NH Supreme Court Throws Out Redistricting Lawsuits

The New Hampshire Supreme Court on June 19, threw out a myriad of lawsuits against the approved earlier this year, stating that the plaintiffs in the challenges had not proven that the plan was unconstitutional.

The court's decisions can be downloaded here on PDF.

, a collection of representatives from eight different law firms who were working on behalf of elected officials, public interest groups, and a collection of voters from different parts of New Hampshire, stated that the redistricting didn’t allow for proper representation. In many districts, they claimed, there were not communities of interest linked together.  

In one instance, the city of Concord, which has traditionally had all of its representation spreadout throughout the city, is sharing Ward 5 with Hopkinton in a multi-candidate field, meaning that, potentially, if all three reps were elected from Hopkinton, Ward 5 residents may not have a legislator who lives in their ward. In another claim, the city of Manchester sued because one of its seats was split with Litchfield.

However, in a 33-page decision, including an extensive breakdown of districts across the state, the court rejected the claims, saying that while the plan may not be the best or wisest, it was not unconstitutional.

In a statement, House Speaker , R-Mount Vernon, said despite the lawsuit, the “good news” is that the plan doubles the number of districts around the state resulting in greater representation.

“We have clearly achieved the goal of the 2006 amendment and the citizens of New Hampshire will benefit from these actions,” he said. “Today, the court realized the challenge that the House faced in developing a blueprint that synthesized both the federal ‘one-person, one-vote’ principle as well as the 2006 state constitutional amendment. The strong opinion of the justices validates the extraordinary hard work of the House Redistricting Committee, House staff and our attorneys, all of whom did a tremendous job in coming up with a proposal that deftly navigated the obstacle course of the many constitutional provisions involved with this effort while trying to be as accommodating of local sensibilities as possible.”

A representative of Granite State Progress, one of the organizations involved in the lawsuits, said she was disappointed in the result of the suits, stating that there were alternative plans that could have been used for redistricting.

“We are disappointed in the result but pursuing this case was the right thing to do on behalf of the 375,284 people and 62 communities who were harmed by the House plan,” Zandra Rice Hawkins, director of Granite State Progress said. “The House Leadership did everything they could to prevent a fair and open redistricting process. The end result ignored the overwhelmingly popular 2006 constitutional amendment and left many communities without adequate representation.”
 
“We look forward to the next legislative session, where we hope to find interest to establish a non-partisan redistricting commission that can better represent the interests of New Hampshire voters,” Rice Hawkins said.

Concord NH Patch will more reaction later on today.