Who Decides What New Hampshire Owes its Kids?

As a parent and former educator, I spend more time thinking about schools, property taxes, and whether families will be able to afford to live here than I do about the New Hampshire Supreme Court.

That was my mistake.

Something big is happening in Concord, largely unnoticed. It involves a 30-year-old constitutional promise about public education, a Supreme Court going through upheaval, and the five elected officials on the Executive Council whose responsibilities many people can't explain.

Together, these issues must get our attention.

For 35 years, one ruling has kept property taxes from being even worse.

For over three decades, one thing has stood between our residents and even higher property bills: the Claremont decisions. In 1993 and 1997, the New Hampshire Supreme Court ruled that the state has a constitutional duty to guarantee every child an adequate education and that the state must help pay for it.

That ruling is the only reason there is any meaningful state-level funding for public schools at all. But even with Claremont in place, we have never really lived up to the promise. 

New Hampshire ranks 50th in the nation in state support for local schools. The state covers about 27% of the total cost of educating our kids. The federal government covers about 12%. The rest—the majority—comes out of your property tax bill.

Our thin Claremont guardrail is about to disappear

On Friday, August 14, NH Attorney General John Formella's office filed a 125-page brief asking the NH Supreme Court to overturn the Claremont decisions outright. According to school-funding experts, it's the first time the state has asked the court to overturn Claremont rather than just limit it.

Don’t write this off as a fight between lawyers. If the state wins, many of our communities could face even higher property taxes, tighter school budgets, and fewer opportunities for our kids. And as a result, businesses will find it harder to attract good people to work in New Hampshire.

Republicans quietly stacked the court to make this possible—with the Executive Council's approval

If this sounds familiar, it should.

For decades, millions of Americans treated Roe v. Wade as a permanent fixture. Its opponents understood something its defenders forgot: judges are human, and the people who put them on the bench matter enormously. They organized around that insight for years. Eventually the court changed, and a 50-year-old law guaranteeing a woman’s right to choose changed with it.

The same thing has been happening here in New Hampshire, quietly, with our Supreme Court—and with Claremont as the target.

Governors Sununu and Ayotte have stacked our Supreme Court in a way that breaks with New Hampshire's tradition of keeping a 3-2 bipartisan split. 

And the Executive Council—including my opponent Janet Stevens—allowed it to happen.

While the Governor nominates our Supreme Court justices, the five-member Executive Council confirms them—or rejects them. Every judge that will decide whether Claremont stays or goes sits on that bench because the Executive Council approved them, often along party lines.

Corruption on the Court complicates the matter

Now, the very court that will decide Claremont's fate is in the middle of an ethics scandal.

In September, Chief Justice Gordon MacDonald resigned from the NH Supreme Court after admitting three violations of the judicial code of conduct. The violations involved a nearly $50,000 payout to one of his top aides, and three of the four justices still on the court are implicated in the same scandal.

And this is the second scandal in just two years! Justice Anna Barbara Hantz Marconi left the bench in February, after being convicted of a misdemeanor for bringing up a criminal investigation into her husband with Governor Sununu.

The Executive Council confirmed every one of these justices. And it will decide whether to confirm the next one.

Your children's schools are on the line

Here's where that leaves us. The future of school funding in New Hampshire is in the hands of a court stacked by one party and caught up in scandal. And the Executive Council approved every seat on it.

If Claremont falls, the state walks away from its duty to our kids. The cost doesn't go away—it lands on your property tax bill.

Who chooses and vets our judges matters

In New Hampshire, we distrust concentrated power. We expect public authority to be earned. We don't like insider deals in Concord, from either party, being made away from public view.

Those same instincts should apply to judges, the Executive Council, and any other part of government.

A seat on the court should never be a reward for political loyalty. It should demand independent thinking, real skill and sound judgment. And an Executive Council seat isn't just for show. It carries real power to shape New Hampshire law for decades.

Voters should judge both accordingly.

This fall, ask your Executive Council candidate what they look for in a judge. Ask what judicial independence means to them, and whether they'd ever vote against a nominee from their own party's governor. Ask candidates for Governor what kind of judges they'd appoint.

These are questions about how our government works and how we vote for candidates for Governor and Executive Council.

And the fight over school funding makes them urgent.

For 30 years, Claremont has promised every child in every town an adequate education. Whether that promise holds depends on who sits on the court, and on who we elect to put them there.