Rep. David Meuse
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Updates

State House Updates

What Just Happened? Trans Student Rights and Medicare Expansion Saved…For Now

This session’s razor slim margin between Democrats and Republicans in the New Hampshire House has ensured more than a few nail-biting days on both sides of the aisle. But on Thursday, the work of LGBTQ advocates, healthcare advocates, and Democratic leadership paid off with outstanding attendance that resulted in a slim 193-191 Democratic majority—and two well-earned victories.

Bottom line on top:

  • SB272–a Trojan horse bill masquerading as “parents rights” legislation that would have forced teachers to “out” trans and LQBTQ kids—was killed outright.

  • SB263–a bill to permanently secure Medicaid Expansion for New Hampshire residents least able to afford health insurance—was passed after a marathon debate where close to 40 separate attempts were made to either water it down through amendments or delay voting so it could be effectively drowned in the bathtub.

So where do we go from here? Hopefully these questions and answers will help.

“Should I be celebrating or is there still work to do?”

Definitely celebrate but then get ready to go back to work. After a day like Thursday, smiles and a little dignified woot-wooting are definitely in order. But it’s best to think of both victories as more like winning a playoff game than the championship itself. That’s because in the New Hampshire Legislature, dead bills have a way of returning like zombies. Moreover, bills that initially pass the House that involve expenditures—like permanently expanding Medicare—must run a second gauntlet of attempts to change or kill it in the Finance Committee and then again when it returns to the House for another vote.

“Wait... This isn’t ‘Night of the Living Dead’. I thought SB272–the anti-trans bill—was dead and buried?”

Yes but maybe no. The success of the House motion to “indefinitely postpone” SB272 by a 195-190 vote means that this specific bill is not only dead for this year in the House, but that House members will also be unable to attach language similar to SB272 as an amendment to any another bill or file similar bill for the remainder of the biennium. But things get murkier over in the Senate. It’s less clear what options are available to the Senate when it comes to adding SB272’s language to other bills or resubmitting it under a different bill number. That’s because the Senate has its own rules, which differ from those of the House.

“I watched the livestream of the SB272 debate and some of the attempts to amend the “parents rights” bill to make it less harmful seemed fine. Did Democrats support them?”

Yes. Democrats voted as a block to support all of the amendments, including one by Rep. Bordes (R-Laconia) that would have stripped out provisions requiring teachers to “out” trans and other LGBTQ kids.

“Then why did all of the Dems (and a handful of Republicans) vote to “indefinitely postpone” the bill?”

Supporting amendments to make a bad bill less bad is one thing. But in a closely divided legislature, supporting the underlying bill—even one that theoretically has been de-fanged—is something else. The reason is fairly simple: Even though the House is now split 200-200, the Speaker and other Republican leaders continue to control appointments to legislative conference committees. These committees are appointed to negotiate with the Senate on differences in a bill between the House and Senate versions. This means that if Dems would have agreed to pass a more sensible version of the bill than the one passed in the Senate, Republican House and Senate conferees could simply agree to change the bill back to the original toxic language. Bottom line: approving this bill in any form would have resulted in us very likely facing exactly the same issue a month from now—and potentially without the votes to stop it.

“Republicans say by defeating the bill, Democrats have “declared war” on parental rights. Do you guys really hate parents?”

Uh, no. Most of us are actually parents ourselves and we believe in strong parental involvement in education. But we also believe schools should be safe places for kids and that setting up a situation where teachers are forced by law to “out” trans and LBGTQ kids is incredibly harmful. A fun fact about SB272 is that 90% of the parental rights it lists are ALREADY part of New Hampshire law. These existing rights will ALL remain on the books despite the defeat of SB272. What the defeat of SB272 really means is that the effort to ADD harmful new provisions targeting trans and LGBTQ kids and imposing the threat of costly civil damages on teachers has been stopped. At least for now anyway.

“There have been news reports that GOP state senators have asked the governor to issue an executive order to effectively impose the discriminatory measures in SB272 on teachers, trans kids, and their parents. Can he do that?”

It’s unclear. Administrative law is complex when it comes to executive orders. In addition to being able to issue them during a state of emergency, the governor can use them to create commissions and advisory boards as well as to manage state agencies and personnel. Executive orders have the power of law even though they do not go through the lawmaking process. After Thursday’s vote, Republican Senators issued a statement calling on the governor to issue an executive order “affirming” parental rights. To date the governor has not commented on whether or not he will do so. But prior to the House vote, he did indicate he would sign SB272 if it reached his desk. Also worth noting is that in New Hampshire, more controversial executive orders have a history of being challenged in the courts.

“Yikes! This is more unsettled than I would have hoped. Please tell me that permanent Medicare Expansion is a done deal?”

I wish I could. Unfortunately, while we’re getting closer to the finish line, permanent expansion is far from being a done deal. Although Dems and a handful of GOP allies voted down close to 30 amendments to water SB263 down before passing the original bill received from the Senate, the bill now heads to the Senate Finance Committee. There, some of the same amendments voted down Thursday may be resurrected. It’s also possible that other changes may be attempted and passed. Bottom line: It’s very possible we’ll see a significantly-amended bill emerge from the Finance Committee. If that happens and the amendments are not acceptable to Dems, expect a floor fight with Dems offering floor amendments to return the bill to its original form when SB263 comes back to the House for a final vote.

“Why did Republicans offer so many last minute floor amendments to the Medicaid Expansion bill? 30 seems like a lot.”

It is a lot! While floor amendments themselves aren’t rare, they’re not all that common. Usually, we’ll see one or two floor amendments offered on a handful of bills during a typical session day. More often than not, they’re a mix of last-minute attempts to fix a flaw in a bill, to strengthen or weaken a controversial provision, or to add a poison pill that can lead to the defeat of the underlying bill. In the case of SB263, what we saw was a concerted political maneuver by House Republicans to attempt wear down the opposition and water down the bill to a point where even Dems might have reservations about passing it. If the bill had eventually failed, Republicans would have then been able to wash the blood off their hands while claiming that the eventual death-by-a-thousand-cuts of Medicaid expansion was a “bipartisan vote.” Fortunately Dems—joined by a few brave Republicans—held their ground, stayed in their seats, and permanent Medicaid expansion lives on for another day.

”How can I see how my rep voted on these bills?”

Conveniently, all of the votes on both bills were roll call votes.

  • All votes on the various amendments to SB263 (permanent Medicaid expansion) as well as on the final bill can be found here.

  • Votes on SB272 can be found here.

“Where can I read more about these votes?”

David Meuse