In this week's The State We're In, presented by Granite State News Collaorative and NHPBS, Host Melanie Plenda speaks with Anna Brown, Research and Analysis Director with the nonpartisan Citizens Count and host of the podcast "$100 Plus Mileage," and New Hampshire Bulletin reporters Annmarie Timmins and Ethan DeWitt about issues that will come before the Legislature this session. (link to episode)
This content has been edited for length and clarity. Watch the full interview on NH PBS's The State We’re In.
Melanie Plenda: What topics do you expect to dominate the discussion this term, Anna?
Anna Brown: We haven't gotten to the budget yet. The governor will present his budget proposal on February 14th, Valentine's Day. It seemed the majority and minority leaders in the House both came out and said they’re going to co-sponsor a marijuana legalization bill, and then there are special committees that have been set up on both the issue of childcare and housing. We're experiencing critical shortages in New Hampshire, and many businesses in particular have talked about how those are barriers to recruiting more workers to the region. Lastly, I'm following school funding debates, particularly the Education Freedom Account program, which allows students to take a per pupil share of state education funding and spend it on private or homeschooling; lots of proposals on both sides to either expand that program or limit eligibility.
Melanie Plenda: AnnMarie, abortion has been a contentious issue since the decision returning decisions about abortion to the states. What's happening in the legislature this term surrounding that topic?
Annmarie Timmins: We are seeing some familiar bills. There is an effort to repeal our new abortion ban, which bans abortions after 24 weeks and except in the case of a fatal fetal diagnosis, there are criminal penalties in that law. We are seeing an effort to repeal that. We're seeing an effort to at least take out the criminal civil penalties. We're also seeing some efforts to put further restrictions banning abortion at when a fetal heartbeat is detected, but also requiring informed consent. Providers would say they are already doing this, but they don't really know what that would look like in some states. That is showing the woman an image of where her fetus is in development at that time. What's unusual this year is a bill that would add more scrutiny to providers in the family health program.
They receive money, essentially providing subsidized reproductive healthcare for Granite Staters - well over 12,000 people. You either pay no money or limited money for cancer screenings, STI treatment, contraception, and even mental health counseling in some cases. Some of these people in this program were people who provided abortions in addition to this basic reproductive healthcare. Three of those were defunded by the executive council because they also provide abortions, and the executive council was not convinced that they were meeting state and federal law, which is no public money can go to abortions. Last session, they put in a scrutiny of an audit that required the state to make sure that this was happening. State said all of them are meeting the guidelines. This bill had put another level of scrutiny on it, would require an audit paid for by the providers to not only show they aren't doing abortion, but to also say, how are we spending money for contraception? How are you spending money for STI? What that will do is it will put all of these providers, even those who don't provide abortion, into a second audit that they would pay for, and that is money they can't afford. We'll see where that goes; it's already hit a few roadblocks. Both party leaders have said they don't want to put any more abortion restrictions in or any more abortion laws. I think it's gonna face an uphill challenge, but we don't know.
Melanie Plenda: Ethan, let's turn to education. Some controversial policies will be part of debates this term, including Education Freedom Accounts, the so-called Divisive Concepts issue, and school funding. Can you walk us through those proposals, and what are their chances?
Ethan DeWitt: A lot of the attention is going to be around Education Freedom Accounts, and it's really going to be a tug of war this year. I think ultimately Democrats would like to repeal that program and Republicans would like to keep it, but this year it's going to be a debate around the edges. Right now, the families that are eligible for it are making up to 300% of the federal poverty level. That is, for a family of four, about $83,000 a year. There is a Republican proposal to expand that to 500% of the poverty level, which would be about $130,000 a year. $83,000 a year for a family of four is really low income families. Expanded up to $130,000 a year, you're getting more into the middle class.
Democrats on the other hand want to pare back the program. They argue that too many people are using the program who never were in public school, and that the program is really meant to be for people who are leaving public school and need some financial assistance to do so. They've put in a bill that would restrict the programs to kids who have spent at least one year in a public school system or who are at kindergarten or first grade age and haven't started in public school. That would throw a lot of people off the program who are currently benefiting it from it, especially homeschool kids and people who are already in private school. That's definitely a controversial bill that probably isn't going to make it, but it doesn't illustrate how both sides are working around the edges.
When it comes to the Divisive Concepts law - this is the law that bars teachers from advocating for certain topics relating to race and gender and other areas of discrimination. Democrats would like to repeal that law, Republicans want to keep it. There's currently a lawsuit in play, so we'll see how that plays out in the legislature. In terms of school funding, Democrats have two very different proposals to try to increase state funding to public schools. One of them would spend about $100 million a year, and one of them would spend about $700 million a year. Right now, the state spends about a billion dollars a year. When you look at the scale, $700 million is a much bigger ask. It will be interesting to see where the $100 million proposal goes.
Melanie Plenda: Anna, affordable housing is a problem here in New Hampshire and around the region. Is that expected to come up this session?
Anna Brown: House speaker Sherman Packer did convene a special committee specifically on this issue of housing. There are several bills, and I would group them into three buckets. The first one is renter protections and renter rights. The second one is state interventions in local zoning. The last category would be financial incentives for development. When we're looking at renter's rights, HB 401 would double the timeframe of an eviction from 30 to 60 days and also would require landlords to fill extra requirements if they're evicting someone for renovations to prove that they're doing it and make reasonable efforts to find other housing for the tenant. HB 44 is an example of state intervention and local zoning that would allow four unit housing on single family lots that are serviced by public water and sewer. Then we have that issue of incentives, whether it's tax breaks or other funding for housing. SB 145 would establish a New Hampshire Housing Champion Designation program, which basically would give localities with policies friendly to housing preferential access to state funds. That was actually part of an affordable housing bill last year. It got pared out. Instead of looking at less extreme measures, there were some concerns that this would create favoritism among this on state programs that maybe wasn't fair. There's many fronts of the affordable housing fight.
Melanie Plenda: Annmarie, let's turn to Medicaid expansion, another critical issue affecting thousands. What are some of the proposals at the State House?
Annmarie Timmins: It's strangely been very little talk about this. What a difference nine years makes. When this was first introduced, there was a lot of skepticism. Will it save us money? Will more people get on insurance? It wasn't on candidate's radar as we talked with them ahead of the election. The proposal is to continue providing Medicaid expansion. Each time the legislature has reapprove this, it always has a deadline. That deadline is this year. I really don't expect this to hit a wall. I think it'll go through with very few questions. We saw over Covid when Medicaid expansion reached more people, we saw 29,000 people get mental healthcare with it, 30,000 people got care for Covid, and 42% are insured now compared to prior to the start of Medicaid expansion.
I think there's lots of evidence now that will convince people that the fears we had haven't proven true. The other notable point here is that people with insurance can pay their bills when they go to the hospital. Uncompensated care for the state's hospital has really dropped. The two years prior to expansion it was about $157 million of uncompensated care. Two years after the last two years prior to the pandemic, it had gone down to $65 million. Hospitals are seeing a huge benefit from this. They'll be lobbying for this, mom's groups, mental health groups, so we'll see a lot of support for this. I think one question is, will they continue it for good and not set another deadline on it? And will they try to fund it differently? Right now, a lot of the funding comes from the alcohol fund. There's some disagreement over whether that's appropriate. That may be a discussion, but I really don't expect this to fail this year.
Melanie Plenda: Ethan, voting rights are also a topic of discussion this term. Can you walk us through some of those proposals?
Ethan DeWitt: Republicans, to boil it down, want to pass more laws that would tighten access to voting and add more steps you need to go through in order to vote. Democrats want to open the process more, make it easier for more people to vote. It's sort of an ideological divide that's been persistent for decades, really.
One of the Republican proposals this year would require that New Hampshire College students receive in-state tuition in order to be able to register to vote. They would have to show up and while they're registering with a copy of their tuition bill, they would also require that public universities and community colleges would provide a list to the Secretary of State's office before the election of here's how many students we have who are paying in-state tuition. One of the issues with this is that the requirements for in-state tuition are much more stringent than the requirements to be a resident. You have to have a year of residency in New Hampshire in order to qualify for in-state tuition. That means a year of residency for not an education purpose. You have to have been living here for a year, and that's to limit who might be able to be eligible for in-state tuition. Otherwise you could just say, I was a resident in my freshman year, so I'd like to pay in-state tuition. If you apply that to voting, it suddenly puts students in a different category. That one will be interesting to watch.
There's another one that comes from Representative Bob Lynn, who's the former Chief Justice of the State Supreme Court, that would get rid of the ability for voters to sign an affidavit if they don't have ID. The rule would be, you don't have id, you can't vote, period. It also would require you to prove your citizenship by producing a birth certificate, a passport, or naturalization papers when you register.
There's one more bill that would require election monitors to follow along town and city clerks when they go to nursing homes or elder care facilities. This is when they pass out absentee ballots and they collect them. This would require a representative from the Democratic Party and the Republican Party to accompany the clerk.
Democrats are moving the other direction. They want to pass no excuse absentee voting similar to what we saw temporarily during Covid-19. If you remember, the 2020 election you could vote absentee for any reason at all, and almost everybody did. They want to make that permanent. They also want to repeal some of the changes Republicans have made; for instance, the provisional ballot bill that passed last year, which requires you to submit voting documents if you didn't have them during the election day within seven days or have your vote removed and not counted. Democrats are trying to create more opportunities for absentee voting. Republicans are trying to create more checks and more restrictions.
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