O.K. Misleading title. “Mattered” in the sense that the vote is predictive of how effective an opposition the minority GOP in the New Hampshire House can be.
As a threshold matter, I know the House Rules are not subject to a veto, which I note to avoid the comment “he doesn’t even know House Rules aren’t subject to a veto.” But I think that the vote on one of the amendments shows that Democrats effectively have a veto-proof majority in the House.
It takes a two-thirds vote to override a veto. Democrats hold 233 of the 400 seats. Assuming full attendance, they would need to peel off only 34 GOP votes to override a veto.
The vote on the gun ban was 220 to 163. One GOP -or more precisely one Representative who ran as a GOP- voted with the Democrats, while four Democrats showed some common sense and voted against the ban.
But I do not think this vote was at all predictive of how much support the Democrat agenda will muster. The gun ban was highly publicized. There was a rally at the Statehouse promoted by the GOP State Committee opposing it just before the vote. The GOP Leader Dick Hinch had come out against it. For the GOP to have deserted their newly elected leader under these circumstances would have been essentially to cut his legs off.
These factors were not present with the vote for mandatory sexual harassment training. And the vote was quite different.
The measure passed 284 to 92, with the Republicans badly fracturing. Hinch voted for it, while one of his top lieutenants, Al Baldasaro, voted against it.
So what’s wrong with Republicans voting for mandatory sexual harassment training? In the hands of Democrats, it becomes a political indoctrination where sexual harassment gets defined broadly enough to encompass opposing the Democrat agenda.
And a large number of Republicans, including the GOP Leader, supported what amounts to Soviet style reeducation.
If this keeps up, it is going to be a long two years folks.
