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.

fighting the feds on health care reform: Should New Hampshire fight last year’s federal health care reform? State senators and representatives think so. The N.H. House and Senate have both passed bills to get state Attorney General Michael Delaney to join a multi-state lawsuit fighting the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which President Obama signed into law in March 2010. So far, more than two dozen states have joined the lawsuit, which challenges the constitutionality of the federal law.

The difference between the House and Senate’s persuasive approaches is the difference between “must” and “should.”

House Bill 89, sponsored by Rep. Kenneth Weyler (R-Kingston), is to the point: “The attorney general shall, no later than July 1, 2011, move to join the state of New Hampshire as a plaintiff in the lawsuit pending in federal court captioned State of Florida et al. v. United States Department of Health and Human Services et al.”

Weyler’s bill passed two House committees (including a new committee on constitutional review) and two floor votes with a veto-proof majority.

Sponsored by Sen. Tom DeBlois (R-Manchester) and 16 of his Senate colleagues, Senate Bill 148 takes a slightly different tack. It makes more of a suggestion that Delaney “should, as soon as practicable, join the lawsuit.”

It also targets a key provision of the federal health care reform approach, asserting that no resident of New Hampshire can be required to obtain health insurance, nor be fined for going without coverage. That essentially would void the applicability of the federal mandate that individuals must have insurance (which is scheduled to be in place in 2014 at the earliest).

Having passed the Senate with a veto-proof majority, SB 148 got its second public hearing of the session on March 14 in the House Commerce and Consumer Affairs Committee.

Democratic critics of the House measure have called it a waste of time and money, as well as an unconstitutional encroachment of the Legislature into executive branch functions.

If passed, Delaney says he would fight the law in state court. And that brings up an interesting note: The final House budget bill, which is now being tweaked in the Senate, included a provision preventing the N.H. Department of Justice from taking any legal action against the state Legislature.

Even if passed, either law may be rendered moot depending on the final outcome of pending federal court challenges. So far, two federal district courts have upheld the health care reform law and two district courts have struck down part or all of the law. 

a long docket: district court construction sees delays: What happens when two dilapidated courthouses are closed down in New Hampshire, and the money for a new facility can’t be squeezed out of the state budget? As folks in the Seacoast are learning, you wait.

The long-anticipated Hampton-Exeter District Court construction may get put off for another four years. The deadline to choose a permanent location for the combined district court already passed on the first of this year. Senate Bill 36 would extend that deadline further to Jan. 1, 2015.

The House Judiciary Committee held a public hearing March 14 on the measure, sponsored by Sen. Lou D’Allesandro (D-Manchester). It passed unopposed in the Senate back in February.

The towns that would be served by the new combined court are Brentwood, East Kingston, Exeter, Epping, Fremont, Hampton, Hampton Falls, Kensington, Newfields, Newmarket, North Hampton, Seabrook, South Hampton and Stratham.

In 2005, the Legislature set the current deadline for a new court that combined the Hampton and Exeter district court facilities. That move came after Supreme Court Justice John Broderick, whose office oversaw the entire New Hampshire court system, closed down the old facilities in both towns because they were considered “uninhabitable.” The state decided it would no longer pay for two facilities, so the two courts were to combine functions.

Despite a few close breakthroughs on finding the right property and legislative funding, the Exeter and Hampton courts remain separate—with neither located in either Exeter or Hampton. The Exeter District Court is located at the Rockingham County Superior Court complex in Brentwood and the Hampton District Court is located off a side road in Seabrook.

The project was hampered by being second in line behind a new Merrimack District Court, and budget cuts to the state court system haven’t helped. The last strong effort was derailed in 2008 when a bill to fund the project was shelved in the former House Public Works and Highways Committee. 

the price of taxing tobacco: Can reducing New Hampshire’s tobacco tax actually increase state revenues from tobacco taxes? 

Assuming a big increase in sales due to the lower tax rate, that’s the idea behind a bill that’s getting its second public hearing today. House Bill 156 passed the House last month, and is now with the Senate Ways & Means Committee. But the bill’s fiscal note, prepared by the N.H. Dept. of Revenue Administration, predicts a different future.

Sponsored by the chair of the House Finance Committee, Rep. Kenneth Weyler (R-Kingston), HB 156 would cut the Granite State’s tax on cigarettes by 10 cents, from $1.78 to $1.68 per pack. The tax on other tobacco products would also drop, from 65 to 48 percent of the wholesale price.

Writing for the majority of the House Ways & Means Committee, where the bill was recommended 14-5, Rep. Patrick Abrami (R-Stratham) said reducing the tobacco tax would “reestablish New Hampshire’s competitiveness with Maine, Massachusetts and Vermont.”

Also factoring in more sales of non-tobacco products when people shop for cigarettes at New Hampshire stores, Abrami writes, “small convenience store owners, large grocers, and restaurants will have positive sales in relation to lowering the tax” due to increased cross-border traffic. State revenues through increased business taxes could receive a boost, supporters say.

But the fiscal note attached to the very same bill paints a different picture. The Dept. of Revenue Administration estimates that lowering the tobacco tax could cost New Hampshire between $7.7 million and $14.8 million in 2012. That’s part of the reason the committee’s minority opposed the bill.

In her minority report, Rep. Susan Almy (D-Lebanon) said, the “current tobacco tax rate is competitive with neighboring states and … it is unlikely a reduction of 10 cents per pack will result in increased sales sufficient to outweigh the lost revenue.”

Almy also questioned whether a decrease of 10 cents a pack would really lead to greater sales from out-of-state buyers, especially if manufacturers and retailers don’t pass the savings on to consumers.

Mostly along party lines, HB 156 passed the House overwhelmingly by a 236-93 vote.

The closest tobacco tax rate to New Hampshire is Maine, at $2 a pack. Vermont taxes $2.24 and Massachusetts taxes $2.51 per pack. Since 2005, New Hampshire has raised the per pack tax from 52 cents to the current $1.78. The tobacco tax is one of the top five revenue generators for the state.

Gov. John Lynch does not support a decrease in the tobacco tax, and he’s joined by the New Hampshire chapter of the American Cancer Society and the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids, which is concerned that a lower price for cigarettes could lead to increased youth smoking. According to the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids, New Hampshire is slightly above the national average with 20.8 percent of high school students smoking.