InDepthNH.org (https://indepthnh.org/series/distant-dome/page/6/)
Garry Rayno
Like Bob Dylan’s never ending tour back before the pandemic, Gov. Chris Sununu has embarked on his own never ending tour of national television and cable news studios as well as the usual must attend stops — or cattle calls — for presidential wannabes.
Crossover is finished and the House passed a $16 billion budget with a three-to-one majority and now it is up to the Senate to put its stamp on the state’s operations for the next two years.
This week the House will take what is usually its most important vote before crossover, House Bill 1 and House Bill 2, or the state’s two-year operating budget for the next biennium beginning July 1.
The House has trimmed some of Gov. Chris Sununu’s proposed budget of $14.06 billion in total funds and $5.95 billion of general and education fund money.
The public has not given the lawmakers a mandate to turn New Hampshire into a Libertarian Shangri-La but that is what is happening.
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.