Bills urging US to withdraw from UN, NAFTA are ‘dead,’ sponsor says
Saturday, May 5, 2012
CONCORD – The Senate put the brakes on two House bills lobbying to get the United States out of the United Nations and NAFTA.
The resolutions that called for the respective reforms were sent back to the House without objection last month per Senate Rule 3-3, which says the Senate won’t consider measures identical to ones it defeated in the previous year.
Rep. Norman Tregenza, R-Carroll, who sponsored the legislation, said the resolutions proposed the previous year had been tabled in the Senate’s Internal Committee, although the Senate’s decision this year cited that those bills had been deemed inexpedient to legislate.
Tregenza said he wasn’t going to fight the issue, however.
“They’re dead,” Tregenza said. “Things happen. It’s just a snafu of procedure.”
House Concurrent Resolution 32, which aimed at urging the United States to withdraw from the United Nations, passed in the House in a 188-129 vote on Feb. 1 and was meant to save taxpayers from paying for the federal government’s duplicated efforts that ambassadors provide the country, Tregenza said.
HCR 34, which said the North American Free Trade Agreement hinders American jobs and manufacturing, calling for the United States to pull out of it, passed with a voice vote on Feb. 1.
“The key thing is the people have a foggy notion that NAFTA has done no wrong,” Tregenza said. “But they don’t know how to go about changing anything, and the only way for NAFTA to be repealed is for people to cry out.”
Another bill Tregenza has sponsored enthusiastically with several co-sponsors, HCR 37, went through the House on a voice vote and is through the Senate’s Internal Committee, Tregenza said. The bill supports legislation requiring an audit of the Federal Reserve. It is waiting on a full vote by the Senate.
House Concurrent Resolutions serve more as formal statements from the state Legislature and lack force of law.
Although HCR 32 and 34 were halted, Tregenza said his efforts haven’t been wasted.
“It’s life,” Tregenza said. “Anything worth doing usually takes four, five or six times. … While, yes, I would’ve been thrilled for those two bills to be adopted, they have not been. It just means it’s going to be a more rigorous effort next time.”
Maryalice Gill can be reached at 594-6490 or mgill@nashuatelegraph.com. Also, follow Gill on Twitter (@Telegraph_MAG).
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