This will be my last column on State House affairs for the New Hampshire Union Leader, as I put -30- on a journalism career that spans four-plus decades.

Senate Bill 10 increases the minimum wage, currently at the federal minimum of $7.25 an hour, to $10 in 2020 and $12 in 2022.

Gov. Chris Sununu is about to be inundated with bills to sign, veto or allow to become law without his signature, now that the House and Senate have reconciled their differences on more than 120 pieces of legislation.

Gov. Chris Sununu last week nominated MacDonald to replace Chief Justice Robert Lynn, who’s reaching the mandatory retirement age of 70.

June 1 was a red-letter day for more than 50,000 New Hampshire residents who get their medical coverage from the expanded Medicaid program, known as Granite Advantage Health Care.

The bill provides funding to address the boarding of mental health patients in hospital emergency rooms due to a lack of in-patient mental health beds.

Gov. Chris Sununu has generally been sympathetic to legislation addressing civil rights of the LGBTQ community, and has taken some flak from social conservatives as a result.

Gov. Chris Sununu has begun to yield the veto pen with gusto — perhaps a bit too much gusto for Democratic leaders in the House and Senate.

When lawmakers override a gubernatorial veto, they expect the bill to become law, unless overturned by the courts.

SPEAKING TO a crowd of enthusiastic supporters at a GOP rally in front of the State House a few weeks ago, Gov. Chris Sununu blasted key parts of the Democrats’ agenda in the state Legislature and said his veto pen was at the ready. He’s going to need a lot of ink in that pen.

Looks like the top executives in the New Hampshire Liquor Commission are going to get pay raises of nearly 5 percent.

Gov. Chris Sununu is telling key state officials to prepare for a possible budget veto, which would leave the state with no budget as of June 30.

Now that the House has completed action on its bills and is moving on to Senate-passed bills, it’s time to take stock of legislation that was neither approved nor killed, but tabled. Tabled bills will die at the end of the session unless revived, which at this point would take a two-thirds vote.

It's unusual to hear the chairman of the House Criminal Justice Committee allude to a ZZ Top song from the early 1980s during committee deliberations.

The House has no voting sessions scheduled this week, which is probably a good thing, since a cooling off period is definitely in order.

Rep. Dennis Fields wants it known he was unaware of the meaning behind the pearls when he was handed them on his way into the hearing.

There is a law that requires hundreds of upper-level state employees and commission appointees to file financial disclosure forms.

It may be school vacation week in New Hampshire, but there’s no vacation for the House of Representatives.

Republicans in New Hampshire agreed to extend the program beyond its sunset in December, but only if a work, training or community service requirement was added for able-bodied adults not taking care of children.

REP. PATRICK Abrami, R-Stratham, stopped by the State House newsroom at the State House on Friday to make a good point about the history of efforts to legalize marijuana in the state.

The battle over guns in the House of Representatives is most likely headed to court.

It's not often that senior executives from state agencies are called to the Executive Council table to justify their pay increases.

The question of who gets to take pictures or videos during committee hearings could be the next confrontation between the Democratic majority and Republican minority in the House.

When Democratic senators outlined policy priorities for their new majority at a State House press conference on Jan. 2, additional funding for the state’s beleaguered child protection agency was high on their agenda.

The debate over rules governing firearms in the House chamber and mandatory sexual harassment training for all representatives got most of the attention last week, but there were other votes of some consequence.