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Is there a trade war on the way?  Or is these announced sanctions, as President Trump’s new top economic advisor Larry Kudlow says, merely “first proposals” in a broader trade negotiation?

Either way, New Hampshire should be OK.  Why? Because the good news (and bad) for New Hampshire business is that foreign trade is just 18 percent of the state’s economic activity. So even if the US and China are serious about the tit-for-tat sanctions currently under discussion, the impact on the Granite State should be relatively small.

According to data from the US Census Bureau, New Hampshire exported a total of $5.1 billion worth of goods in 2017, accounting for just 0.3 percent of all US exports. As the New Hampshire Employment Security, Economic and Labor Market Information Bureau put it, “the total value of exports from New Hampshire is relatively small, ranking 43rd when compared to the other states and the District of Columbia.”

New Hampshire’s number one export? Civilian aviation equipment, though overall telecom and related tech dominate New Hampshire’s export sector.

And if a China/US trade war should ignite, New Hampshire will benefit from the fact that its largest export recipients are in North America, not Asia. Canada and Mexico are the top of the list of nations receiving New Hampshire exports. In fact, when it comes to goods (as opposed to services), New Hampshire exports more to the United Arab Emirates than to China.

If these numbers seem surprisingly low, it’s probably because—like most Americans—you overestimate the role of trade in the overall economy.  While the US exported a robust $1.454 trillion worth of goods and services in 2016, the nation’s GDP that year was $18.6 trillion. That’s more than a drop in the bucket, but it’s still a modest-sized bucket.

The states that rely most on foreign trade tend to be in the South, states like South Carolina, Louisiana and Tennessee. What do they have in common? Agriculture and relatively low-skill manufacturing. New Hampshire ranks 48th in the dollar value of agricultural output by state. Granite State manufacturing is more high skill and tech related.

If New Hampshire’s political and economic leaders really want to impact the state’s manufacturing sector, their priority wouldn’t be exports abroad. It would be lowering energy costs here at home.

Martin O’Malley, former Maryland governor and 2016 Democratic presidential contender, brought a message of unabashed optimism to Tuesday’s “Politics and Eggs” event. Optimism–and liberalism.

“I bring good news,” O’Malley told the crowd at St. Anselm College. “It’s springtime. There’s goodness in this country, and it longs to be called forward.”

The “Politics and Eggs” event hosted by the New England Council and St. Anselm’s Institute of Politics is a mandatory stop on the presidential-contenders New Hampshire circuit.  O’Malley used this return visit to call upon Democrats to embrace the energy and idealism of young Americans. He specifically pointed to the leaders of the #MarchForOurLives rally for gun control, which he attended with his son.

“If you want to know where a country is headed, talk to its young people,” O’Malley said. “What I heard from that stage was the best of America.”

O’Malley made light of his previous less-than-successful bid for the White House, calling his return to the Granite State “a triumph of hope over cruel experience.”  He also took a pot shot at his previous POTUS rivals (“I was the only lifelong Democrat who ran for President in 2016”) and offered praise of a sort for the current resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue:

“Donald Trump is the most effective tool for candidate recruitment we Democrats have ever had.”

On policy, O’Malley toed the progressive line on issues from gun control to immigration to social spending—even calling for an expansion of Social Security at a time when many analysts are concerned about its long-term solvency.

But the specific issue most on the mind of the crowd and the candidate was guns. “America is the only developed nation on the planet to allow people to buy combat assault weapons,” O’Malley said repeatedly throughout his remarks.  When a questioner asked what he would do about school violence “without repealing the Second Amendment,” O’Malley laid out his extensive record on gun control while governor of Maryland: Requiring fingerprints and gun training for all purchases; imposing a mandatory 7-day wait period; banning the sale of magazines that hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition; and banning the sale of what O’Malley insists on calling “combat assault weapons.”

The NRA calls these same guns “45 specific types of commonly owned semiautomatic firearms” and Maryland passed O’Malley’s gun law in 2013 over their strenuous objections.  Interestingly, the homicide rate in Maryland has actually increased since the 2013 gun ban went into effect. In fact, the city of Baltimore alone had almost as many murders in 2017 (343) as the entire state had the last year O’Malley was governor (363). Why would gun crime increase in the wake of a gun ban, and at a faster rate than the nation as a whole?

“It’s hard to measure prevention,” O’Malley said, before laying the blame for increased homicide rates at the feet of the two Baltimore mayors,  Stephanie C. Rawlings-Blake and Catherine Pugh, who were elected after he left the mayor’s office to become governor.

O’Malley claimed there’s “a strong correlation between states that make it harder for pope to buy combat assault weapons and lower rates of both homicides and suicides,” an opinion some researchers do not share.

“In Baltimore there were a number of things we did during the 10-year period [when O’Malley was mayor] we led all cities in the rate of reduction of crime, and I was not able to make many of those things permanent. Upon my leaving, my two successors starting making different policy choices.”

O’Malley paused, then added: “There really wasn’t much journalistic scrutiny about those reversals of policy and as a result a lot of people are being killed again in our poorest neighborhoods.”

So does Martin O’Malley believe that gun control is a winning issue for Democrats in 2020?

“Yes I do. In 2020, and beyond.”

In a new analysis of home value and purchasing power trends, New Hampshire ranks fourth in the nation, with home values up 6.1 percent in the last year alone.  Compared to the national average of a mere 2.3 percent increase, that’s good news for Granite State homeowners. In fact, some people are asking if the news is too good.

Housing prices are frequently mentioned by workers thinking of relocating to New England, in particular younger workers.  While rising home values can make existing homeowners happy, it makes relocating to New Hampshire that much harder for renters and would-be future buyers.

“We can say all day long that we want young people to move back here, but there is no place for them to live where they would like to live.” That’s the view of Carmen Lorentz, executive director of Lakes Region Community Developers. She told the Laconia Daily Sun: 

“Many of the young and talented workers that we are begging to stay or move to New Hampshire do not want to live in an apartment. Many of them want to own a house – that is part of the New Hampshire lifestyle they envision for themselves.”

And with New Hampshire home prices consistently rising faster than both the New England region and the rest of the nation, it makes that vision harder to realize. In an interview on NHPR last month, Executive Director of the New Hampshire Housing Finance Authority Dean Christon, described the NH housing market as “an environment where there’s price pressure and limited inventory of both [housing] up for sale and rental housing.  It affects lower income people more, and it affects people trying to purchase their first home.”

So are rising home values creating a crisis?  Mark Fleming says… not yet. Fleming is Chief Economist for First American Financial Corporation, the company that calculates the Real House Price Index (RHPI) rankings based on income, mortgage rates and an unadjusted house price index.  Fleming told NHJournal.com that, while New Hampshire housing prices are up, they still aren’t “back.”

“Our index for New Hampshire is a 68 on a 100 scale, 100 being the purchasing power of a homeowner in the year 2000,” he says.  “In real terms, New Hampshire is still 32 percent away from getting back to their year 2000 levels.”

A key factor in that relative affordability? New Hampshire incomes, which also rose last year. Personal income in the Granite State grew by 3.5 percent—the fastest in New England.

Still, Fleming says, unless something changes, the housing market could start having a negative impact on the rest of the economy by pricing out both young families and the skilled workers employers need. The issue, he says, isn’t on the demand side—even if interest rates doubled, there would still be a net increase in demand, Fleming estimates. It’s on the supply side.  There just aren’t enough housing units being built in New Hampshire for long-term price stability.

Bob Quinn, Vice President of Government Affairs for the NH Association of Realtors. agrees.

“We believe the best long-term solution is increasing housing stock and thereby maintaining our growing economy,” Quinn told NHJournal.com.  “The most significant impediments to housing from a public policy perspective are restrictive zoning laws. Some communities put up unnecessary obstacles to the development of housing, which increases the cost. We strongly believe in allowing developers to build more densely, therefore accommodating both the desires of home buyers while preserving New Hampshire’s natural resources.”

Data from the New Hampshire Housing Finance Authority appears to back this view. Their February 2018 Housing report found:

• A relatively low inventory of homes for sale, particularly under $300,000
• Housing permits (reflecting construction activity) of multi-family and single-family homes at half the level they were prior to the Great Recession (end of 2007)

In addition to increased supply, Fleming also urges New Hampshire leaders to promote education in high-skill, high-wage jobs.  “Your region is never going to compete on price,” Fleming says. “But you can encourage young people to pursue the high-wage jobs of the future to pay the housing prices of the future.”

The good news is that New Hampshire’s housing assets continue to increase in value. Perhaps the better news is that, with increased inventory and an educated workforce, New Hampshire has the public policy tools to keep from “valuing” itself into a housing crisis.

Is it time to repeal the Second Amendment?  Retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens wrote an op-ed for the New York Times urging just that, and at least one New Hampshire Democrat thinks it’s worth considering.

Rep. Katherine Rogers (D-Merrimack) has long been active in the New Hampshire state house pushing gun control measures (she prefers the phrase “gun violence prevention”) and in an interview with the NH Journal, she said “it’s an interesting discussion that we should have.”

“I think that the United States Constitution is a living, breathing document and it’s always time to revisit and to look at our Constitution,” Rep. Rogers said.

“So I think having this discussions is good, and maybe the op-ed by Justice Stevens leads to a lot of interesting discussion. That’s a good thing. I don’t know if I’m ready to say let’s get rid of the Second Amendment, but I think it’s an interesting discussion for everybody to have,” Rogers said.

Jonathan Weinberg, one of the student leaders of the #MarchForOurLives rallies in New Hampshire singled out Rep. Rogers, along with state senator Martha Hennessey (D-Hanover), for supporting students’ efforts on gun control. Last week, students from the group presented a petition signed by several hundred area students to Gov. Sununu and the state senate urging the legislature to change state law and allow local school districts to declare their schools gun-free zones. The measure failed 14-9.

Meanwhile, the New Hampshire GOP is following the lead of President Trump, seizing on the Stevens op-ed to urge gun-rights supporters to get involved in the 2018 elections.  Just hours after President Trump tweeted about Justice Stevens’ call for repeal (“NO WAY! We need more Republicans in 2018 ad must ALWAYS hold the Supreme Court!”) the NHGOP posted “StopTheGunGrab.com,” featuring a video by party chairwoman Jeanie Forrester. In the video, she warns New Hampshire residents that “The Left is openly advocating the repeal of the Second Amendment…It’s unconscionable.” (See full video below)

Forrester demands elected Democrats like Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, Sen. Maggie Hassan and Rep. Annie Kuster “must denounce this un-American threat to our liberties.”

For their part, Democrats don’t seem worried. Democratic Party Chair Ray Buckley responded to the video by mocking the GOP.

This is not a parody from the @nhdems staff. This is real. Let that sink in and the donate to the https://t.co/9XneCHlKtJ to #VoteThemOut2018. They are stunningly out of touch with reality.   #nhpolitics https://t.co/w84trzZpzb

— Ray Buckley (@ChairmanBuckley) March 28, 2018

Is welcoming a conversation about repealing the Second Amendment and mocking gun-owners concerns a sign that the New Hampshire Democratic Party is moving left on the gun issue, along with their national party?  Do they believe that gun control could be a winning issue in the Granite State?

“Oh, please,” says Republican Bill O’Brien, former Speaker of the NH House, “throw us in that briar patch!” O’Brien believes that even among Democratic voters, support for gun rights in New Hampshire is strong.

“We’re not afraid of guns here,” O’Brien to the NHJournal. “I don’t know who [the Democrats] are talking to with these messages—maybe the academic crowd, college students? Let them run on gun control and see how most voters react.”

If you like laws and sausages, you should never watch either being made. That old adage could be applied to the current session of the New Hampshire General Court.

Drafting and adopting the state budget has been messy as different Republicans have argued passionately for what they believe is in the best interest of the Granite State. But while the process may sometimes be unpleasant to watch, the outcome is generally good and beneficial.

So it is with the Republican compromise budget, which the House of Representatives takes up this week. The budget respects taxpayers while still providing for needed services for New Hampshire’s most vulnerable, such as the mentally ill and those struggling with addiction. Here are four features that you may not have heard about the legislation:

1. Drugs and Alcohol: The budget doubles funding to the Governor’s Commission on Alcohol and Substance Abuse Prevention, Treatment and Recovery. It establishes a youth inpatient and outpatient treatment center in Manchester. And it more than doubles the budget of the Bureau of Drug and Alcohol to help address the state’s opioid crisis.
2. Mental Health: The budget establishes 60 new beds for community treatment options and it creates a fourth rapid response mobile crisis unit to keep hospitals from having to shoulder all the burden for mental health issues.
3. DCYF: The Division of Children, Youth and Families is a system that has failed to do an adequate job of protecting New Hampshire kids and this budget begins to address that problem. It adds new case workers to deal with huge caseloads. It creates an Office of the Child Advocate to provide oversight from outside of the department. And it requires the lead attorney of DCYF to be supervised by our state’s attorney general, which will help when prosecutions are necessary.
4. Rainy Day Fund: The budget would grow our state’s rainy day fund from an anemic $9 million to $100 million, which would be useful in a pinch but would also help shore up New Hampshire’s top rate bond rating, so we can finance debt with very low interest.

Of course, this budget also sets the stage for a small business-friendly economic environment, which will spur better jobs and higher wages. And it invests in our shared future by making major priorities of education and public safety.

This roadmap for the 2018-2019 biennium contains no new taxes of fees. None. In fact, the budget focuses on economic growth by lowering both the business profits tax (BPT) and the business enterprise tax (BET) to allow for a friendlier business environment. Over the next few years, business will be able to grow and reinvest in the economy. The New Hampshire tax code will also be aligned with the federal tax code and allow for 179 more deductions, greatly helping small businesses.

This is all based on realistic revenue projections to create a finically responsible budget with modest increases of 1.8 percent and 2.0 percent over the next two years. This is the kind of sound fiscal management taxpayers have come to expect from Republican leadership in Concord.

As a former chair of the Senate Finance Committee, I know as well as anyone that putting together a budget is challenging work. Recall also that former Gov. Maggie Hassan, now U.S. senator, shamefully vetoed the Republican budget last summer in a harebrained political stunt that blew up in her face. In the end, she was forced to back down and sign the GOP budget.

And as a result New Hampshire presently has the third fastest growing economy in the nation. That’s real leadership and sound fiscal management. The Republican budget is good for the economy, good for working families and great for New Hampshire.

New Hampshire Secretary of State William ‘Bill’ Gardner is widely revered as a bipartisan state official. He has to be since he’s the longest-running secretary of state in the nation and is reelected to his post by an overwhelming majority of Republicans and Democrats alike.

And he takes his job very seriously. He’s in charge of the state department that oversees all general elections, primary elections, voter registration, and recounts within the state, including the First-in-the-Nation primary. With claims of voter fraud in the 2016 election being discussed often by President Donald Trump, Gardner has played a more active role in politics than simply overseeing elections. He’s become a fierce advocate for keeping New Hampshire’s primary status and for tightening voter laws to make sure Granite State voters are the only people voting in the state’s elections.

With that last issue, he’s siding with Republicans who are trying to get a bill passed this legislative session that would define the differences between “residency” and “domicile.” Yet, Gardner is actually a Democrat. He began his career in New Hampshire politics as a Democratic state representative before he was elected secretary of state in 1976 by the Legislature, and he has shown over the years that he’s not afraid to stand up to members of his own party for what he believes is right.

“We’re not denying anyone who shows up at the polls to be able to vote; we’re just saying we want to be able to let everyone know these votes are valid and true,” Gardner told lawmakers when Senate Bill 3, a voting reform bill, was introduced in March.

Democrats and outside groups are pushing the narrative that the GOP bill is a form of voter suppression and would especially discourage college students from voting. But Gardner said he would not support legislation if he thought it would hurt voter turnout.

In fact, he’s so serious about voter integrity that he agreed to join Trump’s national commission to review voting registration and voting processes used in federal elections. Trump ordered the creation of the Commission on Election Integrity that will be chaired by Vice President Mike Pence and co-chaired by Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach.

“There is a reason I’m doing this,” he told WMUR. “I care a lot about this. I’ve spent my whole life dealing with it, and it’s too bad that over half of the people in the country feel that there is vote fraud. Let’s find out why.”

Earlier this year, Trump claimed he lost the popular vote in the November election because “millions” of people voted illegally. He said that he lost New Hampshire’s four electoral votes because “thousands” of people crossed the Massachusetts border “on buses” to vote illegally.

Gardner disagreed with the president, saying there was no widespread election fraud in the state, but there were a few cases of people voting in New Hampshire who shouldn’t have in previous elections.

In 2014, Gardner said he saw illegal voting with his own eyes.

“We have drive-by voting,” he told the New Hampshire Union Leader. “The people that ran the polling place called me over, and said they had three people who didn’t know whether they could vote, and they wanted me to answer the questions. So I go over, there were two young men and a young woman, and they were AmeriCorps [volunteers].”

The woman was from Washington state and said she missed the deadline, but “really wanted to vote.”

“She said she was going back to Washington state the first of December. I said, well that should answer it for yourself as to whether this is now your home,” Gardner said.

She did not ultimately vote, but the two men did. He said he is essentially powerless in these situations unless the Legislature decides to act.

Under SB 3, they allow the secretary of state’s office to investigate a voter registrant’s information if local supervisors are unable to verify a voter’s domicile.

Looking at voter fraud or voter integrity (depending on who you’re talking to) is something Gardner has been wanting to look into for a while. When Republicans introduced a similar bill in the Legislature  in 2015, former Democratic Gov. Maggie Hassan vetoed it, even though Gardner gave it his approval. He was also in favor of instituting a photo ID law when casting a ballot.

Democrats in the state are unhappy with Trump’s new commission, and are surprised that Gardner would agree to participate. The American Civil Liberties Union of New Hampshire called it a “sham” and a “kangaroo commission.”

“Signing this piece of paper will not make Mr. Trump’s false statements about voter fraud true,” said ACLU-NH Executive Director Devon Chaffee. “Our expectation is that, while on this commission, Secretary Gardner will only join conclusions in the commission’s final report that support voting rights and are based on actual proven facts, not unsupported speculation.”

House Democratic Leader Steve Shurtleff is calling on Gardner to assure that New Hampshire taxpayers are not paying for his travel or accommodation when he works on the commission.

“In addition, I would hope that your state time is not used in the pursuit of your work for the commission,” he wrote in a Friday letter. “As you are well aware, many Democrats and Republicans in New Hampshire believe that there is no validity to President Trump’s claims that there was voter fraud in NH. It is my hope that you will bear this in mind when presenting information or otherwise engaging your time on this commission.”

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For the third time this legislative session, a House Democrat switched party affiliation in New Hampshire, highlighting that Democrats are also struggling to remain unified in Concord. It’s been well-documented that House Republicans still have deep wounds from the 2016 election, with two conservative caucuses that have caused trouble for GOP leadership. However, with three lawmakers jumping ship from the party, there are some internal conflicts happening within the Democratic caucus.

Rep. Joseph Stallcop, L-Keene (Credit: N.H. House website)

In total, four lawmakers have changed their party affiliation since the November election. Two Democrats left the party to join the Republican Party and a third left for the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire (LPNH). The fourth representative left the Republican Party for the LPNH.

Rep. Joseph Stallcop of Keene was the latest House members on Wednesday to switch his party affiliation. He switched from the Democratic Party to the LPNH.

“Personally witnessing the situation at Standing Rock showed me the danger of relinquishing power and authority into an institution, while my time in Concord reinforced the ineptitude that can exist by those in charge,” he said. “I originally joined the Democratic Party in hopes of making a difference through critical thinking and my classical liberal viewpoint, yet with the lack of unbiased data in caucuses as well as backlash on votes I’ve independently made, it seems there is no longer a place for me here.”

Rep. Caleb Dyer, L-Pelham (Credit: N.H House website)

LPNH is having a banner year since the November elections. Another lawmaker, Rep. Caleb Dwyer of Pelham switched from the Republican Party to the LPNH in February. The party also garnered enough of the votes in the gubernatorial race to give them official ballot access in 2018.

Max Abramson ran as the Libertarian candidate in 2016, against now-Gov. Chris Sununu and Democratic nominee Colin Van Ostern. He received 4 percent of the vote, the required amount to gain ballot access.

It’s the first time in 20 years that the LPNH had ballot access. When they last had it in the 1990s, the party had four members in the Legislature. Then in 1997, ballot access laws changed to increase the vote threshold needed for a party to retain ballot access from 3 percent to 4 percent.

LPNH Chairman Darryl W. Perry called Stallcop’s switch a “historic day” since it’s the first time in two decades that they have a Libertarian caucus.

Rep. Mariellen MacKay of Nashua changed her Democratic affiliation to Republican in April and Rep. Robert Theberge of Berlin also changed from Democrat to Republican right after the November election.

(L-R) Reps. Mariellen MacKay, R-Nashua, and Robert Theberge, R-Berlin (Credit: N.H. House website)

So now, the House membership is 221 Republicans, 170 Democrats, and two Libertarians. There are six vacancies due to death, resignation, or appointment to a position in Sununu’s administration. One representative has not been officially sworn in yet.

In a House with 400 members, one would think that party changes are pretty common. That’s actually not the case in New Hampshire, or even nationally. According to Ballotpedia, there have only been 79 current legislators in State Houses across the United States who have switched parties since 2007. One of the last people to switch parties in New Hampshire was Sen. Lou D’Allesandro of Manchester. After serving two years as a Republican in the House, in 1998 he ran as a Democrat for the Senate where he still holds a seat and is still a Democrat.

Jumping on the chance to criticize the Democratic Party for losing members, NHGOP Chair Jeanie Forrester blasted out a statement once the news came out on Wednesday that Stallcop was leaving the party.

“Would the last one in the New Hampshire Democrat Party please turn out the lights? Yet another former Democrat has concluded that the party of big government and obstruction is no longer worth being a member of,” she said. “Meanwhile, a significant majority of Granite Staters approve of the job Republican Gov. Chris Sununu is doing in the Corner Office. That’s because working families know that from improving education to investing in infrastructure to strengthening the economy, Republicans are working hard to improve the quality of life for Granite Staters every day.”

House Minority Leader Steve Shurtleff said people shouldn’t read much into three people leaving his caucus.

“It’s just kind of a shakeout,” he told the New Hampshire Union Leader.

However, other Democratic representatives are saying there is a lot of “dissatisfaction” in the caucus.

“Most Democrats would think with the controversy around Trump, we might gain some Republicans, more moderates, and yet we are losing Democrats,” said Rep. Peter Leishman, D-Peterborough.

The current dynamics of the New Hampshire Democratic Party often mirror the national party on what its role should be in GOP-led politics. For the first time in nearly a decade, Democrats are fully the minority party. The U.S. Congress is Republican-run and the White House has a Republican president. The same is true in New Hampshire where Democrats are in the minority of a GOP-legislature and the first Republican governor in 12 years.

The problem is that there are differences of opinion between Democratic lawmakers on what their role is in the New Hampshire House. They’re trying to figure out how to navigate their position and get their legislative priorities passed.

At the national level, many Democrats have been adopting the “resistance” mindset by voting against any GOP bill or watching Republicans fight amongst themselves, as exhibited during the health care debate.

So far, New Hampshire House Democrats have been largely sitting back and watching Republican Party infighting derail the GOP’s own political agenda. Yet, some Democrats want the party to push back more against the Republicans.

This conflict was on full display during the chaotic budget debate in April. After the House failed to pass a budget on the first day due to conservatives voting against it, some Democrats were willing to work with Republican leadership to get something passed. Two Democrats took to the House floor to encourage its caucus to vote for the state budget rider, which was in direct opposition to what Shurtleff told them to do. In the end, 14 Democrats voted in favor of the bill to get a budget passed, but it failed 169-177.

While their party disagreements aren’t as noticeable as the Republicans, its crucial that there is unity within the caucus if they want to block future GOP bills, like they did with right-to-work earlier this year. It’s also important when it comes time to craft a message for elections next year.

One of their next big tests will be in June when the final state spending plan comes back to the House. If conservatives still vote against the budget, House Speaker Shawn Jasper might need to ask them for support. What they do in that moment could set the tone for 2018.

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The St. Anne-St. Augustin Parish, a Manchester Catholic church, is defying the wishes of the state’s Roman Catholic bishop by declaring itself a sanctuary church for undocumented immigrants, following the lead of hundreds of other congregations in the United States that are looking to protect people from President Donald Trump’s beefed up immigration policies.

Bishop Peter Libasci of the Diocese of Manchester sent a letter to clergy earlier this month stating that congregations should not allow undocumented immigrants to be housed within their churches to avoid being deported. The letter came in response to a meeting with several priests who expressed concerns about increased immigration enforcement.

“We have not designated our churches as ‘sanctuary’ churches in this sense of the word because it creates a false hope to tell individuals living in fear that we can protect them from law enforcement actions,” Libasci wrote.

Parents fearing possible deportation have provided notarized instructions to St. Anne-St. Augustin staff, spelling out family finances and who would care for their children in case they are picked up by U.S. Department of Homeland Security Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers.

Eva Castillo, executive director of the New Hampshire Alliance for Immigrants and Refugees, said she was not surprised by the Bishop’s letter, but was “disappointed” the Bishop was “quick to dismiss” the idea of sanctuary churches.

“I find it frustrating because I went to the same Catholic school from kindergarten to high school and I always noticed that they were quick throw money, but their equal treatment and welcoming part was not there,” she told NH Journal. “I felt that from way back then. I always say we need to put faith into action and bring it out of the pew.”

Castillo noted that besides St. Anne-St. Augustin, she’s had difficulty working with other Catholic churches in New Hampshire, but there has been interest from other Quaker and Unitarian Universalist congregations about how they could help the cause. On the Seacoast, she’s spoken with members of the United Church of Christ and other Indonesian churches.

“It’s not only giving residence to somebody, she said. “You can just give support to places where people are staying. You could have a rapid response team if ICE is in ‘X, Y’ place and have a group of people there to witness the activity. Not to stop it, but to bear witness of what’s going on.”

The balance between helping those in need and breaking the law has some churches unsure about which action to take. Yet, for Bishop Libasci, he said there are two definitions to the term “sanctuary churches” and parishes should not be letting undocumented immigrants live in their church.

“Some use this term and mean what I have described above — a welcoming community ready to offer immediate aid to anyone in need. In these works, of course, we will always be involved,” he wrote in the letter. “But others use this term ‘sanctuary’ to refer to churches that will allow individuals in fear of deportation to live in the church. ‘Sanctuary’ is not a designation recognized by law and provides no such legal protection.”

By law, places of worship are not allowed to harbor undocumented immigrants, yet more than 800 churches and faith groups nationwide have protested recent actions taken by Trump to curtail illegal immigration to the United States and declared themselves sanctuary churches.

Soon after his inauguration Trump, signed two executive orders temporarily suspending immigration from multiple predominately Muslim countries, but both orders are being held up by federal judges as unconstitutional.

In Denver, Jeanette Vizguerra resides in a makeshift bedroom at the First Unitarian Church because she’s concerned that immigration enforcement agents would arrest her elsewhere. Churches in Chicago and Phoenix have also offered shelter to other undocumented immigrants who are fearful of being deported.

ICE officials with a warrant can arrest undocumented immigrants regardless of whether they’re at a church, synagogue, mosque, or other house of worship. The Immigration and Nationality Act prohibits anyone from knowingly harboring an undocumented immigrant “in any place, including any building,” and those convicted could spend years in prison.

However, ICE generally avoids arrests at “sensitive locations,” like churches, because prosecuting pastors could create unfavorable headlines and result in long legal battles.

While several cities and towns in the United States, including many in New Hampshire, are debating whether or not to become “sanctuary cities” — or places where local law enforcement limit their cooperation with federal officials on immigration enforcement — Castillo said the best chance to help undocumented immigrants is at the church level. She isn’t expecting too many cities or towns to publicly declare themselves as sanctuary cities, due to New Hampshire’s small Latino population.

According to the Pew Research Center’s Hispanic Trends, the Latino community comprised 3 percent of the state’s population in 2014, although that number is growing in size.

Three small Granite State towns — Harrisville, Dublin, and Lyme — voted at town meetings last month to declare themselves as “sanctuary towns.” However, bigger areas like Durham, home to the University of New Hampshire, and Portsmouth failed to pass similar measures. Students at Dartmouth College in Hanover passed around a petition after the November election seeking for the university to declare itself a “sanctuary school.”

Castillo remains hopeful that the Bishop changes his mind and allows Catholic churches to become safe havens for undocumented immigrants. She said she is in the process of scheduling a meeting with him soon.

“We realize that this is a big commitment on the immigrants and the people to house them,” she said. “It is really civil disobedience. That’s what we tell them. We aren’t disguising the whole notion. We aren’t advocating for one thing over another. They can all do their own part in what they are most comfortable doing.”

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The rankings for the most popular governors are out and the top 10 are all Republicans. New Hampshire’s own Gov. Chris Sununu isn’t far behind the pack, though, coming in at 16th, highlighting a decent start to the Republican’s first term in the corner office.

Sununu has a 55 percent approval rating, with 22 percent disapproving of the first Republican governor in 12 years, according to a Morning Consult poll released Tuesday.

The New Hampshire online survey was taken between January and March with 644 voters and has a margin of error of 4 percent.

That time period is important because it’s essentially the first three months of Sununu’s term. Politically, a lot has happened during that time and the results could depend on when people were surveyed. For example, Sununu made right-to-work legislation a priority, even mentioning its importance in his inaugural address. Yet, the measure failed in House, where moderate Republicans and representatives with union ties sided with Democrats to kill the bill.

There have been bright spots for the governor too, and these could have led to his positive approval rating. He picked Gordon MacDonald to replace Joseph Foster as attorney general, and MacDonald was widely seen as a great pick across party lines. He was confirmed unanimously by the Executive Council last week, with three Republicans and two Democrats voting for him.

The recent budget battle also probably did not factor into the results either. For the first time in recent memory, the House failed to pass a budget. Conservatives banded together to defeat the House Republican leadership’s budget plan, forcing them to recess before the House could pass a budget. Democrats are trying to paint Sununu as the loser of this budget battle since he couldn’t get his own party, which has a 53-member majority in the House, to pass his, or some version of his, budget.

However, Sununu also stands the most to gain from the House’s failure. The Senate Finance Committee will now begin its part of the budget process and instead of using the House version (since there is none), they’re using Sununu’s original budget proposal as a starting point. The House previously took out his funding for full-day kindergarten, removed increased monies for the Alcohol Fund, and even cut his scholarship program for high school students to further their education. The Senate has been more open to Sununu’s priorities, already passing several bills that honored the governor’s budget wishes.

It remains to be seen what the Senate ultimately does with Sununu’s budget, but if his campaign promises remain in the final version, his approval numbers could increase.

Despite his positive approval rating, Sununu still has a high percentage of voters who don’t know about him. He actually ranked 3rd of all the governors in the country for “most unknown,” coming in at 23 percent. The most unknown governor was Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb of Indiana at 27 percent. That’s expected though for many freshman governors, as voters learn more about them throughout their terms.

Nationally though, Morning Consult’s poll found that more voters are happier with their new Republican governors than with their former Democratic ones.

Sununu, who replaced Democratic Gov. Maggie Hassan, is 3 points more popular than she was before she headed to Washington to serve in the U.S. Senate. Her approval rating was at 52 percent in the fall.

It also appears that Hassan is struggling with her approval numbers. Morning Consult also looked at the most popular senators in the country and Hassan was ranked in the middle of the pack. Her approval rating is 5 points lower than former Republican Sen. Kelly Ayotte, who Hassan replaced in the 2016 election.

According to the poll, Hassan has a 53 percent approval rating among Granite Staters, while Ayotte’s approval was at 58 percent in September. Their disapproval ratings are similar with Hassan at 31 percent compared to Ayotte’s 32 percent before the election. Yet, despite her four years as governor, 16 percent of voters don’t know who she is or have no opinion of her, while only 10 percent said the same of Ayotte in the fall.

New Hampshire Republicans have been trying to call Hassan a rubber stamp of the Democratic Party. They have also called the freshman senator an “intern” of her New Hampshire colleague U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, since they have similar voting records.

Shaheen is more popular than Hassan, according to the poll. Shaheen’s approval rating is at 57 percent, with 30 percent disapproval, and 13 percent not knowing anything about her or having no opinion.

Hassan and Shaheen aren’t up for reelection in 2018, but Sununu is already expected to face some challengers if he seeks a second term. Democrat Steve Marchard already jumped into the 2018 gubernatorial race, making his candidacy official last week. Libertarian candidate Jilletta Jarvis also threw her name into the fray in March.

In the Morning Consult survey, Republican Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker topped the list as the most popular governor with a 75 percent approval rating. The least popular governor was New Jersey Republican Gov. Chris Christie who had a stunning 25 percent approval rating with 71 percent disapproval.

While more Republican governors maintained positive ratings, according to the poll, it’s important to note that Republicans control 33 governorships compared to the Democrats’ 16 governors.

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When I ran for and served in office, it was because I wanted to bring a new, younger perspective to the political process. There were voices that I felt weren’t being heard above the noise created by the same, tired, old politics of the past. I felt that we needed new solutions to address critical issues in our state. We needed to tackle these problems to move our state and our economy forward to create more prosperity and a higher quality of life for everyone in New Hampshire — particularly for young people like me. One of those critical areas was energy.

Energy is different from most other issues dealt with in Concord, because it has the ability to touch our lives in so many different ways.

One of the great developments of the past decade has been an energy renaissance in America. Thanks to technological advances, we’re now able to produce so much energy, particularly from natural gas, that the United States has become the world’s leading producer of energy.

That’s right. We produce more than Russia, more than China, and more than the OPEC nations of the Middle East.

And natural gas is touching our lives in more ways than most people realize.

Natural gas helps to heat and power manufacturing facilities that produce busses for public transportation, components for bicycles, the clothing and shoes that we wear; it’s used in making our cell phones and computers, and the furniture, carpeting and wood floors in our homes.  It is used in making fertilizer.  And of course it cooks the food we eat.

All of this is made possible by natural gas.

On top of all of that, natural gas is improving our environment. Because it is displacing coal as an electric generator, carbon emissions have fallen to near 20-year lows as natural gas production has increased.

Clean-burning natural gas helps to empower other renewable, green energy options by providing power when the wind doesn’t blow or the sun doesn’t shine. With natural gas providing a solid foundation for our state’s energy needs, we’re able to operate with a comprehensive, all-of-the-above energy strategy that includes solar and wind power. This only serves to further protect our environment, while balancing those interests with maintaining a high quality of life for everyone in New Hampshire.

But there’s still work to be done so that our state’s economy can take full advantage of the benefits of natural gas.

The rapid expansion of natural gas production has created a problem for our state and our region. We don’t currently have energy infrastructure that is sufficient to handle the increased load of natural gas that needs to be transported and then delivered to our homes, businesses and factories as well as our electric generators.

Our energy infrastructure is out of date, and we need to make it a priority to bring it into the 21st century.

The abundance of natural gas has reduced energy costs in states from coast to coast, but because our energy infrastructure is inadequate to meet current demand, we’re paying higher than necessary energy costs.

That’s money that could be put back into our local communities, donated to charity, saved for retirement, or put aside for unexpected health care costs.

Right now, our state’s high energy costs are a significant driver of jobs leaving New Hampshire. We need to take action to make sure that these jobs stay in our state, for my generation and for everyone who lives and works in New Hampshire.

The way we begin to do that is to tackle this problem head-on. It’s time that we make updating our energy infrastructure a priority in New Hampshire and New England.