Women’s March Grafton Co – October 2nd!

Reproductive rights are under attack in New Hampshire and across the United States. As this assault on health care and personal freedom around the country continues, it’s important to stand up and make your voice heard.  

Here are two Women’s Marches happening in Grafton County on October 2nd! Please join and share with others.

North Country  1:00 PM

https://act.womensmarch.com/event/oct-2-2021-march/1853?source=map&akid=

Great North Woods Welcome Center. 25 Park St Lancaster NH 03584

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Lebanon  2:00pm

https://act.womensmarch.com/event/oct-2-2021-march/2349?source=map&akid=

Colburn Park, 51 Park St. Lebanon NH

Citizens Turn Out Seeking Fair Political Boundaries

Forceful testimony last night at redistricting hearing in Strafford county. The committee is using a program written by a non-programmer designed over 10 years ago to create districts. His program is all based on numbers and does not include communities of interest and is not proprietary. We heard testimony from a retired UNH computer science professor and programmer who has written his own program and said it really wasn’t that difficult to include communities of interest. And he would share out the program.

InDepthNH Paula Tracy

Just Another Week

This week, just when you thought the New Hampshire legislature couldn’t bow down any more to far right extremists, they went even further.

Sign up for a women’s rights march and redistricting testimony workshop. Catch up on what a week it was with articles and youtube clips, including an interviews with Rep.Marsh.

Read the newsletter here

NHDP Rules Changes Processes

Please be advised of the process and deadlines for proposed changes to the NHDP Constitution below. 

According to the NHDP Constitution, Chapter 8 Amending the Constitution:

A. Any registered New Hampshire Democrat may submit amendments to the Constitution in writing to the Rules Committee, at least ninety (90) days prior to the Midterm Convention or the State Convention if a Midterm Convention was not held in the previous odd-numbered year. Any and all amendments must be submitted to the Rules Committee for its recommendation to the Convention. 

To review the NHDP Constitution, please click here

To submit changes to the Rules Committee, please complete the following steps: 

1. Any registered NH Democrat may propose an amendment to the NHDP constitution between now and August 13, 2021. Please send all proposed amendments to rulescommittee@nhdp.org.

2. The Rules Committee will host a meeting to hear from the submission’s authors, if they wish to address the committee. This hearing will be on August 17, 2021, via Zoom. You do not have to present your proposed amendment at this hearing in order for it to be considered. 

3. After August 17, the Rules Committee will review all submissions for consideration. Of the submissions considered, the Rules Committee may recommend proposed change(s) to the delegates of the NHDP State Convention.

4. The Midterm Convention will be held Saturday, November 13, 2021. 

Please do not hesitate to contact the rules with any questions at rulescommittee@nhdp.org

More details to come, including trainings offered, location, timing, etc. for the Midterm Convention from the convention co-chairs.   

Mary Jane Wallner and Dan Feltes: A tale of two state budgets

https://www.unionleader.com | Op-eds | Jul 12, 2021 |

THE BOOKS closed last week on the prior two-year state budget crafted by state-level Democrats. So before turning to the new Republican state budget, let’s take a look at the results of that two-year Democratic budget.

Working together, we crafted a two-year state budget that listened to the working families, senior citizens, and small businesses of New Hampshire. The proof is in the pudding: after closing the books on our budget we had a $300 million dollar surplus, thriving business and housing markets in New Hampshire, the lowest bankruptcy filings in state history and the lowest unemployment rate (2.5%) in the country.

It wasn’t by accident. Our budget included common sense investments in job training and workforce development, affordable and workforce housing, child care, infrastructure, health care, and education. On education, we delivered the most state support ever for local K-12 education, including finally supporting full-day kindergarten like any other grade. We also reinstituted local revenue sharing with every community. Overall, we invested hundreds of millions in state revenue directly into our local communities, with dozens of communities responding by reducing their property tax rates, many more holding steady.

After listening to the small business community of New Hampshire, we also did common sense business tax reform. We lowered the burden for small businesses right here in New Hampshire, while closing massive tax loopholes for large out-of-state corporations who sell into New Hampshire — like Netflix and Amazon — forcing them to pay their fair share. Simply put, we listened to and we worked for New Hampshire’s working families, seniors on fixed incomes, and small businesses.

The naysayers of our budget said it had a structural deficit, that it relied on one-time revenues, and that it would lead to an income tax. Of course, that was all a bunch of baloney — it wasn’t true then, it wasn’t true in all those phony campaign ads you saw, and it isn’t true now. In fact, the common sense Democratic state budget led to a record surplus of $279 million this past year alone, through a pandemic. Economically, the most recent data shows the Democratic state budget helped secure New Hampshire’s footing with the lowest unemployment rate in the nation at 2.5% as well as booming housing and business markets.

There’s an old saying that if you see a turtle on top of a fence post, it didn’t get there by accident. Our budget looked to the future with resilient, fiscally prudent investments in our people and our businesses — and it paid off.

That all stands in very stark contrast to the state budget just passed by Republicans. It is a doozy. Instead of just doing a state budget, the Republicans rammed into it radical right wing policies, including a first-ever abortion ban in New Hampshire, mandated ultrasounds for women seeking any abortion, cuts in funding family planning centers and Planned Parenthood, the banning of discussions on systemic inequality at our schools and in public offices propelled by White supremacists, and the diversion of public tax dollars meant for public education to private prep schools and religious schools with little to no accountability and ripe for abuse and fraud.

It’s an agenda that will certainly hurtle the state into costly litigation and it’s an agenda driven by right-wing radicals that was, unfortunately, endorsed and signed off on by Governor Chris Sununu.

Traditionally, regardless of the political party in control, controversial items like the above would go through the normal legislative process, not simply hitch a ride on the back of a two-year state budget. But, these aren’t normal times and this isn’t your normal Republican Party — it just isn’t.

Fiscally, the Republican budget takes us back in time — decades. Over a quarter of our communities will receive an actual cut in K-12 education funding, child protection staffing is slashed putting vulnerable children in the cross hairs of abuse and neglect, private prep schools and religious schools will get your tax dollars, and additional pension costs are further downshifted from the state onto all communities.

At the same time, the tax on dividends paid to stockholders is eliminated and there’s a tax giveaway to large out-of-state corporations that should be paying their fair share to New Hampshire. The wealthiest one percent and large out-of-state corporations make out like bandits. Meanwhile, local property tax payers and small businesses right here in New Hampshire are left holding the bag, literally.

It’s just not right. And, it’s really bad economics.

In the 2022 election, New Hampshire will vote on which political party is better at avoiding extremism in state budgeting, which is the better steward of your taxes, and which is better at propelling New Hampshire’s economy. At this point, there really isn’t much of a debate: vote Democrat at the state level in 2022.

Democrats Rep. Mary Jane Wallner and Sen. Dan Feltes, both of Concord, were lead budget writers of the two-year state budget ending June 30, 2021. During the crafting of that budget, Wallner served as chair of the House Finance Committee and Feltes was majority leader of the Senate, chair of the Senate Ways and Means Committee, and vice chair of the Senate Finance Committee.

Haverhill Fair July 28- August 1

Haverhill Fair, July 28- August 1

Summer is here and it’s time to think about the Haverhill Fair!

The fair this year will be held on Wednesday, July 28th through Sunday, August 1st.

The Haverhill Fair is the only fair that is specific to Grafton County, and is a fun and effective way to spread the word about the good work of our local Democratic Party and our active, engaged regional committees. This will give us a great opportunity to meet with fair-goers, engage with voters, recruit new committee members, and have fun! Through the financial help of our regional Democratic political committees, the Grafton County Democrats have been able to reserve a booth at the Fair which will give us the opportunity to meet with all of the visitors who are finally out of their homes and just looking for their ability to speak with other humans!

In order to make this a success, we are seeking volunteers to help set up our booth, occupy it during the days of the fair, and then take down the booth at the end of the fair. We’ve created an online sign-up sheet that allows you to sign up for two hour shifts. Please sign up at THIS LINK and share this with your regional membership.

Volunteers will have to pay the $12 admission fee to get into the Fair, however once you’re inside and have completed your volunteer shift, you are free to enjoy what the fair has to offer! There is room for two volunteers for each 2 hour time slot, so sign up with a friend.

Once you volunteer for your shift(s), here are the directions to arrive at the Fair, and the image below shows where to park, pay admission and then arrive at our booth in the Presidents Commercial building. Thanks again to all of us Grafton County Dems in making this project both successful and FUN!:

Thank you for joining us at the fair!

Bill Bolton and Martha Richards
Fair Organizers
Grafton County Democrats

Statement on Full Rejection of SB 3 by NH Supreme Court

CONCORD, NEW HAMPSHIRE – Today, the New Hampshire Supreme Court issued a ruling striking down SB 3 in its entirety, holding that the Republican-passed law complicating the voter registration process violates Part I, Article 11 of the New Hampshire Constitution.  Deputy House Democratic Leader David E. Cote (D-Nashua), ranking member of the House Election Law Committee, released the following statement:

“Democrats opposed SB 3 from the moment it was introduced in the legislature because it was clearly an unconstitutional attempt to restrict the ability of qualified voters to vote.  SB 3 added no security to our elections and unconstitutionally created a separate class of voters with different qualifications.  The Supreme Court’s strong, unanimous ruling today, which concluded the state failed to ‘demonstrate that SB 3 is substantially related to an important governmental objective,’ confirms what Democrats said all along – there is no reasonable justification for enacting these unnecessary, confusing obstacles to the voter registration process.

It should be the duty of the legislature to assure that qualified voters may freely exercise their Constitutional right to vote.   Despite two centuries of successful elections in New Hampshire, the goal of New Hampshire Republicans in recent years has been to enact as many roadblocks to voting as possible.  I thank the New Hampshire Supreme Court for its clear, unanimous ruling today, striking down a law that never should have been enacted.”