perfect storm

Spring is busting out all over in New Hampshire, but a week ago, we had the “perfect storm”.  I’m not referring to a meteorological phenomenon; rather, several bills that were important to liberty lovers were scheduled for state House or Senate committee hearings on the same day. Due in no small part to incessant nagging by the New Hampshire Liberty Alliance on numerous online discussion groups, I decided to take the day off work in order to stand up and be counted in the state capital.

Here’s the routine of an intrepid liberty lobbyist:  get up before dawn.  Put on ill-fitting uncomfortable business clothing.  Drive 40 miles to Concord.  Park in zany municipal lot with *parking meters*, meaning that if you’re going to be there all day, you need to plan ahead and stash a roll of quarters in your car.  Wend your way down to the bowels of the building with the big gold dome on top (aka “the Capitol”).  Follow the smell of coffee and eggs (passing the smell of cigarettes, where the poor state reps who haven’t kicked their nicotine habit yet must huddle in a small airless room in the dungeon to smoke) to the cafeteria.  Be warmly greeted by DOZENS of other liberty activists.  Put on various motivational pins and badges identifying yourself as one of “that” crowd.  Receive the obligatory pep talk from “the Don” (former State Representative and current Director of Political Action of the NHLA, Don Gorman).  Ready, get set… bum rush the system.

First item on the day’s agenda: SB44.  This bill would make it more difficult for New Hampshire residents to obtain a license to carry a firearm.  Now, if you were raised as I was, you may find the whole “gun thing” hard to wrap your brain around.  Guns are for cops and bad guys, right?  Normal people don’t need guns, and certainly don’t need a whole bunch of them.  That’s just… weird.  If you still feel this way, please check out some of the writings of L. Neil Smith, particularly his excellent essay Suppose You Were Fond of Books.  In any case, the NH Senate clearly underestimated the passions they aroused with SB44.  In addition to the dozens of Free Staters and NHLA members, the NRA turned out a large contingent as well.  Citizens packed the room and at least 50 (myself included) were stuck out in the hall being shushed by a cop (who was nice) and some legislative staff harpie (who was not).  The message apparently got through;  the Senate has since axed the bill.

Next agenda item: HB819.  This bill would make New Hampshire a “Right to Work” state, the gist of which is that there would be no mandatory union membership.  While I tend to think unions do a lot of stinky things these days, I didn’t run with the NHLA crowd on this one; I don’t think it’s the government’s place to insert itself into the working relationships of employers and employees.  So I ducked out of this one early and scampered across the street to the hearing on HB906, the Fully Informed Jury bill.

This hearing was truly sad.  A FIJA bill has been presented to the NH legislature something like 8 times already, and every time it goes down in flames. This year was no exception.  Rep. Ingbretson, who sponsored this year’s bill, spoke eloquently about the benefits of fully informed juries.  When he finished, you could hear crickets chirping; not a single committee member had any questions for him.  He was followed by the Chief Justice of the State Supreme Court, who said fully informed juries are, and I quote, “a terribly bad idea”.  He freely acknowledged that juries have the legal power to judge the law, but said “we don’t want to encourage them to use it!”  The room was standing room only with onlookers, who were overwhelmingly in favor of the bill.  On the flip side, only 11 of 19 committee members had bothered to show up for their own hearing. The committee members present asked the Chief Justice, and his follow-up speaker from the state Attorney General’s office, several softball questions revealing their negative feelings about the bill. Not a single member of the public spoke against fully informed juries, but at least half a dozen spoke in favor of it.  Clearly a case of the elected representatives not only not listening to the will of their constituents, but sticking their fingers in their ears and saying “nyah nyah nyah I went to law school and I can’t hear you!”

The final hearing I attended that day was for HB685, which would prohibit New Hampshire from participating in “RealID”, the national identification card system.  The crowd of citizens once again completely overwhelmed the available space in the hearing room.  To the committee’s credit, it made arrangements with another committee to take over its larger room, and brought in a couple dozen more chairs, to accommodate the overflow crowd.  Once again the attendees were overwhelmingly in favor of the bill, but this time the committee seemed to be in agreement with the will of the voters. The committee chairman was extremely courteous and allowed every single person who wished to speak their piece to do so. Newly elected State Rep Joel Winters, an early mover of the Free State Project, is a co-sponsor of the bill.  If the rest of the House is as sympathetic as this committee was, the anti-Real ID bill looks like a shoe-in this year (at least in the House).