Free Staters, Liberty Reps Scoring Big Wins In NH House

Over the past few weeks, the New Hampshire House has considered dozens of bills. Republicans currently hold a 206-183 majority, with roughly 100 of those Republicans being ‘libertarian’. Over the past few years, thousands of disenchanted libertarians have moved from authoritarian states to New Hampshire to enjoy its unrivaled freedoms and to help the state resist the shift away from liberty that is consuming the rest of the union. Already, the movement, called the Free State Project, is having an outsized impact on policy in New Hampshire. The movers are successfully stopping many anti-freedom bills, and slowly working to pass some pro-liberty bills such as tax cuts, common-sense drug decriminalization, school choice, and the protection of gun rights. Thanks to the roughly three dozen free staters in the House, proponents of small government have enjoyed many big and small wins in the first few weeks of House sessions. 

Corona-fascism

By a vote of 183-159, the House passed HB1022, which would allow pharmacists to dispense ivermectin under standing orders. Leah Cushman (R-Weare), a practicing nurse and libertarian health freedom activist was the prime sponsor of the bill. The public hearing for the legislation in the House HHS Committee included phenomenally convincing testimony from Cushman, Dr. Paul Marik, Rep. Hershel Nunez, and many citizens, and Alu Axelman, the author of the book ‘Corona-Fascism’. This bill has passed the Senate, and is headed to Sununu’s desk for signature.

By a vote of 181-155, the House passed HB1210, which would require employers and schools to accept requests for vaccine exemptions whenever the employee or student submits a letter stating that “I, (employee/student name), hereby submit a request for a medical, religious, or conscientious objector exemption from the mandated vaccinations.” The bill also says that “No employer shall mandate any medical treatment that is considered by the United States Food and Drug Administration in emergency use authorization status or an experimental product.”

By a vote of 179-153, the House passed HB1495, which would prohibit the state or local governments from requiring businesses to mandate vaccine passports. This bill has now passed the Senate and is heading to Dictator Sununu’s desk for his signature. This bill has passed the Senate, and is headed to Sununu’s desk for signature.

By a voice vote, the House passed HB1606, which would make the state’s vaccine registry opt-in. Currently, people are in the registry by default and must proactively opt-out if they do not wish to be tracked by the government. This bill has passed the Senate, and is headed to Sununu’s desk for signature.

By a voice vote, the House passed HB1003, which states that “The patient shall not be denied admission, care, or services based solely on the patient’s vaccination status.” This bill has now passed the Senate and is heading to Dictator Sununu’s desk for his signature. This bill has passed the Senate, and is headed to Sununu’s desk for signature.

By a voice vote, the House passed HB1280, which states that “A parent’s decision not to have their child vaccinated pursuant to an order of the state or federal government or any agency or person of the same shall not be used as grounds to terminate parental rights.” This bill has passed the Senate, and is headed to Sununu’s desk for signature.

By a vote of 184-151, the House killed HB1186, which would have permitted 16-year-old children to get vaccines without parental consent. 

By a vote of 174-159, the House passed HB1455, which would prohibit “state enforcement of any federal law, order, or rule that requires an individual, as a condition of employment or any other activity, to provide proof of vaccination against COVID-19 or to submit more than once per month to COVID-19 testing.” This bill has passed the Senate, and is headed to Sununu’s desk for signature.

The House passed HB1131 (vote tally not yet available), which would prohibit government schools from requiring masks. This bill has now passed the Senate and is heading to Dictator Sununu’s desk for his signature. This bill has passed the Senate, and is headed to Sununu’s desk for signature.

Gun control

By a vote of 190-147, the House passed HB1178, which prohibits any state or local government agent from enforcing any federal law, regulation, or executive order that restricts the natural right to keep and bear arms. 

By a vote of 191-141, the House killed HB1151, which would have prohibited open-carry within 100 feet of any event of any sort. Democrats tried using the Rittenhouse incident to make it illegal to openly carry firearms at parades or protests or any other event, but they failed miserably.

By a vote of 204-134, the House passed HB1636, which would repeal one of the final remaining bits of gun control in the state, which is the prohibition on carrying a loaded gun on an off-road vehicle, ATV, or snowmobile. 

By a vote of 190-153, the House killed HB1096, which would have prohibited open-carry within 100 feet of the polls on voting day. 

School choice

Last year, New Hampshire finally passed its first-ever school choice education freedom account law, which allows some families to receive their tax dollars back from the government so that they could use it for homeschool or private school. Naturally, the authoritarian Democrats have been losing their minds ever since, and they proposed multiple bills to gut and repeal the EFA program. 

As reported by Granite Grok: “We learned that a raft of bills put forth by House Democrats designed to dismantle or eliminate Education Freedom Accounts and School Choice (HB1669, HB1670, HB1672, HB1683) were summarily defeated by House Republicans…Additionally, HB1434 relative to the availability of school curriculum materials to a parent, legal guardian, or resident of a public school district passed 185-152. This bill ensures that parents/taxpayers have access to what their children are being taught. NH Taxpayers will be able to do their own homework and see what they are paying for.” 

The House passed HB1298 (vote tally not yet available), which would expand the eligibility of the EFA program from parents who earn up to 300% of the federal poverty limit to those who earn up to 500% of the federal poverty limit, expanding access to the great program to many more children. 

By a vote of 181-157, the House passed HB1431, which would establish a parental bill of rights, clarifying that parents have an absolute right to remove their child from any particular lesson taught by government school agents, including sexual education or any other form of indoctrination or abuse. This bill has passed the Senate, and is headed to Sununu’s desk for signature.

State independence

Unfortunately, only 13 House members were brave enough to vote in favor of CACR32, which would have placed the question of state independence from the union on the ballot for the voters to decide on in November. On the other hand, only 323 of the 400 members voted to kill the bill. Because the motion to table the bill failed, the House was forced to listen to a few speeches in favor of independence and the anti-independence members made fools of themselves when they said from the House floor that we can’t leave the union because ‘America’ is totally united and we all agree on how to live (except for our massive disagreement on every major issue) and that if we left, DC politicians could and should kill us all. The legislation, which originally had 9 sponsors, is expected to receive at least double the support next year. 

By a vote of 186-150, the House killed HB1007, which would have prohibited any person who engages in rebellion or insurrection from holding public office. This bill was proposed by a vicious Democrat and was targeting the sponsors of CACR32. 

Privacy

By a vote of 197-137, the House passed HB1282, which would “prohibit a communications common carrier from releasing customer information to a government entity unless requested pursuant to a valid search warrant or an exception to the warrant requirement.”

Pro-life 

By a vote of 168-162, the House passed HB1625, which repeals the anti-free-speech and unconstitutional ‘buffer zone’ that has made it a crime for people to speak freely and protest near an abortion clinic. 

The House also defeated Democrats’ attempts to nullify last year’s new law that prohibits late-term abortion

Occupational licensing

By a voice vote, the House passed HB1330, which “repeals the requirements for the certification and regulation of medical technicians by the office of professional licensure and certification.”

The House passed HB1560 (vote tally not yet available) which would make it easier for persons licensed to practice barbering, cosmetology, and esthetics to obtain reciprocity in New Hampshire when moving from another state. 

Taking small game

The House passed HB1297 (vote tally not yet available) which would repeal the crime of ‘taking a lobster while scuba diving’. 

By a voice vote, the House passed HB1356, which allows for the taking of the insanely overpopulated gray squirrels. As reported by Granite Grok: “…the gray squirrel can now be added to the list of other squirrels, groundhogs, and other rodents considered “pest animals”, which have year-round open season.”

Socialism & taxes

By a vote of 172-164, the House passed HB1165, which eliminates the state-employee FMLI program. Last year, the state passed a law creating a family medical leave insurance program for state employees. While it was not nearly as nefarious as the previous iterations of the program that the Democrats worked extremely hard to pass over the past few years, many House libertarians have worried that once an FMLI program exists, it may be expanded, and eventually lead to an income tax. The Liberty Block has published around a dozen articles about the Democrats’ dreams of creating an income tax and a socialist program that it would fund. Although the general rule is that no government program or agency is ever eliminated once it’s created, New Hampshire libertarians will successfully kill this horrific program once this bill is signed into law. 

The House passed HB1221 (vote tally not yet available), which would lower the business profits tax from 7.6% to 7.5%. 

Unlike the other 49 states, libertarian natives and movers in New Hampshire are demonstrating that the concentration of those who believe in freedom really can make a difference. The few remaining authoritarians in the state are struggling to cope with the increasing amount of wins that liberty is achieving in the state. When wondering whether the FSP and the libertarian movement in New Hampshire is working, one needs only to look around the state and feel the pulse of the most socialist activists and legislators. Over the past week, the anti-freedom crowd spent tremendous amounts of time, money, and resources sending out mailers to New Hampshire residents in a final plea to stop the libertarian takeover. They are in their final moments of desperation, and they are writing hand-written letters to NH voters begging them to stop electing libertarians because they are destroying the socialist authoritarian agenda. Keep up the great work, and join us as soon as you can!

This article does not necessarily reflect the opinions of The Liberty Block or any of its members. We welcome all forms of serious feedback and debate.