Front Door Politics is a jargon-free weekly legislative update for all citizens affected by New Hampshire laws. Find more at www.frontdoorpolitics.com.

GOP agenda: jobs and economy: After a week of headlines about guns in the State House and the controversial attempt to remove a Democratic legislator, Republican leaders in Concord say it’s time to focus on the basics of jobs and economy. 

They released a policy agenda road map on Jan. 13 that they say sets fiscal issues as the top priorities for 2011, and not social issues—such as repealing the state’s equal marriage law.

House majority leader D. J. Bettencourt (R-Salem) told Norma Love of the Associated Press, “The social issues must take a backseat.” Claiming that the potential deficit for the 2011-2013 biennial budget could reach $1 billion, Bettencourt said at a State House press conference that the voters “put us here to return fiscal sanity … to New Hampshire and this agenda is a giant step in that direction.”

Democratic leaders such as Gov. John Lynch, who will give his take on the fiscal crisis in his upcoming state of the state speech, likely take exception to the notion that they practiced fiscal insanity—especially given the state’s relative fiscal health compared to other states and having one of the lowest unemployment rates in the country.

Bettencourt said the Republican agenda breaks down into five legislative categories: government spending and regulations; business and enterprise; retirement reform; education excellence; and personal rights and social responsibility.“

Our intentions are to balance the budget without using accounting gimmicks, by cutting taxes, and delivering on our campaign promise of fiscal responsibility this past election,” Bettencourt said.

Details of the extent of budget and tax cutting have not been released, but those should emerge in the coming weeks as committees work to craft spending and revenue bills. Or, as is the custom, they may more likely emerge during the last days and weeks before the final budget is passed.

And while Republican leaders say they don’t want to expend political capital on issues such as repealing gay marriage, rank and file members who have filed bills with such social agendas may not share the same vision. Rep. David Bates (R-Windham), chair of the Election Law Committee, has filed a proposal to repeal the same-sex marriage statute that went into effect last year. He told Shira Schoenberg of the Concord Monitor that he will continue to pursue repeal legislation. He added, “To say we shouldn’t be focused on marriage is not saying we’re not going to deal with it.” —Michael McCord

got the time? (sure about that?): A new bill would synchronize New Hampshire’s time with the rest of the nation’s. Turns out, those times are currently different.

Rep. Timothy Horrigan (D-Durham) recently presented House Bill 61 to the House Commerce and Consumer Affairs Committee. It would revise the state’s Daylight Saving Time statute, in place since 1987, to keep pace with federal time.

The time warp happened in 2007, when federal law changed the dates of Daylight Saving Time. The law has clocks falling back one hour on the first Sunday in November and springing ahead one hour on the last Sunday in March.

This change was never reflected, however, in the law that officially sets New Hampshire’s clocks. The Granite State’s 1987 statute marks the last week in October and first week in April as the times to change the time. But, since the 2007 federal law supersedes state statute, New Hampshire has been following the federal standard and not the outdated state law. Horrigan’s proposed bill would simply modify state law to conform to federal time.

Daylight Saving Time was first established by law in the United States in 1918 and in New Hampshire in 1921. The goal of the law was to maximize afternoon and evening daylight hours in the summertime and provide a boost for retail and outdoor activities.

In 2006, a bill to essentially super-size New Hampshire’s daylight savings by moving the clock forward two hours was deemed “inexpedient to legislate” by the House Commerce Committee. The full House followed suit, and the bill died.

When the new House Commerce and Consumer Affairs Committee met for a public hearing on HB 61 on Jan. 18, it tackled not only time. Hearings also began on a proposal to study the potential merging of the state insurance and banking departments and the securities division. —Michael McCord

wetlands: what’s in a name?A Senate committee began work recently on two proposed bills that could change the definition of wetlands. The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee will look into the bills, sponsored by committee chairman Sen. Bob Odell (R-Lempster).

Senate Bill 21 would expand the definition of wetlands to encompass what a wetlands area is not—specifically, all man-made wetlands (such as man-made ponds, farm ponds, roadside ditches, etc.) shall not be considered “jurisdictional wetlands.” The current statute defines wetlands as “an area that is inundated or saturated by surface water or groundwater at a frequency and duration sufficient to support, and that under normal conditions does support, a prevalence of vegetation typically adapted for life in saturated soil conditions.”

Senate Bill 19 would redefine “prime wetlands” (those designated by a city or town) to “five acres or more.” Current law does not include an acreage minimum for prime wetlands. There are 31 towns and cities with prime wetlands designation.

New Hampshire Business Review reported that the bills were seemingly designed to make permitting and development easier for the construction industry. Mark Holden, president of the Associated Builders and Contractors of New Hampshire and Vermont, was quoted in the story saying the intent of the bills appears to “make things reasonable and more appropriate for those trying to build.”

The committee was also scheduled to hear three briefings from the New Hampshire Public Utilities Commission, the New Hampshire Department of Fish and Game and the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services. —Michael McCord