Legislative Update: Legislative Service Requests - January 06, 2023 Windham Independent
Legislative Update - Legislative Service Requests
Happy New Year to everyone - I hope that 2023 will be better than 2022 for us all.
Most people think that the time between the general elections and the end of the year is a break for legislators. While the House is not meeting in session during this time, this is when most work on preparing next year’s bills gets done.
The New Hampshire House deadline for proposed legislation by representatives elect is Nov. 22 (with certain rarely used exceptions to this deadline). Given how close this deadline is to the general election date, I only submitted two Legislative Service Requests (LSR’s) of my own this year: 2023-0414 (relative to the duration of physical therapy), which is now HB 188 and 2023-0724 (relative to freedom of speech and association at public institutions of higher education) which has not yet received an HB number. I signed up as a co-sponsor on a number of other LSRs.
The 825 LSR’s filed this year are at http://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/lsr_search/LSR_Results.aspx
The LSR page is minimalistic - all it gives is the LSR number, a brief description and the current sponsors. This is because all House bills have to have their language written by the Office of Legislative Services (OLS), a non-partisan office that is responsible for all bill and amendment drafting. Drafts are kept confidential unless a legislator requests to make a draft public, which is why you generally can only see limited information on the LSR search). OLS also provides research for legislators, always performed in a nonpartisan matter - they work for the House as a whole, not for one party or another.
Once the LSR language is approved by OLS and the primary sponsor, there is a 10 day window (or Dec. 28, whichever comes first) to get all co-sponsors to sign off. It is always important to try to obtain bi-partisan co-sponsors for LSR’s, but this session this is critically important given the 201-197 split of the House (one representative recently resigned and a race was tied, which will require two special elections to seat the last two representatives). I am happy to report that both my LSR’s have bipartisan support.
As bills get sent to committee, get their public hearings and are issued a committee recommendation, the house will start voting on them. If a bill passes the House, that sends it to the Senate (or the other way around if a bill starts in the Senate), and once both the House and Senate agree on a bill, it will finally require Governor Sununu’s signature to become law.
Today, the House completed its first session day and adopted the House Rules, which means that work now shifts to committee work until enough bills are ready for a House floor vote.
I encourage any Windham resident, business owner or town/school administrator or board member to reach out to me if they have questions or concerns about legislative matters. You can reach me at 603 267 4142 (call or text), email me at dpmwindham@gmail.com or send me a letter at 12 Clarke Farm Rd., Windham, NH 03087.
Daniel Popovici-Muller
Windham Representative