When she filed her reelection paperwork last week, Gov. Kelly Ayotte stressed a few things: her work on public safety, housing and education. But one thing she did right off the top was note her ties with fellow Republican, Sen. President Sharon Carson.
“The Senate president is here; thank you for that,” Ayotte said to a crowd in the Secretary of State’s office. "I see many supporters."
One year earlier, Ayotte and Carson were referring to each other in a distinctly different tone. The pair fought vehemently over the state budget and a provision to restore pension benefits for public safety workers.
The spat got publicly unpleasant — until Ayotte pretty much got her way. And as she now turns her attention to the campaign trail, Ayotte seems determined to promote her working relationship with State House Republicans as solid. The reality, however, is more complicated.
In her year and a half in office, Ayotte’s dealings with fellow Republicans in the Legislature has been sometimes antagonistic, sometimes aloof, and sometimes agreeable. None of that is unusual for a governor navigating a House and Senate controlled by their own party. But for Ayotte, who served as a lawmaker herself as a U.S. senator for six years, legislative relations have often felt like a work in progress.
An adversarial approach than can harden under stress
Despite her experience in the Senate, lawmaking isn’t the part of her resume that Ayotte tends to emphasize. “Prosecutor” is how she generally describes her professional background. That choice may be telling. It informs her policy emphasis and what, at times, is an adversarial approach towards the Republican Legislature.
There is also the reality that Ayotte seems inclined to focus on a tightly-defined set of priorities, many involving public safety. But a fact all governors face is that lawmakers tend to have other priorities, which can get messy for any majority-party governor.
The ideological nature of the Republican caucus in Concord these days is another factor. The New Hampshire House, in particular, is more libertarian than Ayotte: Majority Leader Jason Osborne is a member of the libertarian Free State Project, for one. And that’s tested Ayotte.
What has that looked like in terms of policy? Ayotte and fellow Republicans collaborated well when it came to outlawing sanctuary policies for undocumented immigrants in cities and towns, and to tighten state bail laws, for instance. But on other issues prioritized by many Republicans in Concord — like public school open enrollment, loosening gun laws, or issues involving gender segregation — there’s been less connection, and sometimes real friction.
Ayotte vetoed a couple of bills to allow for some segregation by biological sex, for instance. More such bills are heading her way.
Open school enrollment, which failed last week, is another case in point. Some top GOP lawmakers said Ayotte left them in the dark about where she truly stood on the issue, even as they scrambled to come up with legislation that might satisfy her. They say Ayotte and her staff wouldn’t engage, and that they felt blindsided when she killed off hopes of passing any open enrollment this year by issuing a statement to reporters saying their bill wasn’t ready.
Sending a stylistic and ideological message
Ayotte’s vehemence on these issues did surprise lawmakers. When she pushed for insurers to pay for so-called wraparound mental health services for children earlier this year, her direct involvement came late in the process. But it was pointed. Ayotte issued statements and took to the media in ways she generally doesn’t. She also assailed insurance companies and House leaders who opposed the bill, which did ultimately fail.
The ongoing question of whether to increase turnpike tolls for out-of-state drivers is also telling.
The state hasn’t raised tolls in years. It’s also facing a major shortfall in the 10-year highway plan. Lawmakers passed a bill to double tolls on vehicles that don’t use NH-EZPass transponders. The idea is to make out-of-staters pay more towards maintaining New Hampshire roads. Other states already charge New Hampshire drivers more to use their turnpikes.
But Ayotte is vehemently opposed to mimicking that policy here. “The last argument you should make to me is that everyone around us is doing it, so we should do it,” Ayotte said to WMUR recently. “You know, they have income taxes; they have sales taxes.”
Ayotte’s vehemence would seem to indicate lawmakers should expect a veto. It’s also fresh evidence that once she stakes out a clear position on a high profile issue, she’s unlikely to move. It's a lesson about the governor that lawmakers in Concord continue to learn.
