Jean Slepian visits the State House anywhere from six to 10 times a year. A retired medical librarian from Stoddard and a longtime animal rights activist, she typically works on smaller bills that don’t get much attention.

Now, she fears a Republican-backed change to legislative procedures in the state House of Representatives could limit citizen involvement in government and prevent some of her bills from seeing the light of day.

“It’s really sort of devastating to the process … that New Hampshire citizens have, of being included in the legislation,” Slepian said.

A rule amendment proposed by the House majority leader, Auburn Rep. Jason Osborne, would allow committees to forego a public hearing on any bill if three-quarters of the committee members vote to table it.

Osborne told the House Rules Committee in a meeting last month that he hopes it’ll make the committee process more efficient. Right now, every bill gets a public hearing, at which any member of the public, lawmaker or advocate can give their input.

“We spend a lot of time hearing bills and debating bills that we all know what the eventual outcome is going to be,” Osborne said. “If there were ways that we could all agree to kind of set those issues aside and focus more of our attention on more pressing issues, I think that would be a benefit.”

House Speaker Sherman Packard said the “excessive” number of bills – usually, more than 1,000 are filed each year – is becoming burdensome and time-consuming as committees slog through legislation.

The Rules Committee didn’t discuss potential impacts on citizen access before approving the amendment, 5-4, along party lines. State representatives will vote on the change when the session convenes on Wednesday.

Slepian said she’s already concerned about the outcomes of specific bills she’s working on. She’s helping Exeter Rep. Linda Haskins revive a bill that would ban the sale and use of glue traps, which are commonly used to catch and exterminate rodents. Last year, it was sent to interim study and was ultimately unsuccessful. 

After adding some changes to the bill, Slepian said she has lots of updates to present to the Environment and Agriculture Committee, which also has several new members now who may not be familiar with the issue. Slepian said she’s worried the committee could vote to table it before hearing the new information she has to share.

“If this rule change goes through, the bill could be dead before it even hits the floor,” she said.

If a committee tables a bill, Osborne said, the House could vote to put it back in play by sending it back to the committee for a hearing.

Slepian suggested lawmakers explore other options to streamline the legislative process that wouldn’t cut out public involvement. For example, she said, legislators could urge their colleagues to rethink some of the “frivolous” or “blatantly unconstitutional” bills before the legislation session starts.

After more than 30 years advocating for animals’ rights in the State House, Slepian said the change would tamp down what legislators often say they want more of: public participation.

And, if a committee could vote to table a bill at the last minute, Slepian asks, why would people bother to make long trips to the State House or take time off work if they may not even get a chance to speak?

“A proposed change like this, which is really a smack across the face for citizen participation in the legislative process, that’s not going to encourage citizens to participate,” Slepian said.

Charlotte Matherly is the statehouse reporter for the Concord Monitor and Monadnock Ledger-Transcript in partnership with Report for America. Follow her on X at @charmatherly, subscribe to her Capital Beat newsletter, and send her an email at cmatherly@cmonitor.com.