If you really want to understand what is going on under the State House dome, I encourage you to read Gary Rayno’s InDepth NH op-ed this week: Distant Dome: Turning the Legislature Into an Arm of the Free State Project.

Mr Rayno begins by writing:

First they came for the vaccine and the masks, and then they came for the Trans kids and their healthcare. Then it was public schools, libraries, the interest and dividends tax, and now zoning and land use regulations.

If it resembles decency, kindness, empathy, intelligence or tradition, they have come for that too.

If it clashes with their vision of a free world, it needs to be eliminated, demonized and relegated to the trash heaps they have created nearly overnight on the once pristine lands of New Hampshire.

They want to tear down anything “statist” and replace it with a world without rules or regulations, or a social safety net, or a level playing field for the less fortunate or not like them. The underprivileged don’t deserve it, nor should they touch real power the Free Staters and libertarians contend as they hide behind the trappings of the State House.

The Free Staters and mega libertarians have taken over the Republican Party in New Hampshire leaving little room for those who were once the party’s stalwarts.

And ends with:

One of the goals of some in the Free State Project is Anarcho-capitalism, or ancap, which is a political philosophy and economic theory that would abolish centralized states in favor of stateless societies, where systems of private property are enforced by private agencies.

So police and fire protection should be privatized and schools as well. Is that what the vast majority of the people in New Hampshire want?

I do not believe they do, but fueled by outside money, that is where this group of Free Staters and libertarians are taking us legislatively and they are moving at a rapid pace, hopefully not fast enough for Granite Staters to realize they need to stop it.

With every word in between worth reading.***
Because Mr. Rayno explains so well where we are today in New Hampshire and why it is no longer politics as usual. No longer can we vote for some Republicans because they are “good guys” if it means handing the majority and the gavel to the the Free State majority. No longer can we fail to realize that the Free State agenda is bigger than its parts and that if we fight the pieces rather than the agenda as a whole, we will lose. Victories here and there, though important, will not be enough to stop this emboldened movement that seeks to deconstruct the time-honored institutions and system of government that the majority here in New Hampshire cherish and embrace.

We must assess every bill by how it fits into the Free Stater Agenda. We must recognize that when one group is threatened, all of us are at risk. When one government institution is attacked, any and all will be next. The Free State agenda goes in hand with and is every bit as dangerous as what we are fighting at the national level with Project 2025. The only way to win the fight against both is by uniting together, standing together – refusing to let them divide us, refusing to let us divide ourselves. The power of all movements begins and ends with solidarity.

Together we can. Together we will. Together we must.

With eyes on the prize,

Louise

Sorry to be so late with Happenings this week…the ocean, lobster and Mother’s Day called me to take a day of rest