NO CHANGE? The House and Senate approved very different plans for redrawing the boundaries for the five Executive Council districts.

Under the Senate plan, District 1 would stretch from the Canadian border to Dover and District 2 from Concord to the Connecticut River from north of Hanover to the Massachusetts border.

The House plan has a serpentine District 2 that would stretch from the Massachusetts border to the Seacoast, including Democratic strongholds Keene, Concord and Portsmouth.

Both plans made major revisions to the current districts, which have been in place for 20 years and could continue for another 10 years because the population shifts that cause Senate and House districts to change had little effect on the five council districts over the last 10 years.

House and Senate negotiators on House Bill 1670, which proposes redrawing the council districts, had a quick meeting Friday morning and agreed to come back Tuesday to try again to resolve their differences, but don't count on it.

There appears to be little urgency to do anything, which means the bill could die along with both the Senate and House plans.

If that happens, the council districts would not change, and that may be a positive thing because the filing period for federal, state and county offices begins June 6. With no changes, all the candidates would know what they have to do and where they have to do it.

Leaving the districts intact would certainly be good news for District 1 Councilor Raymond Burton, R-Bath, who would not have to campaign in communities in the state's southeast, where he has never campaigned before.

Perhaps the happiest councilor would be District 2's Daniel St. Hilaire, R-Concord, who faced almost certain defeat at the hands of Democratic challenger Colin Van Ostern, D-Concord, under either the House or Senate plan, and would at least have a fighting chance in the current district.

District 3 Councilor Chris Sununu, R-Newfields, and District 5 Councilor David Wheeler, R-Milford, would have to prefer the reworked districts.

Wheeler, who will have a rematch with former Councilor Debora Pignatelli, D-Nashua, has a better chance without Keene and other Monadnock communities that would remain in the district if nothing changed.

Likewise, Sununu could face a rematch with former Councilor Beverly Hollingworth, D-Hampton. He would certainly have a better chance at reelection if Portsmouth and several towns around it were removed from the district.

The winners and losers will be known by the end of the day on Thursday, when the conference committees have to file their reports.

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WALKING THE FINE LINE: House and Senate members negotiating a constitutional amendment on education and how it is funded may be taking the weekend off, but the real negotiations are likely to continue.

The official line last week was that constitutional attorneys would spend the weekend reviewing every word in House- and Senate-proposed constitutional amendments to determine the implications and constitutional legality. The real work, however, is going on among attorneys for the Senate, the House and the Governor's Office and a long list of outside legal and political advisers, not with the members of the negotiating teams for the House and Senate.

The goal is to find the right language to persuade 239 House members to vote in favor and reach the 60 percent threshold that would put the amendment on the ballot without losing Senate votes, which would happen if there was not enough of a guarantee the state would continue to pay.

That's a very fine line. The problem for House Speaker William O'Brien and House Majority Leader D.J. Bettencourt is about 100 House members believe the court overstepped its authority in the Claremont decisions and will not accept any amendment that continues those decisions by making education and its funding a state responsibility.

Nearly every one of the 104 Democrats in the House opposes an amendment. Put the two numbers together and it becomes nearly impossible to reach 60 percent.

House and Senate leaders believe Gov. John Lynch needs to be on board if the amendment is to have any chance of winning the two-thirds majority needed in the general election to be approved.

“You cannot underestimate the importance of having the leadership of the House and Senate, the members of the House and Senate and Governor Lynch all on the same page,” said Senate Majority Leader Jeb Bradley, R-Wolfeboro. “This is a critical issue for the future of our state and involves our tax structure and a civilized society's obligation to educate its future, its children.”

He said a bipartisan approach is needed across the political spectrum in order to convince 67 percent of voters the amendment is in theirs and the state's best interest.

Lynch has consistently said he will not accept an amendment that does not acknowledge the state's educational responsibility.

The latest House proposal includes the word “responsibility,” but also makes clear that only lawmakers would determine education standards, accountability, how much money would go to education and how it would be distributed. To date, the governor has not agreed to that provision.

You have to wonder, at some point, do the House and Senate decide to go on without the governor and take their chances by putting the question on the ballot in November and letting the voters decide?

The answer should be clear by the end of next week.

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RGGI: Unlike last year, House and Senate negotiators reached agreement on a bill that would reform, but not repeal, the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative.

House Bill 1490 began as a bill to repeal the regional carbon reduction program, but the Senate, not wanting a repeat of last year's situation, instead proposed the same compromise as last year that the House rejected out of hand.

The compromise would allow New Hampshire to leave RGGI if two other New England states did so and would limit how the money generated by the program could be spent.

Instead of going through the current process, most of the money would flow to what are called the core efficiency programs run by the utilities.

While the Senate and House negotiators reached an agreement, it may be a hard sell to House members.

Negotiators also agreed on “liquid RGGI,” which prohibits the state from joining a liquid carbon fuel reduction program without legislative approval, and on the electric renewable energy portfolio standards, which reward the use of renewable energy sources such as wood and hydro generators.

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STATE SENATE CANDIDATE: Democrat Carol Croteau of Kingston will seek the District 23 Senate seat held by Sen. Russell Prescott, R-Kingston.

Croteau is no stranger to Concord, she is the co-founder of Bully Free NH and helped craft the state's relatively new bullying law.

Croteau's daughter was bullied severely when she attended Sanborn Regional High School and had to leave and attend another high school.

“I feel that the current leadership in Concord has lost its way and what we value here in New Hampshire,” she said Friday.

She noted last year she had to fight House Bill 370, which would have undone much of what the new bullying law had established, adding there have been many laws passed in the past two years that have been detrimental to New Hampshire.

“We need to return to New Hampshire values, we need to be certain we have safe communities and we also need to be certain the most vulnerable are cared for,” Croteau said. “We need a budget that reflects our values here in New Hampshire and does not cater to outside big business interest like the tobacco tax (reduction.)”

In 2010, Croteau ran unsuccessfully for the House.

She was born and raised in New Hampshire and has lived in Kingston since 2005.

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BOUNDARY LINES: Former House Speaker and current Minority Leader Terie Norelli wants more information from O'Brien and Bettencourt about the political work of Bob Mead when he worked for the Legislature.

Mead recently resigned after the Concord Monitor newspaper reported he was reimbursed $456 by taxpayers for driving to and from political events where he recruited candidates to run for the House.

In an email to O'Brien and Bettencourt, Norelli cites Friday's NH Union Leader story on House officials approving the voucher for Mead.

“The people of New Hampshire deserve to know whether they were funding a state employee to recruit and train Republican House candidates.

This article again raises the question of what Bob Mead was actually doing for his taxpayer-funded salary and whether he received comp time, in addition to his mileage reimbursements, for his attendance at Republican committee events outside the normal work week,” Norelli writes. “Charging taxpayers for Republican political recruitment is an abuse of the public trust and of taxpayers' money. Republican leadership's attempt to mislead the public about their knowledge of Mr. Mead's activities is disingenuous at best. The people of New Hampshire deserve a full explanation for these events and leaders who take responsibility for their actions.”

House Chief of Staff Greg Moore said House leadership was too busy with conference committees to comment on Norelli's email.

Garry Rayno writes State House Dome weekly for New Hampshire Sunday News. E-mail him at grayno@unionleader.com.