Despite our minority status in the NH House, Democrats are having some successes, but some things just do not change.
We were able to block the latest “Right to Work” assault on workers, passed a bill to support kids in foster care, and held steadfast against the abortion buffer zone repeal. It shows what we can accomplish even though Americans for Prosperity continue to have an outsized influence on the GOP members of the NH legislature and are keeping the culture wars alive and well at the expense of common-sense legislation designed to keep NH residents safe and our environment clean.
Two bills failed in the NH House that were erroneously labeled as “tax” bills. House Bill 451 which established a “paint stewardship” program and House Bill 1602 established a battery recycling and material reclamation program and neither one was seeking state tax money. In both cases, industry developed programs would spread the cost across the state for the paint recycling program and the country for the battery program.
The Business and Industry Association, the NH Municipal Association, the state fire marshall, the Professional Fire Fighters of NH and NH Association of Fire Chiefs supported these measures. Even the Senate passed the bill, but Americans for Prosperity and the NH based Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy got to the governor, and she killed these bills claiming it is a “tax.”
A third bill of which I was a co-sponsor, set aside money in a new fund to help repair the state-owned deteriorating dams. The policy committee endorsed the bill overwhelmingly, but it stalled in the Ways and Means Committee and goes to the floor without a recommendation. Detractors claim it is an unfair fee on people who own lake shore property on dammed up rivers. The argument that the loss of any one of these dams could cost the state millions of dollars and destroy downstream waterways did not seem to be effective.
These defeats lay at the feet of the GOP in New Hampshire and Koch brothers funded Americans for Prosperity, an outside organization that pump lots of money into keeping culture wars alive and well.