News + Updates
Updates on our work
The 603 Equality Civic Education Initiative creates a multi-pronged approach to engaging, informing, and empowering voters who care about LGBTQIA issues. An important part of that is by Tracking legislation that touches the LGBTQIA+ community and providing updates and information on how NH residents can effectively engage with proposed legislation at every stage.
SB434: Bill Hearings & Public Record
SB434 - School Censorship
Official Title: relative to regulation of public school materials.
Bill Sponsors:(Prime) Lang (R), Ruth Ward (R), Carson (R), Pearl (R), Avard (R), Victoria Sullivan (R), Keith Murphy (R), Innis (R), Birdsell (R), Rochefort (R), Moffett (R), Drye (R), Noble (R), Freeman (R)
Bill Hearings & Public Record (this record is a work-in-progress)
Summary: This bill would allow a single person within a school district to challenge items and have them removed for the entire district. Despite mechanisms already being in place for parents to prohibit their child from accessing content and materials that they deem inappropriate, this would empower a single person to remove materials for all students - effectively censoring materials district-wide. It’s important that we trust educators to build inclusive and thoughtful classrooms where students can critically engage with a variety of age-appropriate materials, and not create easy mechanisms for censorship.
HB1299: Bill Hearings & Public Record
HB1299- Anti-Trans Bathroom & Sports Ban / Prison Segregation
Official Title: permitting classification of individuals based on biological sex under certain limited circumstances and establishing that certain biological sex distinctions do not qualify as discrimination.
Bill Sponsors: (Prime) Kofalt (R), Alexander (R), DeVito (R), Noble (R), Notter (R), Sheehan (R), Sirois (R), Avard (R), Innis (R), Victoria Sullivan (R), Ruth Ward (R)
Summary: HB 1299 is a multi-faceted bill that limits access for trans folks in public restrooms, in sports settings, and designates that “biological sex” must be the determining factor in prison placement. This bill sponsor defines as “biological sex” like many of the other proposed bathroom and locker room bans this legislative season on a binary, despite the vast number of variations to biological sex that exist. This bill is another example of the state legislature attempting to police the movements of trans people in New Hampshire, despite two separate Governors vetoing three similar bills already. The original bill text can be read by clicking the bill number. The committee hearings & public record of the bill can be watched and reviews at the “Bill Hearings & Public Record” linked above.
HB1792: Bill Hearings & Public Record
HB1792 - School Censorship, Anti-DEI, Anti-LGBTQIA+
Official Title: prohibiting school districts and personnel from the instruction of critical race theory and LGBTQ+ ideologies in schools as well as establishing a private right of action for violations.
Bill Sponsors: (Prime) Belcher (R), Noble (R), Osborne (R), Corcoran (R), Sabourin dit Choinière (R)
Referred to by the sponsor as the “Charlie Act” and named after Charlie Kirk, HB 1792 is designed to restrict classroom instruction and topics to what the sponsor designates as “neutral” and “patriotic.” The sponsor singles out “gender ideology” and “leftist ideology” as well as a variety of pedogeological categories, specific texts and specific authors, to be excluded from public k-12 classrooms. Despite a similar law from last year currently being held up in NH courts and costing the state tens of thousands of dollars, this bill seeks to further restrict topics discussed and acknowledged in classrooms in both incredibly specific and incredibly vague ways. The original bill text can be read by clicking the bill number. The committee hearings & public record of the bill can be watched and reviews at the “Bill Hearings & Public Record” linked above.