New Hampshire
Pappas, Prescott debate over how to lower costs, fix U.S. immigration system
The top candidates running in New Hampshire’s 1st Congressional District outlined two different approaches to the economy and immigration in a debate at the NHPR studios in Concord Friday afternoon.
The discussion between incumbent Democratic Congressman Chris Pappas and Republican Russell Prescott was mostly cordial, and was recorded before a live studio audience who were instructed to remain silent. Aside from clear differences on how to lower costs and fix the U.S. immigration system – and an impassioned back-and-forth on abortion access – the pair generally agreed on many of the core issues. Watch and hear the full debate here.
Prescott, a former executive councilor and state senator, campaigned broadly on his belief that cuts to government spending, and reducing the federal deficit, would be the most effective way to lower consumer inflation. He said Friday that he supports trimming all federal departments by a slim margin, which he claimed could save $300 billion each year. Pappas, who has represented New Hampshire in Congress since 2019 and is seeking a fourth term, suggested expanding the child tax credit as a means to reduce the burden of costs for food and rent on many American consumers.
Leaning into his record in the state Senate, Prescott said he opposes broad tariffs, describing them as a “tax on every single person in the United States.” Instead, Prescott said he wants to balance the federal budget without increasing taxes.
“Raising taxes is the wrong thing. We’ve already had 30% inflation that’s accrued over the last four years and raising taxes would just add to that,” Prescott said.
Pappas emphasized the importance of lowering costs, noting that external pressures like global conflicts have influenced inflation rates and hit New Hampshire families hard. He said he supports expanding the child tax credit, adding that his constituents have communicated support for the policy.
“We had an expanded credit during the early years of the pandemic that cut child poverty in half in our country,” Pappas said. “It ensured that families could deal with basic, everyday expenses.”
Each candidate acknowledged that there are major problems with the immigration system. Pappas said the federal government has a role to play in countering the upstream factors that influence people to come to America from other countries, and to lean into effective diplomacy.
“We also have to be smart about how we modernize a broken immigration system and fix it so that it’s serving the needs of our country,” said Pappas, who noted his support for a bipartisan national security bill that would funnel billions of dollars into hiring more asylum officers and detention judges, expanding the number of detention beds, and other border provisions. After months of negotiations, Senate Republicans blocked the bill when former President Donald Trump opposed it.
Prescott said he supports Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” policy, noting the Mexican people are affected just as much as Americans by immigration issues.
“This problem is not just the border north. It’s also a problem the border south,” Prescott said. “If we firm up that wall, in working with our neighbor to the south, Mexico, it helps both of us and that’s what I’m talking about: Make sure we have a plan that will help remain people in Mexico and not just Mexico. Other South American countries need to know that we are working very hard to streamline our way of becoming a citizen of the United States.”
During the discussion on abortion, Pappas offered his unwavering support for codifying abortion rights at the federal level. Pappas also leveled modest attacks at Prescott on his record, which Pappas characterized as unfavorable. Prescott countered, arguing he supports the status quo formerly codified by Roe v. Wade, and expressing his displeasure with “negative ads” about his position authored by the Pappas campaign.
“When I was in the executive council, I voted for judges that said that Roe v. Wade is concrete, it’s the law, and I voted for those judges,” Prescott said. “While I was in the state Senate, I also voted for an amendment by the Democrats to be able to make sure that we enshrine Roe v. Wade in our laws. My record stands, and I just wanted to say that I’m disappointed that Chris is having a negative campaign.”
Pappas said Prescott did support overturning Roe v. Wade, an allegation that Prescott denied, insisting he never said the rule should be overturned. Prescott told WMUR last year the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision was an effective measure to return political power to the states.
“That is bringing more power to the people to decide for themselves what that issue’s going to be like here in New Hampshire,” Prescott said. “Chris Pappas is saying, ‘No, I’ll decide for you what that is,’ and that’s not fair and that’s not good for people here in New Hampshire.”
During Friday’s debate, Pappas told Prescott, “You may be disappointed that this is a political problem for you, but the women of America are disappointed that they had a right taken away from them that was guaranteed by the Supreme Court for nearly half a century.
“The fact is that you supported overturning Roe, which has now created this new paradigm where we have a race to the bottom across the country, dangerous laws being passed that are threatening the health and safety of women,” Pappas said.
The general election is Nov. 5. Hours of operation at the polls vary throughout the state, but generally open between 6 a.m. and 11 a.m. and close at 7 p.m.
New Hampshire
Electioneering accusation against high-ranking N.H. Democrat cleared – The Boston Globe
The New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office has closed a complaint after finding that Executive Councilor Karen Liot Hill did not engage in illegal electioneering.
At issue were a series of emails Liot Hill, a Lebanon Democrat, had sent from her official government account to help the partisan Elias Law Group connect with voters impacted by a new state voting law.
Republican lawmakers said that was an inappropriate use of official resources, threatening to impeach Liot Hill over her correspondence. James MacEachern, chairman of the New Hampshire Republican State Committee, reported his concerns to the Attorney General’s Office in August.
In August, the Elias Law Group, which represents Democrats and progressive causes, represented three visually-impaired plaintiffs who sued New Hampshire officials over the constitutionality of a new law that would tighten photo ID requirements for voters seeking an absentee ballot. That case was recently dismissed by a New Hampshire Superior Court judge.
This week, the Attorney General’s Election Law Unit released its determination that Liot Hill’s emails did not constitute illegal electioneering, in a Dec. 18 letter to MacEachern.
The Election Law Unit said it reviewed five emails from Liot Hill’s official government account that MacEachern had provided.
It found the content of the emails did not meet the state’s definition of electioneering, “because it does not relate in any way to ‘the vote of a voter on any question or office,’ i.e., something to be voted on at an election,” Brendan A. O’Donnell, senior assistant attorney general in the Election Law Unit, said in the letter.
“Moreover, it is not uncommon for elected officials to use their official capacity to take a position on the constitutionality of an enacted law that is being challenged in court,” O’Donnell said.
However, the letter noted that Liot Hill’s emails did raise the risk that its recipients — including two executive branch officials — could interpret her requests for help as commands.
“All executive branch officials should use care to avoid acting in any way that would create an appearance of impropriety,” said O’Donnell.
But, he continued, his office did not find in this case that there had been a misuse of position or that the emails otherwise violated the executive branch ethics code.
MacEachern said he still has concerns about Liot Hill, when reached for comment on the Election Law Unit’s findings.
“This report, among others, continues to raise serious questions about Councilor Liot-Hill’s judgement and brazen willingness to push ethical boundaries with her conduct,” he said in an email.
But Liot Hill said the findings “underscore the partisan nature of the ongoing attacks” against her, including the impeachment proceedings Republicans have failed against her.
“I am being impeached not for wrong-doing, but for being a Democrat,” she said in an email.
Amanda Gokee can be reached at amanda.gokee@globe.com. Follow her @amanda_gokee.
New Hampshire
NH Republicans push to allow guns on college campuses
CONCORD — The recent fatal shooting at Brown University shows that banning guns on campus makes students more vulnerable to violence, state Rep. Sam Farrington, a University of New Hampshire senior, told reporters Dec. 17 in promoting legislation to end such bans.
Farrington, R-Rochester, and other House Republicans, also said in the Statehouse news conference that the shooting that killed 15 people at a Hanukkah celebration in Sydney, Australia on Sunday, illustrates that Australia’s restrictive gun laws don’t protect the public.
Rep. Joe Sweeney, R-Salem, the deputy House majority leader, said gun control restrictions leave people “unable to defend themselves, their families, their peers.”
Farrington said violence similar to what occurred at Brown University in Rhode Island, which left two dead and nine injured, could occur in New Hampshire, where universities also prohibit guns on campus.
“UNH, Plymouth State, Keene State, the list goes on, they all have one thing in common — these are public universities that are infringing on the Second Amendment rights of college students right here in New Hampshire,” said Farrington.
“They claim to be gun free zones. Well if we know anything about gun-free zones, looking at Australia and Brown, we know that they are not violence free zones. They are only defenseless zones where victims are left hopeless, without any hope of defending themselves.”
He is the prime sponsor of House Bill 1793, which the Legislature will consider next year. It would prohibit public colleges and universities from regulating the possession or carrying of firearms and non-lethal weapons on campus.
Under the bill, if a college or university that received federal funds instituted such a ban, they could be sued.
Democrat speaks against legislation
State Rep. Nicholas Germana, D-Keene, a history professor at Keene State College, said Thursday he wouldn’t feel any safer if people coming on campus were packing firearms.
Any police response to an active shooter on a college campus would be fraught if armed bystanders became involved and crossfire broke out, he said.
“All the sudden police come on that campus and it’s a shootout at the OK Corral,” Germana said. “How do police know who the good guy is and who the bad guy is?”
He said the tragedy in Australia last weekend is an anomaly that doesn’t alter the fact that gun violence rates in that country decreased after strict firearm regulations were passed almost 30 years ago and remain much lower than U.S. rates.
“We can look around the world to see examples of this where the number of guns in the population at large corresponds to gun violence,” Germana said. “It’s clear that when Republicans say in this country that gun control measures do not decrease gun violence, it is demonstrably false.”
The University System of New Hampshire said in the fiscal note of House Bill 1793 that the measure could cost it as much as $500,000 because insurance premiums and liability claims would increase, more security measures would be required, firearm storage systems would be needed, expected lawsuits would create attorney fees and the ability to attract students and faculty would decrease.
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New Hampshire
NH attorney general clears top Democratic official of ‘electioneering’ charge
The New Hampshire Attorney General’s office has concluded that Executive Councilor Karen Liot Hill did nothing wrong when she used her government email to assist a law firm that was suing the state over its voter ID law.
Assistant Attorney General Brendan O’Donnell wrote that Liot Hill’s use of her state email to assist a national Democratic law firm find plaintiffs didn’t amount to “electioneering” under state law.
The state Republican party alleged in August that Liot Hill — the only Democrat on the five-member Executive Council — misused her position by involving herself in a lawsuit against the state.
From the start, Liot Hill called that claim baseless, and the Attorney General’s office said Liot Hill’s conduct didn’t warrant sanction.
“This Office cannot conclude that the e-mails constituted a misuse of position or otherwise violated the executive branch ethics code. This matter is closed,” the office wrote.
In a statement Friday, Liot Hill, from Lebanon, welcomed the conclusion of the case.
“The AG’s findings underscore the partisan nature of the ongoing attacks against me: I am being impeached not for wrong-doing, but for being a Democrat,” she said.
The lawsuit challenging New Hampshire’s voter ID recently failed in state court. But this issue may not yet be over: A top House Republican has filed a bill to explore Liot Hill’s impeachment next year.
As the lone Democrat on the Executive Council, Liot Hill is her party’s ranking member in the State House. That profile has made Liot Hill, who spent two decades in local politics before winning election to the council last year, a regular target for Republicans, who argue that her approach to the job, which she says honors the state’s volunteer spirit, has crossed ethical lines.
The New Hampshire Republican Party did not immediately respond to a request for comment to the Attorney General report Friday afternoon.
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