A unified Democratic Party in the NH House helps pass the 2023-2024 NH budget. It’s not perfect but we were able to get important legislation approved and funded.

The budget process now moves to the NH Senate. While there are always some changes, we are hopeful the NH Senate will go along with the House budget.

In spite of our minority status in the NH House, this week House Democrats led the charge to protect our drinking water, reduce property taxes, increase access to health care, and find solutions to rising energy costs. House Democrats are pushing forward for a stronger New Hampshire.

To accomplish this, Democrats stood up for NH families and values, and were joined by many Republicans who decided it was time to come down on the side of the majority of NH residents.

The Culture Wars Have Come to New Hampshire

Legislation moving from the House to the Senate includes further expansion of the school voucher program, attacking health care via reproductive rights, outright discrimination toward gay and transgender communities, and eliminating any attempt at encouraging renewable energy, energy efficiency, and reducing carbon emissions, not to mention the common sense bill to reduce gun violence or blocking raising tipped workers’ wages.

To quote InDepthNH reporter Garry Rayno, “the culture wars have come to New Hampshire,” and says “much of what has been passed in the last three years is unpopular, some very unpopular with the general public if you read the polls.”

Party registration here is nearly evenly split among Democratic, Republican and undeclared voters, but a small group of New Hampshire residents who associate with the Free State Movement and other anti-government and anti-tax organizations have managed to move our state ever closer to a “Libertarian Shangri-La” to quote Rayno.

Those of us who believe that our service in the legislature, as school teachers, health care workers, law enforcement officers, or town, city and state officials is important and needed, will keep working hard to fight this tide of fundamentally changing the institutions and norms that we’ve lived by for our lifetimes.

I agree when Mr. Rayno says the media is complicit in stoking the rancor and division within our state and country today. When I hear this complaint I simply ask if one can be more specific. In other words, what media, which media, is there a source that one believes is creating this chaos and unrest? The misinformation, disinformation and outright lies that catch our collective attention is alarming, and I try to remind my friends and family members that we must process this “media” problem by understanding that our sources of information today are driven by commercial interests who just want to sell something to us. I want people to understand that the content is commercially driven, designed to grab our attention.

I understand we aren’t going to agree with each other on myriad issues but when a difference of opinion hurts our fellow citizens, makes us less safe, and creates a lack of faith and trust in established and cherished institutions we as individuals must work harder to gather the facts and form educated opinions. This is hard work and it’s not acceptable to relegate our thinking into soundbites that falsely and conveniently rationalize the divisiveness in our society.

A link to Mr. Rayno’s recent piece in InDepthNH is below and I believe it’s a must read. I thank him for his ability to articulate what is happening in NH today.

NH’s School Program Has Just Become More Expensive

The NH House voted to expand the NH school voucher program, thereby draining even more dollars from the general fund and resulting in both business and private property owners paying higher property taxes. Most of the families taking advantage of this subsidy were already enrolled in private or parochial schools and could afford a private education for their children. Within two years this program will cost business and private property owners $60 million dollars while providing no oversight or accountability.

NH House Legalizes Cannabis Without My Support

In a bi-partisan vote the NH House passed the legalization of Cannabis and once again I voted against this becoming law in the final division vote. Sometimes a division vote is used to provide anonymity for members of the House on controversial issues. The following is a statement released by our caucus, with which I don’t agree. I provide it here for information purposes only and repeat that this was not my preference.

I’ve been called by law enforcement agencies, health agencies and private citizens who agree that NH should not go down this road. In my opinion this is a community and individual health issue, and I don’t believe the tax revenue generated outweighs these. I am heartend that previous attempts to legalize cannabis have been killed by the Senate and the Governor and I expect that will occur again.

This bill will go to the House Ways and Means Committee, the committee on which I sit, to study the actual revenue this will generate for NH. In the past, our work has shown the revenue estimates are far below what the bill sponsors believe will occur.

A Win for Democrats in Overturning HB 430

While NH Democrats are a minority in the NH House by only a few votes, we were able to prevail on some key education and energy policy bills during our session on February 23, because for several hours in the afternoon we became the majority after many Republicans left for the day.

We were able to reconsider a tabled bill from the previous week that prevented students in private, religious or home school programs from accessing Education Freedom Account money for at least one year. Democrats were opposed to this bill because the Education Freedom Account (EFA) takes public tax dollars and helps pay the tuition for students in private programs and is a deliberate effort to continue to weaken public education in NH.

The program has been much more expensive than anticipated with Education Commissioner Frank Edelblut predicting the program costing about $3.2 million this biennium but to date has cost about $25 million, and he asked for $30 million in each of the two years of the next biennium. The Governor wants to appropriate $56 million from the Education Trust Fund over the next two years.

On Thursday February 23, 2023 this bill HB 430 was taken off the table by the Democrats and passed by a 176-169 vote. This bill now goes to the Finance Committee and will come back to the full house for another vote but there is no guarantee that it will pass again.

It is important to point out that showing up and doing our job is important and effective.

Affordable Health Care and Medicaid Expansion

Providing affordable health care to everyone in NH is a priority of mine, and the Democratic Party. We were fortunate to prevail on two bills that provide access to health care for young immigrant families and expand the length of Medicaid coverage for post-natal moms.

A Revenue Boost for Public Education

In a rare showing of bi-partisan unity, the NH House passed an increase in funding to public schools and public charter schools. The money will come from funds other that what is raised by local property taxes insuring that this increase is not “down shifted” to private property owners.