From former NH House Speaker Bill O’Brien c/o Facebook
Today, the Senate President and House Speaker called us into a special legislative session to be held on Thursday, June 16. This special session, which will result in an additional cost of thousands of taxpayer dollars to reimburse legislators and for staff time, is being held because on June 1 the NH House three times rejected a “Christmas Tree”, legislative grab bag bill known as Senate Bill 485.
We rejected this legislation on a voice vote. We then rejected it on a division vote. And finally we rejected reconsidering those rejections by a 187 to 157 Roll Call vote.
Despite all this, these legislative leaders want us to meet so they can concentrate on getting us to pass that bill and that bill alone. They say we will also vote on some gubernatorial vetoes, but all the vetoes will not have occurred by then so we will have to come back again for that purpose.
So here’s some of the things that SB 485 would have done:
– It would have appropriated $300,000 for a consultant to design a long term health care plan for state retirees and “train” those retirees on how to take advantage of the plan.
This would be a clear waste of money. I bet any number of folks reading this post could design such a plan over the next weekend for nothing and at the same time write an explanation on how previously over-compensated, but now retired state employees can sign up.
– The bill would also have appropriated $1.5 million to create an entirely new source of police overtime to fight drug use at an assumed rate of $66.33/hour as well as pay some costs of a state forensic lab.
Providing a bunch of cops with overtime and expanding government is just the type of thing you like to do when you have been up in Concord as a legislator for too long; none of that however will make one iota of difference in curtailing the recent spate of drug overdoses. Doctors not over-prescribing opioids and limiting the amount prescribed at any one time is the key to knocking back that crisis.
If you don’t think that paying for an unnecessary special session and then making unnecessary appropriations are what you want your legislators to do, you and your friends should call the Senate President and House Speaker and tell them:
Sen Chuck Morse: (603) 271-2111
Rep. Shawn Jasper: (603) 271-3661
Our civic duty doesn’t end by just electing public officials. We need to watch what they do and call them out when they do wrong.
Rep. Bill O’Brien
