What Just Happened: June 13, 2024 NH House Session Recap—Last Gasp Edition
On Thursday, Minority Leader Matt Wilhelm (D-Manchester) took the gavel and capably filled in as Speaker for several bills. It is a long-standing House tradition for the current Speaker (in this case House Speaker Sherman Packard) to ask the Minority Leader to temporarily act as Speaker for a few bills on the last day the House will meet before Veto Day.
Thursday was moment of truth day as final votes were taken on over 60 bills sent to conference committees late last month by the New Hampshire House and Senate. Here’s a quick recap of the good, the bad and the ugly.
First, The Numbers
On the almost-final day of the 2024 House session (Veto Day in September will be the last), there were a total of 200 Republican members of the New Hampshire House of Representatives, 193 Democrats, 2 Independents, and 5 vacant seats.
There were excused absences on both sides, which led to another day when results were impossible to predict until the voting started. While Democrats appeared to have a tiny numerical advantage several times during the day, appearances can be deceiving. Put simply, a minority is still a minority. While overcoming a deficit of 5-7 votes isn’t impossible in a political environment where attendance is everything and absences and ill-timed bathroom breaks are frowned upon, victories are extremely unlikely unless you can persuade persuadable members of the majority party to cross over—something Dems had more success at on this particular day because of the harmful nature of many of the bills themselves.
Setting the Scene
This week, the governor signed 51 bills into law that were passed earlier this year, including one that ends child marriage in New Hampshire by raising the marriage age to 18. On Thursday, as the governor was putting pen to paper—and trying to avoid writer’s cramp—the House and the Senate met to accept or reject bills sent to committees of conference. To go to the governor’s desk for signature, a bill not only must be passed in both chambers, but both chambers must also agree on an identical version with exactly the same language. If the conferees don’t agree, the ones in the minority can be replaced. If the conferees still don’t agree, the bill dies. But if the conferees sign off on the final changes, the bill goes back to each chamber for one last up or down vote. If either chamber votes against the final bill, the bill dies. And because this was the final day for bills to be acted on, any bill that was tabled also dies.
The Good
In a session that’s had more than its share of ups and downs, Thursday was a very good day for House Democrats. Of the 41 bills up for votes on the regular calendar, all of the ones identified as priorities to either pass or block by Democrats unexpectedly but happily showed up in the “win” column for Democrats—often with support from persuadable Republicans.
Finally…An Agreement to Feed the Kids! After the regrettable defeat earlier in the session of a series of bills that would have made more students eligible for free school meals, the House and Senate agreed to approve SB 499. While the bill won’t fund more meals during the school year, it will help feed lower-income kids over the summer by funding the summer EBT program, an initiative that allows families who participate in the free and reduced-lunch program at their public school to receive $120 per child per summer in food assistance. Also included in the bill is unrelated legislation that establishes a state emergency disaster relief fund, which would allow cities and towns to apply for up to $25,000 in aid per year if the governor declares a state of emergency in their area due to a natural disaster or severe weather event. More.
Bipartisan Bail Reform Package Survives. In a quick voice vote that brought over a year of complex negotiations to a close, the House and the Senate approved final changes to HB 318. The agreement reached in the committee of conference reinstated provisions from the House version of the bill that were removed by the Senate. The compromise ensures accused offenders will receive a bail hearing within 24 hours of their arrest and prohibits judges or magistrates from setting cash bail at a level higher than a defendant can afford. It also designates 12 felony-level offenses where bail hearings can no longer be conducted by a bail commissioner and must be conducted by either a judge or a “magistrate”—a newly created position in the judicial system. While the final compromise reduced the number of magistrates who will conduct bail hearings for people accused of violent, felony-level crimes from 10 in the House version of the bill to only three, more can be budgeted in future years. More.
Combatting Deep Fake Political Ads. With the passage of HB 1596, New Hampshire joins a growing number of states taking action against the use of AI-generated deep fakes in political advertising. 2024 will be the first time deceptive deepfakes that realistically but falsely portray candidates saying or doing things they never said or did will play a significant role in influencing our elections. While the bill is not an outright ban, it does require disclosure when deceptive artificial intelligence is used in political advertising within 90 days of a candidate’s appearance on the ballot. More.
Voter Suppression Whack-a-Mole: Part I. HB 1370, a bill that would have set up new barriers to voters who show up at the polls without documentation to prove citizenship or residence, was killed by a 223-141 House vote to table it. The bill would have made made New Hampshire the only state in the country to not allow someone to vote unless they could show proof of U.S. citizenship. It would have also eliminated all affidavits on Election Day—an action that would disenfranchise an estimated 4,000-7,000 voters. In opposing the bill, the NH Clerks Association pointed out the “hotline” election workers would have used to verify a registrant’s citizenship would have been dependent on workers from various state agencies using databases where citizenship information is absent or incomplete. They also opposed the bill as an unfunded mandate that would have caused chaos for cities and towns implementing it before this fall’s elections. Unfortunately, the good news when it comes to the defeat of the bill is tempered by the knowledge that a similar and even more restrictive bill, HB 1569, was passed in May by both the House and the Senate and is on its way to the governor for signature or veto. More.
Voter Suppression Whack-a-Mole: Part II. The House stopped a bill 178-185 that would have required town election officials to review the voter rolls every four years instead of every 10 years—and purge anyone who hasn’t recently voted. In addition to creating more work for city and town clerks, HB 1369 was opposed by Democrats because it increases the chances that voters who skip elections will run into headaches on Election Day. More.
Housing Gets (Slightly) Easier to Build. HB 1400 passed 205-149. The final bill combines three housing-related bills into a single package. Key elements include:
A prohibition on municipalities from requiring more than 1.5 parking parking spaces for studio apartments, one-bedroom apartments, and for units in multi-family developments over 10 units.
Enabling legislation that allows municipalities to create a tax cut for those who convert office spaces to residential development (this was a key feature of the SB 481 “Homenibus” bill that died earlier in the House).
A compromise between tenant rights advocates and a landlords group that provides a remedy and new guardrails when there is a dispute around who is authorized to live in a unit.
Helping More People Expand Their Families. HB 1197 passed by voice vote. It requires insurers to cover intrauterine insemination (IUI) for all policy holders, including same-sex couples. IUI is a less expensive and simpler fertility treatment than in-vitro fertilization (IVF) and is often recommended before IVF. The bill also expands the number of state agencies authorized to check fingerprints of job candidates during background checks.
10-Year Transportation Improvement Plan Passes with New Castle Causeway and State Prison Funding. HB 2024 updates the state’s $5.079 billion 10-Year Transportation Plan and includes funding for highways, bridges, turnpikes, freight rail lines, buses, airports, pedestrian walkways, and bike paths. Also included in the update are funding to raise the New Castle Causeway to make it less vulnerable to rising seas, $40 million to begin construction of a new state men’s prison to replace the current mold-ridden house of horrors, and over $12 million to build electric vehicle infrastructure.
School Voucher Expansion Boondoggle is Killed. HB 1665, which would have expanded maximum income eligibility for the unaccountable school voucher program from 350% to 425% of federal poverty guidelines (or from $109,000 to $132,000 for a family of four), failed to pass by a 168-185 vote. Income eligibility for the program is already higher than nearly every other public assistance program. Expanding the program even further in a non-budget year would have been fiscally irresponsible—especially in a state with looming revenue issues. More.
“Sanctuary Cities” Bill Opposed by Law Enforcement Dies. After the Senate voted 14-10 along party lines to pass HB 1292, the House voted 192-165 to table it on the last day to pass legislation, effectively killing it. The final bill emerged from a conference committee where both Democratic members, Sen. Lou D’Allesandro and myself, were removed and replaced on the committee after we refused to agree with changes made by the majority. The bill was opposed by a broad coalition including 8 local chiefs of police, the NH Association of Counties, ACLU-NH, and religious groups that included the Catholic Church. As written, the bill went well beyond simply prohibiting communities and law enforcement from adopting sanctuary policies. It also would have required them to enforce federal immigration law with no additional training or funding in ways that would have led to increased exposure to lawsuits. The final bill included a provision requiring officers to contact ICE when they discover that an immigration detainer has been issued for ANY person connected with a criminal investigation—even if that person is not being charged with a crime. Equally problematic were a reporting requirement and potential penalties for law enforcement, counties, and communities that make holding a person with a detainer a de facto unfunded mandate. In written communication to both the House and Senate, New Hampshire law enforcement leaders expressed serious concerns that the bill would seriously undermine hard-won efforts to build trust in migrant communities. More.
The Bad
Cannabis Legalization Fails Again. Cannabis legalization will have to wait another year as HB 1633 was tabled in the House by a 178-173 vote. After the Senate amended the House version of the bill to include an amendment increasing the amount of state control over the proposed retail cannabis outlets, even die-hard cannabis industry activists turned against the bill and urged legislators to kill it. While not unexpected, the final vote was especially disappointing given the Senate’s surprising passage of any version of a cannabis bill and the unexpected agreement on a final version that was reached by House and Senate members of the conference committee. More.
The Ugly
After enduring unexpected losses, a number of Republicans took to social media to call for members of their own party who crossed over to vote with Democrats on key bills to be primaried should they run for re-election. Here’s a small sample.
The Undeterred
On Friday, the deadline passed for candidates for state offices to file for election or re-election. You can view the full list of candidates—including me again (yay!)—here.