This is the time of year that legislators in the New Hampshire state government start the process of submitting bills. First the 400 representatives and 24 state senators draft a Legislative Service Request, which is basically a general idea for a law. It gets whipped into shape by staff and then turns into a bill that has to percolate through the whole state-government process. Relatively few LSR’s actually become bills that goes to the governor’s desk.
Right now LSR’s are still being put together and they’re just a sentence of description with no specifics. At the moment there are 669 of them on the website (here you go!) so it’s easy to overlook some, but I did a bit a stroll and found a few of geek interest.
Notably, so far none of them talk about these oft-attempted-but-failed geek ideas: changing our time zone, adopting bitcoin or blockchain, or introducing ranked-choice voting.
+ There are too many to mention regarding renewable energy systems, net metering, utility grid upgrades, etc.
+ 2244: “Requiring lobbyist forms submitted in writing to be legible.” – that’s not geeky, I just thought it was funny.
+ 2277: “Establishing a fee for certain single-use plastics.” – not likely to go anywhere but intriguing. Several other bills would ban certain items, like plastic straws and single-use bags.
+ 2351; “Relative to a left turn after stop onto a one-way road.” – I assume this wants to allow left turns through red lights onto a one-way road, the way you can do a right turn onto a two-way road.
+ 2367: ” repealing the prohibition on hunting with a ferret” – Hunting with a ferret!
+ 2437: “Relative to roadable aircraft” – This sounds cool. “Roadable aircraft” is the term that the Massachusetts firm Terrafugia prefers to “flying car”. I assume this would be some sort of “NH won’t get in the way as long as the pertinent federal agencies say they’re OK” bill.
+ 2665: “Relative to electric vehicle parking spaces.” – could be anything. Requiring them? Forbidding them? Marking them separately?
+ 2024: “Relative to the duration of antibiotic therapy for tick-borne illness.” – I’m sure this will be an attempt to enshrine the controversial (to say the least) idea of “chronic Lyme” into state law so a constant supply of antibiotics will be provided. That’s a central tenet of what the Patient Zero podcast calls LymeWorld.
+ 2119: “Abolishing fluoride in water. ” – self-explanatory.
+ At least 15 bills concern off-road vehicles in some shape or form.
+ 2207: “Expanding the New Hampshire vaccine association to include adult vaccines” – This sounds like an attempt to provide free or lower-cost vaccines to people over 18; right now they’re only given to people under 18.
As I said, there will be more to come.
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