Your tool kit for for the ’22 legislative session

The New Hampshire General Court is back in business in Concord for 2022, and things look closer to normal in House and Senate than they did last year. Here are some links and information to help you get your pro-life messages across to your representatives. Bookmark this page for reference during the 2022 legislative session.

The basic site, starting with ID’ing your reps

The General Court website (gencourt.state.nh.us) is your guide to keeping up with legislative business in New Hampshire. Spend a few minutes exploring it. It’s been revamped since the beginning of the last session, so it might look different than you’re used to. Same good information, different design.

• New Hampshire House members page (gencourt.state.nh.us/house/members): you can select your town from a drop-down menu and find out the name and contact information for each of your state representative. Your town or ward might have only one rep or more than a dozen. Make sure you know who they are, regardless of party or voting record. Each and every one of them is accountable to you. Bonus on the House contact page: you can download a complete House roster, if you’re so inclined.
• New Hampshire Senate members (gencourt.state.nh.us/senate/members/wml.aspx): select your town from the drop-down menu to get your senator’s name and contact information. The full Senate roster is on a separate page.
• Finding bills: the left side of the General Court homepage will help you look up a bill by its number, a keyword (text), or sponsor’s name.
• The House standing committees (gencourt.state.nh.us/house/committees/standingcommittees.aspx) page will give you a link to each policy committee – Education, Judiciary, Health and Human Services, and so on. That’s where to find the names of each committee member.
• Likewise, the Senate has a committee page (gencourt.state.nh.us/senate/committees/senate_committees.aspx).

Calendars

The House and Senate calendars, published weekly in printable PDF format, list all the public hearings for the coming week. The calendars are usually available online on Thursday evenings. Each chamber (House and Senate) maintains a digital calendar as well.

Hearings: in person and online

[edited to add this information] While you need to attend a hearing in person in order to offer spoken testimony, you can listen to hearings online. Click on the House or Senate digital calendar to find the committee or bill whose hearing you want, and you’ll find a link to the livestream.

Testifying on bills, and the critically-important remote sign-in procedure

One big change from 2020’s pandemic-triggered online procedure: you won’t be able to testify during a hearing remotely this year. If you want to speak to a committee at a hearing, you need to get yourself to Concord. Expect rooms to be set up with some distance between seats. As of early January, masks are optional in the State House and Legislative Office Building, but that policy could change. I’ll keep a mask handy when I head to Concord.

However, one innovation from last year is being continued, and it’s a good thing: you can sign up remotely to register your opinion to committee members on a specific bill. This is a very important development in public participation. During a hearing, the committee clerk will read aloud the tally of sign-ins, pro and con. If a life-issue bill has 600 people registering one way and only 30 registering the other, that’s going to be news.

Remote sign-in on a bill is available as soon as the bill is posted in the calendar, and you should sign in no later than 30 minutes before the scheduled start of a hearing to make sure the committee clerk has your name.

• Read the House remote sign-in directions (printable PDF) and become familiar with the House sign-in form.
• Read the Senate remote sign-in directions (printable PDF) and become familiar with the Senate sign-in form.

When you fill out the online sign-up form, you should get a confirmation page with instructions for submitting written testimony if you want to indicate more than simply support/oppose.

Anyone – whether testifying in person, signing up remotely, or doing neither – can submit written testimony to any committee on a bill being heard by that committee. If you email the committee at its address (remember those committee pages I mentioned above), the message will automatically go to each committee member. You can also use snail mail sent to a committee or its individual members (remember the postal service?), which nowadays could make your message stand out. Every elected official is flooded with emails, particularly when the topic is a life issue.

New this year: submitting testimony that can be read by the public

This announcement was in the January 28 House calendar, with emphasis added by me: “…please be aware of the new feature on the General Court website where New Hampshire citizens can upload written testimony on bills without the need to appear in person. Legislators are welcome to promote this new tool with your constituents. Legislators should also check the submissions page frequently to review testimony that has been submitted on bills coming before your committee. Testimony submitted online is available for anyone to view so we are encouraging this method of written testimony. The form accepts testimony through the end of the day of each bill’s public hearing.”

This is distinct from emailing the committee, as described in the previous paragraph. That can still be done, and your message will go to each committee member. This new way of submitting testimony will make your message available to the general public, where your personal stories and documentation will reach a larger audience.

Here is the link for submitting your public testimony: http://gencourt.state.nh.us/house/committees/remotetestimony/submitted_testimony.aspx

Brevity, clarity, charity

Whenever you contact a legislator or committee:

• Keep it brief. If you’re testifying in person, you’ll probably have no more than three minutes. If you have a relevant personal story, talk about that. Your written testimony can be longer, and it can include documentation or data to augment your spoken testimony. Once a bill gets to the full chamber for a vote and you’re contacting each one of your reps, it’s best to be brief once again. Let them know you’re happy to offer more information, but for the most part, they’ll only have time to read a short message.
• Keep it clear. Your call to action needs to come first: “please support [bill number].” Don’t say “vote yes” or “vote no” unless you’re absolutely certain on what motion a committee or chamber is voting on; a “yes” vote on an “inexpedient to legislate” motion is a vote to kill a bill. If you want a bill to pass, say “please support this bill.” If you want a bill to be killed, say “please oppose this bill.”
• Keep it polite. Regardless of your feelings about a particular rep or the rep’s party, you’re talking to a neighbor whenever you communicate about a piece of legislation. Someday, your courteous message might be the one to spark a constructive one-on-one conversation with a rep who is usually not supportive of pro-life policy. That’s how persuasion works. Be courteous, say please, and send a thank-you when a rep gets a vote right.

Take a State House tour – and allow time to find parking

Anyone who has ever heard me talk about the New Hampshire State House knows that I am a raving fan. It is absolutely worth a tour. Our State House is on the small side (especially for a state with 424 legislators), and it could use some tech upgrades, and it is not a modern building. Don’t be put off: it’s a gem. At a minimum, if you’re up there, stop at the Visitor Center on the first floor. The team there can give you a brochure for a self-guided tour, or you can book a tour in advance. Street address: 107 North Main Street, Concord.

If you’re going to a hearing in the Legislative Office Building, it’s across State Street from the rear of the State House. Street address: 33 North State Street, Concord.

There’s a pedestrian tunnel connecting the LOB and the State House, which can be handy if you have business in both places. There’s a cafeteria down there at the State House end.

Parking in Concord near the State House can be a challenge. However much time you think it’ll take to get to Concord, add another ten minutes for finding parking. The city of Concord has a web page dedicated to downtown parking which includes a map of parking areas along with information on the handy Pay by Phone app (requiring a smartphone). If you don’t use the smartphone app, be sure to bring quarters.

On the home front: what you can do today

There’s one thing every pro-life Granite Stater can do today on the public policy side of pro-life work: contact your state representatives and urge them to stand by the 24-week abortion restriction that was included in the recently-passed state budget.

Never mind what Texas is doing, or what the Supreme Court is doing, or what kind of crazy social media posts you’re seeing about abortion policy anywhere in the United States. For the moment, seeing to our own state’s business is of paramount concern.

Hard-fought gains in jeopardy

You’ll recall that earlier in 2021, the House and Senate passed a budget that included the Fetal Life Protection Act. The Governor signed the budget. While the budget itself went into effect July 1, the Fetal Life Protection Act (which I’ll refer to as the 24-week law) is scheduled to take effect next January 1.

Look at HB 2, page 14 line 14 to page 19 line 1. There’s the 24-week abortion limit.

While happy to see New Hampshire’s Wild-West abortion policy finally come to an end (or at least a scheduled end), I was unhappy that it came via a budget provision rather than as a freestanding bill. I feared that the next budget go-round two years hence would find the Fetal Life Protection Act repealed. An attorney far better versed than I in such matters assured me my fears were misplaced.

Thanks to a handful of legislators, my fears are back: the risk is not repeal in two years, but weakening or gutting of the law as early as 2022.

Beginning next Monday, September 14, New Hampshire House members will have five days to file their intent to introduce 2022 legislation. Senators will follow suit in October. These are the LSRs, or legislative service requests. Anyone who wants to revise or repeal a law can file an LSR to do so. The 24-week law is vulnerable to attack.

Where your support is most needed

Every one of your elected officials needs to know that you expect pro-life policy to be a priority. Even Democratic officeholders who are staunchly united behind unrestricted abortion ought to hear from you; don’t ever let them say they don’t know where you stand.

Conversations I’m having, though, point to Republicans as the officeholders most in need of your messages. Specifically, New Hampshire House Republicans need to know their constituents are watching the 24-week law carefully.

Yes, Republicans have the current legislative majority in Concord. However, despite state and national GOP platform planks, there are GOP reps who consider the right to life to be negotiable or secondary or irrelevant. With a narrow majority, it would only take a few GOP reps joining with Dems to undermine the 24-week law.

There are Republican reps who can be counted on to fight like tigers over the Second Amendment or taxation or the governor’s emergency powers, but who wish all this abortion business would just go away.

It won’t go away. Not a chance. Human rights – even achingly small steps towards those rights – are like that.

You don’t need to ask your GOP reps whether or not they like the 24-week law, although there could be some constructive conversations if you choose to start one. All you need to tell them is that you want them to stand by the 24-week law and refuse to water it down.

A Republican rep who is weak or uncommitted on the life issues will be vulnerable to scare tactics and misinformation by abortion advocates in both parties. You can counter that by encouraging your reps to stand by the 24-week law if an attempt is made to weaken it.

Do not look to Republican leadership or Governor Sununu to do your work for you. Print out those words and hang them on your wall for inspiration if necessary.

Contacting your House reps

Need to bookmark the House roster so you can look up your representatives? Here’s the link: who’s my legislator? You can always go to the General Court website (gencourt.state.nh.us) for information on a representative, senator, or bill. Brief phone calls are best, keeping in mind that New Hampshire reps don’t have offices and that your call will go to their cell phones or house landlines. Emails are better than nothing.

With courtesy and conviction and brevity, urge your reps to stand by the Fetal Life Protection Act as passed in HB 2. Concentrate on GOP reps, if you’re pressed for time. There’s no need to weaken the law before it goes into effect.

Why contact House members now? Because they’re going to file LSRs next week. Why House members instead of senators? Because the Senate won’t be filing LSRs until later.

New Hampshire has been a home to abortion extremism long enough. Help your reps develop the courage and confidence to move in a healthier direction.

There are plenty of headlines and noise elsewhere about what’s going on in other states. Forget all that for now. There’s work to be done here at home.

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From Cornerstone: FAQs about the Fetal Life Protection Act, Sununu Wavering on Law

From NH Journal, an op-ed by Rep. Beth Folsom (R-Wentworth): I Sponsored the Fetal Life Protection Act; Stop Lying About What’s In It

House-passed budget contains language to bar abortion funding

The New Hampshire House has passed a budget with language “to ensure that public funds are not used to subsidize abortions directly or indirectly”. The proposed budget now goes to the Senate for consideration.

While New Hampshire has long protected taxpayers from most abortion funding (there are exceptions), the new House language calls for complete physical and financial separation of abortion from family planning. This would mean that an entity seeking a contract with the state to provide family planning services – say, Planned Parenthood of Northern New England – would not be eligible unless its abortion business were set up as a separate entity.

Recent House roll calls: limiting late-term abortion, HB 625

The New Hampshire House voted 191-160 to pass HB 625, limiting abortions after 24 weeks’ gestation, with an exception for a mother’s medical emergency. The roll call is on the General Court website.

Contact information for representatives is on the General Court site as well. Thank-yous where they’re due would undoubtedly be welcomed.

A few notes

Committee recommendation overturned

Before voting on an “Ought to Pass” motion, the House had to take up the Judiciary Committee’s 11-10 recommendation of “Inexpedient to Legislate.” The House overturned the committee recommendation, as it later did with the committee’s ITL recommendation for HB 233 (born-alive protection).

No walkout

Unlike with the born-alive protection bill, there was no walkout by HB 625’s opponents. Only thirteen representatives are on the roll call as “Not Voting.”

Protecting born-alive children triggered a walkout by some House members, while limiting abortion did not. Interesting contrast there.

I have a separate post on the born-alive vote.

Party lines

The vote was generally along party lines, with Republicans in the majority. The exceptions are noted here.

Three Democrats joined 188 Republicans in voting “Ought to Pass (OTP)”: Richard Ames (Jaffrey), Stacie-Marie Laughton (Nashua), and John Mann (Alstead).

Fourteen Republicans joined 146 Democrats in opposing the OTP motion: James Allard (Pittsfield), Lex Berezhny (Grafton), Joseph Depalma IV (Littleton), Oliver Ford (Chester), Edward “Ned” Gordon (Bristol; Chairman of House Judiciary; voted against bill in committee), John Hunt (Rindge), John Lewicke (Mason), Norman Major (Plaistow), James Mason (Franklin), Russell Ober (Hudson), Diane Pauer (Brookline), Andrew Prout (Hudson), Dan Wolf (Newbury), and Josh Yokela (Fremont).

Next step

HB 625 will head to the Senate, where Republicans hold a 14-10 majority. As seen with the House roll call, though, party lines won’t necessarily hold.

_{Header photo by Dan Evans/Pixabay.}

Recent House roll calls: born-alive protection, HB 233

The recent New Hampshire House roll call vote on born-alive protection for abortion survivors was largely along party lines, but not entirely. The HB 233 vote was messy, for various reasons. The walkout on the bill (as previously reported on this blog) could leave voters wondering if “Not Voting” next to a rep’s name means opposition or just indifference.

With all those caveats, we can now see how New Hampshire’s state representatives voted on one of the most important bills of the session so far, an act “relative to the right of any infant born alive to medically appropriate and reasonable care and treatment.”

I have a separate post on the session’s other life-issue bill, HB 625, on late-term abortion.