Final Processes of Legislature Confirm Founders' Wisdom

Bradford E. Cook, Sheehan Phinney Bass + Green 

Without getting too theoretical or scholarly about it, the last phase of the New Hampshire Legislature's biennium, being played out in Concord this past week and next, ratify the wisdom of the drafters of the New Hampshire Constitution, who divided responsibility for action between two houses of the legislature and the chief executive magistrate, the official we refer to as the Governor.  In New Hampshire, probably more than in most other states because of the size of our House of Representatives and relatively small Senate, it takes a real head of steam for significant things to happen. 

This session, Republicans had over-whelming majorities in both houses of our bi-cameral legislature.  However, as 2012's session played out, the fundamental differences in style and leadership of the two houses clearly became apparent, as the aggressive and very conservative agenda of the Republican House leadership (and some measures leadership could not prevent from taking center stage) met resistance or outright rejection in the Republican Senate. As noted in this space previously, a number of bills, including significant changes to the University System of New Hampshire administration, which had been amended by the House, simply were "non-concurred" and therefore killed, without any request for a Committee of Conference to work out differences.  The Senate thus put a lot of the more problematic House proposals to rest, allowing both bodies to concentrate on those matters they both consider important.

On those latter matters, a number of significant actions happened this week. Most significant, probably, was final agreement on Thursday of the language for CACR 12, the education funding constitutional amendment, by House, Senate and Gubernatorial representatives, for the first time since the New Hampshire Supreme Court's Claremont decision in 1997. The language assumes a state responsibility for education with legislative authority to target aid to needy school districts without the requirement of sending state funds to school districts able to fund themselves, proponents assert. Representatives of teacher and administrator organizations criticized the deal as allowing the state to fail to fund its obligations, and CACR 12 now has to be passed by two-thirds of both House and Senate, and, if passed by those margins, be approved by 60% of the voters at the November general election.  Senate approval is assumed, while Speaker William O'Brien and House supporters will have a big job in trying to get the required House margin. Nevertheless, getting the agreement was a milestone celebrated by all participants in the negotiations and those groups hoping for such an amendment.

In other successful conference committee action, measures to eliminate the Certificate of Need Board, have a voter identification process and approve an "early offer" system in medical malpractice cases were fashioned from competing versions, while campaign reform and a number of other measures failed to find compromises.

Next week, both legislative bodies are expected to vote on the compromise reports and finish their business.  It then will be up to Governor John Lynch to decide whether to use his veto pen for the last time to reject legislation, to sign the bills, or to let some become law without his signature.

The major lesson in all this, however, is the wisdom of having a bi-cameral legislative system that protects the public by requiring separate analysis of proposals by those coming at them from different perspectives.

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