Thread.

I need to explain something that a lot of people don’t understand about how the NH House does its work https://twitter.com/frostnhstaterep/status/1357828898403348481

Unlike the Congress, every bill that is submitted to the NH House gets a hearing and is brought to the floor. A committee chair can’t refuse to hear a bill, and a bill can’t “die in committee.” Every bill (with a few weird exceptions) has to come out of committee.

The committee holds a public hearing, where they get info/input on the bills from interested parties (lobbyists, the public, lawyers, etc) and an executive session where they vote on the bill.

A committee can take a number of actions on a bill, but for the purposes of this thread, we’re going to look at two of them.

If the committee likes the bill and wants it to make it into law, they vote on a motion of “OTP” or ought to pass.

If they DON’T want it to be law, the vote “ITL” or inexpedient to legislate.

It is the *COMMITTEE RECOMMENDATION* that the full House votes on, NOT the substance of the bill.

This confuses everyone.

So, let’s say that we’ve got a great bill, raising the minimum wage, for example, and I really want it to be law. It comes out of committee with a recommendation of ITL (because the QOP led committee doesn’t want to raise the wage; hell, most of them want to abolish the minimum)

When that bill gets to the floor, the speaker is going to tell us to vote ON THE RECOMMENDATION, not the substance of the bill, so I’m going to vote NO. At the NH House, a double negative is a positive vote; I’m voting no on the NO, not on raising the wage.

I will inevitably get calls and emails asking me why I voted against something I’m CLEARLY supporting, and I have to explain that I didn’t vote no on raising the wage; I voted against the committee’s no.

So, back to the example in the first tweet, the one where, and let me say it again because it’s delicious, 888 people signed in to oppose the bill and only 6 supported it: a committee member moved to recommend “ITL,” so NOT to pass

The members all voted “yes” on the “no,” so the bill will come to the floor with an ITL recommendation that the rest of the members will either vote ‘yes’ to support or ‘no’ to oppose.

If the members vote “yes,” the ITL is accepted and the bill is dead. If the motion fails - if more vote no than yes - a new motion can be made and the whole House votes on that.

So, TL:DR, when you’re looking at HOUSE votes, either in committee or on the floor, you’re not looking at the substance of the bills; you’re looking at the motions on them. THAT’S what matters.

And in the case of the example bill above, the committee listened to the -let me say it again- EIGHT HUNDRED EIGHTY EIGHT PEOPLE who registered their opposition to this bill.

They did the People’s will.

This is what democracy looks like.

/fin