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N.H. Lawmakers Set To Tackle Dozens Of Bills This Week

Allegra Boverman
/
NHPR

It will be a busy week at the New Hampshire State House with more than one hundred bills slated for votes by Friday. The bills range from decriminalizing up to a half an ounce of marijuana to tacking $5 onto marriage licenses to fund domestic violence prevention.

Nineteen other states, including the rest of New England, have adopted similar measures to make the possession of marijuana a violation rather than a crime. Should it pass the house, and decriminalization bills have before, it will face an uphill climb.

The state Senate has never supported decriminalization and Governor Maggie Hassan opposes the bill.

Another bill would make the red-tailed hawk New Hampshire’s official state raptor.

All those proposals were supported by House committees.  

Another high-profile bill aims to put fetal homicide on the state’s books. Under the bill, which has been introduced several times over the years, causing the death of a fetus older than eight weeks, aside from abortion, would be considered a crime.

Bills committees are recommending to be killed include a plan to increase the state’s minimum wage by ten dollars an hour by 2018 another would require businesses with 15 or more employees to offer 40 hours of sick leave annually.

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