https://www.wmur.com/article/nh-house-pushes-back-against-sweeping-federal-elections-campaign-reform-bill/36622070NH House pushes back against sweeping federal elections, campaign reform bill
Along party lines, GOP-controlled House passes amendment to assert NH’s right to conduct its own elections if federal For the People Act passes
BEDFORD, N.H. —
The New Hampshire House, voting along party lines, rejected the federal elections reform For the People Act and asserted the state’s right to conduct its own elections if the controversial federal bill passes.
With the For the People Act having passed the U.S. House and now pending in the U.S. Senate, the New Hampshire House voted 202-175 in favor of an amendment stating that if the federal bill becomes law, “all procedures and requirements relating to elections conducted pursuant to the New Hampshire constitution and as prescribed by New Hampshire law shall remain in full force and effect for all state and county officers.”
The procedures include those related to voter eligibility, voter registration, absentee voting, conducting the vote and counting of votes.
The final vote on amended Senate Bill 89 was 200-174.
The debate on the floor echoed the opinions on each side expressed during a lengthy hearing before the House Election Law Committee on May 19. The committee backed the amendment on a party line vote of 11-8, with all Republicans in favor and all Democrats opposed (one Democrat was absent).
The amended Senate Bill 89 now heads back to the state Senate, which passed the original, non-controversial bill in March. Whether the Senate GOP majority agrees with the House GOP majority on the issue is unclear and remains to be seen.
The amendment would apply only to state offices, which the federal bill would apply to elections for federal office.
If passed into law, the bill could potentially set up a two-tiered system of voting with different sets of rules for elections for federal offices, such as the U.S. House and U.S. Senate, and another for elections for governor, the state Legislature and Executive Council, as well as county offices.
Since presidential elections are decided on a state-by-state basis through the Electoral College, they would presumably fall under state control.
WMUR was first to report on the amendment to Senate Bill 89, sponsored by House Election Law Committee Chair Barbara Griffin, R-Goffstown.
During the debate on then measure Thursday, Rep. Russell Muirhead, D-Lyme, said the GOP amendment will create two separate election procedures.
“It’s a reaction to a federal bill that hasn’t even become law,” he said. “The bill is blatantly unconstitutional. The supremacy clause of the U.S. Constitution establishes that the federal constitution and federal law generally take precedence over state laws.”
Muirhead said the bill as amended “will create a logistical nightmare for state elections” and will cost the state “thousands of dollars in unnecessary litigation” and “double the work of election officials” while increasing costs to taxpayers and creating “vast unnecessary confusion for voters throughout the state.”
But Republican Rep. Ross Berry of Manchester, a key supporter of the measure, said the goal is to “stand up for New Hampshire.”
“The so-called For the People Act is a massive power grab by D.C.,” Berry said, noting it has the support of Secretary of State William Gardner.
Berry said the cost to the state of the federal bill will be high. He said it would mandate 15 days of early voting.
And Berry said polls have shown the state has “a problem” with voter confidence in its elections.
“There are provisions of H.R. 1 that are unpopular, such as the complete banning of voter ID,” Berry said. The federal bill actually calls for voter IDs but allows people without IDs to sign a sworn statement as to their identities and residence – as is the case currently in New Hampshire.
“What is the cost and the price of having faith in our elections? And what it worth for us to tell D.C. that New Hampshire will run New Hampshire’s elections, not Washington, D.C.?”
Griffin said her amendment “will protect our elections so that they continue and follow and be operated in accordance with our state constitution.”
She said the U.S. Constitution’s supremacy clause is not applicable.
“There is significant legal dispute about this issue,” she said. “The federal constitution specifically provides that the time places and manner of congressional elections are to be determined by the states.”
She said it “does not necessarily require complete duplication of election efforts.”
Griffin cited an opinion piece in The Washington Post by conservative columnist George Will, who called the For the People Act “constitutional vandalism.”
But Rep. Paul Bergeron, D-Nashua, said the bill, if passed, would “require a major rewrite of all our election laws in order to create separate procedures for candidates seeking federal and state offices.”
