Legislative Filing Period Closes in Wake of Inflammatory Rhetoric, Setting up Another Contentious Year for 2026
At the writing of this update, the filing period has closed for both the House and Senate and some study committees with November deadlines have begun their work. Leading into the House filing period however, House Majority Leader Jason Osborne sent a message to his Republican caucus with heavily inflammatory language encouraging them to “turn up the heat” and essentially go after public schools—and public school educators. The extent to which his directive impacts the legislative session and public education related laws in New Hampshire remains to be seen.
Here’s a rundown of what we know so far. More than one thousand LSRs were filed this year; 150-200 of those could potentially impact educators, students, and schools. The official bill language for the “Legislative Service Requests” (or LSRs) won’t be released until December for most bills, but we do have a general sense of what the issues being tackled are, including: numerous responses to the Rand and Con Val state supreme court decisions, both positive and negative; responses to the Claremont School District’s budget crisis; new attempts at various culture war issues that were either vetoed or enjoined by the courts, including one championed by Rep. Osborne that seeks to stifle educator speech; further expansion of the school voucher program and other privatization efforts such as converting neighborhood public schools to charter schools; alternative attempts for local and state school budget caps; retained Bills of Major Consequence
We are watching closely bills that we tracked or took a position on in the 2025 session year but were “Retained” for the House or "Referred" in the Senate. While all bills in the New Hampshire House and Senate eventually receive at a minimum one full floor vote in the chamber that legislation originated in or was introduced, bills can be held from the first year to the second year of the biennium in Committee. Sometimes, those pieces of legislation were incorporated into other bills, in other cases Committee members felt the bill needed more time to hammer out, and in many cases, it was a slow or polite way of eventually killing legislation.
Committees have a deadline of November 21st to report out all the 2025 House bills that were retained and December 11th for all Sante bill that were referred. Those bills are typically the first order of business at the first session in January. Committees can recommend those bills ought to pass (OTP), ought to pass with amendment (OTP-A), Inexpedient to Legislate (ITL – kill the bill), or Interim Study (study the bill further to bring in a bill in the new biennium).
Of the bills that were retained, the following list contains several bills we are keeping the closest eye on in committees because of the potential impact they could have on our members:
SB 33 – The Senate version of the book ban legislation. As you may recall, HB 324 was vetoed by Governor Ayotte this summer, so this could be a potential vehicle for a second bite at that apple. This bill was retained in House Education Policy and Administration Committee.
HB 314 – This bill would place restrictions or prohibited various associations like the NH Municipal Association and School Boards Association from using their members’ dues dollars (public funds) to lobby the Legislature. There have been previous versions of this bill that may have wrapped-in public sector labor unions as well. We are watching for the possibility of any amendments that would restrict the right of your union to advocate for you at the State House. This bill is retained in the House Legislative Administration Committee.
HB 675 – This bill would establish a mandatory budget cap on all school districts. This is the bill that would have essentially flattened most school budgets in perpetuity. The language was also included in the budget bill during the House phase, but we successfully got it removed on the floor of the House. The standalone bill, however, was retained by the House Finance Committee.
HB 741/SB 101 – This bill would require each public school to open enrollment. The language of this bill had been included in HB 2, the trailer bill to the budget, but was ultimately removed in Committee of Conference, and not included in the final budget bill sent to the governor. Both bills were retained in the Senate Education Committee.
More Legislative Information:
You can also see all the bill requests by going to the bill tracker on our website here.
You can see the NEA-NH 2025 Legislative Scorecard here.
You can see the new education and labor related laws adopted in 2025 here.
NEA-NH Legislative Advocacy Toolkit
Most of the tools you need to be a legislative advocate for public education are right at your fingertips through NEA-New Hampshire. Check out our new NEA-NH Legislative Advocacy Toolkit here to get all the information you need on how to communicate with your state representatives and senators, support and oppose specific bills, and testify in Concord.
Join the Apple Corps – Make a Contribution to our PAC!
Also, help us make change in Concord by making a sustained contribution to Apple Corps, our political action committee that support pro-public education candidates running for office.
Questions?
If you have questions on any of these bills or ones not mentioned here, please feel free to contact Brian Hawkins, NEA-NH Director of Government Relations at [email protected].
