THAT TIME OF YEAR: At the end of the Senate session last week, Senate President Peter Bragdon announced that 10 House bills were being sent back to the House because they violate Senate Rule 3-3.

The rule reads: “No bill, the subject matter of which has been indefinitely postponed or made inexpedient to legislate in the Senate in the first-year session, shall be admitted into the second-year session whether as a bill, an amendment, a committee of conference report or in any other matter.”

After the session, Bragdon said, “The rules are clear.”

The bills include some that are near and dear to the heart of House Speaker William O'Brien and House leadership, including House Bill 440, which would again direct the attorney general to join the 26-state lawsuit over federal health care reform.

The Senate killed the bill last year after the state Supreme Court ruled it was unconstitutional.

Also sent back to the House was HB 1282, which would have gutted a law passed when Democrats controlled the Legislature to spur work force housing in communities.

The bill reportedly cost former House Municipal and County Government Chairman Beverly Ferrante her job when the committee recommended, 15-2, that the bill be killed. The House overturned the committee and passed the bill by a sizable margin.

A bill that would repeal the prohibition on prerecorded political messages was also sent back the House. HB 1232, sponsored by Rep. David Bates, R-Windham, was identical to a bill the Senate killed last session prohibiting those pesky dinner-time calls from candidates or their campaigns.

The other bills sent back to the House include:

HB 1720, which would establish the right to request a jury trial in a consumer protection claim.

HCR 34, which would urge Congress to withdraw from the North American Free Trade Agreement.

HCR 32, which would urge Congress to withdraw the United States from the United Nations.

HB 1181, which deals with settlement offers made during a trial.

HB 1214, which would ban ethanol as a gasoline additive in New Hampshire.

HB 1327, which would revise the offense of “official oppression'' and make it either a Class B misdemeanor or a violation, depending on whether a public official benefited or sought to harm another.

And HB 1566, which would revise the procedure for a school district to withdraw from a school administrative unit.

All along, the House has been sending the Senate bills that had been killed last year, such as right-to-work, but they were either changed slightly or vetoed by the governor and not killed by the Senate.

But, evidently, the 10 identical bills to the ones the Senate killed last year were a little too much for the Senate hierarchy.

Also Wednesday, the Senate did a little hocus pocus of its own and pulled a bill out of its hat tying the state's interest and dividends tax to the federal law. The Senate approved Senate Bill 168 last year, but the House put it on the table to die. The House has killed similar bills in years past.

The Senate added SB 168 onto HB 1221 Wednesday and sent it back to the House.

The House wants to kill the Senate's bill on a new school building aid program, while the Senate effectively killed the House's bill to change the state retirement system to a defined contribution program that does not have guaranteed benefits for retirees.

The Senate's two top-priority bills — affecting corporate law and limited liability companies — have effectively been taken hostage in the House.

The corporation law rewrite is expected to be sent to interim study, or a polite death, while the LLC bill is expected to pass, but with a significant change to how real estate could be transferred within the LLC.

The Senate has sent to interim study the right-to-work bill and some bills that would expand gun rights

This is the time when you have to read every amendment to see what bill the House is sending again to the Senate because it had been killed and what the Senate is sending back to the House.

Nothing is really dead even if it appears to be. Although Easter was two weeks ago, there are some amazing resurrections still to be witnessed in the coming weeks.

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INTERNET TAX PROHIBITION OR SURPLUS: The Senate Finance Committee Thursday will have a public hearing on budget writers' proposal to prohibit taxing Internet access.

Sponsored by Senate Finance Chairman Chuck Morse, R-Salem, the goal of the amendment is to bring clarity to the current Communications Service Tax, he said.

“Over the past week, we have worked with the House and industry leaders to craft language that we believe will clearly state New Hampshire will not tax access to the Internet,” Morse said.

What he didn't say, however, was that the bill lawmakers would use to adopt the tax ban is House Bill 1652, sponsored by Rep. Keith Murphy, R-Bedford, which would send about $16 million of the $17.7 million surplus from the last biennium to the state rainy day fund, or savings account.

The proposal would allocate $1.5 million of the surplus to help reduce the Developmental Disabilities wait list. The money would be available this biennium.

Under the proposal, the section of the bill sending the money to surplus would be eliminated, which means the $16 million would not necessarily go to the rainy day fund. Instead, the money could go to cover a deficit at the end of this fiscal year, June 30.

The budget approved last June has a projected $14 million deficit in this year of the biennium, but it has a projected slight surplus at the end of the biennium.

Lawmakers such as O'Brien who want the money to go into the rainy day fund have other financial concerns to face, too.

Converting Medicaid — the state and federal health care program for the poor and disabled — to a managed-care program was projected to save the state, incidentally, $16 million, but won't begin July 1 as planned, and the savings are not likely to materialize.

And the state is still waiting for $36.5 million in Medicaid Enhancement Tax revenue from the state's hospitals.

So if the Senate Finance Committee and the Senate approve the plan, and the House agrees, the surplus will not go into the rainy day fund.

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IMAGE PROTECTION: The Senate took a year and a half to approve SB 175, which was introduced at the request of the family of the late author and Cornish resident J.D. Salinger.

The bill would prohibit the commercial use of a person's identity without his or her permission or that of the family.

Besides the budget, SB 175 was perhaps the most lobbied bill last session and quickly became a war among the professional sports players unions, the video-gaming industry and the cable and wireless industries.

The revised bill passed the Senate on a voice vote in January, and now the House Commerce Committee is about to decide what recommendation it will make on the bill.

A public hearing before the committee was held April 10, with Salinger's son, Matt, testifying in support of the legislation. The Commerce Committee is meeting Tuesday to work on the bill and has another session scheduled for May 1. The committee has to make a decision by May 10.

Video gaming industry officials continue to fight the bill, claiming they need to be able to use the images of players in the background.

So this weekend, committee members received four letters from professional athletes supporting the bill.

Pittsburg Penguin Ben Lovejoy, who is from Concord and played for Dartmouth College, wrot: “I understand that some people are claiming that the bill is unfair, that they should have the ability to use my identity however they see fit. That's not the law today in New Hampshire, and I hope you won't make it the law in the future.”

Red Sox third baseman Kevin Youkilis chimed in, saying: “We understand the video game community wants the bill changed to include protections that will allow them to use the likenesses of athletes, celebrities and other public persons — without their consent. By doing so, not only will the gaming companies stand to generate (without paying for it) even more money than the billions they already make, but also they will be able to exercise and unprecedented level of control in their games that carries with it very real potential for damage to many well-earned positive public images and reputations.”

Former Boston Celtic Dave Cowens asks the committee: “Please don't let the video game industry use this bill to undermine my basic right to protect my name and reputation.”

And former Celtic Tom “Satch” Sanders tells the committee: “This bill is important because it protects me from those who want to exploit my name, image and likeness for profit without my permission.”

We'll see how many sports fans are on the committee.

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OOPS: When the Attorney General's Office sent the House and Senate redistricting plans to the U.S. Department of Justice for review before they can go into effect, the wrong House plan was included in the submission.

Instead of the House-approved plan, which was amended on the floor of the House to reflect final changes, the Attorney General's Office sent the plan the House Special Committee on Redistricting approved in committee.

The House Speaker's Office caught the error, and the correct plan has been sent to Washington.

“We hope this doesn't slow down the process,” said House Chief of Staff Greg Moore.

The U.S. DOJ has 60 days to review the plan, which was sent April 6. The filing period for state offices opens June 6.

The DOJ is accepting comments on the plans.

People may comment, in writing or by telephone, to the Voting Section of the United States Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division. The telephone number is 1-800-253-3931; email may be sent to vot1973c@us.doj.gov: and written comments can go to Chief, Voting Section, Civil Rights Division, Room 7254 — NWB, Department of Justice, 950 Pennsylvania Ave., NW, Washington, DC, 20530.

The House redistricting plan was vetoed by Gov. John Lynch, but the veto was overridden by the House and the Senate.

Lynch signed the Senate redistricting plan.

Garry Rayno writes State House Dome each week for the New Hampshire Sunday News. Email him at grayno@unionleader.com.