The two Moffetts are back in another race for the State House.
Howard Moffett, a retired lawyer and Canterbury Democrat, and Michael Moffett, a Loudon Republican and college instructor, are in a three-way race for the two Merrimack District 9 seats in the New Hampshire House. The third candidate, George Saunderson, is a Loudon Democrat and local blacksmith.
Saunderson and Howard Moffett are the incumbents after winning the 2014 election against Michael Moffett and Canterbury Republican Kenneth Kreis.
Both Moffetts and Saunderson sat on a forum panel Thursday to answer questions from about 50 Loudon residents. Also attending were House Merrimack District 26 candidates Loudon Republican Howard Pearl and his opponent, Boscawen Democrat Lorrie Carey; state Senate District 17 Democratic candidate Nancy Fraher; and Executive Council District 4 incumbent candidate and Democrat Chris Pappas.
“We’ve got a lot of names to sort out up here – two Howards, two Moffetts,” said Howard Moffett.
(Joseph Kelly Levasseur and John Reagan – the Republican candidates for Executive Council and state Senate, respectfully – did not make it).
All forum candidates spent the two-hour session taking voter questions on a range of topics: cybersecurity, property taxes, mental health, Second Amendment rights, accepting refugees, clean energy, recycling and gambling.
Among the Merrimack District 9 candidates, the starkest differences came near the end of the forum, when Loudon resident Roy Merrill asked about a handout with “voting reports” for Howard Moffett and Saunderson.
Why, Merrill asked, did Howard Moffett and Saunderson vote “to allow non-citizens to have free health insurance” and to “eliminate a requirement that healthy people must work to receive free health insurance?”
“Roy, I gotta tell you,” Moffett said, “I scratched my head about that.”
Moffett continued he felt those were false descriptions of the bipartisan Medicaid expansion bill passed during the last legislative session.
“One hundred and sixty of your neighbors in Loudon have health insurance because of that bill,” Moffett said, adding there were 70 more in Canterbury who benefitted, too.
Saunderson responded to the report’s claim that he voted for a “new tax on capital gains.” New Hampshire already taxes five percent of all interest and dividends above $2,400, and the bill Saunderson voted for wanted to raise that cap to $5,000.
“That’s hardly raising taxes,” Saunderson said.
As a rebuttle to the incumbents, Michael Moffett said that he would have voted on a provision for the Medicaid bill that said healthy adults must work to work to receive benefits.
“Medicaid needs to go to people who are very sick and poor,” Moffett said. He added that, overall, “I would have voted differently. It’s why I’m running.”