CONCORD, N.H. – The New Hampshire House of Representatives Committee on Legislative Administration met on Monday. Here’s a recap of what they discussed.
Michael Moffett (R-Loudon) returned to bring back what is becoming a perennial topic: allowing the state legislature to allow local and state governments to proceed with recall elections.
Part II, Article 5 of the New Hampshire Constitution spells out how governments within New Hampshire form themselves, so that would need to be changed before the state legislature could enact enabling legislation that provides counties and municipalities the ability to choose if they want to proceed with recall elections. Currently counties and municipalities only have the authority to make laws within the boundaries that the legislature provides them.
Moffett said that this bill is largely focused on local elected officials with terms longer than three years, since one of the objections he has heard to this concept is that state-level offices last for only two years and elections can serve as a defacto recall system. He said that Belknap County has four-year terms for its officers and Carroll and Rockingham County are also looking into four-year terms.
However, the wording in his bill did not discuss terms longer than four years, with Moffett telling the committee that this bill only addresses the constitution itself, not the procedure that could come once the constitution is amended.
Committee Chairman Gregory Hill (R-Northfield) asked about the wording within the constitution now that could appear on recall ballots that included a variety of random things such as references to timber, Moffett reiterated that this bill’s focus is primarily on advancing the discussion by amending the constitution. Moffett reiterated this when Hill asked who would pay for recall elections.
Janet Wall (D-Madbury) said that in her experience, elected officials who commit wrongdoing at the local level are often shamed into resigning and asked if this process would make things less contentious. Moffett said that this process, should it move forward, would provide an avenue in situations where that person does not resign.
Beth Richards (D-Concord) asked Moffett if he was approached by any particular organizations encouraging to craft this bill. He replied that this effort came from informal discussions.
Next up was another long-discussed topic, but one that is discussed slightly more often.
CACR 4 would amend Part II, Article 15 of the New Hampshire Constitution, hiking legislators’ pay from $200 per term to $5,000 per term and raise the pay of presiding officers from $250 to $6,250. The per diem would also jump from $3 to $75 for a period not exceeding 15 days during emergency or veto sessions.
The bill also adds cost of living adjustments (COLAs) to be administered by legislation and state departments.
Walter Stapleton (R-Claremont) said that the last time New Hampshire legislators saw a pay increase was 1889 and that the primary focus of legislation during that session had to do with trains.
He briefly discussed what other states pay their legislators, with the average coming in around $40,000 a year and some states like California paying their legislators over $100,000 a year, emphasizing that New Hampshire’s neighboring states pay much more to their legislators than New Hampshire.
He also added that the low amount of pay disqualifies many citizens from serving in the legislature.
The only other person testifying on the bill was a resident from the Lakes Region named Joseph Haas.
Haas believed that paying legislators in currency not backed by gold or silver, stating that it is not constitutional. The United States ended the practice of allowing individuals to trade dollars for a set amount of gold in 1971.
Matthew Santonastaso (R-Jaffrey) built on the premise of Haas and provided testimony on his bill, which would pay legislators in 200 troy ounces of silver as their compensation as originally stated in Part II, Article 15 of the New Hampshire Constitution when it took effect in 1784.
Santonastaso told the committee that silver and gold adjust with inflation and it is liquid and can be used as a currency.
Stapleton opposed the bill, noting that the constitution now used dollars rather than troy ounces of silver when referencing legislative salaries.
“We’ve got to work with what we have rather than re-inventing the wheel,” he said.
Haas returned and reiterated his earlier claims and also said he would be filing ethics complaints against House Republican Leader Jason Osborne (R-Auburn) and House Democratic Leader Matt Wilhelm (D-Manchester).
Stephen Pearson (R-Derry) asked if coins would be acceptable for payment under the proposed law if they were not pure silver. Santonastaso replied that the American Eagle coin is the only dollar coin that is pure silver and thus the only “true” dollar coin.
Although the coins themselves would be valued at a dollar, the value of each dollar coin would actually be worth more than a dollar, leading to confusion.
In a fiscal note from the New Hampshire State Treasury, it could cost $4,792 to give each legislator 200 coins along with additional ancillary costs.
House Clerk Paul Smith told the committee that he does not oppose or support the legislation, but noted that previous New Hampshire Supreme Court cases prohibited changing the salary of legislators without a constitutional amendment. Smith said that unless this bill would give $200 worth of coins rather than 200 coins that could be worth far more than $200, it could face litigation without a constitutional change.
The final bill of the day came from Hill, who was its prime sponsor. This bill seeks to clarify conflict of interest rules for legislators, stemming from a study committee established out of a comparable bill last year.
Hill added that this bill aims to clarify conflict of interest rules for legislators, which he says can be vague and difficult to ascertain during tense moments just before a floor vote.
If this bill becomes law, what is now defined as a “special interest” in any matter that could directly or indirectly influence the decisions of legislator’s activities would be amended into a “real or perceived financial interest” or a “non-financial personal interest”, with both of those interests further defined.
The bill also removes familial references to conflicts of interest, since Hill noted he has family members that would not sway him from a decision and non-family members that would. Instead, the bill replaces family member with a definition of “someone the legislator cares about.”
Hill said although the bill is currently sponsored only by Republicans, he hopes to see amendments from Democrats building on this wording.
Stephanie Payeur (D-Hopkinton) asked if other states had references to “someone the legislator cares about” and Hill said that other states’ requirements for conflict of interest recusals were not uniform, but usually seemed to encourage legislators to vote rather than not vote.
He also referenced back to Moffett’s testimony earlier in the day and one point where he used the term “politician” to reference some elected officials but not others, voicing frustration over any perception that he might be seen as comparable to a “Washington politician” and thus the actions of one elected official can impact the perceptions of all elected officials.
“How you act here reflects on all of us,” he said.
An upcoming study of the bill is scheduled for Feb. 13
