04/07/2026
Dover Representative Alice Wade (Alice for NH) recent Op Ed: Accountability is dead in the New Hampshire House
Apr 3, 2026
Things that used to end political careers overnight are a weekly occurrence in the New Hampshire House of Representatives these days, and yet the only ones receiving punishments seem to be Democrats.
Last week, Representative Travis Corcoran of Weare replied to another representative’s message about a karaoke event by saying: “We need a final solution for theater kids in politics.” That representative was Jessica Grill of Manchester, who is also Jewish and was my seatmate at the State House for most of last year.
This is far from Rep. Corcoran’s first time making these sorts of comments. He also made a request for State Representative Luz Bay from Dover, who is a naturalized U.S. citizen from the Philippines, to be deported. I happen to carpool to Concord with Luz as we are both state reps from Dover. These are his colleagues, fellow elected officials, that he has been making these threats against.
In 2023, Rep. Corcoran sent out a message encouraging more people to use the n-word. “We must all say or type the word... in a public place, as a declaration that the progs can’t control our thoughts or our behaviors — EVEN IF WE DISLIKE THE WORD.” It just keeps going.
In any other year, with House leadership that had any kind of backbone, the Governor would have called for his resignation. Instead Gov. Kelly Ayotte has been silent. The Speaker of the House Sherman Packard came out with a statement condemning the remarks, but no actual action has been taken to reprimand Corcoran. And he’s not the only one.
In January this year, screenshots were leaked from a House group chat on education where Representative Kristin Noble said, “When we have segregated schools we can add all the fun stuff lol, imagine the scores though if we had schools for them and some for us.”
It turns out, Rep. Noble is also the chair of the House Education Policy and Administration Committee. After this came out, there was immediate public outcry, but her response was only to double down on her message while claiming that by segregated schools she was referring to political segregation.
Segregated schools have only ever referred to one thing in American politics, segregation by race, and nothing in the context of her message indicated anything to the contrary. After her comments went public, Majority Leader Jason Osborne defended her and joked about how Democrats should agree with her sentiment that we should segregate schools based on political affiliation. To this day, Rep. Noble still serves as the chair of the Education Policy and Administration Committee.
A few years ago, Representative Kenneth Weyler shared a paper that he believed COVID-19 vaccines contained some sort of tentacled creatures and that the vaccine had killed millions of people. During a committee hearing, he tried to argue with the commissioner of Health and Human Services and said without evidence that COVID hospitalizations were primarily people who were vaccinated. In 2016, he implied that all Muslims who attend a mosque are supporting terrorism and shouldn’t be allowed to receive public benefits.
For those and other reasons, he resigned as the chair of the House Finance Committee under pressure from Republican leadership, but only a few years later and with no indication he’s changed any of his behavior, he is now back as the chair of the House Finance Committee. Rep Weyler has served in the New Hampshire House on and off since 1990, this is not new behavior.
In early March, the Free State Project hosted an event called the New Hampshire Liberty Forum. Headlining that event was Jason Osborne, the House Majority Leader, alongside Representative Travis Corcoran. Joining them was Jeremy Kauffman, who recently sent a public death threat against former governor candidate Andru Volinsky and CD-1 candidate Christian Urrutia. Kauffman later said, “Yes. It is morally legitimate to kill any politician who poses a credible threat of introducing an income tax for New Hampshire.”
Later at that same forum event, Jason Osborne had this to say about how he wields his power in comparison to what he tells the public.
“Sometimes you have to go on the 6 o’clock news and have to say with a straight face something that you don’t actually believe.”
This is Donald Trump’s model of government. Never admit you did anything wrong, no matter how egregious. Never take accountability; just plow forward to the next controversy so people forget the last one.
We can no longer count on the integrity of our Republican elected officials to determine when they’ve done something unconscionable. We cannot count on our governor to act as an actual leader in the face of the horrible actions of her caucus members. We must enforce our own accountability on them as voters in November, and pay closer attention to who we’re sending to elected office to begin with.
Alice Wade (D-Dover) is an aerospace engineer representing Strafford - District 15.
