Bills 2015

2015 Bill Summary

The Right-to-Know law changes as new bills pass into law. Almost every year there are proposed bills to amend the Right-to-Know law. For 2015, Right to Know NH proposed 2 bills to strengthen the ability of citizens of New Hampshire to access their government. One bill (HB108) clarifies the contents and sealing of non-public minutes. The other bill (HB138) proposes that no fees may be charged to inspect public records.

The first step for a bill in New Hampshire is a request (LSR) to Legislative Services to wordsmith the bill. You can see the bills affecting Right-to-Know through the Legislative Service search on the web. Click here, type “right-to-know” in the field labeled “Search by a word within the LSR’s title” then click the Submit button.

After the bills are wordsmithed by Legislative Services, they can be tracked as bills. Click here, make sure the year is 2015 and type “right-to-know” in the field labeled “title” then click the Submit button. The results of this search gives you links to track the status of each bill as they work through the legislature.

For the 2015 session there were 14 Right-to-Know LSRs.

LSR Number	Bill	Status	Title/Sponsors
2015-H-0071-R	HB138	Killed	relative to inspection of governmental records under the right-to-know law.
	(status)		(Prime)Timothy Horrigan, Janet Wall, Marjorie Smith, David Boutin
2015-H-0072-R	HB108	Passed	relative to the content and sealing of minutes in nonpublic sessions under the right-to-know law.
	(status)		(Prime)Timothy Horrigan, Janet Wall, Marjorie Smith, David Boutin
2015-H-0096-R	HB181	Killed	relative to the definition of “meeting” under the right-to-know law.
	(status)		(Prime)Jacqueline Cali-Pitts
2015-H-0245-R	HB447	Killed	relative to quorums for meetings under the right-to-know law.
	(status)		(Prime)James Grenier, Virginia Irwin, Lucy Weber, David Kidder, Steven Smith, Jeff Woodburn
2015-H-0338-R	HB633	Killed	establishing a right-to-know grievance commission and relative to notice of meetings under the right-to-know law.
	(status)		(Prime)Kenneth Weyler, Kathleen Souza, James Spillane
2015-S-0509-R	SB149	Killed	relative to nonpublic sessions under the right-to-know law.
	(status)		(Prime)David Boutin, Kevin Avard, Sam Cataldo, Gerald Little, John Reagan, Nancy Stiles, David Watters, Timothy Horrigan, Thomas Walsh, Joe Duarte
2015-H-0570-R	HB606	Rereferred	relative to costs for copying public records.
	(new title)		relative to costs for public records filed electronically.
	(status)		(Prime)David Bickford
2015-H-0571-R	HB285		relative to discussion with legal counsel under the right-to-know law.
	(status)		(Prime)David Bickford
2015-H-0602-L	HB656	Killed	relative to inspection of governmental records under the right-to-know law.
	(status)		(Prime)Don Leeman, John Burt, Steven Beaudoin, Warren Groen, Katherine Prudhomme-O”Brien, James Webb, Eric Schleien
2015-H-0624-L	HB646	Tabled	allowing public bodies or agencies to charge for the costs of retrieval of public records under the right-to-know law.
	(status)		(Prime)Patrick Long, Frank Byron, David Hess
2015-S-0722-R	SB44	Signed	relative to nonpublic sessions of public bodies under the right-to-know law.
	(status)		(Prime)Lou D”Allesandro, Donna Soucy, Sharon Carson, Sam Cataldo, David Welch, Laura Pantelakos
2015-S-0949-R	SB205	Tabled	relative to the governor’s office and the legislature under the electioneering law.
	(status)		(Prime)Jeanie Forrester, John Reagan, David Boutin, Sharon Carson, Kevin Avard, Gerald Little, Nancy Stiles, Sam Cataldo, Jeb Bradley
2015-H-0986-R	HB613		relative to governmental records exempted under the right-to-know law.
	(status)		(Prime)Tara Sad, Carol McGuire, John Reagan
2015-S-1001-R	SB243	Passed	relative to nonpublic sessions under the right-to-know law.
	(status)		(Prime)Jeb Bradley, Stephen Schmidt