By GARRY RAYNO, Distant Dome
When the bell rings to close this session in two weeks, three things will stand out and they are all wars or attacks.
Most everyone knows about the Libertarian/Republican war on public education fueled by millions of dollars from oligarchs, particularly the Koch Foundation through its primary mouthpiece in the state, Americans for Prosperity (for the few).
And the war on transgender individuals has also been apparent this session and previous sessions as “the righteous” can pass parental rights bills mandating teachers to tell all they know about their children, but not see the hypocrisy in telling parents of transgender kids they cannot help their child transition to what he or she believes is their real gender.
The laws passed the past two years would also prevent parents from allowing their children to have breast or genital surgery or to take hormones.
There were six “bathroom bills” this year that passed the House and Senate, almost all identical allowing segregation of people by their biological sex at birth in bathrooms and locker rooms, in sports and in prisons.
The cry from supporters is that it is needed for the safety of “cis” women and girls, but there is scant to no evidence there is a serious problem that needs rectifying.
Numerous speakers stood at the well of the House and said little girls should not have to see penises when they go to the girl’s bathroom, but that belies the fact that women’s bathrooms have stalls and not urinals, so just how would that happen?
Perhaps the war that has generated the least attention is the war on local control.
This group of Libertarians/Republicans has passed more top down bills than perhaps any other legislatures in the last 50 years.
There are primarily two targets: zoning and planning ordinances, and school and municipal budgets.
Just last week the House approved House Bill 1681, which establishes standards for housing structures, particularly tiny houses, tiny houses on wheels, and yurts.
The bill, which is on its way to Gov. Kelly Ayotte’s desk, would allow their use as single?family homes or as accessory dwellings units, and sets construction, inspection, and off?site manufacturing requirements.
The bill also would regulate transportation and directs that administrative rules be drafted under the state building code and wastewater and modular building statutes.
The bill essentially says these “tiny” structures could be placed on any residentially zoned lot either as a stand alone home or as an auxiliary dwelling unit either attached to a building or as a separate structure.
There are many bills like this one with the state setting standards and the regulations all with the underlying assumption that this will help ease the state’s housing crisis.
However, what bills like this do is blow apart towns’ and cities’ master plans, zoning ordinances and planning requirements that are the results of decades of work. If you want to see a “Nanny state,” this is it.
Rep. Len Turcotte, R-Barrington, who no one would mistake for a liberal, warned the bill may be enabling legislation now but soon will be mandatory.
If you live in a single-family development, he told the House, be prepared for these “tiny” buildings to be auxiliary dwelling rental units next door and throughout your subdivision.
Lawmakers failed to agree on how to tax these small structures, and the bill was silent on the issue leaving cities and towns to figure that out for themselves.
That means variations from town to town and almost certain litigation due to the wide range of assessments from community to community.
After failing the past few years to pass a statewide school budget cap, the Libertarians/Republicans did manage to pass a bill that would put the question on the general election ballot, which happens once every two years not on the school district ballot.
What this says is the Libertarians/Republicans want uninformed voters deciding the school budget cap, not those who care enough to attend the school district meetings and vote on town meeting day or in cities’ municipal elections.
That is not local control, that is the state shoving down the majority’s ideology and assumptions onto the local communities.
It is part and parcel of Libertarian/Republican strategy of the state refusing to pay more of the cost of public education although New Hampshire is last and last by a lot for supporting public education both for elementary and secondary schools and for higher education as well.
That strategy persists although court decision after court decision — some as recently as last year — have said the state has failed to meet its constitutional obligation to pay for an adequate education for the state’s children and pawned its deficiencies onto the backs of property taxpayers.
The lack of state support for education at around 23 or 24 percent of the cost, is the major reason property taxes have been increasing along with actions such as the state offloading what was once its obligation to pay 35 percent of school, municipal and county personnel retirement costs and downshifting it to local property taxes.
And rather than pay what they once did or their fair share of public education costs which nationally averages a little less than 50 percent, these Libertarians/Republicans want you to think the property tax problem is because local school boards, selectmen and city councils are spending crazily and won’t control spending.
If that were true, not many of these board and council members would be reelected, but they are.
And once again New Hampshire is at the bottom of state aid to municipalities compared with other states.
The state has many sources of money, while municipalities and school districts have only property taxes to fund almost the entirety of their services and obligations.
To make things more challenging, over the last decade lawmakers have reduced the rates of businesses taxes and the rooms and meals tax, and eliminated the interest and dividends tax.
Those tax reductions do not benefit the average working person, they benefit the high earners who pay a much smaller percentage of their earnings in taxes than middle- or lower-income workers do.
Those tax cuts and breaks have cost the state more than $1 billion in state revenue that could have gone to lower property taxes, held the line on public college and university tuition, and eliminated the co-pays and health insurance premiums the state’s most vulnerable have had to pay beginning in the current budget.
While the revenues to fund government have been significantly reduced, the needs funded in the past by that lost money do not disappear, and instead are growing today with greater fuel and energy costs and the resulting inflation. An iceberg lies ahead and no one is turning the Titanic.
The wars on public schools, local control and transgender individuals do not reduce your property taxes nor make your lives better.
The top 10 percent can escape all the problems and confusion the wars have created, but the rest of us cannot.
If you are upset with your property taxes, the Representatives and Senators you sent to Concord are as responsible or more responsible for that than your local officials, but the Libertarians/Republicans running the legislature do not want you to understand that.
Tell them you do understand in November and vote them out to bring sanity back to New Hampshire and an end to these useless wars.
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 and their two rescue dogs.