CONCORD, N.H. (AP) - Lawmakers in New Hampshire on Thursday failed to override Republican Gov. Chris Sununu’s veto of a bill that would have abolished the death penalty but managed to do so with one offering support to the beleaguered biomass industry.
The state Senate Thursday voted 14-10 to overturn the governor’s veto on the death penalty, two votes shy of the 16 needed to override a gubernatorial veto. In the case of bills supporting the biomass industry and net metering, the Senate overrode the vetoes.
New Hampshire’s death penalty applies in only seven scenarios: the killing of an on-duty law enforcement officer or judge, murder for hire, murder during a rape, certain drug offenses or home invasion and murder by someone already serving a life sentence without parole. The state hasn’t executed anyone since 1939, and the repeal bill would not have applied retroactively to Michael Addison, who killed Manchester Officer Michael Briggs and is the state’s only death row inmate.
Death penalty opponents argued that courts might have interpreted it differently, however. Others argued that imposing the death penalty doesn’t give victims the closure that repeal advocates assume it would.
But Sununu, with widespread support from police, vetoed the bill and argued that he had an obligation to support law enforcement and deliver justice for victims.
Two Democrats from Manchester, Sens. Kevin Cavanaugh and Lou D’Allesandro, voted with eight Republicans to uphold the governor’s veto. The other eight Democrats in the chamber joined six Republicans in supporting a veto override.
“It’s a very narrow death penalty. It has been used in this state one time, in 1939. One time,” argued D’Allesandro, in support of upholding Sununu’s veto.
But Republican State Sen. Bob Guida, in urging an override of the veto, claimed that “the death penalty is not a deterrent.”
“An eye for an eye is not what this country is about,” he said.
On the energy front, environmentalists claimed victory in the override of a veto of a bill that provides help to the state’s biomass industry but fell short on net metering in the House. The Senate had easily voted to override both vetoes.
One bill required utilities to purchase power from independent biomass power plants. Sununu said the bill amounted to an immense subsidy for six companies. The second would have expanded net metering, which allows small-system power generators to get credits for electricity they send to the grid. Sununu was concerned that would have increased electricity rates.
The biomass bill had drawn the most attention, with a coalition of loggers, farmers and environmentalist holding a rally earlier this month outside the Statehouse. The group argued that the veto hurt the state’s economy, especially the biomass industry and forestry-related businesses which send wood to those plants. They estimated plant closings could cost 1,000 jobs and eliminate 100 megawatts of energy.
“We know this is good for energy policy and we know this is good for economic policy. We know this locally produced energy, dependable, renewable,” Democratic State Sen. Jeff Woodburn said during the veto debate.
“We also know that in my part of the state and other parts of the state as well that this is an industry that is the straw the stirs the drink of the North Country economy,” he added. “This is not about an industry or protecting or promoting or propping up. It’s about the people who do the work. The dirty, grinding, hard, backbreaking work.”
Sununu responded to the veto override by saying the fight had nothing to do with saving timber and logging jobs.
“I think 1.3 million people in this state should be disappointed with the override of that bill. This was never about biomass,” he said. “This was always about the ratepayer. Putting the ratepayer first and having leadership in the Statehouse that actually believes that we have to start lowering these rates for the elderly, those on fixed income, low income families. That’s exactly what my veto was hoping to achieve.”
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