2025 Veto Day Legislative Update - December 19, 2025 Windham Independent
2025 Veto Day Legislative Update
The House met this Wednesday to try overriding the Governor’s vetoes. As expected, no bill met the two thirds override threshold, with Republicans voting to override and the Democrats voting to support the Governor’s vetoes. The Governor’s Veto messages are in the House Calendar #50, dated December 12, 2025.
The following nine bills passed through the House and Senate only to be killed by Governor vetoes:
HB148 (permitting classification of individuals based on biological sex in athletic competitions, prisons, locker rooms, etc.). This pro-local control bill’s veto message clearly misunderstands the bill contents (and incorrectly states that the current laws are stronger than this bill), since it talks about the bill being overly broad and difficult to enforce. But there is nothing to enforce - the bill does not mandate anything. It merely clarifies our anti discrimination statute, stating that biological sex MAY be considered in those situations.
HB319 This bill attempted to remove an unfunded mandate by allowing school districts to choose if they need to provide transportation for their half day kindergarten programs.
HB324 (relative to prohibiting obscene or harmful sexual materials in schools) The Governor’s veto message states that the bill was related to course materials only, which is not factual - the bill was about all materials available to children through their schools, including school library material that is not required as part of a course, which leaves concerned parents with no avenue to ask a school board to consider removing it.
HB356 (enabling school districts to adopt partisan school district elections).
HB358 This bill ensured that the parents' rights to forgo immunizations for their children due to religious exemptions was respected without making the parents jump through unnecessary hoops.
HB446 (relative to parental notice for non-academic surveys in public schools) opt in for Youth Behavior Risk Survey. This parent rights bill changed the requirement to participate in a highly intrusive survey from an opt out to an opt in.
HB475 Default budgets are frequently abused, to take away the right of the local voters to decide on town or school district budgets by giving them a meaningless choice between a higher proposed budget and a just as high default budget. This bill attempted to make a minor, reasonable change by requiring that the default budget does not include funding for positions that have been vacant for over a year.
HB613 (relative to use of accessible voting systems).
HB667 (relative to health education and requiring the viewing of certain videos demonstrating gestational development).
Most of the bills above were good policies that would have made life better for the residents of our state in various ways. I respect the Governor’s right to veto them, but I also respectfully disagree with almost all her veto decisions.
Yes, it is disheartening to work so hard to make positive changes, only for a Republican Governor to undo the work of the Republican House and Senate… but the vast majority of the work we completed last year became law, to the benefit of us all.
A new year is ahead, filled with opportunities to keep making everyone’s lives better, and I look forward to working with my House colleagues, with the Senate and the Governor to keep moving New Hampshire in the right direction.
Please reach out to me at 603 267 4142 (call or text), or by email at dpmwindham@gmail.com (a quick call or text after emailing me would greatly help) with any questions or concerns… and more importantly,
Happy Holidays!
Daniel Popovici-Muller
Windham State Representative,
Vice Chairman, Finance II Committee
Education Funding Committee