Pub. 2 2020 Issue 4

The 2020 Legislative Session Is Over AND UNLIKE ANY WE (AND THE HISTORY BOOKS) HAVE EVER SEEN DAN BENNETT V.P. GOVERNMENT RELATIONS I n June, as the state began to slowly open back up under Governor Sununu’s guidance, so too did the New Hampshire Legislature. The 400-member House of Representatives met twice at the Whittemore Cen- ter at UNH and the 24-member Senate met in Rep- resentatives Hall at the State House to accommodate for social distancing and COVID-19 precautionary measures. This was the first time since the Civil War that the legisla- ture had met outside of the State House in Concord. Policy Committees met remotely as well, and they developed a method for public input and testimony during the commit- tee hearings. The 2020 session finally wrapped at the end of June. This is about one month later than planned. It is an election year, so the legislators need to get campaigning, even if it is virtually. At the House of Representatives meetings, the Repub- licans and Democrats could not agree on a few items. House Republicans were unsatisfied with the lack of bipartisan involvement in the schedule development, as well as a bill to pull back proposed business tax cuts. They tried to remedy this through the rules committee; however, the Democrats did not agree to the tax cut issue and the Republicans did not agree to the deadline and rules sus- pension. This effectively ended the 2020 House session for any policy work. They could only meet one last time to agree or disagree with the action taken by the Senate. The approach that the legislature was left to take was for any COVID-19 related bills, and ones deemed a high priority, and make them into a few large omnibus bills to be voted on. The Senate’s last day to meet was June 29th. The House then had one opportunity to concur (agree) or disagree with those bills on their last day of June. The bills that survived those votes will head to Governor Sununu’s desk, where he has five days to sign into law, let pass unsigned or veto the remaining bills. The governor has stated that just like the last session, he is not afraid to veto legislation he does not like. The House and Senate will likely meet one last time in the fall to tackle any vetoes from the governor. NHADA bills of interest One of NHADA’s highest priority legislative efforts this session was focused on helping our collision repair shops to be treated fairly. NHADA was successful in getting our bill deemed high priority, but due to its contentious nature (amendments from LKQ and opposition from insurance car- riers), it would have been a standalone bill and not lumped into an omnibus bill. We believe that the bill would have passed both the Senate and the House; however, unfortu- nately, the new insurance commissioner stated he would recommend to Governor Sununu to veto the bill. After long deliberation, we decided the best course of action would be to let the bill die this session and begin anew next year. Since we didn’t override the first veto (nar- rowly), we couldn’t override a second veto during an elec- tion year. We will refocus and spend the next few months working hard on this effort and new approaches for the next session to ensure that our shops are treated fairly and that consumer’s safety and investment are protected. A few other bills we had been monitoring through the leg- islative shutdown and reopening were the California low D R I V E 8