I’m not a fan of legislative leaders hiding unrelated legislation in a budget. It’s a trick. Budgets will get passed eventually. Stuffing changes that failed to pass in the House or Senate needs to stop. So, how about one that was never a bill at all?
Related: Cornerstone on Budget Deal: Good News and Bad News For Abortion Funding
This is clearly from the “pass it to see what’s in it” category of which statists are so proud. New Hampshire has raised the legal age to buy tobacco to nineteen. Did anyone know they hid this in the budget?
(Correction: Yes, House Rep. Judy Aron’s review of the session that day makes mentions it).
The original legislation, as far as I can tell, was to raise the legal age for smoking to 21. That bill failed. The new “law” raises it to 19 years of age. But if there was no bill during the session for this, your elected officials just created it and added it without a single committee, hearing, or vote. No one knew. And now it’s law.
That appears to be how lawmaking gets done in the Granite State, and it needs to stop.
