Some of the ways that government has adapted to the challenges posed by the coronavirus pandemic have proven to be so effective that lawmakers in Concord are looking to make some of the temporary measures permanent.
House Bill 216, which gets a hearing today before the House Judiciary Committee, would amend the state’s open meeting law to allow people to participate by electronic means.
If enacted, the bill would remove the requirement that a meeting take place in a physical location as long as officials and members of the public are able to participate remotely in a way that allows them to hear, read, and “otherwise discern meeting discussion” as required by RSA 91-A, the Right-To-Know law. If the meeting does take place in a physical location, those attending in person must also be identified.
The bill requires that there be public access by telephone and other electronic means, such as the Zoom meetings that have proven so popular in the past year. In scheduling such meetings, there must be appropriate notice with instructions on how to access and participate in the discussion. All votes taken during such a meeting must be by roll call, and if there is an electronic problem that prevents the public from participating, the law requires that the meeting be adjourned until such problems are worked out.
Jules Good, a disability rights activist who is responsible for getting House proceedings captioned so deaf and hard-of-hearing people can follow the proceedings, said of the bill, “Granite Staters deserve full access to House proceedings, where representatives make decisions that impact the everyday lives of their constituents.” He noted that several other states have been allowing remote participation over the telephone since as early as 1978. “It is time for New Hampshire to catch up,” he said. “Democracy must be accessible to all New Hampshire residents, not just those who can drive to the State House.”
Virtual Visits To White House Not Logged
The White House normally keeps a log of visitors which presidents before Donald Trump would release to the public. Trump refused to make those logs public until ordered to do so by the courts. With Joe Biden now in the White House, his pledge to restore transparency has left some critics wondering when that transparency will be forthcoming. While the White House has committed to releasing visitor logs again, it does not plan to divulge the names of attendees at virtual meetings.
Norm Eisen, who served as Obama’s ethics czar, said Biden should release virtual visitor logs despite hurdles such as a lack of a centralized list of virtual visitors.
Visitors are not all that is missing from the Biden transparency pledge: The schedules for the president and vice president are not posted online; the White House comment line is shut down; and there are no citizen petitions listed on the White House website.
Biden has been criticized for not answering public records requests more quickly; failure to publish Office of Legal Counsel opinions; not revising classification policies; and not listing physical meetings at other locations where the president and his aides travel.
Access To Employees
Senator Jeanne Shaheen is pushing the Biden Administration to revoke Trump-era restrictions on the H2B and J1 visa programs which allow foreign workers to fill jobs that Americans are not taking, including many in the tourism and hospitality industries.
The H2B visa program provides temporary non-farm help for up to six months for businesses that are unable to attract enough U.S. workers to fill their needs.
The J1 program allows students to get full-time work during school vacations and college breaks for as much as 60 days.
Responding to requests from businesses such as the Naswa Resort in Laconia and Sawyer’s Dairy Bar in Gilford, Shaheen has lobbied for an increase in the allowed number of 33,000 H2B workers in the United States. Both local businesses have reduced their hours or shut down early because of the lack of workers.
The News Café is a virtual meeting place where we discuss the news of the day. Subscribe for as little as $5 per month and receive all posts directly in your email in-box, as well as having access to the web archives of all the newsletters. Subscribers can share their knowledge, thoughts, and questions about any topic, and we may select some of those subjects for more in-depth analysis.
If you’re unsure and want to give the News Café a try, sign up for a free subscription which puts you in touch with the limited number of public posts, which you can share with your friends.
Either way, we invite you to fill your cup with your favorite drink, pull up a chair, and join us at The News Café as we build our community. www.libertymedianh.org