Legislature, governor act quickly on town meeting warrant fix

The New Hampshire Legislature and Gov. John Lynch worked quickly to enact the first law of the 2011 session that preserves the wording of town meeting warrant articles.

The legislative process moved quickly because some town meeting deliberative sessions start today in the Granite State.

The changes were made through HB 77 (essentially the same as SB 16). It tightens the rules for towns that use Senate Bill 2 procedures by limiting how drastically warrant articles can be changed at deliberative session.

It "requires a town that has adopted official ballot voting to retain the substance of the subject matter of a warrant article when it is amended."

The subject matter of five articles last year in Raymond were changed to read "to see" at the deliberative session, effectively removing them from the ballot.

"After last year's disgusting display of people keeping people's rights away, we were asked to do something about it and we did," Republican state Sen. Jack Barnes of Raymond said in a Union Leader story on the bill.

"It is the first bill of the session, so you know how important it is to the Senate, to the House and to the governor."

Lynch signed the bill yesterday to become effective today.