WE’RE NOT even out of January yet but already we’re into the “grind” of the 2020 session.

HOUSE SPEAKER Steve Shurtleff, D-Penacook, may have perfectly captured the theme of the 2020 legislative session.

A first-term lawmaker’s post alleging the violent instincts of those supporting President Donald Trump touched off a firestorm of protest from New Hampshire conservatives last week.

With the start of the 2020 legislative session less than two weeks away, this is an appropriate time to examine the workload.

While they both want voters to give them the job of governor next fall, Gov. Chris Sununu and Executive Councilor Andru Volinsky, D-Concord, have been quite civil toward one another, but there seemed to be an interruption to that political ceasefire at the Executive Council table last week.

It’s still early in the 2020 election cycle, but not too early to predict which Executive Council primary race will be the most competitive — and expensive.

THE TRUE measure of a candidate’s fundraising prowess isn’t the first quarter-million dollars he or she can raise.

GOV. CHRIS Sununu and the State Employees Association remain at loggerheads over a new collective bargaining agreement despite a factfinder’s report that prompted the governor to reach an agreement with two smaller unions that represent state prison guards, probation officers and Fish and Ga…

LEGISLATIVE Ethics Committee Chairman and State Rep. Ned Gordon, R-Bristol, convinced the House Rules Committee early last week to allow him to introduce changes in the conflicts-of-interest policy for lawmakers.

THE MAIN architect of the law that repealed New Hampshire’s death penalty will receive a prestigious national honor on Tuesday night.

EXECUTIVE Councilor Debora Pignatelli, D-Nashua, scored a long-earned win for Merrimack residents last week as an advisory commission set in motion the likely elimination of any ramp toll charge at Exit 11 on the F.E. Everett Turnpike.

THE INITIAL sports-betting competition in New Hampshire that went to fantasy sports giant DraftKings and lottery technology leader Intralot has ended one of the most closely-watched and most secret Requests For Proposals in recent history.

The Democratically led Executive Council should apologize to Attorney Gen. Gordon MacDonald for rejecting him as chief justice of the state Supreme Court on political grounds, Gov. Chris Sununu said last week.

THE Democratically led Legislature just raised Education Commissioner Frank Edelblut’s political profile and perhaps by design it has set him up as a martyr for the school choice movement.

A bipartisan group of lawmakers, medical professionals and business leaders went north of the border last week for a one-day economic summit in Sherbrooke, Quebec.

GOV. Chris Sununu knew he could win over Republican lawmakers for the compromise state budget deal he reached with Democratic legislative leaders, but not without a lot of work.

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.