They set the number at forty trillion. Then it arrived.

In February 2024 the New Hampshire House rejected two measures on the same morning, without debate. One of them would have acted if the federal debt reached $40 trillion. The debt passed $40 trillion in August 2026.

CACR 20 and HB 1130, 2024 session

Where the debt is now

$40.12 trillion, as of 2 September 2026. This figure is pulled from the United States Treasury twice a day, not typed in by us.

Nothing follows from that automatically. CACR 20 was rejected, so it has no legal force and New Hampshire is under no obligation of any kind. What the number does is settle an argument about whether the condition was far-fetched.

CACR 20: the trigger

  • Measure. CACR 20, 2024 session. Citizens Count files it as “Constitutional amendment seceding from U.S. if federal debt reaches $40 trillion”.
  • Prime sponsor. Rep. Jason Gerhard, Republican, Northfield.
  • What it said. “Upon the United States' national debt reaching $40 trillion, New Hampshire shall peaceably declare independence from the United States and immediately proceed as a sovereign nation.”
  • Public hearing. 12 January 2024, 9:30am, Legislative Office Building, rooms 206 to 208.
  • Outcome. Killed in the House, 1 February 2024.

The amendment did not propose leaving. It proposed a condition, and named a number that was then just under six trillion dollars away. The House was asked whether that number was worth planning for. It said no, and did not discuss it.

HB 1130: the study

  • Measure. HB 1130, 2024 session, filed as “Study NH 'exerting its sovereign state rights'”.
  • Prime sponsor. Rep. Matthew John Santonastaso, Republican, Rindge.
  • What it would have done. “Establishes a statutory commission to study the economic, legal, and sociological aspects of New Hampshire exerting its sovereign state rights.”
  • Public hearing. 12 January 2024, 10:15am, same room, forty-five minutes after CACR 20.
  • Outcome. Killed in the House, 1 February 2024.

HB 1130 did not ask anyone to leave anything. It asked for a commission of legislators and experts to look at the economics, the law and the social questions, and report back. The House declined to find out.

Rejected without debate

New Hampshire Public Radio reported that the House rejected both “without debate” on 1 February 2024. The absence of debate matters more than either margin.

Two years earlier the same chamber had debated CACR 32 in open session and put every member's name to a recorded vote. This time there was no debate at all, on a contingency plan and on a study. A body confident of its position argues it. This one declined to.

What it changes

The legal position is unchanged: both measures are dead, and a rejected amendment binds nobody.

What has changed is which side has to explain itself. In January 2024 anyone defending these votes could say the trigger was hypothetical and the study was premature. The number is no longer hypothetical. It arrived roughly two and a half years after the House decided it was not worth examining, and the commission that would have reported by now does not exist.

Whoever holds those seats now inherits the question. Find out who yours are and put it to them.

Ask the person holding your seat The 2022 floor vote

Sources

If anything on this page is wrong, tell us at hello@nhexitnow.org and we will correct it and say that we did.