My votes in the NH House session
of June 26, 2025

This was the final session day of 2025, except for when we convene in the fall to vote on overriding gubernatorial vetos. Most of the bills had a single motion—to adopt the report of the Committee of Conference (CofC, in which members of both the House and Senate attempt to iron out differences in the versions of the bill passed by each chamber))—which we voted either up or down. If both the House and Senate vote to adopt the CofC report, then the bill goes to the governor; otherwise, the bill is dead. Some bills died in their CofC, and we never got to vote on them. In addition to voting on adopting CofC reports, we voted on whether to concur with Senate amendments to a few House bills.

The main event of the day was voting on the budget, which is normally embodied in two bills, HB 1-A and HB 2-FN-A-LOCAL. (You’ll see why I say “normally” in a moment.) The House version of the budget was bad. The Senate amended the House version, making it less bad in some ways and worse in others. A CofC ironed out the differences, ending up with—you guessed it—a bad budget. Governor Ayotte proclaimed that she would veto the budget because of three problems: it did not fund group II retirements, it underfunded Manchester schools, and it had a huge “back-of-the-budget” cut to Health and Human Services. (A back-of-the-budget cut is a lump-sum cut to a department’s budget, and the director of the department has to figure out exactly what to cut.) If either the House or Senate were to fail to adopt the CofC report, there would be no budget in effect as of July 1. In that case, in order to fund the government and keep it running, a “continuing resolution (CR)” would need to pass both the House and Senate.

We did not know whether we’d need a CR, because it would be needed only if the budget did not pass (the CofC reports for HB 1 and HB 2 adopted by both the House and Senate). So the Republicans had one ready to go. The Senate took a House bill, HB 115, and did a “replace-all” amendment that turned it into a CR, funding the state government at 90% of its current level. House Democratic leadership opposed this funding level and was prepared to offer its own CR to fund the state government at 96% of its current level. HB 115 passed on a roll call vote, 196-167, with all Democrats voting against it.

I, however, was prepared to vote against any CR, regardless of the level of funding. Had we gotten to vote on the 96% CR, I would have voted against my party and voted against the CR. I had two reasons. First, the reason we were in this position at all is because of Republican mismanagement of state finances. Over the last several years, Republicans have cut business taxes and completely eliminated the interest and dividends tax. We simply cannot provide the necessary services without the revenue to support them. Time after time, at the state and national levels, Republicans screw things up and Democrats have to clean up the mess. I will not vote to do that. Republicans broke it; it’s their responsibility to fix it.

My second reason is that at a public listening session in Newport, I stated that in 2023, when Republican and Democratic leadership in the House came to a compromise agreement on the budget at the 11th hour, I voted for the budget, which passed on a voice vote. It contained funding for Education Freedom Accounts (EFAs). If you have followed me at all, you know that I am staunch opponent of EFAs. But I was a good soldier and voted for the budget. But I said in Newport that from now on, I will not vote for a budget that allocates even a single dollar for EFAs. Since any CR would contain EFA funding, I was going to be an automatic Nay on any CR. Yes, it could mean the government shutting down, and yes, that would suck. But we simply cannot continue on the path we’ve been going down if we want to have a functional state.

When we got to the vote on HB 1, it failed on a roll call vote by a single vote, 182-183. Because it was a roll call vote, Republican leadership knew whose arms to twist to get them to change their votes. A later motion to reconsider passed on a roll call vote, 185-180, as did HB 1 this time by the same vote.

After the first vote on HB 1 failed, HB 2 was tabled by a voice vote. And then, after HB 1 finally passed, HB 2 was removed from the table by a roll call vote, 185-180, with all Democrats voting Nay. A Republican motion to limit debate, which meant that several floor speeches would not take place, passed on a roll call vote, 193-173, again with all Democrats voting Nay; we want people to hear what is wrong with this budget, but the Republicans do not want it to be exposed. Finally, the vote for HB 2 passed on a roll call vote by a single vote, 184-183, with the tie-breaking vote being cast by Speaker Packard.

Governor Ayotte signed both HB 1 and HB 2 the following day. The CR that passed was not needed.

SB 213-FN, SB 218, SB 221, SB 287

These were all bad bills dealing with election law, and they all passed. SB 213-FN impinges on free speech, SB 218 and SB 287 make it harder to obtain an absentee ballot, and SB 221 purges voter rolls annually with a 5-year lookback period (so that if you have not voted in the last five years, your name is removed from the voter rolls).

SB 14-FN

Increases the mandatory minimum sentence for certain fentanyl-related offenses. The real problem with this bill is that is was amended to specify that possession of up to 3/4 of an ounce of psilocybin moves from a felony to a misdemeanor. 3/4 of an ounce of mushrooms doesn’t seem like so much, right? But the bill says “psilocybin,” not “mushrooms.” 3/4 of an ounce of psilocybin is enough for hundreds, if not thousands, of doses. Even though the NH Chiefs of Police Association opposed the bill, it passed. Actually, on the first vote it failed on a roll call, 183-186. Then enough arms were twisted so that a motion to reconsider passed on a roll call vote, 184-182, followed by the final roll call vote to pass it, 185-182.

HB 60

This is the bill that allows for eviction at the termination of a lease. As I write this, the bill awaits the governor’s decision.

HB 71-FN

Bans public schools and institutions of higher learning from offering shelter to undocumented immigrants by withholding state funding.

HB 118

Repeals various committees and commissions. I voted against the Democratic caucus recommendation by voting Nay. I’m writing this a couple of weeks after the vote, and I cannot recall why I voted this way other than that I think there were a couple of commissions that I wanted to keep.

HB 143

This bill would have been fine, except that the CofC took out everything except SB 263, the bill that supposedly protects children from mailicious AI, but in reality is a nothingburger. I delivered a parliamentary inquiry against the bill, which you can see here. My long PI was to no avail.

HB 377-FN and HB 712-FN

Anti-trans bills. It’s not enough for Republicans to dump on immigrants. No, they need to dump on the trans community as well.

HB 506-FN

Added to this bill was SB 13, invalidating out-of-state driver’s licenses for undocumented immigrants.