The week ahead: Signature 2025 issues face final hearings at the State House

Yahoo

21-04-2025

The final public hearings for some signature issues of 2025 — banning cellphone use by students in public schools, universal access to education freedom accounts and moving the date of the state primary election — will come during a very busy week of committee work at the State House.
A Senate panel will also take up an unusually bipartisan push by Senate Republican and Democratic leaders to relax a year-old law on recusal that some legislators argue has been too restrictive when lawmakers only have an indirect financial link to pending legislation.
For only the second time this year, both the House of Representatives and the state Senate will take a week off from holding business sessions; the only other time was the February school vacation week.
This is all about resetting the legislative calendar as House and Senate committees need time to work on and make recommendations on enough bills coming over from the other chamber to bring the full House and Senate back in to pass judgment.
Recusal bill
New Hampshire lawmakers won high marks from public transparency organizations after Rep. Greg Hill, R-Andover, led an effort last year to strengthen disclosure of conflicts (HB 1388).
But on Wednesday morning, Senate President Sharon Carson, R-Londonderry, will join with Senate Majority Leader Regina Birdsell, R-Hampstead, and Senate Democratic Leader Rebecca Perkins Kwoka in seeking a non-germane amendment to an unrelated state personnel investigations bill (HB 248) to alter the recusal standard.
Last week, Birdsell and Carson publicly revealed they weren't voting on legislation to raise a property tax exemption for totally disabled veterans because they had served in the military.
The Legislative Ethics Committee advised Sen. Donovan Fenton, D-Keene, that he shouldn't take part in discussions about legislation that would eliminate annual car and truck safety inspections because his dealership does some of them (HB 195).
The ethics panel also advised that any legislator getting a public retirement benefit should not be involved in a bill (HB 536) that would give a cost-of-living increase.
The Carson-Birdsell-Perkins Kwoka amendment would state that recusal would not apply if the benefit deals with a 'marketplace program' in which the legislator participates as a member of the public at large.
Thus, legislators who were veterans could vote on veteran benefit bills, auto garage repair owners could vote on bills dealing generally with the auto repair business, etc.
Legislative Ethics Chairman Ned Gordon, a retired judge and former state senator, said in an interview he had been aware senators from both parties had concerns with the new law.
'If they want to change it, that's their prerogative,' Gordon said. 'I believe the committee has worked to narrowly interpret it when asked to issue advisory opinions.'
Gordon said he's 'lost count' on how many people in the public have approached him to praise the Legislature for adopting a tougher recusal standard.
'I think any time the Legislature gives more transparency to any potential relationships they have to legislation, the people are going to view that as a very good thing,' Gordon said.
House and Senate have slightly different EFA bills
Gov. Kelly Ayotte has led the call to ban cellphone use in public schools and the Senate Education Committee on Tuesday will take up the House-passed measure (HB 781) to compel all school boards to come up with specific policies.
The House struck from its bill a $250,000 budget to support creation of such policies; Ayotte put a $1 million grant program in her proposed state budget.
House Education Funding Chairman Rick Ladd, R-Haverhill, faces a final public presentation of his House-passed plan (HB 115) to lift any income cap for parents to receive a taxpayer paid EFA to send their children to private, religious, alternative public or home school programs.
The bill next year would raise income eligibility from 350% to 400% of the poverty level or for a family of four from a limit of $112,525 to $128,600 a year.
For the 2026-27 school year, the income cap would be eliminated entirely.
The Senate has its own EFA reform (SB 295) that also removes the income cap but would place an annual limit of no more than 10,000 families on the program; presently just over 5,000 families are enrolled.
The House Election Laws Committee will take testimony Tuesday on whether to move the state primary election from September to June (SB 222).
The House has embraced the concept but last month voted to postpone any change until 2027 so it wouldn't begin until the 2028 state election.
What could be a closely watched executive session is scheduled Wednesday when the House Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee will decide to pass judgment on two bills to set minimum mandatory prison terms: one for possession with the intent to sell a sizable quantity of fentanyl (SB 14); the other for anyone convicted of selling drugs to someone that results in a death (SB 15).
Traditionally, the House under either Republican or Democratic control, has resisted minimum mandatory prison legislation.
Ayotte has weighed in on this one as well, however, considering it one of her top priority causes for the 2025 session.
The Senate Finance Committee's work on its state budget proposal reaches a key stage when the heads of several state programs in danger of elimination get to make their personal appeals.
On Monday, it's Child Advocate Cassandra Sanchez who will rebut the House budget that eliminates her office and the next day it's the Human Rights Commission term that faces the same fate.
Then, higher education administrators on Friday will get to rebut the House plan to cut by $50 million Ay-otte's budget for the University System of New Hampshire while Corrections Commissioner Helen Hanks on Monday will get the chance to respond to the House plan that would lead to roughly 100 layoffs in her agency.
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