State House

House Speaker Terie Norellie has announced who will chair the 22 House committees for the upcoming legislative session.

Below you can find the complete list.

House Republican leader state Rep. Sherman Packard (R-Londonderry) has announced his leadership team for the upcoming legislative session.

Packard has decided to keep state Rep. David Hess (R-Hooksett) as the deputy republican leader. State Rep. Shawn Jasper (R-Hudson) will be the Republican whip and state Rep. Andrew Renzullo (R-Hudson) will be the deputy Republican whip. State Rep. Gene Chandler (R-Bartlett), who ran against Packard for House Republican leader, has been tapped to be the senior assistant Republican leader.

Below are some tidbits from Wednesday's Organization Day and some interesting facts about the makeup of the House.

Today the House and Senate met at the State House in Concord to finalize the leadership posts in each chamber.

December 3, 2008

For Immediate Release

Contact Cissy Taylor

House Information Officer

(603) 271-3664

Cissy.taylor@leg.state.nh.us

NORELLI RE-ELECTED SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE

            CONCORD – Members of the New Hampshire House of Representatives were sworn in today, marking the beginning of the 161st  session of the New Hampshire General Court.

            Of the 400 members of the third largest legislative body in the English-speaking world, 264 were re-elected, 40 have served in the House at some time in the past, and 96 are freshmen. There are 224 Democrats and 176 Republicans.

The New Hampshire House speaker picks the leaders for the political party caucuses and Speaker Norelli exercised that right earlier today.

Norelli selected state Rep. Mary Jane Wallner (D-Concord) to be House Democratic leader and state Rep. Sherman Packard (R-Londonderry) will be the House Republican leader. Both Wallner and Packard were voted to those positions by their respective caucuses in November and Norelli decided not to override those votes.

The New Hampshire House unanimously elected Karen Wadsworth for House clerk and Walter Sword to be the sergeant-at-arms.

"It's always good to have a sergeant-at-arms whose last name is a weapon," House Speaker Terie Norelli (D-Portsmouth) joked.

Teri Norelli

CONCORD--State Rep. Terie Norelli (D-Portsmouth) has been officially elected for a second term as House speaker and told House members that they would need to work across party lines to deal with the state budget.

Norelli defeated state Rep. Sherman Packard (R-Londonderry) and state Rep. Robert Rowe (R-Amherst). Norelli received 230 votes, Packard received 104 votes and Rowe got 53 votes. State Rep. Chris Roberts received 3 votes and one ballot was left blank.

Tomorrow the House and Senate will meet for Organization Day where they will swear-in members and make the caucus leadership official.

The two chambers will then meet to elect the Secretary of State and the State Treasurer.