Once again, winter months are contributing to the exponential spread of Covid infections, summoning an official health alert. Despite Covid’s threats, vaccine and mask requirements via the executive branch are as likely in New Hampshire as snow at Mar-a-Lago. However, Republican leadership has acknowledged the risks to health by conducting business in spacious venues, the house meeting in Manchester, the senate in Concord. Despite improved accommodations, too many legislators refuse to wear masks, adding to the substantial risks imposed upon in-person public participants in governance, 2022.
Business to be considered this session runs the gamut: New Hampshire seceding from the “United” States of America; targeting for recall any state court judge, or any local elected official who serves a three-year term; the intentional rigging of elections by gerrymandering political districts; taxpayer dollars to conduct an Arizona-style “audit” of the 2020 election; diversion of funding from public schools, sure to raise property taxes; repealing New Hampshire’s paid family leave plan, and more.
The one-way You Tube channel the legislature currently offers is inadequate. Democracy is a bottom-up, not top-down process. It is incumbent upon leaders of the Republican party to make available the use of the technology successfully implemented for more than a year—remote, interactive video access, which allows for direct, public participation in real time, with legislators sensitive to the presence, albeit virtual, of those who speak and engage in the political process. The technology exists. Democracy demands it be made available again.
Bob Perry
Strafford, N.H.
Bob:
Simple decency would seem to require that the Republican leadership do as you suggest. Good luck with that.
The Editor
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