Meeting Safely During the 2021 House Session—a Letter to the House Speaker

This is the text of a letter I sent on Friday, January 15 to New Hampshire Speaker of the House, Sherman Packard.

Mr. Speaker,

I am writing you to urge you to prioritize the health and wellbeing of members of the House in any decisions regarding how we will meet until the pandemic is under control and our state of emergency has ended.

Today, New Hampshire’s death toll from COVID-19 will likely top 900. The vast majority of those deaths have been in people age 60 and over—a demographic that is includes a majority of members of the House.

Over the course of my service, I’ve got to know many of our older members. I serve with David Welch and Laura Pantelakos on the Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee. The last thing I want to see is them—or any other legislator—feeling pressured to attend in-person meetings that simply cannot be held safely under the current conditions.

At yesterday’s press conference, State Epidemiologist Benjamin Chan said while vaccination will eventually help, we will not be able to vaccinate our way out of this situation any time soon. That’s because even people who have been vaccinated will be able to contract the virus during the period before they are able to build up full immunity. Dr. Chan recommended that even people who have received their first dose continue to staying vigilant by avoiding gatherings, wearing facemasks, washing our hands, and avoiding unnecessary travel. He also acknowledged that a new COVID variant is raising concerns. While it hasn’t yet been detected in New Hampshire, it’s now on our doorstep with cases reported in Connecticut. What makes this version of the virus especially disturbing—and dangerous—is that it is 50% more contagious than the original virus.

Meanwhile, one of the signature features of all COVID-19 variants is that some of the people who become infected with the virus feel no symptoms at all. This makes it easy for them to unknowingly spread it to others. The virus is also typically much harder on older patients and those with medical conditions that make them more vulnerable. People in this group—which coincides the the demographic group that constitutes the majority of our legislature—are affected disproportionally and often far more severely than younger, more healthy people. Asymptomatic spread also a makes it easier to spread the virus back to our communities and workplaces. That’s why it’s not just a matter of legislators assessing their personal level of risk and making their decision about remote versus in-person attendance—as elected representatives, we must also assess the risk to our communities and loved ones should we meet in-person and inadvertently return home carrying an unwelcome and potentially deadly guest.

During this critical period when many of our citizens and legislators remain unvaccinated and vulnerable to COVID, it is essential to accommodate legislators who wish to participate remotely in committee hearings, executive sessions, and sessions of the legislature itself. While mask-wearing and the other steps Dr. Chan recommends can help reduce the risk of spread, they do not eliminate it—especially indoors in closed rooms where multiple people gather.

It also must be kept in mind that engineers are not medical or public health experts. Although I understand that air filtration units will be installed in the LOB and steps will be taken to separate legislators attending, my committee chairman has said that “people who want to wear masks will be able to wear them”. This raises the possibility of people who don’t want to wear masks attending in-person sessions—and thus negating all of the other steps that have been taken at considerable financial expense to the state.

To me and to many of my colleagues in both parties, there are far too many unknowns to allow in-person gatherings to be framed as “safe” in any way. To set up a situation that forces legislators to choose between fulfilling our obligations as elected officials and protecting our health and the health of our constituents violates the trust we need to have that our leaders are looking out for the best interest of ALL of our members and citizens.

For these reasons, I am urging you to make it the policy of the House that any legislator who wishes to participate remotely to avoid the risk of contracting COVID-19 will be able to do so. I would also ask you to work with House staff and operations to ensure legislators and members of the public attending sessions remotely are able to full participate. This means ensuring any participants meeting in-person are properly miked so they can be clearly heard by those attending in-person and remotely, that remote participants can heard when they speak, and that legislators attending remotely are able to listen, be recognized, debate, and vote.

While we all want to get back to in-person meetings—and we eventually will—creating a workable remote option that protects the health of every member and reduces the risk of spreading the virus back to our communities must be our top priority.

Sincerely,

Rep. David Meuse, Portsmouth