Gov. Kelly Ayotte walked into the Secretary of State’s Office Thursday morning with dozens of supporters and officially filed for reelection. By the time the sun set on the Legislature’s last standard voting day of 2026, two conservative priority bills were dead, and the governor never had to reach for her veto pen. The split-screen moment, captured in detail by the New Hampshire Bulletin, showed a Republican governor flexing her influence against her own party’s legislative wing on the very day she formally asked Granite Staters for four more years.
The two casualties were House Bill 751, the pared-back open enrollment compromise, and House Bill 609, which would have made the Legislature the sole authority over firearms policy in New Hampshire. In both cases, House and Senate Republicans joined Democrats to bury the measures, often with little or no floor explanation. The pattern was unmistakable: when Ayotte signaled opposition, enough Republicans peeled off to do the work for her.
The quiet death of open enrollment
The open enrollment fight has consumed much of the 2026 education agenda. Republicans began the year pushing a universal program that would have required every public school district to both send and receive students, with tuition dollars following the child. Ayotte was skeptical from the start, citing the disruption to district budgeting and local control, and a faction of House Republicans shared her doubts. That skepticism forced negotiators into a committee of conference compromise last week that was dramatically smaller: districts would have to allow at least 10 percent of their students to leave for an open enrollment school, and no district would be forced to receive anyone.
Even that was too much for the governor. Ayotte said in a statement last week that the compromise was “not ready for prime time.” At a Wednesday press conference, she elaborated, saying superintendents and school board members had warned her about funding impacts and disruptions to student flows. She pointed to conversations with school board members from Londonderry and said she wanted to make sure the state would, in her words, do it correctly and get it right.
On Thursday, the Senate unanimously voted to table HB 751 without debate or comment, denying the House any chance at a final vote. The silence was striking given that the same Senate had passed a far broader universal open enrollment bill earlier in the session. For a deeper look at how the compromise came together before it fell apart, see our coverage of the HB 751 negotiations and the 10 percent rule.
Rep. Kristin Noble, the Bedford Republican who chairs the House Education Policy and Administration Committee, did not hide her frustration. She said she was “immeasurably disappointed” and accused her Senate colleagues of walking away when the chips were down. Noble had a specific group of students in mind: more than 60 children from the Pittsfield School District who attend Prospect Mountain High School, the state’s only functioning open enrollment school. Pittsfield residents voted this spring to effectively block their students from attending, and the 10 percent floor in HB 751 was designed in part to protect those students’ placements. With the bill tabled, that protection is gone. Noble said those students will now be forcibly kicked out of their chosen schools because of the Senate’s inaction.
The episode caps a session in which school choice advocates watched one vehicle after another stall, as we chronicled when universal open enrollment returned with a 500-student cap earlier this spring. Noble also told the Concord Monitor she was frustrated that Ayotte never met with her directly, though she declined further comment Thursday.
The firearms preemption bill collapses in the House
House Bill 609 would have been one of the most consequential gun policy changes in years. The measure would have made the Legislature the sole authority for firearms regulation in New Hampshire, potentially invalidating policies adopted by local police departments, municipal governments, state agencies, and the state university system.
The bill drew an unusual opponent a day before the vote: Attorney General John Formella, himself a Republican. Formella wrote a letter urging lawmakers to reject the measure, arguing it could override prudent law enforcement firearms policies, hinder the executive branch, weaken existing policies that protect gun owners, and set up an endless legislative tug-of-war over every workplace firearms rule in state government.
Senate Republicans pressed ahead anyway, passing HB 609 on a 15 to 8 party-line vote. Notably, no Republican rose to speak in its favor. Sen. Tara Reardon, a Concord Democrat, laid out the opposition case on the floor, arguing the bill cut at the authority of state agencies and the judicial branch and conflicted with existing case law, on top of the local control problem.
The House delivered the fatal blow. Twenty-eight Republicans broke ranks and joined Democrats to table the bill, killing it for the session. Rep. Terry Roy, the Deerfield Republican who chairs the House Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee, framed the defeat as a temporary setback, saying rights come from the Constitution and the Creator, not from unelected officials, and vowing that supporters will not stop until Granite Staters can exercise their full constitutional rights without fear.
The result extends a quiet pattern this session: ambitious firearms legislation keeps dying short of the finish line, just as the campus carry push collapsed in the Senate earlier this year.
What else moved on the final day
Thursday was not all defeats. Lawmakers sent a stack of bills to Ayotte’s desk. A “Right to Try” measure, attached to House Bill 1735, would allow people with qualifying severe illnesses to access experimental treatments while shielding providers from legal liability. House Bill 1376 would allow a parent to raise a child in a manner consistent with the child’s biological sex and exempt that conduct from state child abuse statutes, a measure likely to draw litigation if signed. House Bill 155 would exempt thousands of small businesses from the business enterprise tax by raising the filing threshold, with automatic future rate reductions if state revenues outperform estimates.
Lawmakers also passed House Bill 1300, which places a question on the general election ballot asking voters whether to adopt an annual tax cap on local school district budgets, a change that would require a three-fifths majority to take effect. The Senate, meanwhile, tabled House Bill 1709, which would have barred undocumented immigrants convicted of felonies who left the country and returned from renting or occupying housing, and would have required county sheriffs executing writs of possession to arrest people meeting that description.
The politics of a governor who picks her fights
Ayotte’s filing day message leaned hard into a nonpartisan brand. She told reporters that New Hampshire is not about a party, that it is about being the best place to live in the country, and that her daily question is simply what is best for New Hampshire. That framing is easier to sell when the governor can kill bills she dislikes without ever issuing a veto, letting legislative Republicans absorb the friction instead.
The dynamic matters for the next five months. Ayotte now campaigns as an incumbent who has repeatedly demonstrated control over her party’s legislative agenda, a contrast Democrats will have to navigate after their bruising 2024 post-election autopsy laid bare how badly the last gubernatorial cycle went for them. Education advocates, gun rights groups, and business lobbies all got a reminder Thursday of where power actually sits in Concord. Tabled bills are dead for the year. The passed bills now await the governor’s signature, and few in the State House expect surprises on that front.
Frequently Asked Questions
For related coverage, see our reporting on Ayotte Vetoes SB 468.
For related coverage, see our reporting on After Five Years and 10,500 Students.
