STATE HOUSE UPDATE
By Dick Thackston State Rep. Cheshire 12 – Troy & Fitzwillam
The NH House of Representatives is in the busiest portion of the 2024 Session right now. There have been voting sessions of the House every Thursday in February and likely the same in March and with the exception of Weekends Committee hearings more or less continuously through-out the weekdays.
Committee Hearings are critical to New Hampshire’s tradition of giving every bill a fair hearing so with approximately 1,400 Bills filed for this session and a minimum of three hearings on each bill, that’s a lot of hearings. The Hearing Process on a Bill goes basically like this: Representative drafts a Bill which is assigned to the most relevant Standing Committee for review, the Standing Committee hold s a Public Hearing and here’s testimony on the Bill from the sponsor and co-sponsors as well as the Public and interested Parties, the Bill is then referred to an appropriate Sub-Committee to conduct a more detailed discussion and review before return to the Standing Committee, the Standing Committee then conducts an Executive Session where the recommendations of the Sub-Committee are reviewed and debated and a final vote with a recommendation to the Full House is made.
In cases where a Committee’s recommendation is unanimous, or very nearly so, a Bill is put on the Consent Agenda at the beginning of Voting Sessions in the house and typically voted by voice vote along with the Committees recommendations. That being said, any member can pull a Bill from the Consent Agenda and ask that it be debated and voted on the Floor of the House separately if they believe that is best.
Of the eight Bills I co-sponsored this session only one has completed the Committee process, which is HB 1666-FN Relative to Income Reporting for Lobbyists, it is coming out of Committee with a recommendation of Ought to Pass as Amended. The Committee voted 14-0 in favor of passing the Bill.
All of the Sessions of the New Hampshire Legislature, both House and Senate, are live streamed and archived on U-Tube.
If you are interested in following the schedule of bills, meetings or other current information in the NH Legislature just plug in the following address and it will take you to the General Court Home Page: https://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/
As always, thank-you for your support.