As I prepare to step back from the New Hampshire Senate, I have been reflecting on my time in the Legislature – a body that is truly one of a kind.

As the third largest English-speaking legislative body in the world, we hear from 424 elected officials for every issue we face as a state. Each bill receives a public hearing and anyone can come forward to make sure their voice is heard. Our citizens enjoy unique access to this democratic process and their representatives.

This year, we faced unprecedented challenges as we collectively navigated the impacts of the coronavirus pandemic. Despite political disagreements and new technological hurdles, we came together.

In the Senate, we worked across the aisle to complete our work by combining critical legislation into more than two-dozen omnibus bills that addressed issues ranging from housing protections, funding for our long-term care facilities, PFAS contamination, campus sexual assault, and more. When it came time to vote, all but four passed with bipartisan support.

This year, in the midst of a global pandemic, led by House and Senate Democrats, New Hampshire lawmakers got the job done. We sent 61 pieces of legislation to Gov. Chris Sununu for his action, which encompassed more than 200 original bills. However, with a stroke of the red pen, Sununu vetoed 22 of those 61 bills. Of those 22, 18 had bipartisan support. The Senate put politics aside to do what’s right for New Hampshire, but the governor could not.

Between 2019-2020, Gov. Sununu has vetoed 79 pieces of legislation. This is not normal – and it’s a terrible way to govern. Before Gov. Sununu took office, the previous veto record was 15, when then-Gov. Lynch vetoed 15 bills when Bill O’Brien was House speaker. That means Sununu vetoed more bills during a global pandemic than any other New Hampshire governor.

In some ways, this year’s round of vetoes carry more weight than before. The bills addressed by the Legislature during the 2020 session represented the most crucial issues facing our state. Understanding that there would not be enough time to give all remaining legislation a proper public hearing due to limitations of remote legislating, those restrictions were further tightened because House Republicans refused to amend deadlines to process the bills on their side of the State House. Hundreds of bills died on the spot and the Senate was suddenly responsible for all legislative work.

We narrowed our scope and drafted omnibus legislation as amendments to House bills, which did not require a rule change or deadline adjustment. Senate Democrats worked with our Republican colleagues to prioritize legislation that would enable continuity of state and local government and provide relief and recovery to Granite Staters coping with the coronavirus pandemic. We agreed that everything else would have to wait.

Senators – and Senate staff – spent countless hours collaborating on how to move much important legislation forward. The governor’s office never reached out with their concerns. Instead of engaging the process, Sununu succumbed once again to his inclination to just veto his way through his job.

The 22 vetoes Sununu cast this year alone represent 64 original pieces of legislation. These include: HB 1494, an omnibus workers’ protection bill that included updated health and safety standards and a state death benefit, vetoed on Aug. 7; HB 712, paid family and medical leave, vetoed on July 10; HB 250, which would have established a dental benefit under the state Medicaid program, vetoed on July 28; and HB 687, a suicide prevention measure, vetoed on Aug. 7.

Perhaps the most outrageous veto of the year was Sununu’s veto of HB 1234, what we referred to colloquially in the Senate as the “Admin Omnibus” bill because it was a collection of various nonpolitical, nonpartisan, administrative bills. Sununu’s opposition was to a bill to establish the Lakes Region Development Authority – sponsored by the Senate Republican minority leader. His failure to compromise or sacrifice led to him killing 37 other bills – including bills filed by every ranking Republican in the Legislature and even requests from his own department heads.

In the House and Senate, we found a way to move the most important legislation forward. The bills that New Hampshire needed to address the devastating impacts of the coronavirus pandemic and the legislation that would strengthen our state as we recover and work toward our future resiliency.

Gov. Sununu vetoed 36% of that work this year.

All this on top of the 57 vetoes he cast in 2019, which killed efforts to re-establish and raise New Hampshire’s minimum wage, expand access to substance use disorder treatment and mental health care, and increase renewable energy capacity in our state.

New Hampshire values our political engagement. We know our local representatives and continue to turn out in record numbers on election day. Our 424-member Legislature is the very embodiment of our belief that every voice counts.

And yet, Gov. Sununu prefers a one-man show style of government. He not only consistently undermines the Legislative process during biweekly press conferences, but when faced with the job of assessing the bipartisan legislation sent to his desk stated that, not having read all of the legislation, he would “err on the side of veto.” And he did.

That is not leadership. A leader finds a way to compromise. A leader engages in the process. A leader does their job.

(Martha Hennessey represents Senate District 5 – Canaan, Charlestown, Claremont, Cornish, Enfield, Hanover, Lebanon, Lyme, and Plainfield.)