A Week of Welcome Wins for House Democrats
Until this week, the near-even split between Democrats and Republicans in the New Hampshire House of Representatives had mainly worked in favor of the GOP. But starting Wednesday, thanks to excellent attendance and crossover votes, key votes began to swing the other way. By the close of business Thursday, Democrats had teamed with a few courageous Republicans to generate a series of close wins on issues ranging from abortion to renewable energy.
Here’s a quick recap.
“Parents Rights”
HB10, a bill that would establish a parental bill of rights, was tabled (and effectively killed) after an Ought to Pass vote failed 189-195. While all would agree parents definitely do have rights when it comes to the health and education of their children, many of those rights are already included in existing New Hampshire law. What this bill would have done was to empower a tiny minority of aggrieved parents to control what other people’s children see, read, and learn. Far from the “feel good” codification of parental rights its supporters claimed it to be, HB10 would have pitted parents against schools and would have done irreparable harm to the traditional parent/teacher partnership. Even worse, it would have singled out LGBTQ+ students, particularly trans teens, for “outing.” Bills like this one illustrate the importance of actually knowing what’s been written into a bill before you decide whether or not you support it. HB10 was basically a Trojan horse flying under the banner of “parents rights” that actually would have enshrined discrimination into law, harmed vulnerable children, and further enflamed the stupid and divisive culture wars that some continue to insist on waging on our teachers and schools. But sadly, the fight isn’t over quite yet. A similar bill, SB272, has passed in the Senate and the language of the now-dead HB10 could be included in the HB2 budget trailer—the same gambit that was used in 2021 to enact Gov. Sununu’s 24 week abortion ban and the “divisive concepts” ban. More from New Hampshire Bulletin
Abortion
When the Supreme Court put the decision about whether or not to allow abortion back into the hands of the states last summer, we expected that reproductive rights would be a key issue this year at the State House. While bills supporting a woman’s right to an abortion have failed along party lines in the Senate, there were rays of hope this week in the House as two critical bills squeaked through:
HB88 passed 199-185. It codifies the right to an abortion up to 24 weeks, but doesn’t remove current restrictions in Gov. Sununu’s fetal protection act on abortions 24 weeks or later.
HB224 passed 205-178. The bill removes harsh criminal and civil penalties from the 2021 fetal protection act for medical professionals charged with violating the state’s prohibition against abortion after 24 weeks. The penalties have made it more difficult to get qualified ob/gyns to practice in New Hampshire and will result in poorer quality care for pregnant women if allowed to stand. More from New Hampshire Bulletin
Meanwhile, a bill that would have repealed the fetal protection act entirely, HB271, was tabled and effectively killed after the Ought to Pass vote failed after a 192-192 tie vote. Also failing to pass was a constitutional amendment, CACR2, that would have guaranteed all persons the freedom to make their own reproductive health care decisions. (While the bill received a 193-191 vote, a 3/5 majority is needed to pass a constitutional amendment.)
Fortunately, four additional bills that would have further restricted reproductive rights in New Hampshire failed to pass. They included:
HB562, requiring “informed consent” prior to receiving an abortion procedure
HB591, prohibiting abortions after detection of a fetal heart beat
HB582, requiring the division of vital records to collect induced termination of pregnancy statistics
HB615, requiring independent audits of reproductive health care facilities
Criminal Justice
HB49. The Sununu Youth Center, a problem the legislature has alternately ignored or bungled for decades, may finally be on its way to a better place. This bill provides for the construction of a secure new youth facility to replace Manchester’s aging house of juvenile detention horrors. An amended version of HB49 passed by voice vote along with a seal of approval from the Office of the NH Child Advocate and advocacy groups including the NH Disability Rights Center. More from NHPR
HB135, a bill prohibiting no-knock warrants except in cases where preservation of human life is at stake, passed 374-9. The bill aligns New Hampshire policy with federal Department of Justice policy and places guardrails on a common law process that currently has none other than the discretion of a judge. More from InDepthNH
HB351, a bill that would have strengthened New Hampshire firearms negligence law involving children was killed 196-184. Full disclosure: this was a bill I personally wrote and prime-sponsored. While two Republicans supported the bill, it was disappointing to see nearly a dozen of my fellow Democrats vote the other way. Sadly, their votes were the difference between success and failure. Worth noting: all of the bills put forward this term to reduce the risk of gun violence in our state (universal background checks, 3-day waiting periods, extreme risk protection orders, prohibiting guns at polling places, and this one) have now officially been killed. I’ve included the full text of my floor speech at the bottom of this summary.
Environment and Energy
New Hampshire took two small steps towards a cleaner environment with the passage of two important bills.
HB56 passed 224-155. The bill restricts how close new landfills can be built close to permanent bodies of water. It was amended to include a grandfather clause for expansions of existing landfills, but extends protections for sand and gravel aquifers. More from NHPR
HB139 passed 188-186. It lets towns that share a border co-host a solar project that neither has the money or land to do alone. (Currently, laws concerning net metering say that a solar array needs to be inside a single municipality.)
On the downside, HB205, a bill I prime-sponsored that would have required installers of new drinking water wells to test them for common contaminants was tabled. After some additional work, it will be back in some form next year.
Election Law
The status quo was the big winner this week as every bill that would have changed state election law was either killed outright or tabled. Bills that were tabled (and that will likely come back in a different form during the legislature’s second year) included HB460, a bill that would have disproportionally hurt young people, new Americans, and seniors by eliminating all voter affidavits. The current affidavit process protects the right to vote of people who don’t have or forget required registration documents.
Education
With 19 bills on the calendar and the prospect of debates that could last until midnight, education committee leaders did some horse trading prior to the session that resulted in 16 bills being quickly tabled with full debates and votes focusing on only three. The tabled bills included ones that were painful for members of both parties to let go of. HB629, which would have established a student bill of rights, was a tough one for Dems to table; as was HB538, a bill establishing local a school voucher program, for Republicans. Bills that were debated and voted on included:
CACR7. A constitutional amendment allowing money raised by taxation to be applied for the use of religious institutions received a majority 192-191 vote, but failed to reach the 3/5 vote needed to move forward. More from InDepthNH
HB572. This bill—a huge win for lower income kids and their families—raises the eligibility cap for free school meals from 130%-300% of the federal poverty level and passed 201-177.
Public Health
One of the saddest sights in the legislature over the past three years has been attempted disemboweling of our state’s public health infrastructure by aggrieved anti-vaxxers. The good news is that this week, additional attacks were unsuccessful and some good bills were actually passed.
HB557, which would have ended the ability of the department of health and human services to create immunization requirements by administrative rules instead of by state law was killed 194-185. The power to put vaccination programs into place quickly (vs. the glacial pace of trying to pass a law to deal with every virus that comes along) was a huge factor in successfully battling COVID.
HB575 was killed 192-186. It would have prohibited the state from purchasing, promoting or distributing any vaccine that has not been tested with “voluntary, clinical trials”. Had a law like this been in place during COVID, it would have prohibited the state from distributing the COVID vaccines.
On the bright side, HB342, a bill I cosponsored requiring lead testing in children passed 193-180. While the bill preserves parental control over testing, it will result in more lead testing being done. Also worth noting is HB69, a bill that would have opened the door to direct payment and membership-based health care facilities and posed risks to critical care hospitals, failed to pass by a single 190-189 vote.
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Meuse Floor Speech: HB351, Relative to the Negligent Storage of Firearms
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. HB351 is a bill that will have no impact on responsible gun owners. That’s because responsible gun owners would never leave an unattended firearm or ammunition in any place where it could be accessed by a child.
What this bill does is extend and toughen New Hampshire’s existing state policy and penalties when it comes to irresponsible gun owners who leave unattended firearms where children can access them. It also requires all firearms commercially sold or transferred to be accompanied by a locking safety device.
Currently, our state has no laws requiring safe firearms storage. We do have an existing law that addresses firearms negligence and children, but it’s extremely weak. Under our current law, if a child finds an unsecured firearm and takes it to a school, a playground, or a neighbor’s house where they play with it with other children, the owner of the gun can’t be charged. That’s because to bring a charge, one of three other things also needs to happen. 1. The child also has to use the gun in a reckless or threatening manner, or 2. The child has to discharge the gun in a reckless or threatening manner, or 3) the child has to commit a felony or misdemeanor with it.
So what we have now is really a “no harm, no foul” law with a maximum penalty of a $1,000 violation—even if a child or another person loses their life as a result.
In New Hampshire, data on shootings involving children accessing unsecured firearms can be tough to find. They aren’t tracked in a centralized database either at the state or federal level. Because they involve juveniles, police and court records are often sealed and the media is often reluctant to report them. But these incidents are happening. A four year old boy who shot himself in the hand in 2021 in Weare. An 11-year old boy in Alton who accessed a loaded, unsecured firearm and fatally shot both of his parents. A 10-year old boy in Durham home filled with unsecured guns and ammunition who fatally shot himself in 2016.
The Durham case is especially interesting because the prosecutor chose not to prosecute the gun owner despite the fact that the gun the child used to take his life was unsecured. How could that be? It’s because our current law only covers LOADED weapons that are unsecured. In the Durham case, the unsecured weapon was unloaded, but ammunition for it was nearby. Needless to say, the child was able to put 2 and 2 together, with tragic results.
One of the things this bill will do is fix that flaw in the law. If a child accesses an unloaded weapon, loads it with unsecured ammunition that’s also available to the child, and commits an offense—the gun owner can be charged.
The bill also broadens the circumstances that constitute negligence. In addition to a child using or discharging the gun in a reckless manner or using it to commit a crime, it expands the scope of the law to a child displaying the weapon to others or bringing the weapon onto the grounds of a school or any facility, public or private, accessible to members of the public where other people are present.
The bill also toughens the penalties for an offense. Instead of a violation and a maximum $1,000 fine, a negligent gun owner would be charged with an unclassified misdemeanor. And if the child discharges the weapon resulting in the injury or death of the child or another person, the penalty is elevated to a class B felony. The penalty would also increase to a class B felony if the child uses the weapon in the commission of a felony.
To be clear, the bill won’t compound a tragedy by charging a parent whose child is injured or killed with a crime, unless the situation involves gross negligence. By the way, that provision is part of our current law and HB351 does nothing to change that.
For responsible gun owners who store their weapons securely, HB351 changes nothing. But for new gun owners or those who leave unsecured firearms in the presence of children, passing this bill will send a strong message that with rights come responsibilities.
In a state where guns are part of our culture, taking responsibility to protect our kids from the very real risks that unsecured firearms can present must also be part of our culture. HB351 would encourage this by making it a stronger part of our law.
Colleagues: Our choice today is to pass a bill that would better protect children who look to adults like us to protect them—or to allow a small minority of irresponsible adults to remain virtually unaccountable for endangering all of New Hampshire’s children.
Please Vote GREEN for HB 351 —and Mr. Speaker, I ask for a division vote.