Changes to NH Stand Your Ground Law and Police Accountability Laws Debated
On Friday, my committee, the NH House Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee, met for another marathon series of public hearings on legislation.
Hearings were held on three separate bills to broaden New Hampshire’ stand-your-ground law, a bill to restrict police from using deadly force when trying to arrest people, and a bill that would ban police from using tear gas and rubber bullets. We also acted on two bills involving bail commissioners. You can read a full write-up here in InDepthNH.
As you might expect, the bills that would expand the use of deadly force turned out people both for and against them. But what wasn’t expected was the extraordinarily high number of people registering their opposition.
A Very Different Looking Process
Some background first. One of the things that is different about legislating in the second year of COVID is that committee members have the option of attending the hearings in-person or remotely via Zoom. While members of the public currently don’t have the option to attend in-person because of the risk of COVID, hearings must still be open to public participation under NH’s Right to Know Law.
So-called “hybrid” committee meetings have their drawbacks. There seem to be too few microphones in the hearing rooms placed too far apart. This sometimes makes it difficult for committee members—and members of the public—attending remotely to clearly hear legislators “in the room”. Feedback akin to a wailing car alarm is also common and there have been several hearings, including one that my committee held last week, that have been interrupted by internet outages.
But after two weeks, most of the technical bugs have been ironed out even as concerns about COVID bugs continue to be a factor.
To date, while one committee chairman received his 15 minutes of fame for refusing to wear a mask for the first several hours of a hearing a day after returning from a visit to Florida (#3 in the nation for COVID cases), there has yet to be any news of any legislators attending in-person committee hearings testing positive for COVID.
COVID and how the legislature has adapted in fits and starts has been the focus of most of the news stories about the legislature this year. But the stories told at public hearings on bills have always made for the most interesting coverage in the past, and this year is no different. What is different—strikingly different—is the degree of public participation and feedback in the legislative process.
This year, the legislature has moved to using an online sign-up tool that allows members of the public to 1) sign up to speak at public hearings or 2) simply indicate their position on a bill (support” or “oppose”) without the need to speak. While the number of speakers seemed higher than what has been seen in previous years, the sheer number of people signing in to support or oppose some of the bills was simply stunning. On one bill, 6 people signed in to support it and 888 signed in to oppose it. By comparison, in previous years fewer than 50 people might typically weigh in on even some of the most controversial bills because doing so meant a trip up to Concord and manually filling out a paper “Blue sheet”.
An Unexpected Windfall: Higher Public Engagement, More Accountability
Remote hearings were implemented to provide a safer option for legislators to meet and interact with the public. But there have been unexpected benefits.
Public participation is up. Because testifying and weighing in on a bill no loner requires a trip up to Concord on a work day, many more citizens seem to be monitoring and participating in our hearings.
What happens in committee no longer stays in committee. In 2020, when legislators behaved badly in committee, a story about it would occasionally get written, but for the most part transgressions minor and major went unseen by reporters and the public or were ignored. No more. In 2021 when legislators behave badly, our antics get livestreamed to thousands and recorded for posterity on YouTube. So if you’re in the room and forget to wear a mask, expect to see screen prints of your transgression posted on Twitter. If you rudely yell at someone testifying like a drunk at Moe’s Bar, smile—you’re a social media star. If your cat walks across your desk and your committee chair gets annoyed, you just might find your name in a national publication. And last but not least, if you decide to chair a committee hearing maskless one day after coming back from Florida (#3 in the nation for new daily COVID cases), you can expect blowback.
The potential for more news coverage. The media no longer needs to sit-in on hours of public hearings to write about them. Reporters now have the option of watching them later, fast-forwarding to the good parts, and writing stories they might have missed because they were covering something else.
It’s easier for more people to see how important—and tedious—the work of legislating can be. Yesterday, my committee met for 9 and 1/2 hours with only a 20 minute break for lunch.
So What Happened at Friday’s Hearings?
The short answer is a lot of talking and listening with a few votes sprinkled in.
In addition to holding public hearings, committees also make recommendations on the bills themselves to the rest of the legislature. An “Ought to Pass” vote is a stamp of approval. “Inexpedient to Legislate” is a thumbs-down.
In the 2019-2020 session we tried to avoid voting on bills on the same day as hearings to allow more time for amendments that could improve the bills. But in 2021, with COVID delaying and complicating full sessions of the House and deadlines fast approaching, we often find ourselves voting on bills the same day.
Here’s where we landed yesterday on bills that revolved around several key issues:
Stand Your Ground
HB145: relative to physical force in defense of a person. This bill would eliminate any duty to retreat from using deadly force from New Hampshire law. After the hearing, an executive session was held and the committee voted to recommend it as Inexpedient to Legislate by an 18-0 vote. Six people signed in to support it, and a stunning 888 signed in to oppose it.
HB81: relative to the justified use of deadly force upon another person. This bill would expand the ability to use deadly force inside your home to defend others. It received a 11-10 Ought to Pass recommendation along party lines. 78 people support it and 862 signed in to register their opposition.
HB197: relative to the use of deadly force in defense of another. This bill would broadly expand where and when deadly force can be used, and it could be used to justify shooting at unarmed protestors. 79 people signed in to support it while 971 signed in to oppose it. No action was taken on the bill by the committee,
Police Accountability
HB66: relative to the use of deadly force by a law enforcement officer. The bill would have prohibited police officers from using deadly force make an arrest. It received an Inexpedient to Legislate recommendation by a 14-7 vote.
HB564: prohibiting the use of rubber bullets and tear gas by law enforcement. No action was taken on this bill which was supported by the ACLU and Black Lives Matter groups and opposed by the NH Chiefs of Police Association. 200 people signed in top sup[port the bill and 29 signed i in opposition to it.
Bail Commissioners
HB-469 would decrease the terms of bail commissioners from 5 to 2 years. It received a unanimous 20-0 Inexpedient to Legislate recommendation.
HB-498 would require the courts to pay bail commissioners when people accused of crimes are indigent. We postponed voting on this until next week to allow time for an embedment.