There is a myth floating around that there is some grand conspiracy among House Republications to support Democrat positions. I guess because we aren’t making a big deal about the good work we are doing, because we are not being vilified in the press, some may think nothing is getting done. Nothing can be further from the truth. Some examples:
The Transportation Committee and full House passed a bill finally ending the requirement that you unload your rifle when putting it back in your vehicle when hunting. We repealed the suppressor ban. We repealed the buffer zone law. We reduced the BET despite the Governor’s veto. We codified a municipality’s right to send tuition to private schools (in support of Croydon) I’d posit it all, but I’m sure there is a space limit here.
CACR17, a constitutional amendment that sought to protect the votes of all legitimate residents of our state from being diluted by the votes of people who are not residents of NH, received a vote of 188-135, but needed a 2/3 majority to move on to the Senate. 99% of House Republicans supported the measure.
HB 1313, a bill that requires that a voter be a resident of the state for at least 10 days passed on a voice vote. We got Democrats to stand down on this issue.
The House also killed Democrat sponsored bills that would have enacted “mail-in voting” and allowed state/county prisoners to vote by absentee ballot.
Remember the Democrats’ LLC Tax debacle of 2009? Well, HB 1443 sought to reintroduce similar rules and squeeze out additional tax revenue from our small business owners. House Republicans stopped the bill and retained the reform enacted in a bipartisan vote in 2011. The measure was defeated 180-131. 97% of House Republicans voted to kill the bill.
In addition, Democrats continued their pursuit of interfering with the free market and imposing increased mandates by pushing a bill that would have raised the state minimum wage by up to 31%, hurting businesses and killing entry level job opportunities. The bill died by a House vote of 184-143. 95% of House Republicans supported the committee recommendation to kill the bill.
We are working as hard as we can to things done despite having a Democrat Governor, and not enough of a majority to easily over ride a veto. I think we are winning.
Rep. Steven Smith
The Sullivan County NH Republican Committee 