Legislative Update: Rescued off consent - March 27, 2026 Windham Independent
Legislative Update - Rescued off consent
One of my cosponsored bills passed through the House after being on the consent calendar with a unanimous Inexpedient to Legislate (ITL) recommendation by the policy committee.
Usually, this means the bill is dead, but once in a blue moon, a bill gets pulled back from the brink.
As adopted by the House, HB1108 (relative to the offense of criminal threatening, prime sponsor Rep. McFarlane) would expand the range of situations in which a person can display a firearm with the intent to deter unlawful conduct from just “likely to cause serious bodily injury or death” to also include “theft, unlawful intrusion, or refusal to leave after lawful trespass notice”.
On Feb. 11, it was voted ITL by a 13-0 vote in Criminal Justice Public Safety committeedue to concerns over the initial bill language also including property damage, which was seen as too high of a risk of escalating lesser level situations into possibly deadly force scenarios.
On March 05, HB1108 was taken off the consent calendar. Normally, the ITL motion would be voted on first, but Vice Chairman Rhodes made a tabling motion, to allow the committee leadership to work with the prime sponsor on amending the bill so it can pass.
On March 11, HB1108 passed after an amendment prepared by the prime sponsor and Chairman Roy was adopted.
The final vote was 193-144 (186 Republicans and 7 Democrats for, 144 Democrats against).
The committee had a crushing bill load this year, and they really did not have the time and resources to fix bills that they felt were not ready to pass, so I truly appreciate the willingness of Chairman Roy and Vice-Chairman Rhodes to work on amending it.
Not only did the amendment help the bill pass, but it improved it, making it more likely (but very much not guaranteed) that it becomes law.
At this time, the bill had its hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee on March 24. You can see the hearing on the NH Senate YouTube channel (starting at 01:19p - around 20 minutes 30 seconds into the video).
It still needs to be acted on by the Senate and hopefully signed by the Governor before the legislative process concludes, but it wouldn’t be here without a lot of hard work from a lot of people.
While only time can tell if HB1108 becomes law, I will keep working every day to help good bills become law and stop bad bills from harming you all. But it’s never a solitary effort, and I am grateful for the teamwork that got HB1108 so far down the road already.
Please reach out to me at 603 267 4142 (call or text) or at dpmwindham@gmail.com (a quick call or text after emailing me would greatly help) with any questions or concerns.
Daniel Popovici-Muller
Windham State Representative,
Vice Chairman, Finance II Committee
Member, Education Funding Committee