We learned that the NH House lost a truly wonderful, educated and endearing State Representative. We all will miss Rep. Dick Marple and it was appropriate to take time to remember him during the start of session today and pass an unanimous resolution memorializing him and his accomplishments. May his memory be a blessing always.
We learned that “We’re baaaaack!” Hide your wallet and send some more red pens to the Governor, because it looks like it’s going to be another long list of vetoed bills ahead of us!
We learned that the Speaker of the House needs help disciplining members of his own party. He announced that he is establishing a “bipartisan” committee going forward so that consequences for nasty posts on social media can be dealt with in a fair manner. As you may recall, in the past few months, two male Republicans were removed from their committees for what was deemed by the Speaker as “offensive” social media posts, yet two female Democrats suffered little more than a slap on the wrist and “warnings” by the Speaker for their hideous and expletive laden Facebook posts. Hopefully this new committee will help “Principal Shurtleff” (his term not mine) keep the kids in line and mete out appropriate punishments for their transgressions.
We learned that united minority Republicans were more than happy to sustain the two outstanding vetoed bills from 2019 session (HB226 relative to renomination of teachers and HB315 relative to the Interstate Voter Registration Crosscheck Program). Seems like this is a portent of the fate of future vetoed bills to come in 2020.
We learned that the Democrat majority have not yet learned the definition of insanity as outlined by Albert Einstein. They keep coming back with similar bills that have been vetoed and sustained. What a waste of everyone’s time and energy! Today they passed Red Flag laws (HB687) and passed a bill that trashed the Medicaid expansion work requirement (HB690), and they even passed an income tax (HB712 Family Leave). We’ve seen those before. They met a death by sustained veto. Fear not, they are not finished. All of the bills that were vetoed and sustained in 2019 having to do with stripping gun rights from Granite Staters, or instituting an income tax, or raising/creating taxes will likely be back in one form or another in 2020 for the same result. We will no doubt see more bills to punish and restrict businesses, waste taxpayer money and destroy the NH advantage. It’s like Deja Vu all over again.
We learned that the redistricting bill (CACR 9) could not muster 3/5ths majority to pass which is a good thing, as it sought to change the NH Constitution and abrogate the responsibility of the legislature to determine redistricting and hand it to some unelected “independent” commission. I’ll bet it would have been chaired by someone named “Jerry Mander”.
We learned that the Democrat majority passed a bill to regulate art therapists (HB546). Even though these credentialed folks are currently protected under NH law, they will now have to pay a huge license fee and cause the state to create a new licensing and governing board. Medical insurers will also be mandated to cover such services, so insurance costs will also go up. More regulation and bureaucracy… well, you get the picture.
We learned that the Democrat majority continues its assault on private and religious schools in NH by working to dismantle the Croyden bill. They voted to require these schools to have NH State Board of Education approved Special Education programs (HB721-FN) in order to be approved to accept tuitioned students from NH public schools. This, of course, increases the costs for these private and religious schools and takes away their ability to choose their own courses of curriculum and restricts local control, parental rights, and educational opportunity. It was brought to us from none other than Rep. Tamara Le who publicly proclaimed (in not very nice words) how much she hates private and religious schools. Mind you, she sits on the Education Committee. Sounds like she needs more than just “detention”.
We learned that the Democrat majority wanted to be Vermont so badly, that they passed the SMART ACT (SB 7), which would do automatic voter registration when you get a driver’s license. This would cost our state at least $7 million to implement. Municipal and NH Towns and Cities Clerks associations objected to it. This also creates a conflict in the law regarding the job of Supervisors of the Checklist, who are the only ones that can add names to the voter roster. This bill doesn’t sound SMART to me.
Finally, we learned that one vote indeed makes a difference. The vote to Table HB221, which would rename Columbus Day to Indigenous People’s Day passed 179-178. This additional attempt to make NH into Vermont was thankfully thwarted for the time being. The question remains, why does the Democrat majority want to eliminate a day in which we celebrate and recognize the contributions of Italian Americans and to instead celebrate “indigenous people”? Can’t they find another day in the calendar to achieve that purpose and leave Columbus Day alone? I hope they can “discover” another day and “land” on it.
Stay tuned: We’ve got more bills coming tomorrow!
