similar bill last year was killed. This bill has only one sponsor. ]

HB1691. This bill alters the definition of an “adequate education” that must be funded. [Odd that 6 Republican legislators are taking this upon themselves . We’ve had bi-partisan study commissions working on this over the years; should this small group define the concept for us?]

House Election Law, Tuesday, Jan. 30 2 pm

HB1426 advisory independent redistricting commission. [Please support. In this proposal the commission would be made of retired judges, to avoid partisan bias in who serves. And it is an advisory commission only; the power to determine the 2030 redistricting maps still lies with the legislature. An advisory commission increases public transparency and involvement. League supports, and we hope this can be one step in making the 2030 redistricting less prone to partisan bias.]

House Criminal Justice, Friday Feb 2 11:30 am

HB 1711-FN, authorizing the state to report mental health data for firearms background check purposes and providing for processes for confiscation of firearms following certain mental health-related court proceedings and for relief from mental health-related firearms disabilities. [sounds like a red-flag law for firearms.]

House Judiciary, Wed. Feb 7 10 am

HB1283 “This bill establishes a procedure for an individual with a terminal illness to receive medical assistance in dying through the self administration of medication. …establishes criteria for the prescription of such medication and establishes reporting requirements and penalties for misuse or noncompliance.”

House Special Committee on Housing, Friday Feb. 16, starting at 6 pm

Seven bills about housing will be heard. [We hope that members intrigued by our state League study of housing issues in NH will at least watch these hearings on the gencourt website, or consider signing in on bills you care about.]

***

Legislative alert #2  for Jan. 8-18, 2024

Coming up soon in the NH Legislature are committee hearings for several bills of interest to League members and friends. You can submit testimony or at least say you “support” or “oppose” any particular bill just by going to the legislature’s website. Let’s use a good bill that the League supports to show you how it’s done:

HB1014 “requires school districts and private high schools to develop programs to inform high school students about registering to vote.” It suggest schools could have voter registration drives but does not require that, nor does it make this a graded activity. It asks that schools make information known to students so they can register when they are of age. We all know that studying civics is important, but this is a way to make civics come alive personally for young potential voters and encourage 18 years olds to register. If you agree that the legislature should pass this bill, which has bi-partisan support, here’s how you can weigh in, preferably before the House Education committee hears the bill on Monday Jan. 8. It’s easy; hope you’ll try it.

A wonderful pdf giving all the directions was created by the NH House in 2022 and it is still available. If you’ve never signed in before, you might want to have that handy while you sign in on HB1014, to get you used to the process. Here’s the link to the pdf. It’s on the legislature website too.

But if you’ve done this a time or two before, here is where you start for a specific bill.

On the gencourt.state.nh.us homepage, navigate to the grayish box that is called MEETING RESOURCES. Click on the first item for House committee testimony, or just click the link below: https://gencourt.state.nh.us/house/committees/remotetestimony/default.aspx

Step 1: Fill in the personal data (yes, it’s required, and becomes part of the public record on the bill.)

Step 2: Click on the date of the hearing: in this case, Jan. 8.

Step 3 you click on the committee, here it’s House Education.

Below that you click on the number of the bill: HB1014. [HB simply means this new bill originated in the House. Senate bills are called SB… The bills keep their numbers later in the year if they have passed the first body and go on to the second for another hearing.]

Below that you select who you are. Most likely like me you’ll choose “A member of the public.”

The next line comes up saying “I’m representing myself.” Leave it if that is correct, but if you’re been asked to represent an organization, you would type in the name of the org.

Now you get to weigh in: click on the circle that says “I support this bill”. Ignore the part about non-germane amendment. Don’t click that.

Now you’re onto step 4. If you have a short statement in support of this high school voter registration education bill, you can type it in the big box. Or you can leave it blank. If you have extensive testimony, though, it’s better to type it out, make a pdf, and submit it that way. If, for example, you’re a former high school civics teacher and want to relate something about how you were already doing this in 1996 in your school.

Almost done. Step 5 is to click the Submit button. Unfortunately your completed form will pop up again, as though it didn’t work. But if you click the submit button one more time, you’ll be told you already testified on this bill. So yes, it did work and your support for HB1014 is now on the record! Thank you.

Okay, with that under your belt, let’s see if there are other bills you want to support or oppose. Here are some House bills:

HB1636: Jan. 9 in House Commerce and Consumer Affairs Committee: Creating a deposit, refund, recycling beverage container program in NH. Not a League issue, but caught my attention. I don’t know if this stands a chance in our Live Free or Die state, but I for one am sick of how many cans and bottles I pick up when I go for a walk in my neighborhood. If the deposit were $5, it might have an effect.

CACR18, Jan. 10 in House Ways and Mean, providing that churches shall not be exempt from property taxes. CACRs are proposed constitutional amendments, need a super majority to pass the House and Senate before they appear on our ballots in November. Most don’t get there. At some point our legislative alert will tell you about the 14 CACRs proposed for this session.

Education Funding bills: Wednesday Jan. 9 starting at 9 am there will be a number of bills about education funding heard in House Education Committee, Room 205-207 in the Legislative Office Building. See the Calendar for details. The committee will hold a work session on the bills on Jan 11 starting at 10 am (no testimony is taken at work sessions)

Abortion regulations: Wednesday, Jan. 10 in the big room (Reps Hall in the State House, so expect a crowd) House Judiciary Committee will hear three bills about abortion: CACR23 protecting the right to an abortion up to 24 weeks; HB1248 prohibits abortion after 15 days of gestation; and HB1541 prohibits abortion after viability or 15 weeks.

The House Education Committee will be busy, meeting twice a week for the next several weeks. Check the Committee’s website to see the full list of bills they’ll be working on so you can plan your testimony.

The NH Senate committees will also be holding hearings. Here are a few of interest to League:

Random ballot audits: Tuesday Jan 9 Senate Election Law will hear a bill supported by League, to have random audits of ballots as a way of supporting voters’ confidence in our election system. Please sign in “I Support” on SB489. This bill is an improved version of a bill from last year.

Firearms and violence prevention: Tuesday Jan. 9 in State House room 100, four bills concerning guns, starting at 1 pm: SB322 gun licensing change; ,SB421; SB577 waiting period; SB571 background checks for commercial gun sales.

Campaign finances: Tuesday, Jan. 16, 9:45 am in Senate Election law in LOB room 103, a “voter owned elections” bill supported by League and Open Democracy. SB 445 League has long supported campaign finance reform; this bill is one step in that direction. We support.

In Senate Finance, on Jan. 23, 1:45 in State House 103: SB493 establishes the municipal emergency disaster relief loan fund in the division of homeland security and emergency management to aid municipalities in a natural disaster.

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Legislative Alert #1, early January 2024

This is the first of the weekly “Legislative Alerts” that League of Women Voters NH will send to members and other interested people. Our focus is on the NH Legislature. We will alert you to upcoming hearings on bills of particular interest to League (including election law, education, and housing) and some bills of broad public interest (such as gun violence prevention and reproductive rights). When League has a position on a bill, we will so indicate in italics after the description of the bill.

Next week we will describe how voters can comment on bills online. We list the date, committee, and bill number so that you can attend a hearing in person and testify, if you wish.

Before we get to the list of bills and hearings for Jan. 4-9, here is an opportunity for anyone who wants to learn more about testifying: Thursday, Jan. 4, 7 pm via zoom, a program hosted by Open Democracy and League of Women Voters NH on “giving testimony. How to have your voice heard on bills that impact you.” For more info and to sign up for the zoom link, go to this website: https://www.opendemocracynh.org/testimony_workshop

For those of you more interested in federal legislation, here is a website that was recommended by a League member: National Write Your Congressman  https://nwyc.com/frontpage

For a well-researched preview of housing bills in 2024, read this article in the NHBulletin: https://newhampshirebulletin.com/2023/12/21/a-deep-need-lawmakers-propose-slew-of-2024-bills-to-address-housing-shortages/

For information about school voucher bills to be heard in 2024, see this excellent synopsis by InDepth NH’s Garry Rayno: https://indepthnh.org/2023/12/23/changes-proposed-for-education-freedom-account-program/

NH House will be in session on Jan. 3 & 4 starting at 9:00 AM. You can watch the proceedings here. They will be voting on bills retained from 2023. To see the complete list, you can access the Dec. 15 House Calendar at this link: https://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/house/calendars_journals/viewer.aspx?fileName=Calendars\2023\No%2049%20December%2015%202023.PDF

Bills to be acted upon by the House, dealing with elections, include these:

ELECTION LAW
HB 115, changing the date of the state primary election to the 3rd Tuesday in August. Committee recommended Ought to Pass as Amended by a vote of 13-7. (currently the state primary is in early Sept.) League takes no position.
HB 345-FN, enabling ranked-choice voting for state party primary elections and municipal elections. This would allow towns and parties to adopt ranked choice voting, if they wish. Committee recommends killings this bill by a vote of 12-8. Seems to League that this would be a good way to test out something that might be better than our current system of having a minority of voters decide the winners. We’re disappointed it’s being killed.
HB 350, proposes Ranked Choice Voting for federal and state elections. Committee recommends killing this bill by a vote of 14-6. The text explains clearly how ranked choice voting would work.
HB 447-FN, relative to the purchase of election equipment. Committee recommended Ought to Pass as Amended by a vote of 19-1. This bill allocates federal Help America Vote Act (HAVA) funds to towns for the purchase of new voting equipment (for most towns, this would be ballot counting machines to replace old ones, could also be used for electronic poll books).
HB 463-FN, relative to the establishment of an election information portal. Committee recommended Ought to Pass as Amended by a vote of 16-4. This bill, as amended, directs the Secretary of State to develop, in consultation with the city and town clerks and supervisors of the checklist, an online election law portal, which will make voter registration and registration changes (for those who move to another town, for example) easier for citizens, especially those with disabilities and active-duty members of the armed forces. It also would allow voters to request an absentee ballot online. League has been cheering for this bill for nearly 4 years, and we’re delighted it has garnered bi-partisan support this year! Yay!

EDUCATION BILL IN FINANCE COMMITTEE:

HB 620-FN, stablishing a division of early learning in the department of education and relative to a pre-kindergarten pilot program. Finance committee recommended killing this bill just barely, by a vote of 13-12.  League has studied the value of early childhood education, found that experts point to a later decrease in the need for special education when children get quality pre-K education. A division in the Dept of Education that would do more work on this makes sense.

NH Senate will also be in session on Wednesday, January 3, starting at 9:30 AM to take up bills retained from 2023. You can watch the session here. List of bills is in the Senate calendar (not as many as in the House): https://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/senate/calendars_journals/viewer.aspx?fileName=Calendars\2023\No%2049%20December%2021%202023.PDF

EDUCATION

SB 214-FN-A, establishing a department of early childhood education and relative to a pre-kindergarten pilot program. Committee voted unanimously to study this topic more. League thinks that’s a good first step.

Committee Hearings on 2024 bills begin in the Senate on Thurs., Jan. 4, including hearings for these bills:

EDUCATION, Room 101, Legislative Offcie Building

9:40 AM SB 442-FN, expanding student eligibility for education freedom accounts (school vouchers) to any students who applied for a public school transfer but were denied.
10:00 AM SB 522-FN-A, establishing an early childhood education scholarship account and making an appropriation therefor. While League believes in the value of early childhood education, this does not create public pre-K schools but rather channels tax dollars to private schools that may or may not meet criteria a public program would.

JUDICIARY, Room 100, State House
1:00 PM CACR 24, proposed constitutional amendment that all persons have the right to make their own reproductive decisions.
1:30 PM SB 575-FN, relative to legal protection for legal NH abortion and contraception care. [this bills protects the privacy of individuals getting and providing reproductive care, it seems.]
1:45 PM SB 461, repealing a construction provision of the fetal life protection act. [tweaks language from an abortion-related bill of last year]
2:00 PM SB 567-FN, protecting and expanding access to abortion medications. “This bill directs the department of health and human services to protect and expand access to critical medications for reproductive health that are approved by the Food and Drug Administration. “

Tuesday Jan. 9:

JUDICIARY, Room 100, State House (firearms related bills)

1:00 p.m. SB 322, relative to licenses to carry.

1:20 p.m. SB 421-FN, relative to felony criminal threatening.

1:35 p.m. SB 577-FN, imposing a waiting period between the purchase and delivery

of a firearm.

2:00 p.m. SB 571-FN, requiring a background check prior to any commercial firearm sale.

***

UPDATE Nov.30,2023  NH Supreme Court ruling on gerrymandered  NH Senate and Executive Council maps.  Read details  here.

Our top priority for the first half of 2022 was Redistricting–happens only once every 10 years. See details below, arranged with newest status at top.  Fall 2022 elections used the new district maps. They can be viewed on the Sec. of State’s website, as graphics and as lists of towns. https://www.sos.nh.gov/elections/running-for-office/voting-districts

Late June 2023: The lawsuit involving the Dover state reps seat, which alleges violation of state law about redistricting, will move forward, the judge ruled. Date of the trial has not yet been set.

Post-election November 2022.  Did redistricting have an effect on the November election in NH? Yes! For a clear explanation, read the article by the Concord Monitor’s own Granite Geek, David Brooks. Click here for article.

UPDATE: May 27, 2022. Governor Sununu yesterday tweeted that he will veto the most recent congressional redistricting map that passed earlier in the day along party lines in the Senate. In the House 10 Republicans voted against the map that would have moved Manchester into District 2 (along with Nashua and Concord, our three largest cities) and created a safe Democrat District 2, while creating a strongly Republican leaning District 1 that turned its back on north country towns previously included in District 1. Partisan gerrymandering classically displayed.

You, the voters, made the difference here. You’ve been testifying, sending cards and calls to the Governor, contacting your own reps/senators, writing Letters to the Editor, and participating in the Mapathon project—all in favor of Fair Maps. Legislators listened and then too many ignored us. But the Governor, thanks to you holding his feet to the fire to keep his promise to veto maps that “don’t pass the smell test” for gerrymandering, is holding firm in vetoing gerrymandered congressional maps. (He wasn’t so consistent with the Senate and the Executive Council maps, unfortunately, and we’ll have to live with those for 10 years…another story and work ahead of us to make sure all voters have their voices heard.)

So what happens now with the congressional map? The NH Supreme Court, in response to a suit filed a month ago, steps in because the Legislature and the Governor are deadlocked. The court has appointed a “special master” from outside the state, a man with proven experience in this work (I checked him out by calling LWV leaders in other states where he has done the same thing), to create a “least changed” congressional map that meets the equal representation requirement in terms of population in each district. The special master’s map has just been released. It moves only 5 towns from District 1 as we have known it for the past 10 years to District 2, creating two districts that differ in population by only one person (using the 2020 census figures.) Those 5 towns that will now be part of District 2 are Jackson, Albany, Campton, Sandwich, and New Hampton. You can see the map on pages 18 and 19 of this court document: https://www.courts.nh.gov/sites/g/files/ehbemt471/files/documents/2022-05/052722norellivsos-plan.pdf

May 17, 2022:  Legislative committee of conference on redistricting approved yet another congressional map, with partisan lean in both districts. Read about it here: https://newhampshirebulletin.com/briefs/new-hampshire-lawmakers-work-on-a-new-congressional-district-map/

May 2022: CALLS TO ACTION: Three REDISTRICTING maps will head to Governor Sununu’s desk fairly soon. The Senate map and the Executive Council map have been drawn to give significant advantage to the majority party. That’s called partisan gerrymandering. Call or email the Governor and remind him of his promise to veto gerrymandered maps. NH can do better!

ELECTION LAW: We’re fighting the provisional ballots bill, SB418. Unless the Legislature changes the date of the primary before 2024, New Hampshire voters living abroad and military serving overseas may not get their general election ballots in time to cast their votes. That’s not right! And with provisional ballots, the results on election night are just “sort of” accurate. But the threat to the voter’s privacy, if they fail to return paperwork associated with the provisional ballot, is also a major flaw with SB418. The marked ballot will be opened and counted in public so that their votes can be deducted from the earlier totals. Marking ballots to identify them is unconstitutional, one more issue with this bill.

Phone the Governor at 603 271 2121

Email the Governor via this webform: https://new-hampshire.secure.force.com/support/GOV_Opinion

Send an actual letter: Governor Sununu, State House, North Main St., Concord NH 03301.

Redistricting Update and How Voters Can Impact Legislation

A taped program with LWVNH board members Liz Tentarelli and Nancy Marashio. Via zoom on May 11, 2022. Watch the Youtube video here.

Feb. 25, 2022  League is still focused on getting fair redistricting maps passed. The Senate Election Law Committee meets Monday, March 7. Maybe they’ll hold exec session on their proposed Executive Council map (which is ridiculous and obviously gerrymandered) and the clearly gerrymandered Congressional map already passed by the House. Ultimately it may come down to pressure on Governor Sununu to veto the gerrymandered maps. He has promised he would; will he keep his promise?

UNH survey that just came out shows the following: “While only one-third of New Hampshire residents have seen the legislative redistricting maps proposed by the State Legislature, nearly all Democrats and Independents who have seen them consider them to be unfair, while even Republicans are closely divided.”

Feb. 22, 2022: Op-ed by our own Kate Coon (PeterboroPlus unit) about Fair Maps in today’s Monadnock Ledger-Transcript. Read the pdf here.

Feb. 19, 2022: Still to come– NH Senate must hold executive session on the gerrymandered congressional map. We also expect changes to their own Executive Council map. Might happen in the coming week.

Feb. 16, 2022.   The Fair Maps coalition (League of Women Voters NH is a member of this coalition) released the following statement Wed. afternoon, Feb. 16, during the Senate session. The NH Senate voted along party lines to pass their own amended Senate map and their slightly amended version of the House districts maps. Both maps greatly reduce the number of competitive districts and increase the number of strongly Republican-leaning districts.

“At every single public hearing, a majority of Granite Staters have called to reject gerrymandering and pass fair maps. Senate Republican leaders must recognize that by drawing districts to favor one political party, they are rigging the process of representation and undermining our elections. Both the newly proposed state Senate and technicality-amended state House maps limit competition to give a partisan advantage. They reduce the number of competitive districts, in favor of ‘safe’ seats and by doing so, limit the ability of voters to hold elected officials accountable. In addition, these maps risk quelling participation in elections because without competition, people are less likely to engage. The districts that were passed today serve to consolidate power rather than reflect the will of the people.

The Fair Maps coalition calls on the House to listen to the public and amend these proposals. If these maps continue to move forward as amended, the Fair Maps Coalition urges Governor Sununu to stay true to his word and commit to veto any gerrymandered maps that come across his desk later in the year. Voters should pick their politicians, not the other way around.”

Background:

Previous statements from Governor Chris Sununu on the redistricting process:

• “Absolutely, absolutely I’d veto. If it doesn’t pass the smell test and it looks like gerrymandering districts, of course, I’m going to veto that.” – July, 2021 WMUR

•  “You know, when you have lines crossing all over — no, we’re not doing any of that. We typically never have here in New Hampshire. So, first, it has to look right. It has to make kind of logical sense, and again, it’s really up to the Legislature to get some input from individuals. I don’t know what a safe district is, per se, I really don’t.” – July, 2021 WMUR

• “But even with our House and Senate seats, you know, you just have to be able to look at the map. Does it make sense that this town is connected to that town or were they really clearly trying to stretch to make that happen? It’s not rocket science. There’s a little bit of a formula to it, but it’s really not rocket science.” – September, 2021 NHPR

Other Republicans on redistricting proposals

• “This is a pretty radical one.” – Republican former Speaker of the House Gene Chandler

• “far-fetched and blatantly political” – former NH GOP vice chair and CD-1 candidate Matt Mayberry

• “It did not make sense to me why the Republican maps made such a radical change… As a Republican, I support the Democratic maps.” – Republican former Rockingham County Commissioner Kevin Coyle

***Still be be exec’d are the gerrymandered congressional map and the ridiculous Executive Council map. Maybe they will be amended??? Tell your senators NO to gerrymandering.

Jan. 31, 2022. LWVNH sent this testimony to Senate Election Law for its hearing today on HB52, the gerrymandered congressional map, appealing for amendment of the redistricting plan. Click here for pdf of the testimony.

https://lwvnh.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/2022-testimony-HB52-in-Senate-redistricting.pdfJan. 28, 2022. Redistricting is not over! Brian Biehl of Open Democracy had a great op ed this week on redistricting, in the NH Bulletin. You can read it here (and maybe you’ll want to sign up for the excellent NH Bulletin too.)

LWVNH vice-president Janet Ward had an excellent op ed in the Concord Monitor Jan. 29 about why gerrymandered maps affect us all. Click here to read the op-ed.

On Jan. 31, the NH Senate will hear amendments to the NH House maps and the Congressional Districts map already passed by the House. Less gerrymandering, please!

Jan. 14, 2022: Editorial in Keene Sentinel says it all about the problems with redistricting.

Jan. 10, 2022: The Senate held a hearing on Jan. 10 on the Senate maps and the Executive Council maps. At some point the entire Senate will vote on those and vote on the maps just passed by the House. Eventually Governor Sununu will have to decide which ones “pass the smell test” as he said regarding gerrymandering.

Crunch time — Call to action on the gerrymandered Executive Council districts bill proposed by the Republicans.

You don’t need a visual–it’s the same as the 2011 map, with District 2 “packed” with Dem-leaning towns, so the other districts are more likely to go Republican.

We’ve been complaining. Even Gov. Sununu criticized the map. So why are the Republicans doing this, if not just to continue their partisan advantage.

Tell the Senate Election Law committee to vote NO on SB241, and instead pass the alternative SB254. Email the committee: senate.redistricting@leg.state.nh.us

Jan. 5, 2022. The House just voted on the redistricting maps for NH House districts and for Congressional seats. The vote was 186 to 168 in favor of the Republican version of the NH House maps. The vote was 186 to 164 in favor of the gerrymandered Republican plan for the Congressional map.

Nov. 2021: Call to action on the gerrymandered Congressional districts bill, HB 52.

If you need a visual, see the Republicans’ proposed version in this NHPR acticle.  Or watch this interview of Dec. 14 with LWVNH president about the congressional proposed map. Click here for the youtube link.

The OTPA recommendations were split along party lines, with the Democrats proposing a map in which only one town moves from District 1 to District 2 to balance the populations, and the Republicans moving a quarter of the population from one district to another to give the Republicans an edge in District 1 and make District 2 lean more Democrat. We don’t like this partisan gerrymandering by the majority party!

CALL TO ACTION: NOW is your chance to call or email your own state representatives and let them know that NH should not tolerate partisan gerrymandering. Ask them to vote NO on HB52—the congressional districts bill–Republican amendment so it can be replaced by the minority’s amendment. Or even another map to be proposed. Do this before the vote on January 5!

Share your thoughts on the other bills to be voted on too, if you wish, but this vote will determine our congressional districts for the next 10 years. It matters!

To find your state representatives, go to this page and select your town: http://gencourt.state.nh.us/house/members/

Beginning on page 50 of the calendar (click here for the Dec. 3 House Calendar) is the House Republican’s redistricting bill in verbal form—you can scan the list of districts by county, find your own town, and see how many reps it gets and whether they are shared with other towns.

If your town is listed twice, your town is part of a floterial district. You’ll elect representatives from your base district AND from your floterial district.

The Democrat party’s version begins on p. 58.

The proposed Congressional map (Republican amendment) begins on p. 70 in list form.

***

November 17 — report from LWVNH on what happened with redistricting on Nov. 16:

Redistricting update November 17, 2021

Yesterday the House Special Committee on Redistricting held an executive session that revealed the sharp partisan divide we have been fretting about.

In the redistricting for NH House of Representatives, the maps for each county that were adopted were—with one exception—the majority’s proposed version. The one exception is Sullivan county, where the Republicans decided the Democrats’ version was better. So that map passed unanimously.

The partisan gerrymandered Congressional districts map proposed by the Republicans was also recommended Ought To Pass along party lines, after some discussion by members of both parties.

Personal report from Liz Tentarelli, LWVNH president: What I heard, sitting in the room, was Republican representatives Ross Berry and Bob Lynn defending the Republican map on two grounds: Berry said he represents a Manchester ward and Litchfield and wanted to keep them in the same district so “why not add Hudson [which abuts Litchfield] and Pelham [which is south of Hudson] and add Pelham’s neighbor to the east” and I started humming “the hip bone’s connected to the thigh bone” in my head. Then Berry referred to “surplus” population in CD1 if you added those towns, so some seacoast towns had to move to CD2 to get equal population in both districts. A Dem member of the committee objected to her constituents in a seacoast town being called “surplus” and Berry managed to look embarrassed.

The GOP congressional district plan moves about a quarter of the state’s population from one district to the other, the biggest change in districts in over 100 years!

But Rep. Bob Lynn’s defense of the Congressional maps to create more chance for a Republican to win a seat takes the cake. “Our proposal aligns political communities better than those proposed by Democrats,” he said. “Under the [GOP districting plan] for our state that leans 53% Democrat and 45% Republicans, we get a 50-50 split [of representation in Congress], disenfranchising far fewer voters than the Democrats’ plan and the mapathon plan.”

[Frankly, I don’t know where those numbers come from, as “undeclared” voters outnumber both Dems and Republicans].

Committee vice chair Rep. Steve Smith repeated his WMUR observation that there is something wrong with having Nashua and Colebrook in the same congressional district. Of course they are now, they are in both the minority and the majority proposed maps, so it’s unclear what he wants to happen. Maybe Colebrook should be represented in the Canadian parliament and Nashua by a Massachusetts congressman?

What was very disheartening was the lack of real discussion to tweak any of the maps. Instead each side made its case and then the party line was followed in the roll call vote.

The county commissioner district maps were much less contentious, as each county has only 3 districts and some followed the GOP plan and some the Dems plan. Not a lot of change from the status quo in any case.

Where to see the maps? Here is the committee’s website where the maps can be found. http://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/house/committees/committee_websites/Redistricting_2021/plans.aspx

In other legislative news this week—

***

On Nov. 7 the mapathon project held a zoom to understand the proposed maps. Comparison made to the mapathon maps. Here are the slides from that event.

Read each county left to right: Democrats’ committee proposal, Republicans’ committee proposal, then the Mapathon suggestion(s) on the right. Some analysis below each map. https://docs.google.com/…/1dNCDdMTSwaiQGSFUFuJo…/edit…

***

What happened to Fair Maps? Report on Nov. 3 and 4 congressional map presentation.

The big news in state government this week is that the proposed redistricting maps were presented by the House Special Committee on Redistricting in public session on Wed and Thurs. For the NH House of Representatives districts and the Congressional district, two versions of each were offered—one drafted by the Democrats on the committee, the other drafted by the Republicans.

The GOP congressional district map generated the most discussion and reaction by far. If you have been reading any of the NH news sources yesterday and today, you know by now that the Republicans made drastic revisions to NH’s two Congressional districts. By moving the towns of Portsmouth, Dover, Somersworth and Durham from district 1 to district 2, and adding some solidly Republican towns along the southern border of the state to district 1, the Republicans have proposed a gerrymandered Congressional map so that district 1 is far more likely to elect a Republican and District 2’s Democrat-leaning is stronger than ever.

What they did: The Republicans moved 75 towns or city wards and 365,703 people into a different district, about a quarter of NH’s population. This is the biggest change in our congressional districts in nearly a century, I’ve been told.

Backing up a bit: a change had to be made because of the increased population in what is the current District 1 towns. The Democrats solved it by moving just one town—Hampstead–from district 1 to district 2 and that evened out the population to within about 50 people. Thus the Republicans’ drastic changes can be attributed not to necessity but to something else…in this case, partisan bias.

Historically New Hampshire’s two Congressional districts have swung back and forth from Republican to Democrat and back again. In 2011, when the last Congressional redistricting was done, both seats were held by Republicans who drew the districts so that both would, presumably, remain equally competitive with a slight Republican edge for each. But…as happens in politics…their plans were not perfect. The 2012 election saw both men unseated by Democrats. Since then District 1 has gone back and forth twice, while Rep. Annie Kuster in District 2 has held her seat since 2012.

As a non-partisan political organization, League of Women Voters is appalled by the blatant attempt to make District 1 a Republican win by gerrymandering. We began to take notice last January 23, when Republican party chair Stephen Stepanik said publicly, referring to the Republican majority in the NH legislature, “Because of this [Republican majority] we control redistricting. I can stand here today and guarantee you that we will send a conservative Republican to Washington DC as a Congressperson in 2022.” Yikes!

On Thursday in the redistricting committee meeting, Rep. Robert Lynn of Windham, a Republican and former Supreme Court chief justice who should know better, said, “Were political considerations something that were in the mix? Of course they were. This is a political process as the Supreme Court has said repeatedly, both the New Hampshire Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court.” Darned right, which is why we’ve been arguing for nearly 20 years for an independent redistricting commission, I thought. And when political advantage is the reason for partisan districting, court cases are sure to follow. After Rep. Lynn’s statement, even some of the Republicans looked uncomfortable. A few of them attempted to justify the major shift in towns, but frankly, their reasons made no sense.

So where do we stand? Next week, on Tuesday Nov. 9 starting at 10 and on Wednesday Nov. 10 starting at 5 pm, a public hearing on all the proposed maps released so far will be held in the State House, in Representatives Hall. The public will be allowed to testify. We’ll probably each have a 2 minutes limit. No zoom testimony will be facilitated, but you can watch from home (see end of this alert for more details about that and how to send testimony if you can’t testify in person).

Them the following week the 15 members of the House Special Committee on Redistricting will meet in executive session to decide which maps will advance to the full House for a vote in January.

Will some of the Republicans decide the public outcry against gerrymandering outweighs the partisan edge they are trying to create in District 1?

Will a third version of Congressional districts be brought forth as a compromise?

Will the Democrats’ version, with its shift of just one town, make the most sense when the full House votes in January?

See for yourself: This is the link to the redistricting committee’s webpage. http://40.71.6.248/house/committees/committee_websites/Redistricting_2021/plans.aspx

Click on Congressional Maps on this page and scroll to page 11 to see the GOP version that has inspired the charges of gerrymandering. Also on this webpage are links to the NH House district maps by counties, and the county commissioner district maps (the least controversial of the bunch, and little difference in most cases between Dem and GOP proposals).

Then on the same webpage find your own county in the list and click on it to see the proposed maps. You know your town and your county. Do the new districts make sense? If you’re new to the redistricting issue, view some of the materials on the LWVNH.org Isses/Action page under redistricting. Or join the online Mapathon explanation of all the proposed maps on Sunday evening, Nov. 7, at 6 pm. (League has been an active part of this Open Democracy Action project). Here’s the link to register for the Sunday night discussion: https://www.opendemocracyaction.org/mapathonreview1107?utm_campaign=map_a_thon_house_maps_20211101&utm_medium=email&utm_source=nhrebellion

How you can testify electronically:

Participate from home by sending your testimony electronically, being as specific as possible, about your county’s House district maps or the Congressional map to the committee. Convert your word doc to a pdf and send it via the first link on this page: http://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/house/committees/committee_websites/Redistricting_2021/default.aspx

***

The Schedule for House & Congressional and County Commission district maps:

Nov. 3 and 4: NH House and Congressional & county commissioner district maps were revealed by the House Special Committee on Redistricting.

Monday, Nov. 7 at 6 pm via zoom: the Mapathon team will hold a zoom analysis and discussion of the maps proposed by the legislature. Sign up for the link here.  This will help you prepare for testimony at the upcoming post-mapping hearings (see below). As with all the Map-a-Thon meetings, the public, press and legislators are all invited to attend.

Nov. 9 & 10, the House special Committee on Redistricting will hold public hearings on the submitted maps. Place is Reps Hall in the State House. Tuesday at 10 am; Wednesday starting at 5 pm.  This is when the public and municipal officials should testify. No remote testimony is likely to be allowed, but pdfs can be be emailed to the committee.

Nov. 16, House committee will vote on the maps in executive session.

January 5 or 6, 2022: Full House will vote on House, Congressional, and county commission maps.

To submit testimony to all members of the House Special Committee on Redistricting, submit your testimony (must be a pdf) here:

http://gencourt.state.nh.us/remotecommittee/redistricting

***Oct. 22, 2021 update:

What’s happening with redistricting? Some dates and some maps have emerged.

At least four members of League were in attendance on Wednesday morning [10/20/22] when the House Special Committee on Redistricting met at the Legislative Office Building. The committee set some dates for viewing new district maps (Nov. 3 and Nov. 4, starting at 10 am, LOB 210-211—committee members expect these to be long days). Then on two days during the week of Nov. 8 they will hold public comment sessions. At least one will be in Reps Hall in the State House. We’ll have more details of date/time/place next week, we hope.

On Nov. 16 (and maybe Nov. 17) the committee will hold executive session to vote on the version of each map that will be presented to the full Legislature for a vote in January or early February. Nov. 18 is their deadline for having all this work done.

Also on Wednesday one member of the committee, Rep. Carol McGuire, showed the work she has done on the House district maps for Belknap, Grafton, and Merrimack counties. She also showed the maps she had drafted for new county commissioner districts in the same counties.

League reconizes Rep. Carol McGuire (R- Allenstown, Epsom, and Pittsfield ) for being the first to show maps she’s worked on and for her detailed non-partisan explanation of the challenges in drawing district maps for these 3 counties. We look forward eagerly to seeing what the other committee members will present, not only for House seats but also for the Congressional districts.

Here are the questions running through the minds of those in attendance:

Who is working on which maps? Or are they all just playing around with whatever they feel like covering, such as their own counties? If so, northern counties are getting no attention.

Who is drafting the Congressional districts maps?

Has chair Barbara Griffin given out any specific assignments? If so, that was not done in public session. One comment chair Griffin made on Wednesday: “I haven’t seen many maps.” Is there a breakdown in process? In any case, the committee members have until Nov. 3 to produce something.

When will the maps be visible to the public on the committee’s website? Nothing there yet (Rep. McGuire’s maps were in paper copy only, and we thank her for making some copies for the audience).

As for the Senate and Executive Council maps, they may be shown on Monday, Oct. 25, when the Senate election law committee meets for executive session and for redistricting work session. Starting at 1 pm in room 100 of the State House.

***Sept. 24, 2021 update:

If you have one hour and want to understand redistricting, both theory and NH specific, you can watch this recording of a Sept. 23 online panel discussion. Click here.

All ten county “listening sessions” have now been scheduled.  The public will be allowed to attend and to make comments.

A bit of a victory for remote access. The NH House Twitter feed announced: “Barring any unforeseen technical difficulties, the Special Committee on Redistricting public input sessions …will be live streamed on the House of Representatives YouTube channel. https://youtube.com/channel/UCxqjz56akoWRL_5vyaQDtvQ…

[Please note: livestreamed means you can watch from home, but neither the public nor legislators may actually participate via remote access.]

To email testimony to all members of the House Special Committee on Redistricting, submit your testimony here:

http://gencourt.state.nh.us/remotecommittee/redistricting

Senate redistricting committee members’ email is here.

***

September 25, 2021. Work session of House special committee on redistricting. Impressive display of bi-partisan agreement about some of the parameters of redistricting. Map drawing is just getting started. You can watch the meeting at your leisure here.

August 25, 2021, 10 am. Work session of the NH House Special Committee on Redistricting. Read the summary from NH Bulletin here. Several League members attended, have doubts that a second round of public listening sessions will be held. We’ll post dates and places for the first round here as soon as they are made public.

Aug. 19, 2021 article in NH Bulletin about redistricting issues for our two Congressional districts. Read it here.

Aug. 12, 2021: press conference on redistricting. InDepthNH reported here.

Voting rights and Redistricting in NH: Panelists on Newport Cable TV, July 2021, were Liz Tentarelli, president of League of Women Voters NH, and Olivia Zink, Executive Director of Open Democracy. Watch the video here and learn about the issues in NH.

Special edition of LWVNH legislative alert, July 1, 2021, reporting on the first work session of the House Special Committee on Redistricting:

On Tuesday June 29, several League members were in attendance at the Legislative Office Building where the House Special Committee on Redistricting had their first working session. Their task is to develop a plan and then draw the new district maps that will govern voting districts for the next 10 years. Below is a brief synopsis, from the point of view of Liz T, Janet W, Joanne E and Olivia Z, who were in attendance.

League and our Fair Maps NH partners began the day with a press call, and Liz spoke on air with Adam Sexton of WMUR just before the hearing. The work session was to be livestreamed on Youtube, but tech difficulties weren’t resolved until an hour into the meeting. Neither online nor live public comments/testimony was allowed, but we were in the room to listen.

One member of the committee with health issues had to send a substitute, as the chair would not let him participate remotely. Doesn’t bode well.

On the positive side, the members of the committee have been provided with some good redistricting materials from the National Council of State Legislatures and other guidance materials, including the schedule from 2011. Chair Barbara Griffin did indicate that public meetings would be held in each of the 10 counties in the fall, but she pushed back against a suggestion to allow remote participation, suggesting that not all counties would be able to arrange for a zoom meeting. If all can’t do it, none should was the message. She also expects draft maps to be ready to share at these meetings (maybe October, early November) and a small comment she made suggests she knows the public may propose alternative maps/plans.

Another positive development, a webpage has been created for the committee, on the General Court’s website. Not too much on it yet, but League has argued that a publicly accessible website is necessary. Whether the public will be able to comment or give input to district plans there remains to be seen. Here’s that link: http://gencourt.state.nh.us/house/committees/committee_websites/Redistricting_2021/default.aspx

There are items on the webpage from 2011’s redistricting, and some of us felt a vague “business as usual” attitude among some committee members. Will there be efforts to make significant changes, to reduce the partisan bias of 2011 redistricting? Too early to tell.

Other topics brought up at the meeting: Gross data has come from the census. Rep. Steven Smith reported it this way: “NH population is calculated at 1,359,711 people, and that’s 3,999 per House seat.” [That number didn’t sound quite right to one of our League members, so a check of the census bureau’s website of data released on April 26 of this year shows the total NH population at 1,377,529, which comes out to 3,444 (rounded up) residents per House seat.] Vice-chair Steven Smith then said a standard deviation of 10% among districts is usual; he added we should try to make that closer to perfect, though he admits that 400 House seats at 3,399 people each is a difficult target given districts need to respect the integrity of town and county boundaries. One rep argued instead that a higher deviation should be allowed to give more towns their own reps, as required under the NH constitution since 2006. She pointed out that 71 towns have passed a resolution to that effect. What must be resisted is using different deviations in different counties.

Cities create their own issues, with wards having to be modified. Some cities can adjust their ward lines with legislation; others need a vote of the public to change the town charter. The committee thinks there is a work-around before the final vote on any plan needs to be taken. Rep. Paul Bergeron is in contact with the cities about this.

Software used in 2011 was referenced, and the person who developed the software has been approached to do the number crunching this time, on a consultant basis. There was some further discussion about the accessibility of the software to both parties, etc. But will the public get access? Will the “black box” of the software be open to public scrutiny?

One thing missing from the discussion was Communities of Interest, relevant to those small towns that need to be joined in House districts with adjacent towns. (This is exactly what the Live Free Map Fair project is all about—Open Democracy, Granite State Progress, League of Women Voters, and others are working on this. If you want to help, contact any of us. 40 minutes of your time to fill out a detailed survey about your town will give us the information we need.)

The next meeting has not yet been scheduled, but the chair insisted on a “hard deadline” of Nov. 18 to have their maps completed. Lots to do between end of September when detailed census data is released and Nov. 18. If the new maps are not passed by the Legislature and approved by the Governor early in 2022, there could be issues about not having districts defined for an earlier state primary filing. Those concerns were dismissed, as it is likely the primary in 2022 will remain in September, change to August in the 2024 cycle.

More data will be coming from the census on Aug. 12, so the meeting ended with discussion of whether the next meeting should wait until that data has arrived. Next work session date has not yet been set.

Until we have more information about redistricting work, or until the committees start addressing the retained bills in early fall, we will take a short break from the weekly legislative alerts format. But feel free to email us anytime with questions about what’s happening in the state legislature. LWVnewhampshire@gmail.com

***

Statement from LWVNH about our expectations for the Special Committee on Redistricting in 2021. Click here for pdf. Feel free to share.  June 29, 2021.

Redistricting website: announced at the June 29 work session of the House Special Committee on Redistricting. Not all sections of the website are populated yet, but there are some excellent sources of information there and future meetings will be posted. Here’s the link.

We thank the chair and the committee for this positive step in making the redistricting process transparent.

If you missed the redistricting forum on April 10, you can watch the video and get handouts below:

CLICK HERE to view the recorded video.

CLICK HERE to access handouts from the Forum.

A community of interest refers to a group of people with a common set of concerns that may be affected by legislation. Some states require that the preservation of communities of interest be taken into account when drawing electoral districts in an effort to enable these communities to elect representatives whose platforms or policy proposals align with their interests.

Consider how the people living in your town relate to the nearby towns:

Is your town primarily rural or urban or suburban, and which nearby towns/cities do you relate to?

Do you share a regional school district? Charter or private schools in common? Day care facilities?

With whom do you have shared youth facilities & programs (sports teams, skateboard park, community center with programs, Scout troops, etc.)

Economy: Where or in what industries do many of your residents work? Do neighboring towns also have large numbers of residents employed in the same industries?

Medical care: Do most residents use a particular hospital or set of doctors? Which neighboring towns use those same providers?

Ethnic communities: Does your town have a number of families of the same ethnic group that do many things together? Do neighboring towns have residents that belong to the same group?

Does your town or city have a large group of immigrants or people whose primary language is not English?

Do you share a water supply or natural resources with neighboring towns? A recreation area or state park or tourist attractions? Shopping centers? A public transportation system?

People Powered Fair Maps™ is a national redistricting program of the League of Women Voters focused on creating fair political maps nationwide in all 50 states + D.C. In June of 2019 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Rucho v. League of Women Voters of North Carolina that no fair test exists for courts to determine when partisan gerrymandering has gone too far. As a result, federal courts will be hands-off in the redistricting process even when new district lines are drawn to intentionally decrease the voting power of voters based solely on their political party. People Powered Fair Maps was launched in September 2019 to create fair and transparent, people-powered redistricting processes that eliminate partisan and racial gerrymandering nationwide.

To learn more about the League’s work on redistricting and gerrymandering in New Hampshire, view the YouTube presentation from Nov. 19, 2020 to the Jonathan Daniels Center for Social Responsibility. League president Liz Tentarelli and redistricting commission bill sponsor Rep. Marjorie Porter are the panelists. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TeZ8I96C5OA      

Read our testimony presented to the Senate Election Law committee on redistricting transparency [SB90] here .       InDepthNH reporting on Senate hearing on SB80 redistricting bill here.  Sadly, on Feb. 11, 2021: the Senate voted SB80 “Inexpedient to Legislate” along party lines = they  killed a bi-partisan bill to create an independent advisory redistricting commission.  House voted Feb. 24 198-158 to kill a similar bill, HB121.

HB 1074 LLC loophole testimony. Click here. Feb. 2024

HB 1569 testimony. April 23, 2024. Click here.

HB1426 redistricting commission testimony. Jan. 2024   Click here.

Testimony opposing HB460, this session’s more serious voter suppression bill. In House Election Law, coming up for full House vote on March 16. Click here for the pdf.

Testimony on HB502, in favor to repeal last year’s SB418. Click here for the pdf.  Jan. 31, in House Election Law.

Testimony in opposition to HB582 requiring recording of abortions by Vital Statistics. Click here for the pdf. Jan. 25 in House Judiciary.

Testimony on HB324, in favor of public funding of elections for Governor and Executive Council. Click here for the pdf. Jan. 24, in House Elections Law.

Testimony in favor of SB70, the electronic information portal for voter registration and registration changes. Click here for the pdf. Jan. 24 in Senate Election Law/Municipal Affairs Committee.

Testimony in favor of SB73, to allow municipalities to apply for some of NH’s HAVA funds. Click here for the pdf. Jan. 24 in Senate Election Law.

HB 1393 passed the House, is in the Senate. It allows a small group of residents in a town to create a tax cap on education budgets, and if that’s not scary just google what is happening in Croydon. Read testimony submitted against this bill on April 11. Click here for the pdf.

SB418, a voter suppression bill that got thru the Senate 13-11, goes to the House Election Law Committee on April 8 at 11 am. Click here for the pdf of the testimony presented in the name of League of Women Voters NH.

SB248, a good bill to make campaign contributions fairer as related to LLCS. LWVNH sent this testimony to the Senate Election Law Committee for the Feb. 14 hearing. Click here for the pdf of our testimony.

HB 1543, provisional ballots and complications to voter registration, Feb. 10 in House Election Law. LWVNH testified against this bill. Not even its sponsors testified, left the explanation of this unnecessary bill up to their constituents who are not election officials. Click here for the pdf of our testimony.

SB432 & HB1683, to repeal the school vouchers bill of 2021. Jan. 30, 2022. LWVNH submitted this testimony in support of the bill and the importance of public support for public education. Click here for the pdf.

HB52, congressional redistricting. Jan. 31, 2022. LWVNH sent this testimony to Senate Election Law for its hearing today on the gerrymandered congressional map, appealing for amendment of the redistricting plan. Click here for pdf of the testimony.

SB418 as amended –Testimony from League member and former LWVNH Election Law Specialist Joan Ashwell in opposition to this bill to create a kind of provisional ballot. Hearing is Jan. 20, 2022.  Click here for pdf

Testimony on SB418 from League. Click here for pdf.

Testimony on similar provisional ballot bill HB1542 from League. Same date, House hearing. Click here for pdf.

Jan. 19, in Senate Education: Testimony re SB326 to create an office of early childhood. Testimony by LWVKearsarge/Sunapee head of education study committee. Click here for pdf.

HB1064–banning use of vote counting machines (Jan. 13, 2022). League does not have a position specifically on machine counting of ballots. LWVNH president submitted this testimony in her own name, not League’s, in opposition to the bill. Click here for pdf

SB241 and SB254— redistricting of Executive Council (Jan. 10, 2022) Click here for pdf

The NH Legislature is YOUR government. To express your support or opposition to bills when they are heard in committees, you have some options in 2023. Live testimony via zoom will NOT be allowed. You can, however, watch hearings on the Legislature’s YouTube channel.

You may submit oral and/or written testimony in person at any bill hearing (but not at executive sessions).

You may register your opinion ( “I support” or “I oppose”) until midnight of the day a bill is heard in committee at this website: Go to lower right corner and read directions for Remote Testimony.

Most important, call your own senator or representative(s) concerning bills to be voted on. You can find your own reps and senators and their contact information at this website. Scroll to your town. Click on the individual names to get emails/phone/mailing addresses.