New Hampshire: Surprise victory for homeschoolers

[DadaOrwell]

A bill that boldly reduces regulation of homeschoolers in New Hampshire passed its third major hurdle on the way to becoming law this week.

Crafted by Free Stater Dawn Lincoln of Winchester, House Bill 406 would reduce government involvement in homeschooling by an estimated 30%. It has spent the last three months working its way - narrowly - through State House committees, then the House itself. On Tueday May 10 the bill came up for a vote in State Senate committee, where it passed 6-0.

It must now survive the full Senate and earn the governor's signature in order to become law. Not bad for a piece of "extremist" legislation!

Text of the bill:

http://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/legislation/2005/HB0406.html

One of the things I like is that it removes about 100 words text from the law rather than adding text.

More information on the libertarian experiment in New Hampshire:

www.FreeStateProject.org

 

[ludahai]

I have said this before. I am sure many of the "Free Stater" initiatives would have support amongst the old time New Hampshire population who are pretty libertarian anyway. It is the immigrants from Massachusetts who may have problems with some of this stuff, not to mention the newly elected Democratic governor. It will be interesting to see where he falls on this one. I hear he isn't quite as pragmatic as former Gov. Shaheen.

 

[DadaOrwell]

I don't know if I buy the legend about Mass. residents being more liberal. The Union Leader did a research project where they tracked Mass. immigrant votes in the last presidential election. They voted for Bush by a small majority, while natives voted for Kerry by a small majority. Not saying bush is pro liberty, but his platform was more "small government" than Kerry's.

Also if you look at an ideological map of New Hampshire (based on state rep voting records in 2003) the southern parts of the state generally show as pro-liberty...a bit more than the north.