This session was devoted to votes on overriding vetoes by Governor Sununu on bills that passed the House and Senate. Overrides of House bills are voted on first by the House, and if the House votes to override, the bill goes over to the Senate. Overrides of Senate bills are voted on first by the Senate, and if the Senate votes to override, the bill goes over to the House. A 2/3 majority in each chamber is required in order to override a veto.
The Senate did not vote to override any of the vetoed Senate bills. The House voted to override five vetoed House bills, and of these five the Senate voted to override two.
For each veto being considered, the default motion was Override and all votes were by roll call. The percentages shown are the percent voting to override, with 66.7% necessary. Discussions of the bills appear below.
Notice that no results are in red, indicating that I voted on the winning side each time. The House Democrats ran the table on all 10 override votes—a nice way to end the biennium and my first term in the New Hampshire House!
| Bill | Motion | Type of vote | My vote | Result of vote | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SB 137 | Adopt Amendment | Voice | Yea | Amendment Adopted | |
| HB 194 | Override | Roll call | Nay | 132-195 (40.4%) | Veto sustained |
| HB 274 | Override | Roll call | Yea | 324-5 (98.5%) | House overrides, but Senate sustains on 11-12 vote to override |
| HB 396 | Override | Roll call | Nay | 164-168 (49.4%) | Veto sustained |
| HB 1093 | Override | Roll call | Nay | 160-172 (48.2%) | Veto sustained |
| HB 1187 | Override | Roll call | Nay | 161-170 (48.6%) | Veto sustained |
| HB 1233 | Override | Roll call | Nay | 179-152 (54.1%) | Veto sustained |
| HB 1293 | Override | Roll call | Yea | 232-99 (70.1%) | House overrides, and Senate overrides 22-1 |
| HB 1415 | Override | Roll call | Yea | 289-38 (88.4%) | House overrides, but Senate sustains on 6-17 vote to override |
| HB 1581 | Override | Roll call | Yea | 270-55 (83.1%) | House overrides, but Senate sustains on 9-14 vote to override |
| HB 1622 | Override | Roll call | Yea | 318-11 (96.7%) | House overrides, and Senate overrides 23-0 |
Before we voted on bills that had been vetoed, we voted on an amendment to a bill about nano brewery and beverage manufacturer’s licenses. Statutory changes were not reflected in the bill when it was enrolled, and they were more than just technical fixes, so we had to vote to approve the changes.
I wrote about this bill on January 3-4. Governor Sununu vetoed it, writing
In 2018, Republicans and Democrats passed legislation to prevent discrimination because as I said at the time, it is unacceptable and runs contrary to New Hampshire’s Live Free or Die Spirit. That still rings true today. The challenge with HB 396 is that in some cases it seeks to solve problems that have not presented themselves in New Hampshire, and in doing so invites unnecessary discord.
We sustained the veto.
As I wrote on March 28,
This bill prohibits mandatory face mask policies in public schools. Instead of the local school district deciding on mask policies, the state decides for everyone: no masking.
Governor Sununu’s veto message included the following:
When vetoing a nearly identical bill in 2022, I stated that just because we may not like a local decision, does not mean we should remove their authority. One of the State’s foremost responsibilities is to know the limits of its power. This is as true now as it was then.
As Granite Staters, we take pride in local control and our bottom-up approach to education. Similar to our fight to retain states’ rights against a bloated and ever-encroaching federal government, we have a responsibility to ensure the State minimizes its infringement on local control. Big government is never the solution, and neither is a one-size-fits-all approach.
The State must remain steadfast in protecting local control as decisions like this are best left to authorities closest to parents and families where they can work with their neighbors to decide what is right for their children.
And again, we sustained the veto.
This bill requires that retailers post educational material to direct consumers to the right kind of fertilizer, containing little or no phosphorus, in order to avoid cyanobacteria in lakes. The bill also makes it illegal to use fertilizer in ways highly likely to create runoff. It is weak on enforcement, but worth doing. Both the House and Senate overrode the veto.
This bill provides for liability for companies that contaminate groundwater with PFAS. It sets the standard at 100 parts per trillion. Governor Sununu’s veto message noted that another bill, HB 1649, sets the standard at 10,000 parts per trillion, and that he signed HB 1649 and vetoed HB 1415. That is, he allowed the laxer standard for these dangerous “forever chemicals.” The House overrode the veto, but for reasons I do not know the Senate sustained it.
This bill would allow additional cultivation locations to grow cannabis for alternative treatment centers, and it would allow cannabis to be grown in greenhouses rather than interior locations as are currently required. That would save on energy, lowering costs to producers and consumers. New locations would have tight security protections. The House overrode the veto, but the Senate sustained it on a near party-line vote.