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As New Hampshire’s 424 state lawmakers gear up for the general election in November, some are planning ahead for the 2025 legislative session. Already, about 170 legislative service requests, or LSRs – in which lawmakers get help from the legislative services office to draft bills – have been filed with the state.
They’re teeing up to tackle the Granite State’s hot-button issues: whether to legalize recreational cannabis, how to approach education funding and vouchers, and myriad other topics. Here’s what legislators have planned for 2025 so far.
Education funding, vouchers and more
Leading the pack are more than two dozen education- and school-related proposals.
There are three potential bills dealing with Education Freedom Accounts, in which the state provides thousands of dollars via vouchers to families who want to homeschool or send their kids to private school. They’ve been the subject of passionate discourse over whether public dollars should fund private services in that way.
One proposal by Salem Republican Valerie McDonnell could seek to make the voucher program universally available to New Hampshire families – currently, there’s a household income cap to be eligible for it. Kevin Verville, a Republican in Deerfield, filed legislation to establish a local version of the program, and Democrat Linda Tanner, who represents Springfield and Sunapee, looks to create an annual review and qualification process that would determine who’s eligible for the Education Freedom Accounts.
There are a host of other education bills, including one to abolish the local education property tax. With no sweeping income or sales taxes and a low portion of state-provided education funding, New Hampshire relies heavily on local taxes to fund its public schools. A lawsuit could compel the state to pay double its current share.
Another proposal looks to repeal New Hampshire’s “divisive concepts” law, a 2021 bill that regulated how schools could talk about race, gender and other topics in the classroom but was overturned by a federal judge earlier this year who said it was “unconstitutionally vague.” The state has filed an appeal in that case.
Other legislation would impact free and reduced-price school meals, tackle bullying in schools, require school districts to teach about the “nature and history” of communism and create a commission to study potential changes to school start times, among myriad other topics.
Cannabis legalization & medical marijuana
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At least six proposals related to medical marijuana production, legalizing recreational cannabis and expanding the Therapeutic Cannabis Program are in the works. Legislation to legalize cannabis was narrowly defeated last year, and the outcome of renewed efforts to do so may depend largely on the makeup of the state House of Representatives and Senate following November’s election. It’s also a hot topic in the governor’s race – Democratic nominee Joyce Craig has said she’ll support legalization, while Republican Kelly Ayotte is staunchly opposed.
Two proposals appear to attempt to legalize cannabis, including one sponsored by Verville, a Republican who’s been a longtime supporter of legalization. Another bill would seek to allow possession of certain amounts of the drug, establish penalties for smoking or vaping cannabis in public and found a commission to study regulation and sales.
An effort to allow home cultivation of cannabis by patients and caregivers certified in the state’s medical marijuana program is revitalized by Wendy Thomas, a Democrat representing Merrimack. A similar bill, which had been supported by the program’s medical oversight board, died in the legislature last year. Thomas filed two other proposals: one to allow alternative treatment centers – the state-approved nonprofits that produce therapeutic cannabis products – to operate as for-profit businesses, and one “relative to hemp-derived cannabinoids and the definition of cannabis in therapeutic cannabis,” according to the LSR database.
Jonah Wheeler, a Democrat in Peterborough, is tackling the criminal justice angle – he’s sponsoring a proposal to annul, re-sentence or discontinue the prosecution of some cannabis-related offenses.
Other potential bills to watch
Several lawmakers want to establish commissions to study potential legislative priorities, such as privatization of the state’s liquor commission, the financial impact of climate change on New Hampshire and how to recoup that money, and how to protect and accommodate Granite Staters who have long Covid.
Some legislation could also deal with affordable housing, election processes and immigration.
Here’s what a few others would seek to do:
■Re-establish voter identification exceptions. (Gov. Chris Sununu signed a law last week dismantling them.)
■Establish ranked-choice voting in state party primaries and municipal elections.
■Alleviate disabled veterans and some elderly homeowners from paying property taxes.
■Create a deportation task force and address illegal immigrants in New Hampshire.
■Require background checks and mandatory waiting periods for firearms in some cases.
■Restrict undeclared voters from same-day voting in primary elections.
■Create a new conservation-themed license plate, with revenue going toward cyanobacteria mitigation.
■Make it illegal to declaw a cat.
■Prohibit state funding for new passenger rail projects.
■Establish a parental bill of rights.
■Raise the minimum age for sports betting.
Charlotte Matherly is the statehouse reporter for the Concord Monitor and Monadnock Ledger-Transcript in partnership with Report for America. Follow her on X at @charmatherly, or send her an email at cmatherly@cmonitor.com.
“}]] As New Hampshire’s 424 state lawmakers gear up for the general election in November, some are planning ahead for the 2025 legislative session. Already, about 170 legislative service requests, or LSRs – in which lawmakers get help from the legislative… Read More