## Facts

- In 2019, the New Hampshire House of Representatives amended House Rule 63, effective January 2, 2019.
- As amended, House Rule 63 provided that no person, including House members, may carry or possess any “deadly weapon” in the House Chamber, anterooms, cloakrooms, or House gallery, except law enforcement officers while actively performing their duties.
- Before the amendment, House Rule 63 allowed House members and others to carry weapons in the chamber so long as the weapons were not displayed.
- State Representative John Burt, joined by other House members, sued the Speaker of the House, Stephen Shurtleff, in his official capacity.
- The plaintiffs alleged the amended rule violated Part I, Article 2-a of the New Hampshire Constitution, which protects the right to keep and bear arms.
- The plaintiffs sought declaratory and injunctive relief.
- The superior court dismissed the complaint for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction, ruling the dispute was a nonjusticiable political question because it involved internal legislative rules and operations.
- The plaintiffs appealed to the New Hampshire Supreme Court; the constitutional merits of the weapons restriction were not decided by the trial court.

## Issues

1. Whether a constitutional challenge under Part I, Article 2-a to House Rule 63 is justiciable, or instead barred by the political-question doctrine and separation-of-powers principles.
2. Whether the superior court erred in dismissing the complaint for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction based on nonjusticiability.

## Decision

- The New Hampshire Supreme Court reversed the superior court’s dismissal and remanded for further proceedings.
- The court held that the plaintiffs’ claim presents a justiciable constitutional controversy and is not barred as a political question.
- The court did not decide whether House Rule 63 violates Part I, Article 2-a; it held only that the judiciary may decide that question on the merits in appropriate proceedings.

## Legal Principles

- Courts have authority and responsibility to interpret the New Hampshire Constitution and to determine whether government action complies with constitutional limits.
- The legislature’s power to adopt and enforce rules governing its internal proceedings does not place those rules beyond judicial review when a plaintiff alleges a violation of a constitutional right.
- The political-question doctrine bars review only in limited circumstances (such as when the constitution commits an issue exclusively to another branch or when there are no judicially manageable standards); a claim that a rule violates a constitutional right presents a legal question courts are equipped to resolve.
- Separation of powers does not prevent judicial review of legislative action merely because the action takes the form of an internal rule; the key question is whether adjudication requires the judiciary to exercise legislative functions, rather than apply constitutional law to a challenged rule.
- A ruling that a claim is justiciable is distinct from deciding the claim’s merits; jurisdiction and justiciability address whether the court may hear the case, not whether the plaintiff will ultimately prevail.

## Conclusion

Burt v. Speaker of the House of Representatives holds that New Hampshire courts may adjudicate legislators’ constitutional challenge under Part I, Article 2-a to House Rule 63’s ban on possessing deadly weapons in specified House areas, rejecting the trial court’s view that the dispute was a nonjusticiable political question and reversing and remanding for consideration of the merits.


Burt v. Speaker of the House of Representatives, 243 A.3d 609 (2021)