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The New Hampshire House voted 184-146 to advance Senate Bill 500, housekeeping legislation meant to clean up the language in firearms statutes in the GraniteState.
Unlike the State Senate where approval was unanimous SB500 did not garner overwhelming bipartisan support in the NH House. In fact, it received very little support from House Democrats with 139 of the 146 no votes coming from the left.
Don’t you think collecting abortion statistics is matter of public health? NH is one of only three states that does not report abortion statistics to the CDC. In this segment guest-host Ellen Kolb leads a conversation about stalled efforts to change that, the Republican-lead legislature’s opposition to life, and some little-known facts about abortion in … Read more
Former NH House Speaker Bill O’Brien joins us for a discussion on running for office, the make up of legislatures, how Murderers Row in the New Hampshire House got its name, and why legislators should only serve a short time (no careerists) and then go home.
Max walks us through some legislation, including Poker, a bill to control abuses by child and family services, who voted for a 2.25% state sales tax, the Judiciary committee bailing on oversight over the judicial system, a tax on marriage to fund a domestic violence program, and the rhetoric on cutting expansions to the budget, … Read more
Update! – The Democrats claim they needed the Monday Caucus so that both sides could give their views on the Casino Bill, and that this was a legitimate purpose for which they could exact a mileage reimbursement on a Monday, but Wednesday morning of the same week, before the session and vote on the Casino Bill, the Democrats held a caucus at which they discussed…. the Casino bill. Democrat Governor Maggie Hassan even came to that Caucus to make her final pitch for the legislation.
Original post Follows…
From the Concord Fish Wrapper…
“Please remember that mileage reimbursement will only be paid for travel on Mondays and Fridays for statutory committees which meet on those days,” Norelli wrote in the April 26 edition of the House Calendar.
But this Monday, House Democrats held a closed-door caucus that didn’t appear in last week’s calendar. Norelli’s spokesman, Mario Piscatella, said the caucus was held to discuss the casino bill, with members on both sides of the issue presenting their views followed by a discussion.
That doesn’t sound like a statutory committee. And yet 78 Democrats–the attendees of the “Caw!-cus” –all requested mileage reimbursement.
Senate Bill 11 made its way to the House consent Calendar without resistance. It was there that it the bill was then pulled from consent and briefly debated the following day, and put on probation for two weeks. It will be back. But how did it get as far as it did given language so … Read more
“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”—Thomas Jefferson
These very words were not spoken…but put in writing on during an email exchange between house reps. Representative David B. Karrick, DemocRAT, Merrimack District 25, Warner stated in the Palm Sunday email:
“We have never lived in a “Constitutional Republic“. Our founders created a Republic where the rights and privileges of the propertied citizens were greater than those without advantages or personal freedom.”-Rep David B. Karrick
During the founding years our forefathers ascribed to the notion
Has ignorance reared its ugly head again in the New Hampshire Legislature Yeah, yeah, more times per day than we could count with all those people there. Actually, I’m referring to Debra DeSimone, Rockingham 14 who seems to have a questionable view of her relationship to the constitution. According to Ms. De Simone, the constitution is really just a guideline and we have House Rep George Lambert (Hills – 44) to thank for sharing that news with us.
“House quote of the day “the constitution is a guideline” not a requirement. – and yes she said “I swore to uphold the guideline” if it is just a guideline, how will it’s protections actually defend you…”
And an inch is just a guideline when building a house. So what if you are off a few inches or bits of inches here and there. A foot here, a yard there. (as long as it doesn’t fall down while you’re standing next to it, right?)
In reporting on New Hampshire House Bill HB 514 –An Act relating to giving legislators a free ride–WMUR reports that it a) came out of committee with instructions to kill it (this is good) but b) that supporters of the bill claim that Members skiing for free at Canon Mountain–the Bill’s real purpose–doesn’t add costs to the Ski areas.
Supporters argue that lawmakers have open access to state parks which promotes awareness of the locations.
They say skiing at Cannon doesn’t add costs to the ski area and encourages members to experience that part of New Hampshire culture.
WMUR
Yes, of course. And that is, after all, why we elected them. Though I do have some lingering questions…
Last Wednesday the New Hampshire House voted on HB 307, an act relative to government being a big pain in the ass. Wait…that would be most of the bills and all of the ones written by Democrats. I’ll be more specific.
HB 307 – AN ACT relative to the removal of certain wood stoves upon the sale of a home and notification of such removal to the department of environmental services.
While that might keep someone at DES from wasting your tax dollars surfing the Internet, the committee released it to the House as Inexpedient to legislate. (From the House record)
The purpose of the bill was relative to the removal and destruction of certain woodstoves not certified for sale as new after July 1, 1986 by the government protection agency. The reason given was to reduce excessive particulate discharge from certain inefficient wood burning stoves. The committee had questions about enforcement, and financial reimbursement of the owner’s property, hence the ITL motion. Vote 13-6.
When it came time for the floor vote to put an end the HB 307 nine legislators voted to try and save it.
As a very close observer—not to mention participant—in New Hampshire state politics, I can say without reservation that the effect of the Free State Project migration on our state has been positive. Crucially so in the context of state-level politics. First of all, the state Republican Party would not have been graced by the incredibly positive leadership of Speaker of the House Bill O’Brien and the responsible Republicans around him without the backing of supporters who came out of the Free State Project (it was a very close Speaker’s election, remember).
The Legislature must reestablish its place above the courts
By Carolyn McKinney, chairman of the Republican Liberty Caucus of New Hampshire.
While many in Concord are clamoring over language for an educational-funding constitutional amendment (CACR 12), what’s being lost in the final debate of the 2011-2012 session is a constitutional amendment proposal far more important to the people of New Hampshire as they work to regain control of their government.
CACR 26, a constitutional amendment proposal that would remove the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court’s rule-making authority by repealing Part 2, Article 73-a of the constitution, is probably the most important effort still up for consideration this year. By passing CACR 26 and repealing Article 73-a, the Legislature, which is directly elected by the people each biennium, would regain sole authority to write the laws, rules and general policies of the state as our founders intended.
Since 1978, when Article 73-a was adopted under a description of the measure that called it a “housekeeping effort,” the language has given the Supreme Court the power to write court rules that have “the force and effect of law.” This language has severely upset the balance of powers in government to the benefit of the unelected five-member Supreme Court. Since 1978, the court has been using the language of Article 73-a to order the Legislature and the people of this state around, in effect creating the likes of an old-world oligarchy.
Making this analogy far too real is the language in Article 73-a that says the Chief Justice of the N.H. Supreme Court is “the administrative head of all the courts.” Because the Legislature is known in the Constitution as the “General Court,” some have interpreted Article 73-a as a constitutional change that gives the Supreme Court and the other courts it controls unrestrained authority over the Legislature, and by extension, the people. Such an understanding is intolerable in a free Constitutional Republic and it is also inconsistent with the rest of the N.H. Constitution, which makes CACR 26 that much more important to pass.
The court originally advocated for Article 73-a as a way to control the internal procedures of the courtroom, but it has since used the language to go much further than that.
One of the major themes of the New Hampshire Democrats is that the current New Hampshire Republican majority is not focusing enough on the budget and the economy, and spending too much time on other issues. But this is an understandable position for leftists.
When the Democrats ran the entire state for four years, every session (almost every week) was about the budget, and how they had to raise more revenue. The reason for that is that their estimates were always so distant from reality, and their over spending so profligate, that they could not help but be obsessed, at every opportunity, with trying to fix a mess of their own making. The budget (and the economy)–how they might milk more taxes and fees out of the taxpayers or regulate and tax local businesses–was always on the agenda, often into the small hours of the morning of the day after the day they were supposed to have this all worked out by law. So Democrat stewardship of the budget and the economy was one long, constant, cluster-***k. (With what time they could spend ducking their budget woes wasted on trying to stomp out free speech, socializing medicine, scaring off more business, and a long laundry list of other nonsense too long to regurgitate here.)
The Republican majority, on the other hand, doing what you do at the grown-up table, already took care of all that business in the first session. Budget, estimates, revenues, done. No last minute nonsense, no late night sessions. No passing bills without hearings or making up taxes or fees they would later have to rescind–whose revenue they would then also have to “find” again and again… and no Rube Goldbergian accounting tricks, or counting money from this year for that year, or adding in the potential sale of things like land that you will never actually sell. None of that.
The Democrats hate the Republicans for that.
The Concord Monitor’s April 5 editorial about House Speaker Bill O’Brien is one of the sillier ones of the last year and a half. It reminds me of the old legal adage, “When the facts are on your side, pound the facts. When the law is on your side, pound the law. When neither is … Read more
The latest RLCNH Report is out. It shows that New Hampshire is in many ways leading the entire United States in rejecting the “Blue State” European-socialist model. Just look at some of the issues being voted upon by the State House of Representatives this week, starting at 9:00 a.m. tomorrow (Wednesday) in regular session:
RLCNH REPORT for March 6, 2012: TOP ACTION ITEMS Expose TSA Abuses HB 628-FN would allow citizens to report to a police officer on the scene or the county sheriff any invasive search by TSA agents, and that report will be sent to a designated directory for public viewing with the state police. This bill … Read more
On Tuesday a Union Leader editorial called House Bill 1339, “preposterous”. In the UL Editorial entitled, “Contract Hunting,” The UL aptly describes why the bill is problematic. HB 1339, sponsored by Representative Paul Mirski, Joe Duarte and Gary Hopper, is an effort to keep access to hunting, fishing and trapping accessible to all, irrespective of economic and social strata.
The Union Leader points out,
On Thursday February 9, the Concord Monitor ran an opinion column written by Dan Williams regarding several pieces of Legislation pending in Concord affecting Hunting, Fishing and Trapping. Aside from writing for Granite Grok, I am the President of the New Hampshire Wildlife Federation, and also the President of the Londonderry Fish & Game Club. I am a hunter, a fisherman (of lesser sorts) and a Trapper.
Hot off the presses: This week’s RLCNH Report features a long list of bills that the legislature did not vote on last week, plus a calendar full of House committee hearings. Top action items for the week include: HB 574 to restore property rights during a time of emergency HB 1382 to allow parents to … Read more
“A lawsuit is a fruit tree planted in a lawyer’s garden.” —Italian Proverb
William Jasmin of Manchester, the drunk, non-licensed hunter who sued a landowner following his own demise in falling from a tree stand, has dropped his lawsuit.
Jasmin suffered partial paralysis when the tree stand he attempted to enter failed, causing him to fall. Jasmin initially proffered in his original pleadings that he was “hunting” but in August amended his pleadings to assert that he was, “scouting.” while present on the land owned by Charlie Corliss, of Epsom,
Jasmin friend Randy Howe had said Corliss had given them permission to use the tree stand, however, Jasmin’s lawyer now asserts the friend had spoke to someone else who mistakenly believed it was on his property.
This very case stirred concerns and tensions within the hunting community that farmers, foresters and other large landowners might potentially close their property to hunting and other recreational uses, for fear they could be potentially held liable for recreational injuries.
Jasmin’s lawyer B.J. Branch, told The Associated Press, “this suit was never about access to land; The suit was about holding the owner of a defective product accountable.” Baloney! This suit was about William Jasmin finding the deepest possible pockets to compensate him for his own failures to act responsibly, ethically and within the laws of this state. And, while doing this, he was willing and ready to throw the entire hunting community under the bus. Eighty percent of all available hunting land is private property in New Hampshire. Clearly, this lawsuit became about access.