The current legislative session at the State House is winding down. What have our legislators been up to? And what’s next in the current session? To discuss that is Anna Brown, executive director of Citizens Count, a nonprofit and nonpartisan organization dedicated to educating voters about the political process, as well 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.
By Rosemary Ford and Caitlin Agnew
This folder is edited for length and clarity.
Melanie Plenda:
You’ve been following the work at the State House. The Legislature recently had something called crossover. Can you explain to our audience what that is and why it’s important?
Anna Brown:
Crossover is the last chance to vote on bills before they cross over to the other chamber. You can sort of think of it as halftime in the Legislature. In New Hampshire, they vote from January to June, and at this halfway point, we really see what bills really have a chance to become laws, and which bills just don't stand a chance.
Melanie Plenda:
Which bills made the cut at crossover?
Anna Brown:
The state budget passed to the House, and that kind of is its own story. We could do an entire interview all about that budget, but certainly there were other big bills that moved forward.
We have both the House and Senate passing bills to expand eligibility for the Education Freedom Account program, which lets students take the per–pupil share of state education funding and spend it on private or homeschool expenses. The House and Senate have also passed parental Bill of Rights, which vary a little bit, but among other things, they would require teachers to respond to parent inquiries within five to 10 days. And both the House and Senate have passed versions of a ban on sanctuary cities. So what that means is towns and cities would have to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement. They couldn't adopt policies that are intended to block immigration officials.
Melanie Plenda:
Were there any surprises?
Anna Brown:
I was surprised that the state Senate passed a lot of bills that are pushing back on restrictive zoning at the local level. Historically, in recent years, the Senate has really been hesitant to say what local cities and towns can and can't do when it comes to minimum lot sizes or parking requirements, and so on. A lot of those bills moved forward.
Also, one thing that surprised me a little bit is there is a bill that passed the Senate that would increase eligibility for free meals for students at up to 200% of the federal poverty level, with some reimbursement from the state. But this would allow schools to do it. It would sort of be an opt-in. That's not the full-blown expansion that Democrats have been advocating for in the past, but it was still movement forward on an issue that I wasn't sure was going to change this year.
Melanie Plenda:
Which bills have a chance of passing both houses and head to the governor for approval or veto?
Anna Brown:
I mentioned the Parents’ Bill of Rights, the expanded eligibility for the Education Freedom Account, the bills that are related to immigration enforcement. Those are moving simultaneously, with slightly different versions in both the House and the Senate, and we've seen Governor Ayotte indicate she's in favor of these sorts of things.
Also, I think that it's likely we're going to see a bill that would move the state primary from September to June. This was another issue that the House and Senate wrangled with in the past, but now we have some new legislators, and it looks like it's going to happen — not for the next election, but the one after that. Lastly, we actually already saw the House and Senate fast-track a bill to roll back some bail reform measures, and that has been signed by Governor Ayotte already. It was a big priority for her, and so we're seeing some additional restrictions on bail.
Melanie Plenda:
Which ones are unlikely to pass, and thus stall at the State House?
Anna Brown:
When I'm looking at bills that were popular in the House of Representatives and really have no chance in the Senate, the first thing that comes to mind is bills to expand legal marijuana. Expanding legal use — whether it's medical or saying you can use it for private consumption — all of those bills, I think, are pretty much dead on arrival in the Senate.
I think the Senate is also going to be hesitant on some bills related to harm reduction. So in particular, HB226 would allow drug-checking equipment, which is currently illegal, to be used for some harm-reduction purposes. So think a fentanyl test strip, right? So people using drugs, ideally, are not going to use something that is highly lethal or contaminated, but the Senate has been pretty unsure about that.
There's also a bill that would limit the ability of the Department of Health and Human Services to require vaccinations beyond what is in state law. The bill specifically notes requirements for chicken pox, hepatitis B vaccinations will expire, and it would just limit that ability going forward, unless the Legislature specifically puts it in law and says, ‘This specific vaccine can be required.’ So I'm not sure how that's going to fare in the Senate, and definitely I'm going to keep an eye on it more if that.
Melanie Plenda:
Let’s talk more about housing. We already discussed zoning. What else about housing made it to crossover and what might make it to the governor’s desk?
Anna Brown:
We are seeing simultaneous bills moving forward in the House and the Senate that block local regulations that are stricter than state building codes, cap minimum lot sizes, allow residential development in commercial zones most of the time, and limit parking requirements to no more than one space per unit. So, as I said, it's moving in the House. It's moving in the Senate. Those seem likely to move forward to the governor.
A couple other bills: In the House, we have HB577, which would expand the right to build a detached ADU, which stands for accessory dwelling unit. The size of those would go up under this bill. So that one passed the House. We're waiting to see what will happen in the Senate. Then the House also had a big priority, which would allow eviction at the end of a lease without cause, HB60. This has come up a couple times in the House of Representatives over the years, and so that's another one that we'll wait to see what happens in the State Senate.
Melanie Plenda:
What about education bills? What did and didn’t make the cut?
Anna Brown:
Education was probably one of the biggest topics this year. So much legislation has moved forward on this issue. We've already touched on Education Freedom Account eligibility. We've talked about the Parents’ Bill of Rights. Governor Ayotte has also prioritized adding restrictions on cellphones in classrooms. We are seeing that move forward. But then there's sort of social issue policies that are moving forward that we're seeing, particularly coming out of the House.
HB446 would require parental consent to administer the annual Youth Risk Behavior Survey, and that's from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It asks questions about potentially harmful behavior, such as drug use or violence in your home. I remember when I took it in high school, there were also questions about how much milk you drink a day. It's a public health piece, and there's always been, or not always, but there is a state law that requires opting in for parents for other general surveys. But there was an exception for this, so parents can opt out, but there's this assumption that students are going to participate. This would reverse that, and it could potentially decrease our ability to get data on some of these public health concerns, and potentially could reduce funding.
Another one, HB324, prohibits K through 12 schools from making, “any material that is harmful to minors available to students.” That's a pretty subjective phrase. The bill defines the material to include various content related to sex and violence, so it requires school boards to adopt policies that would address complaints regarding harmful material and so on. This is definitely one of those trickier social issues. Is this a book ban? Is this about protecting children from groomers? You'll hear a lot of really heated language. So watch for that in the Senate as well.
Melanie Plenda:
Related to that, let’s explore bills connected to trans rights. What has gone through the Legislature so far?
Anna Brown:
There is an intersection with school policy here, for sure. For example, SB211, would limit school sports teams based on the biological sex of each student's birth certificate issued at the time of birth. Male sports would be open to all sexes. It would apply to grades 6 through 12, as well as public colleges and universities. So that's definitely been a big priority for a lot of Republicans. I think that it probably has a pretty good chance of passing in the Senate.
The House and Senate have also passed their own versions of a bill that would create an exception to the state anti-discrimination law related to gender so that you could segregate biological sex for locker rooms, sports, hospitals, and so on. Sununu vetoed a very similar bill last year because he said it conflicted with current state law against discrimination based on gender. But it looks like the House and Senate are eager to see if Governor Ayotte has a different position.
There are two other bills that would prohibit medical treatment or interventions related to gender. So HB377 would make it a felony to provide hormone treatments and puberty blockers to a minor unless there is a “medically verifiable disorder of sex development,” and then HB712 would prohibit breast surgery on persons under age 18. Once again, exceptions in the bill are malignancy, injury, infection or malformation.
Melanie Plenda:
What about immigration? How will the bills that made it to crossover fare?
Anna Brown:
This is definitely something Governor Ayotte has been very vocal about. I definitely expect those bills to become law.
There are a couple of bills that we're still sort of waiting to see what happens. SB13 prohibits undocumented or illegal immigrants that were issued a license in another state from driving in New Hampshire. This has come up in the past. It hasn't gone through because there are some concerns about, “aren't we supposed to have reciprocity with other states and driver's licenses?” What would this look like? It would be a violation, similar to a speeding ticket at this point. So that bill passed the Senate and is going to the House.
The Senate passed another bill that prohibits state and local government from blocking law enforcement participation in a federal program that allows law enforcement to perform some immigration enforcement duties. I think that will go forward because it's very similar and sort of in tandem with that anti-sanctuary city stance that a lot of Republicans are talking about. Of note, though, the House and the Senate both rejected bills that would require employers to use E-verify. That's a system from the federal government that checks the identity of someone who's authorized to work in the United States. But there was a lot of opposition from businesses in particular, because they say there are errors in the system. It slows things down. It's a burden. So that's definitely not an immigration policy that we will see come to.
Melanie Plenda:
What about bills concerning abortion? What’s going on with those?
Anna Brown:
We all know this was a big topic of conversation during the 2024 elections, but we're not seeing a ton of big movements on that issue right now. In New Hampshire, the Legislature has not passed any direct restrictions, and in fact, they voted down a 15-week ban. There are bills on the margins, however.
HB191 passed the House, and now it's on to the Senate. It was originally focused on making it a misdemeanor to help a pregnant minor obtain an abortion without parental consent. The House amended the bill to more generally prohibit transporting a minor to a surgical procedure without parental consent. Also, the Senate passed SB36, which requires healthcare providers to report non-personally identifiable data about abortions to the state and then provide an annual report on this aggregate data. This has come up more than once in the past, and the argument is, “How can we make really good policy around this issue if we don't have data on how often it's happening, where it's happening, what else might this be related to? Are there other underlying health issues or public health concerns we should know about?” It’s worth noting that New Hampshire is definitely a minority here. Most other states are collecting this data and publishing it in some form, but there's a lot of privacy concerns in New Hampshire. So we'll see how that bill fares in the House.
Melanie Plenda:
As always, very interesting. Thank you for breaking that down 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.
“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. For more information, visitcollaborativenh.org.