It has been one of my greatest honors to serve the people of Derry in the State Legislature during the past two years. I am grateful that you gave me an opportunity to be a part of one of the best legislative sessions in the state’s history and for taking me at my word that I would work full-time to bring restorative change to our great state.
I tried my very best to fulfill my promise to bring jobs and economic opportunity, better health industry and insurance laws, parental rights and community empowerment, and individual liberty and safety. I am confident that I have done so. The Legislature’s balanced budget, and the $1 billion spending decrease, deregulations, tax and fee cuts, and government downsizing that enabled the responsible budget we passed, will guarantee the state’s economic growth and development in the coming years.
At this time in my life, with a new child and a five-year old preparing for private school, my focus must shift to raising my family, sharing time with my wife and building my career. This decision, I believe, will benefit Derry voters as well. I believe a state representative or senator should be fully devoted to his or her office, and doing the work of the people who sent him or her there. While certainly I have given elected office my all within the last two years, I cannot devote my full attention to public life within the next two years. Therefore, I will not be seeking reelection this year.
Concord, NH — Today, the New Hampshire House of Representatives took another step toward the Republican’s goal of stopping ObamaCare and its tax hikes, government expansion and prohibitive price tag. GOP leaders in the House of Representatives today passed a plan which would prohibit a state health insurance exchange and force Washington to repeal and replace the Democrats’ government-run health plan.
“When it comes to ObamaCare, the list of problems never ends,” said New Hampshire Republican State Committee Chairman Wayne MacDonald. “It spends borrowed money, it raises taxes, in many ways it puts the government in charge and through these exchanges it eliminates choices for patients.”
ObamaCare requires states to establish bureaucratic exchanges that are regulated by the state and result in fewer options and less competition. States are required to implement these government-run health programs by January 1, 2014, or the federal government will do it for them. Speaker Bill O’Brien, Majority Leader D.J. Bettencourt and Rep. Andrew Manuse have been leading efforts in the House of Representatives to stop these exchanges in the Granite State.
A House committee approved a bill last week that would exempt employers from providing health insurance coverage for contraception if the employer has a religious exemption.
HB 1546 amends a 12-year-old state law that requires employers to cover contraceptives if other medications are covered under the health insurance provided.
“It is unconstitutional for government to force religious institutions to pay for products that they object to on religious grounds,” bill co-sponsor State Rep. Andrew Manuse, R-Derry, said in his testimony to the Constitutional Review and Statuatory Recodification Committee, which passed the bill on Feb. 23. “This effort has nothing to do with the merit of contraceptives, as I personally do not object to their use. I do, however, object to the idea that government can force a religious organization to pay for procedures or services that they find objectionable according to the teachings of their religion.”
House Bill 1297 would effectively stop Obamacare in New Hampshire by prohibiting state officials from implementing or aiding the federal government in implementing a state exchange.
Let’s keep up our promises to voters by passing this law and prohibiting the state of New Hampshire from creating a state exchange that could be the nail in the coffin of the New Hampshire Advantage.
A new law will give New Hampshire homeowners the right to appeal a property assessment even after refusing to allow an assessment official into their home.
State Rep. Andrew Manuse, R-Derry, who proposed House Bill 316, said it restores citizens’ “constitutional right to appeal an assessment while continuing to protect the constitutional right to be secure in the home from unreasonable searches.”
The new law repeals provisions of RSA 74:17, a state statute that said a homeowner who refuses to grant consent to selectmen or assessing officials to enter their property for assessing purposes “shall lose the right to appeal any matter pertaining to the property tax for which such person is liable; and the right to appeal and exemptions for which such person may be entitled, but has not yet received.”
CONCORD, N.H.—The New Hampshire House voted Wednesday to send back to the federal government any money the state receives to implement the federal health care reform law.
Lawmakers also directed the attorney general to join states suing to block the federal law.
PORTSMOUTH — A bill that would remove penalties for taxpayers who fail to fill out property tax inventory forms and refuse to allow property inspections is working its way through the state Senate.
House Bill 316 is sponsored by nearly a dozen Republican state representatives and state senators. If passed, it would negate existing language in state statute that means any person who fails to file a fully completed inventory form — unless granted an extension — or prohibits a property inspection, would lose the right to appeal an assessment or the denial of an abatement of an appraisal.
Having cleared the House, the bill is now with the Senate committee on Public and Municipal Affairs. The legislation is sponsored by Rep. Andrew Manuse, R-Derry, who said he sponsored the bill because he doesn’t believe it’s fair to punish someone by taking away their constitutional right of due process when they are in fact exercising another constitutional right of feeling secure in one’s home.
“This will restore people’s right to appeal,” he said.
CONCORD – Enhanced security measures at airports were described as tyranny, sexual assault and a violation of the Constitution’s prohibition against unreasonable search and seizure Tuesday.
Bill sponsor Rep. Andrew Manuse, R-Derry, called the new security procedures a slippery slope. “What’s next? Will they do body-cavity searches?” he asked, and noted he was told of a woman who lives with one of his constituents being strip-searched at Manchester-Boston Regional Airport.
“Where do you draw the line? … You do that any other place and it would be sexual assault,” Manuse said.
Pantelakos asked if the woman filed a complaint, and Manuse said if she didn’t, she should have. “You can’t treat innocent people like they are guilty,” he said.
In 2006, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) announced the creation of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), an initiative championed by then-Republican Gov. George Pataki. Less than five years later, 10 states had signed onto the cap and trade plan as a way to reduce emissions. But now, one of them may be about to withdraw, citing budget and economic concerns.
On Wednesday, the New Hampshire House passed a bill that would repeal the state’s membership in the RGGI. The bill was championed by its Republican co-sponsors who called the cap and trade program a “stealth tax” on energy consumers. It is expected to easily pass the state House and quite possibly the state Senate within the next month.
“The reasons used to promote RGGI were based in false, exaggerated and highly politicized science,” state Rep. Andrew Manuse, one of the bill’s co-sponsors, told The Daily Caller. “Even if you believe carbon dioxide causes climate change, there is no scientific evidence to support the idea that RGGI does anything to solve this alleged problem.”
The House Federal Relations and Veterans Affairs Committee is considering a bill supported by Rep. Andrew Manuse and others directing New Hampshire Attorney General Michael Delaney to join a federal lawsuit opposing Obamacare’s individual mandate requiring Americans to buy health insurance, which exceeds Congress’s constitutional authority. The suit is backed by 20 states.
