By ZACH LAIRD, InDepthNH.org
The Free State Project continues to expand its outreach efforts to connect with people in nearby states and encourage them to visit New Hampshire with the hope they’ll move here, though not everyone is pleased with the group’s ambitions to branch out.
According to the Free State Project’s website, the project began in 2001 and was founded by Jason Sorens as an alternative and attainable strategy to the Libertarian Party’s national strategy.
In order to create a more concentrated community of libertarians, Sorens launched the idea of a “mass migration to concentrate libertarians in one small state.” The concept was supported by a vote of the first 1,000 participants. Since then, the organization states that thousands have made the move to New Hampshire. There are currently between 6,000 and 10,000 participants of the project.
The project’s goal is trying to see how it can pair a physical, on-the-ground presence meeting people face-to-face along with a more targeted advertising dynamic to people who fit the group’s criteria for liberty lovers, per Executive Director Eric Brakey.
“Our mission isn’t really to centrally plan or coordinate stuff that happens in New Hampshire; people get here and they find their own paths. Our job is really external, it’s about reaching out (and) connecting with folks we’d call the ‘liberty diaspora,’ so Libertarians, constitutional conservatives, classic Liberals — folks who are out there sometimes across the world — to connect with them, tell them about what we’re doing, build relationships and invite them to visit with the goal that some of them will decide to move and join us here, and then become a Free Stater,” Brakey said.
On Aug. 15 in Lewiston, Maine, Brakey held a “Brakey Bootcamp,” where he taught a full-day candidate school and worked to build new connections with liberty lovers for the Free State Project. He said it was an opportunity he was invited to do and was also a chance to promote the project. The organization has also been doing tabling at gun shows and had a presence at the Maine Republican Party State Convention.
That same day, the project also tabled at the Connecticut Homeschooling Convention where they connected with around three dozen families who wanted to learn more about the Free State Project.
Brakey continued that the Free State Project noticed in northeast New England when it comes to liberty, New Hampshire is really “the only game in town.” He said while the project continues to do outreach programs, it looks to focus on states nearby where conditions are getting worse. He elaborated, saying since Gov. Janet Mills and the Democratic party established control there in 2018, the policies such as health freedom, gun rights, and tax policies have “sharply taken a left turn toward more government control over your economic and personal life in Maine.”
John Lennhoff, of the leadership team for the local advocacy group Central NH Indivisible, said “If you read the headlines, it looks like a good thing; we’re going to free up government from ruling the common man, and we’re all going to be able to do our own thing, but every Free State experiment has failed miserably, from Croydon to Grafton… It (the Free State Project’s newsletter) just reads like ‘come to New Hampshire and overthrow the status quo,’ and that’s not what democracy looks like. Democracy is about what the majority wants and how they vote. It’s a worrisome language that they use.”
“That’s what their mission is; to cut government so that it just disappears, and yet government is the glue that provides the services that allows us to be a healthy community,” Lennhoff said.
Lennhoff continued that Grafton was a Free State experiment where the police department was cut down to one police officer patrolling the town and noted when his car had a mechanical problem there was no money budgeted to repair it. He said the fire department was cut down to zero and that the town had to rely on mutual aid, noting over several years half a dozen houses burned down “because it takes 40 minutes for the neighboring towns to get to some of these neighboring homes that caught on fire.”
He added trash disposal services were also impacted and saw people leaving trash in their backyards which resulted in an uptick of bears searching for food outside homes in town.
“When I read about ‘the Brakey Bootcamp’ in Maine to teach a full-day candidate school and new connections with liberty lovers for the Free State Project, it’s just laughable,” Lennhoff said.
Brakey said he feels a lot of people in Maine are losing hope that things will turn around and are starting to look at “How do I get out of here?” He added the Free State Project wants New Hampshire to be the first place they’re visiting and potentially consider moving.
“Earlier this year, we did an online money bomb to raise $15,000 to do digital targeted advertising at surrounding states to complement a lot of the physical, on-the-ground outreach that we’ve been doing. We just started that with a pilot project in Maine as we’re testing this out through the year,” he said.
He noted the organization is looking for as many on-the-ground outreach opportunities as possible, adding later this year he’ll be speaking at the New York State Libertarian party convention.
Aside from Maine, Connecticut is next on the Free State Project’s list because of recent law changes there regarding homeschooling, according to Brakey.
“Connecticut was, for a long time, considered a really strong state as far as the rights and freedoms for homeschooling families, but that’s suffered a dramatic change recently with some new laws that — among other things — require families that un-enroll their students from government schools in the state to be subject to criminal background checks… It’s certainly not a very good message to send to families,” Brakey said.
Brakey said he thinks there’s a lot of homeschooling families in Connecticut that were concerned by the recent law changes, adding that New Hampshire is going in the opposite direction.
“With the recent homeschooling deregulation law that was signed by Governor Kelly Ayotte, with the advance of school choice and Education Freedom Accounts hitting their student cap for a second year in a row, the continued expansion of these programs creates a nice, real contrast,” he said.
He added objections the project hears from potential movers are the weather in New Hampshire and that some people don’t have experience with New England winters, but that people in the northeast are already used to it, which he said is one of the great things about doing outreach programs in nearby states. Another is moving away from family, “but if you’re already in the northeast, you’re not moving very far.”
Brakey acknowledged that deciding to move to a different state is a very big decision, and reiterated the goal of the outreach programs is to connect with people and encourage them to visit New Hampshire. Once they visit, he thinks that’s when people really start to consider moving. He said they don’t want to rush people into making a decision, and that they want movers to make a decision that’s right for them (and) work for them long-term.
“We’re going to be continuing to focus on Maine and Connecticut and gradually expanding as we have the funds and the manpower to do so to other states around the northeast,” Brakey said.