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On my way down to Bedford for another session. The House will be hearing bills from the Senate today and tomorrow. Hopefully we can defeat some of the worse ones, such as so-called "Right-to-Work"! I'll be livetweeting starting here. #NHPolitics
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Good turnout from the unions outside doing anti-RTW visibility! Unfortunately I didn't think to get pictures... #1u
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oh gosh there's a ton of amendments to go over in our floor bags; way more than any of the previous sessions...
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We're still being segregated into masked and non-masked sections... I'm going to keep wearing mine, to stay in the masked section, but I wonder when we can stop...
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Pastor Bob of St. Paul's United Methodist Church did the prayer again... apparently he took some of the complaints about his previous prayer to heart, as at least he didn't try to lead us in any arm-waving this time... (I'll try to get his last name next time)
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But yeah props to him for listening and being more inclusive this time. Also nice job with the National Anthem, @Lisa4Exeter!
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Memorializing David Danielson now; apparently he was one of the last few remaining moderates among the Republicans left before he died; R.I.P. (I never met him myself so I can't confirm)
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Oops we just passed some stuff on voice vote while I was distracted by other things
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I guess those were the bills from Children & Family Law, as we're on to Commerce & Consumer Affairs now (doing stuff in order by committee like normal this time, instead of by recommendation like last time)
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Voting on SB35, on a risk pool for @NEANHNews @NEANHVotes now. My mom is an NEA member, so if this bill would help her, I'll vote for it (and against the ITL motion)
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boo, motion to ITL SB35 passes... oh well...
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SB38 passes on voice vote; I was going to disagree with other Dems on this one but it went by too fast; oh well...
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Next is SB59, on moving to a collaborative care model for mental health care. As someone with my own mental health issues, it's always been a pain to get various doctors to work with one another, so hopefully this will help with that.
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Uh... the notes on SB107 seem duplicated from the ones for SB59? This one is a different bill, though; it's for businesses affected by COVID19...
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Notes for SB125 (on beverage manufacturer licenses) say "listen to debate" but the debate hasn't helped much... still not sure how to vote on it...
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yeah idk guy speaking in favor of it didn't help his case much; I'll go with voting no
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Rep. @RepNicoleK is making a motion to table SB34 (on synthetic drugs); she's bucking party leadership here (and I'm joining her in doing so)
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Yeah sounds like this bill could use more time
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Motion to table SB110 here; I wish motions to table were debatable...
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well ok not in general, but just for this one
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motion to table SB110 passes; oh well, I was looking forward to debate on that one...
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so many motions to table today
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Rep. Burt is such a troll
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Fuck all these pro-gun organizations he's touting
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waiting periods for gun purchases are GOOD
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oh no, the boogeyman of @ProgressNH! How scary!
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"If they put it in the Union Leader, it's gotta be true!" Yeah I can't roll my eyes hard enough at that
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Yes, Rep. Verville, I WOULD believe that you've been put on waiting lists for your gun purchases; you're a wingnut who shouldn't have access to firearms
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I really need to go get a vest before one of these bulletbrains ends up shooting me
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Thank you Rep. Harrison-Gathright for speaking up in defense of our existing background checks system!
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I hate having to rely on the support of cops to kill bad gun bills like this one, but if that's what it takes to win, well, then, fine.
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darn, motion to ITL fails... onto an attempt at indefinite postponement now...
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indefinite postponement fails; onto the OTP motion... I can't wait to get out of this state to move to one that's less gun-crazy... just gotta find the money for it first...
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onto SB154, another bad gun bill. Republicans seem scared that Biden might do executive orders to stop gun violence. I think he should do so and we shouldn't try to stop him, so I'll be voting against it.
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Wait I thought Rep. Cushing was going to go for indefinite postponement on this instead of tabling?
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I thought we were getting a lunch break?
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I'm hungry and can't focus now; give us our lunch break
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We're discussing SB147, an omnibus education bill now, which has some confusing recommendations for it in the notes. But, as I said, my mind is on lunch currently...
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3 separate amendments to vote on for this bill...
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1 amendment down, 2 to go...
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I think we took a coach bus to DC once when I was in school and it was fine...
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so... lemme see if I've got this right... since amendment 1 passed, but 2 & 3 failed... that means we're a no, right?
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ok finally here's our lunch break
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k back from lunch; I didn't sleep very well last night, so apologies in advance if I start drifting...
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Motion to reconsider for SB38, one we passed previously on a voice vote that I'd been wishing we had debate on, so I'm glad we're getting a chance to reconsider here
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It allows medical marijuana centers to become for-profit institutions. I actually disagree with other Dems on this idea because I oppose profit-making and for-profit institutions in general.
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One of the arguments for this bill in the Dem notes is that it'd allow centers to "raise capital", which, as an anti-capitalist, I oppose. There should be no privately-owned capital for anyone, not even medical marijuana centers. But anyways reconsidering failed, so, moot point.
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Onto SB148, another education omnibus with multiple amendments...
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This one seems to be about how to handle sport injuries for student athletes... the only sports I played as a kid were thru Concord Parks & Rec, not the schools, so this isn't really something I know much about...
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I can kinda see both sides here... on the one hand, most co-curriculars are definitely less injury-prone than most sports, but on the other hand, people could start using differing treatment for co-curriculars as a loophole, so I dunno...
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Version of Jeopardy except the "answers must be phrased in the form of question" becomes more strict and changes into "answers must be phrased in the form of a parliamentary inquiry"
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ok I clearly heard the "no" voices as louder on that voice vote; wtf Speaker Packard
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We're onto SB31 now; Republicans are looking for new ways to deny people access to absentee ballots
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Next is SB89, another case of Republicans being anti-democracy. They're REALLY scared of the #ForThePeopleAct and are trying to create a bifurcated election system to get around it in advance.
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Yeah that lack of faith in elections is entirely due to your lies and fearmongering about them, GOP.
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Well, their anti-democracy bills just passed; onto bills from ED&A. First is SB105, a relatively boring memorials and commemorations. We'll be having a solar eclipse coming up soon!
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Next is 155FN. Republicans are trying to ban vaccine passports, which, I just... ugh. Just ugh.
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Having to deal with an entire party that's anti-vax as a matter of principle sucks so hard.
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Rep. Roy is spreading some major FUD here
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If Rep. Roy wanted to go all the way with this line of reasoning, we could do a bill to eliminate at-will employment entirely, then, sure, fine, but to do it just for vaccines, something that's actually good? Yeah, no.
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yeah things actually haven't been fine forever, Rep. Roy; infant mortality used to be much higher. Diseases used to kill many more people. Vaccines have been major lifesavers.
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Woohoo, we actually won something! Rep. Roy's amendment is defeated! Onto a "print remarks" motion.
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whole bill passes on a voice vote! Onto SB82 from Finance, which actually seems more education-related to me.
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wait what's going on here? SB152 isn't listed under Finance on my notes...
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Oh well, I don't really know what happened there... onto SB129 from Fish & Game. It'd threaten endangered species and is bad. Let's oppose it.
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I thought there was going to be an amendment here? Oh well, guess not; dunno what happened to it...
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Motion to reconsider on SB155
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Onto SB74, a bill on advance directives. I wish I had my "Human Identity & Bioethics" book by David DeGrazia on me; it had a chapter on these...
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Motion to table? What? Why? These voice votes are going by too fast
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We need more time on some of these
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wait... Republicans are trying to strip COVID-related liability protections from hospitals? Weren't they trying to do the opposite at the national level, which we were opposing them on then? I'm so confused...
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maybe the difference is that this is just for hospitals, and the liability protections the GOP wanted on the national level were for all businesses...
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yeah I guess the difference is that the stuff hospitals want liability protection from is reasonable stuff like following emergency orders, while the liability protections national businesses wanted were for stuff like forcing their employees to work in unsafe conditions...
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amendment fails; onto bill as a whole
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onto SB162... another lengthy omnibus.
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another instance of a voice vote getting mis-heard...
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couldn't hear us over our voting, apparently
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Next is SB95 (from Judiciary), on remote access to meetings. Remote access is good; let's keep it. The only thing I'd change about them would be to move to a FOSS remote meeting client away from Zoom.
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(when possible, that is; I dunno if any FOSS alternatives to Zoom are actually up-to-speed yet...)
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for future reference, here are some FOSS alternatives to Zoom that I've heard of: @cooljeanius/1490006373853274126