Rep. David Meuse
IMG_9343.jpg

Updates

State House Updates

What Just Happened: April 10, 2025 House Session Recap—Special “Let Them Eat Vouchers” Edition

Legislators entering Representatives Hall to vote on the state budget got an earful and an eyeful from some of their constituents.

On Thursday, the Battle of the Budget took place in Concord. While many of the most harmful elements of a toxic state budget will now move over to the Senate, the good news is that a few of the worst things were stopped dead in their tracks.

After the vote, many of my colleagues posted summaries and commentaries. But few were as sharp and succinct as the one written by my colleague, Rep. Molly Howard (D-Hancock). She did a great job summing up the various threads of a day where a Republican state budget was passed that not only imposes pain and needless retribution against the usual GOP targets, but finds a way to create harm and havoc for everyone.

“Well, they did it. After pulling the rug from under their own feet by tabling HB2 and dissolving into chaos, the Republicans passed the draconian budget in which they robbed Peter to pay Paul by shutting down human services agencies like the Office for Child Advocacy and draining those agencies' funds into the General Fund. This instead of admitting that they closed down too many revenue streams in their attempt to make New Hampshire "business friendly" and turning it into a haven for the rich. They shot down extending free or discounted lunches to all kids who rely on Medicaid even as they extended public school dollars to kids who are already in private schools, which their parents could presumedly  afford because - well, you know: they're already enrolled. If they didn't close the agency, they defunded it. They scraped together $16B and today will proudly boast that they didn't raise taxes. Instead they took away the future pensions of new Group III workers and cut funding to UNH and community colleges. In fact, they cut funding to all education except the Education Freedom Account, capping spending on what they are now calling education "disparities" and scraping Education Trust Funds they consider left over into the General Fund. They raised fees on over 90 services, including increasing Medicaid premiums for some users to almost $300 per month and introducing new copays. They reduced the rolls of the Department of Corrections by over 100 and required every state agency to find steep savings. It was a blatant money grab on the behalf of Granite Staters who already have it. It will serve as an unintentional exposure of the values of that party. The proof is in the budget. They are a rapacious group who have forgotten whom they serve - or are in the NH House to serve only the wealthy.

“They were not wrong about having too little revenue for the next biennium. A look back will show you the motivations behind this budget also inspired the end of the Interest and Dividends Tax and the reduction in Business Profits Tax. They stopped putting cookies in the jar and then they burgled the neighbors for the cookies they needed for the next two years.

“The budget is now in the hands of the Senate, which also has a Republican majority. They'll be working directly with the governor, who I imagine will be eager to restore the almost $700M her Housemates removed. They'll bank on the new gambling they are enabling soon to increase the spending. Great! Another tax on the poor!”

SO WHAT HAPPENED?

In addition to the three bills that comprise the state budget and over twenty amendments, we also voted on several bills that previously passed in the House but were referred to the Finance Committee for more work. Here’s a summary of the key votes.

The Budget

  • HB 1-A passed 197-178. This is the portion of the budget that includes budget allocations for state agencies, many of which took a hit in Gov. Ayotte’s budget and a double-cut in this version.

  • HB 25, the state’s capital improvement budget, passed by voice vote. It provides bonding and funding for new state projects and money for maintenance and repairs to state-owned buildings.

  • HB 2 passed 185-175. This is the portion of the budget that adds specific policy and spending directives. During debate on amendments to it, the bill was initially tabled when right-wing Liberty Republicans, upset over how some of the amendment votes were going, voted to pull the plug on the whole thing. But after a short caucus, they were persuaded by their leadership to take the bill off the table and continued to vote on amendments. The version that passed includes:

    • Deep cuts to state agencies, especially to the Department of Corrections

    • Expands school vouchers with no income limits

    • Cuts $80 million for the budget of the NH University System

    • Abolishes the Office of Early Childhood Education in the state Department of Education.

    • Slashes provider rates for Medicaid

    • Abolishes the Commission on Aging

    • Abolishes the Office of the Child Advocate

    • Increases fees on everything from environmental permits to motor vehicles

    • Imposes a 5% income tax on those who receive Medicaid

    • Imposes large, unspecified “back of the budget” cuts on several state agencies who are now left to determine what should be cut (for example, in addition to other cuts, the Department of Health and Human Services will have to trim another $47 million from its budget)

    • Sharply cuts or eliminates funding for the State Council of the Arts, the Human Rights Commission, family planning, mental health, and developmental services for people with disabilities

  • The “Better Budget” amendment, an attempt by Dems to present an alternate balanced budget that would have addressed the most harmful cuts, protected healthcare access, and rejected harmful policy changes failed 166-204.

  • Speaking of harmful policy changes, the final budget includes dozens of harmful changes to state law that have already passed in the House, but were included in the budget as a negotiating hammer with the Senate. Some of the real doozies that passed, include:

    • Legalizing blackjacks and brass knuckles.

    • Setting the table to legalize machine guns and silencers by challenging the federal government’s ability to regulate them.

    • Allowing no-cause evictions after a lease ends

    • Removing protections for trans people in NH anti-discrimination law

      Adding a provision to make New Hampshire the only state in the country not to require children be immunized against chicken pox.

  • Worth noting is there were several victories in the HB 2 battle of the amendments. The approved budget:

    • Restores tourism funding cut from the Division of Travel and Tourism

    • Removes controversial school budget cap language (however, HB 675, the bill that language came from, is still alive in the Senate)

    • Restores the ability of local communities to approve Keno

    • Reinstates the Board of Tax and Land Appeals

    • Removes the language of HB 581 which establishes a defined contribution retirement plan for new state employees

ACTION ON OTHER BILLS

  • HB 493, which would have required doctors, nurse practitioners, and physician assistants to complete a one-hour course on child abuse and neglect was killed 193-177. More.

  • HB 66, a change to NH’s “right to know” law that would expand the universe of potential requestors to people across state lines—potentially greatly adding to the time and expense for municipalities to respond to these requests—passed 207-164.

  • HB 71 passed 209-162. It bans communities from using public schools to house immigrants. More.

  • HB 115, a bill expanding eligibility for NH’s school voucher program to the state’s wealthiest families, passed by a closer-than-expected 188-181 vote. More.

  • HB 296, expending the maximum benefit for first responders injured in the line of duty, passed 296-76. More.

  • HB 511, a harmful bill sold as an “anti-sanctuary cities” legislation that deprives immigrants of fundamental rights, passed 211-161. An earlier version of the bill previously passed in the House and was referred back the Finance Committee for additional “work”—which turned out to be an amendment that had nothing to do with actually calculating the cost of weaponizing our state’s law enforcement agencies to do the bidding of ICE. Instead, it had everything to do with taking our state further down a slippery slope that normalizes the denial of due process to anyone with an accent. I was one of 4 Dem reps to speak on the floor against the bill and the amendment. Rep. Chris Muns (D-Hampton) delivered an impassioned speech against the amendment, drawing on his parents’ experiences fleeing the Nazis as Dutch refugees. After the amendment passed, I spoke against the amended bill.  While I didn’t have an experience like Chris’s to draw on, I did have an oversupply of slow-building outrage over what is now being  done to our neighbors, to our country, and to ourselves in the name of immigration enforcement. You can view my remarks here.   Additional coverage from Seacoast Online and the Boston Globe.

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING

WHAT’S NEXT?

The budget—HB 1, HB 2, and HB 25—now moves on to the Senate Finance Committee. Work will start after April 23, when revised revenue estimates are expected. There will be at least one additional public hearing where members of the public will have the opportunity to weigh in. More.

More information

David Meuse