State House Dome: Some oldies and new wrinkles in early 2025 bill pile
Sep. 20—THE 2025 bill-filing season has begun, and the early pile includes some oldies but goodies along with some new policy wrinkles.
Incumbent House members had to prepare their pre-election proposals by Sept. 13 and 169 proposals came forward.
That's by no means close to what will be the final number of bills.
The House also has a post-election filing period for its members, newly elected and incumbents, that opens the day after the Nov. 5 election and closes Nov. 22.
The state Senate will have its own bill-filing season that won't start until after all 24 of them are elected.
No one is surprised that supporters of legalized recreational marijuana use for adults are back, the latest effort from Rep. Kevin Verville, R-Deerfield.
That's one of nine proposals that have come in on cannabis.
Here's other topics we've seen before:
—Parental rights: House Speaker Sherman Packard, R-Londonderry returns with his bill that the narrowly divided House rejected in the past two years.
—Education Freedom Accounts: Rep. Valerie McDonnell, R-Salem, proposes universal eligibility for school vouchers; Rep. Linda Tanner, D-Sunapee, counters with income eligibility guardrails for the taxpayer-funded school voucher program and Rep. Verville wants to create a locally-run voucher program.
—Abortion access: House Deputy Democratic Leader Alexis Simpson of Exeter has offered the only proposal on this topic: to have New Hampshire become the last state in New England with a statute giving women the right to a legal abortion in all cases up to 24 weeks of pregnancy.
—Divine Concepts: Rep. Peter Petrigno, D-Milford, wants to repeal the ban on teaching discrimination in public schools, another cause that's died along partisan lines.
—Guard deployment: As promised, Rep. Tom Mannion, R-Pelham, will try to ban the deployment of National Guard troops to a foreign conflict unless Congress declares war. The House approved it by a strong, bipartisan margin but it died in the state Senate.
These different proposals will likely to attract attention:
—New DYCF: Rep. Erica Layon, R-Derry, is championing a bill to separate the Division of Children, Youth and Families as its own department.
—Mandatory E-Verify: Rep. Aidan Arkenberg, R-Rochester, wants to require New Hampshire firms to join this voluntary federal program that helps employers avoid hiring workers who are in this country illegally.
—Ending diversity focus: Rep. Mike Belcher, R-Wakefield, proposes getting rid of the Governor's Council on Diversity and Inclusion as well as equity and civil rights/justice functions in two state agencies.
—Ranked choice voting: Rep. Ellen Read, D-Newmarket, wants to bring this reform to state and municipal elections.
—Best film award: Rep. Joe Alexander, R-Goffstown, wants to make the eight-minute short, '"Within The Crystal Hills" the official animated film of the state of New Hampshire.
This short film from director Griffin Hansen of Goffstown is about an iron worker named Sawyer who ventures into the White Mountains to bring his beloved Carrigain a precious diamond.
Sununu aide got help from Dem voters
It was a very good primary election for Harold Parker, Gov. Chris Sununu's legislative director.
Like everyone else on the departing governor's staff, Parker has been looking for a new gig.
The Wolfeboro Republican decided to run for Carroll County commissioner since an interim pick for the post, Bill Nelson, decided not to seek a full term.
Nelson stepped in after the incumbent Republican Matthew Plache left in June 2023 after he had come under investigation for his involvement in getting a countywide broadband consultancy contract.
Plache denied any wrongdoing but stepped aside.
A former state representative, Parker's first good news was winning his GOP primary over former County Commission Chairman Amanda Tuttle Bevard, 3,046 to 2,410.
Bevard chaired the three-member commission from 2016 to 2020.
The best news came for Parker from the Democratic primary, where Catherine Dragonfly of Wolfeboro was the winner.
Dragonfly, a 66-year-old antiques dealer, tried without success to get off the ballot because she pleaded guilty last July to misdemeanor theft from her 96-year-old aunt. She got a one-year suspended jail sentence and was ordered to pay $1,270.
The Carroll County Democrats mounted an aggressive write-in campaign for Dwight DeVork that featured an online video from Dragonfly pleading for people to vote against her.
Apparently not enough voters got or agreed with the message, because Dragonfly still beat the write-in candidate DeVork, 2,207 to 1,840.
Secretary of State David Scanlan said Dragonfly has shown no legal ability (i.e. disabled or can't fulfill the office) to take her name off the general election ballot.
More from the counties
Republican primary voters also showed they didn't want to take no for an answer.
Sullivan County Attorney Marc Hathaway in June announced that after 37 years as the county's first and only full-time prosecutor, he was retiring.
No Republican filed to replace him, and sure enough 37 people — two more than the minimum number — wrote in Hathaway's name, making him once again the GOP nominee.
Scanlan noted every write-in candidate has the right to turn down a nomination, and Hathaway did just that.
Christine Hilliard, a Claremont Democratic lawyer, was unopposed and she came within six write-in votes of getting the GOP nomination.
Former Executive Councilor Mike Cryans won a competitive Democratic primary for Grafton County treasurer to replace Lebanon's Karen Liot Hill, who won her own primary for the Executive Council seat being vacated by Cinde Warmington of Concord, who ran for governor.
Cryans faces GOP nominee Brian Dear of Lyman this November.
Jillian Myers of Lisbon, a 30-year law enforcement officer, beat two Democrats to be nominated to replace Grafton Sheriff Jeff Stiegler, who did not seek reelection.
If she defeats Todd Matthew Eck of Haverhill, Myers would become the first female sheriff in the county's history.
In Hillsborough County, former County Attorney Dennis Hogan of Nashua won the GOP nomination for register of deeds over Elizabeth Moreau of Manchester. In a rematch, Hogan faces Brookline Democrat Mary Ann Crowell who bet him by 141 votes in 2022.
In Merrimack County, Republican Frank Cassidy of Epsom crushed state Rep. Jason Gerhard of Northfield in a GOP primary for sheriff. Incumbent Democrat David Croft of Canterbury won his primary unopposed.
In Strafford County, Kathryn Mone of Durham easily won a three-way primary for sheriff to replace Mark Brave, who resigned and is facing criminal theft charges.
She faces Rochester Republican Scott Tingle in the general election.
County Commissioner Deanna Rollo, D-Rollinsford, will face off against Rochester Republican Sean Leavitt even though neither lives in the commission district.
The GOP-led Legislature pushed through a 2023 law to change the three commissioners from at-large to individual districts but mistakenly did not require anyone to live in this new district they represented.
Former Republican state Rep. Cliff Newton of Rochester lost to Leavitt by 260 votes after the Ballot Law Commission rejected his bid to knock Leavitt and Rollo off the ballot.
Trying to nullify Claremont
House Majority Leader Jason Osborne, R-Auburn, and Packard have filed a brief backed by 30 Republicans asking the state Supreme Court to nullify the two landmark Claremont school funding decisions that required the state support an adequate education for all children in public schools.
Former state Rep. Greg Sorg, a conservative Franconia Republican, wrote the legal argument that cites the U.S. Supreme Court overturning Roe vs. Wade with its Dobbs decision and sending that issue back to the states.
Attorney General John Formella has appealed two lower court rulings which, if they stand, will compel the Legislature to spend more than $500 million a year in additional aid to property-poor school districts.
In his brief, Formella argued the Legislature has the authority to determine what is an adequate education, noting that since those rulings, the Supreme Court removed the "strict scrutiny" it had held over this topic.
The AG advanced no claim that the court's rulings were wrongly decided.
While eye-catching for legal and political observers, this isn't a new argument.
On more than one occasion during the two Claremont cases, the New Hampshire Supreme Court heard and rejected pleadings that the justices exceeded their constitutional authority.
Two polls show dead heat
The University of New Hampshire Survey Center is the first in this election campaign to have Democratic candidate for governor Joyce Craig (47%) ahead of Republican nominee Kelly Ayotte (46%). It's a dead heat given the poll's 2.3% margin of error.
Ayotte had led by 3% (46% to 43%) in a Saint Anselm poll earlier last week.
We'll save you going through dozens of crosstab pages to find what's different.
Predominantly it lies in the fact that UNH's results gave Craig a much bigger lead over Ayotte among "moderates" (51%-41%) and those over 65 (52%-43%) than Saint A's had.
Both First District Rep. Chris Pappas (52%-35%) and Second District Democratic nominee Maggie Goodlander (49%-38%) held solid leads over GOP nominees Russell Prescott and Lily Tang Williams, respectively.
Mutual ad controversies
Ayotte called on Craig to pull an ad citing her role as chairman on the board of BAE Systems.
Craig as mayor had bragged in 2021 about bringing BAE jobs to Manchester, Ayotte noted.
"Joyce should take down her attack ad immediately...By turning her fire on BAE Systems, New Hampshire's largest manufacturing employer and a company she once praised for creating jobs in Manchester, Joyce Craig again shows she is not ready for the corner office," Ayotte said.
Craig Campaign Manager Craig Brown said the ad wasn't about BAE as an employer, but instead Ayotte enriching herself by serving on corporate boards.
"Kelly Ayotte is desperately trying to change the conversation because she can't defend the millions she's made from corporations that shipped jobs overseas, laid off American workers, and jacked up rents and pushed families out of their homes," Brown said.
Craig's campaign has a commercial attacking Ayotte for "lying" about Craig which forced Ayotte to pull an ad and apologize to murder victim Denise Robert's family for falsely connecting that crime to Craig's time as mayor.
Thanks for the help
Sometimes your supporters do you no good even when they mean well.
A day after the pro-abortion rights group Emily's List endorsed Craig for governor, Electing Women in the Bay Area couldn't wait to post on the web a fundraiser for Craig on Sept. 27 in San Francisco with Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey serving as its special guest.
"Based on her record, we know that she'd happily bring California-style policies to New Hampshire," Ayotte said.
California has the highest tax burden and largest homeless population in the nation.
