Republican lawmakers demonstrated how far they were willing to go to defy a Republican governor on Wednesday, when they overrode several vetoes issued by Gov. Kelly Ayotte, passing into law some bills she strongly opposed.
In one of the state’s largest Veto Days in recent memory, lawmakers took up 31 of the 33 bills rejected by Ayotte, a record number of vetoes in one year by a governor whose own party dominates the state legislature.
The governor took the biggest hits in transportation, criminal justice and education. All told, legislators overturned seven of the governor’s vetoes, illuminating factional disagreements within the party.
Overrides are relatively rare. Ayotte vetoed 12 bills in 2025, and lawmakers managed to override just one of them. Between 2010 and 2020, only 13% of all vetoes issued by a New Hampshire governor were overridden by the legislature — 16 overrides out of 118 bills, according to data sourced from the Council of State Governments and analyzed by Ballotpedia.
Lawmakers overturned nearly one-fifth of the governor’s vetos this year.
This year, Veto Day fell just 20 days before the Sept. 8 state primary, in which Ayotte is seeking another term. In previous years, the legislature has reconvened to consider overriding the governor’s vetoes in September or October; there is typically no legislative activity in July or August. This timing raised questions about whether attendance could influence lawmakers’ ability to achieve the two-thirds majority needed to override a veto.
Transportation
Legislators in both chambers took up House Bill 2026 first, weighing whether to increase turnpike tolls for out-of-state drivers. The bill was the first real test of their willingness to challenge Ayotte’s veto — which they did, easily.
The override passed both chambers without debate. The House voted 292-25, drawing applause and cheers from the floor. In a few hours, the Senate, with 16 Republicans and 8 Democrats, followed with a unanimous vote, passing the bill into law.
As a result, turnpike toll rates will double for any driver without a New Hampshire E-ZPass transponder, for those using an out-of-state transponder and for those paying with cash.
The revenue will be one stream helping to fund New Hampshire’s Ten-Year Transportation Improvement Plan, which faces a funding deficit of roughly $400 million, forcing many highway and bridge projects off the plan.
“By vetoing this bill, the safety of Granite Staters was put in jeopardy. Many other states and cities charge variable toll rates based upon residency or congestion,” said Sen. Donovan Fenton, a Democrat. “For the sake of our highway fund, highway plan, and the safety of Granite Staters, we ought to do the same.”
After both chambers voted, Ayotte issued a statement warning that the move will make the state less affordable for its residents.
“Make no mistake of it, this is a tax increase on Granite Staters,” she wrote. “I’ll always use my veto pen when it means stopping tax hikes. Politicians will always want to spend more of your money, but when they double costs, it makes life less affordable and crushes working families.”
When she vetoed the bill, Ayotte said it would hurt tourism in the state.
An overlapping transportation bill, Senate Bill 627, failed to obtain two-thirds support.
Anti-trans bathroom bills
Ayotte’s vetoes of three nearly identical “bathroom bills” will stand.
The bills would have allowed certain entities to restrict transgender people’s ability to access some spaces in accordance with their gender identity: prisons assigning inmates to gendered facilities, sports leagues separating players by gender and private businesses maintaining gendered bathrooms.
Senate Bill 552 advanced the furthest out of the three. Senators voted to override it 16-8, but it failed to achieve a two-thirds majority in the House.
The governor’s veto of SB 552 marked the fourth time a “bathroom bill” was rejected by the state’s chief executive: three times under Ayotte and once under her predecessor, former Gov. Chris Sununu.
Ayotte’s veto message that “trying the same thing again isn’t going to get a different result” elicited emphatic agreement from Democratic Sen. Tara Reardon and Rep. Catherine Rombeau on Wednesday.
The bill “still still does not protect the privacy, safety and rights of all Granite Staters,” Rombeau said.
Across from her on the House floor, Rep. Katelyn Kuttab pitched a wholly different argument.
“If things are meant to be co-ed, they’re marked as co-ed. And when they’re not marked as co-ed, when they’re marked as female or male, then that’s who really belongs in that room,” she said.
The override vote ultimately failed in the house 161-142, and the governor’s veto was sustained.
In the House, representatives sustained the governor’s veto of House Bill 1442 165-149. Senators supported her veto of Senate Bill 268 in a vote of 0-24, paying deference to the initial success of the identical Senate Bill 552.
Education
Lawmakers overrode the governor’s veto of House Bill 1267, prohibiting non-school personnel and attorneys representing school districts from questioning students without a parent or guardian present.
The bill, sponsored by nine Republican representatives, met the governor’s veto despite passing both bodies of the State House unanimously. Ayotte explained in her veto message that the scope of the bill concerned her and that, after consulting with the attorney general’s office, she concluded it carried the potential to “impede criminal investigations and negatively impact public safety.”
On the House floor on Wednesday, the opposite view won lawmakers’ overwhelming favor.
The bill would “protect students, respect parental rights, and help families stay informed and involved while also giving schools clear rules to follow, building trust between parents and school districts,” said Rep. Katy Peternel.
Representatives voted to override the governor’s veto 311-6. Later in the Senate, the override succeeded 24-0.
Despite obtaining a two-thirds majority in the Senate, the effort to override the governor’s veto of Senate Bill 434, a book banning bill, failed.
The bill was similar to one the governor vetoed last year. Current law, she explained in her veto message, already “provides a mechanism for parents through their local school district to exercise their rights to ensure their children are not exposed to inappropriate materials.”
Criminal justice
Ayotte suffered another legislative setback Wednesday after lawmakers voted to eliminate the three-year deadline incarcerated individuals face when petitioning for a new trial.
House Bill 1422 removes that time limit, which supporters argue has left wrongfully convicted people with no recourse once the window closes. Advocates of the bill say the change is critical for cases where exculpatory evidence or advanced testing doesn’t surface until well after the original deadline has passed.
“This is not a get-out-of-jail-free card,” Sen. Regina Birdsell, a Republican, said on the floor. “Sometimes either new evidence or new testing takes 7,10, sometimes 20 years. Is this innocent person going to sit in jail for that period of time until this comes in because there is a three-year window? I hope not.”
The Senate voted 18-6 to override Ayotte’s veto.
Ayotte, a former state Attorney General and murder prosecutor who has built a reputation as a hardliner on public safety, had vetoed the bill, arguing existing avenues already cover the same ground.
“We do not need to create a novel approach to allow defendants to seek a new trial,” she wrote in her veto message. “Those seeking a new trial already have a statutory pathway to seek a new trial as well as the ability to file a writ of habeas corpus or a writ of coram nobis, options that are well established in New Hampshire case law.”
In the House, Rep. Bob Lynn urged colleagues to back the override, telling members, “We are not in the business here of letting innocent people stay in jail.”
The House overrode the veto by 314-7 votes.
The New England Innocence Project called the legislature’s move the “right choice.”
“Sometimes, the criminal legal system gets it wrong,” said Winnie Ye, a state policy advocate at the Innocence Project in a statement. “And in those instances, wrongfully convicted people should be able to return to court and present evidence that could prove their innocence and restore their liberty.”
Housing
This session, lawmakers passed several bills aimed at boosting housing supply.
House Bill 1336, which would have allowed landlords to collect an additional month’s rent on top of the standard one-month security, failed after reaching the governor’s desk.
On Veto Day, the House decided to sustain Ayotte’s veto.
The bill was proposed to put in safeguards for landlords who rented out their space to applicants who didn’t fully meet their screening criteria, such as those with low income, low credit scores, or prior evictions.
Ayotte vetoed the bill, stating that it would make housing access more difficult.
“While improving housing access is essential, requiring these prospective renters to provide potentially thousands of dollars more than current law upfront would impede access to housing,” she wrote. “Moreover, the bill’s language is not clear on how long a landlord can keep those funds and allows landlords discretion to unfairly withhold tenants’ deposits.”
Cannabis
Senate Bill 468 was the only senate bill to achieve support for an override in both bodies, passing by ample margins in the House and Senate.
Becoming law, the bill will allow therapeutic cannabis centers to operate and grow marijuana in one secure greenhouse each.
Senators voted to override the governor’s veto 16-8, with Sen. Tara Reardon explaining that currently permitted growing conditions — indoor cultivation with high-intensity lighting — present cost concerns that trickle down to the patient consumer.
“The one problem associated with the therapeutic cannabis program is affordability. We’ve heard that therapeutic cannabis isn’t covered by insurance, so patients are paying out of pocket for this. And we’ve been hearing the same complaint, that it’s too expensive, for many many years,” Reardon said.
Representatives overrode the governor’s veto 257-44.
