Distant Dome: Veto Day Is Coming

By GARRY RAYNO, Distant Dome, InDepth NH

Lawmakers will return to Concord soon for likely the last session of 2026 and the 2025-2026 legislative term.

They will return to the Capitol City to take up 31 of the 33 bills Gov. Kelly Ayotte vetoed this year.

The number of vetoes is a modern record for a governor killing off bills passed by legislators of the same party.

The modern record for vetoes goes to former Gov. Chris Sununu who vetoed 57 bills in the 2019 session when Democrats controlled the House and Senate.

But even when the same party controls the trifecta —the governor’s office, the Senate and the House — there are always vetoes, but usually no more than a half dozen to a dozen because governor’s office works with their party’s legislature to ensure their priorities are approved in a way that satisfies both legislators and the governor.

And oftentimes governors’ staffs work with lawmakers to ensure some bills never get to their desk if it will cause issues for the chief executive.

A perfect example of this was the battery recycling bill, House Bill 1602, this session that passed the House by a substantial bipartisan vote, only to have the Senate send it to interim study, which is a polite death in the second year of a legislative session.

The bill would have created an industry-run battery recycling stewardship program without any state money involved. Earlier in the session, the legislature approved a paint recycling bill, House Bill 451, and Ayotte took up the opposition rhetoric fashioned by the Koch-based Americans for Prosperity calling it a paint tax, although the state would not collect any money from anyone.

Ayotte even wrote “No Sales Tax” on the bill when she vetoed it, echoing a veto by former Gov. John Sununu for what he called an income tax, although that wasn’t what it was either.

But the battery bill had strong backing from some of Ayotte’s biggest supporters, emergency responders, putting her between two significant forces she was aligned to, but the Senate took care of that dilemma for her.

The House voted earlier on her veto of the paint bill, sustaining it, and also House Bill 349, which would have allowed optometrists to perform some laser procedures.

The partisan breakdown of the House makes it difficult for lawmakers to override most of the bills they will take up on Aug. 19 when the Senate and House meet at 10 a.m.

Not many of the vetoed bills had broad bipartisan support, so the 212-171 split between the controlling Libertarian/Republicans and minority Democrats makes it difficult to achieve the two-thirds majority needed to overturn a governor’s veto.

In the House it is a two-thirds majority of those present and voting, but in the Senate traditionally it takes 16 of the 24 votes to override a governor.

It just so happens the Senate partisan split is 16 Republicans and eight Democrats.

But the vetoes are of GOP bills so things could become interesting but probably won’t as a number of her vetoes were bills from the Free State/Libertarian agenda such as locally raised meat bypassing federal inspections, transitioning public schools to charter schools, banning books and other materials from public schools and their libraries, stopping school districts from rolling over surplus funds at the end of a school year into the next year’s budget, and encouraging utilities to own nuclear power generation.

If there is one bill to bet on making it over the high bars in both the Senate and House for an override, it is House Bill 2026, the state’s 10-Year Highway Improvement plan which passed both bodies by overwhelming margins.

It included some long awaited projects like fixing exits on I-293 in Manchester, and expanding I-93 through Concord so it isn’t a parking lot on Fridays and Sunday in Summer or vacation and Holiday weekends, not to mention Race Weekend at New Hampshire International Speedway.

There was a hue and cry from the leadership of both parties when she vetoed the bill with one Republican calling it irresponsible.

If that were the only thing involved it would be a given, but there is another bill that provided the money for those many projects that Ayotte also vetoed Senate Bill 627, which doubled the tolls on the state’s turnpike system for out-of-staters and in-staters who do not have E-ZPass transponders to fly through the toll plazas at high speeds in Merrimack and Hampton and coming soon to Bedford.

“I have clearly said that I do not support raising the tolls. I will continue to focus on making New Hampshire more affordable for all and a destination for tourists in the region,” Ayotte wrote in her veto message.

The Senate passed it unanimously while the House Ways and Means Committee recommended studying it for a year, but the House rejected that by four votes and then passed it on a close vote.

Overriding the highway bill could be lawmakers’ way of slapping the governor’s hand even if there is no money to do the major projects without passing the other bill.

There is also lots of other stuff to fight about next week such as two bills that would have reformed the state’s risk pools, which municipalities, school districts and counties use for self-funding health care and other risks without having to use commercial insurers.

Some of the health care cooperatives ran into financial trouble last year due to unexpected claims and had to increase premiums in the middle of the year.

The fight is over reserves and how much these cooperatives should hold unto to both keep premiums low and to cover claims.

A number of bills she vetoed dealt with schools. Along with the ones mentioned above, House Bill 1267 would have prevented school district attorneys or non-school personnel from questioning a student without a parent or guardian present, while House Bill 1184 would mandate a state process for a no trespass order from a school district. Another bill would not require school districts or town bodies to print their meetings in the media of record.

House Bill 1422 would allow those convicted of some crimes more time than the current three-year limit to introduce new evidence to seek a new trial, and another bill would have prevented a guardian ad litem from recommending parental placement to a family court.

House Bill 1092 would have allowed lawmakers to install or remove historical markers instead of the governor, while House Bill 1072 would have prohibited the Department of Labor from surprise visits to workplaces.

House Bill 1336 would have allowed landlords to collect an additional month’s rent as a second security deposit from a tenant with poor credit, while House Bill 232 would have provided state protection allowing a medical worker to refuse to participate in abortion procedures for religious beliefs.

House Bill 481 would have had the money from the sale of the Sununu Youth Services Center in Manchester go into the state’s general fund instead of the Youth Detention Center Victims Abuse Fund.

And she vetoed three “bathroom bills” — Senate Bills 268 and 352, and House Bill 1442 — that would have allowed businesses, prisons and jails and hospitals, to restrict the use of bathrooms, locker rooms and other facilities to a person’s biological sex at birth.

These three bills are likely to dredge up the same arguments that the House heard numerous times this session and last, although Ayotte vetoed similar bills last session, and earlier this session.

To date those seeking to ban transgender people from using bathrooms of their choice have yet to find a sympathetic ear in the governor’s office.

And given the number of vetoed bills to be voted on the 19th, there will need to be a number of bathroom breaks for all involved.

Garry Rayno may be reached at garry.rayno@yahoo.com.

Distant Dome by veteran journalist Garry Rayno explores a broader perspective on the State House and state happenings for InDepthNH.org. Over his three-decade career, Rayno covered the NH State House for the New Hampshire Union Leader and Foster’s Daily Democrat. During his career, his coverage spanned the news spectrum, from local planning, school and select boards, to national issues such as electric industry deregulation and Presidential primaries. Rayno lives with his wife Carolyn and their two rescue dogs.

This story was originally published by InDepth NH.