My votes in the NH House session
of January 7–8, 2026

In these two long days, we took up bills that had been retained by committees in 2025. A few bills were recommitted to their committees, which will then get to look at them anew. We started with a vote to suspend a House rule and reconsider a revenue bill that had been ITLed in 2025; more on that below.

Our big win of the day was killing HB 675-FN-A-LOCAL, which would have required a 2/3 majority of the voters in a school district to approve increasing school taxes. More on that below as well.

As usual, bills are listed in the order in which we voted on them. In case you care which votes were on which day, the last vote on January 7 was on HB 246-FN-A, and the first vote on January 8 was on HB 365-FN.

After each House session day, we have a period called Unanimous Consent, where members may make speeches about anything they want. Not everyone sticks around to hear these speeches. Some of these speeches are political, some are not. I gave one in 2025 about Mohsen Mahdawi, asking the Republicans who were still in the room what would it take for them to say they’d had enough? And I gave one on January 8 that was non-political, recognizing my father for his 100th birthday. It was gratifying to hear applause from both sides of the aisle.

HB 503

I wrote about this bill on March 6, 2025. It would increase the Business Enterprise Tax, the Business Profits Tax, and the Meals and Rooms Tax; reinstate the Interest and Dividends Tax; and change how funds are allocated between the general fund and the education trust fund. Some Democrats (including Thomas Oppel of Canaan, whom I greatly respect) wanted a vote on suspending House rules so that we could take up this bill again. I was one of the 27 members who voted for the bill last year, but I did not vote to suspend the rules so that we could revisit it. The bill clearly was not going to pass in this General Court, and I saw no reason to quixotically pursue it.

HB 186-FN-A

Would end arrests for simple cannabis possession, regulating it like alcohol. It creates rules for sales, testing, and taxation, generating revenue for prevention, treatment, and education. Although I still have my doubts about legalizing cannabis, people want this bill, and so I voted for it.

HB 609-FN

Says that only the General Court may prohibit firearms and other deadly weapons. Which means that state agencies and municipalities would be unable to ban weapons during public events.

SB 15-FN

“Hard labor” for “death resulting.” Why rehabilitate when you can exact retribution, including by allowing a violent criminal outside the prison to do hard labor?

HB 491

I was ambivalent about this bill, and in retrospect perhaps I should have voted for the ITL motion. The bill would have created a committee to study alternative funding methods for public education and reduce reliance on local property taxes. Given that we already have an Education Funding Committee (which heard this bill), isn’t that their job? I voted with the caucus anyway, and this is one bill where maybe I should not have.

HB 510-FN

Applies due process standards used in criminal cases to disciplinary hearings at community colleges and the UNH system. Having served on Dartmouth’s Committee on Standards, I am one of the few, if any, people who voted on this bill that have actually served on a college disciplinary committee. I sat on cases in which students committed crimes. And do you know what happened? The responsible students were expelled from Dartmouth (we use the quaint term “separated”) and they faced actual criminal charges. We don’t need lawyers in college disciplinary hearings.

HB 651-FN

The Republican-led legislature sees no reason to comply with court decisions. This bill would have set the base cost of an adequate education to comply with the ConVal decision.

HB 665-FN-A and SB 204-FN-A

Two more “feed the damn kids” bills, so of course they failed. HB 665-FN-A would have had the state reimburse school districts that provide free breakfast and lunch during school days for all students under 300% of federal poverty level. SB 204-FN-A would have enabled districts to expand free meals to students up to 200% of federal poverty level.

HB 709-FN

This bill allows children to be admitted into any school district in which their parent or guardian pays any property or school district taxes. So it’s yet another open enrollment bill. You own a small undeveloped lot in Hanover? Congratulations, your kids can go to Hanover schools.

SB 33-FN

Another book-banning bill for schools. It’s a lot like HB 324-FN from 2025, which Governor Ayotte vetoed.

HB 323

More voter suppression. This bill requires a government-issued photo ID in order to vote. A school ID won’t do. A workplace ID won’t do. This bill will make it harder to vote for students, those without a driver’s license, and some low-income residents.

HB 396

This was a tricky one. The bill exempts meat slaughtered and prepared in state, for sale in state, from certain inspections. The problem it’s trying to solve is the lack of slaughterhouses in the state. Farmers who need to have cows, pigs, goats, and sheep slaughtered often have to schedule the dates over a year in advance, maybe even before the animal is born. The bill creates an exemption for USDA inspection for a limited number of animals per month. Such meat would be clearly labeled. The problem with the bill is that not only does USDA inspection protect the consumer, but it would be illegal under federal law, putting state agencies and the Co-op Extension at risk. Furthermore, the Commissioner of Agriculture strongly opposed this bill. I ended up voting against the bill, but it passed.

HB 349-FN

Another controversial bill. This one allows optometrists to perform certain opthalmic laser procedures. We were heavily lobbied by both optometrists supporting and opthamologists opposing the bill. I had an extended conversation with an opthamologist who convinced me to vote against the bill, but it passed.

HB 219-FN

This bill lowers the value of Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs), thereby undermining clean energy investment, reducing competition, and making New Hampshire more dependent on out-of-state energy sources. The Republicans claim that this will save ratepayers money, but it won’t.

HB 572-FN

The ITL vote defunds the Partners in Housing Program.

HB 675-FN-LOCAL-A

For years, the Republicans have cut revenue sources, so that New Hampshire ranks dead last in state funding of public schools. As a result, property taxes are high because we gotta have good schools. This bill would cap property taxes for schools. So, the Republican plan is (1) don’t provide state funding for schools, and (2) don’t let communities fund schools, either. Do you see the problem here?

This bill was a Republican priority, and it failed. The reason it failed was that three Republicans put in an amendment that restricted the cap to only school administrative expenses, rather than the entire school budget. And a fourth Republican spoke in favor of the amendment of the floor. The amendment passed, 182-173, so that there was sufficient Republican support to pass it. Once the amendment passed, Republican leadership was disgusted and told their side to vote against their own bill! The OTPA motion failed, 9-346, and the bill was killed on a voice vote for ITL. Our floor leader, Rep. Lucy Weber, kept the bill killed by moving to Reconsider, and that motion failed, 170-185. That’s a good thing, since a vote may be reconsidered at most one time.

HB 155-FN

Immediately after the Republican defeat on HB 675, Majority Leader Jason Osborne moved to Special Order HB 155-FN to be the next bill voted on. Because HB 155-FN had gone to the Ways and Means Committee, and because we vote on bills in alphabetical order by committee, we would not have gotten to HB 155-FN for a while. Osborne moved to Special Order, saying that he wanted to give the voters of New Hampshire a win.

Osborne managed to give his party a win, but I’d say that he gave the voters a loss. HB 155-FN cuts the rate of the Business Enterprise Tax from 0.55% to 0.5%, which will result in the state losing $20 million in revenue. Businesses did not ask for this cut. In fact, what they want is an educated workforce, and Republican cuts to public and higher education are going in the wrong direction. And, of course, by state revenue decreasing, local property taxes will do the opposite.

SB 36

An amendment to this bill about reporting abortion statistics, which passed on a voice vote, changed language in the bill from “estimated gestational age when the abortion was performed” to “gestational age when the abortion was performed.” The problem is that determining the precise gestational age is difficult, requiring intrusive and costly medical procedures.

SB 134-FN

Replaces the New Hampshire work requirements for Medicaid currently in statute by the federal work requirements, which are not quite as onerous. Some Democrats voted for the bill for that reason. Others, including me, voted against it because even federal Medicaid work requirements are often unreasonable.

HB 232-FN

Limits access to abortion by allowing any employee at a health-care facility to turn away a patient seeking abortion care. “Any employee” means exactly that—including a receptionist. Employers have no recourse against such employees. Although the bill creates an exception for providers whose primary business includes providing abortions, the bill is unclear on what that means. Rep. Zoe Manos (D-Stratham) gave a really good floor speech against the bill, but Republicans are gonna Republican.

SB 268

Yet another anti-trans bill. I hope that Governor Ayotte vetos this one, just as she vetoed HB 148 last year.

HB 314-FN

Would have prohibited using public funds for lobbying. Seems reasonable, except that municipalities and counties need to lobby us because so many bills affect them. If voters in a municipality want their tax dollars to not go to lobbying, they can vote for a warrant article that prohibits it.

HB 348

Currently, RSA 165 requires towns to provide assistance to the needy, regardless of residence. This practice has been a New Hampshire tradition for over 100 years. The law currently allows towns to reimburse each other for aid provided not originally from those towns. But this bill says that you must be a resident of a town in order to receive aid from that town. In order to receive aid from a town, then, you would need to produce documentation proving that you are a resident of that town. The problem here is that the documentation could be hard to maintain, especially for someone fleeing from domestic violence. Democrats also question whether this bill contravenes the US Constitution’s right to travel and equal protection.

HB 104-FN

Requires an official declaration of war in order to activate the New Hampshire National Guard in a foreign nation. This sounds like a good idea, but it puts about $395 million at risk every year, including $55 million already baked into the current biennial budget. The bill also interferes with contracts that Guard members have signed.

SB 106-FN

This bill would have expanded the cap on metering for businesses from 1 megawatt to 5 megawatts. Democrats on my committee were for it, and we heard from the Business and Industry Association that they wanted it. Republicans were against it. In committee, we voted 17-0 to send it to Interim Study, and it was on the consent calendar. But Chair Michael Vose (R-Epping) got it pulled from consent, and he moved to Indefinitely Postpone. That not only kills the bill, but it also prevents a similar bill from the Senate coming to the House. And indeed, the prime sponsor of SB 106, Sen. Tim Lang (R-Sanbornton) has a Senate bill for 2026 that is virtually identical to SB 106. Rep. Kat McGhee (D-Hollis), the Ranking Member of Science, Technology and Energy, and I argued against Indefinite Postponement, and we even tried to Table the bill, with no success. I happened to see Sen. Lang at a social event later that afternoon, and he was not happy about Rep. Vose’s move.