Gerrymandering harms both parties and the New Hampshire Public

That means that four Republican Executive Council members need not care what 48% of New Hampshire residents think. Not so, radicals within the GOP. In fact, some of these radicals disrupted an executive council meeting to the point that some were arrested. Still, Council members complied with protestors demands and rejected $27 million in federal monies for vaccination program. That is because, if the 12% or so who support extreme measures left the Republican wing to support an independent candidate, Republicans would be left with only 40% of the vote. So, because districts were gerrymandered in 2010, the extremist minority wields more power than Democrats and more-centrist Republicans combined! 
        Districts are likely to become even more skewed toward Republicans with the upcoming redistricting. Rumor has it that Congressman Pappas’ district will be recarved so that he and Congresswoman Kuster live in the same district. The Executive Council Districts may be left intact since they are already heavily skewed in the GOP’s favor. But Senate and House districts will probably be shifted to try to gain a veto-proof majority, just in case a Democrat wins the governoship. Gubernatorial races are not affected by gerrymandering since everyone in the state votes in a single race.
        Open Democracy and other non-profits have combined to support the creation of fair redistricting maps through the Mapathon Project. They began by convening citizen meetings to determine which were the crucial factors that align towns’ interests. First choice was school districts. They also considered the Constitutional requirement that towns with populations large enough to qualify for their own representative should not be split and combined into a district with any adjoining towns instead. This is a popular technique for diluting the power of a town’s voters.
       Below are two senate district maps from the Mapathon Project Report. The one on the left shows the gerrymandered districts that resulted in Republicans winning 14 of 24 seats with only 50% of votes. The one on the right was drawn based on criteria shown.

      In 2018, a bill passed with bipartisan support that would have set up an independent redistricting commission, something like the Mapathon Project. Governor Sununu appeared ready to sign the bill, starting plans for a signing ceremony, according to Louise Spencer of Kent Street Coalition. However, after receiving a call from Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin, head of the National Republican Redistricting Trust, the governor purportedly changed his mind and vetoed the bill. The legislature could not muster the two-thirds majority needed to override the veto.
          Ms. Spencer tried to gain access to communications around this change-of-heart. Since she failed, she has sued the governor’s office. (During the ongoing investigation and court proceedings, it was discovered that Governor Sununu, rather than retaining documents for public transparency, requires all emails to be destroyed within 30 days.)
           Regardless, redrawing the districts is being done by the House Special Committee on Redistricting, with includes state senate members. Since Republicans control both houses, they form the majorities representing each body in the committee. The Committee has been seeking input at public meetings in each county before drawing up maps. Reluctantly, after much public pushback, they have also agreed to vet their maps for public feedback before finalizing them. Official submission is due in January.
      Can we show enough Committee members that gerrymandering hurts the non-extremist majority of their party as well as Democrats? We should certainly try, because the real losers are we, the public, suffering from unnecessary divisiveness and radical laws and decisions.