HB 212, providing an alternative method of calculating state education property tax hardship relief and authorizing the commissioner of the department of revenue administration to establish certain positions.

HB 560, establishing a committee to study the retirement plan for the judiciary.

HB 1109, establishing a commission to study problems related to the delivery of local assistance.

HB 1111, establishing a committee to study regulation and procedures for lake level investigations and orders.

HB 1119, relative to landfill closing costs reimbursed by the department of environmental services.

HB 1220, relative to assisted living residences and housing for older persons.

HB 1236, establishing a committee to study the adjudication of divorces pursuant to part 2, article 76 of the New Hampshire constitution.

HB 1310, relative to the city of Manchester's contributory retirement system.

HB 1354, licensing body art practitioners.

HB 1482, re-authorizing the motor oil discharge cleanup fund establishment under RSA 146-F, and establishing new positions at the department of environment services and making appropriations therefor.

SB 414, relative to the committee allowing the use of business logo signing on the mainline of limited access and divided highways.

SB 440, relative to rules for water conservation.

CACR 5, relating to the rulemaking authority of the supreme court.

Senator D'Allesandro moved adoption.

Senator Francoeur moved that the business of the day being completed that the Senate now adjourn until Wednesday, May 22, 2002, at 10:15 a.m.

The Senate met at 10:15 a.m.

A quorum was present.

The prayer was offered by the Reverend David P. Jones, Senate Chaplain.

Senator Fernald led the Pledge of Allegiance.

March 29, 2002

To the Honorable Members of the General Court:

By the authority vested in me as Governor of New Hampshire, pursuant to Part II, Article 44 of the Constitution of New Hampshire, I have this day vetoed Senate Bill 1, an act apportioning state senate districts.

Since January, I repeatedly have said I would veto legislation reapportioning state senate districts if the legislation violates the New Hampshire Constitution’s requirement that senate districts be "as nearly equal as may be in population;" splits apart strong historic, economic and social communities of interest; and is designed to give one party unfair political advantage over another. I have repeatedly urged the majority party in the senate to work with the members of the minority party to craft bipartisan redistricting legislation.

Unfortunately, the members of the majority party in the senate have chosen to send me legislation containing a redistricting scheme that violates Part II, Article 26 of the New Hampshire Constitution; violates the principle of one person, one vote; splits apart strong communities of interest; and favors one party over another.

S.B. 1 unnecessarily breaks apart strong historic, economic and social communities of interest. The City of Rochester, for example, is torn away from the City of Somersworth, with which it shares a common border and similar social and economic characteristics. The cities of Rochester and Somersworth have been in the same senate district for 210 years. Under S.B. 1 Rochester instead would be thrust into a senate district with the Lakes Region community of Wolfeboro.

S.B. 1 slices Portsmouth away from New Castle and Rye. It splits apart Dover and Durham.

Crafted behind closed doors by the members of one party, the redistricting scheme contained in S.B. 1 was made public only one hour before it was passed by the senate in a strictly partisan vote.

It is clear from the senate record that that there is a wide gap between what the citizens of this state have said they wanted in senate districts and the redistricting scheme contained in S.B. 1.

For example, the Mayor of Rochester, in a January 17, 2002 letter addressed to the Senate Redistricting Committee, pleaded with the senate to "continue to group Rochester with similar Seacoast cities, like Somersworth or Dover" and not put "Rochester in the same district as Wolfeboro way up in the Lakes Region."

A letter from the three Rye selectmen to the Senate Internal Affairs Committee implored the senate not to split Rye apart from Portsmouth, pointing out that Rye students attend Portsmouth High School and that "[o]ne has to drive through Portsmouth to get to Rye….We never heard of a district which basically has one community jumping over another almost entirely contiguous community. Yes, we guess you can walk in a small stretch of marshland to get from New Castle to Rye, but that is truly a stretch." Similar pleas were made in letters submitted by the Mayor of Portsmouth and the chairman of the New Castle selectmen.

A University of New Hampshire history professor and long-time resident of Dover testified about the historical, economic and cultural ties between Dover and Durham at the January 10, 2002 Senate Internal Affairs Committee hearing on redistricting. "If you go back three hundred years, you find that people in Durham and Dover worked with each other and worshipped with each other," he testified.

Why were these pleas from citizens, including local community leaders, to keep together strong communities of interest ignored by the majority party in the senate? Solely to give their party unfair political advantage over the other. S.B. 1 would make at least 16 out of the 24 state senate districts safely Republican. The majority party has disregarded the State Constitution, 200 years of history and tradition, and the views of citizens to guarantee its control over the senate chamber.

Because S.B. 1 is both unconstitutional and fundamentally unfair, I am compelled to veto this legislation.

May 10, 2002

To the Honorable Members of the General Court:

By the authority vested in me as Governor of New Hampshire, pursuant to Part II, Article 44 of the Constitution of New Hampshire, I have this day vetoed Senate Bill 112, an Act relative to election day registration.

Senate Bill 112 is poorly crafted and confusing, but its basic purpose is clear: it is designed to intimidate citizens from exercising their right to register to vote on election day, putting at risk New Hampshire’s exemption from the federal "Motor Voter" law. Senate Bill 112 invites discrimination by local election officials. It also purports to redefine "domicile" in a way that would disenfranchise citizens who are in the process of moving from one town to another. S.B. 112 is a bad bill that should not become law.

Under current law, a New Hampshire citizen may register to vote on election day by completing the standard voter registration application required of all new registrants and by signing, under penalty of perjury, a straight-forward, plain-English affidavit certifying that the person is a qualified voter and has not voted and will not vote at any other polling place that election day.

Under S.B. 112, local election officials would be given the unfettered discretion to require a person seeking to register to vote at the polls to either sign the existing straight-forward, plain-English affidavit or to sign a poorly drafted, lengthy, confusing and vaguely threatening affidavit.

Local election officials are given no guidance on which affidavit to use. I expect that our local election officials would use common sense and not discriminate, but S.B. 112 creates the possibility that a person who is new to a community will feel aggrieved by the imposition of this onerous affidavit. It is an invitation to unnecessary acrimony and costly litigation. If S.B. 112 becomes law, local election officials will have to defend themselves against charges that they discriminated against individuals based on the color of their skin, their ethnic origin or their age, violations of the equal protection provisions of Part 1, Articles 1, 2 and 11 of the New Hampshire Constitution and the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

In addition, this new affidavit sets forth a requirement for voting which does not exist in New Hampshire law: current residency. Thus, under the language of S.B. 112, certain New Hampshire citizens will be told they are ineligible to vote simply because they are in the process of moving from one town to another. For example, if a voter is building a new house in "Town A" with the intention of moving there permanently, but is living in "Town B" while the house is being built, under the "domicile" language of S.B. 112 that voter is not eligible to vote in either town.

Incorporating so-called domicile language into a new voter registration affidavit makes no sense when the legislature has determined that the term is so ambiguous and confusing it deserves its own legislative study committee. On March 29, 2002 I signed into law H.B. 137, establishing a committee to study the definition of domicile for voting purposes. Indeed, the issue of "domicile" is apparently so difficult to comprehend that the legislation to establish the special committee was itself studied for a year by the House Election Law Committee. In voting 18-0 to recommend that the full legislature form a special committee to study the term domicile, the House Election Law Committee wrote: "Given the vagueness of the definition of the term `domicile’ contained in RSA 654:1, and the controversy such vagueness has engendered, a study committee should be formed to revise, clarify and tighten the definition of the term `domicile’ for voting purposes." House Record, Vol. 24, No. 3, December 28, 2001. This special committee to study the term domicile has until November 1, 2002 to report its findings.

Moreover, the new affidavit language in S.B. 112 broadly threatens same-day registrants with the forfeiture of unspecified benefits and rights in other states: "In declaring myself a New Hampshire resident, I realize that I may be forfeiting benefits or rights, including the right to vote, in another state." The affidavit also suggests to the voter that he or she must obtain a New Hampshire driver’s license in order to be eligible to vote in New Hampshire, even if the person does not drive. Such threatening and confusing language will only serve to intimidate and discourage same-day registrants from exercising their right to vote.

This assault on our model same day voter registration law could call into question the validity of New Hampshire’s exemption from the federal National Voter Registration Act of 1993. Because New Hampshire enacted a simple, same day voter registration law, New Hampshire was expressly exempted from the federal National Voter Registration Act of 1993. The National Voter Registration Act of 1993 imposes extensive voter registration requirements on states. For example, it requires states to allow people to register to vote at the same time they apply for or renew a motor vehicle driver’s license. It requires states to allow people to register by mail. It places limitations on the removal of voters from registration lists, specifically prohibiting purges for not voting. Our Congressional delegation in 1996 succeeded in exempting New Hampshire from the rigorous provisions of the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 because, they could argue credibly, New Hampshire’s same day registration laws permit every eligible citizen to vote with ease. This no longer would be true if S.B. 112 became law.

Almost one-third of all registered voters in New Hampshire did not vote in the November 2000 general election, an election at which we were choosing the next President of the United States. While New Hampshire's voter turnout percentage compares well with the rest of the country, it is troubling that one-third of our voters last year did not exercise their franchise. Rather than erecting new barriers to voting, lawmakers should instead investigate why so many of our fellow citizens do not vote and develop public policies that encourage every eligible citizen to exercise this precious and fundamental right.

Respectfully submitted,

February 7, 2002

To the Honorable Members of the General Court:

By the authority vested in me as Governor of New Hampshire, pursuant to Part II, Article 44 of the Constitution of New Hampshire, I have this day vetoed Senate Bill 141, an Act relative to proof of qualifications for voter registration.

The right to vote is a fundamental right. Restrictions should be placed on that right if, and only if, there is a compelling need. S.B. 141, which is identical to legislation I vetoed last year, does not meet that test.

While the proponents of S.B. 141 say the purpose of this legislation is to protect our elections from fraud, there is no evidence that voter fraud is a problem in New Hampshire. That is, in large part, because our laws already provide protection from voter fraud. Our statutory requirement that the checklists be purged on a regular basis prevents "graveyard" voting. Our laws permit any voter to challenge the identity and eligibility of any other voter, with any so challenged voter required to sign an affidavit under penalty of perjury before being permitted to vote. Moreover, anyone registering to vote on election day is required to sign a form swearing, under penalty of perjury, that he or she is a qualified voter.

In order to be eligible to vote in New Hampshire, one must be a citizen of the United States, be 18 years of age or older, and be domiciled where he or she intends to vote. Under current New Hampshire law, supervisors of the checklist and town or city clerks may ask an applicant to provide proof of citizenship, age and domicile. If Senate Bill 141 became law, voting registration officials would be required to demand this proof.

S.B. 141 would have the effect of discouraging eligible voters from exercising their right to vote. Not all voters carry proof of their age with them, and in our country, few citizens carry proof of their citizenship. No discretion is given to supervisors of the checklist and town and city clerks under S.B. 141. No matter how well the supervisor of the checklist or town or city clerk knows the voter, he or she must still demand proof of age and citizenship. This would potentially cause lengthy delays for all voters.

While New Hampshire's voter turnout percentage compares well with the rest of the country, it is troubling that one-third of our registered voters did not exercise their franchise in the 2000 general election, an election to choose the President of the United States. Rather than erecting new barriers to voting, lawmakers should instead investigate

why so many of our fellow citizens do not vote and develop public policy to encourage every eligible citizen to exercise this precious and fundamental right.

For all of the above reasons, I am today vetoing Senate Bill 141.

Respectfully submitted,

Unfortunately, the House redistricting scheme contained in Senate Bill 336 retains the same fundamental flaws that caused me to veto House Bill 420 on April 3, 2002. The House redistricting scheme in S.B. 336 excessively deviates from the constitutional requirement that districts be as equal in population as possible; is internally inconsistent in its treatment of different areas in the state; and unnecessarily changes the form and boundaries of existing districts.

A straight division of the State into 400 single-member districts would have each district contain 3,089 people.

Of the several specific concerns I raised in my veto message for H.B. 420, the crafters of the redistricting scheme embodied in S.B. 336 admit that it only attempts to address two: the overlapping floterial districts in Hillsborough County and the excessive deviation from the one person, one vote constitutional principle created by one Coos County district. While S.B. 336 does eliminate the overlapping floterial in Hillsborough County, its cure for the Coos County district is worse than the disease.

Therefore, today I am issuing Executive Order 2002-4 directing the Department of Environmental Services to notify abutters, public water supply systems, and the local health officer of any well that tests positive for MtBE above 5 ppb. This executive order also directs DES to notify abutters, public water supply systems, and the local health officer when other water contaminants are detected at levels that exceed drinking water standards. This order will ensure consistency in notification practices for MtBE contamination of any drinking water supply, and ensure all affected parties are notified when MtBE or other contaminants are detected.

Sixty percent of New Hampshire citizens rely on groundwater for their drinking water. As we continue to make every effort to protect New Hampshire’s water resources, it is critical that we keep our citizens informed of any threats to their drinking water supplies. Today, by vetoing S.B. 419 and issuing Executive Order 2002-4, we achieve that goal.

At the same time that the State’s adequacy costs have risen a modest 3.4 percent annually, property values in New Hampshire have grown at the rate of 11 percent a year. Indeed, the property values on which the state education property tax will be based in fiscal year 2004, the first fiscal year that the cost cap contained in S.B. 425 would apply, grew an extraordinary 14.8 percent. Thus, the state education property tax will produce more than $72 million in additional revenue to fund schools in fiscal year 2004 than it will in fiscal year 2003, more than enough in itself to pay for the increased cost of an adequate education that year.