Distant Dome: Things Will Be Vastly Different Next Session

By GARRY RAYNO, InDepthNH

If you do anything long enough, you discover a rhythm to the action or actions.

If you can lock into the rhythm, the work becomes routine and less daunting.

Beginning in September, the legislating rhythm around the State House will be going from three-quarter time to nine over eight.

It is not only the landscape around the State House that is changing, it is also the familiar rhythm that encompasses lawmakers, staff, lobbyists, reporters and other observers of the process of creating state laws, policies and programs.

The Legislative Office Building is now closed and will be for some time as workers refurbish the one-time post office and fix the deathly out-of-date air circulation, heating and cooling system that has been a problem since the building was refurbished years ago to make it the Legislative Office Building.

The old building holds most of the committee rooms for the House and Senate with only two committee rooms remaining in the State House.

Beginning this fall — but particularly next January — the House and Senate committees that used to met in the LOB will be meeting at Granite Place, the old Chubb Life Insurance Building where the Attorney General’s Office is now located and purchased by the state with general funds from Concord developer and former Republican State Party Chair Steve Duprey for $21 million in April 2024.

State surplus budget funds were used to pay for the south tower of the building, while the state continues to lease the north tower while some state lawmakers contemplate a purchase of the rest of the campus as recently as this past spring.

The complex will become LOB north although it is located off Rumford Street about 1.5 miles from the State House and about a six to eight minute ride by car.

The facility has hundreds of parking spaces, something that is lacking around the State House on busy days but does not contain the offices of Legislative Services or the Legislative Budget Assistant in the State House, which are crucial to the operations of the legislative committees, as well as House and Senate office and research staff, which were in the Legislative Office Building.

The other aspect upsetting the rhythm of the State House culture is the in-the-process-of-being-built legislative parking garage where the old New Hampshire Bank building once stood and until recently the Attorney General’s Office.

For quite some time after the building was torn down, there was a big hole in the ground. The hole was often filled with water from the underground aquifer that runs through that section of Concord and has greatly complicated building the new parking garage.

When the bank occupied the building before the real estate crash in the early 1990s that took down the state’s five biggest banks, bank officials sought to add a third story to the building but were told by the city’s engineers that would be impossible because the underground river under the building would prevent adding any more weight.

It is difficult to conjure that a 400-plus-space parking garage loaded with vehicles would not be more weight than a third floor on the old bank building.

Think of the old ancient wooden pilings under Venice and you can get some idea of what the construction of the new garage entails.

In any event, the garage will be much more convenient for lawmakers who do not have the political capital to merit a parking space in the garage behind the LOB or along the streets around the State House.

Most legislators have to park in the old parking garage above Storrs Street across Main Street from the State House.

On the coldest winter days, the five-minute walk from the old parking garage to the State House feels like an hour while traversing icy sidewalks and fighting the biting winds barrelling down Main Street from the North.

A legislative parking garage across the street from the State House and LOB will be a luxury when it is ready to open.

The parking garage was paid for by federal COVID rescue plan relief funds and the progress has been slow and is not likely to be finished in time for the start of the 2026 session in January.

All of this will make traversing the streets around Concord particularly difficult when the Legislature is in full swing next session.

But the changes will not only impact legislating efficiency it will make some significant changes in the culture.

For example, the State House cafeteria has long been the gathering place of not just lawmakers, but the governor’s staff, lobbyists, other advocates and a reporter or two.

The cafeteria has been the site of many “back room deals” worked out over lunch, or proposals for a new twist to salvage a bill about to fail, or to try out a new education funding plan with some of the Manchester delegation before even bringing it forward for the world to see.

The cafeteria was also fertile ground for reporters sitting at a well placed table and being able to hear four or five conversations about plans for bills or who was holding up or not supporting a bill for some crazy reason or why the governor is weighing in early on another piece of legislation etc.

What many people do not understand about the legislative process is that most of the action on any major issue does not go on in front of the public.

Instead most key moments occur in the halls or offices of the State House or LOB when bill sponsors or committee chairs talk to lobbyists and advocates trying to find a way forward when there are objections or if someone is demanding too much and does not have the backing needed to make the case to the full House when it comes to be able to count the votes before a real vote is taken.

The shenanigans that went on over the committee of conference budget agreement in the House after it initially failed in June was not done in the public eye as the bargaining to secure the needed couple of votes to pass the bills resulted in the Republican majority agreeing to support ending funding for the state’s immigration program next session.

While those sorts of scenarios will continue in the State House on session days, the give and take between the House and Senate and Governor’s Office will be more difficult next session with most of the committees situated a mile-and-a-half away.

Yes there are cell phones and texting, but face to face conversations are more secure because they leave nothing to trace and you can read the other person’s face for a better idea of what they really think about something.

The upending of the usual rhythm of the legislative process has had House Speaker Sherman Packard encouraging Representatives to introduce as few bills as possible for the upcoming session and the scattered nature of the halls of power for that six-month period.

The good news is the committee hearings and sessions held at Granite Place will continue to be live streamed so if you don’t want to venture physically into the new world of legislating this upcoming session, you can stay at home and watch all the action or what there is of it.

And next year is an election year which always turns up the heat as the two sides work to put the other on record for hot button issues voters feel strongly about.

Let the games begin in January which gives us a few months to appreciate the quiet before the storm.

Garry Rayno may be reached at garry.rayno@yahoo.com.

Distant Dome by veteran journalist Garry Rayno explores a broader perspective on the State House and state happenings for InDepthNH.org. Over his three-decade career, Rayno covered the NH State House for the New Hampshire Union Leader and Foster’s Daily Democrat. During his career, his coverage spanned the news spectrum, from local planning, school and select boards, to national issues such as electric industry deregulation and Presidential primaries. Rayno lives with his wife Carolyn in New London.

This article first appeared on InDepthNH.org and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.