Carol McGuire 
Happy New Year! I’ve been appointed chair of the Executive Departments and Administration (ED&A) committee. We deal with the state pension system, professional licensing, administrative rules, the state building code, and the organization of the state government – so it’s a busy committee. Almost none of our bills make headlines, though! Since the House is … Read more
Thank you all for your support and your votes! I won my election to Merrimack District 27, so you are officially my constituents (well, I won’t get sworn in until December 7, but no harm in a little anticipation.) My running mate, JR Hoell, also won in district 27; my husband Dan won in Epsom. … Read more
Representative Michael Yakubovich has dropped out of the state Senate race, due to medical problems that need his full attention. Please pray for him and his family in this stressful time. Michael has been replaced as a candidate for the state senate by my friend Keith Murphy, a former representative who now lives in Manchester … Read more
This Tuesday, I had the pleasure of meeting many of you at the polls in the primary election. Thanks to you, I will be on the ballot in November and hope to have the pleasure of representing you in Concord for the next two years. My district has changed, due to redistricting, from Allenstown/Epsom/Pittsfield to … Read more
There was no official legislative work in July, but I did meet with the working group on HB 1312. That bill was to address the need for a 1,000-gallon grease trap at an ice cream shack and was held for study in my committee because testimony revealed multiple conflicts between the state building code and … Read more
I was prime sponsor for twelve bills this year. HB72, building code amendments, was killed because it duplicated SB 15, which passed. HB 628, legalizing possession and home grow of cannabis, was killed in the Senate (after passing the House 241-113!) HB 1016, licensing speech-language specialists in schools; HB 1062, electrology licensing clarification; HB 1192, … Read more
To my constituents in Allenstown, Epsom, & Pittsfield: This week, the House met for the last time, until the veto session sometime in the fall, on the Committee of Conference reports. The two from my committee, SB 313 and HB 230, passed on a voice vote with no comment, as did many others. SB 200, … Read more
This week, the House met to agree (or not) on Senate amendments to House bills and set up Committees of Conference on those we want to either learn more or compromise between the House and Senate positions. SB 200, congressional redistricting, went to Committee of Conference, as expected. My committee asked for a conference on … Read more
This week, the House met for two days to vote on all Senate bills. Since this is the end of the session, a lot of political maneuvering took place, attempting to add House positions someone felt had not been properly treated by the Senate to bills we felt were important to them. Any bill that’s … Read more
This week my committee heard our last two Senate bills, starting with SB 224, creating children’s environmental health day. Neither the sponsor nor any supporters showed up to testify in favor; we then proceeded to a non-germane amendment addressing reciprocity for electricians’ licenses. The constituent who still worked in Connecticut admitted that he actually had … Read more
This week, my committee heard more Senate bills. SB 228, updating the regulation of physician assistants, primarily consolidates the collaboration agreement (where the employer specifies the scope of practice for a physician assistant) and the supervisory agreement (with a specific physician) into one document. It also updates the requirements for licensure and adds a new … Read more
This week, the House met for one day to finish our House bills, including the ones pushed off from the last session. It should have been quick, but some representatives took the opportunity to pile on amendments to bills that previously passed the House – and the Senate hasn’t acted quickly enough to please them! … Read more
After last week’s marathon, this was a very easy week. My committee got 24 Senate bills, some quite complex, just after the calendar deadline, so I couldn’t even schedule them. I did visit the Senate on some of my bills. HB 1398, a study committee on centralized record checks in education, was presented to the … Read more
My committee met this week to recommend all our remaining House bills. First, we heard HB 1256, which changed two positions in the department of veterans’ affairs from classified to unclassified, changed the job titles, and clarified their duties. One member of the committee disliked the way the bill was written and presented an amendment … Read more
This week, my committee heard its last three bills. HB 1135 required a performance audit of the education freedom account program. We only had the sponsor and some technical testimony. It seems like a good idea but rather too soon to actually do any good: the program rules are not yet finalized, there are a … Read more
This week, the House continued with committee work. My committee heard HB 1321, which repealed all the changes we had made to the governor’s emergency powers in the last year, including the sponsor’s own HB 1037. That was recommended to be killed, 17-1. HB 1274, establishing a study committee on state agencies’ solid waste practices, … Read more
This week, my committee continued with public hearings. We heard HB 1159, recognizing November 7 as victims of communism memorial day. This was sponsored by a number of representatives who had migrated into the US from countries that had suffered from communism, so we heard some heart-wrenching stories. However, our resistance to special days was … Read more
This week, my committee started dealing with 2022 bills by holding two full days of public hearings. HB 1262, celebrating the 250th anniversary of the Pine Tree Riot, had the sponsor explain what the Pine Tree Riot was and why it was important. It was pre-Revolutionary and started as resistance to the governor trying to … Read more
This week, the House met to vote on all remaining 2021 bills. We met in the Center of New Hampshire, rather than the House chamber, to allow more room for distancing and for separate masked and non-masked sections. This was not optimal, since the acoustics were poor, and it was hard to see who was … Read more
This week, my committee met for the last time this year, to finish three bills we’d held over. HB 457, changing the duties of the legislative youth advisory council, was amended to simply allow some of their meetings to be held virtually. This should help the lack of geographic diversity on the council, especially since … Read more