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Yahoo
12 hours ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Republicans pass parental rights bills as Democrats allege children will be harmed
Rep. Jim Kofalt, a Wilton Republican, speaks in favor of Senate Bill 72, a parental rights bill passed by the House, June 5, 2025. (Photo by Ethan DeWitt/New Hampshire Bulletin) The House and Senate passed a pair of parental rights bills Thursday, sending one to Gov. Kelly Ayotte's desk, as Republicans advanced a yearslong goal to strengthen parents' control over public schools. Both bills, House Bill 10 and Senate Bill 72, would enumerate a number of powers parents have to request information from teachers about their children, including the courses they are taking, the materials being taught, and what their children are saying at school. The House passed another bill, Senate Bill 96, that would also require teachers and school employees to answer questions from parents, and could impose stiff penalties for teachers who don't provide the information. Under that bill, a teacher or administrator could be investigated by the Department of Education for violations and face disciplinary sanctions by the department. Teachers found to have 'willfully violated' the law would face a mandatory one-year suspension of their teaching license. Republicans said the legislation is meant to establish a state policy that parents direct the upbringing of their children — not their schools. 'Today, it's time that we deliver on our promises to Granite Staters by affirming that parental rights are fundamental,' said Rep. Jim Kofalt, a Wilton Republican. But Democrats have denounced the bills, noting that they could force teachers to disclose information about students to their parents that the students do not want shared, such as their sexual orientation or gender identity, and remove supportive spaces for kids. Rep. Peter Petrigno, a Milford Democrat, said SB 72 would destroy trust in schools and leave children who don't feel safe sharing things with their parents with few options. Should they confide in teachers, those teachers might be compelled to share that information to parents who inquire, Petrigno said. 'If troubled kids cannot talk with their parents for any reason, and they know they now cannot talk to their trusted adults at school, then where will they turn?' Petrigno said. But Republicans argued that in most cases, a child's parent is the best person to receive sensitive information about their children, not a teacher. 'If I know that most parents are way more trustworthy than teachers like Pamela Smart, then I will vote to pass this bill as amended,' said Rep. Debra DeSimone, an Atkinson Republican, referring to a former high school employee convicted in 1991 for killing her husband. Republicans also pointed to provisions in two of the bills, HB 10 and HB 72, that allow teachers to withhold information to parents if they have 'clear and convincing' evidence that the infringement upon parental rights is necessary to prevent the child from being abused. Democrats denounced that language, noting that 'clear and convincing' is a higher legal standard than is typically required to report a child to the Division for Children, Youth, and Families and arguing that it would effectively bar teachers from withholding information from parents even if they had suspicion that it could lead to abuse. RSA 169-C:29 currently requires any teacher, school staff member, or other professional who interacts with children to make a report to DCYF if they have 'reason to suspect' abuse or neglect. In regard to that exception, one of the bills that passed, SB 96, differs from the other two. While HB 10 and SB 72 require 'clear and convincing' evidence of abuse for a teacher to opt not to share information with parents, SB 96 allows a teacher to refrain from giving the information 'if a reasonably prudent person would believe that disclosure would result in abuse, abandonment, or neglect.' But SB 96 allows the exception only if the child has been physically harmed or has been threatened to be harmed 'of such a grave nature by the actions or inactions' of a parent that it justifies withholding information. The bill states the exception does not apply to 'potential or actual psychological or emotional injury' that a parent imposes on a child upon learning information about their child. It does not apply to 'emotions such as anger, disappointment, sadness, disapproval or other behaviors.' HB 10 passed the House and the Senate Thursday and will head to Ayotte in the coming weeks; SB 72 and SB 96 both passed the House but had not yet received a final green light from the Senate as of Thursday afternoon.
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Health
- Yahoo
What to know about the House and Senate parental rights bills
House Speaker Sherman Packard (center) is expected to bring forward a floor amendment to SB 72 on Thursday. (Photo by William Skipworth/New Hampshire Bulletin) Thursday brings a major deadline: the final day in which the House and Senate can pass remaining legislation. And Republicans in both chambers will be pushing to achieve a long-sought priority and finally approve a 'parental bill of rights.' In past years, those votes have failed, often defeated by a handful of votes in the House. This week, the House and the Senate are considering two separate bills: House Bill 10 and Senate Bill 72. Each looks slightly different from past versions. Here's what to know. What are the bills intended to do? Supporters of the bills say they are meant to give parents a toolkit to assert control over their child's education in public schools. The laws outline a number of rights the parents have over that education. Many of those rights already exist in law, such as the right for a parent to choose whether to send their child to a charter school, private school, or to home school them; to learn about school disciplinary procedures and class curriculum; to opt their child out of sex education courses by providing alternative instruction; to receive a report card; to review medical records; and to exempt their child from immunization with a doctor's note or because of religious beliefs. Other provisions of the bills would be new. School boards would be required to develop policies to promote parental involvement in school around homework, attendance, and discipline. They would also be required to pass policies making it easy for parents to examine instructional materials and to withdraw their child from any lesson or material being taught. And the bills would clarify in law that 'no school may infringe on the fundamental rights of a parent to direct the upbringing, education, health care, and mental health of his or her minor child.' But the legislation has inspired fierce pushback from teachers and LGBTQ groups, who say it puts too many burdens on teachers and staff, and that it could force them to divulge to parents details about students' sexual orientation or gender identity against the students' will. Do this year's bills require teachers to tell parents about a student's sexual orientation or gender identity? Unlike past attempts at a parental bill of rights, this year's bills do not explicitly require school staff and teachers to divulge to inquiring parents details about their child's sexual orientation or gender identity. Some bills in the past have included that explicit language, sparking opposition from LGBTQ rights groups and driving some Republicans to vote against them on the House floor. But this year's versions of the legislation do include a catch-all phrase that opponents argue achieves a similar result. Language in a floor amendment to SB 72 expected to be brought forward by House Speaker Sherman Packard Thursday provides parents the right to 'inquire of the school or school personnel and promptly receive accurate, truthful, and complete disclosure regarding any and all matters related to their minor child, unless an immediate answer cannot be provided when the initial request is made.' If an immediate answer is not available, the school employee must provide one within 10 business days. The bill provides an exception to providing the information if there is a 'compelling state interest' against doing so, and it defines that interest as 'an actual and objectively reasonable belief, supported by clear and convincing evidence, that the infringement upon parental rights is necessary to prevent the child from being abused,' under the state's abuse laws. HB 10 includes similar language. Republicans say the requirement is necessary to prevent teachers from withholding information from parents and to allow parents full information about their children. Democrats and LGBTQ advocates say the requirement that the disclosure 'complete' could be difficult to follow, and that the standard that must be met to constitute a fear of abuse, 'clear and convincing,' is too high to meet in most situations. How would the bills affect health care services for students? While Republicans broadly support the parental bill of rights, they have disagreed over one key area: medical care for students. A version of SB 72 recommended by the House Children and Family Law Committee would have included language requiring parents to consent in writing before any biometric scans are conducted by a medical provider on a child, or before any DNA or blood is drawn. That version would also give parents the right 'to make health care decisions unless otherwise provided by law' and 'to be physically present at any health care facility providing care.' However, Democrats and advocates had raised concerns that the medical provisions would violate teenagers' health care and reproductive rights by impeding their ability to receive birth control and pre- and post-natal care without getting parental permission. And House Republican leadership appears aware: The floor amendment from Packard expected to be introduced on Thursday would strike those parental medical rights from the final bill. Meanwhile, both of this year's House and Senate versions of the bills include language to protect confidential conversations between children and counselors. Both bills protect school counselors, psychologists, nurses, or other health care providers from being required to disclose information about children to parents that 'was reasonably expected to be privileged.' What could be the consequences of noncompliance for schools or teachers? Past parental bill of rights legislation has made teachers personally accountable for failing to follow the law, in some cases opening teachers up to litigation or potential disciplinary action by the State Board of Education against their license. But this year, the House and Senate bills do not include direct consequences for teachers. The bills do provide that a parent who claims a violation may sue the school district for injunctive relief or for damages. What should be expected on Thursday? In their current versions, the two bills up for a vote Thursday — HB 10 in the Senate and SB 72 in the House — are largely identical. Both bills include parental rights over medical care that have attracted debate. But Packard's floor amendment, which removes those medical rights, would make SB 72 more moderate, and potentially more palatable for Gov. Kelly Ayotte to sign. Should the House Republican caucus vote to pass that floor amendment, as well as the underlying bill, SB 72 would return to the Senate, which would decide next week whether to accept the moderating changes and send the bill to Ayotte. But if conservative-leaning House Republicans join with Democrats to reject the floor amendment, SB 72 and HB 10 could head to the governor's office in their most robust form yet.
Yahoo
28-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Because of suspicious minds, New Hampshire communities are caught in a trap
A chalk message written just outside the State House arch earlier this month in downtown Concord. (Photo by Dana Wormald/New Hampshire Bulletin) Even in my most generous moments, I struggle to find benevolence in the American right's various pursuits. I can hear the response on the left as I write: That's because there is none. But I'd rather not move through my days believing tens of millions of Americans are actively wishing harm on their neighbors. Fear and warped nostalgia seem to be at the heart of the right's rising cruelty, but to reject another's pain out of hand, no matter how corrupt its source, feels like an equally unhealthy path. All of that said, we are a few elections and a million miles past Kumbaya. So, for whatever good it does, I spend a lot of moments trying to stake out mental territory between the unproductive wastelands of helplessness and hopelessness, anger and apathy. You don't make it easy, New Hampshire GOP. This month alone, we watched as Gov. Kelly Ayotte held a celebratory signing for a pair of bills meant to prevent any New Hampshire town from providing sanctuary to men, women, and children whom other people have deemed of 'illegal' humanity. And, in a staggering affront to experiential wisdom, lawmakers also decided to actively promote discrimination through passage of the anti-trans House Bill 148. Plus, House and Senate Republicans have proven so committed to selective and compartmentalized freedom that they've passed a book banning bill that essentially makes it easier for one parent to decide what the children of other parents should be allowed to read. After all, nothing frightens the party of guns more than unchaste words broadly aimed. Two of the most celebrated elements of America's carefully manufactured identity are 'sanctuary' and 'diversity,' and New Hampshire Republicans are laying siege to both. To that end, immigrants are being scapegoated without cause for any number of societal ills — crime, the housing crunch, depressed wages — and so the 'law and order' gang, including Ayotte, feels just fine about drowning the spirit of Emma Lazarus in New York Harbor. And, because conservatives have worked so hard to strip transgender Granite Staters of their humanity, legalized cruelty has been made acceptable even for the so-called centrists who are less naturally inclined toward hatred. And the book banning measure reflects America's McCarthyite instincts to read subversion into every artistic act that rejects or challenges American mythology. What I don't understand, have never understood, is what kind of society the right dreams of. America's strength is in its communities — and I once believed that was a bipartisan position. Each of us is, after all, accountable to our neighbors, the people with whom we share so much even if our interactions are limited to the occasional friendly wave. Yet all of these crusades pursued by Republicans are expediting the dissolution of communities. Whatever defense the right raises for the persecution of certain immigrants, the price paid at the neighborhood level is far too high and will last a generation or longer. When due process is denied by fiat, when the innocent are purposely ensnared in an inescapable net, when cultural profiling is not only tolerated by invited, how can 'melting pot' bonds be formed and nurtured? When discrimination is sanctioned and diversity is criminalized, how are our city blocks and cul-de-sacs strengthened now and tomorrow? How are we to find our empathy when the stories of different lives, lived honestly, are erased by paternalism? At a very basic level, there are two ways to take part in society. You can see people as threats or you can see them as partners. When the popular pendulum swings toward 'threat,' which is the state and nation we are living in now, the risk of community deterioration grows. It is only through the embrace of partnership that villages thrive. What does that sense of partnership look like on the ground? It looks like affordable housing built not just in lower-income communities but affluent ones, too. It looks like support — in all its forms — for the local public schools that don't just educate our kids but weave families of all backgrounds together. It looks like thoughtful immigration reform that places the target on root-level solutions and not the exposed backs of the huddled masses. It looks like environmental policies that elevate sustainability — by definition a lasting public good — over momentary, irreversibly destructive greed. It looks like lifting up those with the least instead of further enriching those with the most. It looks like building a shared and intermingled future instead of more and taller fences. In my heart of hearts, I guess I know that the point of all that's happening right now is that there is no ultimate point. The right is not working toward something glimmering and distant but for something immediate, for political ends, and it's the immediacy that's so destabilizing, demoralizing, and directly harmful. To win in America today, our right-wing politics and policies tell us, somebody else must not only lose but be punished, too. And in such a world, our communities are not half as important as our barriers, our borders, and our suspicions.
Yahoo
27-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
In New Hampshire, people with disabilities face challenges hiring the help they need
Jim and Pat Piet pose for a photo in their Concord home. The couple said that hiring aides to help Jim with everyday tasks in light of his cerebral palsy is 'damn near impossible.' (Photo by William Skipworth/New Hampshire Bulletin) Last time Jim Piet, who has cerebral palsy, needed to hire a new personal care assistant to help him complete daily tasks, it took four months. Amid New Hampshire's tight labor market and low Medicaid reimbursement rates, people with disabilities, like Piet, face challenges hiring the help they need. And for people with unique needs, this can be difficult, isolating, and exhausting. 'I need help for everything,' Piet said. Piet, who uses a motorized wheelchair, has a personal care assistant, or PCA, to help him get out of bed, shower, and get dressed, and to prepare meals and drive him places. Those everyday services, among others, are paid for through Medicaid. Piet worked for 29 years, first with the University of New Hampshire's Institute on Disability, then for New Hampshire's vocational rehabilitation program as a public relations specialist. He also holds a bachelor's degree from Southern New Hampshire University and a master's degree from Springfield College. He lives in Concord with his wife, Pat, who also has cerebral palsy. 'Finding warm bodies is hard,' Pat Piet said. 'Finding warm bodies that can actually do the job is nearly impossible.' Cerebral palsy can manifest differently for different people. For example, Piet uses a wheelchair while his wife doesn't. For some, cerebral palsy causes developmental delay and intellectual disability. For Piet, it's just physical. That's why he hires PCAs as opposed to direct support professionals, or DSPs, another common type of aide who, instead of simply assisting their client with tasks, also guides them, attempts to teach them how to do things for themself, and seeks to assist them with tasks they can't do for cognitive or developmental reasons. The Piets said there's a lot of overlap between the two professions. 'A lot of times, especially if we get someone who worked as a DSP, they're used to being the one who prompts, the one who directs,' Pat Piet said. 'They come in to help Jim and Jim's just throwing out orders one after another. They do not know how to deal with that.' 'Most people are not used to working with someone with a master's degree,' he added. They said part of the challenge in finding aides is the job's difficulty. It requires physical strength to lift clients out of bed, into wheelchairs, and throughout their homes, but Pat Piet noted it also requires 'soft skills.' 'I think DSPs and PCAs are some of the most difficult jobs,' she said. 'They almost require a degree in psychology. They require you to be able to read people, to be able to prompt someone effectively, to understand Jim is not someone with an intellectual disability, so it's a different approach.' Despite this, the jobs pay relatively low wages. Granite State Independent Living, one of the state's largest agencies hiring DSPs and PCAs, has job postings with wages from $18 to $22 per hour. Those jobs do not require a high school diploma or nursing license. 'You can make almost as much money working retail,' Pat Piet said. 'And retail does not require the same amounts of soft skills and emotional and physical investment.' Jim Piet has two vendors who help him hire his aides: Granite State Independent Living and GT Independence. He said GT Independence pays aides better, but Granite State Independent Living provides better support. 'It's a double-edged sword,' he said. He said they often get people incapable of doing the job or who 'bring (their) own baggage.' Sometimes caretakers don't act appropriately when he's in the community, he said, and treat him like 'a charity case.' 'I always cringe when people talk about how emotionally satisfying the job is,' Pat Piet said. 'You want to enjoy going to work. You want to get something emotionally out of it. But I feel like when we advertise that, we tend to get people who are emotionally needy and are looking to the person they're caring for to fill that gap. … This is a job. You get your emotional needs met from friends and family, not at your job.' They also feel frustrated that people often ask why Pat can't simply take care of Jim. They note that she has had a career of her own that has required her to go into the office at times he needs help. Jim also said he wants Pat to just be his wife and not rely on her constantly. Still she helps him with his tasks when they absolutely can't find an aide. All of these factors make recruiting and retaining good aides 'damn near impossible,' Pat Piet said. Louis Esposito is the executive director of ABLE NH, an advocacy and support group for people with disabilities. He said the struggles the Piets face are common in the disability community. 'They are making below what you would make at Dunkin' Donuts or Target with the exceptionally high skill level that's required, and patience that's needed,' he said. 'It's been very challenging to find anybody.' Esposito said he's heard from people with disabilities that they've resorted to paying aides out of pocket to supplement low wages. This presents financial hardship and is only possible for wealthier families. 'If you hire somebody at $14, $15 an hour and they're there for a couple of years, you want to be able to give them a raise or more income or you lose them,' he said. Part of the reason wages are so low for these roles centers around Medicaid reimbursement rates. Medicaid covers this care by reimbursing agencies who provide it. However, the rate at which they reimburse is determined by the state and federal governments and it can vary greatly depending on the type of care provided. However, Esposito feels it's more than just financials. He believes the role deserves more respect and 'should be treated as a profession.' 'Right now, it's kind of a job,' he said. 'It has to be treated as something more powerful, and it's not really respected as a long-term profession.' Esposito formerly worked with Opportunity Networks, which provides services to people with disabilities. 'We would hire and support DSPs,' he said. 'They would get trained, you'd put a lot of energy and effort, and they would be fantastic. And then they want to start a family, or they want to proceed with their education. They want to advance. And there's not a lot of room for growth. So I think until we start respecting this as a field that needs to be given the right respect, I think we're gonna keep seeing this.' North Country Independent Living, based in North Conway, operates several homes for people with developmental disabilities and those dealing with the effects of traumatic brain injuries. Patsy Sherry owns and operates the agency with her husband, and they hire DSPs to care for their residents. 'I spend all this money on Indeed,' she said, referring to the job-listing website. 'And I'll schedule interviews, and a lot of times people don't even show up. They don't even bother to call to say they're not coming.' Gov. Ayotte, the budget, and Medicaid reimbursement rates Gov. Kelly Ayotte has made services for people with disabilities a key aspect of her agenda during the state's ongoing budget process. Her budget proposal included $1 billion over two years to ensure there's no waitlist for anyone trying to receive services for developmental disabilities at facilities like North Country Independent Living or Opportunity Networks. However, when it became their turn to amend the budget, state lawmakers in the House made significant cuts to that and included a provision that reduced Medicaid reimbursement rates by 3%, which could lower DSP and PCA wages. After public outcry and Ayotte's urging, the Senate Finance Committee reversed those cuts. Once the full Senate approves its version of the budget, the two chambers will enter committees of conference to hash out the differences between their budgets, including this Medicaid cut. It's unclear whether the House will agree to reverse this cut during that process. While she disagreed with the House's cuts to the reimbursement rate, Ayotte said she doesn't think a rate increase is on the table for this budget cycle. She said her priority, during this difficult fiscal environment for the state, 'was to protect eligibility, to make sure that we don't have a disability wait list.' She said the current rates are based on a rate study, and said that she wants to reevaluate those rates in the next budget cycle for state fiscal years 2028-29. 'People with disabilities was one of the priorities in my budget,' she said. 'And it will continue to be a priority of mine.' Operating in rural northern New Hampshire means there's a smaller population to pull from when hiring, she explained. She said they've recently increased their starting pay to around $19 an hour. A couple years ago they were paying between $13 and $14 per hour. They now have about 75 employees and are short four full-timers. 'The people that we do get, unfortunately, aren't — I don't know how to really say this — they're not up to par as what we were used to,' she said. 'I'm interviewing people that don't even have GEDs. … Some people that we've had come in don't even have computer skills, and they're struggling to get through the basic training.' Fortunately, she has employees who appreciate overtime pay so they help cover gaps left by vacancies. She and the rest of management also step in sometimes. George Barrett is the associate director at Opportunity Networks, which offers day programming for people with developmental disabilities in Nashua, Bedford, and Amherst. 'Forty years I've been doing this, there's always been a workforce issue,' Barrett said. 'It's never been as bad as it has been since COVID.' These challenges, which he also attributed to low pay and the challenging nature of the job, mean they sometimes don't have the staff to accept new participants, he explained. This means families remain on their waitlist. He noted the majority of their families are middle class, and by not having their loved ones in services, they often must forgo work opportunities to care for them. 'We've had staff that have started and have lasted two weeks, and then, due to the demand, have left,' he said, 'because they're seeing the stress and duress that they're under.' Barrett said Medicaid comprises nearly 100% of their income, and around 80% of the Medicaid dollars they receive goes directly to staff. In January 2024, when they received a 7% increase, the last time they did, the entirety of that money went to DSPs' paychecks, he said. Still, that hasn't kept up with inflation or market changes. He said he's reached out to state and federal leaders urging them to approve more rate increases, because their current rate — which he called 'not even a livable wage' — makes it challenging to compete with other industries for workers. 'In many cases, it's almost desperation,' he said. 'You look at who can you take?' He said this leads to lower-quality candidates, which 'opens the door' for abuse and neglect. 'We haven't seen that here,' he said. 'But, yes, it does. The individuals we work with are, in my opinion, the most vulnerable citizens in the state of New Hampshire. Exploitation is there, because in a lot of cases, they can't speak up for themselves or defend themselves.' Barrett called it 'a catch-22.' 'You try your best to vet individuals,' he said. 'But at the same time, too many vendors are kind of desperate to get staff, to get individuals in service.' Still, Barrett praised the staff he does have. 'Without them, services like ours do not exist because they do 100% of the work in terms of working with the individuals,' he said. 'In essence, individual lives with disabilities are more so in the hands of our direct support professionals. So I can't give enough credit. And again, I will say they are definitely underpaid.' While people report struggling to hire DSPs and PCAs nationwide, New Hampshire's tight labor market makes the problem especially acute. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce ranks New Hampshire as having the most severe worker shortage in the country. As of 2023, the most recent data available, there were only 28 available workers for every 100 open jobs in the state. Phil Sletten, an economist and research director at the New Hampshire Fiscal Policy Institute, pointed out that the size of the labor force — the number of people working or looking for work — still hasn't recovered from the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2019, the labor force was about 777,300 people, but in 2024 it was roughly 771,600. 'So there has been some labor force recovery from the low point after the pandemic, which was in 2021, but that labor force recovery has not been complete,' Sletten said. This makes it difficult to hire for any job in New Hampshire. As for DSPs and PCAs specifically, Sletten concurred that low pay was hurting the ability to hire. As of June 2024, home health and personal care aides — which includes people who take care of anyone, not just those with disabilities — in New Hampshire earn a median hourly wage of $17.27, according to New Hampshire Employment Security. Across all professions, the median wage is $25.01. 'Home health and care aides who may be facing either a financial constraint at home or a more complex environment relative to their own position may be looking for other opportunities,' Sletten said. 'And with a higher median wage among all occupations in the state, there may be other opportunities that offer them more compensation.' Kathy Bates, who lives in her own house in Somersworth and has cerebral palsy, is another who struggles to hire DSPs, which are vital to her day-to-day life. 'Without them, I couldn't work,' Bates said. 'I couldn't even get out of bed.' Bates has DSPs come help her a few times a day. They come in the morning to help her get out of bed, shower, dress, get into her wheelchair, and do other tasks. They come again in the afternoon and at night as well. They keep her 'connected to the community' by allowing her to get out of her house. 'I really couldn't live a good life without them,' she said. 'I'm not saying I need help with everything, but I need to get out of bed, I need to get my day started before I can make anything happen.' Bates arranges to hire these aides herself, which takes a long time. She often has people call out sick at the last minute, she said, and has to find coverage when they want to take time off. She keeps a list on her bedside table with names of people to contact if someone calls out the morning of. 'Managing personal care is a full-time job sometimes,' she said. 'You want to be a good boss, but I have to bug people. I don't like bugging people.' She said this inconsistency means many people with disabilities are afraid to get jobs because they worry they won't be able to get out of bed every day and have someone to drive them to work. 'There's this huge untapped workforce out there,' she said. Bates has a few methods of hiring aides. Sometimes she puts ads on Craig's List. Sometimes she uses agencies like Granite State Independent Living and GT Independence. 'Coming through the door is like 50% of the interview,' she said. She often sets up interviews and they never show up. Additionally, many of the candidates who inquire are elderly, which is a problem because it's a physically demanding job. After someone is hired, there's a weekslong process of paperwork for Medicaid, background checks, and other administration. Still, she's grateful for her aides. 'I'm glad I do have the women that work for me,' she said. 'I'm really glad that they're as flexible as they are.' Bates is also active in advocacy within the disability community. She grew up before the Americans with Disabilities Act, so she remembers what it was like to have a disability before ADA protections, and she wants to continue making the world a better place for people with disabilities. To do so, she leads trainings for medical professionals about working with people with disabilities at the UNH Institute on Disability. She also writes a blog on disability called 'From Where I Sit.' And she's an accessibility and inclusion specialist on the Self Advocacy Leadership Team, a task force within the New Hampshire Council on Developmental Disabilities that seeks to find solutions for problems facing the disability community. The work gives Bates a lot of joy and fulfillment. She emphasized how none of it is possible without her caretakers. 'I can't change the world if I can't get out of bed,' she said.
Yahoo
23-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Bill allowing trans people to be kept out of bathrooms, locker rooms heads to NH governor's desk
Supporters of transgender rights gather at the Legislative Office Building in Concord on Feb. 19, 2025. (Photo by William Skipworth/New Hampshire Bulletin) A bill that would eliminate certain transgender protections established by a 2018 anti-discrimination law in New Hampshire was approved by the state Senate Thursday and now heads to Gov. Kelly Ayotte's desk. If it becomes law, House Bill 148, which was sponsored by Wilton Republican Rep. Jim Kofalt, will allow businesses and organizations in New Hampshire to classify certain services, such as locker rooms and restrooms, by biological sex. It would also permit schools and organized sports teams in the state to keep transgender athletes off teams that are consistent with their gender identity. It would allow prisons, mental health facilities, and juvenile detention centers to place transgender people with members of their at-birth sex even if they ask to be placed according to the gender they identify with. The bill doesn't require any of these things, but it allows whoever owns the restrooms, administers the sports teams, or runs the prison to do so without facing discrimination charges. This reverses parts of 2018's Law Against Discrimination, which was enacted to protect people from discrimination on the basis of 'age, sex, gender identity, race, creed, color, marital status, familial status, physical or mental disability, or national origin.' The Senate passed the bill, 16-8, along party lines Thursday, with all Republicans voting yes and all Democrats voting no. The House passed the legislation, 201-166, in March. Only two Democratic House members, Reps. Jonah Wheeler and Peter Leishman, both of Peterborough, voted in favor. Ayotte will now have the option to sign the bill into law, veto it, or allow it to become law without her signature. Her predecessor, former Gov. Chris Sununu, was given the same options in 2024 when the House and Senate approved House Bill 396. This year's bill, HB 148, is a word-for-word copy of last year's HB 396. Sununu ultimately vetoed the bill, calling it 'unacceptable,' and saying it 'runs contrary to New Hampshire's Live Free or Die spirit' and 'seeks to solve problems that have not presented themselves,' per his veto message. LGBTQ+ rights supporters sang outside the State House restrooms in protest of the bill during the Senate session Thursday. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
