Today, the House begins a scheduled three-day session to finish work on more than 250 bills and amendments. We continue with our third snapshot tour of bills being considered this week that we have followed during this legislative session.
In this last of three parts, we look at three bills that are part of the so-called Regular Calendar that are subject to floor debate and roll call votes. They’re measures regarding death penalty, the school drop out age, and voting.
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.
Despite a recent stir to abolish the death penalty in New Hampshire, it’s unlikely to happen this legislative session. The Commission to Study the Death Penalty voted 12-10 this week to retain the state’s capital punishment statutes.
It will be a mostly quiet at the State House this Thanksgiving holiday week with a few notable exceptions.
After more than a year’s worth of fact-finding meetings, sometimes emotional testimony and public hearings across the state, the Commission to Study the Death Penalty will hold its final regular meeting tomorrow. Rep. Jim Splaine (D-Portsmouth) sponsored House Bill 520, which created the current study commission. It is charged with investigating a range of issues, including whether the death penalty serves the public interest as a deterrent, as punishment, or to instill “confidence in the criminal justice system.”
Meeting for only the second time since it took summer recess in June, House Speaker Terie Norelli (D-Portsmouth) had to remind the 400-member chamber to behave on several occasions when collective boos, cheers and jeers followed various speeches and votes.
This may help explain why lots of activity resulted in definitive votes on only 11 pieces of legislation, by her count. The remainder will be taken up in subsequent weeks.
It was a landmark year for New Hampshire government in 2009—not only for the size of its budget deficit ($250 million) and the number of state layoffs it induced (200), but also for legislative action on some controversial social issues, like gay marriage, the death penalty and medical marijuana.
But these scores are far from settled, as evidenced in the new round of bills up for debate in Concord’s 2010 legislative session, which officially kicks off on Wednesday, Jan. 6
… if HB 392 is signed by Gov. John Lynch, cigar bars can start serving their stogies with a swig, starting in 2010. … And, Gov. Lynch is reportedly likely to sign a bill to study the death penalty in New Hampshire. There will be 13 public seats to fill for the commission.
Next week marks the midway point in the 2009 legislative session, and only bills that are still afloat by Friday will have a chance at becoming law. And there have been some surprises …
Does the state have the right or responsibility to take the life of a convicted killer? Should certain murders be punishable by death? Such are the questions open to public debate in Concord on Tuesday, Feb. 10, when four bills related to the death penalty will be heard by the House Criminal Justice & Public Safety Committee.
