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Inescapable realities about New Hampshire: Live Free or Die is the best state motto; we have better maple syrup than Vermont; and we may never stop fighting about the right way to pay for public education.

Everything about school funding is up for grabs this year, with new proposals coming out of the State House, a lawsuit heading to the state Supreme Court, and an open gubernatorial race putting free-market reforms in the spotlight.

“This is a great opportunity for us to have these conversations,” said Sarah Scott with Americans for Prosperity.

Scott and AFP hosted a forum last week at Throwback Brewery in North Hampton with state Reps. Glenn Cordelli (R-Tuftonboro) and Dan Maguire (R-Epsom) to educate people about the realities of the biggest tax bill in the state.

The problem is front and center for legislators this session, who are working on different proposals to address education spending without raising taxes. But whether they do that is up in the air.

Cordelli, vice chair of the House Education Committee, said there’s no guarantee conservative lawmakers can get meaningful changes since House membership is split so evenly. Republicans control the House with a slight majority, which can evaporate depending on the time of day. If the weather is bad, or several members are sick, or votes happen after lunch, the majority can flip.

“Every day, it’s a gamble which party is in charge depending on who gets to the State House,” Coredelli said.

But the local level is where taxpayers bear the largest education funding burden, Scott said. “Most towns spend between two-thirds and three-quarters of their taxes on education.”

And they could end up paying more, thanks to the recent court decision in the ConVal funding lawsuit. Judge David Ruoff ordered the state’s adequacy grant of $4,100 per pupil raised to at least $7,300. The ConVal ruling is causing more problems than it will solve, Maguire said.

“ConVal is the logical conclusion of 30 years of bad rulings,” Maguire said, who sits on the House Finance Committee. “At some point, we have to get off this track of unreality.”

The Supreme Court’s Claremont decision from the 1990s paved the way for adequacy grants and the statewide property tax. Currently, the state sends about one billion dollars a year to local schools in the form of adequacy grants and other aid programs. 

Under the current system, what each town gets per pupil varies. The base grant of $4,100 goes up for students determined to have greater need, and for students in communities that are considered property poor. However, Maguire said if Ruoff’s ruling stands, all of the extra funding for students and communities in need would go away. 

Ruoff’s ConVal ruling would seem to add at least $500 million to education spending on top of what is already being paid. But Maguire said it would result in all of the funding being replaced by a flat $7,300 per pupil grant, leaving poor communities scrambling again. 

Lawmakers are searching for a fix while the state appeals Ruoff’s ruling to the state Supreme Court. But state spending on education represents less than a third of total spending. The rest comes from homeowners through local property taxes, and those taxpayers are already shelling out more for less.

Department of Education data released this month show the new statewide average operating cost per student has reached a record-setting $20,323 for the 2022-2023 school year. That’s a 4.8 percent increase over last year’s $19,400 and close to a 90 percent increase on 2000’s $11,000 per pupil cost.

This year’s new average — well above the national $14,295 — puts the Granite State on track to spend $3.8 billion in total on education for the 2022-2023 school year.

Over the same period, student enrollment numbers in the Granite State cratered. The student population dropped from 207,684 in 2002 to 165,095 in 2023. That’s a decrease of 42,589 public school students, or about a 20.5 percent decline during the past 21 years. 

Coredelli sees an opportunity to deliver education in charter schools and the Education Freedom Account system with better results and lower costs.

“At the end of the day, the free market is the only way to make changes to education,” Cordelli said.

About 7,000 students are enrolled in New Hampshire’s charter schools. Those tuition-free public schools receive state funding of up to $9,000 per pupil and no local tax revenue. Instead, the schools are operated as non-profits and raise donations to cover expenses beyond the state grants.

The EFA program awards grants of around $5,000 per pupil to qualifying families, who are then able to put that money toward any education choice: public, private, or home school. EFA enrollment went up 20 percent this year to 4,211 while costing taxpayers about $22 million in total. 

Senate Republicans stand between the New Hampshire Advantage and dangerous judicial overreach in the ConVal decision that could force an income tax on Granite Staters, said Senate President Jeb Bradley (R-Wolfeboro).

Speaking before the Senate’s first session of the year at a Wednesday press conference in the Legislative Office Building, Bardley said the ConVal education funding decision essentially forces $536 million in new spending.

“There is no way, in my opinion, to do that without an income tax, or a sales tax or, possibly, both,” Bradley said. “That totally undermines the New Hampshire Advantage, and we just can’t go that route.”

Rockingham Superior Court Judge David Ruoff sided with the Contoocook Valley School District in its lawsuit against the state, ruling New Hampshire’s education funding system does not pay enough in adequacy grants and is, therefore, in violation of the state constitution. The Claremont state Supreme Court decisions from the 1990s found students have a right to an adequate education. That put the onus on lawmakers to define how much an adequate education costs and to come up with a fair way to fund it.

Ruoff’s decision, released in November, found the current adequacy grant of about $4,100 per pupil is too low and ought to be at least $7,300 per pupil. Ruoff left the final amount and funding mechanism up to the legislature. But Bradley said Ruoff’s decision puts New Hampshire on the road to an income tax. 

Worse, according to Bradley, it would force New Hampshire to revert to a donor town-type funding system where property taxes paid by homeowners in wealthier communities would be transferred to school systems in less-affluent cities or towns. That won’t happen while the GOP maintains control of the Senate, Bradley pledged.

“Between the 14 of us, an income tax, a sales tax, and donor towns are off the table,” Bradley said.

Some Democrats have already floated the idea of blocking the phase-out of the state’s tax on interest and dividends tax. Republicans say it’s just one step toward the longstanding goal of Granite State progressives to impose an income tax in the name of equity and social justice.

Gov. Chris Sununu is appealing Ruoff’s order to the New Hampshire Supreme Court. Bradley said it remains to be seen if the ConVal decision survives the appeal. 

Protecting New Hampshire’s strong economy and free way of life from a tax regime is one of the Senate GOP’s top priorities for the coming session, Bradley said.

“It’s vitally important that we protect hardworking men and women from higher taxes, allow small businesses to thrive, and maintain our economic status,” Bradley said.

Public safety is the second pillar of the Senate GOP’s agenda, he said, and that starts with bail reform. The House and Senate have competing proposals to fix the 2018 bail reform law. While it was supposed to end cash bail for non-violent offenders, it’s now blamed for returning violent criminals to the streets.

“Our bail system, with the best intentions several years ago, was reformed, and those reforms did not protect the public,” Bradley said.

Despite differences in the proposals, Bradley said he is optimistic a deal can be struck between the two chambers to fix the bail system one way or another. 

“I think the House has made a good faith effort,” Bradley said. “Nobody gets everything they want around here.”

The Senate is also looking to block sanctuary cities in New Hampshire, strengthen protections at the Northern Border, and pass mandatory minimum sentences for fentanyl traffickers, said Sen. Sharon Carson (R-Londonderry). 

The GOP agenda includes a parental transparency proposal that guarantees guardians access to school information about their children, a hotly-contested issue as some school districts insist teachers and administrators have the right to keep secrets – or even lie to – parents about their children’s behavior.

The senators will also push for local property tax relief, improvements to health care and mental health care, clean drinking water, investments in affordable housing, and a constitutional amendment to enshrine New Hampshire’s First in the Nation presidential primary into law. 

While the senators presented a united front for their agenda, there is a major fault line when it comes to marijuana legalization. Sununu reversed course last year by calling for the legislature to legalize recreational marijuana. Bradley admits the issue divides his caucus, but there will be a legalization effort this year he hopes everyone can agree to.

“There is the opportunity to get that done, but we’ll see what happens,” Bradley said.

Former Democratic state Rep. Andrew O’Hearne may have crossed the line when he reportedly told Claremont Department of Public Works (DPW) employees how to do their job. Now he is facing possible expulsion from the city council. 

According to city communications, O’Hearne was upset with how a DPW crew painted lines on his street. So he intimidated the crew members, telling them what to do and why they better do it.

“(O’Hearne) informed them that a police commissioner was on his way to review the area and that he had a ‘big stick’ and did not mind ‘stirring the pot,'” City Manager Yoshi Manale wrote in an email about the May 11 incident.

O’Hearne, who has been on the Claremont City Council for several years, is scheduled for a June 21 hearing before the council to determine what happened last month when he confronted city employees, Mayor Dale Girard said.

“The worst that could happen is he could be removed from his seat if we feel he interfered with city employees,” Girard said.

Council members in Claremont, as in nearly every other municipality in New Hampshire, are barred from directing city employees in any way. Having spent decades as a Claremont police officer, a policy O’Hearne should have been aware of.

O’Hearne did not respond to a request for comment.

According to the email from Manale to council members first obtained by journalist Jim Sullivan, the DPW crew members said they were being harassed by O’Hearne, who did not like how they were directing traffic. At one point, O’Hearne said he would stay in the road and videotape the crew, according to Manale.

Police were called to the site and determined there was no problem with traffic, Police Chief Brent Wilmot told NH Journal. Manale was finally able to convince O’Hearne to go home. But the manager told council members the matter needs to be addressed.

“The councilor’s actions … were not appropriate and disruptive to the work of our DPW,” Manale wrote.

Manale initially wanted O’Hearne to apologize. The council instead decided to hold a hearing to determine the next course of action, which could include removal.

O’Hearne spent a decade as a state representative before losing his seat last November by fewer than 50 votes, with Republican Walter Stapleton defeating him.

If he is removed, O’Hearne would be the second Claremont city councilor forced off by the council this year. In February, Councilor Jim Contois was removed by a council vote after he allegedly called the police to get a no-trespass order against him lifted.

Contois, an environmental activist, was hit with the order by a local car dealership after the councilor went to the dealer’s property to document wetlands on the lot. Contois maintained he never asked Wilmot to lift the order, he just asked about how the order was enforced. 

After he was removed, Contois filed a lawsuit against the council, demanding he be reinstated. The council settled the lawsuit in April and voted to rescind Contois’ expulsion and restore his council membership.

New Hampshire taxpayers are spending as much as 100 percent more per student as school enrollment continues to slide, and some school districts are fighting to have the state pay more per student.

“The tax burden is incredible, and half of it goes to the schools,” said Dublin’s Leo Plante.

Plante is a local activist who tried unsuccessfully to get his town to withdraw from the Contoocook Valley School District, citing the town’s dwindling student population. As part of the ConVal district, Plante thinks too much Dublin money is leaving and going for students in the eight other towns in the district. 

ConVal has been losing students for 20 years. At the same time, spending on K-12 education has risen. On a per-pupil basis, it’s up more than 100 percent.

And it is not just in Dublin. According to data released by the New Hampshire Department of Education, across the state the cost per pupil has gone up an average of 78.4 percent since 2000. That was faster than the rate of inflation.

The steady increase is coupled with a 22 percent drop in the number of students since 2002. That year, there were 207,648 students enrolled in schools. The number has fallen to 161,755 enrolled for the current school year.

As a result, taxpayers are spending an average of nearly $20,000 per pupil, with the total cost of New Hampshire’s education system coming in at $3.5 billion in the 2021/2022 school year.

ConVal’s 20-year trend has seen a 34.6 percent decline in the number of students while the cost per pupil has shot up 103.5 percent. ConVal started the 2022/2023 school year with 1,969 students, and 10 years ago there were more than 2,200 students in the district.

Taxpayer activists want to know when declining enrollment means lower property taxes for Granite State homeowners.

“Clearly, school boards and SAUs are shrinking class sizes and padding school administration,” said Dan McGuire with Granite State Taxpayers. “If student performance was improving this extra spending might be justified, but unfortunately it is not. Voters need to pay attention to who they put on school boards, and those boards in turn need to rein in their superintendents.”

Janine Lesser, vice chair of the Contoocook Valley School District, has heard the argument that it should not cost more to educate fewer students. She said looking just at enrollment figures and the cost per pupil data is misleading.

“There’s a lot of the perception that if you have fewer students your costs should decrease, that the general budget should somehow decrease, and in some sense that’s true,” Lesser said.

But there are many factors behind the steady cost increases. Pay for employees, health insurance, electricity costs, heating costs, and building maintenance have all gone up in price throughout the economy, and school districts are no different, she said.

Critics note that doesn’t explain how school costs have risen faster than inflation, nor does it factor in the key elements in classroom education whose costs have declined — most notably tech like laptops, tablets, etc. Even the claim about energy costs is dubious. The price of heating oil and gasoline both plunged significantly during the downturns of 2007 and the COVID pandemic. And yet, taxpayer advocates say, somehow school property taxes kept going up.

The student enrollment decline is steady, but usually slight year to year, Lesser said. ConVal shrunk by 13 students this year, not enough to really impact the budget for a district that includes nine towns and several school buildings.

“All of the overhead costs don’t decrease that way. You can’t do away with a bus route for 13 students, you can’t decrease heating costs by 13 students, and you can’t decrease building repairs by 13 students. All of the costs remain,” Lesser said.

Plante doesn’t buy that argument, saying ConVal is top-heavy with too many administrators uninterested in watching out for the taxpayers who fund a large part of the education.

“It’s the inability of the administration to reduce costs in line with enrollment,” Plante said. “Someone has to have the courage on these school boards to say we can’t keep doing it this way.”

In part, Lesser blames lawmakers in Concord and Washington D.C. for fueling the rising cost per pupil by shoving unfunded mandates onto the districts, forcing local taxpayers to pay more.

“The unfunded mandates come down fast and furiously from the legislature, from both sides,” she said.

The federal government mandates local districts provide services for special education students, and it mandates transportation for students, but it does not help the district pay for these services. In 2020, the state started mandating a new STEM curriculum starting in kindergarten, but it does not come close to covering the costs.

Lesser said more is coming, as there are already 218 bills introduced in the New Hampshire legislature dealing with education that could end up costing local taxpayers more. All of this leaves school boards and school administrators struggling to put together budgets that will give students the best education possible, while not spiking local property taxes.

“It’s a fight every year to balance the needs of students with the needs of taxpayers,” Lesser said.

Claremont School Board Chair Michael Petrin is working hard on striking that balance. He’s trying to get the district to put together a budget that includes a needed raise for teachers, and one that won’t give taxpayers any more sticker shock.

“Purse strings are starting to tighten and going to this community to ask for money to help our teachers is really a tough topic,” Petrin said. “My grocery bills at least doubled over the last year and a half. There are families out there struggling to make ends meet.”

Last week, the Claremont School Board sent the district’s budget proposal back to Superintendent Michael Tempesta and his team to find another $1 million in cuts, hoping to bring the total budget number in low enough for voters to support the plan at the ballot box in March.

“We’re working hard to not kill the taxpayers and keep the teachers at the pay rate that keeps them here in the district,” Petrin said.

Petrin’s balancing act is complicated by the fact the Claremont district has also been steadily losing students. Last year’s average daily attendance in Claremont schools was a little more than 1,600 students. The figure was more than 1,700 a decade ago.

During that time, Claremont taxpayers have seen the cost to educate the shrinking number of pupils rise nearly every year, typically around 3 percent a year, according to state data.

Over the past twenty years, the district lost 24.6 percent of its student population while the annual cost per pupil rose 57.2 percent.

Rep. Walter Stapleton, R-Claremont, said part of the rising cost is that the buildings in Claremont’s district are obsolete. They were built for a time when the district had more people, and the city had more jobs.

“We used to be a big industrial town here with a lot of students and a lot of people,” Stapleton said. “It costs a lot to maintain that big infrastructure to support a shrinking number of students. It’s a tough problem.”

Department of Education Commissioner Frank Edelblut said the main drivers of the student decline are New Hampshire’s aging population and the state’s low birth rate. There are simply fewer school-aged children living in New Hampshire. School districts need to understand the decline is likely to continue, he said.

“It is important for school leaders to understand how declining enrollment numbers may be impacting their districts and how to plan accordingly for the future,” Edelblut said.

Zack Sheehan, project director with New Hampshire School Funding Fairness Project, said the cost to educate students in New Hampshire will keep rising as long as the state and federal government continue to push down unfunded mandates.

“Schools are providing more services to students today than ever before, many of which are laws and regulations passed by the state that do not include increased funding. Many of these are important standards that support our students and schools, but they are not free,” Sheehan said.

How taxpayers will keep paying for fewer students is still being contested decades after the legal battle that was supposed to settle the question. Claremont’s district became the epicenter of the education funding fight with the Claremont education funding lawsuits of the 1980s and 1990s. That resulted in the New Hampshire Supreme Court decision that found every child has the right to an education and that the state has an obligation to fund that education.

Now, ConVal is taking the state to court claiming that the state’s $3,600 per pupil a year adequacy grant does not come close to paying for all the required services.

“This is our way to say, ‘this is what you require us to do, and yet this is what you actually give us money to do,’” Lesser said.

ConVal wants the state to fund closer to $10,000 per student per year. For a student population of 160,000, adding another $6,400 per pupil would cost state taxpayers more than $1 billion in new spending per year. With no guarantee that new state revenue would be used to reduce local property taxes.

As the ConVal lawsuit moves closer to trial, the original Claremont lawsuit attorneys are suing the state again, this time challenging the way the state-wide property tax is collected and distributed.

Attorney Andru Volinsky declined to comment on this story.

Stapleton said the state has money now in the form of a budget surplus, and he expects that to be used for education spending. He’s not sure what the long-term outlook will be if the ConVal and Volinsky lawsuits are successful.

“I personally can’t give you the forecast,” Stapleton said.

Plante thinks it’s time for New Hampshire to give parents their tax money back to make their own decisions about how to fund schools, but he admits that kind of a proposal is unlikely.

“I would give every parent the right to use school taxes to send their kids wherever they need to go, I would hand over the school tax to the parent and say, ‘take this money and do whatever you want with it.’ But that’s a pipe dream,” Plante said.

When a citizen filed a “no trespassing ” order against Claremont City Councilor James Contois, the government official did not take it lying down. Instead, he went to his fellow city official, Claremont Police Chief Brent Wilmot, and tried to get it removed.

Contois did not get his way, and now he is facing calls for his removal for attempting to get special treatment from the city.

“I don’t give up my rights as a citizen,” Contois said. “If I had overstepped my boundaries, you bet your life that [the] chief would have called the city manager or the mayor.”

Contois was served with the order last week to stay off the Route 12 property being developed into a Jeep dealership by Christian Gomes. Gomes said he called the police after Contois refused to leave his property.

“He needs to get out of government because he can’t be impartial,” Gomes said. “He’s trying to be an activist while he’s a city councilor. He can’t do both.”

Gomes owns both the Jeep and Ford dealerships in the city. He recently won approval from the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services to drain and fill a wetlands meadow to move the Jeep dealership to be adjacent to the Ford dealership. Gomes agreed to pay a $146,000 fee to the state for the wetlands and said his plans have been approved by both state and city authorities.

“I’ve done everything that DES has asked,” Gomes said. “We’re breaking ground next week.”

Contois, who also sits on the city’s Conservation Commission, is a vocal opponent of the development. He filed an appeal of the DES approval for the construction. Last week, Contois went to the Route 12 wetlands to get photos for his appeal when he says he was confronted by Gomes.

“(He) was verbally harassing me to get off property and he called police,” Contois said.

Gomes’ version is different, saying the city councilor was on his dealership property being a nuisance before he contacted police.

“(Contois) refused to leave after being asked three times,” Gomes said.

Police told Contois to leave, even though Contois claims he was legally allowed to be at the property based on his reading of city tax maps. Gomes then obtained a no-trespassing order through the department to keep Contois from coming back.

On Monday, Contois called Claremont Police Chief Brent Wilmot to see if the chief could have the order rescinded.

“He told me he was looking to have the order lifted, and I explained that’s not something we did,” Wilmot said.

Police in New Hampshire do not have the legal authority to lift no trespassing orders, Wilmot explained. That is a decision only the property owner can make. Wilmot told the councilor that police essentially act as letter carriers in cases of such orders. Wilmot told NH Journal he tried to educate the councilor about how no trespassing orders work and suggested Contois find another location from which to take photos.

Wilmot chalked up the call from Contois to a misunderstanding about the procedure and did not view it as an attempt to influence law enforcement.

“I did not feel he was pressuring me to have it lifted,” Wilmot said. “I simply told him I was not going to do that.”

Wilmot did pass along Contois’ concerns, and another officer called Gomes to see if he wanted to have the order lifted, which Gomes declined. Gomes, himself a former New York police officer, said if Contois was not trying to pressure police, his call to Wilmot demonstrated a level of incompetence that is itself disqualifying.

“The man is mentally incompetent,” Gomes said.

Gomes cited Contois’ testimony during the July DES public hearing when the councilor spoke in opposition to the development. During his testimony, Contois said he went to the property and listened to the wildlife present.

“I went to the wet meadow last weekend just to observe,” Contois said according to the recorded testimony. “I heard dozens of redwing blackbirds screaming at me, ‘Get out of here! We have nests here. This is our home.’”

Gomes is threatening to tell businesses to stay out of Claremont unless Contois is removed from the board. He said Contois claims to support businesses coming to the city, and yet spends his time trying to hamper the businesses already operating.

“You can’t be for business and then fight a business,” Gomes said.

Mayor Dale Girard said the council will be investigating the matter, and that the city’s attorney is being consulted. Contois is allowed to stand up for his beliefs and be an activist if he does not represent his actions as those of the council, Girard said.

“It’s a case where Mr. Contois was a private citizen and he wasn’t there representing the council,” Girard said. “I can’t speak to what he does on his personal time.”

Girard agreed that council members should not seek special treatment from police, but he is not sure if that is the case here. Girard said he is still gathering information on what happened.

Gomes said that when he was a police officer, if a local government official asked him to fix a ticket or something similar, that would have been out of line.

“That’s an abuse of power,” Gomes said.

What do you call a Democrat who’s voted in favor of a 20-week abortion ban, supported allowing gun owners to carry concealed weapons without a permit, and tried to pass restrictions to stop college students from voting?

Claremont’s Charlene Lovett.

A former Republican state representative who also once served as mayor of Claremont, Lovett has launched a bid for the District 8 Senate seat as a Democrat. Lovett said she changed her party registration this year because she’s become disenchanted with the GOP over the years.

“The party that I grew up in and have been part of for many decades isn’t the party of today. I feel like the party left me behind,” Lovett said.

Lovett now describes herself as a moderate Democrat as she seeks to unseat Sen. Ruth Ward, R-Stoddard.

While in the House in 2012, Lovett had a solidly pro-life voting record: she voted for bans on partial-birth and late-term abortion, as well as a 20-week abortion ban, and a 24-hour waiting period for abortion. She also supported giving legal protection to the unborn who were injured or killed when their mother was assaulted.

Lovett also opposed requiring health insurance to cover contraception.

On ballot access issues, Lovett supported a photo ID mandate. She also supported tightening the rules on residency for voting in a way that would block out-of-state college students from voting in New Hampshire. Most of her (now) fellow Democrats opposed these measures.

Lovett cast conservative votes on a range of issues. She supported tax credits for businesses that donate to private school scholarships and opposed legalizing medical marijuana. She was against refugee resettlements in New Hampshire, and she supported a state lawsuit against the Affordable Care Act.

Ward said she has run into Lovett a few times over the years but does not know her well.

“I have not checked her voting records. It will be very interesting to do some research,” Ward said. “Anyone can run, and I will do my best against whoever is my opponent.”

Asked about her decidedly un-moderate voting record, Lovett said she’s changed her mind on many of her former positions.

“Over time, I’ve changed my positions, and that’s been caused by working with people from all walks of life and learning more about the challenges people face in their lives,” she said.

NHJournal reached out to state Democratic leaders to ask about having a candidate with such a pro-Republican record running to represent their party, particularly in a community like Claremont that backed progressive Bernie Sanders in both the 2016 and 2020 presidential primaries.

District 8 also includes Acworth, Antrim, Bennington, Charlestown, Croydon, Deering, Dunbarton, Francestown, Gilsum, Langdon, Lempster, Marlow, Newport, Stoddard, Sunapee, Unity, Washington, Weare and Windsor.

Progressives have been upset with the party establishment for years, as the younger left wing of the party continues to get ignored by the old guard. Two progressives Democrats abandoned the House caucus to become independents during the current session, and a third quit the House entirely.

And leaders of the New Hampshire Democratic Latino Caucus resigned in opposition to the embrace of what they call “racist” immigration policies by Hassan and fellow Democrat incumbent Rep. Chris Pappas. They’ve held public protests as well.

While Lovett may have become a Democrat, she’s no progressive. If she’s able to win her new party’s nomination without a fight, it could be yet another indicator that state party chairman Ray Buckley’s strategy is for New Hampshire Democrats to tack hard to the right as the midterms approach.

It’s not working, according to RNC Spokesman Andrew Mahaleris.

“Whether it’s Maggie Hassan endorsing a border wall, Chris Pappas supporting Title 42, or Charlene Lovett finally revealing her true colors as a Democrat, it’s clear that Ray Buckley and the rest of his party know they are in trouble. While these pandering politicians are claiming to support commonsense policies to get elected, Granite State voters know where their true priorities lie and will defeat them in November,” Mahaleris said.

In addition to her time as a state rep, Lovett has served on the Claremont School Board, City Council, and as the mayor. Her service has not been without controversy.

In 2019, Claremont City Manager Ryan McNutt blamed Lovett for his firing, and for creating a difficult environment in city hall.

“She is one of the most difficult people I’ve worked with,” McNutt said at the time. “She is not someone who understood her role.”

McNutt said Lovett was constantly trying to attain more power as mayor. Claremont is chartered with a weak mayor’s position, giving day-to-day responsibility to the city manager.

“There was a desire for more control,” McNutt said.

That same year, City Councilor Jon Stone accused Lovett of interfering with a police investigation during the 2016 shooting of Claremont man Cody LaFont by city police. Lovett said at the time that she would welcome an investigation into this accusation, though none was pursued.