Evan Lips

4 days ago | nhjournal.com | Evan Lips

A proposal to fund a new state health care bureaucracy with what critics are calling a stealth fee or tax is setting off alarm bells in Concord. Groups ranging from the Business and Industry Association to Granite State Taxpayers are declaring their opposition to SB 128, aimed at funding a new children’s behavioral health bureaucracy. They’re particularly concerned because the proposal has not been considered by the House, but has been stuck into the state budget by the Senate.

5 days ago | nhjournal.com | Evan Lips

Events in Boulder, Colo., read like a scene from a Republican campaign speech: An illegal immigrant allowed into the country by the Biden administration attacks a peaceful pro-Israel gathering, setting elderly people on fire while shouting “Free Palestine” and “End Zionists!”The horrific attack combines two problematic threads in Democratic Party politics: Opposition to increased immigration enforcement and support for “From the River to the Sea” pro-Palestinian protests.

1 week ago | nhjournal.com | Evan Lips

Controversial House Finance Committee chair Rep. Ken Weyler (R-??) slammed New Hampshire’s local school boards as “corrupt,” inspiring howls of rage from Democrats during Wednesday’s hearing on Education Freedom Account (EFA) legislation. The committee was debating SB 295, which increases the number of students eligible for EFAs by removing household income thresholds while capping total EFA enrollment at 10,000 in the upcoming academic year.

1 week ago | nhjournal.com | Evan Lips

A second version of a bill to bump New Hampshire’s last-in-the-nation state primary from September to June passed in a party-line vote by the House Election Law Committee Tuesday, making an election calendar change all but certain,. The only questinos remaining, according to committee Chairman Rep. Ross Berry (R-Weare), is whether lawmakers will push for the law to take effect starting in 2026 or 2028. “I’m not ready to take 2026 off the table yet,” said Berry.

2 weeks ago | nhjournal.com | Evan Lips

Gov. Kelly Ayotte has been a vocal supporter of a classroom cellphone ban since her first day in office. “Screens are negatively impacting our learning environments, drawing students’ attention away from their classes, and becoming a barrier for teachers to do their jobs. No more,” she said at the time. But will Ayotte back a tough “bell-to-bell” ban that passed the House Education Policy Committee on Tuesday?