In The NH Legislature: Major Proposed Changes In NH Right-To-Know Law

There are three bills coming up for public hearings in the New Hampshire House next week. They are set up for public hearings in House Committees next Wednesday, January 14th. Each of them would make substantial changes in our Right-To-Know Law.

Two of them I think make our open meetings law less effective; the last one makes it dramatically more powerful.

As I read it, House Bill 53 is a problem. It sounds harmless, titled "relative to the definition of 'public body' under the right-to-know law." What it does, however, could have far-reaching implications. It removes the words "agency" and "authority" from the definitions of "public bodies" which come under the requirements of the Right-To-Know Law. There are a lot of agencies and authorities in our state. They would be exempt from having to hold open meetings, properly announced. That's the way I read it.

Another piece of legislation, House Bill 72, changes the numbers of voters required to request secret balloting and secret ballot recounts at town meetings. Right now, at any meeting of a town with more than a population of 500 people, just 5 voters can make a request in writing prior to a vote by voice vote that a vote should be taken by secret ballot. This bill will increase that requirement to 50 voters. At any meeting of a town with a population of 500 or less, right now 3 voters can request secret balloting. This bill changes that to 10. Bottom line, it will take more voters to require a secret ballot in any town meeting.

A third bill is being introduced by a broad group of House members: Representatives Bill O'Brien of Mt. Vernon, Bob Rowe of Amherst, Lynne Ober of Hudson, Al Baldasaro of Londonderry, and Jim Splaine of Portsmouth. Yes, I'm the token Democrat, but I've always supported the strongest application of the NH Right-To-Know Law since when in the 1970s I sponsored two of the most important expansions.

This bill, HB 135, makes one change, just one word, but its implications are obvious. Right now, as a remedy to a violation by a governing body of the NH Right-To-Know Law, a court "may" invalidate the action of the public body or agency violating the law, "if the circumstances justify such invalidation," whatever that means which is wide open to interpretation by a judge.

HB 135 changes the word "may" to "shall." If an action was committed by a governing body or agency in violation of the NH Right-To-Know Law, that action will be invalidated. I think thathelps to guaranteethat every governing body will go out of its ways to cross its "t"s and dot its "i"s when they make votes or take actions that could violate the law,and that's a good thing.

HB 135 primary sponsor Bill O'Brien came up with this quite simple but very important change. A former House member, he's been out of the House the past two years but has returned after winning election last November.

For more information on any of these bills, you might visit the State of New Hampshire WEBSITE(http://www.nh.gov) -- go to "Legislative," then "Bills" or "Calendar" and insert or look for the bill numbers.

Comments

[smacdonald]

Thank you Mr Splain for your effort on this issue. We need to protect it at all costs, and making it stronger is something we can all support.

[Rowland]

I've got video of the RTK Commission discussing HB53 at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPuxnjgeVzA

[Rowland]

HB153 RTK Commission public hearing video playlist at:

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=92B8DEA6F58A24AD