HB 1799

HB 1799 is the road not taken. Sponsored by Rep. Dick Ames and a coalition of Democratic legislators (including several senators as co-sponsors), this bill would have required the state to actually fund public education at the levels courts have repeatedly said are constitutionally required.

The Claremont decisions (1993, 1997) and the ConVal ruling (2023) all found the same thing: New Hampshire's per-pupil education funding is inadequate, and the state constitution places the primary obligation for funding on the state, not local property taxes. HB 1799 would have brought state funding in line with those rulings.

The Education Funding Committee voted it down 10-8 on party lines — every Republican voted against, every Democrat voted for. The full House killed it 185-159. The minority committee report recommended passage, noting that the bill simply required the state to do what courts have already ordered.

This is the context that makes every other bill in this session so infuriating. The legislature won't fund schools adequately (HB 1799 — killed). It won't fund school buildings (HB 366 — killed). But it will redefine adequacy to mean less (HB 1121), cap what towns can spend (HB 1300), and expand vouchers for wealthy families (SB 295). The strategy is coherent: don't fix public schools — defund them, and then point to their struggles as evidence they don't work.