And so it goes in New Hampshire...
Richard 
New Bills Would Cite Magna Carta
ConcordMonitor, 24 Dec 2011
As in other lines of work, lunchtime discussions among lawmakers at the State House often spur ideas. Sometimes those ideas become bills. And sometimes those bills seemed less strange over lunch.
House Bill 1580 is the product of such a brainstorming session this summer between three freshman House Republicans: Bob Kingsbury of Laconia, Tim Twombly of Nashua and Lucien Vita of Middleton. The eyebrow-raiser, set to be introduced when the Legislature reconvenes next month,
requires legislation to find its origin in an English document crafted in 1215.
"All members of the general court proposing bills and resolutions addressing individual rights or liberties shall include a direct quote from the Magna Carta which sets forth the article from which the individual right or liberty is derived," is the bill's one sentence.
The Magna Carta, while famed as the first major declaration of rights under English monarchy, is a bit outdated in its actual prose. The overarching idea of personal freedoms and liberties served as a benchmark for framers of the American Constitution, but most of the feudal barons' 63 demands of King John of England dealt with the tedium of the day. The document, translated from its original Latin, includes such passages as:
• "No widow shall be compelled to marry, so long as she wishes to remain without a husband."
• "We shall straightway return the son of Llewelin and all the Welsh hostages. . . . We shall act towards Alexander King of the Scots regarding the restoration of his sisters."
• "If anyone who has borrowed a sum of money from Jews dies before the debt has been repaid, his heir shall pay no interest on the debt for so long as he remains under age."
Upon seeing the bill, New Hampshire Democratic Party spokesman Ray Buckley said he was "mostly speechless." "I appreciate all the hard work the Republican legislators are putting into the effort to make them look like extremists," he said. "Saves us the trouble."
But Kingsbury said the "primary motivation" for the bill was to honor the Magna Carta's upcoming 800-year anniversary in 2015. Citing quotes from the document will bring its historical importance to the public's attention, he said.
Vita admitted he needs to "bone up" on the content of the charter, but said "it's a document that still functions." He views the bill as similar to efforts in Congress requiring all legislation to cite constitutional authority.
"This is a little bit older than the Constitution, but the same thought is there," he said.
Asked about any legal hang-ups in requiring New Hampshire bills to derive their authority from an English charter, Kingsbury said "that's an interesting thought."
"Everything has an analog, everything has an origin, and this is part of the origin of what we have in our country," he said.
The Magna Carta doesn't directly weigh in on modern-day liberty issues like gay marriage, women's rights or abortion. Vita acknowledged that "all the activist issues that have come up in recent years probably are not addressed in the Magna Carta."
"It probably didn't enter anybody's mind back then," Vita said. "In spite of that point, I'll still support the bill."
Twombly said "no way in heck" was his intention in backing the bill to prevent progressive civil rights legislation from being introduced.
"That's not my thought whatsoever," he said. "Our society has changed a lot since then. There are issues that need to be resolved that weren't a problem years ago."
Kingsbury said he was mostly thinking of bills dealing with the judicial system; one of the Magna Carta's most enduring clauses states that "no freeman" shall be imprisoned or harmed "save by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land."
Though the bill's Magna Carta requirement would have the force of law if passed, Kingsbury said he didn't intend for there to be penalty for not citing the document.
"It's a recommendation that would be nice to be followed," he said.
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