Representative Jason Bedrick

Bills, Bills, Bills!

There were over 150 bills in “executive session” in the various committees last week. In executive session, a committee decides what sort of recommendation to give each bill before the committee. The committee can recommend “ought to pass” (OTP), “ought to pass with amendment” (OTP/A), “inexpedient to legislate” (ITL) or “refer for interim study” (which is a soft way of killing a bill, especially in the second year of a term).

The Clerk’s Office hasn’t yet posted the committee recommendations for all the bills, so this report will only pertain to the bills before the Labor Committee on which I sit. Some of the bills are highly technical so I’ve omitted them, but here are the major victories and defeats:

Victories

HB 1344 and HB 1364: Both of these bills would’ve mandated “binding arbitration” between public employees and the cities and towns. In other words, an unelected third party would be able to set fiscal policy for a town without the legislative body of the town having the final say. HB 1344 was unanimously voted ITL and HB 1364 was voted “refer for interim study” (the soft kill) by a margin of 10-4.

HB 1515: This is the bill that would ban “at will” employment. We were supposed to vote on this bill a few weeks ago, but some last-minute maneuvering kept it alive just a bit longer. The representative who had an amendment to “save” the bill wasn’t present at the executive session so we voted unanimously to kill it.

Defeats

HB 1436: This bill adds an “evergreen clause” to all public employee contracts so that if the contract expires, it will continue with the same provisions until a new contract is reached, no matter what the fiscal situation of the municipality. The Committee passed this bill by a vote of 8-6. This is something that the municipalities should decide for themselves. It’s an issue of local control. It’s also an issue of constitutionality. Art. I, Sec. 8 of the NH Constitution explicitly prohibits the state from imposing “unfunded mandates” on the municipalities.

HB 1469: This is a very complicated scenario so please bear with me. The original bill had several terrible provisions, but the committee voted to amend the bill so that it only contains one provision: making “safety considerations” a mandatory topic of negotiation between public unions and the municipalities. While I think this is a bad idea, I voted for the amendment because it was better than the original bill. When it came time to vote on the bill *as amended*, there was a disagreement over the intent of several words in the bill and what it would mean in practice. While I think this bill is a bad idea, I voted with the majority in order to exercise some control over the “committee report” in which the legislative intent is stated. The vote was 9-4 and I’m the last to vote because I’m a freshman in the minority party. Had the vote been tied, I would’ve voted against the bill. I voted with the majority only with the assurance that they’d let me help write the legislative report.

When this bill comes to the floor of the House, I will vote against it. Then I’ll be able to say something I never thought I’d say in my legislative career: “I voted for it before I voted against it!” D’oh!

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A Few Victories

We managed to kill a few bad bills in the Labor Committee this week. The worst was HB 1342, which is another classic example of good intentions leading to bad results due to unintended consequences. The bill would’ve required the home health care industry to pay nurses the same amount for travel time as it does for taking care of patients. Since home health care providers can’t pass the costs onto Medicaid patients, they would be forced to cut services, especially in rural areas where travel costs can be prohibitive.

Partisanship Over Principle

Yesterday’s House session was supposed to be a short day until we had a three hour battle over House Resolution (HR) 26. This resolution would’ve criticized Senators Sununu and Gregg for blocking the passage of a U.S. Senate bill to grant Washington D.C. a Congressman. I proposed a floor amendment which would have supported Congressional representation for D.C., but only through constitutional means (a constitutional amendment, statehood, or retrocession of residential areas into Maryland). Unfortunately, the Democrats rejected my proposal 120-132. After a few hours of wrangling, the resolution died completely. Apparently they cared more about sliming our U.S. Senators than about representation for Washington D.C.

Bad Bills Ahead

Next week, the Labor Committee will be voting on a number of terrible bills:

HB 1515: This bill would prohibit “at will” employment in NH. As I’ve mentioned before, this bill doesn’t define “just cause” so a business owner won’t know if she violated it until a judge says so. This won’t help any employees, but it will make it harder to do business. The only beneficiaries of this bill would be lawyers. Fortunately, it appears that it’s going to be defeated.

HB 1364: This “binding arbitration” bill would empower unelected third parties to set the fiscal policies of towns and cities. This end-run around the voters is blatantly unconstitutional in addition to being bad public policy. Fortunately, I sat on the subcommittee which voted 2-1 to recommend “refer for interim study” which is a soft way of killing a bill in the second year of the House session.

HB 1436: This bill would add “evergreen clauses” to public contracts so that government employees will continue to get raises no matter what the economy or fiscal condition of the municipality is. Government compensation is already higher private sector compensation in many areas. If this passes, prepare for property tax increases.

HB 1469: This is a reincarnation of last year’s SB 88. It would reduce the minimize size for a public union from 10 to 3, add “evergreen clauses” to public contracts, and allow unions to negotiate how many personnel there should be for “safety” reasons (i.e. — “we think there should be five firemen per truck instead of four per truck”). If this passes, prepare for property tax increases. It passed the Senate last year and was narrowly defeated in the House.

I-93 Widening Project

Sen. Letourneau is sponsoring SB 361 to consolidate all I-93 widening projects into one project and give it a very high priority. At the Senator’s request, I drafted a letter (see below) in support of the measure. Every member of the Windham/Salem delegation whom I’ve spoken with has agreed to sign the letter with one exception.

Here’s the letter:

February 13, 2008
TO: Transportation and Interstate Cooperation Committee
RE: SB 361, AN ACT relative to widening of Interstate 93

Dear Chairman Letourneau:
We are writing to express our strong support for Senate Bill 361, AN ACT relative to the widening of Interstate 93. The bill directs the Commissioner of Transportation to consolidate all road construction projects involving the widening of Interstate 93 from Manchester to the Massachusetts border into a single project under the 10-year Transportation Improvement Plan and directs the Commissioner to give this project very high priority.

In addition to being important to our region, it is crucial to the economic prosperity of the entire state that the capacity of Interstate 93 keeps up with demand. Interstate 93 serves as a gateway to New Hampshire for businesspeople, tourists, and shoppers as well as those flying out of Manchester Airport, but the choke point between Exit 1 and Manchester makes it difficult for these groups to enter and leave the state. Furthermore, this choke point endangers the public by unnecessarily burdening emergency services.

This construction is long overdue and as the costs of fuel, labor and materials continue to rise, any further delay will only increase the cost to the state. We urge the Committee to adopt this legislation for the good of the state.

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