WEST LEBANON — Republican efforts to limit abortion, create a school voucher system and ban the teaching of critical race theory in public schools will take center stage Thursday as the New Hampshire Senate debates its version of the state’s two-year budget.
Lawmakers representing the Upper Valley say they expect the session, held in person at the Statehouse, will take all day as members of both parties attempt to influence the roughly $13.5 billion spending plan.
However, they acknowledge that Republicans, who control the chamber, 14-10, will likely walk away with many of their priorities intact.
Those include a package of tax cuts that Democrats say disproportionately favor businesses over working-class Granite Staters. Ahead of Thursday’s session, they’ve also criticized Republicans for filling the budget and its trailer bill with unrelated items that don’t directly affect spending.
State Sen. Sue Prentiss, D-Lebanon, said her party has prepared about 13 amendments that Democrats will use to try to attract moderate Republicans who may be willing to kill some of their caucuses’ more controversial proposals or increase spending on some agencies.
“It’s a numbers game, but sometimes there is bipartisan action,” she said in a phone interview Wednesday.
Meanwhile, State Sen. Bob Giuda, R-Warren, predicted partisan politics to be on full display, with little crossover between Republicans and Democrats.
“What happens is the forum becomes the playground for passing or trying to pass amendments to highlight just how unkind the other people are or how wasteful people are,” said Giuda, who plans to support the budget.
Prentiss, who represents the heart of the Upper Valley, said she’s opposed to much of what’s in the Senate’s budget, which was recommended last week by the Finance Committee, 5-2, along party lines.
The biggest hurdle to Democratic support, she said, is what’s come to be known as the “divisive concepts” bill, which would prevent schools from teaching that people are inherently oppressive because of their “immutable characteristics.” That includes race, gender and sexual orientation.
The Senate’s proposal is a watered-down version of a provision included in the House budget that was opposed by business groups, educators and free speech advocates — including about a dozen Upper Valley institutions including Dartmouth College — who said it would halt diversity training and project an unflattering perception of New Hampshire to the rest of the country.
Unlike the House measure, Senate Republicans say theirs doesn’t bar teachers from discussing racism or affect private companies. Still, Prentiss called the GOP effort “pro-censorship” and “anti-liberty.”
“The truth is, in history there have been inequalities,” she said, adding that Granite Staters should tackle those issues head-on. “I find it offensive that we would try to meddle in teaching in classrooms based on stories and disagreements.”
But Giuda, whose district includes the Haverhill area, said the provision is needed to stop the teaching of critical race theory, which is centered on the idea that racism is systemic and not just the result of individual people with prejudices.
“We do what we can in the legislative arena to try to shape a culture that is a fair playing field, a level playing field for everybody,” he said. “Nobody’s better, nobody’s worse.”
Giuda, who chairs the Senate Ways and Means Committee, went on to call the budget one of the best he’s seen crafted, touting tax cuts Republicans pushed for. Those include a $100 million reduction in the statewide property tax, a reduction in the rooms and meals tax and phasing out of the interest and dividends tax over the next five years.
The budget also calls for lowering the business enterprise and profits taxes. In the meantime, it would deliver $2.4 billion in state aid to cities and towns.
“It’s one of the better-crafted and more exquisitely engineered pieces of legislation I’ve ever seen,” he said.
But Prentiss said those cuts could come at a cost to social services and pointed out that the budget calls for 22 staffing cuts at the Division for Children, Youth and Families. (Giuda says those jobs went unfilled for years because of a worker shortage.)
“There’s an imbalance here. This is not a budget that’s good for working families,” Prentiss said. “This is a budget that’s primarily good for business.”
Democrats also have criticized Republicans for including in the budget a ban on abortion after 24 weeks, along with the creation of voucher-like “education freedom accounts” that could be used toward private or home school expenses.
The voucher program could redirect taxpayer money from public schools, putting more strain on some struggling districts, they say.
State Sen. Ruth Ward, R-Stoddard, countered that the budget would provide an additional $17.5 million to schools based on the number of students in a district eligible for free and reduced-price lunch and would dedicate $82 million to school building aid.
The accounts, she said, would “help low-income families provide more educational choices for children,” adding there would be checks on who is eligible.
“I’ll vote for anything that has to do with giving children a choice in education,” said Ward, who represents the Newport area and chairs the Senate Education Committee, adding that she intends to support the budget proposal.
The Senate is expected to start its session at 10 a.m. Thursday. People can watch live at https://bit.ly/3fLGxRM.
Tim Camerato can be reached at tcamerato@vnews.com or 603-727-3223.