Timothy Horrigan's 2012 Legislative Session page

This page contains— or will contain— various documents, etc. from the 2012 New Hampshire General Court Session, which will begin January 4, 2012. I represent Strafford County District 7 (i.e., Durham, Lee & Madbury)

I am sponsoring two bils in 2012:

HB 1136: "relative to special state elections."
- Under New Hampshire current law, it takes 18-20 weeks to hold a bye-election for a vacant legislative seat (federal as well as state.) My bill would shorten that time frame. We had an absurd case during the 2011 Session where Rep. Bob Mead resigned on the second day of the session: it took from December 2, 2010 till May 25, 2011 to fill the vacancy, His successor, Rep. Jennifer Daler, missed almost the entire constitutionally scheduled portion of the 2011 session.
HB 1183: "relative to access to the galleries in the general court. "
- This was inspired by an incident during the March 31, 2011 budget bill debate when Speaker O'Brien closed the visitor's gallery for two hours while the deliberations continued. If my bill becomes law, the House (or Senate, as the case may be) would have to go into recess whenever the gallery is closed. My bill would also clarify that the availability of streaming video is not a valid substitute for opening the gallery. A public hearing is scheduled for Tuesday, January 17, 2012 at 11L00 a.m.

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