Robert Clegg is a former NH Senate Majority Leader Bob Clegg (Republican) and former NH House Speaker Pro Tem. He is currently a Senior Partner with Concord-based government relations firm Legislative Solutions.
Summer is upon us and another New Hampshire legislative session is in the books. While the headlines coming out of the statehouse from this past six months have almost all included the words “vaccine,” “parental rights,” or “parking garage,” (I’m not joking, a bill about a parking garage was among the most hotly debated this past year) there was plenty of important legislation that flew under the radar.
One bill that recently was signed into law by the governor, SB 277, is possibly the most important piece of legislation that no one knows about, yet stands to have a major impact on the lives of all Granite Staters.
SB 277 resolved an issue with temporary licensure for health care workers from out of state. These temporary licenses were issued during the height of the pandemic to alleviate our state’s health care worker shortage and were set to expire in June. Without immediate action by the legislature, more than 22,000 temporary licenses stood to expire, leaving a massive hole in our health care workforce.
I’m sure you can imagine the troubles that losing 22,000 health care workers in our small state would cause, but this problem went even further than just a shortage of hospital and doctors’ office workers. My firm represents the New Hampshire Camp Directors Association, the trade group for youth summer camps, which are required by law to have a licensed nurse on the grounds at all times during operation.
Like every employer in New Hampshire, the summer camps are feeling the hiring crunch, especially when it comes to nurses. Without action on this problem, it is very likely that many of these camps would have been forced to close.
Luckily, SB 277 was passed through the legislature with bipartisan support and was signed into law just in time to protect these licensees. We’re very proud of our firm’s role in getting this critical legislation passed and thankful for the legislature’s hard work. While this fix on temporary licensure is itself only temporary, it provides the legislature with the framework to come to a long-term fix.
Another under the radar bill that our firm had a hand in, SB 345, was a bill designed to reform confusing and burdensome youth employment statutes that left small businesses scratching their heads about when and if high school students were able to work. Again, the legislature came together in a bipartisan fashion and was able to find a workable solution to the problem.
Both of these bills are examples of what makes the New Hampshire Legislature so great. While these topics didn’t have the attention-grabbing news articles or dramatic floor debates, the legislature came together and came to a bipartisan agreement to solve real problems with real consequences.
In a time when partisanship and the politics of destruction are far too common and pervasive, New Hampshire’s leaders still got the job done. That’s something we can all be proud of.