$100 Plus Mileage

 Welcome back to $100 Plus Mileage, the podcast about New Hampshire legislation that might not make the news but still could impact you. Last year we talked about everything from home distilling to delivery robots. With the legislature coming back in session in 2022, we’re coming back for a second season, too. Each week we’ll highlight one of the roughly 1,000 bills making its way through the New...

Welcome to $100 Plus Mileage, the podcast about the New Hampshire policymaking process, covering everything from delivery robots to historic horse racing.  Each week we highlight one of the roughly 1,000 bills making its way through the New Hampshire Legislature, give you the unbiased facts, pros, and cons, and tell you about how to get involved. Listen now to get a preview of some of the topics w...

Welcome to $100 Plus Mileage, the podcast about the New Hampshire policymaking process, covering everything from delivery robots to historic horse racing.  Each week we highlight one of the roughly 1,000 bills making its way through the New Hampshire Legislature, give you the unbiased facts, pros, and cons, and tell you about how to get involved. We’ve taken a break this summer, just like the legi...

Welcome to $100 Plus Mileage, the podcast about the New Hampshire policymaking process, covering everything from facial recognition software to hobby distilling. Usually on this podcast we highlight current bills making their way through the New Hampshire Legislature, but this episode we’re honoring Constitution Day by talking about the process to amend the New Hampshire Constitution – which, it t...

While the House and Senate wrapped up their legislative session on June 24, close to 200 bills are still “retained in committee” in the House of Representatives.  Committees will have a chance to work on these bills over the summer and fall, before the legislature reconvenes in January. Sometimes committees retain legislation as a polite way to kill bill or make way for an alternate proposal.  Oth...

New Hampshire legislators have a habit of looking to the future with bills to legalize flying cars or autonomous vehicles. HB 116 is another such bill that looks toward the not-to-distant future; it regulates how delivery robots would be allowed to operate in New Hampshire.

Two years ago New Hampshire recognized Juneteenth in state law.  This year June 19 falls on a Saturday, which means many of us will have the day off to celebrate.  Any other year, though, public schools and state offices would still be open.  That’s because Juneteenth is not an official state holiday – and if it was, history suggests there would have been a lot more debate about whether to recogni...

It sounds like the plot of a science fiction movie—state agencies attempting to modify the weather. Still, HB 128, a bill that requires public notice before a state agency attempts to modify the weather, is anything but fiction; in fact, it was just signed into law by Gov. Sununu.

PFAS may be called “forever chemicals” but you only have three years to file a lawsuit after discovering you were harmed by PFAS.  A bill in the New Hampshire Legislature would double that time limit, potentially opening the door to more PFAS-related claims.

Whether it’s on the TV news or your local police department’s Facebook page, we all know what a “mug shot” looks like; it’s the photo that’s taken of someone after they are arrested. But just because someone has been arrested doesn’t mean they have been convicted of a crime, so some feel it is unfair to release these embarrassing post-arrest photos where potential employers and others can see them...

Earlier this year the New Hampshire Senate unanimously passed SB 114, a bill to require law enforcement officers to complete training on de-escalation, ethics, implicit bias, and cultural diversity.  The bill mirrors action from the Police Standards and Training Council to voluntarily add this training.  Now that SB 114 is in the House of Representatives, some legislators argue a state law is unne...

Medical marijuana is legal in New Hampshire, but patients have to buy their therapeutic cannabis at one of a handful of Alternative Treatment Centers. Now, legislators are considering allowing patients to grow their own marijuana at home. 

While many Granite State homebuyers and renters are being priced out of the market, some face a more surreptitious barrier to housing: discrimination.   In March the New Hampshire Senate voted unanimously to revise the state Fair Housing Law through SB 126. The bill is intended to win federal funding for housing discrimination investigations.  However, SB 126 could meet resistance in the state Hou...

If the federal government raises the minimum wage, New Hampshire employers will have to match that minimum.  Tipped employees, however, are treated differently under state and federal law.  Now lawmakers in Concord are considering a bill to insulate the tipped wage from federal increases.

A landfill proposal in northern New Hampshire is kicking up dust in the state Legislature, with some lawmakers supporting a bill to ban landfills near state parks.  Nobody likes to imagine a pile of trash next to scenic lake, but lawmakers are also concerned about shrinking landfill capacity and state interference in local zoning laws.

There’s been a lot of talk about gambling in New Hampshire in recent years, from sports betting to Keno and proposed casinos. Recently, historic horse racing has gained traction, and this year there are several proposals to legalize this form of gambling.   

While the national debate over gun control heats up, one New Hampshire bill examines the legal area before any shots are fired.  HB 195 would shield “displaying a firearm” from the state’s reckless conduct law.  Bill supporters argue this will protect gunowners who show a firearm to stop a crime before it happens. Opponents worry HB 195 will empower gunowners to terrorize people during conflicts.

Being a kid can be hard enough as it is—add on top of that being made to feel stigmatized for having unpaid school lunch debt and it can be even harder. That’s the motivation behind HB 202, a bill up for debate in the NH Legislature this year. 

The state House of Representatives is set to vote on a bill that could increase property taxes for private hunting preserves in the Granite State. The bill has not received a lot of attention, but it ties together the diverse challenges of invasive species, property tax rates, open space preservation, funding for the Fish and Game Department, and even the Laurie List of cops with credibility issue...

The same technology that allows you to open your phone simply by looking at it can be used by governments to track people as they go about their lives in public. Pretty creepy. But there’s legislation in the NH House to do something about this. A New Hampshire bill up for debate this year—HB 499— would set limits on how this kind of technology can be used in the Granite State. There are some impor...

As the coronavirus pandemic has moved daily life into the virtual world, crime has followed. We now have words like “zoombombing” and “cyberflashing” to describe new forms of online harassment.  This year the New Hampshire Legislature is considering a bill that would criminalize some of these behaviors.

Big brows are in, and unless you are blessed with Brooke Shields’ genes, you may have considered eyebrow microblading.  The procedure takes more than a trip to your local beauty salon in New Hampshire, however – only tattoo artists can legally microblade.  The New Hampshire Legislature is considering a bill to change that. 

The New Hampshire House is considering a bill that would require towns to allow “tiny houses” alongside single-family homes. Supporters envision a future where tiny house aficionados flock to New Hampshire, bolstering our workforce.  Opponents are concerned about the erosion of local control and property values.

In the midst of the debate over absentee voting, there is one detail that has not gotten as much attention: the timing of counting absentee ballots.  Timing may seem like a small administrative issue, but it can have a big impact on how people perceive the legitimacy of election results.   This year two New Hampshire bills – HB 61 and SB 47 – would allow early processing of absentee ballots as par...

Many Granite Staters have tried brewing their own beer or making wine at home. It’s fun, tasty, and less expensive than buying from a brewery or vineyard. A natural progression for these backyard brew masters might be to “graduate” to making hard liquor like whiskey or brandy, but this is where it gets more complicated. You can’t distill your own liquor at home the way you can with beer or wine—bu...