Yes, Kids – We’re Baaaaack!
The 168th Session of the General Court organized itself today in accordance with Part II, Article 3 of the NH Constitution.
So what did we learn today?
We learned that it will be VERY, VERY important for all Republican Reps to be in their seats, and stay in their seats, for this session and any future sessions, in the House with our majority of 201R-198D.
We learned that after swearing in of all 391 House members present, we were able to elect Sherm Packard as our House Speaker by a vote of 205 to 184 (for Rep. Matt Wilhelm) plus 2 blank ballots. This meant that even some Democrats voted for Speaker Packard! We went on to vote unanimously for Paul Smith for House Clerk, and J.B. Cullen for Sergeant at Arms. Speaker Packard immediately appointed Rep. Jason Osborne to be the Republican majority Leader and Rep. Matt Wilhelm to be Minority Leader. Congratulations to all!
We learned that the lunch provided by the NH Humane Society was a vegan lunch, and the food ran out before all legislators got to the buffet. No animals were harmed for the meal that not everyone got a chance to eat. We really do thank NHHS for their generosity and their efforts, but perhaps this might portend that going vegan just might not solve the world hunger crisis. 😉
We learned that Secretary of State, David Scanlan is well-liked and was handily re-elected over contender Sen. Melanie Levesque, by a huge margin of 237-175, with the Senate in joint session with the House. 413 votes were cast with 1 write-in and 0 blank ballots. It was noted that the nomination and second for Secretary Scanlan were bi-partisan, whereas his opponent’s nomination and second were made by Democrats only. That said a lot right there.
We learned that Monica Mezzapelle was re-elected unanimously by the joint session to be our NH State Treasurer. Both she and David Scanlan were sworn in together.
We learned that Rep. Wilhelm (D) was quick to make a motion to pass HR6 – calling for a special election in Rochester where David Walker (R) was in a tie race with Rep. Chuck Grassie (D). But Rep. Ross Berry (R) was just as quick to make a motion to table the House Resolution. Unfortunately, too many Republicans had either left for the day or were confused about how to vote, and the motion to Table failed 187 (Yes)-193 (No). In the end, the House voted to send the matter back to Rochester for a special election so that the voters can be annoyed during the Christmas holiday season with all sorts of robocalls and negative mailers, not to mention the extra added cost to taxpayers for said election. What was interesting was how totally unprepared Rep. Wilhelm was for the motion to Table to fail, as he came up to the well to continue his Ought to Pass motion on HR6. He uttered, “Well, I don’t know how to proceed. I really wasn’t expecting this result” (or words to that effect). In any case, Maj. Leader Osborne mentioned that in the first motion of the session there is bound to be some confusion and claimed it was a joint motion encouraging everyone to support the special election, which they ultimately did with a voice vote on the OTP motion. Additionally, we learned that the House could have just as easily proclaimed Walker the winner and seated him before all of this happened. Alas, that did not happen, and ultimately too many Republicans went AWOL for this vote in the afternoon. Lesson learned. Stay in your seat until the very end of every session from now on and pay attention.
We learned that from now on – and for this entire 2-year term – all eyes will be on our whips and our attendance lists. There’s gonna be a lot of head counting going on!
Congratulations to all the returning and newly minted House Reps that were sworn in today!! See you on January 4th – Convening Day.
