Representative Shaun Filiaut, someone I campaigned with, proposed HB315 to the House this term. The bill went to the Criminal Justice and Public Safety committee earlier this year, and was passed onto the Senate. Due to the hard work of Representative Filiaut, a gay man who is working to put in place equal protections under the law for all our citizens, the bill passed the State Senate. The bill would disallow the so-called ‘gay-panic defense’ from being used in the State of New Hampshire. The gay panic defense is something that has been used when someone murders a gay person, and then claims they were provoked into doing so because of that person being gay. Crazy as it sounds, this is a real defense that has been used. Representative Filiaut’s bill passed both chambers, but in different versions. When that occurs, both chambers individually vote on whether or not they should either concur or non concur with the other bodies version; or form a committee of conference. If both bodies vote to form a committee of conference, the chair of each body assigns members to the committee. The Speaker of the House assigns four members, and the President of the State Senate assigns three of their members. If a bill originated in the House, the chair of the committee will be from the House, and vice versa. The committee must come together, and passing the bill/s before the committee requires unanimous support. If unanimous support from all members of the committee cannot be achieved, the bill dies. 

I was assigned to be on the committee of conference to HB315. Alongside my deputy Ranking Member Linda Harriott Gathright, the Chairman of the Criminal Justice committee Terry Roy, and the Vice Chair Jennifer Rhodes. The Senate appointees were Senators Daryl Abbas, Becky Whitley, and Daniel Innis. It was a non partisan committee where both bodies appointed members from both sides of the aisle. Which made for the best discussion possible. After an hour of deliberation we came to consensus, and Representative Filiaut’s bill passed the committee of conference. Going onto the House and Senate floors for final approval, and receiving it on our final session day. 

There was also a committee of conference in which the Senate’s proposed changes to the bail system were stuck onto a bill regarding therapeutic cannabis. The Senate, and some of the more intense members of the House Republican caucus would like to remove the discretion of the court system in favor of strict statutes on crimes. They are using the effects of the broken elements of our criminal justice system to rally support around making it more authoritarian than it already is. Taking away the discretion of Judges to make case-by-case determinations on a shifting list of crimes. There is a place for statute, but this isn’t it. We have a judiciary which by and large does its job. The flaws that it has are largely from inefficiencies and bottlenecks in the system, not just from a lack of funding, but that hasn’t helped. I have stood strong for fixing our broken criminal justice system in these months serving on the committee. That includes voting against the bills which aim to boost incarceration numbers to generate political wins. It is sad to see the fact the system is broken being used as a campaign ploy to break it further, rather than actually address the core issue. The committee of conference removed reference to the bail language in the bill, and ultimately the good fix to the therapeutic cannabis system on the underlying bill was able to pass both chambers.

This is silly season in the legislature. The final days before the summer recess where both chambers scramble to get their legislation passed through the other. There were good wins, close calls, and tough loses. As goes the nature of the legislature. Especially when your party is in the minority. 

On the seventh of the month the Senate was set to vote on it’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2024-2025. The House was set to be in session on the floor the next day. This was done so that we could receive the Senate’s budget as soon as it passed, and act on it immediately. The Senate Finance Committee held it’s sole hearing on the budget on the 2nd of May. The final amendment which became their budget, passed the committee on the seventh. The same day it was voted out of the Senate. There was very little time for any of the members to fully digest such large documents. 

The House Democrats met the morning of for our regular caucus prior to session. The tension in the room was palpable. Everyone was on edge waiting to hear what leadership’s position on the passed budget would be. The rumor mill was abuzz. The Republican leadership was supposedly telling their members that we were all going to vote against it to crash the budget in an effort to scare them into supporting it. The Democrats were telling their members that the libertarian Republicans were going to vote against the budget to crash it, preventing us from being able to pass the good work we got in our compromise, saying this was the best we were going to get. 

Amidst all this tension, with all 190 some odd Democrats in attendance that day stuffed into our cafeteria caucus room on a hot June day - Peter taps my shoulder. He smirked the grin of a teenage boy about to cause trouble, and he turned to the thermostat on the wall next to him. The rapid click of the thermostat, followed by the roar of the heater turning on at full blast, and the turning heads of all the confused members brought needed levity to such a tense moment. “Still gotta have fun.” Peter says as I try to hold back my laughter. 

Sometimes, the legislature being like high school isn’t the worst thing.