The Senate Judiciary Committee met in an executive session Tuesday to consider the Cornerstone-supported HB 440; to our disappointment, the Committee did not deliver the decision we had hoped for.
Read our analysis below on what happened, and learn what you can do now to help restore this important bill.
HB 440, Rep. Jim Kofalt’s Civil Liberties Defense Act, seeks to correct the fact that New Hampshire state law allows a governor to suspend civil liberties in a state of emergency—a power most other governors in the United States do not have.
Rep. Kofalt’s bill was the most basic and important of the emergency powers reforms passed by the House last session—and it should have become law long ago. Unfortunately, it was retained by the Senate Judiciary Committee in a May 2021 executive session. Tuesday, the Committee took up the bill and passed it, but not before stripping most of the legal substance from the bill.
As Rep. Kofalt has correctly pointed out, the minimum core needed for HB 440 to effectively protect civil liberties was sections 4-7 of the bill passed by the House. The Judiciary Committee’s version removed everything from the bill except section 7.
As amended by the Committee, the bill leaves open at least three different avenues for future governors to potentially suspend civil liberties during emergencies. In fact, without section 4—the definitions section of the House bill—it is unlikely that section 7 will actually do anything.
Cornerstone was surprised and disappointed that the Committee once again acted against this commonsense bill. While it is well-known that the Governor’s office holds considerable sway over the Senate, we did not expect that the Governor personally wanted to retain the power to suspend civil liberties. Our concern was about how a future governor might abuse these powers—not Governor Sununu. If the Governor’s office was involved in today’s decision, that should raise alarm bells about how he intends to use these powers.
The original substance of HB 440 is necessary to protect all of our state and federal constitutional rights during states of emergency. In its current weakened state, it fails to do so. Contact your state senator now and tell them to amend the bill and restore the version that was passed by the House or, at a bare minimum, to restore sections 4-7 of the House bill.
For more on the Civil Liberties Defense Act, see our overview containing a wealth of resources on the bill and why it is important.
