Senate Republicans Pass Unvetted Executive Council Map
Contact Name: Marina Altschiller
Phone: (603) 271-3375
CONCORD – Today, Senate Republicans passed SB 241 with a last-minute amendment that was never posted in the Senate Calendar and never had a public hearing.
After the vote, Senate Democratic Leader Donna Soucy (D-Manchester) and Senator Rebecca Perkins Kwoka (D-Portsmouth) issued the following statements:
Senate Democratic Leader Donna Soucy (D-Manchester) stated, “I have appreciated the fact that until now, the redistricting process has been open and transparent. Proposals from both sides of the aisle have been readily available for public review and have all received public hearings. The Executive Council map Senate Democrats proposed had a public hearing and prioritized maintaining as many communities of interest as possible and respected county lines and school districts whenever we could. It also would have reconfigured districts that were gerrymandered in the last redistricting cycle. The result was a competitive map that better reflected communities of interest across the state and recognized the true bipartisan nature of New Hampshire. I am very discouraged that my Republican colleagues instead chose to support a plan that has not been vetted, has not received public input, and that further gerrymanders our state’s Executive Council for another 10 years.”
Senator Rebecca Perkins Kwoka (D-Portsmouth) “As we traveled across the state holding our public listening sessions, Executive Council District 2 was consistently noted as the state’s most blatant example of gerrymandering. Instead of eliminating the gerrymandering in District 2, this last-minute amendment doubles the gerrymandered districts. Under this new plan, District 2 now stretches from Coos County down to Massachusetts and District 1 now stretches from the Canadian border down to the Seacoast–from Dixville Notch to Dover. Now we have two gerrymandered districts instead of one. We owe it to the people we represent to redraw the Executive Council map to better reflect communities of interest and the bipartisan balance of our state, and this amendment fails to do that.”
###