How We Vote

Bills are submitted by representatives during a window in the fall prior to the session. A session is two years. Unless a bill  is pertinent to a current change, they normally do not get in during the current year.  For example, there will be bills relative to next biennium budget submitted in the coming months.

A legislator may file as many bills as they wish for each session year. Duplicative bills within the session period is not permitted. For example, if a legislator files a bill in the first session year to mandate the use of seatbelts and it fails, he cannot file the same bill the second year of session.

There are over 20 standing committees. The standing policy committees of the House are each responsible for specific subject matter. Each committee holds public hearings on all bills assigned to it, considers the subject matter and then makes recommendations on the disposition of those bills to the full House. A committee can recommend OTP (ought to pass), ITL (inexpedient to legislate), or retain for further study.

There are two calendars presented each week; the consent calendar, where bills are voted on in a block and the regular calendar, where bills are voted on individually.  All bills that are submitted and go through committee are voted on upon the house floor and are place on either calendar. Consent means that if a bill comes out of committee with an overwhelming support to ITL (inexpedient to legislate i.e. kill the bill) or OTP (ought to pass), the house votes on  it with a group of bills all having overwhelming recommendation. This is normally done by voice vote.  When viewing the consent calendar, one will notice that the committee recommendations are nearly unanimous.  In order for a bill to be put on the consent calendar, it must have unanimous support to be put there from the committee, even if there is dissent on the committee vote. For example, I may be the dissenting vote on a committee vote of 15-1, but I must agree that it goes to consent calendar, else it does not and goes to the regular calendar.

The bills listed on the regular calendar are ones that may or may not have full committee support, depending on the bill.  Many tend to be debatable then which debate is done on the house floor on Wednesdays.  This document is a good piece to see what is coming up that particular week.  One can then look up the bill number and find the text on the website.

There are three ways in which the legislature can vote on bill; Voice Vote,division, and roll call.

Voice:  We either say Yea,or Nay.  The speaker rules as to the majority. This vote is not recorded.

Division: We push the button assigned to our seat.  The tally is taken, but how an individual voted is not recorded.

Roll call: We push the button, and each individual vote is recorded.

Although we vote on many bills each week, you will only see the results of how we personally voted from a roll call vote.  When viewing a roll call vote, care must be taken to see if the rep voted for it or against it.  For example:  If the recommendation from committee is ITL (inexpediate to legislate) and the rep. vote is nay, the rep did in fact, vote for the bill.  The vote was against killing the bill.   Taken another step:  If that bill's ITL recommendation did not pass, it would need to be voted on again to possibly pass it at which time the rep may vote OTP on the same bill.  This helps to explain why one sees multiple votes on one bill.

Each representatives record is posted on the web, under their name.  One can look up the vote by the representative's name.  Another way to look up votes is through the house journals.  http://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/house/caljourns/default.htm.  This lists the roll call votes, yeas and nays, by county.  It also lists all the bills the house voted on in the session dated.  Again, it is important to pay particular attention to the committee recommendation against the rep's vote.

This covers the basics of representative voting.  I hope it is helpful to you and please contact me with any questions