Please thank House Leaders for standing their ground on emergency powers reforms, and contact all 24 senators, asking them to support the budget. As written, the State of Emergency would end.
We’d like to thank Andrew Manuse for this Content. If you have an Op-Ed, Letter, or other content
you want us to consider please submit it to Skip@GraniteGrok or Steve@GraniteGrok.com.
Just one day after our op-ed asking House members to hold their ground on emergency power reforms in the budget, the N.H. House Finance Committee chairman named two ReopenNH priorities as essential for any budget to become law.
In his email to the Senate Finance Committee, House Chairman Ken Weyler said measures in the budget to restore the Legislature’s control during a state of emergency and return fines to businesses that they paid them under emergency orders are required components of any budget.
There are two takeaways from this:
- The N.H. House we elected to represent our interests is standing their ground and we ought to thank them for this. Chairman Weyler, who was not even an endorsed candidate, deserves a special thank you. Rep. Weyler probably does not want a flood of emails, but any public support you can give him on social media or via letters to the editor would be very helpful.
- It’s time for the Senate to hear from us. Your senator and all the senators need to know that the People want a restoration of balanced government and the rule of law as well as an end to the State of Emergency. Feel free to read the op-ed we wrote for ideas on what to include in your talking points, or reuse ideas from a previous email on this topic.
Now that the N.H. House budget has passed, it will be sent to the Senate Finance Committee, which will work to pass its own version of the budget. We are going to want to contact the Senate and ask them to include emergency powers reforms in the budget. Once the Senate budget is passed, the House and Senate will appoint members to attend a committee of conference to work out the differences. This is the point when we must push the hardest for our Legislature to do the right thing.
Assuming the Legislature acts to include the emergency powers reforms, and the amended budget passes both the House and the Senate, the governor will then have five business days to sign the budget, veto the budget, or allow the budget to become law without his signature. We will continue to ask our representatives to deny their support for any budget that does not include these emergency powers reforms.
We are working on several strategies to advance our cause from this point forward. As of today, please contact all 24 senators using the email addresses listed below and ask them to support emergency powers reforms in the budget. You may also use the “Find Your Senator” button to get a phone number to call your own Senator.
Talking points to consider using in your calls and emails:
- The House budget contains comprehensive State of Emergency reforms that the governor promised us last fall, but has since said he won’t sign. Let’s hold the governor to his word and restore the Constitutional balance of powers to the Legislature by including these reforms in the final budget.
- The emergency powers reforms in no way impede the governor’s ability to issue emergency orders during a State of Emergency, but they do create legislative oversight to the extension of State of Emergency declarations to prevent abuses of power.
- The State of Emergency is intricately tied into the budget because the budget defines spending policy for the state and the executive branch is spending our tax dollars to implement its emergency powers, so it is perfectly appropriate for State of Emergency reforms to be in the budget.
- It is imperative the Senate pass the budget so that the Legislature can have a say in the budget process. The Legislature, not the governor, should be creating state laws and setting state spending policy.
- The State of Emergency is over and citizens need to have some normalcy restored so the economy and culture can recover. It’s going to take time, but we cannot let this biennium go by without a return to the Constitutional balance of powers. Passing these reforms in the budget is our best chance we have to restore our government to its intended form.
N.H. State Senate
(Copy and Paste this list into the BCC field of your email client and put your own email address in the TO field).
<District 1 Sen. Erin Hennessey> Erin.Hennessey@leg.state.nh.us
<District 2 Sen. Bob Giuda> Bob.Giuda@leg.state.nh.us
<District 3 Sen. Jen Bradley> Jeb.Bradley@leg.state.nh.us
<District 4 Sen. David Watters> David.Watters@leg.state.nh.us
<District 5 Sen. Suzanne Prentiss> Suzanne.Prentiss@leg.state.nh.us
<District 6 Sen. James Gray> James.Gray@leg.state.nh.us
<District 7 Sen. Harold French> Harold.French@leg.state.nh.us
<District 8 Sen. Ruth Ward> Ruth.Ward@leg.state.nh.us
<District 9 Sen. Denise Ricciardi> Denise.Ricciardi@leg.state.nh.us
<District 10 Sen. Jay Kahn> Jay.Kahn@leg.state.nh.us
<District 11 Sen. Gary Daniels> Gary.Daniels@leg.state.nh.us
<District 12 Sen. Kevin Avard> Kevin.Avard@leg.state.nh.us
<District 13 Sen. Cindy Rosenwald> Cindy.Rosenwald@leg.state.nh.us
<District 14 Sen. Sharon Carson> Sharon.Carson@leg.state.nh.us
<District 15 Sen. Rebecca Whitley> Becky.Whitley@leg.state.nh.us
<District 16 Sen. Kevin Cavanaugh> Kevin.Cavanaugh@leg.state.nh.us
<District 17 Sen. John Reagan> John.Reagan111@gmail.com
<District 18 Sen. Donna Soucy> Donna.Soucy@leg.state.nh.us
<District 19 Sen. Regina Birdsell> Regina.Birdsell@leg.state.nh.us
<District 20 Sen. Lou D’Allesandro> Lou.Dallesandro@leg.state.nh.us
<District 21 Sen. Rebecca Perkins-Kwoka> Rebecca.PerkinsKwoka@leg.state.nh.us
<District 22 Sen. Chuck Morse, senate president> Chuck.Morse@leg.state.nh.us
<District 23 Sen. Bill Gannon> William.Gannon@leg.state.nh.us
<District 24 Sen. Tom Sherman> Tom.Sherman@leg.state.nh.us
