House battles over bill to overturn Strafford County elections change
CONCORD — A bill that sought to reverse a new law passed last year that Democrats called "gerrymandering at its worst" is still alive for now.
HB 1210, sponsored by Rep. Timothy Horrigan, D-Durham, would restore how Strafford County commissioners are elected to at-large seats, rather than changing to three separate districts, as the new law calls for, beginning in the November 2024 election.
In the New Hampshire House on Thursday, legislators voted to table the bill by a vote of 300-17 after votes attempting to kill and to pass the bill both failed by one vote, respectively.
When a bill is tabled, it is essentially paused until a later vote — if it is taken off the table, which can be done by majority vote. HB 1210 has a deadline of March 28, meaning the bill must be taken off the table and voted on next Thursday, or else it will be killed.
In this case, it was tabled because there weren't sufficient votes to kill or pass the bill at the time. It was also getting late in the day, and lawmakers wanted to finish their work on other bills.
There's no guarantee it gets off the table next week. Horrigan thinks there's a chance, but it will also depend on who shows up to vote. The bill is very partisan, and Republicans hold a slim majority over Democrats in the House.
Historically, voters of Strafford County chose three at-large commissioners who govern county operations like the nursing home and jail. It is the only one of 10 counties in New Hampshire that elect commissioners without districts. Democrats have typically dominated Strafford County commissioner elections.
But last year, legislation to change how the commissioners are elected, originally sponsored by Rep. Judy Aron, R-South Acworth, passed. This means that in the 2024 election, Strafford County commissioners will be elected by district rather than the whole county. The bill, HB 75, also created districts, and they along with the change in election process would make Republicans more competitive in the county.
Sen. Jim Gray, R-Rochester, who pushed for the bill in the Senate, said last year it would bring Strafford County in line with the rest of New Hampshire counties in how it elects county commissioners. Local and state Democrats opposed the bill, saying that it was an attempt to gerrymander ahead of the 2024 election. Usually, redistricting of voting maps happens nationally every 10 years following the Census.
This year, Horrigan introduced HB 1210 to reverse HB 75. If it passes, however, it wouldn't take effect until Jan. 1, 2025.
“Strafford County has always elected their commissioners at large and has allowed for the greatest input by the voters, by allowing them to vote for all three commissioners,” wrote Rep. Jim Maggiore, D-North Hampton, in his statement in support of the bill. "The actions taken by the legislature, to alter the county commissioner district in Strafford County last year with HB 75, set a historic precedent that would allow any county commissioner district unchanged during the redistricting process to be changed at any time.”
He warned if this legislation was not passed, future lawmakers could redistrict Hillsborough, Grafton, and Sullivan County based on HB 75.
In the statement opposing the bill, Rep. Len Turcotte, R-Barrington, said passing HB 1210 would “return Strafford County to the gerrymandered county it has been, thus continuing the voter disenfranchisement of the past four decades.”
“In a county that votes 58/42 Democrat to Republican, one can see why there is a perception of partisan opposition to the new law,” Turcotte wrote. “In the last 40 years, only two Republicans were elected as commissioners out of a possible 60 electoral slots, hardly representative of the 42% of Republican voters in the county.”
Horrigan said these statistics are either "irrelevant or wrong." For one, he said that there are a lot of undeclared voters not included in those percentages.
If the bill fails, HB 75 holds and Strafford County commissioners will be elected by three districts rather than the county at large in the foreseeable future. Even if it passes, the commissioners will still be elected by these districts in 2024, barring some other action. Commissioners have said they may challenge the passage of the new law in court.
The new districts are as follows: District 1: Towns of Farmington, Middleton, Milton, New Durham, Rochester city wards 1, 5, and 6, and Somersworth, all city wards. (Most of this district traditionally leans toward Republicans, other than Somersworth.)
District 2: Dover city wards 1-4 and the towns of Durham, Lee, and Rollinsford. (This district is heavily Democratleaning.)
District 3: Barrington, Dover wards 5-6, Madbury, Rochester wards 2-4 and the town of Strafford. (This district appears to be a mix of Republican and Democrat-leaning areas.)