STATE HOUSE UPDATE SEPTEMBER 2023
By Dick Thackston State Rep. Cheshire 12 – Troy & Fitzwillam
The NH House will have wrapped up its work for the Winter/Spring Session in late June will now begin Hearings in the Fall on Bills “Retained in Committee” from the Winter/Spring Session.
It is also possible for a Bill to be “Retained in Committee” meaning that a majority of members of a Committee couldn’t agree up or down on a Bill but felt it required further consideration at a later time. Typically, reconsiderations by Committee occur in the Fall, which is beginning now.
Sometimes a Bill has split recommendations within a Committee. The House is currently very nearly divided 50/50 which means the Committees are equally divided so if there’s not bi-partisan support Bills don’t move – not necessarily a bad thing in my opinion. “Retained Bills” are bills that in broad terms a significant number or majority of members felt have merit but either would be un-likely to pass in their initial form or needed fine tuning before being considered by the whole House. Essentially, “Close, but no cigar, come back and try again!” for most of these bills.
There is also the case of many Bills that are subject to the review of more than one Committee, principally due to financial or potential financial implications and a Bill that comes to the floor of the House for a vote and is referred back to another Committee and/or to the Finance Committee.
I serve on the Commerce Committee which oversees Alcohol, Tobacco, Insurance and potentially Marijuana as well as a host of other issues.
Based on the votes taken earlier this year and the back and forth between the Governor, the Senate and the House on the issue of legalization of Marijuana as well as the Governor’s recent public statement that he expects to get legalization done before then end of his term it is my expectation that there will be significant hearing time spent by the Commerce Committee on this issue in the next three months. There seem to be three tracks towards legalization at this time.
The Libertarian track, which was neatly summarized in a basically One Sentence Bill that failed by a significant margin earlier this year. This track simply removes any restrictions or regulation of Marijuana, no taxes or oversight. It would appear to be a non-starter.
The two other tracks basically breakdown into a House Bill which legalizes and regulates private retail sale and distribution of Marijuana and imposes a 12.5% Tax on the Wholesale level and a “No new Tax” approach which restricts the sale and distribution to State Liquor Stores. The Fall Commerce Committee Hearings are likely to be lively.
Late in August along with several other house members I had the opportunity to meet with members of the opposition to the Lukashenko dictatorship in the Country of Belarus. (Belarus if you can’t quit picture, it on a map is located between Poland, Lithuania, Russia and Ukraine.) The primary focus of our visitors was to understand how and why democracy works in New Hampshire. The common ground that I believe all of the NH House Members, (Democrats, Republicans & Libertarians), in attendance shared is an immediate appreciation of our country and especially the rights that we have and take for granted when compared to a dictatorship such as Belarus. By the same token our visitors found the idea of Town Meeting and a government that is intended to serve and respond to the people mind blowing. They come from a place where people live and work to serve the State.
If you are interested in following bills, meetings or other current information in the NH Legislature just plug in the following address and it will take you to the General Court Home Page: https://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/
As always, thank-you for your support.