By GARRY RAYNO, Distant Dome
By and large, the 2026 session of the New Hampshire legislature is over.
Lawmakers will be back for one more session to deal with Gov. Kelly Ayotte’s vetoes, and although it appears very unlikely, there is always the possibility of a special session for one emergency or another.
With revenues running well over $100 million the anticipated amount, the likelihood of a financial emergency is small, although there is the matter of the large tract of land in the North Country which the state has the option of first refusal if the buyer’s use of the land is unacceptable to state leaders.
The state would need to come up with a down payment and $68.7 million to purchase the Connecticut Lakes Headwaters track.
Not that long ago the state purchased land around Lake Umbagog with the help of the federal government when it was put on the market.
With the current administration in Washington, the likelihood of federal money for such a project is none to nil unless it can be developed as a resort under the Trump banner.
Much like the contentiousness in our nation’s capital, the nastiness in Concord hit fever pitches routinely over any number of issues as the Republican majority often acted like bullies and the Democrats acted more like victims than the opposition party fighting back.
It was often just plain ugly.
Last term, the two sides had to play nice because neither party could count on having the votes on any given day because the partisan divide was so close.
This term tension was much higher and more visible right up until the last day Thursday when young turk Rep. Ross Berry, R-Weare, castigated Democrats for laughing at people’s high property taxes, which wasn’t why they were laughing.
Republicans have been in charge of lawmaking in Concord for most of the last century with only a few interruptions like the years between 1996 and 2017 when Democrats controlled the governor’s office for all but two forgettable years under the leadership of Cabletron founder Craig Benson whose one claim to fame as governor will be inviting the Free State Project to come to New Hampshire.
And that group is part of what the problem is in the legislature.
They have taken over what once was the Republican Party and turned it into the Libertarian/Republican Party although they number less than 9,000, and about 60 to 70 in the House and two in the Senate.
One of their goals is to drive out Democrats and any liberal from the legislature and the state by making things as uncomfortable as possible.
These Republicans have tried their best the past few years to blame school boards and selectmen for higher and going higher property taxes.
They also blame special interests for stacking annual school and town meetings for driving up costs and spending wildly at the same time healthcare or insurance costs, energy prices and special education costs have skyrocketed.
They need to be reminded that the state has failed for 30 years to meet its constitutional obligation to provide its children with an adequate education and to pay for it, evidenced by the numerous education funding lawsuits that have to date all gone against the state.
What the state pays for education both from kindergarten to 12th grade, and post secondary, is dead last in the country and it could double what it pays for public education and still be last.
Did the legislature increase state aid to education this term? No, it did last term but changed the distribution formula so that some of the neediest school districts are receiving less state aid than they did before.
And state aid to municipalities is also nearly at the bottom of the 50 states and is at the bottom when you remove the statewide property taxes it collects from the equation.
This term the legislature changed the definition of an adequate education so it would be less broad, not comprehensive because it has never been that, as well passed a bill that says from now on the cost of an adequate education will be borne by both the state and local school districts with their local property taxes, but never put a floor under the state’s contribution, which means it could go to zero.
They also have passed numerous bills that upend local zoning ordinances in the name of fixing the state’s housing crisis, but failed to do the one thing that would do the most good, help cities and towns pay for the infrastructure expansion that additional housing requires. That is the expensive part and the legislature is more than happy to let locals foot the bill for their actions to limit zoning requirements.
The Democrats were laughing at Ross’s audacity to say “Someone must act, our voters are being taxed out of their homes,” when his party has made the situation worse not better by what it has done or not done in Concord.
Now they want to tell every city and town to vote on a school budget cap at the next two general elections, when school districts have had that opportunity for two years and very few put the question on their warrants.
As they say the hypocrisy, the hypocrisy, the hypocrisy and the arrogance of (House Majority Leader) Jason (Osborne) and the Arrogants who set the tone in the House.
After the official business ended Thursday, Rep. Jonah Wheeler, D-Peterborough, addressed what he called childish and petty behavior on both sides of the aisle instead of doing what so many before them did, which is to come together and do what is best for the state, not the parties.
He at least was addressing the elephant in the room after a session of censuring a Representative for anti-Semitic and anti-immigrant attacks on other House members on his social media post and a reprimand on another house member for giving Ayotte the finger during her state-of-the-state speech.
House Speaker Sherman Packard also added to the plea to turn down the partisan and hateful rhetoric including in this week’s House Calendar a quote from former speaker Dick Hinch who called on members to overlook party affiliations and see each other as friends and colleagues for the good of the state and their communities.
But the problem goes deeper.
One of the Republicans’ top priority over the last four or five terms is the Education Freedom Account program which encourages students to leave public education for alternative educational environments, but has turned into a subsidy program for the wealthy parents of kids already in religious or private schools and homeschool programs.
Those who take advantage of the “free state money” to remove their kids from public education — one of the best examples we have of successfully building the greater community — are putting them into religious schools or pods with kids whose parents largely share the same narrow political or religious beliefs.
That is tribalism, not building a greater community and that is at the heart of what is wrong in the New Hampshire legislature today and in the state at large.
We have become more tribal and less community oriented.
Garry Rayno may be reached at garry.rayno@yahoo.com.
Distant Dome by veteran journalist Garry Rayno explores a broader perspective on the State House and state happenings for InDepthNH.org. Over his three-decade career, Rayno covered the NH State House for the New Hampshire Union Leader and Foster’s Daily Democrat. During his career, his coverage spanned the news spectrum, from local planning, school and select boards, to national issues such as electric industry deregulation and Presidential primaries. Rayno lives with his wife Carolyn and their two rescue dogs.