Busy End of the Legislative Session for Education and Labor
Urgent Action Request
Bow, NH ~ May 28, 2021
We are heading to the end of the legislative session. The House will meet twice next week to finish their bills and the Senate will meet next week as well to finish their work which includes the budget (more on that in a minute). The last day of the legislative session is June 24. Once the House and Senate finish their work next week, they will begin the Committees of Conference process where they will work to figure out differences to bills that passed either the House or Senate with amendments. This will include the budget. Committee of Conference will form on June 10th and their work will conclude on the 17th. After that, the House and Senate will have to vote on whether they will accept the bills as amended so they will become law. That will happen on the 24th.
Reject vouchers in the state budget. Take action. So, let’s start with the budget. As expected, the Senate Finance Committee this week added school vouchers to the budget. We know what this voucher bill will do. It will gut money from your school districts and cause cuts to educational programs in our schools. It could lead to layoffs, larger class sizes, and other incredibly detrimental outcomes for our state’s students. We will continue to work hard at pushing back against vouchers, but we need your help. Please contact your legislators and let them know to remove vouchers from the budget! Click the following link to let your state senator know your opposition to this voucher bill. Reject School Vouchers.
Divisive Concepts legislation in the Senate budget. The Senate Finance Committee also put into the budget an amended version of the divisive concept bill. They tried to dress it up to make it better but it still does the same harm. Banning our schools from teaching about the history of racism in this country and its continued existence will do nothing but raise a generation of citizens who cannot grasp the complexity of the problem. The Governor had said he would veto a previous version of this bill we will see if keeps his word. Generally, the press corps could have asked him but after these controversial amendments were added to the budget, he quickly canceled this week’s press conference.
Right to Work. Not to be outdone, the House will be voting on so-called right-to-work next week. The vote will be close and we once again need your voices to make sure your representatives know that New Hampshire supports working families and that they should oppose SB61. The bill is in House Labor so it could be heard at the end of the day on the 3rd or beginning of the day on the 4th. We need to make sure New Hampshire continues to say NO to right to work.
I know the school year like the legislative session is winding down and you all already have more on your plates than can be managed but we need your voices now to help protect education, labor, and New Hampshire. Thank you for everything you do and will continue to do.
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NH Retirement Security Coalition The NHRSC will be tracking all bills related to the NH Retirement System and continuing advocacy for our members. You can find the legislation tracker following retirement bills by clicking on the following link NHRSC UPDATES. AFT-NH is a member of the NH Retirement Security Coalition (NHRSC).