InDepthNH.org (https://indepthnh.org/series/distant-dome/page/10)
Garry Rayno
Thursday’s regular House calendar has 15, yes 15 bills, that will come to the floor without a committee recommendation meaning the committee split 10-10 or 12-12 or some other evenly divided party line vote.
The first two months of the session have been hectic and a little hesitant as lawmakers in the House navigate an almost equally divided chamber.
Garry Rayno is an award-winning journalist, writing for the New Hampshire Center for Public Interest Journalism (inDepthNH.org) who covers education issues and the New Hampshire Legislature – among many other things.
The problem is if you are the Republicans, your majority in the House is razor thin and depends on who arrives at the Capitol on a session day.
Governors traditionally gather the requests from department heads for what they say they will need for resources i.e. money over the next two years and blend it into a strange brew.
But the recent increase in real estate values has put home ownership out of reach of anyone not earning more than $100,000 annually or more.
To date about 75 percent of the state funds spent for the freedom account program has subsidized tuition for students who attended private and religious schools before the program was launched in 2021 and not students leaving public schools for private or religious schools as advocates had predicted.
Preventing the tyranny of the majority is essentially protecting the minority from discrimination due to the actions of the majority.
CACR 4 would increase lawmakers’ pay from $200 for the two-year session to $5,000 and increase the presiding officers’ — i.e. the House Speaker and Senate President — salaries for the two years to $6,250.
The New Hampshire political scene is rampant with many unknowns heading into the new year: some will be resolved, and some will not.