A Week in the Life of a NH State Rep
New Hampshire has 400 state representatives in the state legislature. Regardless of party or seniority, we toil for $100 a year (plus mileage). While I may not be the most representative of state representatives, I thought that this week instead of posting about a particular piece of legislation, it might be helpful to take a timeout and share what a typical week at the start of a new legislative session looks like..
Full disclosure: This is my first term and I’m the first to recognize that other reps put in more (or less) time and all of us choose to spend it in slightly different ways. But here’s how I spent my time last week.
Sunday
Review the House calendar for this week. This helps me see which bills I’m sponsoring or cosponsoring that are up for hearings or committee votes in the week to come.
Prepare for Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee hearings on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. This typically involves downloading the bills to my iPad, reviewing them, and noting any sections where I have questions or want to do additional research prior to the hearing.
Check my legislative email. Some weeks this is a bit easier than others. Each week I get dozens and sometimes hundreds of emails, most related to bills people are for or against that are coming up for hearings in front of my committee. With hearings scheduled for this week on cannabis legalization, PFAS bills, and two gun violence prevention bills, the volume of email was higher than usual—which sometimes can make it a challenge to spot hearing notifications and other critical correspondence we receive.
Monday
Continue preparing for this week’s public hearings.
Outline and then write my testimony for the public hearing HB1264. This bill would extend the sunset date of the Commission on the Seacoast Cancer Cluster Investigation another 2 years. As the prime sponsor, my role at the hearing is to introduce and advocate for the bill and answer any questions the committee members may have. For even a simple bill, this takes a lot of preparation. So over the course of the day, I contacted some of the current commission members, downloaded and re-read the chaptered law creating the commission, and reviewed documentation on the commission’s website. (Better to over-prepare than to under-prepare—especially given the stakes for our neighbors living near the Coakley Landfill).
Tuesday
Sign-in on bills I’m cosponsoring or strongly support. Because legislative committees often meet at the same time, there are conflicts galore between your own committee and your responsibility to advocate for legislation you may be sponsoring or cosponsoring. One way to (almost) be in multiple places at the same time is to “sign-in” in support of a bill having a hearing that day that you are co-sponsoring. Although testifying is always preferable, signing in on the “blue sheet” at the front of the committee room shows your support for the bill. (At the end of the hearing, names are read off the blue sheet along with whether or not the person signing in was for or against the bill).
Attend hearings on six separate bills before my committee—the Criminal Justice & Public Safety Committee. During hearings, the main role of committee members is simply to listen to the citizens who come to testify. Unlike the congressional hearings you may have seen recently on TV, we aren’t allowed to cross-examine the people who come to testify. But we are allowed to ask clarifying questions (one at a time) to help us better understand the testimony. The goal? To give the people who come to testify a chance to offer their perspective without fear of being shut down by legislators who disagree or want to grab the spotlight. On this day, we started at 10am and finished around 4pm. I took notes on my iPad and also electronically scanned some of the written testimony for later review.
Finalize outline for my HB1264 testimony.
Do email.
Wednesday
Sign-in on bills I’m cosponsoring or have a special interest in. On this day, they included HB1160, which would allow cities like Portsmouth to collect an occupant fee for rentals. I receive several emails from the city attorney and City Council members on this, so I made sure to sign in in support of it.
From there, it was on to a second full day of public hearings, including universal background checks and establishing a 3-day waiting period for delivery of a firearm. Hearings on the gun bills tend to be emotional and contentious and can take hours longer than typical hearings. On this particular day, there were several reminders from the chairman for people in the audience to refrain from applauding (or booing) others during their testimony. The goal of maintaining decorum during hearing is to try to maintain a civil environment where people feel like they are being heard regardless of their position on an issue. On some days we are more successful than others.
At 10:45am, I broke from my hearing schedule to introduce the bill extending the Commission on the Seacoast Cancer Cluster. After making my case for the bill, the committee members asked some very good questions which, fortunately, I was able to answer. The good news is that on this particular bill, former Rep Mindi Messmer—a member of the commission and expert on scientific issues related to PFAS contamination—was also there to testify and answer questions. No one spoke in opposition to it.
After doing a little more wordsmithing at lunch, I submitted an op-ed supporting my personal presidential choice, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, in the upcoming New Hampshire primary. I’d been working on it off and on at lunch for a few days and was happy to finally be able to hit the “Send” button. It was published on Friday and you can read it here.
That evening, it was time (again) to check my legislative email and prepare for a press conference Friday at Pease Tradeport with Sen. Tom Sherman and Sen. Martha Fuller Clark on what’s being done at the state level regarding PFAS contamination. While I’m very familiar with the legislation I’m personally sponsoring or cosponsoring, it was a good opportunity to look up, download, and read all of the legislation regarding PFAS in this session as well as to refresh myself on the good work our federal delegation is doing in Washington.
Thursday
Arrive in Concord early to outline my testimony on a bill I’m cosponsoring—HB1274, which would require bottled water producers to test for contaminants, such as MBTE and PFAS, and print the results on the label.
Sign-in on priority bills.
Attend a full morning (and afternoon) of hearings in the Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee.
Duck out of my committee’s hearings to testify in support of extending the term of the Commission on the Seacoast Cancer Cluster.
Attend a lunch sponsored by Open Democracy—a bipartisan group inspired by New Hampshire’s “Granny D” that promotes legislation to make voting easier and elections fairer. A big emphasis for the group this year is trying to pass independent redistricting in New Hampshire. On this day “lunch” consisted of ham and cheese sandwiches with a single, nearly transparent slice of ham and a lonely, diaphanous slice of cheese accompanied by a plethora of mustard and mayo packets, and the ubiquitous bag of chips. Not exactly prime rib at the Capital Grille, but what you’d expect from an organization trying to get big money out of politics (and a welcome sight on a day when I forgot to get cash out the ATM and left my ATM card at home). In a long-standing Concord tradition, it was also entertaining to see several of the more passionate opponents of independent redistricting putting partisan differences aside to enjoy free food. (In Concord, everyone gets hungry at lunch time).
After the hour-long drive home and dinner, it was back on the iPad to finish my prep for the PFAS press conference. Then another hour to check email.
Friday
Pease press conference at 9:30am. Full disclosure: this was my first press conference as a state rep. Sen. Sherman went first, then Sen. Fuller Clark, then me, and finally, Catherine Corkery from the Sierra Club. The overall goal was to keep the pressure on other elected officials and state and federal agencies to combat PFAS contamination in timely and meaningful ways. The press conference was itself was conducted outdoors within site of the runway built over the infamous Haven well. This is the drinking water well that was contaminated by firefighting foam used by the Air Force and Air National Guard, exposing thousands of workers and children to PFAS. Incredibly, federal law still requires PFAS-laced foam to be stored on military bases and used to fight fires involving aviation fuel. However, this will finally change in 2025, the new deadline under the recently signed National Defense Authorization Act for a replacement foam to be substituted. For more information about what we’re doing at the state level to combat the use of PFAS and protect public health, see the article in Seacoast online. Something else: If you worked at Pease or your child attended daycare at the Tradeport between 2004 and 2014, please consider volunteering for the Pease Study. When completed, this study will help us better understand the possible health impacts of PFAS exposure from drinking water. To enroll or to see if you are eligible to participate, call 603-846-6192. The call center will screen you for eligibility and provide information on the next steps. All participants will receive blood testing results at no charge plus a $75 gift card.
Attend a meet-and-greet at South Church with Michigan congressman Andy Levin to discuss the National PFAS Action Act—comprehensive legislation intended to reduce the public health impact of PFAS contamination and provide grant money to municipal water systems to remove these chemicals. Congressman Levin has worked closely on this issue with Rep. Chris Pappas and Rep. Annie Kuster.
Saturday and Sunday
Write this post.
Prepare for a busy week ahead.
Get organized for a marathon Criminal Justice committee executive session later this week where we’ll make recommendations and vote on 21 bills.
Download, review, and compile notes on 10 bills we’ll be considering over two days of public hearings.
Prepare for a Wednesday meeting with the legislative committee of the new Portsmouth City Council.
Create my calendar for the next week.
IMPORTANT! Make sure I don’t forget I bought tickets to “1917” for a Saturday evening date night with my very patient and movie-deprived spouse. (See it on the big screen if you get a chance. It’s moving and spectacular.)
Notice anything?
Although we had lots of committee action, the House didn’t meet a single time to vote as a body. When we do, we usually make news. But even when we’re not making news, we’re still working—which brings me to my nomination for the NH House of Representatives tweet of the year from Nashua state rep Laura Telerski:
The bottom line is we’re here for you. Even if “here” sometimes means in the CVS parking lot!