The day New Hampshire debated leaving.
On 10 March 2022 the New Hampshire House took up independence in open session, debated it on the floor, and put every member's name to a recorded vote. No other state legislature in modern America has done that.
The record
Every line below is checkable, and the sources are at the foot of this page.
- Measure. CACR 32, 2022 session, a proposed amendment to the New Hampshire Constitution. Citizens Count files it as “Constitutional amendment to secede from the U.S.”
- Prime sponsor. Rep. Michael “Mike” Sylvia, Republican, Belknap 6.
- Public hearing. 20 January 2022, Legislative Office Building, rooms 201 to 203. Members of the public turned out to testify, including Carla Gericke.
- Committee. State-Federal Relations, which recommended the measure Inexpedient to Legislate.
- Floor vote. 10 March 2022. The House voted it down, 323 to 13.
The roll call
Four hundred seats, one mark each. The thirteen who voted to let the people decide are picked out; the 323 who voted to kill it are in grey; the remainder did not vote.
13 voted to let the people decide 323 voted to kill it 64 did not vote
CACR 32, New Hampshire House, 10 March 2022.
What was said on the floor
The debate is the part almost nobody reports. These are from the floor that day, as quoted by InDepthNH.
“There is not one New Hampshire citizen alive today who has consented to be governed by the federal government today.”
Rep. Matthew Santonastaso, Republican, Rindge
“This transcends party, this transcends ideology. We are Americans and we are from New Hampshire.”
Rep. Tim Smith, Democrat, Manchester
“Voting for New Hampshire's proposed articles of secession could be determined by the New Hampshire House as rebellion against the U.S. Constitution.”
Rep. Brodie Deshaies, Republican, Wolfeboro
“I believe it is unconstitutional and embarrassing to get up here. We are Americans and we should stand tall.”
Rep. Al Baldasaro, Republican, Londonderry
Both parties argued on both sides of it, on a question everyone assumes divides along the usual line.
What it established
The amendment did not pass, and this campaign does not pretend otherwise. What the day established is more durable than a tally.
The question is admissible in New Hampshire. It was filed, it was heard, the public testified, it reached the floor, and it was debated and voted like any other measure. Nobody ruled it out of order. Nobody found a constitutional bar. The process worked exactly as the process is supposed to work, which is the step opponents most often say cannot happen.
It also produced a list. Four hundred people, each of them documented, each representing a few thousand neighbors, most of them still reachable. Thirteen of them had already voted to let the question go to the people, before anyone had organized, petitioned, or written to them from home.
What happened afterwards
On 22 August 2022 Karen Steele, a resident of Atkinson, asked the New Hampshire Ballot Law Commission to disqualify fourteen candidates from standing for re-election. Seven had sponsored CACR 32. Seven more had voted against killing it. All fourteen were Republicans.
The grounds were Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment, the clause barring from office anyone who, having sworn to support the Constitution, has “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same.” Steele told the commission what she was asking for in plain terms: “This isn't impeaching or removing them… this is the Ballot Law Commission recognizing that these secessionists are not eligible.”
The commission dismissed it two days later, unanimously, all five members. Chairman Brad Cook said interpreting the federal constitution was “above our pay grade” for a body created by statute. Commissioner Eugene Van Loan asked “Who is the enemy who is being referred to?” and said he saw nothing on the merits. Commissioner David Campbell said the slope “would get slippery awfully quick.” It was not a friendly room for the legislators either: one commissioner said he regretted having to vote the way the law required.
Rep. Matthew Santonastaso, one of the fourteen, put the answer in six words: “Talk about secession is completely legal.”
Nobody claimed Granite Staters would vote to stay. That was the easy argument, the polling would have carried it, and it went unmade. The argument actually filed was that the people who put the question forward should not appear on a ballot at all.
What happens next
It was tried again in 2024, twice on the same morning, and both attempts were rejected without debate. One of them set its condition at a federal debt of $40 trillion, a number that has since arrived.
A constitutional amendment can be filed again, and it will be. What was missing in 2022 was not a legal route. It was a sponsor with an organization behind him, a roster of colleagues committed in advance, and constituent mail from home. None of those are constitutional problems. They are the ordinary work of politics.
Sources
- Bill record, sponsor, hearing date and location, and disposition: Citizens Count, CACR 32 (2022), and LegiScan.
- Floor vote tally and the quotations above: InDepthNH, 10 March 2022.
- The ballot law commission complaint, who filed it, whom it named, and its outcome: NHPR, 24 August 2022; InDepthNH, 22 August 2022 for the filing and the fourteen; and InDepthNH, 24 August 2022 for the hearing and the commissioners' words.
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