About Granite Record
Granite Record is a free, independent and searchable record of the New Hampshire General Court: what each bill does, who sponsored it, when it was heard, how it was voted on, and where in the recording it was discussed. It covers 33,717 bills since 1989, for anyone who follows the legislature, from a first-time testifier to the people who work in the State House.
Who Makes Granite Record
I'm Alice Wade, a State Representative from Dover, and Granite Record is my independent project to make state government more accessible to everyone. It started with one problem: bill hearings had no timestamps, so finding a single bill meant combing through hours of livestream footage. From there I kept gathering everything I needed to track legislation into one place, and Granite Record grew out of that.
I'm committed to keeping it free, neutral and open source, for anyone who has trouble keeping up with the state legislature. Built from the New Hampshire General Court's own digital records, it covers bills back to 1989. You can search for bills in plain language, prepare public testimony, research how legislation has changed over time, and get in touch with your state legislators.
The eventual goal is a hub of information about New Hampshire's state, county and municipal government, including guides to how state government is structured, with interactive diagrams written to be accessible no matter your prior experience with state government.
Nothing on this site is editorialized: it presents the official record in a more searchable form. The code is public, and you can download the official record as spreadsheets from the Data page.
Granite Record is independent of my role as a state legislator and is not affiliated with the New Hampshire General Court. For feature suggestions or corrections to a bill's record, use the Report a problem button on a bill's, legislator's or committee's page, or write to [email protected].
Special thanks to the House Clerk's Office and the General Court's IT staff, without whom this project would not be possible.
What You Can Do Here
- Search for bills in plain language, or by number, sponsor or committee.
- Open a hearing's recording at the moment a bill was taken up.
- Prepare to testify, with a bill's hearings, reports and text in one place.
- Research how a bill, or an issue, has changed over the years.
- Follow a bill's progress, and find your legislators and how to reach them.
Where the Information Comes From
Everything here comes from the General Court's own records: its docket, roll calls, committee reports, journals and calendars, and the recordings on its YouTube channels. Each bill links to its official record. Most hearing timestamps are the moment the chair opened the item, checked against recordings a person timed by hand; the rest are marked approximate. How the record is built, on the Data page, explains the methods and how well they measure up.
Sources in detail
Bill histories and hearing schedules come from the General Court's docket: for the current term its published data files, for 2015 to 2024 its web pages, and before that the read-only database the General Court publishes credentials for. Sponsors from 2023 on come from its sponsor file and bill status pages, and before 2023 from the sponsor line printed on each bill's own text. Vote tallies and individual member votes come from its roll call files, and for sessions those files no longer cover, from the same database. The House's committee majority and minority reports are taken from the House Calendar; the Senate's come from the database too, which is where the Senate files them. Hearing and session recordings are the General Court's own, on YouTube, linked rather than copied.
Where a hearing shows how many people signed in for and against a bill, those are counts and nothing else. The General Court's sign-in sheet records a name, a town and often written testimony for every person; almost all of them are members of the public rather than public figures, and this site does not republish them.
A term before the current one is marked archived. Nearly every archived bill has its docket — the General Court's own line-by-line list of actions — and its sponsors, the committee it went to, its hearings and its text. Three parts of the record start later, because the General Court's copies of them that this site reads start later. The House committees' written reports start with the 1997-1998 term, the first in its online calendars, and the Senate committees' with the current term, the only one its database holds them for. Before those, the page gives each committee's recommendation as the docket records it, and the committee's vote wherever the docket gives one. Votes by name start in 1999, where its roll-call files begin; before that, the docket gives the tallies it recorded, and the printed journals name who voted which way. Recordings start in May 2020, when its YouTube channels begin. Every archived bill links its own official record.
Keeping It Accurate
The official record at gc.nh.gov always takes precedence over anything shown here. If something on a bill's, legislator's or committee's page doesn't match it, use the Report a problem button on that page: reports are read every day, checked against the official record, and corrected.
Your Privacy
Granite Record doesn't track you. There are no accounts and no advertising, nothing about what you read is tied to you, and reports sent through the Report a problem button are deleted after a week. Privacy in detail is on the Data page.
Free and Open Source
Granite Record is free to use, now and always. Its code is public on GitHub under the MIT License, and the whole record can be downloaded as spreadsheets from the Data page.
Independence
Granite Record is not affiliated with or endorsed by the New Hampshire General Court, and it takes no position on any bill.
The Logo
The Granite Record logo was drawn by Debra Caplan, an artist in Peterborough, New Hampshire, and is used under license from her. More of her work is at linescapesnh.com. In her own words:
I moved to Peterborough, NH in 2011, and fell in love with the town; its rich past, historic buildings and vibrant art community.
My idea for LineScapes prints sprang from my early school research into Louis Prang, the father of lithography and a promoter of affordable art for all, through lithographic prints.
I began making prints of my pen and ink sketches of Peterborough buildings, hand-coloring some, and matting or framing them. … Over the years I have added scenes from the Monadnock Region, New Hampshire and beyond.