New Hampshire
Government transparency advocates prevail in slowing bill with public records fee – New Hampshire Bulletin
Under heavy lobbying from government transparency advocates, the House reversed itself Thursday and agreed to rethink a bill it passed last week that would allow communities to charge up to $25 an hour to fulfill requests for public records when doing so took more than 10 hours.
In arguing to send House Bill 1002 back to the House Judiciary Committee for more work, several House members said they didn’t understand the legislation’s unintended consequences when they voted for it last week.
The bill’s opponents argued an hourly fee of up to $25 would restrict access to public records that enable the public to hold government accountable, a right enshrined in the state constitution, which says access to government documents should not be “unreasonably restricted.”
In recent years, residents have used right to know requests to uncover a shady land deal by Webster town officials and improper tax assessments in Nashua. The city has been found in violation of the law by denying records that should have been public and was ordered to get remedial training on the law, according to court records.
Rep. Kelley Potenza, a Rochester Republican, was among those who urged the House to reconsider its passage of the bill.
“Many representatives that I heard from did not understand the full scope of the impact and potential consequences their vote on (the bill) would have on their communities,” she said, “but moreover, all of New Hampshire (and) whether it aligned with the values and priorities of the New Hampshire citizens who hold the contract, the contract being our constitution.”
The reconsideration vote passed, 195-183. In arguing against reconsideration, Rep. Julie Gilman, an Exeter Democrat, appeared to state inaccurate information about the bill and the right-to-know law, RSA 91-A. She said the bill puts into law “a policy that a public body may, not shall, but already can adopt.”
The state Supreme Court has ruled that communities can charge for the actual cost of documents provided in response to a records request. There is no law that allows public bodies to charge up to $25 an hour to “duplicate, redact, and otherwise make the record available.”
An effort to table the bill by Rep. J.R. Hoell, a Dunbarton Republican, failed, 126-254.
“The right of the citizens to understand and know what is going on with their government is so sacrosanct that it should never be eliminated,” Hoell said in a message to the Bulletin following the vote. “Requiring citizens to potentially pay hundreds of dollars to understand what is going on with their government is abysmal and a real threat to our free and open society.”
On a voice vote, the House agreed instead to return the bill to the House Judiciary Committee, where members can expect the New Hampshire Municipal Association to continue lobbying for it and a diverse group of opponents to ask that it be defeated.
Opponents include the New Hampshire Press Association, ACLU of New Hampshire, Right to Know NH, and two groups that advocate for conservative, limited government, the Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy and Americans for Prosperity New Hampshire.
In written testimony to House members this week Greg Moore, regional director for Americans for Prosperity New Hampshire, addressed the New Hampshire Municipal Association’s complaint that overly broad records requests are costly and burdensome for its members.
“Onerous public records requests certainly can be a drain of taxpayer resources,” Moore wrote, “but the alternative of having a more corrupt government is far more expensive and corrosive to public trust.”
The New Hampshire Municipal Association told the committee in August that a survey of 70 of its members revealed that the average public records request takes less than five hours, which would exempt them from the hourly fee proposed in the bill.
A vast majority, 88 percent, of respondents said they receive fewer than 100 right-to-know requests a year. Of the 58 communities that estimated the cost of fulfilling records requests, few said the expense was less than 1 percent of their annual operating budget.
The type of large or voluminous request that would fall under the bill are “infrequent,” the association said in its written testimony, with the majority reporting one or two a year. In a few cases, communities have said they’ve received massive requests from commercial outfits, including one case where a solar panel company requested copies of building permits with hopes of marketing their panels to property owners.
Natch Greyes, government affairs counsel for the association, also noted that the bill would require municipalities to provide the person requesting the records a cost estimate before fulfilling the request and allow them to suggest how a person could narrow their request.
Some of the bill’s opponents challenged the association’s argument that the infrequency of large, burdensome requests indicates the bill would result in a records fee in most cases. Instead, that indicates it’s not necessary, they said.
At the minimum, opponents have requested the bill be amended to include a provision that would allow someone to request a fee waiver, including in cases where the information in the documents is in the public interest.
Following the vote, Gilles Bissonnette, ACLU New Hampshire’s legal director, called the vote a positive step.
“Forcing people to pay unreasonable fees for document requests decreases government accountability and transparency. Under our current transparency law, we have made clear that an open government is an accountable government – and HB 1002, as drafted, would have dismantled that value and provided avenues for abuse and obstruction by government agencies,” he said in an email. “Today’s vote by the N.H. House to send HB 1002 back to committee is a positive step, and we look forward to working with the committee on a solution that prioritizes transparency.”
The son of Cher is scheduled to be in court Wednesday for a hearing over allegations he broke into a New Hampshire home earlier this month.
It was the second arrest in a matter of days for Elijah Allman, 49, of Malibu, California, who was detained Feb. 27 after allegedly acting belligerently at a prestigious prep school in New Hampshire. It was unclear if Allman had any connection to either St. Paul’s School or the home in Windham, New Hampshire.
Allman remains in the Rockingham County Department of Corrections in what is called preventive detention, Superintendent Jonathan Banville said.
Allman, whose father was the late singer Gregg Allman, faces two counts of criminal mischief, one count of burglary and a count of breach of bail for breaking into the home on March 1. Police said in a report that Allman did not have permission to be at the home and forcibly entered it .
In the incident at the prep school, Allman was charged with four misdemeanors: two counts of simple assault, criminal trespass and criminal threatening. Allman was also charged with a violation of disorderly conduct, which is illegal in the state but not considered a crime.
At about 7 p.m. that day, Concord police responded to reports that Allman was disturbing people in the dining hall of St. Paul’s School. After charging Allman, police said he was released on bail as his case works through the court system.
Allman did not respond to an email requesting comment, and a phone number for him was not working. It was unclear from the court records if Allman has an attorney.
In December 2023, Cher filed a petition to become a temporary conservator overseeing her son’s money, saying Allman struggles with mental health issues and addiction have left him unable to manage his assets and potentially put his life in danger.
The petition from the singer and actress said Elijah Allman is entitled to regular payments from a trust fund. But “given his ongoing mental health and substance abuse issues,” she is “concerned that any funds distributed to Elijah will be immediately spent on drugs, leaving Elijah with no assets to provide for himself and putting Elijah’s life at risk,” the petition says.
A few weeks later, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Jessica Uzcategui denied the request, saying she was not convinced that a conservatorship was urgently needed. Allman was in the courtroom with his his attorneys, who acknowledged his previous struggles but argued that he is in a good place now, attending meetings, getting treatment and reconciling with his previously estranged wife.
New Hampshire
Possible 2028 Democratic White House contenders weigh in on Iran with New Hampshire voters
As the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran overtakes the foreign policy debate in Washington, two Democratic governors with potential 2028 presidential aspirations — Gavin Newsom and Andy Beshear — recently traveled to New Hampshire, introducing themselves to the state’s famously engaged voters. The two weighed in on the war and both criticized and questioned President Trump’s strategy and endgame.
“If a president is going to take a country into war, and risk the lives of American troops and Americans in the region, he has to have a real justification and not one that seems to change every five to 10 hours,” Beshear told CBS News after a Democratic fundraiser in Keene.
“This President seems to use force before ever trying diplomacy, and he has a duty to sell it to the American people and to address Congress with it,” Beshear continued. “He hasn’t done any of that. In fact, it appears there isn’t even a plan for what success looks like. He’s gone from regime change to strategic objectives and now is talking about unconditional surrender, which isn’t realistic where he is.”
Beshear also said he thought that Congress should have reined in Mr. Trump’s war powers.
“He is trying to ignore Congress. He’s trying to even ignore the American people,” Beshear said.
He went on to note that the president’s State of the Union address took place “three — four days before he launched this attack,” and Mr. Trump “didn’t even have the respect to tell the American people the threat that he thought Iran posed to us.”
Last week, both the House and the Senate failed to pass resolutions to limit Mr. Trump’s war powers and stop him from taking further military action against Iran without congressional support.
For Newsom, the war with Iran constitutes part of a broader criticism of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
At an event last Tuesday in Los Angeles, Newsom had compared Israel to an “apartheid state.” Later, in New Hampshire, he sought to clarify his comment.
“I was specifically referring to a Tom Friedman [New York Times] column last week, where Tom used that word of apartheid as it relates to the direction Bibi is going, particularly on the annexation of the West Bank,” Newsom explained during a book tour event Thursday night in Portsmouth. “I’m very angry, with what he is doing and why he’s doing it, what he’s going to ultimately try to do to the Supreme Court there, what he’s trying to do to save his own political career.”
Friedman wrote that at the same time that the U.S. and Israel are prosecuting a war in Iran, within Israel, Netanyahu’s government has undertaken efforts to annex the West Bank, driving Palestinians from their homes; fire the attorney general who is leading the prosecution against Netanyahu for corruption; and block the government’s attempt to establish a commission to examine the failures that led up to the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre of Jews by Hamas.
CBS News has reached out to the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C., for comment.
On Iran, Newsom said, “I’m very angry about this war, with all due respect, you know, not because I’m angry the supreme leader is dead. Quite the contrary. I’m not naive about the last 37 years of his reign. Forty-seven years since ’79 — the revolution,” Newsom said. “But I’m also mindful that you have a president who still is inarticulate and incapable of giving us the rationale of why? Why now? What’s the endgame?”
Many attendees at Newsom’s book event said that the situation in Iran is a top-of-mind issue for them, too. Some said they’re “horrified” by what is happening.
29-year-old Alicia Marr told CBS News she decided to attend Newsom’s event because of his social media response to the war with Iran.
“There was one spot left, and I decided to pick it up, and it was due to his response to the war, that it is just unacceptable, and I would agree with that,” Marr said.
While some voters like Marr are eager to hear about where potential candidates stand on foreign policy, many at Newsom’s event said they care most about how potential candidates plan to address domestic issues.
“I’m more focused on getting the middle class back on track and fighting the oligarchy, and I’m less invested in international issues,” said Anita Alden, who also attended Newsom’s event,
“I wouldn’t call myself America first, but we have so many problems at home that are my priority,” she told CBS News.
Former Vice President Kamala Harris, who may also be weighing another White House bid, told Fox 2 Detroit last week that she “unequivocally opposes” the Trump administration’s military action in Iran and urged Congress to take action.
“If we want to stop Donald Trump with this random decision that he has arrived at, then Congress must act, and Congress must act immediately. The American people do not want our sons and daughters to go into this unauthorized war of choice,” Harris said.
Mr. Trump has lashed out against Democrats who have pushed back on his Iran strategy, calling them “losers” last week and arguing that they would criticize any decision he made on Iran.
“If I did it, it’s no good. If I didn’t do it, they would have said the opposite, that you should have done this,” the president said.
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