Pro-Independence State Reps RE-ELECTED!

Originally published at: Pro-Independence State Reps RE-ELECTED! | Free Keene

NH Exit Logo 720

NHexit.US

The NHexit.US blog has a detailed story looking at what happened to the 13 state representatives who voted for the NH Independence bill this year, CACR 32. How many of them were re-elected? Turns out, of those who ran again and made it to the general election, 100% of them were re-elected!

Despite the democrats trying to make secession an issue, and despite the fears of the state reps who were too cowardly to vote for the bill, we now know that being in favor of NH independence, or at least being in favor of letting the people vote on the question – which is all the bill would have done – is not a guaranteed end to a state rep’s career.

For a full breakdown of how the NH Independence reps fared in this year’s election, see the article here at NHexit.US.

2 Likes

Adding this to my call-talk-radio-about list

This is great. I wouldn’t have expected a big lash-back for an individual rep for this and it is nice to see that all were re-elected.

However, let us not be tempted to presume that there are no costs to the non-sensical drive for secession. Porcs are now irreparably linked to secession, even ones like me that are against it.

All movements have political capital and must decide how to spend it. My opinion is that an NH constitutional change that I will enumerate below would be both less costly politically and more effective for our goals than secession. Not that I am against secession in the abstract, but against it in reality.

Right now, NH highest median income in the world. It is fair to say that membership in the US Federation and a smaller state govt has been good for NH. To suggest secession is to suggest a decrease in standard of living to every resident; a loser for sure. To suggest the Super Majority Amendment is to suggest more prosperity. That is a suggestion that will sell.

The Super Majority Amendment: All bills must be passed with a 2/3rds (maybe 3/4ths, if you can get it) majority in both houses and 3/5th (or 4/5ths if you can get it) majority by the Exec Council. 50% +1, will be required to repeal an existing bill.

This will cause the govt to shrink, preserve the NH Advantage and drive a stake through the heart of partisan politics on the state level.

While I agree that NH residents have benefited in the past by being associated in the United States, that’s true for every state to varying degrees. Yet, that is the past. The hegemony of the US (the “Rules based international order” since the end of WW2) appears to have peaked, due to overextending itself, as every empire in history has done. And following the historical precedence of those earlier empires, the breakup of empires occur within a living generation of the peak. So if we are currently witnessing the global hegemon getting it’s due on the international stage, then we can expect that our children (probably not ourselves, Mark; as we are both men past that certain age) will live to see their qualify of life decline no matter where among the states and territories one attempts to live a middle class lifestyle. Said another way, over the next 40 years the middle class of every state will be reduced in quality of life. So why not bring up the idea of succession now, so that it’s already in the “Overton window” when the time comes that it would be beneficial to residents of NH? Texas did the same decades ago, and there’s still no will there to succeed; but they have long maintained the infrastructure necessary to do so, should it ever come to that. Texas is the only state in the union with it’s own power grid, for example; even if it sucks in an ice storm.
So while I see the merit of your concern that FreeState representatives would be tied to the idea of succession, simply allowing the idea to be debated early allows for rapid change later when it might matter.