The Concord region will see virtually no change in congressional districts for upcoming elections following months of uncertainty as Republican state lawmakers tried to redraw the maps to their advantage.
The state Supreme Court on Tuesday approved a plan that shifts five of the state’s 234 towns and cities, with a total population of 8,500, from the 1st District into the 2nd District. Their ruling said the map met the “least change” criteria set forth by the court in a May 12 ruling.
New Hampton is the closest town to Concord that is affected. The others – Albany, Campton, Jackson and Sandwich – are further north.
The court’s OK comes after Gov. Sununu vetoed a map approved by the GOP-controlled state legislature. That plan would have shifted more than two dozen towns and cities, comprising more than 300,000 people, between districts and forced the two sitting U.S. Representatives, both Democrats, to run against each other by virtue of their addresses.
Sununu, who previously approved legislators’ new maps for state legislative and executive council districts, called the legislators’ Congressional redistricting plan unfair.
Sununu’s veto, coming so close to a June 1 deadline, led the Supreme Court to declare a “demonstrated impasse” that threw the matter to the courts. The court’s ruling comes one day before the first day of the filing period for the state’s September primary.
New Hampshire was one of the last states to set new U.S. House districts, as required to take place every 10 years to reflect population changes.
The new map was drawn up by Nathaniel Persily, a Stanford Law School professor who was appointed by the state Supreme Court as a special master to develop it.
