NH House Progressive Caucus

02/08/2022

The New Hampshire Progressive Caucus full-heartedly believes in reproductive justice. Reproductive justice means that all people, regardless of race, class, or gender, have the right to make autonomous reproductive decisions and should have the resources and support to do so.

In line with this, we strongly support the three proactive pieces of reproductive rights legislation coming before the NH House next week. These include HB1673, the abortion ban repeal; HB1674, the Access to Abortion-care Act; and CACR18, New Hampshire’s Reproductive Liberty Amendment. The last one is being sponsored by all Progressive Caucus members.

Constitutional protections for reproductive rights are the gold standard. That is why we have reintroduced New Hampshire’s Reproductive Liberty Amendment, CACR18, in honor of Rosie Jimenez. In 1977, post Roe v. Wade, Jimenez died after she was denied access to an abortion. Unable to afford the cost out of pocket, she was also unable to use Medicaid funds for the legal procedure and was forced to resort to a dangerous illegal abortion that took her life. New Hampshire’s Reproductive Liberty Amendment provides constitutional protection ensuring that the state shall not infringe or unduly inconvenience the right to reproductive medical decisions. CACR18 would help pave the way to remove existing restrictions on abortion in NH and protect people from state interference in the right to have children.

We must overturn NH’s abortion ban and stop further restrictions. We must also plant the seeds for comprehensive reproductive justice. Larger goals will never be achieved if we don’t plant real seeds for them. Incremental change legislation and big picture legislation that gives us what we really want go hand in hand. It is exciting to see reproductive justice activists coming together to support both.

This legislation is being introduced by all progressive caucus members including: Amanda Elizabeth Toll, Progressive Caucus Communications Officer; Manny Espitia, President of the New Hampshire Young Democrats; Rebecca McWilliams, NHYDC Executive Board Member; Sherry Frost, Co-chair of NH Progressive Coalition; Tim Smith, Progressive Caucus Co-Chair; Chuck Grassie, Progressive Caucus Co-Chair; Josh Query, NHYDC Vice Chair; and Debra Altschiller, long time reproductive rights champion in the NH House.

Again, we want to emphasize that constitutional standards are the gold standard on this issue. As progressives, we will join the fight for incremental change, but we will also always go for the gold.

06/04/2021

The New Hampshire House Progressive Caucus (NHHPC) is appalled that today the New Hampshire House passed SB137. This bill, as amended, will deny tipped workers any benefit of an increase in the federal minimum wage. This a workers' rights issue, racial justice issue, and feminist issue, as the majority of tipped workers are women. We are proud of our caucus co-chair Josh Adjutant, who spoke powerfully in solidarity with tipped workers, and leadership team member Maria Perez, for her incredible advocacy on behalf of this group.

We are sick and tired of public policy that harms poor people and exacerbates the extreme income inequality that already exists in our state. The NHHPC will continue the fight to raise the wage and protect workers from harassment.

06/04/2021

The New Hampshire House Progressive Caucus (NHHPC) is elated that the full House did the right thing in defeating SB61, a union busting law misleadingly touted as a “Right to Work” (RTW). We know that over time, RTW legislation leads to lower wages and weaker unions. Workers are the backbone of the American economy, and organizing has bettered their lives. Unions have brought us the weekend, child labor laws, sexual harassment laws, and countless other worker protections. The NHHPC will always stand with workers and their right to unionize.

04/13/2021

On Friday, April 9th, after a long 3-day marathon, the NH House had a tremendous number of bills to get through. Any bill that was not considered on Friday would be dead. Looking at the schedule, Representative Joshua Adjutant saw we would not likely get to HB177, a bill to protect state parks by creating a buffer zone from landfills.



At this point, Rep. Adjutant, our Progressive House Caucus co-chair, spoke with his fellow co-chair Rep. Chuck Grassie and decided to encourage party leadership to special order the bill. In agreement that this was the bill to go for, they consulted with Representative Suzanne Smith, Progressive Caucus co-chair, Representative Tim Smith, and Democratic Minority Leader, Representative Renny Cushing who also agreed on the plan and worked with the Republican House leadership to move the bill forward on the House calendar.



Ultimately, in a roll call vote on the bill, a few Republicans joined with an overwhelming majority of House Democrats to pass HB177. This was a huge victory, and one that shows that when progressive politicians work with the progressive social movement and environmental activists, they can get good legislation passed. Activists across the state did such a tremendous job of applying pressure to their representatives to vote for this bill, and politicians knew they would be held accountable if they did not support HB177.



We are also immensely proud of the work done by our colleagues in the leadership of the NH House Progressive Caucus, who worked quickly with Democratic Leadership to get this bill moved on to the NH Senate.

04/05/2021

This week, the New Hampshire House will vote on a state budget. The New Hampshire House Progressive Caucus is deeply concerned about the 2021 budget in its current form. This budget irresponsibly cuts the business enterprise tax, the business profits tax, the rooms and meals tax, and the interest and dividends tax resulting in a $100 million revenue decline for the state. Consequently, there will be massive cuts to social services and education. Costs will shift to towns, likely forcing them to increase property taxes, which will disproportionately harm folks on fixed incomes.

The people of New Hampshire deserve a state budget that invests the health, education, recovery, opportunity, and vitality of our communities. In line with this, we endorse the NH People’s Budget, which was drafted by a coalition of social justice organizations including NH Voices of Faith, the American Friends Service Committee, Granite State Organizing Project, Rights & Democracy NH, Granite State Progress, 350NH, Kent Street Coalition, Unitarian Universalist Action NH, NH Council of Churches, the NH Youth Movement, The Episcopal Church of New Hampshire, Change for Concord, and the NH Conference United Church of Christ Economic Justice Mission Group.

The People’s Budget demands we invest in our recovery from COVID-19 pandemic, in real economic security, in our state workers, in adequately funding education (including adult education), in our young adults, in people with disabilities and their families, in our children along with their parents and caregivers, in our elders, and in comprehensive healthcare, including but not limited to mental health, reproductive health, and dental health.

We are tremendously grateful to the organizations and activists who have brought forward this proposal, which will genuinely benefit all Granite Staters. We see you, we hear you, and we will amplify your voice within the legislature.

03/02/2021

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. – Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

The New Hampshire House Progressive Caucus is deeply disturbed by Republican Rep. Dick Marston comment’s referring to members of the GLBTQ+ community as “some deviant sexuality.” This comment came during a public hearing in the Criminal Justice Committee on HB238, which sought to outlaw the GLBTQ Panic Defense. We stand 100% in solidarity with the q***r community and will fight within the legislature for their rights and dignity. Rep. Dick Marston’s comments are reflective of bigotry and should have no place in public policy. We call for his immediate resignation.

03/01/2021

The New Hampshire Progressive House Caucus is dedicated to working to advance public policy that promotes social, environmental, and economic justice within the NH legislature.

On Saturday February 27, 2021, the Caucus elected the following leadership team to serve:

Co-chairs: Joshua Adjutant, Tim Smith, and Chuck Grassie
At-Large: Sherry Frost, Maria Perez, and Ellen Read
Whip: Nicole Klein Knight
Communications officer: Amanda Elizabeth Toll

The newly elected leadership team and Caucus members are ready to fight boldly to advance progressivism in New Hampshire.

12/10/2018

This national trend has been happening in New Hampshire as well. We've seen a lot of state-level politicians try to describe themselves as "progressives" despite not supporting progressive reforms or more than 2 or 3 "left of center" issue positions.

Not all Democrats are progressives - and that's fine, its totally ok to be a more centrist Democrat, but truth in advertising matters and it seems a lot of the centrists have seen that the progressive brand is a strong one and have tried to co-opt it for more centrist/conservative candidates and reps by diluting it's meaning to simply being "to the left of Attila the Hun".

Rest assured, we are united against such misleading tactics. While there is no single litmus test to the progressive brand, we'll be working hard to vote on and publish a NH House Progressive Caucus platform to be very clear about where we stand and help identify NH House progressives.

In advance of 2020, the left wants to make sure candidates aren’t claiming the progressive label without supporting the cause.

11/26/2018

It's hard to breathe free when the air is filled with tear gas.

The United States halted all border traffic on Sunday at the busy crossing betwe...