I grew up in New England, so I can provide a bit of relevant context:
New Hampshire is a very quirky state, politically, in a number of ways. In a sense, New Hampshire state government looks a lot more like city-level or county-level government in many other states.
Compared to other states, state representatives are far more likely to "average citizens" instead of career politicians - just everyday people who have decided to do as single term in state government, and have little to no plans to run again. This is very frustrating for the leadership of both chambers, since it makes it very difficult to whip votes! On the other hand, it arguably makes it easier for elected officials to buck party lines and vote their conscience, if they so choose.
In addition New Hampshire does not (last I checked) have direct-vote ballot initiatives the way California does, but it does make it much easier for citizens to propose legislation. Whether or not this legislation gains traction or actually passes is a separate matter. Look no further than the long history of repeated attempts at marijuana policy reform in NH to see just how difficult it can be to predict which bills will end up gaining traction[0].
As a result, it's very common to see bills that are proposed and supported by a small contingent of backers, but never end up going anywhere. This bill may or may not end up passing, but just keep this context in mind whenever you read news about a bill being brought to the NH legislature with only a handful of supporters.
[0] This issue is actually a particularly fascinating case study in NH government, because NH is a very libertarian-leaning state, and it baffled reform advocates for the longest time that they had such difficulty in getting NH to pass relatively uncontroversial reform measures.
New Hampshire has one state representative per 3,291 citizens, which means each representative is being elected by an extremely small electorate. This is the smallest in the country. The US average is one state representative per 60,000, and the largest, California, is 465,674 people per representative.
The state is also subject to huge rapid swings in the majority. In 2008 Republicans won 43.5% of the seats, in 2010 Republicans won 72% of seats, in 2012 they won 45% of the seats, and in 2014 they won 60%.
While you could certainly argue that there are some benefits to this system, This American Life had a good episode on some of the cultural problems that this system has led to (see Act 2) - http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/478/r...
Fun NH facts: the House of Representatives has 400 members, one for every 3,300 residents. If the US were this well represented in the federal government, then there would be ~99,000 representatives. It also has swung hugely between republican and democratic over the last couple elections, single-handedly swamping naive nation-wide counts of state legislature changes.
Also the senate only has 24 members, making a hugely unbalanced bicameral legislature.
just everyday people who have decided to do as single term in state government, and have little to no plans to run again.
That the most politically beautiful strategy I've ever seen. I wish politics wasn't a star-fucking showboating circus. I wish it was about helping people, but apparently that's a radical stance.
Comments
I grew up in New England, so I can provide a bit of relevant context:
New Hampshire is a very quirky state, politically, in a number of ways. In a sense, New Hampshire state government looks a lot more like city-level or county-level government in many other states.
Compared to other states, state representatives are far more likely to "average citizens" instead of career politicians - just everyday people who have decided to do as single term in state government, and have little to no plans to run again. This is very frustrating for the leadership of both chambers, since it makes it very difficult to whip votes! On the other hand, it arguably makes it easier for elected officials to buck party lines and vote their conscience, if they so choose.
In addition New Hampshire does not (last I checked) have direct-vote ballot initiatives the way California does, but it does make it much easier for citizens to propose legislation. Whether or not this legislation gains traction or actually passes is a separate matter. Look no further than the long history of repeated attempts at marijuana policy reform in NH to see just how difficult it can be to predict which bills will end up gaining traction[0].
As a result, it's very common to see bills that are proposed and supported by a small contingent of backers, but never end up going anywhere. This bill may or may not end up passing, but just keep this context in mind whenever you read news about a bill being brought to the NH legislature with only a handful of supporters.
[0] This issue is actually a particularly fascinating case study in NH government, because NH is a very libertarian-leaning state, and it baffled reform advocates for the longest time that they had such difficulty in getting NH to pass relatively uncontroversial reform measures.
New Hampshire has one state representative per 3,291 citizens, which means each representative is being elected by an extremely small electorate. This is the smallest in the country. The US average is one state representative per 60,000, and the largest, California, is 465,674 people per representative.
The state is also subject to huge rapid swings in the majority. In 2008 Republicans won 43.5% of the seats, in 2010 Republicans won 72% of seats, in 2012 they won 45% of the seats, and in 2014 they won 60%.
While you could certainly argue that there are some benefits to this system, This American Life had a good episode on some of the cultural problems that this system has led to (see Act 2) - http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/478/r...
Fun NH facts: the House of Representatives has 400 members, one for every 3,300 residents. If the US were this well represented in the federal government, then there would be ~99,000 representatives. It also has swung hugely between republican and democratic over the last couple elections, single-handedly swamping naive nation-wide counts of state legislature changes.
Also the senate only has 24 members, making a hugely unbalanced bicameral legislature.
That the most politically beautiful strategy I've ever seen. I wish politics wasn't a star-fucking showboating circus. I wish it was about helping people, but apparently that's a radical stance.