Rep. David Meuse
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Updates

State House Updates

Preview: A Big Week for Big Bills

This is an absolutely huge week in Concord. Not just for public hearings—but also for executive sessions where committees will hold votes on recommendations to the full legislature. Here are some of the highlights. (You can find a complete listing of all committee activity in the House Calendar).

Public Hearings

Tuesday February 19

  • HB-455—the death penalty repeal bill—gets a public hearing before my committee, the Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee, at 10:00 a.m. in Representatives Hall at the NH State House. In 2018, a similar bill passed in both the NH House and the Senate, but was vetoed by Gov. Sununu despite the fact NH has only 1 prisoner under a death sentence, NH hasn’t executed anyone since the 1930’s, and the legislature has refused to spend the $1.7m to build a death chamber necessary to carry out executions that we currently don’t have. Expect some of the most passionate advocates of repeal to be some of the family members of victims who appeared in this video.

  • HB-378 would raise the minimum age for marriage in New Hampshire to 18. The public hearing before the Children and Family Law Commitee is at 10:00 a.m. in Room 206 of the Legislative Office Building. Last year, the legislature raised the minimum marriage age to 16. Hopefully, this year we’ll finish the job.

  • HB-704 and HB-412 both attempt to address the issue of long-term storage of nuclear waste generated by power plans like Seabrook Station. While most of the recent attention attention has been focused on Seabrook’s alkali-silica degradation problem in concrete at the plant, lack of a suitable national storage site for spent nuclear waste means it gets stored on-site—and will eventually need to be removed at high cost. The Science, Technology, and Energy Commitee will hold hearings on these bills starting at 10:00 a.m. in Room 304 of the Legislative Office Building in Concord.

Wednesday February 20

  • HB-178, HB-186, and HB-731 would take different paths to establish a state minimum wage. Currently New Hampshire doesn’t have a minimum wage and follows the federal standard. Hearings start at 1:00 p.m. in Rooms 305-307 of the Legislative Office Building.

Executive Sessions

Once a public hearing has been held on a bill and the committee has had time to study testimony and consider possible changes, an executive session is held to vote on the bill. Unlike a public hearing, there’s no opportunity for the people attending to speak unless the committee has a question for someone in the audience and their input is requested by the committee chairman. Amendments (changes) to bills can be introduced by committee members during executive sessions. Typically, the committee votes first on amendments and then on the bill itself. Bills reported favorably out of committee are recommended as “Ought to Pass”, and bills a majority of committee members are against emerge as “Inexpedient to Legislate”. A bill can also be “retained” for the committee to work on over the summer for possible reintroduction in 2020.

Tuesday February 19

  • Starting at 10:00 a.m. in Room 207 of the Legislative Office Building, the Education Committee will vote on a series of education funding bills, including HB-709, which would bring back the concept of “donor communities” to help address a critical lack of K-12 school funding in communities with lower property values and lower property tax revenue. City officials in Portsmouth recently came out against this bill because it would transfer some of the funding Portsmouth receives from the state property tax to other communities. They argue that this would force a property tax hike that would negatively impact low and moderate income residents.

Wednesday February 20

  • In a quick turnaround, starting at 10:00 am in LOB 204, the Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee will vote on several bills, including the repeal of the death penalty for the crime of capital murder (HB-455).

Thursday February 21

  • Starting at 11:00 am, also in LOB 204, the Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee will vote on bills requiring background checks for firearms purchases (HB-109), the primary cannabis legalization bills (HB-481) and on moving the Secure Psychiatric Unit out of the state prison and funding a replacement (HB-726).

David Meuse