Organization Day at the New Hampshire House of Representatives began with the promise of drama but ended with a unified GOP caucus as Londonderry Republican Sherm Packard was handily reelected as speaker.
Packard’s election, which had been in some doubt, became a certainty when his one-time challenger, Rep. Kim Rice (R-Hudson) rose to second his nomination.
“I’m sure you’re thinking the clerk clearly made a mistake,” Rice quipped as she took the mic.
“But after a rather lively conversation and assurances that I can live with — and that I believe that those who supported me can live with — I rise to second the nomination of Sherm Packard for speaker of the House. I served under Sherm. We have a great opportunity here. We have a very large majority. Let’s do great things for the Live Free or Die State,” Rice said.
The night before, Rice sent an email to members of the caucus making the case for supporting her bid to become speaker, a plan that relied on Democratic votes. In the end, Packard won the support of 202 of the 388 House members present in the secret ballot. Just 162 votes were cast for Democratic caucus leader Rep. Alexis Simpson (D-Exeter), fewer than the number of Democrats present.
In her speech to the House, Simpson said she wanted to “bring people together across differences to reach a common goal.
“I bring people together around common values,” Simpson said.
Not going to happen, Packard responded in his speech.
“I think that Rep. Simpson and I disagree on that. We are going to have a vast amount of differences on subject matter,” Packard said. “But by God, that doesn’t mean we can’t be civil and friendly and cooperate with each other when we are on the same page.”
Perhaps influenced by the turmoil in his own caucus in recent days, Packard made multiple pleas for civility.
“We do not need to do any name-calling,” Packard said. “I wish Twitter and Facebook didn’t exist because I think it would be better for our society. But having said that, they do exist, so all I ask of all of you on both sides is that we respect each other. And we make sure that we can have a civil conversation.”
More than 40 percent of Packard’s own caucus voted for Rep. Len Turcotte (R-Barrington) to be their leader last month, which factored into Rice’s original decision to challenge him.
“Honestly, I didn’t want to have to take it to this point,” Rice told NHJournal after the vote. “I was Sherm’s Speaker Pro Tempore, Sherm is my friend. But we had a good conversation, we got some concessions and some assurances, and we felt good about it.”
Rice declined to say what those concessions were, but when asked if she was confident members would feel the effects once the House is in session, she said yes. “I do, I do. We’re going to hold his feet to the fire.”
After their conversation, Rice said, Packard asked her to second his nomination and she readily agreed.
“It was very off the cuff.”
Packard supporters, pleased with the outcome and happy to keep the peace, declined to speak to NHJournal on the record about the vote. But several said on background they believe Packard’s margin of victory shows Rice never had the votes.
And several Republicans noted a key difference between Rice’s bid and the Shawn Jasper situation a decade earlier. In the 2014 Speaker’s race, Jasper didn’t put his name in contention until after GOP leader Bill O’Brien failed to garner enough votes in the first round to win the gavel. As a result, Democrats knew O’Brien didn’t have the votes in his own caucus, and so they backed his GOP challenger.
On Wednesday, Democrats had no such assurances. It was possible they could vote for Rice and still lose, a humiliating outcome leaving them with nothing more than the embarrassment of their own caucus leader failing to receive any votes.
Instead, Packard won a solid majority, and now the GOP-led House joins the Senate — with a 16-8 GOP majority — and a popular new Republican governor, Kelly Ayotte, as part of unified Republican leadership in Concord.
As expected, the state Senate tapped Sen. Sharon Carson (R-Londonderry) to serve as president, and Sen. Regina Birdsell (R-Hampstead) to be Majority Leader. Sen. Rebecca Perkins Kwoka (D-Portsmouth) is head of the Democratic caucus.
“Congratulations to Senate President Carson and Speaker Packard,” Ayotte said in a statement Wednesday. “As I prepare to take office in January, I am glad to have two experienced, dedicated leaders at the helm in the New Hampshire Senate and House.”
Sources in the House and Senate tell NHJournal there will be votes sooner rather than later on legislation regarding a ban on sanctuary cities and parental rights, issues that Democrats unanimously opposed in the last session and which cost them at the polls. Republicans are also talking about energy legislation designed to put lower rates ahead of climate activism, which could once again find Democrats voting against popular policies.
In fact, the Democrats are so weak, they didn’t even field a candidate for secretary of state to challenge incumbent David Scanlan, who was reelected by acclamation by the legislature Wednesday.
Asked what Democrats should expect in the upcoming session now that the GOP is united, Rice replied, “Democrats should expect to lose.”
