We learned that attendance is everything this term. You can’t win if you don’t have the numbers. All eyes are on the whip! We learned that the Speaker of the House voted more today than he did in total in the past 2 years! There’s probably a Speaker vote record being made!
Whether to create a tie to kill a motion or to win a motion by one vote, the speaker cast many votes today. Votes were so close in this evenly divided House that many House votes tallies were only a few votes apart, and we had 4 tie votes! The phrase “slim majority” is an understatement!
We learned that many bills came out of their committees with “No Recommendation” – meaning the evenly split committee of 10 Republicans and 10 Democrats were stalemated and could not reach a decision on whether to recommend that the House ITL(Inexpedient to Legislate) or OTP (Ought To Pass) a bill. This makes House votes more time-consuming – and even more so with our own evenly split House numbers.
We learned that some bills sailed through with voice votes, and other votes on bills lasted quite a while with many motions made. One such bill was HB-234 which had to do with renewable energy credits. The bill, if passed, would have increased energy costs by $30 million over the next 10 years. House Republicans wanted to see this bill die with an ITL. Here’s how the vote on this bill went down…. The bill came out of committee with no recommendation. Therefore it is automatically an OTP motion vote on the House floor. The result of the motion to OTP was 182 YES to 182 NO. Clearly a tie vote, and so that Failed.
We wanted to ITL the bill next, but the Democrats called for a Table motion, which takes precedence over an ITL or OTP motion. So, the next motion was to Table the bill. That vote to Table the bill ended up 182 YES to 184 NO. The Table failed, so we then had a motion to ITL the bill (which you’d think was the next logical thing given the past 2 votes). The vote to ITL the bill was 183 YES to 184 NO!! So then what? There was another call to Table the bill, and that vote ended up 346 YES to 20 NO. Can you sense the frustration? Essentially, a successful Table motion kills the bill… except if it is called off the Table before the deadline to act on the bill. Then it does not need a 2/3 vote to pull it off the Table, it only needs a simple majority vote. So, what do you think happened? Democrats thought they would wait until later in the day – when they thought some Republicans might leave… and at 4:07 PM they motioned to take this bill off the Table. Fortunately, the motion failed 179 YES to 182 NO. Bills will be more difficult to pull off the Table after the deadline to act on those bills.
And this is how we spent our day with many of these bills. A game of cat and mouse … all based on who is in their seat when a vote is taken.
We learned that in the morning, we could only get through 9 bills in 2 hours – with 5 of those being quick Voice Vote bills. So it took us 2 hours to vote on 4 bills because of all the motions as explained above. Those were Science and Technology bills having to do with energy bills, and in the end Republicans managed to save ratepayers millions of dollars.
We learned that the Governor had many Valentines in his budget as he presented his budget to a joint House and Senate session after our lunch break. He plans to give a 10% raise to State employees, rebuild and simplify the Education Funding Formula, add $75 million to the education trust fund, lower property taxes, pour more money into School Building aid, beef up computer science and robotics curriculum in schools, commission a Christa McAuliffe statue for the State House lawn, put more money into mental health programs, increase Medicaid money to recruit employees, add more money for affordable housing efforts, create a Veteran’s campus, use state surplus for capital investments and one-time infrastructure projects, add $180 million to the rainy day fund, eliminate 34 kinds of licenses and create more licensing reciprocity…. Plus lots more to encourage and attract business. Interesting to note that when he mentioned phasing out the Interest and Dividends tax, everyone clapped except Democrats.
We learned that HB260 failed… that was the bill prohibiting you from driving with an animal on your lap. That bill died 194-172 because 194 people agreed that although every type of distracted driving is bad, we shouldn’t start enumerating specific ones in state statutes. What would be next? Driving while eating a burger? Driving while combing your hair? Plus, it is unknown, really, how many people drive with their animal on their lap. Interesting to note that the only state with this law is Hawaii.
We learned that illegal aliens still will not be able to obtain a driver’s license in NH. HB 374 was killed 191-179 because 191 House members understand that with a driver’s license in NH, one can vote, obtain government benefits, open bank accounts, and do a myriad of other things that legal citizens can do. Giving illegal aliens driver’s licenses only aids and abets illegal aliens to live and work illegally in the US and rewards them for violating immigration laws. We don’t want that, but apparently, most House Democrats do.
We learned that you’ll still need 2 license plates on your vehicle. The effort for NH to go to one license plate, HB388, failed with an ITL vote of 191-181.
We learned that raising the marriage age from 16 to 18 in NH also failed with an ITL of 188-184.
We learned that one effort to dismantle Education Freedom Accounts failed by having it Tabled (186-183). Democrats wanted to change the program application such that you have to attend a public school for a year before applying for an EFA. Unfortunately, they managed to pass HB626, which would move the administration of the program from a private contractor to the Department of Education – adding more cost and bureaucracy (passed 183-180). Hopefully, this will get killed in the Senate.
We learned that the House overwhelmingly killed an idiotic campaign contribution scheme – called Taxpayer Funded Campaigns. This takes $6 million of taxpayer money and funds campaigns with it through some voucher program. That died 201-163.
We learned that the attempt to repeal voter affidavit ballots, HB502, failed. The ITL vote was a slim 182-181, with the Speaker voting. The bill that established affidavit voting was passed last year. This was the bill that makes you prove who you say you are and prove you live where you say. Otherwise, your vote is set aside until you can show proof. We don’t want to go back to the days when anyone can show up at a polling station and cast a vote without proving identification and domicile information.
We learned that it was a long day – made even longer by bills coming to us without recommendation and lots of motion maneuvering for those bills. It’s gonna be a long 2 years where attendance on session day will really matter in the House.
