By GARRY RAYNO, Distant Dome

Some time in the future, people will look back at the first six years of this decade and wonder what drug lawmakers were on when they passed these laws.

Education, medical care, vaccinations, zoning and planning, and the list goes on and on.

A look at the last 200 House bills to be acted on by the House this week, many of which will pass down party line votes, is a template of what the majority of lawmakers have been doing for the last six years.

And it does not line up with what the people of the state believe should be their focus.

According to the latest Granite State Survey the number one issue facing the state is housing, the second issue is taxes, the third is education, the fourth is rightwing politicians, the fifth is jobs and the economy, the sixth is immigration, the seventh is leftwing politicians, the eighth is cost of living, the ninth is corrupt or incompetent government and the 10th is lack of workforce.

Housing has been at the top of the list for three or four years but is down from its high point of about 40 percent several years ago and is now at 22 percent.

The legislature has had a housing committee for the past two terms, but has focused on zoning and planning issues and has passed a number of top-down restrictions on local communities contradicting  many masterplans.

What the legislature has not done since it ran out of federal COVID rescue and relief money is put any state funds into addressing the problem.

The biggest barrier to the housing shortfall is not zoning, but infrastructure and who will pay for it, of which the lawmakers have done nothing because it costs money and that might require raising taxes and the Koch-funded organization Americans for Prosperity has instructed lawmakers to say “Taxation is Theft.”

According to the poll, 16 percent believe that taxes are the biggest problem, and although there is no multiple choice, the taxes most people are concerned about are their property taxes. You don’t hear many complaints about rooms and meals taxes or the gas tax or even business taxes, but you sure do hear a lot about property taxes.

Education is also a multiple choice question without knowing what the concerns are, but it could be the state’s lack of support — the lowest in the country — to the new voucher program or Education Freedom Accounts, or school choice and all the machinations Republican legislators have passed over the past few years, or it could be public schools. 

That brings us to the fourth place, rightwing politicians. See the opening paragraph of this column.

Fifth is jobs and the economy which has been an issue since the pandemic because an awful lot of jobs disappeared during that period never to return, and many people left the workforce never to return.

It is the sort of issue lawmakers used to debate frequently but now takes a back seat to the culture wars.

Immigration is next on the list, but has spurred an exorbitant amount of legislation the last few years to end sanctuary cities, take away driver’s licenses and prevent them from receiving state services and even renting property.

A bill coming up this week would end state financial support for the refugee resettlement and the program.

The seventh is leftwing politicians which is surprising because progressives have achieved little or nothing over the past few years and have been unable to even present a solid opposition message to the first paragraph of this column.

The poll also looked at five “hot button issues” before the legislature or in the news this year.

To no ones surprise, the vast majority of those answering the poll which has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.4 percent, or a five percent swing, do not want an ICE detention facility built in Merrimack or anywhere else in the state as the now departed Kristi Noem envisioned and Gov. Kelly Ayotte was in the dark about until it surfaced in the news.

According to the poll, 57 percent were opposed, while 34 percent supported the idea and 7 percent had no opinion.

Democrats were overwhelmingly opposed, 98 percent, while Republicans were 72 percent in favor and independents were 60 percent opposed.

When the House Democrats tried to bring in a late bill that would have given Merrimack veto power over the project, which has since been withdrawn, it was defeated by the Republican majority in the House.

The poll also asked about the bill to prohibit colleges and universities from banning firearms on campuses with 49 percent in opposition and 35 percent in support, with 13 percent neutral or no opinion. A large majority — 66 percent — of Democrats opposed the bill, it was a 40-40 percent split among independents and 50 percent of Republicans supported it.

A bill that would allow students to attend public schools outside their district while their district would have to pay the tuition, was opposed by 39 percent of those polled and supported by 27 percent and 26 percent neutral. 

Democrats opposed it by 49 percent while 21supported it, while 31 percent of Republicans supported it and 29 percent opposed, and 37 percent of independents supported it and 35 percent opposed.

A plan to eliminate all vaccine requirements for children to attend school was opposed by majorities in the three categories.

Overall it was opposed by 73 percent and supported by 20 percent. The Democratic split was 95 to 2 percent, Republican 49 to 39 percent, and independents 76 to 19 percent.

And no surprise 66  percent of those polled favor legalizing marijuana for recreational use, and 23 percent opposed.

Let’s look at some of the education bills before the legislature like House Bill 1815 which would rewrite the education equation so the state would no longer be the sole entity responsible for paying for an adequate education as the court has held since 1993, and would now share the responsibility with local property taxpayers, without a floor or minimum payment noted for the state.

The bill would remove collateral expenses from the state’s responsibility, which would only be for academics so such things as transportation, buildings and nurses would no longer be considered critical to an adequate education.

A bill coming before the House this week, House Bill 1217, would remove nurses and superintendent services from the list of services related to an adequate education under the law and the most recent court decisions on education funding.

Last week the House approved Charlie’s bill, named for right wing advocate and influencer Charlie Kirk, who was assassinated last fall in Utah, or House Bill 1792, which would prohibit schools from teaching critical race theory, LGBTQ+ ideologies, identity based ideologies, and Marxist analyses and allow anyone to sue the teacher and the school district if the law is broken.

Similar bills have been found unconstitutional by the federal court.

Do any of these bills increase state aid to schools, or lower property taxes, or fix the inequitable system for students and taxpayers? No, but they could make the inequities much worse.

There are bills about elections, such as requiring a voter’s birthdate or age or to put their political affiliation on the ballot when they run for nonpartisan positions like selectman, alderman, city councilor or school board.

Why would anyone need to know a voter’s age unless they wanted to use that information for some other reason beyond being at least 18 years old.

There is also a bill that would rescind the authorization to use ballot counting devices during elections. That will make for some very long nights in many places and in some cases maybe days before results are known.

Another bill would prohibit state agencies from using state funds to promote vaccinations, and another to prohibit the purchase of candy or soda with SNAP benefits or food stamps, which doesn’t sound like supporting parental rights.

And a bill heard last week would not allow anyone to receive alimony until the couple has been married for at least six years.

Do you know what your legislator is doing in your name?

Garry Rayno may be reached at garry.rayno@yahoo.com.

Distant Dome by veteran journalist Garry Rayno explores a broader perspective on the State House and state happenings for InDepthNH.org. Over his three-decade career, Rayno covered the NH State House for the New Hampshire Union Leader and Foster’s Daily Democrat. During his career, his coverage spanned the news spectrum, from local planning, school and select boards, to national issues such as electric industry deregulation and Presidential primaries. Rayno lives with his wife Carolyn in New London.