My votes in the NH House session
of June 13, 2024

This day was our final session day of the biennium except for the upcoming day in the fall when we vote on whether to override gubernatorial vetoes.

For each bill, there were only two possible motions: Adopt the Committee of Conference report (i.e., accept the version approved by the Committee of Conference) or Table the bill.

SB 499-FN

This bill funds the summer EBT program, so that we can feed some of the kids some of the time. It also includes some disaster relief funding for municipalities.

HB 318-FN-A

A bail reform bill that the House passed on April 11. It sets up a system of bail magistrates so that when someone is arrested for specific felonies, they get a bail hearing within 24 hours and bail cannot be excessive.

HB 1018-FN

The original bill was about liquor licenses, but unfortunately the Senate version that I voted against on May 30 was adopted.

HB 1215

The underlying bill is about development approvals and appeals, but the Senate’s amendment regarding D Street in Hampton survived the Committee of Conference. Although I voted for this bill on May 30, I voted against it this time. I was already unsure about the D Street part. But our Ward 1 representative, Laurel Stavis, ranking member of the Municipal and County Government Committee, listed problems with the underlying bill. I voted against the bill, and the bill was defeated.

HB 1265

This bill requires school districts to post prescriptive and possibly misleading data on school budgets with no explanation.

HB 1292-FN

The Conference Committee stuck on SB 563, which we tabled on May 2. It became a draconian anti-immigrant bill, and it was tabled.

HB 1313-FN-L

This bill went to a voice vote, and I didn’t know how I felt about it, so I remained silent. It allows any person to obtain one copy of the voter registation list for free for each ward or town, with a charge of $25 for each additional copy. As I think about it now, I don’t see a problem with it. But at the time, without a debate, I didn’t know what to do.

HB 1369

This bill would have purged voter checklists every four years. We should instead join ERIC.

HB 1370-FN

This bill morphed into a voter-suppression bill, eliminating all affadavits on election day and disenfranchising thousands of voters. It would have created a hotline staffed by the Secretary of State’s office for poll workers to call to verify voter eligibility. And it would have taken effect immediately, before the next election.

Rep. Connie Lane spoke against the bill. I went up to ask a question, but she did not yield for questions. My question would have been whether the hotline would be subject to a denial-of-service attack in which malicious actors could just flood the line with calls. (The answer is yes.) Fortunately, the bill was tabled.

HB 1400

This was a pretty major bill on housing. The compromise reached in the Committee of Conference says that municipalities cannot require more than 1.5 parking spaces per unit. It compromised between tenant rights and landlord rights when there are disputes about who is living in the housing unit. And it allows municipalities to cut taxes when converting office space to housing.

HB 1596-FN

We got to the final chapter in the legislature on this bill about deepfakes in elections. When we left off after May 30, this bill was going to a Committee of Conference, where its fate was in jeopardy.

Deputy Speaker Steven Smith, now the chair of the House Election Law Committee, had expressed concern that if Grandma in the basement receives a deepfake, doesn’t realize that it’s a deepfake, and reposts it, she is liable. Rep. Zoe Manos and I worked with Rep. Angela Brennan, who is the bill’s prime sponsor, and Rep. Connie Lane, the ranking member of Election Law, to add a new paragraph to the bill that explicitly says that Grandma is not liable. It was enough to satisfy Rep. Smith. Along the way, we also fixed the problem I noted in the May 30 writeup about ISPs being able to create and disseminate deepfakes, putting in the same language that fixed HB 1432.

So the bill came out exactly as we wanted. As Rep. Brennan pointed out many a time, of the AI bills that we passed, it’s the only one that, if signed, will take effect before this year’s election.

HB 1600-FN

I was in the Committee of Conference on this bill. I held out little hope that it would come out of the Committee of Conference essentially similar to the House version that would have helped Community Power. My main goal was to scuttle the study committee that would have studied Community Power. Sen. Kevin Avard was also in the Committee of Conference, and he really wanted the study committee. He had told the House Science, Technology and Energy Committee during testimony one time (I don’t recall whether it was on this bill) that he really likes study committees, especially if he’s chairing them. After some discussion among the House and Senate members of the committee, the House members went into a private caucus. Rep. Michaal Vose, chair of the House Science, Technology and Energy Committee, made it clear that the original House version would not fly. After the caucus, I told Sen. Avard that I would rather kill the bill entirely than accept the study committee. He gave in on the study committee, and the bill ended up being just the little housekeeping part that fixes a reference to an existing RSA. Oh, well.

HB 1623-FN

This terrible bill passed the House on March 7. The Senate managed to take out the terrible parts and left it so that the state would be required to be notified about in-state electricity generators receiving certain notices of action, and requiring the Department of Energy to investigate whether to defend the generator. Had the bill gone to a division or roll call vote, I would have voted against it. But it went to a voice vote and I figured, yeah, sure, it’s now toothless enough.

HB 1633-FN-A

The final stop for the cannabis bill. The Committee of Conference version was too close to the Senate’s version. Nobody in the House really liked it, but there was a sense among some that we should pass it and fix it next year. The problem with that approach is that the retail structures would already be in motion, and it would be disruptive to change them on the fly. There was a motion to Table, which I voted for and passed by five votes. Let’s try again next year, with a different governor and Senate, and get it right.

HB 1665-FN

Expand eligibility for Education Freedom Accounts from 350% to 425% of federal poverty guidelines? No, thanks.