Legislative Season Begins
This week, the New Hampshire legislative season begins in earnest. There will be caucuses, committee meetings, and public hearings and Committees of Conference very soon. The LSRs will become RSAs in short order. Well, not too short.
A Legislative Service Request has a bit of a journey to go through, before becoming a Revised Statute Annotated. In other words, the bills have to get through Committee, including public hearings, go to the other side of our bicameral legislature; either the House of Representatives or the Senate, including a public hearing, and then sit on the governors desk before becoming a law. Not that the governor has to sign it, she can let it pass into law without her signature. Or she can veto it and someone may resurrect it in the future.
So, what are we looking for in 2015? There are quite a few measures that will attract my attention. This is a new session. Each session is two years and a bill may not come back up within a session. So, anything that was not able to pass last two-year session is allowable this year.
Life issues are my main focus, but I am always interested in gross affronts to liberty, human trafficking, any infringement of parental rights, and overt regulatory control of business. We are in New Hampshire, after all. Live Free or Die and all that.
NH has started the year with some minor contentions. The Speaker’s race may be settled, but leadership isn’t always as clear as titles. Leaders, true leaders are able to lead from anywhere. They need not be front and center. As the year progresses, I’m sure history will record who are the authentic leaders of this term.
As to the legislation, there are so many bills. I am forever grateful for the few trusted people who sort through, the often deceptive titles, to find the pertinent selections that will arouse the concerns of the people. While the process is going on and there is a great deal of attention on potential outcomes, goals determined by ProLife leaders in December will be my main focus.
Big changes are in store for our small state. I hope to be a quiet instigator. No one lives forever, but some people are able to change the course of history and leave their mark on the world. With every fiber of my being and with as little notoriety as possible, I pray to do just that.
In my role as Trustee of NH Right to Life, I will have access to information on upcoming bills. You can too. Subscribe to our blog: www.NHRTL.org/blog and Like us on Facebook: New Hampshire Right to Life. We also have a political action committee where you and I can sound off about legislators and their positions relative to life issues. We will be watching for next election.
Personhood for all human beings is of utmost importance. The legal protections for persons under the law would prevent legally imposed death for anyone, from preborn, to elderly, and disabled, to incapacitated according to the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution.
We will be looking for anything that impedes or infringes on the Right to Life for any category or group of people. Who knows which arbitrary group will be selected for extermination next. In Hadamar Hospital in Germany, long before the Nazis, those people considered by elitists to be defective or useless eaters were the first group. Then, anyone with disabilities. Then, the list grew from there.
Today, we hardly even speak of the extreme disparity of force used to kill the smallest and most vulnerable of our society. When elitists make distinctions for categories of people who are worthy of protection and those who are not, beware. That list will grow.
What kinds of legislation will you follow?