What are state lawmakers doing that actually affects your daily life? Lots! Find out with Front Door Politics: jargon-free, non-advocacy state house news at www.frontdoorpolitics.com.

power to the people?: Should New Hampshire citizens be able to make laws on their own, effectively bypassing the Legislature and governor? A proposal to amend the state’s Constitution to allow just that recently got its first public hearing in the House Election Law Committee.

Altogether, Jan. 18 was slated as the busiest day yet of the current session, with 19 House and Senate committees meeting to consider more than 50 new bills.

Constitutional Amendment Concurrent Resolution 3, a proposal sponsored by freshman Rep. Jerry Bergevin (R-Manchester), would permit citizens to directly make laws through a ballot initiative process. According to the Initiative and Referendum Institute at the University of Southern California, New Hampshire is one of 26 states that does not have initiative or referendum laws in place.

Bergevin’s initiative proposal would work like this, according to the text of CACR 3: “Citizens seeking to enact a statute by direct initiative shall file petitions with the secretary of state. If the secretary of state receives petitions and verifies signatures on them signed by at least 5 percent of the registered voters in each precinct in the state, he shall submit the proposal to the voters by written ballot at the next biennial election. If a proposal to enact a statute is approved by a majority of those voting on the matter, it shall be effective when its adoption is proclaimed by the governor, or according to its terms, whichever is later.”

The proposal sets no guidelines or barriers to what types of law could be created under such an initiative. Theoretically, the citizenry could impose revenue or spending limits on the Legislature or add new laws pertaining to any number of civil or personal liberty issues.

For CACR 3 to become a new addition to the state Constitution, first the proposal to add it to the ballot would need to pass by 60 percent each in the House and Senate. Then, voters would have to approve it with a two-thirds majority in the next statewide election in 2012.

In other business, the House Election Law Committee is also considering House Bill 73, a proposal to establish a recall process for U.S. Senators. —Michael McCord

pharmaceutical take-back: Unused pharmaceuticals increasingly fuel addiction and environmental concerns, but two new bills could help keep New Hampshire’s excess medications off the streets and out of the water supply—while getting some of them to patients for whom costly pills are largely out of reach.

Following up on a statewide effort last September to help communities safely collect and dispose of unused prescription drugs is House Bill 71. Sponsored by Rep. Chris Nevins (R-Hampton), the bill has bipartisan support. It would have state agencies (Department of Justice, Pharmacy Board, Department of Safety, and Department of Environmental Services) set up rules and guidelines to allow communities and private entities to establish pharmaceutical take-back programs.

Rep. Donna Schlachman (D-Exeter) is a co-sponsor of HB 71. She says it’s the product of an interim study committee recommendation. The original bill called for pharmacies to establish take-back programs, but that was considered unrealistic for liability reasons, she explains. But, last year, a pilot project collected more than one ton of unused pharmaceuticals from homes across the state. Properly collected, these drugs can’t be abused or create environmental damage to water supplies.

“We use one or two pills (of a prescription) for pain but not the rest,” says Schlachman. “We just get lazy and don’t dispose of them. They just sit around and, all too often, fall into the wrong hands. We don’t need ‘pharm parties’ where kids bring prescription drugs from home and share them with friends.”

The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy says prescription drug abuse ranks second behind marijuana for teenagers.

Following its first public hearing on Jan. 11, HB 71 was sent to a subcommittee of the Health, Human Services and Elderly Affairs Committee, where it was discussed on Jan. 19. Schlachman isn’t sure why HB 71 was sent to subcommittee, which usually means the committee chair wants further study.

“I believe we had crossed all the Ts and dotted all the Is,” she says. But, overall, she is confident the bill will become law.

Also on Jan. 19, the full committee had its first look at another bill Schlachman co-sponsored, House Bill 111. This proposal would expand a law passed last year (HB 1184) that allowed unused drugs to be stored and re-prescribed in places like nursing homes. HB 111, whose prime sponsor is Rep. Sandra Keans (D-Rochester) would add unopened samples to that program. 

Both bills went into executive sessions on Jan. 25. —Michael McCord 

 redefining “adequacy” in education: Less than four years after a bipartisan measure in the Legislature met the New Hampshire Supreme Court’s order to define an “adequate education,” a Litchfield lawmaker has filed a bill to change that definition.

Republican Rep. Ralph Boehm, vice chair of the House Education Committee, presented House Bill 39 for a public hearing in the committee on Jan. 25. Among other changes, Boehm’s bill would eliminate education in the arts, world languages, health and technology as part of the adequate education requirement for school districts that was passed in 2007 as part of House Bill 927.

That measure was the first time the N.H. Legislature had defined an adequate education. The precedent was prompted by Supreme Court rulings stretching back to 1993 (the so-called Claremont lawsuit rulings) that required the state to define and cost an adequate education to meet its constitutional obligations. In 2008, the Supreme Court dropped its court order when it said the Legislature had met its obligations.

The bipartisan sponsorship of HB 927 included two current Republican members of the Senate—Robert Odell of Lempster and Nancy Stiles of Hampton, who at the time served in the House. When Gov. John Lynch signed the bill into law in June 2007, he said, “passage of this definition is a significant step toward ensuring that all of New Hampshire’s children will have the broad educational opportunities they need to compete in today’s world.”

The 2007 bill said “the general court embraces its duty to define the opportunity for a constitutionally adequate public education for every child in the state.”

But Boehm, who was elected to his fourth term in November, told the Nashua Telegraph that although schools are likely to provide the subjects he would eliminate from the adequacy list, they shouldn’t be required to do so. Consequently, funding for those subjects need not be provided if districts don’t want them. “We don’t need the state telling us what is an adequate education. Let’s let local districts decide,” Boehm said in the article.

In addition to paring down the definition of adequacy, HB 39 would prohibit state education agencies “from implementing or enforcing” the education standards of the national Common Core State Standards Initiative without legislative approval. In July, New Hampshire joined the volunteer initiative to improve language arts and math proficiencies of elementary and secondary school students. But Boehm believes that local school districts should make their own determinations and that the issue is “local control and unfunded mandates.” —Michael McCord