Being none to familiar with the term “gay panic defense”, I looked it up and then talked to my Representative, Shaun Filiault later. 

The definition first: “The gay panic defense or homosexual advance defense is a strategy of legal defense, referring to a situation in which a heterosexual individual, charged with a violent crime against a homosexual (or bisexual) individual, claims they lost control and reacted violently because of unwanted sexual advances made upon them. A defendant will use available legal defenses against assault and murder, with the aim of seeking an acquittal, a mitigated sentence, or a conviction of a lesser offense. A defendant may allege to have found the same-sex sexual advances so offensive or frightening that they were provoked into reacting, were acting in self-defense, were of diminished capacity, or were temporarily insane, and that this circumstance is exculpatory or mitigating.”

According to The Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law gay and trans panic defenses have been appearing in public court opinions in roughly half the states since the 1960s. As an example, in 104 cases, murder charges were reduced about 33% of the time for defendants using this particular defense. This usually resulted in shorter prison time and some ended in aquittals. Well, who knew?

In 2013, the American Bar Association denounced gay and trans panic defenses, noting gay panic is not recognized as a mental disorder by the American Psychiatric Association.

Then I had a conversation with Shaun who further enlightened me.

In 2021, Rep. Joshua Query (D) introduced HB238, “This bill is entirely constitutional, does not dismiss traditional self-defense lawsuits, and does not deny existing due process defenses. This legislation will correct a dangerous and life-threatening oversight that is needed to protect the safety of LGBTQ+ people in New Hampshire.” The bill passed the House but not in the Senate.

When the House seat in Keene’s Ward 2 was up for election, Filiault found the defeat of that bill motivation to run. He tirelessly went door-to-door, talking to voters, asking for their votes. 

He ultimately won the election. The first bill Filiault filed as a new Representative was HB315 which was, in a nutshell, to abolish the gay panic defense. Through hard work and perseverance, he was able to get it through the House Criminal Justice Committee. However, as with all things political, compromise was expected. 

An amendment was proposed and accepted to change the original bill to include what basically amounted to “all lives matter.” The bill passed as amended, then placed on the House Consent Calendar. While Filiault acknowledges the amended bill is not a bad thing, he feels it diluted the message of his original bill. 

The Senate Judiciary Committee then received the bill and voted 3-2 for the full Senate to “kill the bill” or Inexpedient to Legislate. Not willing to see his bill die on the Senate floor, Filiault got to work contacting all Republican Senators urging them to support his bill. According to Filiault, “Defeat wasn't an option. Not this year. Not in this environment which is so hostile to LGBTQ people. A loss would cost lives.” The Senate vote on HB315 was then delayed for a week, along with three other bills. 

During that week’s reprieve, Filiault reached out to Sen. Daryl Abbas (R) who had previously voted in favor of abolishing gay panic defense. Now we need to back up a little . . .

In January, Abbas introduced a bill, CACR9, into the Senate. This bill is designed to amend the state Constitution to enshrine the “first in the nation” presidential primary. It was “shelved” by the House Election Laws Committee. After being approached by Filiault about HB315, Abbas went to leaders in the House seeking to combine the two bills, his and Filiault’s. 

Rep. Matt Wilhelm (D) who is on the Rules Committee did not want to go along with the offer. In response, rather than forfeit all the work that had been done to get his bill to the floor for a vote, Filiault became an Independent and pushed for it himself. How many of us would have had the courage of our convictions to go ahead and push for what we knew was right? On Thursday, June 8, the Senate voted to pass the bill as re-amended back to its original form by Sen. Sharon Carson (R), before being sent back to the House. On Thursday, June 15, the bill goes back to the House for it to “concur” on the Senate changes. According to Filiault that’s usually a “non-controversial voice vote”. The CACR9 was tabled and never got a yes or no vote.

“I guess in my very small way, pushing HB 315 over the finish line was my contribution to the legacy of Pride.  In the end, it cost me more than I could ever know. And I'd do it all again in a heartbeat. It was all a labor of love.” Rep. Shaun Filiault (I)

According to the ACLU, the last few years have seen states advance a large number of bills attacking LGBTQ rights, especially transgender youth. The ACLU is tracking these attacks and working with our national network of affiliates to support LGBTQ people everywhere. To learn more about what the ACLU is doing on this issue: Mapping Attacks on LGBTQ Rights in U.S. State Legislatures | American Civil Liberties Union (aclu.org)

Last month I wrote an article addressing the steady rise in number of mass shootings here in the United States. It has gotten so bad that other countries have issued travel warnings to their own citizens about traveling to this country. 

Australia and Canada warn that violent and gun-related crimes are much more common here. France warns its citizens which major cities (right down to certain streets) to avoid because of high crime. Uruguay and Venezuela had issued travel warnings in 2019, urging their citizens to postpone travel to America, if possible, because of the increase of acts of violence and indiscriminate hate crimes. The United Kingdom and New Zealand have issued similar warnings.

How embarrassing!

On Saturday, June 3, Franklin police responded to a home after gunshots were reported and discovered 35 year-old Nicole Hughes and her year and a half old daughter, Ariella, dead from gunshots. Another child, five years old, was shot but survived. The suspect, Jamie Bell, father of Ariella and Nicole’s partner, was found about six hours later, dead from a self-inflicted knife wound.

Another town is left stunned, shocked and reeling from such unexpected, but what has come to be an almost daily occurrence of senseless gun violence in America. We just don’t ever know where or when it will happen again. No wonder other countries have issued travel warnings to their citizens who may want to visit our gun crazy nation!

I will remind all our readers again of Gov. Sununu’s recent speech at the NRA Leadership Forum in Indianapolis, Indiana, this past April where he proudly and gleefully proclaimed, “Yeah, well they gave me a red-flag law and I gave them a red veto pen”.

Would this young mother and her baby be alive today if Sununu hadn’t so cavalierly vetoed a law that could have saved their lives? It can’t be said often enough, Sununu needs to be shown the door in ’24!

As a reminder:

If you are experiencing domestic violence, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233, or go to thehotline.org. All calls are toll-free and confidential. The hotline is available 24/7 in more than 170 languages. 

Did you hear there is a border crisis??? A CRISIS!!! EVERYBODY PANIC THERE IS A CRISIS AT THE BORDER!!!!

Actually, that’s not true. Illegal border crossings are actually down 70% at the southern border since the end of Title 42 in May. It turns out that when you give people a legal way of crossing the border they stop having to do it the illegal way.

Its worth noting that we could have had the same benefit if we had dropped Title 42 a year ago. Alas, our immigration policy continues to be designed to appeal firstly to the xenophobic prejudices of the very worst people in America. 

Meanwhile, the same New Hampshire Republicans who believe that local police departments should never ever be involved in enforcement of federal firearms laws now also believes that local police departments should be deeply involved in enforcement of federal immigration rules. And they are trying to spend $1.4 million to make it happen.

I am referring to the “Northern Border Alliance Program,” which is a proposal by Governor Sununu to spend on state and local cops for police training, equipment, and overtime to assist federal agencies with border patrol.

Overtime! As in, time-and-a-half overtime! To chase away immigrants who probably aren’t even out there!

Great use of public resources there, Governor.

When this budget item came before the New Hampshire house, a solid majority of Representatives voted to take it out of the budge, That was part of a well-executed, bipartisan negotiation that achieved through good-faith give and take from both left and right. 

That Democratic good faith was clearly wasted, however, as the Norther Border Alliance Program was put back into the budget when the Republicans got to it the Senate.

I’ll say this does nothing but reinforce the dim view I take of the value of bipartisanship. Why should Democrats continue to reach across the aisle to a party that never does anything to deserve a modicum of trust? 

I digress. Back to my point.

If the Republicans are so really eager to spend money on police, I wish they would do it in a way that actually enhances our public safety. As a local City Councilor, my suggestion would be to take that $1.4 million and put it into a pool that understaffed police departments can draw upon to spend on hiring bonuses. 

A resource like that might really be helpful in filling out the ranks of the police department in Keene, for example, which is currently nine officer's short. The labor market for police officers has been tight, and city police departments across the state need all they help they can get in finding good new people for the job. 

Of course, it would also help if city departments didn’t have to compete for officers with small departments that can offer super-easy overtime, like patrolling the northern woods for imaginary undocumented immigrants on the taxpayer’s dime.

After weeks of running for President – touring the country, media events, raising the money – Governor Chris Sununu now says he’s not running for President. 

Which is great, because Chris Sununu should not be President. Four years of his abortion double-talk, ballooning fossil fuel subsidies, sabotage of the public education system, and generally insufferable smugness is not what this country needs.

No, Chris Sununu now says that he’s not going to run for President because “beating Trump is more important.”

“If he is the nominee, Republicans will lose again,” Sununu wrote in the Washington Post.  “Just as we did in 2018, 2020 and 2022. This is indisputable, and I am not willing to let it happen without a fight.”

He's not wrong about that, but its interesting to me that Sununu’s objection to Trump is not that Trump is bad for the United States of America. Rather, his objection is that Trump is bad for the Republican Party. 

Sununu has not changed the position that he has stated all along, which is that he’ll support Trump if Trump is the Republican nominee. And Trump undoubtedly will win the nomination, because the bottom line is that Republican voters love the guy.

If top Republicans were really opposed Trump, they would make it clear that they will oppose him no matter what – that they would support even Joe Biden over Trump – because country is more important than party.

But no Republican will do that, because party loyalty always comes above patriotism. And so it is the case with Chris Sununu. 

Did you know that New Hampshire taxpayers spend $3.55 BILLION to educate the roughly 165,000 public school students? Students who are CONSTITUTIONALLY GUARANTEED a right to an “adequate” public education. The state provides about one billion of those dollars through state taxes. The remaining amount comes from property taxes. This translates to what an individual district is able to offer can oftentimes vary from district to district. It also means the tax burden can vary for property owners in the same regional school district where students from different towns attend the same schools. 

Our elected officials in Concord are still trying to figure out a formula for what they want to spend. Unfortunately, that formula only covers about a third of the state’s CONSTITUTIONAL requirement to public school students. The rest of the required funding goes to the property taxpayers. 

For more than thirty years, the state has repeatedly lost lawsuits for failing to live up to its CONSTITUTIONAL requirement to adequately fund public education. 

This past week the Senate Finance Committee acted on an amendment to the budget, changing the formula once again. This new Senate formula increases the pupil adequacy aid just a little, increases aid based on students receiving free and reduced fee lunch and to towns with low property tax bases for each student who receives the free or reduced fee lunch. While this is seen as an improvement, it still falls short of the funding formula the House passed earlier. It also comes nowhere near what is needed to fund what students need and deserve in the public schools. 

Again, this budget fails to ADEQUATELY fund education but at the same time looks to expand school vouchers (also known as the “education freedom account”)! A large majority of students in the voucher program are either already homeschooled or attend private schools. This proposed expansion could cost $48 million each year in new state spending. Will that come from property owners again? NH families and students deserve a fair funding formula for the roughly 165,000 public school students. They deserve to have schools that are safe, fully stocked and fully staffed.

On Wednesday, June 7, the full Senate will vote on HB 367 and this is where you come in. Please click the following link, CONTACT YOUR STATE SENATOR, and ask them to vote NO on HB 367!

New Hampshire can do so much better for public school students and property owners! 

There was a lot of steam coming out of my ears after last weeks meeting of the Keene City Council’s Municipal Services, Facilities & Infrastructure (MSFI) Committee, on which I sit, in which most of the good and useful things were stripped from our city’s planned downtown infrastructure project. 

I’ve been on the losing end of votes before, but this one hurt. The project, under the plan adopted by the MSFI Committee, will spend $14+ million to dig up and disrupt our downtown for three years, replace a bunch of pipes, and then cover everything up and leave basically everything exactly the same as it was before.

The proposed expanded greenspace and pedestrian access to our Central Square? Dropped from the plan.

A new traffic pattern that keeps cars from stacking up on Main Street? Nope! Under this plan we may continue to appreciate the sounds and fumes of automobiles at any of Keene’s parking-adjacent outdoor dining opportunities.

Protected lanes for bicycle and scooter users? Oh no, we can’t possibly allow that. We might have the alleged widest paved main street in the world, but it’s just not wide enough to cover four lanes of traffic, three to four rows of angled car parking, AND protected bike lanes. 

We mustn’t inconvenience drivers at all, you see. Its more important for drivers from Swanzey to have a heavily subsidized place to park in the center median of Main Street than it is for bicycle riders living in Keene to be able to transit the center of their community safely.

What’s really rubbish about this whole thing is that, if MSFI’s plan is what the City Council eventually adopts – excluding whole emerging categories of inclusive, low cost, environmentally friendly transportation – it’s going to cost Keene taxpayers a whole a bundle of money.

Today, we live in an era – perhaps an era that won’t last much longer – when there is a great deal of development money on the table that is available to pay for projects that support non-automotive forms of transportation.

In particular, RAISE grants, available through the Department of Transportation, exist to “communities build transportation projects that have significant local or regional impact and improve safety and equity.” If Keene were to attract a RAISE grant, that could easily be expected to cover $8 million or $10 million of the eventual price tag – and possibly more.

The city of Berlin, NH got $19.5 million from a RAISE Grant, which it is spending on a pedestrian-focused plan that includes heated sidewalks. Take a look at the complete list of 2022 RAISE grant recipients, and the common theme in the 166 grant awards to municipalities across the country is that these are creative, innovative projects that benefit more than just automobile drivers.

In comparison to these projects, I think the project that was originally proposed – and recommended last year by a committee that spent six months looking at the issues – stacks up nicely and would make a good case for attracting some of the $1.5 billion that has been set aside to fund these grants.

RAISE stands for Rebuilding America’s Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity, and ideas like protected bike lanes, better walkability, and expanded greenspace fit well into the goals and purpose of the grant. There is significant money on the table, and we are in a position to get it.

By contrast, I am confident that the plan outlined by the MSFI committee would attract zero dollars, leaving Keene taxpayers on the hook for the vast majority of that $14 million bill.

Fortunately, the MSFI Committee does not have the final word. While the gutted version of the plan that passed through MSFI is currently what’s on the table, the City Council voted on Thursday to delay the final vote until after we have a chance to listen to a presentation by Jeff Speck, a renowned expert on walkability, who has been invited by the Keene Downtown Group to speak at on June 12.

I sure hope Mr. Speck has some novel and convincing ideas, because its going to take the votes of 8 City Councilors to get the downtown project back on track. If you live in Keene – support having a downtown that’s built around the needs of people, rather than the needs of automobiles, and if you would rather not have the city be on the hook for the full price of a $14 million project – now is a good time to make sure you City Councilors know how you feel.

Today we celebrate Memorial Day, a day in which we remember and honor all our servicemen and women who lost their lives on various battlefields. Memorial Day began as “Decoration Day” having come about during the Civil War. People went around placing flowers on the graves of those who had died fighting. The war ended in the spring of 1865, claiming more lives than any conflict in American history. The end of the war also saw the establishment of the country’s first national cemeteries. Three years later, Decoration Day was formally established on May 5, 1868 by the Grand Army of the Republic, an organization of Union veterans. On that first Decoration Day in 1868, Gen. James Garfield gave a speech at Arlington National Cemetery. 

On May 30, 1873, Gen. Ulysses S. Grant led the observance with a crowd of about 5,000 people who later decorated the graves of the roughly 20,000 Civil War soldiers. Children who were orphaned placed small American flags and flowers on top of both Confederate and Union soldier’s graves.

It was not until after World War I, for all American soldiers who had died in wars, to be remembered. The name was then changed from Decoration Day to Memorial Day and was observed on May 30 for many decades.

In 1968, Congress passed the “Uniform Monday Holiday Act”, thereby changing Memorial Day to the last Monday in May and making it a federal holiday. This was to create a three-day weekend for federal employees and went into effect in 1971.

Memorial Day observance consists of laying a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns in Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia, along with various parades, speeches and religious services throughout the country. 

Memorial Day and Veterans Day (November 11) honor the sacrifices made by United States veterans. 

But it is on Memorial Day we somberly honor and remember all those who died. 

Give peace a chance. John Lennon, 1969

Our roads, highways and bridges are maintained using revenue from each state’s gas tax, New Hampshire being no different. The Dept. of Transportation (DOT) put out a report in 2020 which predicted that form of revenue will begin to shrink as more and more people utilize environmentally friendly electric vehicles and/or hybrids.

In the recent past the NH Legislature has attempted to establish a means of collecting fees from the owners of these vehicles in order to continue the task of maintaining our roads. Those attempts failed.

On February, 9, SB 191-FN was introduced from the Ways and Means Committee as an Act “relative to road toll registration surcharges for electric vehicle”. Sponsored by Sen. David Watters (D), this bill would impose a flat fee of $100 to the owners of electric and hybrid vehicles each year when registration is due. 

On Monday, May 15, Sen. Dan Innis (R) brought forth an amendment to make two changes to the proposed bill. Because a hybrid is exactly that, a vehicle which runs on both electricity and/or gasoline, owners of those vehicles should be charged only $50 at registration time. The second change left out wording permitting the DOT the use of up to 20% of the raised funding to construct more electric vehicle charging stations. 

Innis’ amendment did include the following: “Electric vehicles contribute to the reduction of air pollution in New Hampshire and serve an important role in transitioning the transportation sector to clean energy.”

On May 15, the Senate Finance Committee approved a budget amendment that would require owners of electric and hybrid vehicles to pay an extra fee when they register those vehicles. The goal is to get back that revenue in the highway fund from drivers who now have little or no use for gasoline. 

The Senate Finance Committee is still working on changes to the budget passed by the House which will then go to the Senate for a vote. Should the electric and hybrid vehicle registration fee end up in the final budget and is signed by Gov. Sununu later this summer, NH will join over 30 other states that currently have additional registration fees for EVs and/or hybrids.

Here are several comparative (except Texas) state-by-state fees:

Colorado: $50 annual fee for full-electric and plug-in hybrid (PHEV) vehicles.  
Illinois: $100 annual fee for EVs beginning July 1, 2019. 
Indiana: $150 annual fee for EVs; $50 for hybrids and PHEVs.  
Minnesota: $75 annual fee on EVs.  
Missouri: $75 annual fee on EVs, and $37.50 on PHEVs.  
Nebraska: $75 annual fee on alternative-fuel vehicles, including EVs.  
North Carolina: $130 on plug-in vehicles, including EVs.  
Oregon: $110 annual fee on PHEVs  
South Carolina: $120 biennial fee for EVs; $60 biennial fee for hybrids.  
Texas: $400 to register their “clean vehicles” and $200 every time they renew their registrations.   
Tennessee: $100 annual fee for EVs.  
Virginia: $64 annual license for EVs.  
Washington: $150 annual fee for EVs.  
Wisconsin: $100 annual fee for EVs.

Next year, the Department of Environmental Services’ (DES) rules regarding the citing of landfills in New Hampshire are due to expire.

The current 30-year old rules require a mere 200-foot minimum setback from bodies of water.  Recognizing the complete inadequacy of these rules, a bipartisan majority in both houses of the legislature passed legislation last session to bring New Hampshire’s siting codes into the 21st century, only to see these efforts vetoed by a governor in the pockets of corporate interests. The House voted overwhelmingly to override the veto, but the Senate failed to deliver for the people and public health.

This year, we continued the fight against special interests.  I wish I could say we won.  

HB56, sponsored by Hillsborough Rep. Megan Murray (D-Amherst), offered an important step in the right direction.  Instead of an arbitrary setback distance, HB56 would codify a minimum five-year distance from any perennial body of water, based on seepage velocity of groundwater between the landfill site and the protected body of water. This would allow ample time for detection of landfill leaks and remediation efforts long before our rivers, streams, ponds, and lakes are polluted.  

This legislation would have made an important statement about the legislature’s defense of public health and safety, without imposing undue regulatory burdens on companies applying for permits to open landfills in our beautiful state.  HB56 passed the House in March with broad bipartisan support but the Senate sided with Gov. Sununu and corporate interests (i.e., Casella Waste Management) to kill the bill in April.

When we were hearing HB56 in the House Environment and Agriculture Committee, Republicans told us there was a better bill coming from the Senate, one that could provide the protections we were looking for and actually be signed into law.  If only that were so.  SB61 would put in place a 24-month abeyance on landfill permitting while DES hires a consultant and writes new rules based on recommendations.  

During public hearings, assistant commissioner of DES Mark Sanborn repeatedly threatened that any amendments offered by the committee would cross the lines drawn by the “stakeholders” he represented and lead to a veto.  When asked who these stakeholders were, his response was pretty transparent – the governor and business interests.  He added “the public” as an afterthought. 

The Environment and Agriculture Committee held a public hearing and a public work session on SB61 before the final executive session on May 23rd.  Democratic leadership worked hard with Senate sponsors, an industry lobbyist, and a representative from North Country Alliance for Balanced Change to find compromise language that would ensure at least some integrity in the process of choosing a consultant and writing rules based on their report.  

Our concern was that DES could, and would, hire a consultant to write a report to suit the special interests that have already clearly expressed their opposition to stringent standards to protect public health and the environment.  (Everyone can see this sham process at work right now in the Department of Education’s current rule-writing.)  Their repeated efforts to neuter proposed changes to SB61 to put the public over corporate profits confirmed our concerns.

During the sausage-making legislative process, we often hear the old cliché “You can’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.”  Cliché though it is, it is also often sound advice.  I tried hard to accept the argument that something would be better than nothing, and that the abeyance would give us time to conduct oversight and take future action to steer the rule-writing process.

The more I had to tell myself that this bill was better than no bill, the more I came to realize that I was trying to convince myself to vote for legislation that I could not support. For me, the straw that broke the camel’s back came when the industry lobbyist flat out refused to accept two small but important changes – changes that speak directly to the intent of the legislation and the integrity of the process.  

First, the bill as written calls for rules that take into account “representative travel time” of groundwater. “Representative” is purposefully vague and would allow for tests to be repeatedly made in areas developers know will provide a low average.  You could drill over and over again in a 50-square foot space that you know will yield the results you want and submit this data as “representative.” 

We proposed amending the language to take into account “variability across the site,” ensuring data that is genuinely representative of the hydrogeology of the site. This effort to prevent cherry-picking data by economic interests at the expense of the environment and public health was declared impermissible by the industry lobbyist.

Even more blatant was their unequivocal rejection of efforts to change the language calling for “adequate protections” of water sources with the language used in the Clean Water Act, “to protect perennial surface water with an ample margin of safety.”  They rejected language that calls for “an ample margin of safety”!! That tells you everything you need to know. 

This isn’t about the perfect being in the enemy of the good. What is left of the good in legislation that is so thoroughly shaped by the industry it purports to regulate? How can we honestly say we expect the rule-writing process to have any more integrity?  

I hope my committee colleagues who voted for the bill (colleagues whom I respect and whose integrity I do not doubt) are correct and we can exercise sufficient oversight in this process.  I am doubtful, but despite my doubts I will remain engaged, critical, and vocal in my opposition to corporate power putting profits over people and the environment.  

Republican primary candidate Nikki Haley came all the way up from South Carolina to sell transphobic bigotry to New Hampshire, but New Hampshire isn’t buying. 

Haley spoke today at Saint Anselm College – which is normally the Jerry Falwell University of the north – but the particular event she spoke at was Politics and Eggs. David Weigel described the program as a “nonpartisan breakfast speech/Q&A series – a polite crowed of businessmen and nonprofit people, not a GOP base crowd.”

So it fell flat when she tried to throw some red meat from the culture war to what turned out to be a more broad-minded audience than she expected. After warming up with a standard racist attack against “Critical Race Theory” (so six months ago) she decided to pitch her brand of malicious transphobia.

"Everybody know about Dylan Mulvaney? Bud Light? That is a guy, dressed as a girl, making fun of women."  she said.

Haley was referring to the recent stupid thing in which very online conservatives have been declaring themselves to be deeply upset that a Bud Light bottle featuring a rainbow on the label was shared with a trans woman for promotional purposes.

I’ve been telling conservatives that Bud Light tastes like malted sadness for years - if you are a beer drinker there are a million better options out there. But turns out conservatives don’t mind the taste at all - its tolerance and understanding they cannot abide. 

Nevertheless, what plays well in South Carolina is less enticing in New Hampshire. 

“Crickets from the crowd at Saint A’s” was how Jake Lahut described the response, “where we have a lot of suits and ties, a lot of business associations, not a lot of Fox News viewers apparently.”

Ha ha!