How to Attend and Speak at a Public Hearing

Finding a bill's public hearing, going in person or watching it, and asking to speak, step by step, with what happens after.

Checked against its sources October 17, 2026.

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At a Glance

Committees of the House and of the Senate hold public hearings on bills, and the Senate’s rules require one on every bill sent to a committee. You may attend and testify. Find the hearing in the chamber’s calendar or on the bill’s page here, go to the room the notice names or watch the live stream, and ask to speak when you arrive: on a pink card in the House, on the sign-up sheet in the committee room in the Senate. In practice a hearing never starts before the time in its notice, and often starts later. If you cannot go, you can sign in online or send your position in writing instead.

  1. Find the hearing: the committee, the room, the day, and the time for your bill.

  2. Can you go in person?

    • YesGo to the room, and ask to speak: a pink card in the House, the sign-up sheet in the Senate.
    • NoWatch the live stream, and sign in online or send your position in writing.
  3. When the chair calls you, speak briefly. Before closing, the chair asks whether anyone else wishes to speak.
  4. Afterward, the committee votes on what to recommend, sometimes the same day.

Step by Step

  1. Find the hearing

    A hearing is announced in the calendar of the chamber holding it. The notice names the committee, the building and room, the day, and a time for each bill. The House lists its hearings under Committee Meetings in the House Calendar, and the Senate’s rules require at least 4 days’ notice in the Senate Calendar.

    On this site, a bill’s page lists its hearings with the day, time and room, and the Calendar shows the week’s hearings by committee. Follow on a bill’s page gives you its new actions as they are recorded, and the site keeps a feed of hearings coming up as well.

    In practice a committee meeting never starts before the time its notice gives, and it often starts later: an earlier hearing in the same room ran long with more speakers than expected, or a lunch break or a caucus before the meeting ran over. Plan to wait.

    This week's hearingsFind a bill

  2. Decide how to take part

    Legislative committee meetings, executive sessions included, are open to the public, with narrow exceptions in the law, and anyone may record them. You can:

    • go in person, to the building and room the notice names. Testifying and Attending explains the buildings;
    • watch: the House and the Senate live stream their standing committees’ hearings, and a bill’s page here links the recording where there is one; or
    • sign in or send your position in writing, with or without going: the House and the Senate both take sign-ins online, and written testimony goes to the committee’s members by email, or on paper at the hearing.

    The buildingsSubmit testimony

    The law: RSA 91-A:1-a, VI(a), RSA 91-A:2, II

  3. Ask to speak

    Speaking is a separate step from signing in, and spoken testimony is given in person. Each chamber asks for it its own way:

    • In the House, in practice there is a stack of pink cards on a table and a registration sheet near the front of the room. Anyone may sign the sheet with their name and whether they support or oppose the bill. To speak, fill out a pink card and hand it to a staff member or a committee member, who passes it to the chair.
    • In the Senate, sign up on the sheet in the committee room on the day of the hearing: the Senate’s guidance says so, and its notices tell anyone who wishes to speak to sign up in person. In practice the sheet has a box to mark if you want to speak.

    Speaking at the hearing

  4. When you speak

    When the chair calls you, say who you are, where you live and whether you speak for an organization, then whether you support or oppose the bill, and why. The most useful testimony is specific: what the bill would do to you, in your town.

    In practice:

    • The chair sets the time. Whether to limit speakers, and when to stop one, is the chair’s call. With a few speakers there may be no limit. With many, more than about ten, chairs often give each person two or three minutes and ask speakers not to repeat points already made several times, so that each brings their own view.
    • Notes are fine. You may read from prepared notes or from your phone.
    • No props. Props are not allowed while you testify. Signs are allowed in the hallways, not in the committee room.
    • Paper copies are optional. To hand the committee written testimony, bring one printed copy for each member; they will take them and pass them around.
    • The last call. Before closing the hearing, the chair usually asks whether anyone who has not yet spoken would like to speak on the bill: a last chance for anyone who did not sign up. If no one does, the hearing is closed.

    Written testimony

  5. After the hearing

    The committee votes on what to recommend at an executive session, which you may watch. It can follow the hearing directly: Senate notices often say so, and a House committee may hold one right after a noticed hearing. Some notices give one block of time to “executive session on pending legislation”, and in practice the chair then takes up the bills in any order.

    Many House committee notices also say that an “executive session on pending legislation may be held throughout the day, time permitting, from the time the committee is initially convened”. That means the committee may vote on any bill it has pending at any point in that day, so the notice gives the vote no time, and you may learn when it happened only afterward. House calendars have printed that line since at least February 1997.

    The recommendation, such as Ought to Pass or Inexpedient to Legislate, goes to the full chamber. If the bill passes, a committee of the other chamber holds its own hearing on it.

    In the Senate, the committee’s hearing report lists who supported, opposed or was neutral on the bill and summarizes the testimony.

    How a bill becomes law

In the Record

Chapter 91-A: Access to Governmental Records and Meetings

Bills now before the General Court that would change it:

Laws that changed it since 2020, newest first:

See Also

Where This Comes From