April 12, 2002

No. 25

March 29, 2002

To the Honorable Members of the General Court:

By the authority vested in me as Governor of New Hampshire, pursuant to Part II, Article 44 of the Constitution of New Hampshire, I have this day vetoed Senate Bill 1, an act apportioning state senate districts.

Since January, I repeatedly have said I would veto legislation reapportioning state senate districts if the legislation violates the New Hampshire Constitution’s requirement that senate districts be "as nearly equal as may be in population;" splits apart strong historic, economic and social communities of interest; and is designed to give one party unfair political advantage over another. I have repeatedly urged the majority party in the senate to work with the members of the minority party to craft bipartisan redistricting legislation.

Unfortunately, the members of the majority party in the senate have chosen to send me legislation containing a redistricting scheme that violates Part II, Article 26 of the New Hampshire Constitution; violates the principle of one person, one vote; splits apart strong communities of interest; and favors one party over another.

S.B. 1 unnecessarily breaks apart strong historic, economic and social communities of interest. The City of Rochester, for example, is torn away from the City of Somersworth, with which it shares a common border and similar social and economic characteristics. The cities of Rochester and Somersworth have been in the same senate district for 210 years. Under S.B. 1 Rochester instead would be thrust into a senate district with the Lakes Region community of Wolfeboro.

S.B. 1 slices Portsmouth away from New Castle and Rye. It splits apart Dover and Durham.

Crafted behind closed doors by the members of one party, the redistricting scheme contained in S.B. 1 was made public only one hour before it was passed by the senate in a strictly partisan vote.

It is clear from the senate record that that there is a wide gap between what the citizens of this state have said they wanted in senate districts and the redistricting scheme contained in S.B. 1.

For example, the Mayor of Rochester, in a January 17, 2002 letter addressed to the Senate Redistricting Committee, pleaded with the senate to "continue to group Rochester with similar Seacoast cities, like Somersworth or Dover" and not put "Rochester in the same district as Wolfeboro way up in the Lakes Region."

A letter from the three Rye selectmen to the Senate Internal Affairs Committee implored the senate not to split Rye apart from Portsmouth, pointing out that Rye students attend Portsmouth High School and that "[o]ne has to drive through Portsmouth to get to Rye….We never heard of a district which basically has one community jumping over another almost entirely contiguous community. Yes, we guess you can walk in a small stretch of marshland to get from New Castle to Rye, but that is truly a stretch." Similar pleas were made in letters submitted by the Mayor of Portsmouth and the chairman of the New Castle selectmen.

A University of New Hampshire history professor and long-time resident of Dover testified about the historical, economic and cultural ties between Dover and Durham at the January 10, 2002 Senate Internal Affairs Committee hearing on redistricting. "If you go back three hundred years, you find that people in Durham and Dover worked with each other and worshipped with each other," he testified.

Why were these pleas from citizens, including local community leaders, to keep together strong communities of interest ignored by the majority party in the senate? Solely to give their party unfair political advantage over the other. S.B. 1 would make at least 16 out of the 24 state senate districts safely Republican. The majority party has disregarded the State Constitution, 200 years of history and tradition, and the views of citizens to guarantee its control over the senate chamber.

Because S.B. 1 is both unconstitutional and fundamentally unfair, I am compelled to veto this legislation.

February 7, 2002

To the Honorable Members of the General Court:

By the authority vested in me as Governor of New Hampshire, pursuant to Part II, Article 44 of the Constitution of New Hampshire, I have this day vetoed Senate Bill 141, an Act relative to proof of qualifications for voter registration.

The right to vote is a fundamental right. Restrictions should be placed on that right if, and only if, there is a compelling need. S.B. 141, which is identical to legislation I vetoed last year, does not meet that test.

While the proponents of S.B. 141 say the purpose of this legislation is to protect our elections from fraud, there is no evidence that voter fraud is a problem in New Hampshire. That is, in large part, because our laws already provide protection from voter fraud. Our statutory requirement that the checklists be purged on a regular basis prevents "graveyard" voting. Our laws permit any voter to challenge the identity and eligibility of any other voter, with any so challenged voter required to sign an affidavit under penalty of perjury before being permitted to vote. Moreover, anyone registering to vote on election day is required to sign a form swearing, under penalty of perjury, that he or she is a qualified voter.

In order to be eligible to vote in New Hampshire, one must be a citizen of the United States, be 18 years of age or older, and be domiciled where he or she intends to vote. Under current New Hampshire law, supervisors of the checklist and town or city clerks may ask an applicant to provide proof of citizenship, age and domicile. If Senate Bill 141 became law, voting registration officials would be required to demand this proof.

S.B. 141 would have the effect of discouraging eligible voters from exercising their right to vote. Not all voters carry proof of their age with them, and in our country, few citizens carry proof of their citizenship. No discretion is given to supervisors of the checklist and town and city clerks under S.B. 141. No matter how well the supervisor of the checklist or town or city clerk knows the voter, he or she must still demand proof of age and citizenship. This would potentially cause lengthy delays for all voters.

While New Hampshire's voter turnout percentage compares well with the rest of the country, it is troubling that one-third of our registered voters did not exercise their franchise in the 2000 general election, an election to choose the President of the United States. Rather than erecting new barriers to voting, lawmakers should instead investigate

why so many of our fellow citizens do not vote and develop public policy to encourage every eligible citizen to exercise this precious and fundamental right.

For all of the above reasons, I am today vetoing Senate Bill 141.

Respectfully submitted,

HB 1221, relative to coordinating certain town and school district meetings. Vote 3-0

Informational Meeting on TANF and Reauthorization and Postsecondary Education, at 10:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. Room 206, LOB

The New Hampshire Women's Lobby is pleased and honored to announce that Rep. Terie Norelli and Rep. Cynthia Dokmo will receive Meritorious Service Awards, Juliana Eades will receive the Citizen Award and Arnie Arnesen will receive the Media Award at our annual "Spring Celebs" event on Wednesday, April 17th from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. at the Holiday Inn in Concord. All are invited to join us in honoring these outstanding New Hampshire citizens. Tickets are $10 for members and $15 for nonmembers and are available from members or from the NH Women's Lobby Office at 224-9105.