We learned from the Governor’s last State of the State address that New Hampshire ranks highly in many areas and has implemented programs that are being copied in other states. He lauded the legislature’s many accomplishments and complimented agency heads for their work.
Democrats in the audience sat stoned-faced as he touted the success of the Education Freedom Account (EFA) program and how school choice is helping so many children in the Granite State.
He opened his speech with an amusing “fourth term, don’t care” joke and reminded us this was his last term as Governor… to which someone clapped. He chuckled and then said, “the filing period to run doesn’t expire until June, so you never know,” followed with, “Councilor Warmington almost fell out of her chair right now. Just kidding, Cinde!”
Perhaps the Governor is also contemplating doing stand-up comedy after his term is up.
After the joint session and Governor’s speech, which ended around 2 pm, we learned that it took us until 6:15 pm to get through 16 bills as we bounced back and forth with reconsideration motions and then defeat of key wins that the Republican caucus had earned earlier in the day. Between people leaving early and a handful of “Republicans” voting like Democrats, we unfortunately lost some key bills. Read below, and you’ll see what I mean.
We learned that HB1212, which will cost NH taxpayers over $50 million to implement, is a free school lunch eligibility bill. Here’s proof that there is no such thing as a free lunch. Initially, the OTP was defeated 188-187, and it was ITL’d 188-187 as well. There was a call for Reconsideration, which passed 187-181, and then ITL’d again 187-181. Later on in the day, when Republican numbers dwindled, there was another call for Reconsideration, which passed, and a vote to Indefinitely Postpone the bill, which failed, and then a final motion to OTP, which passed 193-175. The bill will now proceed to Finance. So this will come back to the House when they are done with it.
We also learned that HB1419 had a worse fate than HB1212. HB1419 would have prohibited obscene or harmful sexual material in schools. I cannot wrap my head around how anyone would condone pornographic, violent, and absolutely inappropriate materials in our school libraries or curriculum … however, Democrats fought tooth and nail to keep this in our schools and make this stuff available to k-12 students.
Here’s how it went down: First we passed a committee amendment 2024-0391h (that clarified what is meant by harmful and offensive material) with a vote of 188-185. We then defeated a floor amendment that would have gutted the bill and replaced it with an ineffective watered-down bill, with a vote of 358-17. Then as we heard floor speeches on the OTP/A motion, Rep. Glenn Cordelli (R-Tuftonboro) began to read excerpts from two books: “Here and Queer,” from the Hillsboro-Deering School District and “Speak” from the Dover Middle School library.
One passage described a violent rape. At this point, House Democrats objected to such obscene and inappropriate language being used on our House floor!!! The Democrats began to get up and leave (see photo above) because they were so appalled at what he was reading, despite knowing that this material is found in our schools!!! At which point Rep. Lucy Weber (D-Walpole) made a motion to silence Rep. Coredelli’s speech! Imagine the hypocrisy!! Here, the Democrats are saying Republicans are trying to ban books and suppress free speech… and yet they would not allow Rep. Cordelli to speak!!! Can you be more clearly hypocritical???
A roll call vote ensued on whether to allow Rep. Cordelli to continue, which ended up in 201 YES -173 NO. Rep. Cordelli continued, and when he was done, several colleagues were given the opportunity to ask a question. Rep. Michael Vose (R- Epping) pointedly asked, “If material is inappropriate to read on the House floor, wouldn’t that automatically make it inappropriate to present to k-12 students?”
You Think???
Well, apparently, Democrats don’t think so. Democrats motioned to Table the bill on a roll call vote resulting in 192-181, and then there was a roll call vote to print the remarks in the permanent House Journal of the entire discussion 291-84. This bill sat on the Table until later in the day, specifically at 5:25 pm, when Democrats moved to take it off the Table 308-40. They then defeated an OTP motion 187 NO-162 YES and ultimately killed the bill with an Indefinite Postponement motion 187-162. So there you have the absolutely disgusting and disgraceful actions of Democrats in our chamber who feel that it is OK to expose violent, pornographic, and inappropriate materials to NH children in their schools.
So next time these people tell us, “It’s for the children,” ask them exactly how explicit pornography and depictions of acts of violence or self-harm are any good for any child or teenage minor.
Additionally, we learned that HB1524, allowing parents of special education students to observe in a classroom setting, passed with a vote of OTP 187 YES-185 NO. That was a win.
We learned that HB1642, the establishment of Local Education Freedom Accounts and a local school board enabling bill, ultimately died ITL 194 YES-179 NO.
We also learned that HB1677, a bill that would have allowed children to participate in the EFA program, regardless of family income, if their school proficiency scores were in the bottom 25% of schools or districts. So here again, Democrats would deny a child be able to leave a poorly performing school to pursue a better education. So don’t tell me, “It’s for the kids”. The truth is they demonstrated today that they do not care about anyone’s kids.
We further learned that Democrats want to classify themselves as “employees of the state” so they can gain benefits from federal programs. With HB1000, which would have elected officials to be classified as state employees so that they can be eligible for federal loan forgiveness programs, Democrats demonstrated that they are only interested in personal gain. Rep. Ellen Read (D-Newmarket) felt the need to pass this bill in order to attract younger people to run for office because there are just too many old people in the State House.
She’d like to see personal benefits offered by the federal and state governments for their employees, handed also to elected officials. These are benefits that any of our own constituents do not have access to! Rep. Michael Costable (R-Freedom) said we were elected officials and not employees of the state. We are a volunteer part-time legislature, not full-time employees, and we should not be getting personal benefits for serving the people of this state. The Roll called vote on ITL was 184 YES-174 NO. Thankfully, this died, but a subsequent bill, HB1363, which would allow members of the General Court to participate in Health and Human Services employee assistance programs, passed 184-168. It now goes to Finance. This will come back to the House another day.
We also learned that HB154, a leftover bill from 2023, came to us from the Senate. It was originally a bill about municipal health ordinances and was gutted by the Senate and turned into a bill allowing the use of new voting machines. House members received angry emails from constituents annoyed with the bait-and-switch aspect of this bill and this addition of a non-germane amendment. No Committee of Conference will take place, and the bill was “Concurred” on a Voice Vote. I, for one, was not happy with how this turned out, and I was a co-sponsor of the original bill!
Finally, we learned again that Republicans need to show up and stay to vote on these key bills. Numbers count. For some of the ones we lost today, we will have other opportunities to defeat them. But, we have absolutely seen the agenda of the Left… to keep kids in failing schools and give them pornography and violent reading material while they are there. And then they wonder why parents are pulling their kids out, applying for the EFA program, and looking elsewhere for a better education for their kids. Meanwhile, the Democrats (and a bunch of RINOs) expect taxpayers to dump millions more dollars into failing school programs and curricula and abandon innovative educational programs while claiming that they are trying to lower your property taxes while seeking to raise taxes elsewhere (like an income tax or sales tax). For the record, we are funding education with more money than ever before… so it truly is not about the money. Shouldn’t we be asking, “what exactly is it that we are trying to accomplish in our schools???” Seems to me it has become less about reading, writing and arithmetic and more about funding other things that truly do not belong in school. Just look at the kinds of bills the Democrats seek to pass.
There’s much more to come next week as we have 44 bills scheduled – next Thursday is going to be a looooong day!
