By Marjorie Porter, a former state Representative from Hillsborough
For the past year, it has been my honor to work with New Hampshire Together, a nonpartisan nonprofit whose goal is to help everyday citizens become civically engaged.
Our process helps them to identify common problems and encourages them to work together to find common ground to seek workable solutions which can then be put into action.
During the fall, winter, and spring of 2023-2024, we held listening sessions in every county of New Hampshire, to hear our citizens’ concerns. And to make sure we were reaching all demographics, in December of ’23 we commissioned a poll from the UNH survey center. There were many issues that rose to the fore—housing, childcare, the cost of living—but rising to the very top were three: increased political polarization, decreased confidence in our election process, and the lack of responsiveness of government to the people it serves. Surprisingly, these three were identified as problems by a wide margin of the survey respondents.
Over a three-day weekend in June, New Hampshire Together held the first in the nation state-wide Citizens Assembly at St. Anselm’s, to address these issues and find solutions. We strove to ensure the fifty delegates who participated were a demographic match with the state at large, in location, age, and political bent. There were members of all parties and no party, in appropriate proportions. We set ground rules for respectful dialogue that all agreed to. Delegates chose a topic to address, broke into working groups, and got down to work.
Members of the groups identified a specific area of widespread concern, heard different perspectives, evaluated promising policy solutions, and found a solution that was mutually agreeable. If that policy required legislation, appropriate steps would be taken to make it happen.
For a group’s policy recommendation to become an official recommendation of the Assembly at large, it had to meet the very high bar of 75% approval of all those in attendance. This required many reports out and refinement to gain that approval. In the end, four of them met, and actually exceeded that threshold.
One solution, establishing a single-ballot state primary election ballot, was recommended as a way to reduce extreme polarization and increase government responsiveness. It was approved by an astounding 85% of the Assembly delegates. The bill is now HB 714, which is in the hands of the House Election Law Committee.
Briefly, it replaces our current system of partisan primaries, where independent voters need to become members of a party in order to vote, with a system that allows all candidates, from a political party or not, to be placed on the same ballot, and allows all voters, party members or not, to vote with that same ballot.
In these trying times, it was hope-giving to see this amazing process in work. A group of strangers, with very differing views on many things, sat down together for three solid days to listen to each other and find solutions they all could accept.
As a former legislator, I found it particularly powerful. Here were citizens who weren’t just complaining about how bad things are. Instead, they were willing to work to find real solutions to real problems. We believe that when everyday citizens get together to identify problems and find common
ground solutions, they are practicing true democracy.
One final note. What came across loud and clear at the Assembly was how concerned the delegates are with extreme polarization in our lives today.
They believe politicians listen to their party instead of listening to the people they serve. I urge my former colleagues to consider carefully what the Citizens Assembly delegates have to say and take it to heart.