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Priority Legislative Actions: Week of May 17

CALL YOUR SENATOR TO OPPOSE HB 155

Lawmakers are finally being forced to acknowledge what Granite Staters already know: tax breaks for the wealthy come at everyone else’s expense.

HB 155 hands a giveaway to large, often out-of-state corporations and their lobbyists—money taken directly from schools, housing, child care, and health care. When that money disappears, towns still have to pay the bills, which means higher property taxes for homeowners and renters.

Every dollar lost to HB 155 is a dollar Granite Staters are forced to make up.

Call Your Senator

Email Your Senator

STOP THE DISCRIMINATORY BATHROOM AND LOCKER ROOM BANS

There are 6 pieces of nearly identical pieces of legislation making their way through the NH House and Senate. Let’s remind Governor Kelly Ayotte’s that as recently as February, she’s vetoed similar legislation. These bills, seek to legalize discrimination for bathrooms, locker rooms, sports, and prisons on the basis of “biological sex” as defined as only “male” and “female,” completely erasing the scientific reality of intersex individuals. These discriminatory policies have no place in NH, and create real world privacy and safety concerns for all Granite Staters.

The Bills We’re Trying to Stop:

SB459 Current Status: Inexpedient to Legislate – DEAD

HB 1447 Current Status: TABLED

HB 1299 Current Status: TABLED

HB1217 Current Status: TABLED

SB552 Current Status: PASSED BOTH HOUSES AS WRITTEN – HEADED TO THE GOVERNOR

HB1442 Current Status: PASSSED WITH AMENDMENT – HEADED TO COMMITTEE OF CONFERENCE

Current Actions:

Call Governor Ayotte at (603) 271-2121 and tell her to VETO all discriminatory bathroom and locker room bans

Mail Governor Ayotte at the address below and tell her to VETO all discriminatory bathroom and locker room bans

Office of the Governor
State House
107 North Main Street
Concord, NH 03301

Email Governor Ayotte and tell her to VETO all discriminatory bathroom and locker room bans.

SAY NO TO OPEN ENROLLMENT – AGAIN!

Before noon on Monday May 18, please call or send an email to the seven lawmakers listed below. They’re on the committee of conference to decide the fate of HB 751, the one remaining Open Enrollment bill. Tell them you oppose it!

  • Please contact them whether or not you are a constituent of theirs. But if you ARE a constituent, be sure to mention it.
  • If you email them, be sure to put in your subject line something to the effect that you oppose open enrollment (or HB 751).

Names and contact info:

The basics/talking points (but a very brief message is all you need!):

Under Open Enrollment, NH students would be allowed to attend a public school anywhere in the state. More than 120 NH cities and towns have approved tight restrictions on open enrollment policies, but HB 751 would override these restrictions.

An Open Enrollment program:

  • would have devastating financial impacts on districts that lose students. [Every time a student leaves a district, the State cuts how much money it gives to that district. Since most of a school’s costs are fixed, losing a few students saves very little money; it just leaves remaining students with fewer resources.]
  • would force districts to accept out-of-district students even if they see that as against their best interests. [Transferring students could lead to larger class sizes and potentially deprive some local students of opportunities (e.g. a star soccer player from Town A enrolls in school in Town B, and a local student in Town B is bumped from the varsity soccer team.)]
  • is not ready for a vote. [For the past four months, proponents of the bill have been unwilling to address critical issues and it’s unlikely they’ll resolve them in the next 2 weeks. Most glaring: many educators and parents have raised serious and complex questions about how services to students with educational disabilities will be impacted and managed, and those concerns remain unaddressed.]

PLEASE NOTE:

By working closely with our coalition partners, Kent Street Coalition works hard to prioritize those bills that are most likely to have a significant impact, for good or bad, on individuals, our communities and the Granite State as a whole. Based on this work, we put forth recommendations about supporting or opposing bills. However, we encourage everyone to make their own choice about each bill. We include links to bills to help you in this decision-making process.