What Just Happened: March 26-27, 2025 NH House Session Wrap-Up

Rep. James Roesener (D-Concord), the first openly transgender man elected to a state legislature in U.S. history, speaks against anti-transgender legislation Thursday at the NH State House.

As elected Republicans in Washington ignore the rule of law, the Constitution, and national security, their NH counterparts spent this week using their majorities to pass new laws that inflict pain, cruelty, and stupidity on the very people our laws are supposed to protect rather than gaslight. Here’s a wrap-up of this week’s odious 2-day session of the NH House.

First, An Observation

While much of the focus of my updates is usually on what happened to key bills on the House calendar, this particular pair of session days were notable for their unusually high level of consciously corrosive cruelty. As one of my colleagues, a long-time NH state rep, summed it up:

“It was pretty much all tragedy – especially if you support the right of all humans to live their life in NH in the way that they were born to be, especially if you support public schools, especially if you believe that parents, not the state have the right to choose approved medical procedures for their children, especially if you believe in local control.

“The right to raise your children free of unreasonable state control died this week in the NH House. Local control died this week in the NH House. Transgender folks were treated with particularized cruelty. If you support vaccines for children, forget about it. On the other hand, if you want to pay taxes so folks can send their kids to religious school, you might be happy...

“I did what I could. So did virtually every Democrat, doing what we could to stem the tide—and otherwise be witnesses on behalf of Granite Staters being harmed by this legislation.”

With apologies to my colleague, Wednesday and Thursday felt more like trying to survive a tsunami than trying to “stem the tide.”

For many of us, it was especially galling to watch speaker after speaker try to convince us that targeting transgender people for legalized discrimination in everything from healthcare to where they go to the bathroom is somehow acceptable in a free country. As my colleague Rep. Lucy Weber posted later, “To diminish the civil rights of any one of us threatens the civil rights of all of us.”

In reverse order this week, here is a summary of the ugly, the bad, and the good votes from Wednesday and Thursday in the NH House—two days that saw our live-and-let-live, live-free-or-die state transform into an unrecognizable haven for greed, oppression, intolerance and self-indulgence.

THE UGLY

Discriminatory Anti-Transgender Bills Advance.

While many of the debates were ugly, the two centering on medical care for transgender children were especially gross.

• After their parliamentary power play to silence any debate failed—and after many of them fled the chamber to avoid hearing arguments against a damaging and discriminatory bill—NH House Republicans passed HB 377 by a 197-167 vote. This cruel bill bans a medical treatment that pauses puberty and reduces the risk of unwanted—and potentially permanent—body changes to transgender children. Two Democrats, Reps. Dale Girard of Claremont and Jonah Wheeler of Peterborough, joined Republicans in favor, and four Republicans, Reps. Nicholas Bridle of Hampton, David Nagel of Gilmanton, John Sytek of Salem, and Susan Vandecasteele of Salem, joined Democrats opposed. Kudos to my colleagues Reps. Alice Wade, Jessica LaMontagne, James Roesener, Ali Murray, Lucy Weber, Loren Selig, Lilly Foss, and Heather Raymond for their bravery and their best efforts to try to help people understand that compromising a person’s basic right to access necessary medical treatment over what Rep. Wade correctly framed as “a manufactured issue” is unspeakably cruel and a violation of human rights. More. You can watch the entire debate here.

• HB 712, banning breast surgery for transgender minors as a treatment for gender dysphoria, passed 200-165. In the rare circumstances where this treatment is considered, the bill would interfere with the patient-doctor relationship and the right of parents to make medical decisions for their kids. More.

Houses Criminalizes Transporting Minors to Receive Abortions.

• HB 191-FN, makes a criminal offense for an adult who harbors or provides transportation to a minor for an abortion without parental permission, passed 180-164. The bill, which also makes the offender liable for civil action, would apply to any adult, including an older sister or a slightly older friend. More.

• Book Banning Bill Passes After Inflammatory Floor Speech. HB 324-FN, which would ban books from school libraries challenged as “harmful to minors” and award taxpayer-paid damages to aggrieved parties based on what potentially offends a single parent, passed 183-148. The bill is similar to a bill that failed last year when the House was more closely divided. As he did during last year’s debate, the sponsor of the bill, Rep. Glenn Cordelli, read graphic passages involving a rape one from the books being targeted—and appeared to be enjoying himself a little too much. More.

THE BAD

Fair Elections In NH Take More Hits.

A series of bills passed that will warm the hearts of election conspiracy theorists, while creating more hoops to jump through for voters, election workers, and municipal officials. Meanwhile, others failed that would have addressed genuine issues with our elections.

• HB 363, a bill that would have implemented fair criteria to be followed for redistricting rather than the current hyper-political winner-take-all bloodsport, failed 203-167.

• HB 175, a bill that would have tapped the brakes on PACS being allowed to give directly to political campaigns in unlimited amounts, was killed by voice vote.

• HB 141, a bill that would have ended the practice of individuals being able to hide individual campaign contributions in political contributions made by a business entity known as a limited liability company, was killed by voice vote. The death of the bill makes it impossible to know for certain if a donor has exceeded contribution limits in NH statutes.

• HB 600-FN, allowing ranked choice voting in municipal elections, was killed 194-145.

• HB 514-FN, a bill allowing private parties to sue communities for violations of election procedures, passed 186-152.

• HB 154, allowing voters to request that their ballot be hand-counted by cities and towns, even if their polling place uses machine counting, passed by voice vote. More.

Public Schools Under Fire As Religious Schools Showered with More Love, But At Least Kids Will Know More About Communism.

Under the gaslighting cover of “school choice”, “parent’s rights”, and something called “zipcode discrimination”, NH House Republicans continued their aggrieved jihad against public schools, school boards, and the kids and parents who depend on public education.

• HB 741-FN, allowing parents to send their children to any school district in any community they choose, passed 198-174. The bill erodes the foundation of community-based education while threatening the financial stability of our school districts by making enrollments impossible to predict.

• HB 292 passed 194-148. It creates a state commission that won’t include any principals, teachers, or parents to come up with a plan to consolidate school districts. This is yet another scheme to take away local control and to force districts into mergers with communities they may have nothing in common with.

• HB 768, authorizing schools districts to pay to send kids to religious schools passed 202-170 despite a provision in the NH Bill of Rights that reads “No person shall ever be compelled to pay towards the support of schools of any sect or denomination.” Meanwhile, a bill that would have achieved the opposite, HB 549-FN was killed 186-156. It would have prohibited school vouchers from being used for religious schools or to pay for religious education.

• HB 50, which makes NH’s unconstitutional “divisive concepts” law even worse by allowing a person claiming to be “aggrieved” to file a civil suit against a public school or school district, passed 183-157.

HB 749, a bill directing schools to teach about the “nature and history” (aka “the evils”) of communism, passed 200-173 despite the fact that our current president’s best friend happens to be the world’s leading communist. An attempt by Democrats to amend the bill to include an hour of instruction on fascism was rejected. All but seven Democrats voted against the bill and all but 12 Republicans voted for it. More.

Long-time Public Health Standards Could Crumble.

Bills continue to be passed that set the table for future outbreaks of preventable diseases, while removing tools from the public health toolbox that could help contain them.

• HB 679, eliminating the requirement for most common childhood vaccines, passed 204-165. This poorly worded bill would effectively eliminate current mandates for vaccines that have not been proven to stop ALL transmission. The problem with that wording is that no vaccine is designed to stop ALL transmission. Vaccines are designed to mimic infection and to activate the body’s response. Their purpose is to reduce the severity and prevalence of the illness—not to eliminate transmission.

• HB 357 passed 195-174. It transfers the power to mandate new and emerging vaccines away from the Department of Health and Human Services and gives it the legislature, which is currently chock full of people openly hostile to vaccines and the entire concept of public health. While the bill retains some vaccine requirements, it would allow mandates for some of the most serious diseases to expire in June 2026.

• HB 388, a bill that would replace the standardized, one-page paper form for parents seeking a religious exemption to a school vaccine mandate with a statement that could be written on a post-it note affirming the child is unvaccinated due to religious beliefs, passed 206-169.

Additional Assorted Mayhem.

Why stop at menacing basic human rights, public education, and public health when there’s additional harm that can be done in other areas?

• HB 597, a bill that would have fixed the issue of residential condo owners being charged higher commercial electrical rates instead of residential rates, was tabled 212-140.

• HB 530, increasing the amount of revenue transferred from the real estate transfer tax to the Affordable Housing Fund from $5 million to $10 million, was tabled by voice vote.

• HB 690, directing the Department of Energy to investigate leaving the ISO New England regional electric grid, passed 200-155, despite the impact it would likely have on a state heavily dependent on other states for reliable electricity.

• HB 641-FN, establishing a private right of action allowing members of the public to file their own civil actions when their civil rights are violated (instead of depending on the Attorney General to do it for them), was killed 195-146.

• HB 461, an anti-immigrant bill requiring all printed and digitally available driver's license examination-related materials, including the examination itself, be available and administered in the English-only, passed 187-159. To up the hate level, the bill also prohibits taking tests with the assistance of a translator or translation programs.

THE GOOD

Sensible Changes to Drug Laws Move Forward, But Face a Likely Brick Wall Named “Kelly”.

Four bills attempting to modernize our state’s drug laws passed easily. Unfortunately, should any of them make it through the Senate, there is a high likelihood they’ll face the red veto pen of Gov. Ayotte, who this week once again confirmed her opposition to cannabis legalization in any form.

• HB 226-FN, a bill that expands on the good start made by the legislature’s 2023 legalization of fentanyl and xylazine test strips by defining and legalizing other types of drug checking equipment used by drug users to see if a street drug contains an undisclosed controlled substance that could prove dangerous or even fatal if ingested, passed by voice vote after a motion to kill it failed 140-196.

• HB 198, a bill legalizing cannabis possession, increasing the cannabis possession limit to 2 ounces, and enacting penalties for smoking or vaping cannabis in public, passed 208-125 after an attempt to kill it failed. By focusing squarely on legalization and addressing issues around public consumption, the bill attempts to avoid the pitfalls of the failed bills of the past that, in addition to legalization, attempted to regulate sales, production, marketing, and taxation.

• HB 380-FN passed by voice vote. The bill would remove an outdated and unnecessarily harsh enhanced felony-level penalty for therapeutic cannabis users who sell their cannabis to others. However, the base penalty for selling cannabis would still apply.

• HB 190-FN passed on the consent calendar by voice vote. The bill would increase the amount of therapeutic cannabis a patient could obtain in a single visit to a dispensary from 2 to 4 ounces. In a state where some patients are forced to drive long distances to a dispensary, the bill would provide a level of convenience similar to obtaining a 90 day supply of a prescription medication rather than more expensive 30 day supplies.

• HB 528 also passed by voice vote. It would lower penalties for possession of psilocybin (“magic mushrooms”) to bring them more into line with penalties for cannabis possession. There is an increasing body of research showing that psilocybin—the active ingredient in “magic mushrooms”—can be a breakthrough treatment for people suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome, certain forms of psychosis, and cluster headaches. However, lack of federal approval and the difficulty of engaging in research in a drug that is illegal to possess under both the federal and state Controlled Drug Acts has stunted research into treatment for these conditions, forcing patients who could benefit from it into becoming criminals.

GOP Attempt to Silence NH Municipal Officials Fails.

• HB 456, a bill targeting the NH Municpal Association that would have banned organizations representing municipal officials from taking positions on legislation and lobbying with public funds—severely limiting the ability of municipalities to weigh in in the interest of people in their communities—was indefinitely postponed (killed for the next 2 years in any form) 187-163.

Humungous Ambulance Bills May Become a Thing of the Past.

• The House voted, 250-85, to approve HB 316, which would end “balance billing”—the practice of charging patients the difference between what an ambulance ride costs and what their insurance company agrees to cover. More.

Legislation Passes Increasing Penalties for Reckless Drunk Drivers.

Passing by voice vote on the consent calendar were:

• HB 482, a bill that would increase the length of a license suspension for drivers caught speeding over 100 miles per hour.

• HB 776, which would impose enhanced penalties on drunk drivers who drive the wrong way on a highway.

• HB 602, which requires impaired drivers convicted of DUI, or those charged with DUI who plead down to down to reckless driving or negligent driving, to complete an online victim impact panel program at their own expense. Graduates of this program re-offend at a much lower rate than the general population of DUI offenders and it is already being utilized by some NH courts.

WHAT A WEEK!

Also in the news this week:

• A Democratic lawmaker faced the music in his shocked and angry community after throwing transgender people under the bus by speaking in support of a Jim Crow-like law that bans them from bathrooms that correspond to their gender identity.

• As work on the state budget careened towards conclusion and a likely April 10 vote in the House, a GOP scheme to shut down the State Library was shelved after huge public outcry. But plans to shut down the NH Commission on the Arts—and the funding it provides for arts programs across the state—remain on track despite performative hand-wringing from Governor Ayotte.

• A gambit by GOP members of the House Finance Committee could shut communities out of any increase in revenue from the state’s room’s and meals tax at a time when cities and towns are dealing with less federal money and face even more downshifting from the state

• Despite chronic staff shortages and recruiting issues, Republicans on the Finance Committee are also targeting the state prison system for a 150 person staff reduction they say will save the state $17 million per year. Having toured the men’s prison several times as a legislator, it’s difficult to see how making an already understaffed facility that’s falling apart even more understaffed will do anything other than reduce safety for staff and inmates while setting up taxpayers for more lawsuits. Also worth noting is the average corrections worker in NH makes less than half of the $113,333 average salary it would take to make the $17 million number work.

• Making finalizing the budget even more challenging is news that the federal Centers for Disease Control is eliminating pandemic-era grant funding the state Department of Health and Human Services, which opened up an unexpected $80 million gap in the budget.

• The future of people who are food insecure in NH is even less secure after the Trump administration cut federal support for USDA assistance programs. The New Hampshire Food Bank has lost close to $1 million dollars in funding and is scrambling to make up the difference through private donation.

• This coming week, the House Finance Committee will put the finishing touches on a state budget that whose supporters claim will save the state millions, but will cost most Granite Staters in a big way. See how much the budget will cost you.