A MORE MEASURED PACE: While the House has many hot-button issues to deal with in January when lawmakers return to Concord, the Senate will take a more measured if not downright “unsexy” approach, according to Senate President Peter Bragdon.

“I think we want to continue with what we worked on: jobs, the economy, taxes and spending.” Bragdon said at a lunch with State House reporters this week.

The House is expected to begin with a bill to repeal the state's gay marriage law; a constitutional amendment to prohibit an income tax; a bill to expand the capital murder sentencing option to include any murder, not just those in which the victim was a judicial or law enforcement official; and a bill to expand gambling with video slot machines.

Most of these issues will be put off until after the Jan. 10 presidential primary, as House leaders say they do not want to distract from the first-in-the-nation balloting.

The most controversial bill the Senate will act on in the early days of January concerns the Northern Pass transmission project. (See related story, Page A1.) The Senate Judiciary Committee voted this month to change the wording of a House bill prohibiting the use of eminent domain for private projects to say utilities could not use the process until they have been granted permission to do so by the Public Utilities Commission.

The committee's decision was not popular with Northern Pass opponents.

However, the opponents may have a friend in the Senate president. Bragdon said he wants to ensure private property cannot be taken by a private entity such as Public Service of New Hampshire.

“It's a fundamental issue for me. It's very simple,” he said.

The Northern Pass transmission project may be as sexy as Bragdon is willing to go. His top priority is rewriting business and tax laws so Limited Liability Companies are easier to establish and so businesses can easily navigate the state's tax code.

“We've gotten out of sync with the rest of the country,” Bragdon said. “Our goal is to make it easier for businesses to succeed in New Hampshire. When they succeed, they hire people.”

Another Senate priority for Bragdon is a constitutional amendment on education funding to clearly allow the state to target money to the neediest communities. Earlier this month, the House killed both Gov. John Lynch's proposed language and the Senate's proposed amendment.

House Speaker William O'Brien wants to strip the court's authority over education issues, while the governor and the Senate majority want to maintain the state's responsibility to provide and pay for an adequate education for all the state's children.

The Senate has yet to act on the amendment the House passed last year. Bragdon said he would continue to work with Lynch and O'Brien on a compromise. “I'd really like to see something get to the voters,” he said.

He said the education amendment is the top priority and noted the Senate would get to the income tax and three-fifth majority amendments that the House wants after the education amendment. But Bragdon reiterated the focus would be on the education amendment.

Translated, that means the Senate will hold the two tax amendments until the House comes closer to the Senate's position on education funding. Here in the State House that's called hostage taking and a common practice.

Many observers believe the Senate and House are headed for a real showdown this session and the education funding constitutional amendment may well be the principal battleground.

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REDISTRICTING: The smoke is beginning to clear on the House's redistricting plan, with cities such as Manchester, Concord, Franklin, Laconia and Claremont outraged that some of their wards have been carved out and merged with surrounding communities in new districts.

Some towns believe the 2006 constitutional amendment should ensure they have their own representative, but they don't.

The Senate redistricting plan has yet to emerge publicly, but has been proceeding, Bragdon said, with meetings with senators and discussing what they would like their districts to encompass.

The Senate plan has proceeded a little more quietly and under the radar. It will be unveiled before the Senate Internal Affairs Committee at a public hearing Jan. 11.

The committee is scheduled to decide on its recommendation that day, and the bill is scheduled to go before the full Senate for a vote Jan. 25.

If the past is an indication, the plan will be more an incumbents' reelection act than a partisan battle like the House is experiencing.

Bragdon said the Senate would not explore a concurrent order, as the House has done. The House plans to pass an order telling the secretary of state to hold the election with the House-drawn districts if the governor vetoes the bill, which is expected.

“There are all kinds of dynamics out there,” Bragdon said. “But when it is all said and done, the governor still has a vote, and this governor's popularity is still about 70 percent, and that can't be ignored.”

He said the process used in the past has worked pretty well and he would prefer to continue to use it.

A decade ago, the Republican-controlled Legislature locked horns with Democratic Gov. Jeanne Shaheen over the redistricting plans, and eventually, the state Supreme Court had to redraw the boundaries of the House and Senate districts.

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NO VOTES FOR VP: State election officials are hoping for an earlier night Jan. 10 than they've had during past presidential primaries.

Why? Because there will be no vice presidential ballot for the first time.

Few if any candidates register to run for vice president in either party.

For example, four years ago, only one Republican was on the ballot for vice president; there were two Democrats.

Most of the votes for vice president are write-ins, which take a long time to count. In the 2008 primary, there were more than 13,000 write-in votes for Republican vice president and almost as many on the Democratic side.

The vice presidential ballot was eliminated in 2009 when a bill sponsored by Manchester Rep. Steve Vailancourt became law.

Secretary of State Bill Gardner said eliminating the ballot will “definitely make it quicker. Compiling all the write-ins is time-consuming.”

City and town clerks have long complained about the vice presidential ballot and how long it takes to count the write-in votes.

Gardner said the momentum to end the vice presidential ballot picked up over the years and finally was successful in 2009.

The last Republican vice presidential candidate, state Sen. Jack Barnes, R-Raymond, was a co-sponsor of the bill to eliminate the ballot.

Barnes received 40,267 votes for vice president in 2008.

He said he received offers of financial support to run for President after a debate among the three vice presidential candidates.

“I was going to run for President, but I was backing (U.S. Sen. John) McCain and going to the convention as his delegate,” Barnes said. “I said, ‘What am I doing on the ballot with a guy I'm supporting?' so I ran for vice president instead.”

Barnes said he ran because “I had two or three things I wanted to get out, two or three things I wanted to get off my chest.”

Those two things were the United Nations, which he continues to want removed from America, and foreign aid.

“What has the Untied Nations ever done for this country? They don't step in where we could use the help.” Barnes said. “We should send them to Europe someplace.”

He said the country continues to spend too much money on foreign aid when the country's roads and bridges are collapsing and children are going to school hungry. “We're giving money to people who hate us and shoot at us,” Barnes said. “Something is wrong when we don't take care of Americans first, that is why I ran for vice president. It was the only time I ran.”

He said he had no qualms sponsoring the bill to eliminate the vice presidential ballot. After the debate with the other two vice presidential candidates in 2008, “I said, ‘Don't believe I should be on that stage again.'”

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ON THE MOVE: Salem Republican Rep. Marilinda Garcia was featured in Townline Magazine in an article by Elisabeth Meinecke titled “Latinos, Democrats Act Like They Own Us.”

Also featured in the article were other conservative Republican Latinos: U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida and Gov. Susan Martinez of New Mexico.

Speaker O'Brien said: “As both a chair of the House Republican Alliance and a member of the Finance Committee, Marilinda has proven her leadership abilities in the House. It's great to see that she is getting such tremendous recognition for her outreach efforts to engage Hispanics to get more involved in the political process and to support the values of limited government and greater freedom. Rep. Garcia is rapidly becoming a leader on the national stage, and we continue to expect big things from her here in the Legislature.”

Garcia, who is serving her third term in the House, was a member of the 2011 New Hampshire Union Leader “40 Under Forty” class.

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CHRISTMAS CARDS: You know the political season is upon us when you receive a Christmas Card email from South Carolina GOP Chairman Chad Connelly.

With a nice picture of his family at the top, Connelly wished me Merry Christmas and said, “Thank you for your leadership and service in our South Carolina Republican Party.”

While I may not have done a thing for the Republican Party in South Carolina, I do want to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas. May everyone have a safe and heartfelt holiday.

Garry Rayno writes State House Dome every week for the New Hampshire Sunday News.