By ZACH LAIRD, InDepthNH.org
CONCORD — House Majority Leader Jason Osborne, R-Auburn, announced his run for Speaker of the House this week with the goal to “to grow the Republican majority and build on six years of conservative victories,” according to his press release.
Osborne first moved from Ohio to New Hampshire in 2010 as a member of the Free State Project and was elected as a state Representative in 2014.
His announcement comes after current Speaker Sherman Packard of Londonderry decided not to seek the Speaker’s position for another term.
Osborne graduated from Hillsdale College in Michigan with degrees in economics and mathematics. His wife, Sharon, founded a nonprofit homeschool resource center, Latitude Learning Resources in Derry.
“After six years of Republican majorities delivering real results – cutting taxes, expanding school choice and parental rights, protecting gun rights, and rejecting an income tax – I’m running because the job isn’t finished. New Hampshire handed us the gavel to deliver limited government and more freedom, not to manage decline like so many other states,” Osborne said.
He added, “I’m running to protect the progress we have made, build on it by growing our majority this fall, and ensure the Granite State our kids inherit is more free and more prosperous than the one we found. I’m not waiting for November; I’m out campaigning with candidates right now.”
According to data from the Secretary of State’s office, Rep Jim Kofalt, R-Wilton, has an approved campaign to run for Speaker of the House, and Osborne’s filing is pending until he pays the required fees. At this time, this is the only campaign data available related to the Speaker of the House race, said Communications Director Anna Sventek.
Osborne was named House Majority Leader by former House Speaker Dick Hinch of Londonderry, one week before the newly elected speaker died from COVID-19.
Osborne had donated $50,000 to the Make Liberty Win PAC earmarked for New Hampshire House races as the House flipped to Republican control after the 2020 election.
As majority leader, Osborne has the reputation for running a tight ship and those who continually fail to tow the line on key bills have been removed from their committees.
Osborne also ran afoul of state election finance law both for his own political committee “The Friends of Jason Osborne” and for the House Republican election committee.
Last year, the Attorney General’s Office sent several cease and desist letters related to campaign finance reports for the 2024 election cycle. One letter went to the Committee to Elect House Republicans, which Osborne chairs, along with treasurer Jim Kofalt of Wilton, requiring them to pay $1,500 in civil penalties. According to the attorney general’s office, Osborne and former treasurer Packard were informed in November 2022 their report for the 2022 cycle was overdue. They were also told to add additional information for the CTEHR’s 2024 election cycle reports.
A separate notice was sent to Osborne and his “Friends of Jason Osborne” committee, noting he was sent a notice from the Election Law Unit that expenditures from the 2024 election were overdue.
In response, Osborne sent the itemized receipts for not just the 2024 cycle, but also the 2022 cycle, which he had also not submitted. The reports from the 2022 cycle were 33 months overdue, according to the notice, and the 2024 cycle was 10 months overdue. Osborne was fined $2,000.
“Yes, the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office issued cease-and-desist orders and civil penalties in October 2025 related to campaign finance reporting requirements. These were technical compliance matters involving filing deadlines and disclosures – issues that arise in fast-paced campaign environments,” Osborne said.
Osborne’s business also has come under scrutiny.
According to a July 2022 article by the New Hampshire Business Review, his family’s company, Mammoth Tech Inc. — formerly Credit Adjustment Inc. — faced a class action lawsuit for allegedly firing more than 500 employees who worked at the Ohio and New Hampshire offices, as well as remote workers, without advance notice as required by federal and state laws.
Osborne announced the firings in a mass email sent to company employees.
The company collected defaulted federal student-loan debt on behalf of the U.S. Department of Education, and had previously received $4 million in federal Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) funds to retain employees during the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to the article, in 2015, the company was one of the 11 companies that received the U.S. Department of Education Default Collection Services Contract, and received a five-year renewal in 2019.
The value of those contracts reached its peak value – about $70 million – in 2020, according to the website USAspending.gov.
Under the Biden administration, the Department of Education initiated a moratorium on student debt collection in March 2020 and the company lost its loan collection contract.
The New Hampshire Business article also stated the company faced “a lawsuit by its Manchester landlord for not paying rent, a $1 million judgment for stiffing a staffing agency, another $181,000 judgment for reneging on a management company, not to mention two disability discrimination suits filed by former pregnant employees, one settled and one ongoing.”
The report continued that in August 2021, Mammoth Tech notified ZJBV Properties about its plans to leave its Manchester office, and “that it would be vacating the properties and no longer paying rent, (and) cited a breach of the HVAC maintenance obligations,” though the landlord denied it.
It also stated that in the class action suit in Ohio federal court, former Mammoth Tech Inc. employee Theresa Leinger alleged that “the company violated the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act for not giving workers the required 60-day notice before a layoff,” and that the complaint includes “all 520 workers, the 60 who were in the Ohio office, and all remote workers. It seeks two months’ pay, plus back benefits and vacation pay.”
Osborne alluded to the WARN Act in his email claiming the 60-day notice was not possible in this instance, because at that time the company was “actively seeking capital or business which, if obtained, would have enabled the Company to avoid the closure.” The email added while New Hampshire also has a WARN law, it didn’t apply because the company employed fewer than 100 workers.
“Like many businesses, mine faced severe challenges during and after the COVID period: economic disruption, rising costs, and shifting markets. Unlike most businesses, though, mine was affected by a federal contract that was not honored. Carrying millions of dollars of payroll for nearly two years when your client doesn’t pay its bill is not sustainable long-term. The company ultimately wound down operations and filed Chapter 7 bankruptcy,” Osborne said.
He said lawsuits related to layoffs (including WARN Act issues), landlord disputes, and other contractual matters “were part of that difficult process, as is common in business closures.”
Other lawmakers have questioned Osborne’s advocating for the Education Freedom Account Program while his wife’s organization receives money from the program.
The Legislative ethics statute requires lawmakers to recuse themselves from acting or working on legislation that financially benefits them or their family. He has sponsored several bills either establishing or expanding the EFA program.
According to the latest expenditure reports from the Children’s Scholarship Fund NH, Osborne’s wife’s company received $15,900 in Education Freedom Account funding for the 2024-2025 school year for Latitude Learning Resources.
A September 2022 article by WMUR concerned comments Osborne made in 2011 on the online forum “Free Talk Live.” Debating how to deal with people with offensive viewpoints, he wrote: “If someone says to you that they support lynching a (racial slur), and in fact they really are stimulated by the thought of lynching a (racial slur), would you associate with that person? Would you tell people about it? If you say that having an idea that lynching (racial slur) is good is not the same as having an idea that (expletive) kids is good, then that is the source of the disconnect there.”
The article also included Osborne’s response where he expressed his regret for using that language: “I do not recall writing this nearly decade-old post, which regrettably contains language I would not use today. I was a different person 10 years ago who would not have understood the impact of that type of comment.
“And given the context, the goal of the post was to condemn racism and pedophilia. This is not how I communicate today, and I would never condone such a statement now. I am not the first person to have written something in the past that they deeply regret, and I will not be the last.”
In a previous interview with InDepthNH.org, Osborne said he signed the Free State Project pledge to move to the Granite State while he was in college.
“New Hampshire has always attracted people who believe in liberty. The Free State Project as I understand it reflects the same Live Free or Die ethos that defines our state. Critics calling it ‘too much power’ are really objecting to voters electing representatives who prioritize limited government, lower taxes, school choice, and individual rights.
“The ‘significant influence’ they (critics) complain about is simply the will of the people expressed at the ballot box. I focus on results that benefit all Granite Staters, not labels or fear mongering from the socialist left. If defending freedom and fiscal responsibility makes someone a ‘Free Stater,’ then New Hampshire is proudly full of them,” he said.
Grace Garvey, co-founder of Central NH Indivisible shared her thoughts and concerns on Osborne running for Speaker of the House.
“It concerns me because I think if you have ideas that are different from him, that he gets aggressive and dismissive, and I don’t think those characteristics are appropriate if you’re trying to govern in the state of New Hampshire (and) represent a diverse citizenship,” Garvey said.
“I think it’s very clear what his agenda is, and that also doesn’t represent the very diverse citizenship of New Hampshire. I think it (his agenda) is an approach to dismantle the government that would leave a lot of people in despair and behind. I think his association with the Free State Project would absolutely hinder his campaign. I think he’s proven himself to be very myopic in what he believes is good for the citizens of New Hampshire… We’re really diverse here,” she said.
Osborne said in response: “Grace Garvey and Central NH Indivisible represent one partisan viewpoint that prefers bigger government and more spending. I’m straightforward and to the point in debate because the issues are serious: protecting taxpayers, preserving freedoms, and rejecting policies that grow government at the expense of working families.
“My agenda isn’t to ‘dismantle government’; it’s to make it limited, efficient, and accountable, as our state’s motto demands. We’ve cut taxes, expanded opportunity, and stood up for common-sense principles while growing the economy. Disagreement is healthy in a republic. Labeling voters who want less government as ‘extremists’ is what’s truly dismissive. I’ll keep fighting for the results Granite Staters elected us to deliver.”
The campaign also announced its first 10 endorsers: Rep. John Hunt, R-Rindge; Rep. Brian Labrie, R-Bedford; Rep. Kristin Noble, R-Bedford; Rep. Lisa Post, R-Lyndeborough; Rep. Dillon Dumont, R-Hudson; Rep. Lisa Mazur, R-Goffstown; Rep. Sayra Devito, R-Danville; Rep. Samuel Farrington, R-Rochester; Rep. Mike Drago, R-Raymond, and Rep. Jeanine Notter, R-Merrimack.
The primary election will be held Sept. 8, and the general election Nov. 3.
Reporter Garry Rayno contributed to this report.
Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly said House Majority Leader Jason Osborne’s wife received funds from the Education Freedom Account instead of the nonprofit she is affiliated with Latitude Learning Resources.