looking back at N.H.’s historic election results and the challenges that lie ahead

women in the wings

After 30 years of representing Portsmouth in the state Legislature, Dean of the House Laura Pantelakos can remember dramatically different times. She remembers when her husband walked into a store and the clerk, noticing the N.H. House sticker on his car, asked how long he had been a legislator. When he explained that it was not he but his wife who served in the House, the male clerk responded with incredulity.

Pantelakos, who was reelected to a 16th term this year, is the longest-serving member of the N.H. House of Representatives. She said the political climate for women was a bit different in the late 1970s.

“There was a different culture,” she said. “There was a culture that women should be home by the kitchen stove and men should be doing the House and whatnot.”

Things have changed.

Come January, the nation will swear in its first ever black president. Barack Obama, previously the only current black member of the U.S. Senate, resigned from that position last week and will take charge of the nation’s executive branch on Jan. 20.

New Hampshire was among the “battleground” states that voted for Obama over John McCain on Nov. 4, but Election Day was also a historic moment for the state Legislature. Beginning next year, 13 of New Hampshire’s 24 state senators will be women, marking the first time any state senate in U.S. history has had a female majority.

In addition, former Gov. Jeanne Shaheen, a Democrat from Madbury, defeated incumbent Republican John E. Sununu to become the first ever female U.S. Senator from New Hampshire. Shaheen also becomes the first woman in any state to serve as both governor and U.S. Senator.

The victories for Democratic women do not end there. U.S. Rep. Carol Shea-Porter, who became New Hampshire’s first ever female U.S. Representative in 2006, was reelected over Republican Jeb Bradley. State Sen. Sylvia Larsen, of Concord, also prevailed and is expected to be reinstated as Senate President next month. 

Larsen recently announced who she would appoint for top offices in the state Senate. For majority leader, she selected Maggie Hassan, of Exeter, who defeated Republican Marshall Quandt to win a third term representing District 23. District 24 Sen. Martha Fuller Clark, of Portsmouth, who defeated Republican Christian Callahan, was pegged as president pro tem. Larsen chose Kathleen Sgambati, of Tilton, to be deputy majority leader and Deborah Reynolds, of Plymouth, to be majority whip.

Hassan and Fuller Clark are among a clan of powerful female Democrats from the greater Seacoast. Other state senators in the area include Democrats Jacalyn Cilley, of Barrington, in District 6, and Iris Estabrook, of Dover, in District 21. Estabrook did not run for reelection this year, but she will be replaced by former state Rep. Amanda Merrill, a Democrat from Durham.

Speaker of the House Terie Norelli, of Portsmouth, also won reelection this month. Norelli served as Sen. Hillary Clinton’s campaign co-chair in New Hampshire, helping her win the state primary back in January.

Pantelakos credits Norelli with helping to foster a spirit of equality in Concord. Although Pantelakos said she still occasionally receives some condescending looks from male legislators, Norelli’s strong leadership has helped dissolve any lingering gender biases.
“Leadership is the thing that counts, and Terie Norelli is an excellent leader,” Pantelakos said. “She doesn’t try to push anything on you, she lets you talk and she talks.”   

But Norelli is under no illusion that New Hampshire is now entirely devoid of sexism. Asked if the election results indicate that gender discrimination is now absent from our culture, she had a ready answer. “Obviously not, since we’re still talking about it,” she said. “I think we’re on our way. I will be happy when the day comes that gender makeup in the Legislature or the gender of an elected official is irrelevant, or not noteworthy.”

Hassan noted that only 17 percent of U.S. Senators are women, but she is encouraged by the results in New Hampshire. “I think it’s an overstatement to say issues of gender equality are past,” Hassan said. “What (the election) represents is a willingness by voters to look beyond typical stereotypes.”

Seeing through stereotypes is nothing new in New Hampshire. State Senator-elect Amanda Merrill, who served in the N.H. House from 1989 to 1998 and more recently worked as a policy staff member for the House majority caucus, noted that women have long participated in state politics.

“It’s nothing new to see women, including in places of leadership in the House,” Merrill said. “There was always a good contingent of strong women. It’s just there are even more now.”  

Indeed, Norelli is not New Hampshire’s first female Speaker of the House. Republican Donna Sytek became the first woman to adopt that role more than a decade ago. Nor is Sylvia Larsen the state’s first female Democrat to be Senate President. That title belongs to Executive Councilor Beverly Hollingworth, a former state senator from Hampton.

But, with around 150 female representatives and 13 female senators, New Hampshire can now claim more female participation in the Legislature than ever before. The next legislative session will also mark the first time Democrats have held a majority in the state House and Senate for two consecutive terms.

Will the strong contingent of women mean different policies in New Hampshire? Both Norelli and Hassan acknowledged that women are perhaps more sensitive to certain issues than men. They both agreed that women’s traditional role in the family—as the primary caretaker of the children—gives them a slightly different focus.

“Women, historically, culturally, have been encouraged to keep their eyes on the long-term health of family and community, and I do think we bring that focus to policy making with us,” Hassan said.

“I also think that women have a different style,” Norelli added, saying women are “more consensus builders and less competitive.”

But Hassan said a number of male leaders have also stepped forward to trumpet causes that are important to women. She noted that Vice President-elect Joe Biden has pushed legislation to prevent domestic violence against women. “Certainly, there are men who have been phenomenally good advocates for things that affect women more than men,” Hassan said.

Few people seem to have a firm idea of why southeastern New Hampshire, in particular, has become such a stronghold for Democratic women. Part of the reason is probably that area women encourage each other to step forward and run for office.

“It’s hard to know exactly how those things get started, but I think it’s a supportive group,” Merrill said. “It kind of builds on itself. A lot of us have known each other for a long time.”

Merrill will be the fourth consecutive female Democrat to represent District 21 in the state Senate (the first in that streak was Jeanne Shaheen). Noting that she has a 23-year-old daughter who went to school with Shaheen’s daughter, Merrill said young women today know they can achieve anything that a man can achieve. “They’ve grown up just assuming that that’s the way it works, that women are in politics. So I think it’s a great model for young women coming up,” Merrill said.  

Kristin Mueller, membership coordinator for New Hampshire Young Democrats, said 31 young people ran for seats in the state House this year, most of them between the ages of 18 and 25. Although she did not have exact numbers, she said a large percentage of those candidates were women. The upswing in young people getting involved in politics has naturally meant an increase in women running for offices, she said.

Increased female participation can also be seen nationally, as demonstrated by Hillary Clinton’s historic primary run and Republican Sarah Palin’s vice presidential run. Condoleezza Rice is the nation’s first ever black female Secretary of State, and Nancy Pelosi is the nation’s first ever female U.S. Speaker of the House.

There is still progress to be made with gender equality in New Hampshire and across the country. But area women have reason to be proud of the barriers they have already broken. During an interview with The Wire shortly after her election in 2006, Carol Shea-Porter, of Rochester, expressed her pride in being the state’s first Congresswoman.

“I do feel good about that when I have young girls come up to me, or young women come up to me and tell me that it broke a barrier for them,” Shea-Porter said. “I think that all of us should feel that everything’s possible. But, as I tell people, I had a father, I have a husband, I have a son, I have brothers—and I’m going to represent all of us.”

Republicans look to rebound

The Seacoast Republican Women gathered at the Elk’s Lodge in Portsmouth for their monthly breakfast on a recent foggy morning, exactly 10 days after the election. The morning’s guest speaker was former New Hampshire Gov. John H. Sununu, who served as White House Chief of Staff under George H. W. Bush and is the father of outgoing Sen. John E. Sununu. He said he would divide his speech into two parts, first covering what the Republican Party did right during the election cycle, and then discussing what went wrong.

“The first half goes by very quickly,” Sununu said, drawing anxious laughter from the audience of about 50 people. “Having discussed part one, let’s go to part two.”

It was a lighthearted quip that served to loosen the mood in the room, but Sununu quickly got serious about the mistakes he believes his party made this fall, both nationally and in the Granite State. “There are very significant lessons to be learned,” he said.

Many Republicans attribute the Democrats’ recent success to public hostility created by the president’s overwhelming unpopularity.

Sununu, himself, has said that the “pendulum will swing back” once the bitterness toward Bush wears off. But Sununu is not so quick to blame everything on the president. The attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, forced Bush to enact policies and make decisions that were bound to sour his public image, including the decision to invade Iraq, he said.

But Sununu does fault Bush for taking education control out of the hands of local governments. He also pointed to overspending by former U.S. House majority leader Tom Delay, who he said was “drunk with power,” and current Congressman Bill Shuster, who “thought he had a candy tree to distribute.”

Sununu sees Bush’s education policy and the spending habits of certain Republicans as examples of the party losing sight of its most basic ideals—low taxes, small government, local control and family values.

“Over a period of time, Republicans abandoned Republican principles,” he said. “People were no longer able to see the difference between the two parties.”  

John McCain’s presidential campaign further demonstrated a growing lack of solidarity within the party. Sununu said McCain wore the letter M instead of the letter R, portraying himself more as a maverick than as a Republican.

Disconnect within the party is also increasingly evident in New Hampshire, Sununu said. He characterized many local voters as “RINOs,” the acronym for “Republicans in name only.” Noting that New Hampshire has had a Democratic governor for 10 of the last 12 years, he said many Republicans voted for John Lynch instead of their own party’s gubernatorial candidate, state Sen. Joseph Kenney.

Not one for subtlety, Sununu had some choice words for the governor. He repeatedly referred to Lynch as nothing more than a “smile and a platitude” who cares more about being popular than solving problems. He accused Lynch of having no backbone and questioned whether Lynch is smart enough to solve the state’s education funding issue. Although Lynch has enjoyed astronomically high approval ratings and won in a landslide over Kenney, Sununu called him a failure.

“John Lynch is the worst governor New Hampshire’s ever had,” he said, “and if the press is here, that’s W-O-R-S-T.”

Sununu blamed the Democrats for abandoning traditional New Hampshire principles, creating a $250 million deficit and increasing spending by 17 percent over the last two years (the state budget actually only increased by about 10 percent over two years, but spending in the general fund increased by more than 17 percent).

But he said the private sector and unfaithful Republicans are as much to blame as Democrats for the state’s increasingly blue tendencies. He said the business community has “not had the backbone to stand up to the Legislature and the governor.” The only way for Republicans to reclaim their once reliably red state is to encourage individuals, organizations and businesses to rally for the cause, Sununu said.

Throughout the talk, women in the crowd murmured their agreement. Evelyn Marconi, co-owner of Geno’s Chowder and Sandwich Shop, who worked on Mitt Romney’s campaign during the primary, said she believes the party was “betrayed from within.”

Sununu encouraged Marconi and everyone present at the breakfast to start aggressively rallying people to vote Republican in 2010. Jeann Moccia, president of the Seacoast Republican Women, said the organization’s next round of efforts would start in December.

But Moccia said Republican women did have some victories on Nov. 4. Two members of the Seacoast Republican Women won seats in the state House: Nancy Stiles, of Hampton, and Stella Scamman, of Stratham. Also, first-time candidate Pam Tucker, of Greenland, unseated Democratic state Rep. Mike Marsh, the House majority whip. Jennifer Horn defeated four male Republicans to win the party nomination for the state’s first Congressional District, although she ultimately lost to incumbent Democrat Paul Hodes by about 50,000 votes.

Although Democrats retained a majority in the N.H. House, Republicans did pick up about 17 seats, meaning there will be more Republicans in the state Legislature next year than there are currently. The Republican elephant may have shrunk some in recent years, but it has not disappeared.

the challenges ahead

New Hampshire’s newly elected or reelected Democrats know they will have to reach across the aisle to Republicans next year instead of simply flexing their majority muscles to run the show. Having first been elected in 2004, Hassan joined the Senate right around the turning of the tides for state Democrats. John Kerry won in New Hampshire that year, and Lynch beat incumbent Republican Craig Benson.

But Republicans retained a majority in the House and Senate in 2004, and Hassan remembers what it was like to be in the minority.
“One of the unique  things about New Hampshire is that our constituents expect a level of problem solving from us that really goes beyond party,” Hassan said. “I think we have a tradition of doing that and I think New Hampshire voters expect it.”

Norelli said it will be “more important than ever” for Democrats and Republicans to work together in Concord. Laura Pantelakos said Democrats are more likely to reach across the aisle than Republicans, who she accused of obstinately voting along party lines. “Republicans are very regimented to doing what their speaker says,” Pantelakos said.

Democrats believe they have much to be proud of over the last two years. They increased New Hampshire’s minimum wage for the first time in more than a decade, passed a state-wide smoking ban, approved civil unions for same-sex couples and pushed through significant legislation to promote renewable energy, among other things.

But, with a tough budget year ahead, both parties will face significant challenges in the next term. “I think that there’s no question that the national economy is on its knees and our challenge will be to deal with the impact of that both on New Hampshire families and on the state budget,” Norelli said.

The national financial crisis has already taken a toll on New Hampshire, causing state revenues to fall well short of projections. Lynch scrambled to freeze spending in certain areas to keep the budget balanced, and legislators will have to find areas to cut millions of dollars as they write the next two-year budget.

“I think it will be the case for everyone in the Senate that the budget will be the top priority,” Merrill said. “That’s the major project of the first year of any biennium, and this year it will be as challenging as ever—and probably more so.”

But Merrill noted that this will not be the first time the Legislature has faced formidable circumstances during a budget year. Part of the key to dealing with it, she said, will be weeding out inefficiencies in government, perhaps cutting down on consultant fees and out-of-state travel.

But the budget won’t be Merrill’s only focus as she takes her seat in the Senate. Legislators will be assigned to committees during an organizational meeting on Wednesday, Dec. 3, and then begin strategizing on a variety of issues, including energy policy. “Everyone sees that (energy policy is) tied into not just the future of the environment, but also the economic future of this state,” Merrill said.

Securing funds for any new program will be difficult in the current economic climate. And the Legislature is still charged with defining and funding an adequate education—a conundrum that’s been festering in the state since Merrill’s years in the House last decade. With property taxes crippling many families, Pantelakos said the state will have to seek out a new source of revenue—words that could agitate Republicans and other fiscal conservatives in the “Live Free or Die” state. But Pantelakos also sees opportunities to save money.

“I’d like to work very hard on finding new ways to punish people other than putting them in jail, like alternative sentences,” Pantelakos said. “We’ve been talking about education for so long that we’ve forgotten that we spend money on other things.”

According to Pantelakos, the annual cost of housing a single person in a state correctional facility is about $31,000—much more if the person is leaving behind a family. Many people convicted of non-violent crimes like drug possession, she said, could instead be sentenced to drug rehab programs or home confinement, which would save taxpayers tens of thousands of dollars. Convicts with mental illnesses also should receive alternative sentences, she said.

Hassan agreed that restructuring the corrections department could help save the state money, as well as investing in renewable energy sources that are less expensive and more environmentally friendly. She borrowed a line from President-elect Obama to describe how the Legislature should approach the next budget. “We don’t want to do this with a hacksaw, we want to use a scalpel,” she said.   

While Obama has spent much of the last two weeks reminding the public that it will take considerable time to solve the nation’s many problems, state legislators feel they can tackle the issues rapidly. “I think the last two years in the Legislature really showed how quickly you can get things done if you have the will to do them,” Merrill said.

And although the female majority in the Senate is a new landmark for New Hampshire, it will be business as usual in Concord. “I think people in the New Hampshire Legislature are pretty used to having women around,” Merrill said.