A new session has started at the State House in Concord, but some of the bills lawmakers are proposing seem to be old favorites. What else are they proposing? On this episode of “The State We’re In,” Anna Brown, executive director of Citizens Count and executive director of the Warren B. Rudman Center for Justice, Leadership and Public Service at the University of New Hampshire’s Franklin Pierce School of Law, talks about what’s coming up in the next few months.
By Rosemary Ford and Caitlin Agnew
This article has been edited for length and clarity.
Melanie Plenda:
Can you give us a high-level overview of some of the bills we’ll see in front of the State House this term? I imagine there are new proposals as well as some old favorites returning for Round 2, or in some cases, Round 22.
Anna Brown:
Yes. When I think about three big hot topics that are happening this year, it's housing, school policies and curriculum, and immigration.
Housing has been a top issue for many years. There is now a housing committee in the House of Representatives that is dedicated to bills looking at this issue. The challenge is that a lot of what the state can do right now is pushing back on local zoning laws, and there's a big tradition of local control in New Hampshire, where towns and cities set their own zoning regulations.
Many of those proposals are coming up that have been proposed in previous years. For example, limiting parking requirements, limiting minimum or maximum lot sizes, and so on. Those bills are coming back around, and we're going to see where they go this year in terms of school policies and curriculum.
In terms of school policies and curriculum, some of these are repeats — for example, a “parental bill of rights.” There’s another bill that would require teachers to respond to parent inquiries within a certain amount of time, or if they're worried for a student answering that question, then they would have to report it to the Department of Health and Human Services.
Something new this year is the No Screens in Classrooms Act. This was brought up by Gov. Kelly Ayotte in her inaugural address, and it would ban cell phone use in the classroom during instruction time, unless a teacher is specifically incorporating it, or a student has needs for an assistive device. A lot of these other school bills are definitely variations on a theme from previous years.
Then immigration enforcement — that’s another big priority that Governor Ayotte brought up in her inaugural address. She's looking to ban sanctuary cities in New Hampshire, which I actually don't think is the most controversial immigration issue this year, because it's not really a huge, common thing in New Hampshire that you're going to have a lot of tension between police and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. In New Hampshire, there are only a couple cities or towns that have ordinances that might fall under that category. So that one is getting attention, but I'm looking more at immigration-related issues, on requiring employers to use E-verify, banning out-of-state immigrant licenses, and so on, and seeing where those issues will unfold.
Melanie Plenda:
Let’s drill down a bit on some of the other issues expected to come up this session. First, let’s talk about the state budget. What’s happening there? And how will that affect people?
Anna Brown:
I could have answered the entire first question about important legislation by just saying “budget, budget and budget.”
The New Hampshire budget is how we really set our most important priorities, and it's going to be a tough one. Governor Ayotte has already said to expect to tighten your belt. She's already put a hiring freeze on at the state level, and that's because there's several challenges going on.
The federal COVID money that was floating around for several years and earning a lot of interest for the state is all gone now. Business tax revenue is slowing down, and the state is facing a few really challenging lawsuits related to school funding, related to juvenile detention, and the ultimate bill on those is anybody's guess.
We already have a shoestring budget for our state compared to a lot of other states. We know there are almost certainly going to have to be cuts. The governor has said as much. She will give her proposal in February, usually right around Valentine's Day — It’s easy to remember that way — so I'm really going to be curious to see where she's proposing cuts and where she's proposing to hold the line.
She's already said that she's very concerned about mental health. She's very concerned about first responders and law enforcement. So we can presume that she's not going to be looking to make cuts there. But honestly, anything else at state government is on the table.
Melanie Plenda:
There are also bills concerning child abuse up for consideration this session. What are those about? Are they related to some of the horrific cases that have made headlines in the past year?
Anna Brown:
There is a lot of bipartisan concern around child protection in New Hampshire. There are bills looking to criminalize neglect, expand definitions of child endangerment, add more assumptions that harm is occurring — so basically making it easier to remove a child from the home or prosecute — and requiring more interaction and cooperation between child safety workers and police. And this is in response to some high-profile cases. Harmony Montgomery, of course, was murdered by her own father, and it was a really tragic case that has been unfolding over multiple years as more information is uncovered about reports that were made or maybe not followed up on, and where communication didn't happen across state lines or in different departments. So definitely, those bills, I think, have a good chance of moving forward. People are trying to shore up the system. A big challenge, though, is if you don't have enough child protection workers, and people are getting burned out, and they have too large of a caseload — this is going to continue to be an issue in New Hampshire.
So this is another issue that I think might get explored during the state budget process as well, because even if you have wonderful laws, if you don't have enough people working to investigate and protect children, we're going to continue to see failures.
Melanie Plenda:
There’s also a bill aimed at no-cause evictions. What is that about? How will that impact people?
Anna Brown:
This is another repeat bill from years past, and it's sponsored by Rep. Bob Lynn, who is a former chief justice of the New Hampshire Supreme Court, so he definitely carries some weight in the House of Representatives.
This bill would basically allow a landlord to just choose not to renew a lease. Under current law, there has to be some cause, so they can't just say, “No I don't want to rent to you anymore.” It's intended to prohibit discrimination. But the reason this bill is coming up is that there's an idea that, OK, maybe if landlords have the ability to get rid of bad tenants more easily it would encourage more people to become landlords. This is another way to maybe ease the affordable housing crisis in New Hampshire.
The flip side of this is that people are concerned that there will be a movement to just flip tenants and keep on raising rents, and that you can be as picky and discriminatory as you like. Of course, it would still be illegal to actively discriminate against people. But this is the debate. This is the reason why the bill has come up time and time again, and we're going to see if this is the year that it goes forward.
Melanie Plenda:
So, amidst all this, there are also federal mandates coming down the pike. So what is going on with the federal funding freeze, and how will that affect New Hampshire?
Anna Brown:
This is a constantly changing situation. Over a period of just a few days, we saw a complete federal funding freeze. Medicaid portals went down temporarily. There's some debate about whether that was a technical glitch or intentional. Then the Trump administration said they were lifting the order that implemented the freeze, but were still going to continue the review of federal funds. That's a very uncertain environment.
I think the challenge in New Hampshire is how to plan for this going forward, because there are big potential impacts on the budget. At the highest level, about one-third of all of the revenue that's in the New Hampshire budget comes from the federal government, and that might go to roads or schools or contracts for other community services. And it's worth noting that, with our shoestring budget compared to other states, a lot of our social service programs — whether it's after-school programs or public health programs, essential services for new mothers, maybe services for veterans — are coming from nonprofits that get government contracts. So this potential federal funding freeze — it's hard to understate the impact it could have in New Hampshire. But since the landscape continues to change so much on a daily basis, we can't know for sure what ultimately is going to happen.
Melanie Plenda:
Do you expect any of President Trump’s recent executive orders to have an impact on New Hampshire in the coming months?
Anna Brown:
Absolutely — that's almost undeniable. I've discussed the scope of a federal funding freeze potentially in New Hampshire. Even freezing some of those grants or specific areas of funding could have a very large impact in a state that relies so much on that funding. That being said, it could be a small impact or a big one.
There was also a recent Trump executive order that's looking to expand school choice. So we know that New Hampshire has the Education Freedom Account program, and that allows students to take the per-pupil share of public school funding and spend it on private and homeschool expenses. Is there a world where the Trump administration would support funding that program? It's not impossible.
At this point, I would say the executive orders are written in really broad legal language that leaves a lot of room for interpretation. So absolutely — there will be an impact, and I think it's just up to journalists and nonprofits like Citizens Count and the UNH Law School, and everyone else to just be doing their best to keep reading and talking to each other and doing their best to plan for what might happen.
Melanie Plenda:
Thank you Anna Brown, executive director of Citizens Count as well as executive director of the Warren B. Rudman Center for Justice, Leadership & Public Service at the University of New Hampshire’s Franklin Pierce School of Law.
“The State We’re In” is a weekly digital public affairs show produced by NH PBS and The Marlin Fitzwater Center for Communication at Franklin Pierce University. It is shared with partners in the Granite State News Collaborative, of which both organizations are members. These articles are being shared by partners in the Granite State News Collaborative. For more information, visit collaborativenh.org.