After the blitz of activity last week, most of the action in the N.H. House now shifts to the main spending, revenue and capital budget bills for the 2012-2013 biennium. Meanwhile, the Northern Pass project is still getting attention in the Legislature, as the committee deadline for reporting on two related bills has been extended.
We start a new, semi-regular feature today called “They Said It.”
Our goal is to capture a sampling of legislative and state government quotes that we hope illuminate, educate, entertain and reflect the tone of the current legislative session.
Here are our Top Six of recent vintage …
The next two-year budget is setting off political fireworks even before it’s written, but that day will come soon. The House Finance Committee is scheduled to complete its budget work next week, with executive sessions on Monday and Tuesday, March 21 and 22.
The Committee has been holding budget hearings for the past month. In the meantime, sparks have flown.
The N.H. Senate is in session today to vote on more than 40 bills and amendments. Here is a sampling of the proposals we are keeping an eye on — retirement system reform, expanded gambling and car registration.
Instead of a full House session, committees are holding extra meetings today. It’s part of a mid-season push to get bills out of committee and up for votes.
House Speaker William O’Brien (R-Mont Vernon) has decided to have no full House sessions this week, allowing more time for committees to make their annual mad rush to beat the legislative calendar.
On Friday, House Speaker William O’Brien (R-Mont Vernon) threw his support behind a measure that would make the Legislature – not the courts – the final authority on educational standards and funding.
The move comes midway through an extended public hearing on one of New Hampshire’s most challenging public policy debates: a constitutional amendment on education funding. The public hearing continues Wednesday …
Another casino proposal will take the stage for a public hearing on Monday, when the N.H. Senate returns to work after their own February break.
Last month, we tracked a different gambling proposal in the House that would create casinos with video poker, slots and table games. After a public hearing Feb. 22, the House Ways and Means Committee voted to retain the bill in committee. The same fate is unlikely for a much more expansive effort currently underway in the Senate.
Numbers are out, and state revenue for February was, to put it politely, as dismal as the weather.
Overall, according to a release yesterday by the N.H. Department of Administrative Services, collections were more than $16 million below plan — $77.1 million was raised, but that fell 17.5 percent below the $93.4 million estimate for the month. February is typically one of the lowest revenue months in the state’s July to June fiscal calendar.
Overall, the state is $23 million, or about two percent, below revenue estimates, with four months remaining in the fiscal year.
Our midstream progress report continues today, checking up on the status of some featured legislation we’ve covered so far this session.
For more background on each bill, click the links to the corresponding dispatches in the bolded heading.
A scaled-down bipartisan proposal to revive gambling will have its first public hearing today. It comes a year after a bill to allow expanded gaming in New Hampshire passed the Senate but died in the House.
House Bill 593, sponsored by Rep. Edmond Gionet (R-Lincoln) would establish two casinos — “at least 100 miles apart” — offering video poker, slots and table games. The House Ways and Means Committee will consider how the bill proposes permitting the casinos, plus how it would distribute the state’s proceeds to offset the state education property tax and contribute to the highway fund.