Out-of-state visitors to New Hampshire will soon pay double the fees to use state parks and double the highway tolls on out-of-state transponders.
And people convicted of crimes who maintain their innocence will soon be able to request a retrial even after the state’s three-year deadline if there’s new evidence contradicting their guilt.
Those laws will take effect despite Gov. Kelly Ayotte’s veto, after the House and Senate overrode seven vetoed bills Wednesday in a chaotic session weeks ahead of the Sept. 8 primaries.
Throughout a packed Veto Day, legislators in both parties made unlikely alliances to overpower a handful of the governor’s vetoes, securing the two-thirds threshold for an override.
And while lawmakers upheld most of Ayotte’s 31 vetoes — a modern record by a governor whose party controls the State House — the day revealed surprising fractures and political disagreements. Most of the sustained vetoes were for Republican “culture war” bills that Ayotte opposed and had little chance of Democratic support.
Most of the House’s veto overrides, meanwhile, were overwhelmingly bipartisan and nearly unanimous.
The override of House Bill 2026, which contains the state’s 10-year transportation plan, creates the first toll increase for non-New Hampshire drivers in 19 years. It also allows a host of new projects to move forward, including a widening of Interstate 93 to address bottlenecks in Bow and Concord and an overhaul of exits 6 and 7 on Interstate 293 in Manchester.
House Bill 1102, meanwhile, requires the New Hampshire Department of Natural and Cultural Resources to create a dual-track state park fee system. The department may set rates for services such as campsite reservations and entry fees at any level. But the bill requires non-New Hampshire residents to pay at least twice as much as New Hampshire residents.
Here are the vetoed bills lawmakers rescued on Veto Day, and the bills they failed to override.
Potential wrongful convictions and the retrial deadline
In July, Ayotte insisted that New Hampshire’s post-conviction laws are not keeping innocent people in prison when she vetoed House Bill 1422. She wrote in her veto message that she “understand(s) the need to pursue and deliver justice,” but argued “we do not need to create a novel approach to allow defendants to seek a new trial.” On Wednesday, state lawmakers from both parties bucked the governor and overrode that veto.
Under New Hampshire state law, prisoners have three years after their conviction to request a retrial if they still maintain their innocence. Before Wednesday’s votes, the only exception to that was if DNA evidence contradicts the guilty finding. Other forms of evidence — someone else confessing to the crime, newly emerged video, or discredited science, for example — were not considered after the deadline. HB 1422 creates an exception to that deadline if new evidence of a prisoner’s innocence emerges.
The House voted, 314-7, to override the veto and enact the bill into law. The Senate then followed suit and voted, 18-6, to do the same.
“Obviously here we’re not in the business here of letting innocent people stay in jail,” Rep. Bob Lynn, who opposed previous versions of this measure but has come around this year, said on the House floor. “But the way the law stands right now, if the newly discovered evidence occurred beyond three years, you have that potential. And there’s no constitutional violation; you have the potential of saying, ‘too bad.’ ”
Cynthia Mousseau is an attorney with the New England Innocence Project who represents roughly 20 convicted prisoners who maintain their innocence. She told the Bulletin she’s now going to evaluate her cases and, once this legislation goes into effect in January, petition the court to consider new evidence in some of those cases. At that point, a judge will consider the evidence.
“We’re looking forward to litigating everything in court,” Mousseau said. “And we’re really glad that we’re going to be able to provide this pathway for our clients.”
She said she’s going to the state prison soon to update some of her clients on the change.
Ayotte had argued that those who maintain their innocence can already file writs of habeas corpus or coram nobis, two legal procedures that ask the court to justify a prisoner’s detainment and correct a factual error, respectively. However, proponents of HB 1422 say that habeas corpus claims require a constitutional violation — which new evidence is not — and coram nobis is available only to people after their prison sentences are complete. In court rulings from recent years, the New Hampshire Supreme Court has seemingly agreed.
Groups like the Innocence Project, which works to overturn wrongful convictions and free the innocent from prison, say that without this bill, innocent people would’ve remained behind bars in New Hampshire.
Mousseau and other innocence advocates have been waiting for this legislation for years. In 2024, the Legislature passed Senate Bill 507, a similar measure, but Ayotte’s predecessor, Gov. Chris Sununu, vetoed the bill. That year, lawmakers failed to override the veto. The following year, proponents failed to pass Senate Bill 141 through the Legislature. This year, on their third attempt, lawmakers enacted the measure at the last possible moment.
Winnie Ye, a state policy advocate for the Innocence Project, added: “We’re so happy for the innocent and for the wrongly convicted people who finally have a glimpse of hope of returning back to court.”
Praise for 10-year highway plan override
The override of Ayotte’s veto of the 10-year transportation plan ends a bitter dispute over tolls.
Ayotte vetoed the plan, which typically passes every two years without conflict, after lawmakers added fee increases for toll users without New Hampshire E-ZPass transponders. Lawmakers said those increases were needed to pay for the expensive upgrades in Concord and Manchester and noted that tolls have not increased since 2007; Ayotte argued the move would hurt tourists and New Hampshire drivers without transponders.
Under the now-approved plan, the increase in toll rates for people without New Hampshire transponders will kick in Jan. 1, 2027. The plan also allows anyone to obtain a free New Hampshire E-ZPass transponder between Dec. 1, 2026, and June 29, 2027, a $6.69 savings. The New Hampshire devices are available to any driver — not just state residents.
On Wednesday, Ayotte doubled down on her opposition. “Make no mistake of it, this is a tax increase on Granite Staters,” she said in a statement. “If you pay cash, you will pay double. If you didn’t get a new transponder when you moved here, you will pay double.”
A coalition of contractor organizations, including the Associated General Contractors of New Hampshire, New Hampshire Good Roads Association, and the American Council of Engineering Companies of New Hampshire, hailed the reversal of Ayotte’s 10-year plan veto.
To Alex Koutroubas, executive vice president of AGS New Hampshire, the governor’s veto affected more than just toll rates. It also prevented or delayed 10 projects across New Hampshire turnpikes from moving forward. Had lawmakers upheld the veto, those delays would have been costly, he said.
“The effect would have been more uncertainty and increased costs,” he said in an interview Wednesday.
Koutroubas said the out-of-state toll hikes approved Wednesday do not solve the long-term revenue struggles of the New Hampshire Highway Fund, noting that the New Hampshire E-ZPass rates at some tolls are the same now as they were decades ago. “I’m paying 70 cents,” he said, referring to the Hooksett tolls on I-93. “I’m paying five cents less than my grandfather did in 1990.”
But Koutroubas said while lawmakers or the Executive Council will eventually need to raise the state’s gas tax and tolls in the future, AGS would not be pushing for that in the near term. “It’s certainly not anything we’re going to be advocating in the immediate future,” he said. “But yes, we have to take care of our roads.”
Cannabis greenhouses
Ayotte has long been opposed to cannabis legalization. In New Hampshire, it’s not legal for recreational use, but has been legal for medical purposes since 2013 in a tightly regulated market. The state allows only four nonprofit “alternative treatment centers” to operate a small number of dispensaries around the state.
Senate Bill 468, sponsored by Loudon Republican Sen. Howard Pearl, allows those dispensaries to operate their own greenhouses, an effort to increase supply and lower prices — a common complaint about the state’s medicinal marijuana program. Both chambers passed it, but Ayotte vetoed the bill in June, saying, “I do not support expanding the cultivation of marijuana in our state. For this reason, I have vetoed SB 468.”
Wednesday, lawmakers overrode that veto. House representatives did so overwhelmingly in a 257-44 vote. In the Senate, eight Democrats and eight Republicans came together to override it, 16-8.
Small government bills
Some of the overrides involved local issues. Lawmakers resurrected a bill to restrict local officials’ ability to issue no-trespass orders against individuals, such as by barring disruptive parents from sports games or school board meetings. Under House Bill 1184, such orders must expire after 35 days, and may be renewed only with a vote of the full body, such as the select board.
Rep. Diane Pauer, a Brookline Republican, said HB 1184 would ensure due process for residents. “Without a statutory process, every municipality and school district has its own process for issuing no-trespass orders,” she said, “It’s the Wild West.”
The House and Senate also overturned Ayotte’s veto of a bill to prevent school district attorneys from questioning students without parental consent, House Bill 1267. Ayotte argued in her veto message that the requirement would impede criminal investigations, but Rep. Katy Peternel, a Wolfeboro Republican, said it would “protect students, respect parental rights, and help families stay informed and involved.”
And the Legislature overrode the governor’s veto of House Bill 1369. That bill releases cities and towns from the requirement to post notice of upcoming annual town meetings in a local newspaper. Moving forward, municipalities must post notices in at least two of three formats: physical notices in multiple spaces in town; prominent posts on the town website; and a local newspaper advertisement. Ayotte said the bill would prejudice voters without internet access; lawmakers argued newspaper circulations are shrinking and the requirement is outdated.
Failed overrides
House lawmakers failed to save House Bill 396, a Republican bill that would have allowed small numbers of livestock to be slaughtered without U.S. Department of Agriculture inspections — but the bill faced a number of twists.
Arguing for the override, Rep. Kelley Potenza, a Rochester Republican, said it would allow farmers to build a more resilient food supply chain and would not force farmers to participate. Ayotte wrote in her veto message that the bill could cause public safety risks and violate the federal Meat Inspection Act.
While the House voted in the morning to sustain the veto, 152-167, the body voted to reconsider that vote in the afternoon, after lunch. The second time, the House voted to override it, 202-107, with 65.37% voting in favor, just 1.3%, or five votes, short of an override. “Some hearts and minds have been changed over the course of the lunch period,” said Rep. Seth King, a Whitefield Republican, speaking on the House floor.
Among the other bills that remained on the veto pile Wednesday were three versions of the so-called “bathroom bill,” which would allow businesses and public entities to separate bathrooms and locker rooms by biological sex; House Bill 1766, which would have relaxed animal cruelty prohibitions for livestock; Senate Bill 434, which would have required public schools to create processes for book removals; and House Bill 232, which would expand “rights of conscience” for medical professionals to refuse to assist an abortion.
New Hampshire Bulletin is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. New Hampshire Bulletin maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Dana Wormald for questions: info@newhampshirebulletin.com.
