Yes There Is Life After The Primary
Sunday, January 13, 2008 at 10:07AM Unannounced, spur of the moment, they left the door open why not, I walked in on the New Hampshire Liberty Alliance Bill Reviewing Meeting at the Reagan Legacy HQ in Concord on Saturday.
There was a brief round of boos and hisses but I am used to that. (Kidding)
The NH Liberty Alliance for the unaware hold to this motto:
The NHLA is a non-partisan coalition working to increase individual freedom in New Hampshire. We do this by encouraging private charity, a civil society, and citizen involvement. We also support pro-liberty candidates and causes with money and volunteers.
Good people. There were about twenty in attendance. They were working on the GeneralCourt.org web site the NHLA maintains. This web site offers a quick look at the over one thousand bills introduced this year.
Here is a sample of what was discussed:
Take this new bill, HB1461, to triple the fines for having an overweight vehicle on NH highways. Does this bill suppress individual freedom? Does it affect the voters and taxpayers in the state as a whole? Is it Constitutional? When was the last time the fines were raised and is there justification for tripling the fines? Where will the proceeds go? Will the money be used to grow government or actually fix roads as we have seen has not been done with a large portion of the Highway Fund over the years?
Good questions.
I am glad this group is doing the yeoman’s work on the citizen/taxpayer (receiving) end of the legislative process.
Reader Comments (3)
At your suggestion, I went to the website to see what was on it. And was underwhelmed.
Everything on the NHLA website is contained in the legislature's website- gencourt.state.nh.us- but the state info is more up-to-date, more complete, and easier to read. You can even see video coverage of sessions, and in many cases audio coverage of committee hearings.
The only unique thing on the NHLA website was the info on legislators, i.e. their "score" according to the peculiar tastes of the liberty alliance folks. Unfortunately, the list is 15 months out-of-date, doesn't include about 140 active members, and doesn't include the solon's voting record, so it isn't very useful. I tried to look up the NHLA analysis of some of the key bills we passed yesterday, but they haven't gotten around to doing so. (Memo to NHLA: if you haven't passed judgement by the time the bill is voted on it, don't bother.)
So I guess I will continue to go to the state website for information. And shake my head in surprise for a couple of reasons: why the NHLA folks have wasted there time on such a feeble effort, and why a private group can't run circles around the government when it comes to presenting information to the people.
The site isn't exactly up to your standards?
So don't go there again.
And you didn't pay a dime. Ain't that great!