This week, the New Hampshire House voted against SB 272, the critical Parental Bill of Rights. The Senate version of the bill included vital language that ensured parents would be kept informed about their children and would have helped prevent the covert, social gender transitioning of children by public school systems.
During the floor debate, SB 272 was not simply gutted, but converted by amendments into a blatant assault on parental rights in the Granite State. Thankfully, the bill as amended did not pass, as this would have been a worst case scenario. If the bill had passed as amended, it would have affirmatively strengthened secrecy and deception by school districts, effectively closing avenues of legal and political relief to parents.
However, by failing to pass the Senate version of the bill, House representatives betrayed New Hampshire parents. A number of Republican representatives voted against the Senate version of the bill, supporting an amendment which effectively reversed the bill into an attack on parents and children, as explained in our blog post here.
While the House took numerous votes yesterday, the most important single vote was on amendment 1675, which would have done more than any other amendment to gut and reverse the effect of the law. Eight Republicans voted to harm parental rights by supporting this amendment, including:
Aidan Ankarberg of Strafford 7
David Bickford of Strafford 3
Mike Bordes of Belknap 5
Jess Edwards of Rockingham 31*
Joseph Guthrie of Rockingham 15
Dan Hynes of Hillsborough 2
David Nagel of Belknap 6
Travis O’Hara of Belknap 4
*After investigating Rep. Edwards’ vote, we believe he was mislead about 1675 by another representative and told the amendment contained different text. While we are listing all Republicans who voted incorrectly for the sake of full transparency, we think Rep. Edwards’ constituents can trust that he remains a safe vote for parental rights.
Representatives Bickford, Bordes, and Nagel are all members of the Bloodthirsty Sixteen, Republicans who voted for unrestricted abortion up to birth. Not a single Democrat supported the Senate version of SB 272.
For New Hampshire parents wondering what the next step is after the House betrayal of SB 272, we must continue to be fearlessly and consistently engaged on the local level with our school boards. If we are too afraid of controversy and pushback, then the cultural left, although the minority, will continue to win this battle, placing their ideology and government control over New Hampshire families. Parents must stand up and speak up if we are to prevail.
