League of Women Voters Day at the Legislature

When I lived in Hong Kong, I became active in the Hong Kong Chapter of the League of Women Voters. It wasn't a very large chapter, but we had interesting activities, including speakers and tours of things like the Hong Kong Landfill and the Executive Council. And since it was 2008 we ran Election Central, which was a place for Americans to gather and watch the election results. It was also a chance for Hong Kongers to watch democracy in action. It was a lot of fun.

When I returned to the US I started to become active in the Austin LWV Chapter, but we moved again fairly quickly. I joined the New Hampshire LWV, but there isn't a local chapter in Salem, and I had in my head that Concord and the other chapters farther north were very far away.

But this week I decided to take a chance. After all the signs on highway said Concord was only 30 miles away. It was time to check out the capital of my new state.

The LWV members were very friendly and welcoming. The purpose of this event was for members to get an opportunity to observe the legislature in action. The New Hampshire House of Representatives is unique. It has 400 members. They all serve 2 year terms, for a salary of $100 a year. Each district could have 4 or 5 representatives.

It was a committee day, and the committee meetings were open to the public. The League had selected a variety of bills that they thought would be of interest to the members, and we all selected which bill we wanted to observe. I asked to watch the Criminal Justice Committee debate the sentencing for something called the "Women's Right to Know" act. The bill required health care providers to read a particular script to women that wanted an abortion. It mandated a 24 hour waiting period between the script reading and the abortion. That part of the bill wasn't being discussed. At the last minute, however, someone had added an amendment to the bill making the penalty for not reading this script a felony. That WAS being discussed by this committee.

We walked over to the state house, a charming classic building with a gold dome, maybe a quarter of the size of the capital building in Austin. We walked right in to the main lobby, where there was absolutely NO security! No policemen, no metal detectors, nothing. Yes, one of the members informed me, it is completely legal to bring a gun into the New Hampshire state house.

We went up to the second floor, found the room where the committee was meeting, and claimed our seats. It was pretty crowded. There were 16 committee members, plus members of the press, lobbyists, and concerned citizens like us, all waiting impatiently for the committee to begin.

What followed was absolutely fascinating. I would say that most members of the committee thought making this a felony was a very bad idea, regardless of how they felt about abortion. But what they wanted to do about it varied wildly, and didn't necessarily adhere to what side of the issue they were on.

Some members wanted to let the amendment stand, and let the bill go on to the senate. Not because they thought it was a good bill, but because they thought that then the Senate and the Governor would almost certainly defeat the bill completely. Other members wanted to simply remove the felony, because then the bill would be more likely to pass. And some members contemplated submitted the bill to a study committee, because that was sometimes a good way to let a bill die.

The committee was overall very calm and judicious in their discussions. Several people from the public spoke before the committee; a leader of Planned Parenthood, a Women's Health advocate, an anti-abortion activist (naturally, that person was male). Some members of the committee tried to steer the discussion toward issues like "when does life begin" but by and large the committee chair made sure the topic remained focused on whether a felony was an appropriate penalty for this bill.

The committee ended up voting 8-7 to remove the felony punishment, and send the bill back to the House. I have no doubt this bill will undergo many more gyrations as it wends its way through the New Hampshire legislature and makes its way to the governor's desk.

At the end of the day I reviewed the party affiliation of the different committee members. The member that was most stridently pro-life, and tried to steer the discussion toward where life begins? A Democrat. The committee chair, that said quite frankly "this is a bad bill and the only reason it made it this far is that we don't have enough women in the legislature"? A woman, and a Republican. I love this state!

Bittersweet

This week I’ve actually had a fun thing to do almost every day. It’s good because I’ve started getting bored and when I get bored I get into bad habits – eating, TV, shopping…

On Monday I went to a meeting of a group called Women for Good Government. They are a liberal political group. They’re not a PAC and they’re not part of the Obama umbrella groups that have formed to get various legislation passed. I went to lunch with the ladies and then to their meeting afterwards. I liked them a lot; quite a few of them had lived overseas and they were intelligent and fun to talk to. But….they are quite passionate about Democratic politics and very active, maybe more active than I really want to be. I don’t want to be a precinct captain! The thought of block-walking and knocking on stranger’s doors fill me with dismay. So, I don’t know….I’ll certainly try a few more of their meetings and see if I think I fit in or not. I went to a meeting of the kick-off for Obama’s Healthcare initiative, and although I support some sort of healthcare reform, being that politically active is just not for me…

I’ve contacted the League of Women Voters here in Austin and now that may work out well, if we stay. They are large enough to have study groups and I think I would really enjoy participating in one of those. I like the League because they are non-partisan and because they use consensus to take a position on issues but don’t support individual candidates. I may help out with an Austin Energy conservation study group.

Then yesterday I went to a coffee for new members of the Newcomers Club. This is where the bittersweet title on this blog entry comes in. It reminded me SO much of AWA in Hong Kong. And, while it made me very happy to think that I’ve found a group that will give me an opportunity to participate in all sorts of fun activities – mahjong, hiking, needlearts, lunchbunch (sound familiar?), canasta (CANASTA????), it also made me incredibly sad. I miss my friends in Hong Kong. I miss the AWA. Rats, rats, rats.

I guess this is what they are talking about when they talk about the ups and downs of repatriation. This was definitely an up/down all mixed up together. I need things to do that get me out of the house and keep me from spending all my time obsessing over deer or laughing at the blue jays because they weigh too much to be able to eat out of our bird feeder (It has a weighted bar that closes the feeder if something lands on it that weighs more than a certain amount. Keeps out the grackles, blue jays and mourning doves and lets the cardinals, nuthatches and chickadees eat their fill. It drives the blue jays crazy though. The other big birds give up but the blue jays keep landing and flying off in frustration, sitting in the trees complaining with the squirrels.) See why I need to get out of the house!

Today I’m going to do a couple of fun things. I’m going to bake bread for one thing. We bought a Kitchen Aid mixer; a beautiful machine. It has a dough hook so you can use it to knead bread. My first effort wasn’t very successful but I’m going to try again. I have a great recipe that includes polenta and millet (high fiber). The second thing I’m doing is at 1 pm I’m meeting the sweet young lady that does my brows (her name is Mandy Wright) at Nordstrom’s for an eye makeup lesson. I’m just about out of eye-shadow and I’m ready to have somebody help me buy the right colors and teach me some new techniques. As we age our makeup needs change so it’s good to take a lesson like this every couple of years.

I have other things to blog about…paintings, hormones…but they’re going to have to wait until another day. If I don’t get out there for my walk soon I’m going to be sorry. Its 8 am and its already 78 degrees!