She thanked those in attendance who helped push the bill forward, including the attorney general and Manchester Mayor Jay Ruais, who has been a vocal advocate of bail reform.

“Now that HB 52 has been signed into law, we are returning to a strong bail bystem, where public safety comes first and the revolving door for violent and repeat offenders has been slammed shut,” Ruais said in a statement Tuesday. “Our previous bail system was seriously flawed, putting our citizens, businesses, visitors and law enforcement in danger.”

In Ayotte’s short time in the corner office, she’s emphasized tough-on-crime policies. Among her top priorities has been tightening the state’s bail law. She has advocated for it as a public safety measure, arguing that the state’s current bail law allows too many violent offenders to go free, enabling them to commit additional crimes.

“I’ve heard so much about the issues we’ve had with bail creating a revolving door that is putting our law enforcement in danger, that is putting average citizens… in danger,” she said, during a press event in March, when she urged lawmakers to pass House Bill 592.

Her hands-on approach successfully put the bill on a fast track, landing on her desk months ahead of the deadline to do so. Earlier in March, Ayotte touted bipartisan support for the measure from eight mayors, in addition to all 10 of the state’s county sheriffs, in front of a room she had packed with dozens of members of law enforcement.

Shepherding this bill into law illustrates how, as a new governor, Ayotte isn’t shy about pushing lawmakers to advance her priorities. And at least in this case, with strong Republican majorities in both chambers, they were happy to oblige. The bill also enjoyed unanimous support from Senate Democrats.

But some civil liberties advocates have warned about the harm the new law could cause. People accused of low-level crimes could lose their jobs and custody of their children while awaiting a trial that could prove them innocent, and taxpayers ultimately have to foot the bill for detaining these individuals. Then, there are concerns about freedom, justice, and due process.

Attorneys at the ACLU of New Hampshire have said it was already possible to detain dangerous individuals and they point to lowering crime rates in the state. Plus, they said, tightening the bail law raises concerns about due process.

“Police are not a judge and jury, and they should not have the power to take away someone’s freedom. That power is left to a judge’s discretion,” said Amanda P. Azad, the organization’s policy director, in a statement.

The current debate about bail stems from a change to the state’s law in 2018, when New Hampshire passed reforms that made it harder to detain people who couldn’t afford to pay bail. Now commonly referred to as bail reform, these changes also allowed any person deemed a danger to the community to be detained before trial, regardless what kind of crime they had been accused of.

Lawmakers have been tinkering with those laws in the years since, passing additional reforms as recently as last year. But Ayotte disagreed with some of the changes, and began championing HB 592.

It eliminates a magistrate system that was only fully enacted a few months ago when three magistrates were appointed. The system was supposed to decrease how long someone has to wait behind bars for a bail decision when a judge isn’t available. The magistrates were scheduled to work on weekends.

While the law used to provide a 24-hour window for an individual to appear in court for a bail determination, HB 592 extends that to 36 hours.

It also lowers the standard required to detain someone from “clear and convincing evidence” to probable cause.

The updated law maintains a provision that the court should not to impose a financial condition that would result in incarceration just because someone can’t afford their freedom, although it allows cash bail if there is “no reasonable alternative” to ensure the person will not commit a new crime, violate bail, or fail to appear in court. Here too, it lowers the standard for making this determination from clear and convincing evidence to probable cause.

And it allows people to be detained if there’s probable cause they have broken certain rules while out on bail — such as committing a felony or class A misdemeanor, failing to appear for court, or violating a condition of their bail.

The new law takes effect 180 days from its signing, on Sept. 21.

This article has been updated with a statement from the mayor of Manchester.

Amanda Gokee can be reached at amanda.gokee@globe.com. Follow her @amanda_gokee.

A wave of art organizations and libraries are speaking up to warn that federal and state cuts could impact the lives of Granite State citizens.

Those sounding the alarm include the New Hampshire Library Association and a wave of local libraries, as well as cultural institutions like Arts4NH, the Capitol Center for the Arts and Prescott Park Arts Festival.

Earlier this month, the Trump administration released an executive order cutting the Institute for Museum and Library Services (also known as IMLS). The agency provides funding and grants to libraries and museums across the country, including New Hampshire, to help fund special projects, research and educational opportunities.

Additional cuts are now looming at the state level. A House committee working on state budget proposals voted in favor of eliminating funding for the Division of Arts, which helps provide funding to arts organizations and advance arts and culture in the state. They are also considering a proposal to shut down the New Hampshire State Library.

Rep. Joseph Sweeney, a Salem Republican who proposed those cuts on Monday, cited the loss in federal funding as part of his rationale, noting that the state wouldn’t be in a position to fill in the gaps. He also said the state library building in downtown Concord could be better used as office space.

“This is a budget in which we really need to identify what we need to fund in this state, and make reductions in the — what I would call — the optional, or the wants, of the state,” Sweeney said at the House Finance Division I committee on Monday.

Sweeney told his colleagues that he did not confer with the state library on its services before bringing the proposed cuts to the committee and noted the state librarian role is currently vacant. The previous state librarian retired in 2024, and former Gov. Chris Sununu pulled a nominee who drew conservative pushback over her opposition to book restrictions.

New Hampshire is home to the first state library ever instituted in the country. In addition to supporting library lending programs, the state library manages a variety of other programs and research databases, including those archiving historical records, government documents and other materials. It received $1.5 million from the IMLS program last year, according to a federal dashboard.

The New Hampshire State Council of the Arts also funded over $1.5 million in grants to arts organizations across the state in 2024, according to Arts4NH, an organization advocating for the state’s creative economy.

Libraries and museums consider the loss of state, federal support

The potential cuts at the federal and state level are sending shockwaves through New Hampshire’s literary and cultural communities.

Arts4NH estimates that arts programming contributes billions of dollars to the New Hampshire economy and represents some 21,000 jobs.

“Now is the time to advocate for the arts and remind our community, state, and federal leaders that arts and culture are essential—not only for creativity and cultural enrichment but for their economic and health benefits to our state,” the organization wrote in a recent call to action on social media.

According to local library officials, the federal funding from IMLS supported a range of programs, including offering books with braille and talking book services to assist readers with visual impairments, as well as providing New Hampshire library patrons with access to e-books and audiobooks through the Libby App. Portsmouth Public Library reported 17,000 borrows through the app last year, while Manchester City Library said its patrons borrowed an average of 6,000 titles per month.

The funding also supported high-speed internet access, STEM and job training programs, veterans’ telehealth spaces, and more, according to New Hampshire librarians.

Laura Horwood-Benton, the assistant director at the Portsmouth Public Library, said she’s especially concerned about the impact on inter-library loans. She said IMLS funding helped to make it possible for local libraries to share materials in different branches all across the state. Through that program, she said, the Portsmouth Public Library gave out roughly 2,700 books to library patrons in other communities last year.

“It makes it a much more equitable service across the state,” she said. “And it means that libraries can curate collections that are specific to their communities but also have access to a much wider range of materials including sometimes academic materials from state universities, as well.”

Horwood-Benton said the Portsmouth Public Library also relied on funding from IMLS to support administrative staff, van drivers. Without the funding, she said, the library is considering how they can continue to provide those services.

“What needs to be decided is whether the state can fund that service at a state level, and that is not clear,” Horton said. (Her comments came before Monday’s budget hearing where lawmakers discussed cutting state library funding.)

Horwood-Benton said they’re looking at the city budget, which will be up for discussion later this spring, to see whether they can find a means of funding many of the programs IMLS helped keep afloat. Without federal and state support, she said libraries throughout the state will be tasked with finding additional funding or looking at cutting programs.

“We would have to lose something in order to provide individual library funding for some of these services,” Horwood-Benton said. “So even if we’re able to maintain an interlibrary loan, for example, that would be a loss from somewhere else.”

Nearby at the Strawbery Banke Museum in Portsmouth, Executive Director Leanna Grimm said at the moment the museum has the funding it needs — but she predicts that, in the long term, the loss of IMLS funding will force museums and art organizations to look to private donors. She predicts that the market for donations will get increasingly tight over time.

“I think that’s one of the biggest challenges with the proposed funding cuts is that all the local nonprofits – we’re all doing amazing work and amazing projects,” Grimm said. “They’re going to have to turn to private donors and foundations to try to fund that work, which means that competition is going to be all the higher. It means that they’re gonna be some really good projects that end up without funding.”

Grimm said now is the time for people to get out and support the arts. She’s been encouraged to hear positive community feedback in response to a letter the museum issued about the federal cuts.

“I was really heartened by our members’ reaction and the support for not only Strawbery Bank museum but museums and libraries throughout the state,” Grimm said. “I see some positives and, and some hope there.”