what’s the matter with New Hampshire?

1. “Then, my first gut reaction seeing the horror of that person that has their legs blown off. You know, the bone sticking out? He was not in shock. I looked and I thought there’s something… I don’t know what’s wrong, but it seems surreal to me. I talked to my sister, who’s not into politics at all, and she said, yes, I saw the same thing. He was not in shock. He was not in pain. If I had had those type of injuries, I’d be screaming in agony.”

— New Hampshire state Rep. Stella Tremblay (R), in an interview with Pete Santilli (via Taegan Goddard, who previously reported that Rep. Tremblay believes the federal government planned the Boston bombings.)

2. “One of the things that concerns my constituents — the majority of my constituents — is the appointments that are now being made in Washington by our President and the way he is handling the illegal immigrants, nationalizing them and giving them the opportunity to vote, and wanting to keep track of our guns. They are worried that they are going to have to use these guns because of our own government. Now is there anything in Washington that says — any telltale signs that maybe we might be headed for an internal revolution given the fact that these kinds of things are going on?”

— New Hampshire State Rep. Edmond Gionet (R), quoted by Think Progress (via Taegan Goddard).

3. “New Hampshire State Rep. Peter Hansen (R) sparked a firestorm in the state house after he sent a recent email to an internal house listserv that referred to women as ‘vaginas’.” (via Aviva Shen)

I would by no means condone any of the remarks quoted above. When elected officials abuse their freedom of speech, voters and the press must hold them accountable. The Republicans should denounce these particular characters, or else the party will be associated with them. (That is not necessarily fair, but it’s how politics works today.)

But it is important to realize that the New Hampshire State House has 400 members. The average house district has 3,300 residents. In contrast, California has just 80 State Reps, each representing about 470,000 people, or 142 times more than in New Hampshire. With its town meetings and tiny legislative districts, the Granite State makes politics extraordinarily local and accessible.

I would explain these occasional rebarbative comments as the price of an interactive and accessible political system. If one percent of a state’s elected officials are nutcases, that will yield a fair number of outrageous remarks in a State House with 400 members–but the benefit is a lot more civic engagement. The argument that engagement improves government is a long and complex one, and it comes with caveats. I make the best case I can in my forthcoming book, We are the Ones We Have Been Waiting For: The Promise of Civic Renewal in America, Oxford University Press (fall 2013). For a specific analysis of grassroots democracy in New England, see the classic work by Jane Mansbridge, Beyond Adversary Democracy.

In any case, it’s important to evaluate the whole system rather than outrageous anecdotes. One test will be whether the New Hampshire Republican Party and the state’s voters get rid of the representatives quoted above–but that is not the only criterion of good government. Overall, I would prefer the messiness and occasionally offensive amateurishness of New Hampshire politics to the smarmy professionalism of big states like California and New York. In New York, apparently, the crime rate by state legislators exceeds that of the state’s population as a whole (no thanks to pervasive political corruption). The odds that a nutcase will reach the legislature are lower in professionalized systems, but the chances that someone will speak authentically or learn from a public discussion may be higher in New Hampshire.

This entry was posted in Uncategorized on by .

About Peter

Associate Dean for Research and the Lincoln Filene Professor of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Tufts University's Tisch College of Civic Life. Concerned about civic education, civic engagement, and democratic reform in the United States and elsewhere.