Democracy can be a very messy thing.
Gov. Kelly Ayotte relearned that lesson the hard way with the Republican-led New Hampshire House of Representatives last Thursday dumping off to study her favored bill (SB 498) to provide comprehensive mental health coverage for children.
We interrupt this tale with an important caveat.
Late Thursday night the state Senate slapped this child mental health bill onto an unrelated House-passed measure dealing with parental alienation in child custody matters (HB 1323).
Technically, Ayotte’s cause still has a pulse as this now goes to a conference committee, but the House is unlikely to change its mind.
John Hunt
Ayotte’s team is naturally not pleased with the House Republican leadership that backed its Commerce and Small Business Committee Chairman John Hunt, R-Rindge, who wanted to sideline the bill to study it further this fall.
In the only recorded vote on the matter, 43 House Republicans voted to keep the bill alive while 146 did not.
She did get a few senior Republicans to go along with her, such as House Criminal Justice and Public Safety Chairman Terry Roy, R-Deerfield, and Vice Chair Jennifer Rhodes, R-Winchester; House Finance Subcommittee Chair Maureen Mooney, R-Merrimack, and House Health, Human Services and Elderly Affairs Chair Wayne MacDonald, R-Londonderry.
But this was a bipartisan beating. There were 37 House Democrats who embraced the let’s study this, following the lead of the ranking Democrat on Hunt’s committee Rep. Anita Burroughs, D-Bartlett.
Rep. Lucy Webber, D-Walpole
Steve Holmes
The group included other ranking committee Democrats, such as Reps. Connie Lane of Concord (Election Laws), John Cloutier of Claremont (Public Works and Highways), Peter Bixby of Dover (Environment and Agriculture), Lucy Webber of Walpole (Health and Human Services), Kat McGhee of Hollis (Science and Technology) and Laurel Stavis (Municipal and County Government).
If all House Democrats backed Ayotte’s view, the issue would have been soon on its way to her desk.
Only veto will stop toll hike
The Ayotte team hit another pothole in the road when the House refused to take no for an answer and pushed through the Senate-passed doubling of turnpike tolls for out-of-state motorists (SB 627).
The House Ways and Means Committee had done Ayotte a solid by recommending this be put off to study until 2027 at the earliest.
But the House GOP leadership fell prey to late numbers.
The bill didn’t come up until after the dinner hour and by then, clearly some GOP stalwarts had left.
Ways and Means Chairman John Janigian, R-Salem, tried to table the bill and that failed by a single vote. Then the move to study it lost by six, 157-151. The House passed it on a voice vote and it goes back to the Senate with a minor amendment.
On this, House Dems were united, only two backing a study, Reps. John LaRochelle of Rochester, and Charlie St. Clair of Laconia.
There were 16 House Republicans who opposed the study, including House Public Works and Highways Chair David Milz of Derry and Reps. Mark Pearson of Hampstead, Stephen Pearson of Derry and Bill Boyd of Merrimack.
Will there be a GOP effort to reconsider this one when the House has bigger numbers in the seats next Thursday?
The only thing that could stop this one is a veto.
Warmington endorsed
Last week the all-Democratic congressional delegation made it official, endorsing Cinde Warmington’s second primary bid for governor. She lost a 2024 primary to ex-Manchester Mayor Joyce Craig.
On Saturday, Kentucky Gov., and potential 2028 presidential hopeful, Andy Beshear campaigned with Warmington in Portsmouth ahead of his keynote speech to the Democratic State Convention in Dover.
Data centers on hold
Ayotte has raised some concern with the rapid development of data centers that in some states have strained the power grid.
New Hampshire has only 10, one of the smallest numbers in the nation.
“Energy costs are already too high in New Hampshire and data centers have the potential to cause energy bills to skyrocket. Without additional energy sources, it would not make sense to site data centers here,” Ayotte said.
Keith Ammon
A House panel had recommended amending a Senate-passed bill (SB 439) to make data centers allowable “by right” in all commercial and industrial zones.
But one of the authors of that proposal, House Majority Floor Leader Keith Ammon, R-New Boston, asked the House to set it aside. They obliged by a vote of 304-11.
Anti-income tax plays out
There was no suspense when the House voted, 193-148, in favor of placing an anti-income tax amendment to the Constitution on the November ballot.
The move fell 43 votes shy of the requirement that there be at least 60% of the entire House membership to pass any amendment.
There were four House Democrats backing it Bobbi Boudman of Wolfeboro (who just won a special election in a deep-red district), Patrick Long of Manchester, Jennifer Mandelbaum of Portsmouth and Jonah Wheeler of Peterborough.
Rep. Brian Taylor of Freedom was the lone Republican opposed to it.
There were 17 House members backing the renegade bid of Rep. Tom Oppel, D-Canaan, to ask voters if they’d like to adopt a progressive income tax, but 322 representatives voted no.
In this campaign, Warmington has said if elected she’d veto a broad-based sales or income tax.
Late-night moves
The Senate met past 9 p.m. Thursday and spent much of that late hour tacking its own bills onto House measures.
There were at least 20 such attempts during the Senate’s marathon session.
Senate Republicans and Democrats got some added on, but the Senate turned down Democratic Leader Rebecca Perkins Kwoka of Portsmouth who tried to get the Housing Champions program another $2.5 million.
The $5 million investment in that program now has a balance of $31,000, Perkins Kwoka said.
This one failed on a party line, 15-8 vote.
Nursing home rate shuffle
Republican and Democratic members on the Senate Finance Committee questioned why money approved last fall to increase rates paid to nursing homes never got spent.
State health officials said the actual spending is tied to a complex formula that concluded the additional amount was not warranted.
Last Thursday, the Senate tacked onto a business tax cut bill (HB 155) specific instruction that at the end of the fiscal year any unspent money in a designated account must go to nursing home rates.
House and Senate negotiators will tangle over the underlying bill, which was to cut the business enterprise tax.
Pearl gets an honor
Senate President Sharon Carson, R-Londonderry, honored Sen. Howard Pearl, R-Loudon, with a “Jeb Bradley Special Award” for crafting a bill to reform landfill siting in the state (HB 707).
Before and after he was Senate president, Bradley earned the reputation of forging consensus on difficult issues from electricity reorganization to Medicaid expansion.
Corcoran gets the week off
With such a heavy schedule last week, House Speaker Sherman Packard, R-Londonderry, decided to put off the House vote on whether to censure Rep. Travis Corcoran, R-Weare, for derogatory comments he made on social media about House Democratic colleagues. The vote will likely take place this Thursday.
Corcoran said his posts were sarcastic jokes.
Weapons access fight
Campus carry grabbed all the headlines but for many Second Amendment leaders, a big cause for 2026 is legislation to preempt any state or municipal agency from restricting citizen access to non-lethal weapons, such as knives and Tasers.
The bill also would give the Legislature “exclusive authority” over any weapon restrictions and that’s meant to stop those organizing the Pease Air Show from banning gun possession there and to end private snowplow contractors not being allowed to carry guns in their trucks.
Joe LoPorto with the National Rifle Association said this has been on the NRA’s questionnaire for New Hampshire candidates since 2008.
Ethics changes sought
For the second straight year, the House has rejected a bipartisan move in the state Senate to amend the legislative ethics law and reduce how often legislators have to recuse themselves from legislation due to a conflict of interest.
Without debate, the House shipped this one (SB 570) off to study.
This cause emerged after a complaint was brought in 2024 to the Legislative Ethics Committee over whether Sen. Tara Reardon, D-Concord, had to recuse herself on issues because her husband, Jim Bouley, co-owns a lobbying firm.
Rep. Gregory Hill, R-Northfield, said Reardon disclosed 14 of the 26 conflicts that senators filed on during 2025-26 and after the disclosure, Reardon went on to vote on all those matters and has said she complied with the law.
The study is preferred to making piecemeal changes to an “already overly verbose” statute, Hill said.
Another House Dem W
House Democrats beat back a bill popular with the hospitality industry that would eliminate state restrictions on the pooling of tips in bars and restaurants (SB 416).
Supporters wanted to have the state adopt the federal rules, which would give owners more authority to make changes.
The House voted to study that one after a committee move to pass it failed.
DiLorenzo endorsed
Turning Point Action, the organization founded by slain conservative commentator Charlie Kirk, endorsed Anthony DiLorenzo’s Republican primary bid in the 1st Congressional District.
“Anthony DiLorenzo is the political outsider we need to give us the best shot at winning the Granite State’s crucial first district seat this fall,” a Turning Point Action spokesperson said.
GOP rival Hollie Noveletsky announced a new round of endorsements that included former U.S. Sen. Bob Smith, ex-Keene Mayor George Hansel, former state GOP Chair Wayne Semprini, 2014 nominee for governor Walt Havenstein and Rep. Aboul Kahn, R-Seabrook.
Threats spark bill
Ammon said he pursued legislation (HB 1423) after the recent spate of political violence in the U.S. caused him to revisit a threat that he received in 2021.
Ammon told a Senate panel someone who disagreed with his views threatened both him and his wife with physical and sexual violence.
The offender was ordered to pay a $1,200 fine, to stay away from Ammon and write him a letter of apology.
Ammon’s House-passed bill would upgrade the punishment of a felony for improper influence to be at least a one-year jail term and minimum, $1,000 fine.
Last week, the Senate voted to tack onto Ammon’s amended bill the Senate position on classifying synthetic and semi-synthetic kratom as a Class II controlled drug, which would outlaw its sale to consumers.
The House had rejected that approach in favor of outlawing anyone with a license to sell tobacco or alcohol being able to sell “unauthorized” kratom products (SB 577), a move that would still allow the sale of the natural kratom leaf. Rep. Nancy Murphy, D-Merrimack, authored the House-passed concept.