New Hampshire Election Report

While Republicans nationally enjoyed a wave election, Republican federal candidates in New Hampshire underperformed relative to other states. Scott Brown lost very narrowly to incumbent Jeanne Shaheen, dogged throughout the campaign with the "carpetbagger" label. The highly conservative, hawkish Marilinda Garcia also lost in the second congressional district, my district and the more left-leaning one …

New NH PAC Seeks to Transform GOP into “Party of Liberty”

And there's real money behind it, with more (hopefully) to come: As for its goal, here is how Day put it in his news release: “Crushing debt, unfunded entitlements, the government takeover of healthcare, overregulation, the decaying of our public schools, and massive government intrusion into our private lives are a direct assault on our …

Marijuana: The Political Class vs. Everybody Else

Marc blogged the other day about the New York Times editorial board's endorsement of repealing federal marijuana prohibition, just months after having rejected that step. Now, this isn't quite the same as endorsing marijuana legalization - just returning it to the states - but it is a significant step nonetheless. Still, they are well behind …

“Infiltrating municipal and state elective office to make radical and anarchistic changes”

Are libertarians and classical liberals who move to New Hampshire radical extremist anarchist colonizing subversive treasonous subhuman alien life forms? There's been some nasty politics in Bedford, New Hampshire, where a member of the local political establishment has been hurling epithets on his cable access show at two locals of libertarian views who moved to …

The Latest from New Hampshire and the FSP

Will May has done some really interesting analysis of roll-call voting in the New Hampshire legislature. Recently he did an analysis of where Free Stater legislators fall on the left-right spectrum as revealed by W-NOMINATE data (this procedure places legislators on a dimension of votes as revealed by correlations in voting behavior, not an "objective" …

A Story of Decline

Fellow Pileus blogger Jason Sorens (along with his collaborator William Ruger) have gained some attention with their “Freedom in the 50 States,” a project that ranks the states based on a number of indicators (see Jason's blog entry here). Although my state of residence, Connecticut, is number 40 in the rankings, there are some long-term …

Interstate Protectionism and the Dormant Commerce Clause

All 50 states ban the direct sales of motor vehicles from manufacturers to consumers. The politics of this regrettable policy are clear: auto dealers are powerful political players in every state, while only a few states actually have manufacturing facilities. Banning direct manufacturer sales benefits dealers while hurting manufacturers and consumers. State governments continue to …

New Hampshire Supports Legalizing Marijuana

An interesting new poll from Public Policy Polling shows strong support for marijuana reform in New Hampshire: For legalization (taxing and regulating marijuana like alcohol, with licensed stores): 53%. Opposed: 37%. For decriminalization (replacing criminal penalties for possession of less than an ounce with a fine): 62%. Opposed: 27%. For medical marijuana (allowing seriously or …

Should State Parties Change Their Names?

In Canada, provincial parties are totally organizationally independent of federal parties and may not even have the same names. Thus, the British Columbia Liberal Party has generally been right-of-center, and British Columbia Liberals tend to vote Conservative at the federal level. Quebec Liberals have generally been more Quebec-nationalist/decentralist than the federal Liberals. Most provinces have …

Puerto Rico Status Referendum

Media are reporting the results of the Puerto Rico status referendum as if the statehood option had won. Now, it may indeed be the case that the resident commissioner will present legislation of accession to the Union in the House of Representatives, but only an oddly structured ballot devised by the pro-statehood party allowed the …

The “New Hampshire Advantage”: Nearly Killed Off in 2009-10

Here is what my coauthor William Ruger and I wrote about New Hampshire in the 2011 edition of Freedom in the 50 States: Index of Personal and Economic Freedom: New Hampshire is by our count the freest state in the country. Depending on weights, however, it really shares the slot with South Dakota. New Hampshire …

From the Department of Backhanded Compliments

Apparently NH lefties are passing around this lengthy condemnation of the Free State Project. Much of it, though, reads like something that could be put in an FSP recruiting brochure: Free Staters in NH are generally intelligent, focused and diligent people, who are sincerely interested in promoting personal responsibility in its broadest meaning. They are …

Walker, Republicans Dominate in Wisconsin Recall (Updated)

As I write this, Republican Scott Walker is flirting with a 60-40% landslide victory over Democrat Tom Barrett in the Wisconsin recall election. The GOP state senators up for recall are also all leading by 20%+ margins. While the counting is early yet and those margins may come down (even though the races have been …

NH Legislature Passes School Choice by Veto-Proof Majority

The New Hampshire House and Senate have overwhelmingly approved a bill that would give businesses tax credits for contributing to scholarship funds, which could make payments on behalf of students attending private schools. Even if the governor vetoes, the bill should pass into law. According to the Ruger-Sorens database of state policies, New Hampshire will …

NH GOP Kills Gay Marriage Repeal

The New Hampshire House, dominated 3-to-1 by Republicans, has just voted by an approximately 2-to-1 majority to kill a bill that would have repealed same-sex marriage and reinstate civil unions. Along with passage of marijuana decriminalization (by a single vote), this vote helps to demonstrate the increasingly libertarian, live-and-let-live character of the New Hampshire GOP.(*) …

New Hampshire Liberty-Related Bills

Here is a convenient, occasionally updated source on liberty-related legislation that has been enacted into law in New Hampshire this session. There have been a number of changes since the Republican sweep in 2010, some of them despite vetoes from the populist Democratic governor. Most of these changes are minor, but the cumulative effect of …

NH Liberty Forum Report

I've recently returned from the New Hampshire Liberty Forum, held February 23-26 in Nashua, NH and sponsored by the Free State Project. The two evening keynote speakers were libertarian free-range farmer Joel Salatin and investor and recent U.S. Senate candidate Peter Schiff. In addition, session speakers included school-choice economist Angela Dills, former Libertarian Pennsylvania gubernatorial …

NYS Supreme Court Judicially Amends the State Constitution

The New York Constitution prohibits pork-barrel spending and corporate welfare: government money for private projects. Here's what the clause says: [T]he money of the state shall not be given or loaned to or in aid of any private corporation or association, or private undertaking. Couldn't be clearer, right? Wrong. The state supreme court today ruled …

“A decade ago, libertarian activists… hatched a crazy plan to take over New Hampshire… It’s kind of working.”

That's from the lede of a new story in Mother Jones about the Free State Project, entitled "City on a Quill." Mother Jones is definitely coming from the left, but the story is meritoriously free of those lazy, paranoid arguments ad Kochum that we've seen about Free Staters from The Nation (no, I'm not going …