Every year the nonpartisan, nonprofit Citizens Count uses publicly available data to analyze attendance and voting behavior in the New Hampshire Legislature. This data indicates which legislators had the best attendance record, proposed the most bills, cast the most votes, and more. You can find your legislators’ unique data on the Citizens Count website by visiting citizenscount.org/elected-officials. This article will explore some of the larger trends.
Since the coronavirus pandemic, measuring attendance in the New Hampshire Legislature has been tricky. Many legislators have pre-existing medical conditions that make them particularly vulnerable to illness. Therefore, some would argue it’s hard to compare the attendance records of individual legislators during this unprecedented period. That said, there is still plenty of information to glean from the data regarding larger attendance trends.
Who had the better attendance—the House of Representatives, or the Senate? Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Senate won that particular contest, as they do almost every year. Representatives attended an average of 91% of voting days this legislative session and participated in an average of 88% of votes while senators averaged 99% for both attendance and voting participation. (We measure attendance by day as well as by individual votes, as some legislators arrive early or leave late, and some days have more votes than others.)
When comparing the House and Senate, keep in mind there are only 24 state senators compared to 400 members in the House. Senators also had the opportunity to participate on voting days via Zoom, while representatives had to show up in person.
Which counties had the best and worst attendance during the last legislative session? The following list shows the average voting day attendance of representatives by county:
■Carroll – 95.8%
■Coos – 94.9%
■Sullivan – 94.9%
■Grafton – 94.7%
■Belknap – 92.6%
■Merrimack – 91.8%
■Hillsborough – 91.3%
■Rockingham – 90.9%
■Cheshire – 88.8%
■Strafford – 86.7%
As we noted above, the coronavirus pandemic disrupted the legislative process, and any comparison over time or between legislators needs to take that into account. The state Legislature did not meet for a couple of months in 2020. In 2021 the House of Representatives met in person but less often than usual. In 2021 the Senate offered legislators the option to participate in votes remotely, an option that was not available in the House. Operations were closer to “normal” in 2022, but the House still had an irregular meeting schedule.
Despite all these abnormalities, Citizens Count found that overall legislative attendance during the COVID-19 emergency was in line with attendance from previous decades, or even better. The chart below shows the average percentage of votes New Hampshire representatives and senators participated in each year since 1999 (the first year of data publicly available in the state database of votes).
When we break these numbers down by party, a more nuanced story emerges. House Republican participation was on a downward trend until 2021, when it shot up to 94% compared to Democrats’ 87%. This separation likely reflects the partisan divisions around the response to COVID-19.
Behind all of these numbers are countless stories. We can see the lasting impact of the coronavirus pandemic in these numbers. We can also recognize how the increasing polarization of national politics is playing out in the Granite State. If you want to learn more about the people who represent you and see information about their attendance and voting records, you can begin by visiting citizenscount.org/elected-officials.
Citizens Count is a nonprofit serving the New Hampshire community.
by providing objective information about issues, elected officials, bills, elections, and candidates. These articles are being shared by partners in The Granite State News Collaborative. For more information visit collaborativenh.org.