It’s officially filed and processed by Legislative Services. Next step is to get co-signers. Details here in this post, plus the PDF from Legislative Services, courtesy @Laconia
Whoo-hoo! That’s fantastic!
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did you get a recording of tuesday chat?
the joke of a democrat bill is worth the listen 
I also need to update Alu’s list with reps
for me actually the next step is to write an LTE saluting the folks at Legislative Services… unless i’m missing something, it looks like they really came through for Mike and his co-sponsors. Along with the regults of the unscientific Union Leader poll, and the achievement of 3 sponsors, it seems to yet be another hurdle that wasn’t a hurdle after all.
One thing to be sure of first…Are any of you seeing any problems with the wording? So far I’m not.
Someday I hope to be able to write an LTE praising the Feds for reacting better to this than Madrid reacted to Catalonia four years ago…so far their reaction has been apparently tolerant but we’re still at the beginning…
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good idea
can you also email me when you write something up … so I can put it on nhexit.org and other places?
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Dave, (Dave Ridley - RidleyReport.com - NHexit.com)
Thanks for reaching out again about me co-sponsoring this bill. I still do not feel comfortable co-sponsoring for the following reasons:
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A very large majority of my constituents are Veterans and on Social Security. All of the benefits they get to keep them housed and fed comes from the Federal Government. Will they still get those benefits if NH secedes? How should I explain to them the need for secession given their circumstances?
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We are not all on the same page and to secede there has to be a large majority of voters in favor of this. Instead, our federal delegation to Washington are fed-gov-sycophants. It sends a bizarre message to Washington if we try to secede from Washington while at the same time sending a delegation to represent us that loves Washington.
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There are a few important hot button issues getting people riled up but I just don’t think things are bad enough. The fed gov were clever to get businesses and hospitals to enforce the masks and vaccines, instead of mobilizing the police (like Australia has done). As long as we are cooked slowly there will not be the obvious impetus to secede.
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What’s the plan for secession? Are the people with a mandate to lead this state (elected politicians), willing to execute the plan or will they intentionally blunder it to cause the whole plan to fail? You need a Governor, Executive Council, Senate and Legislators on board, wanting to secede. Otherwise, who is seceding from whom?
This is my suggestion:
- Make this bill a study commission, in addition to or instead of a constitutional amendment, with the output of the commission being a detailed secession plan.
- We need to make sure the congressional delegation we are sending to Washington actually represents our desire to secede.
- Publish a plan made by this group in addition to anything a commission would come up with.
Is the goal of this to actually secede or just to make a media splash?
Respectfully,
Lex Berezhny
NH State Representative for Grafton District 9
House Committee on Science, Technology & Energy
Thanks for the response Lex,
A lot of your points make sense:
regarding how your constituents will react
how we will need a large portion of the population to support secession
and how there are many details to work out
I also like your suggestion for starting a study commission. Since we are already proposing this amendment, we could do that alongside or next year if it fails. Would you be willing to start that effort next year?
For me personally, the goal is to actually secede. I am also willing to go down this path, even if the subsequent NH government is not to my liking. I know it will be better than the status quo with the US Federal government. As a bonus it will fire the current US Reps and US Senators.
Russell Kanning
NHexit.org
Here is my response to Lex’s writing, which is in < < > > marks.
Lex thanks for your thoughtful response; I feel bad taking up so much of your time. You wrote:
< < Thanks for reaching out again about me co-sponsoring this bill. I still do not feel comfortable co-sponsoring for the following reasons:
A very large majority of my constituents are Veterans and on Social Security. All of the benefits they get to keep them housed and fed comes from the Federal Government. Will they still get those benefits if NH secedes? How should I explain to them the need for secession given their circumstances? > >
Lex you survived the Soviet Union so presumably you have a better sense than we do of the likelihood that the central government is not actually going to continue paying these folks in a meaningful way for much longer. You also presumably have a sense of how little of the money Washington seizes from taxpayers actually winds up in the hands of the vets. You are surely aware … that DC purloins a great deal of money from the vets themselves. But if removing those burdens from vets is not enough, and it may not be, then New Hampshire will need to do what it already does better than any other state: Private charity. Government-endorsed voluntary fundraising is another option, along the lines of the British Spitfire Fund of 1941. Additionally, I am currently available to help aging veterans in a limited way… many old folks are desperate for someone they can just talk to. I am ready to “adopt” about 3 starting this month by phone if you or anyone else want to connect me with them. It’s not the same as providing food, but it’s what I as one person without a car or extra money…can do more or less immediately. I’m sure by putting the four of these options together we can at least do better than the VA…speaking of which we are not exactly competing with perfect considering its corruption and abusive behavior toward vets. also imagine how much cheaper we could make health care with fed regs and barriers to entry removed.
But revisiting your own experiences… you probably learned some things from 1991 Ukraine that the rest of us don’t know. What did you see, that we are missing? What crucial factor was present there that is missing here? What is the likelihood that this factor will still be missing here in 2023?
< < We are not all on the same page and to secede there has to be a large majority of voters in favor of this.>>
71% support for us in the UnionLeader.com poll. Despite its lack of scientific rigor, is that not enough for you as a starting indicator? Especially considering support on UnionLeader.com’s poll was only at 40 percent during the week after the Brexit?
<< Instead, our federal delegation to Washington are fed-gov-sycophants. It sends a bizarre message to Washington if we try to secede from Washington while at the same time sending a delegation to represent us that loves Washington. > >
How has focusing on that been working out for liberty folks over the last 30 years? You focus on that if you like , and I don’t want to undermine you. But meanwhile we’ll be over here doing an end run around that strongpoint…an end run that includes a hail mary pass which does not even need to be caught.
< < There are a few important hot button issues getting people riled up but I just don’t think things are bad enough. The fed gov were clever to get businesses and hospitals to enforce the masks and vaccines, instead of mobilizing the police (like Australia has done). As long as we are cooked slowly there will not be the obvious impetus to secede. > >
Do you have a reason to believe the cooking will be slow over the next couple years? Was the vaccine mandate something you would call being cooked slowly? How about the coming hyperinflaction crisis? Have a little faith in the central government’s ability to anger people quickly. Historical precedent repeatedly shows Independence going from 0 to 60 very rapidly at the end, people consider it impossible and looking back they consider it was inevitable. No one expected Slovenijan or Estonian independence in 1987, but they both had it within 4 years and missed a lot of opportunities because they did what we are doing… later than they should have. This according to Slovenijan independence activist Ana Stanic, whose father ran the 1990 referendum. They started their movements too sluggishly. I just hope we were not too sluggish as well, considering how fast things are deteriorating.
< < What’s the plan for secession? Are the people with a mandate to lead this state (elected politicians), willing to execute the plan or will they intentionally blunder it to cause the whole plan to fail? You need a Governor, Executive Council, Senate and Legislators on board, wanting to secede. Otherwise, who is seceding from whom? > >
The plan is to light a spark and add our own paper / cardboard; that’s within our power just barely. This in turn should cause slightly-more-powerful people to pitch in some twigs. After that, the folks with logs may join in etc. We can worry about the high ranking politicians later… politicians always follow the culture, not the other way around. If we build it they will come. I’ve made perhaps 200 calls to area talk radio laying the ground work for 10 years, waiting for this moment… others here have done different things, sometimes much better things.
Sorry to focus so much on myself , but that is the only thing I’m a true expert on. My other path, has been to try and model on the Estonian example but also pretty heavily on Quebec and Scotland. Just do more or less what they did. Use the existing legislative system, be nice, publicize central government misdeeds, warn then ostracize anyone in our movement who so much as hints at violence against our misguided brothers and sisters in American government.
I can only suggest this stuff and try to do it, can’t impose it on the movement. Each of us has our own inspirations/,methods and that’s fine as long as you aren’t hurting or physically threatening anyone.
<< This is my suggestion:
Make this bill a study commission, in addition to or instead of a constitutional amendment, with the output of the commission being a detailed secession plan.
We need to make sure the congressional delegation we are sending to Washington actually represents our desire to secede.
Publish a plan made by this group in addition to anything a commission would come up with. ??
That sounds great and I posted that as one of several options when we began public discussion of this around August. The folks who weighed in before the filing deadline were overwhelmingly more in favor of a Constitutional Amendment, mainly becuase it was the only option that included a vote of the general public. one of them rightly called it “going for the gold.” I favored a House Concurrent Resolution simply asking Washington to leave (this is more in keeping with the Estonian precedent and there were initially concerns about the complexities of proper CACR wording). I was almost alone in supporting the HCR , so I backed the play of the majority. So far it looks like they were right and I was wrong.
<< Is the goal of this to actually secede or just to make a media splash? >>
Can’t speak for everyone but for me it’s both. einstein said a key indicator of intelligence is a willingness to change your behavior and beliefs in light of new data or circumstances. We are no longer allowed to acrue large audiences on YouTube , and we are suffering from a media blackout of sorts. So some of us have changed our tactics.
But when you consider how desperate the general public is likely to be in 2023, there is a non-trivial chance that after paving the way and mainstreaming this idea, via the Independence Amendment, we will be able to bring it , or a powerful study committee, into being, or to a public referendum, or to actual independence. We are so much like Slovenia, Scotland, Quebec and Estonia… in so many ways.
A secondary objective would be to achieve a more benign FedGov. Look how cautiously the Canadian govt treats Quebec after their “failed” independence drive. Maybe the concession we aim for is a sunset clause where all current and future fed laws sunset after 10 years. That way maybe their system stops “auto-expanding” in violation of thier wishes. Many feds do, in theory, want to see the growth stop or slow down.
Love ya man, but I didn’t actually need to write any of this to bring you around. Washington will do that for me, as Belgrade did for Milan Kucan in 1991.
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I am adding this to my nhexit.org post along with Pete’s response.
Part of this was to start the “conversation” on NHexit … and it is happening.
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