Legislative Update July 1

Week of July 1 – July 5th 

Governor Sununu Vetoes Budget
Cornerstone Urges Negotiators to Keep Abortion Funding Out of New Hampshire’s Budget

On Thursday, the New Hampshire House and Senate passed a budget that lifts a ban on the use of state funds for abortion.

Governor Sununu has vetoed the budget, citing several reasons. Unfortunately, he hasn’t mentioned abortion funding.

Pro-life Granite Staters know that abortion is not health care and it does not belong in the New Hampshire budget. We thank Governor Sununu for his veto, and we expect him to stand by the longstanding policy that has prevented the use of state funds for abortion.

Going back more than 40 years, limits on public funding of abortion have attracted bipartisan agreement in Washington as well as Concord. Abortion extremists want us to forget that. We won’t.

WHAT HAPPENS NOW
The budget bills, HB 1 and HB 2, will now go back to the House and Senate for an attempt to override the veto. If the override fails (as expected), legislators will attempt to negotiate a budget that Governor Sununu will sign.

This gives YOU time to encourage YOUR reps to get abortion funding out of the budget. The troublesome language in HB 2  is summed up on page 189 of that bill: “Repeals a prohibition on the use of state funds for abortion services.”

NOTE ON THE ROLL CALL
HB 1 and HB 2 passed House and Senate along party lines, with Democrats in the majority. There was one exception on HB 2, where one Democrat joined the Republicans in voting “nay”:
Julie Radhakrishnan of Amherst. (Amherst folks, please thank her!)

BACKGROUND
While there are no funds specifically appropriated for abortion the budget passed by House and Senate, HB 2 does contain a repeal of the prohibition on the use of state funds for abortion. In other words, a vote for HB 2 this week was a vote for abortion funding.

See the screenshot above, from page 189 of HB 2. Read numbered item 153: “Repeals a prohibition on the use of state funds for abortion services.”  

There is no line item in the budget that has an amount for abortion.What we have instead is language that abandons a policy of NOT allowing abortion funding.

Take note that in HB 1, the other budget bill, state general fund dollars are allocated for abortion PROVIDERS via family planning funds. In fact, HB 1 in its current form includes a huge increase in state funds for family planning: from $600,000 this year (Fiscal Year 2019) to $2.1 million in 2020 and $2.2 million in 2021.

Without a clear statutory prohibition of the use of state family planning funds for abortion services (in the same manner that federal family planning funds can’t be used for abortion), abortion providers who are also family planning contractors would basically be saying “just trust us.”

New Hampshire’s budget must include language barring the use of state funds for abortion. Urge the Governor and members of House and Senate to make that a priority as they negotiate a new budget. Don’t let abortion funding become a bargaining chip!

Tell Governor Sununu it’s time to take out his veto pen!

While the following bills have not yet reached the Governor’s desk, the House and Senate have agreed on the language for each bill. The Governor is the last line of defense against ill-advised legislation. Urge him to veto the bills listed below!  The ones listed as “enrolled” are going to come to the Governor very soon; act now!

BILL: HB 446, Initiating Amendments and Corrections to Birth Certificates

STATUS: This bill has been enrolled, and it is awaiting action from the Governor. 

CORNERSTONE POSITION OPPOSED.  For more information including the text of the amendment the Senate adopted, see the blog post on the Cornerstone website

WHAT YOU CAN DO: Ask Governor Sununu to veto the bill. Vital records exist to document facts, not feelings about one’s own age, sex, or place of birth.

BILL: HB 608 Expanding the Law Against Discrimination Based on Gender Identity

STATUS: Passed by both the House and the Senate, this bill is awaiting the enrollment process before it goes to the Governor.

CORNERSTONE POSITION OPPOSED. What seems like a harmless housekeeping bill is a lot more insidious, a way to punish those who don’t get on board with LGBTQ policies. Read about the unintended consequences here.

WHAT YOU CAN DO: Ask Governor Sununu to veto the bill. 

BILL: HB 669, Relative to Gender Identity Information on Drivers’ Licenses and Non-Driver ID

STATUS: This bill has been enrolled, and it is awaiting action from the Governor. 

CORNERSTONE POSITION:  OPPOSED. The bill would allow a gender notation of M, F, or X (meaning non-binary or “other”) on drivers’ licenses and state-issued non-driver IDs. It makes no sense to allow a subjective feeling to determine the data appearing on such documents. Read Cornerstone’s testimony on HB 669. 

WHAT YOU CAN DO: Ask Governor Sununu to veto HB 669. Don’t be swayed by appeals to counterfeit compassion for people who identify as neither male nor female. The information on a driver’s license has never before been dictated by feelings.

BILL: SB 263 Relative to Anti-Discrimination for Students in Public Schools

STATUS: This bill has been enrolled, and it is awaiting action from the Governor. 

CORNERSTONE POSITION: OPPOSED No one wants invidious discrimination in schools, but SB 263 does not attack the problem of discrimination or bullying among students. It poses more questions than solutions, and it requires far more serious study than it has received so far in the legislature. See “Gender Politics Goes to School,” Cornerstone’s most recent commentary on the bill.   The very title of the bill – “relative to anti-discrimination protection for students in public schools” – is offensive and misleading, suggesting that anyone who points out the bill’s flaws is actually trying to discriminate against children.

WHAT YOU CAN DO:  Ask Governor Sununu to veto SB 263. It would allow lawsuits against school districts on grounds of discrimination, without holding individuals responsible; it does not protect students from bullying by their peers; it does not specify the burden of proof to be met after a discrimination complaint is made; it leaves open the question of what transgender “discrimination” means in the context of school athletics; and it provides no cap on the dollar amount of damages that can be paid out nor does the bill contain a cap on legal fees – causing the taxpayer to carry the financial burden.

BILL: HB 480 Sports Betting

STATUS: This bill has been enrolled, and it is awaiting action from the Governor. 

CORNERSTONE POSITIONOPPOSED. HB 480 would expand legal gambling in a manner that makes the state rely on gambling addiction in order to make sports betting a reliable state revenue source. Read Cornerstone’s op-ed, “Gambling With Our People.”

WHAT YOU CAN DO:  Ask Governor Sununu to veto the bill. The profitability of the commercial sports betting industry relies on exploiting addicted gamblers. New Hampshire deserves better.

BILL: SB 196 Relative to Non-Academic Surveys Administered by a Public School to its Students

STATUS: This bill has been enrolled, and it is awaiting action from the Governor. 

CORNERSTONE POSITIONOPPOSED. SB 196 would roll back a 2017 law protecting student privacy and parental rights. Instead of giving parents the right to “opt-in” before a non-academic survey is administered to their children in school, it would switch to an “opt-out” policy – meaning that if a parent doesn’t actively say NO, the school will administer the survey to the student. Read more here.

WHAT YOU CAN DO:  Ask Governor Sununu to veto the bill and protect student privacy. 

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