My votes in the NH House session
of March 7, 2024

This day was tough for Democrats, as we were outnumbered. We lost several key votes. When I have some time, I will add text about some of the individual bills.

CACR 17

Another stab at a “Parental Bill of Rights.” You can see why I voted against it on May 18, 2023.

HB 1660-FN

Yet another anti-LGBTQ+ bill. This one prohibits Medicaid payment for all gender reassignment surgery for minors. Although most gender reassignment surgery is delayed until age 18 or later, no single rule fits all situations. Prohibiting Medicaid payment creates one system for the haves and one for the have-nots.

HB 1412-FN

This is not the most consequential bill, but it’s one in which I voted against the recommendation of the Democratic caucus. It repeals requirements for licensing and regulation of court reporters. I was prepared to vote against it, per caucus recommendation, but Rep. Bob Lynn, Chair of the Judiciary Committee and former Chief Justice of the New Hampshire Supreme Court persuaded me during his floor speech that the bill was worthwhile. (Just to be clear: Rep. Lynn often fails to persuade me in his floor speeches, but this one was about the operation of the legal system, and I consider him an expert on that.)

HB 1359

The only reason that I’m mentioning this bill is because I questioned it in caucus. It’s about land use and the rights of abutters, and it contains the following definition:

“Directly across the street or stream” shall be determined by lines drawn perpendicular from all pairs of corner boundaries along the street or stream of the applicant to pairs of projected points on any property boundary across the street or stream that intersect these perpendicular lines. Any property that lies along the street or stream between each pair of projected points, or is withing [sic] 50 feet of any projected point shall be considered an abutter.

Not to brag, but I aced a graduate course in computational geometry at MIT, and I cannot make heads or tails of that definition. I was assured by more than one member of the Municipal and County Government Committee that it’s understood by the planning community, so I voted for it—reluctantly.

HB 1036

This Republican-sponsored bill came out of my committee (Science, Technology and Energy) with a 10-10 vote. If you look at your electric bill, you’ll see something called the System Benefits Charge. For Liberty customers in Lebanon, it’s 0.727 cents per kilowatt hour. What is the “benefit” that you’re paying for? It funds the NHSaves program, which conserves energy. Aside from the obvious reasons that energy conservation is good (such as environmental benefits), the cheapest electricity is the “negawatt”: the power you don’t use.

For some reason, the current commissioners in the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) are no fans of NHSaves. This bill gives them a way to reduce the amount of money that goes to NHSaves. By the time the vote on this bill occurred, many Democrats had already left, and the bill passed.

HB 1623-FN

Like HB 1036, another Republican-sponsored bill that came out of ST&E with a 10-10 vote. This one was sponsored by Rep. Michael Vose, our committee chair, and it’s really bad. It changes the energy policy of New Hampshire, tilting it toward large generation stations and away from diverse and renewable energy sources. When he introduced the bill, Rep. Vose called it the “New Hampshire Energy Independence Act.” If you want to hear my view on whether our state can become truly energy independent, listen to my parliamentary inquiry before the vote. As with HB 1036, we just did not have the votes in the room to stop it.