THE 2011 STATE HOUSE WILL HAVE A NEW FACE

Regardless of whether you agree with the press and the pundits that there is about to be a seismic partisan shift in the fall mid-term elections, the New Hampshire statehouse is sure to be a different place come January. Our last Capital Insider outlined the primary and general elections line-ups in the 24 State Senate districts. The current 14-10 Democrat-Republican balance can easily be flipped by (a) five open Senate seats; and (b) the swing of the pendulum, so most betting types are putting their wagers on races in the upper chamber. 

It is of course harder to assess how many seats in the 400-member House are going to change, and who will win and who will lose. About a third of the House turns over every two years, and the June filing period saw many well-known incumbents choose not to run again. While the actual number of members retiring may not be higher than in a normal year, the impact is perhaps being felt more acutely this year because some legislators who won’t be back are in leadership, some are high-profile because of their past leadership roles, and others have served in the Legislature for decades. 

One way to measure the impact is to look at the holes that will be left in the policy committees, where most of the work in the House gets done. Committee leadership not running again includes Education Committee Chair Emma Rous and Vice-Chair Judith Reever;  Finance Committee Chair Marjorie Smith; Children and Family Law Vice-Chair Barbara Hull Richardson; Election Law Committee Chairwoman Jane Clemons; Environment and Agriculture Vice-Chair Jane Beaulieu; Health, Human Services and Elderly Affairs Vice-Chair Tom Donovan; and Transportation Committee Vice-Chair Jennifer Brown. 

The fact that many long-time members won’t be back means that a lot of institutional memory is also going by the wayside:

• Jim Splaine (D) of Portsmouth, who has served 12 terms in the House and 3 in the Senate
• Former Speaker Doug Scamman (R), Stratham, who has served 13 terms
• John Flanders (R) of Kingston, 13 terms
• Robert Fesh (R) of Derry, 11 terms
• Charles Yeaton (D), Epsom, and Bob L’ Heureux (R), Merrimack, both of whom have served 10 terms
• Linda Foster (D), from Mont Vernon, who has been in the House 8 terms and is currently Deputy Speaker
• Tim Robertson (D), Keene, 8 terms. Rep. Robertson, an income tax proponent, has filed to run for Governor, and will challenge three-term Gov. John Lynch in the September primary.
• Other high-profile members not running again are former Senate President and Republican gubernatorial candidate David Nixon (D), who served 2 terms in the House; Paul McEachern (D), who was nominee of the Democratic Party for governor in 1986 and 1988 and has been in the House 5 terms; John DeJoie (D) who served 4 terms in the House and who curtailed a run for Congress earlier this year; Jim Craig, a 5-term member who served as House Democratic Leader in 2005 and 2006; Peter Batula (R,) who served 7 terms and once chaired the Health, Human Services and Elderly Affairs Committee; and Peter Allen (D) who served  5 terms in the House and 1 in the Senate.

These legislators have left their mark on public plocy in New Hampshire.  They should be thanked for their hard work, most of which goes unnoticed by the general public, and their great service to the state, all done for $100 a year. They will be missed.

The 2010 political and legislative calendar looks like this:

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