STATEMENT OF PRINCIPLES
[You may also download this platform as a PDF file: Platform April 2024]
We, the duly elected delegates of the Republican Party of New Hampshire, in convention assembled, in discharge of the duty we owe to our constituents and our state, unite in the following Platform of Republican Principles:
We, the people of the New Hampshire Republican Party, do stand united in our dedication to preserving freedom, limited government, and unlimited opportunity for all.
We believe, above all else, in the founding principle that all people are created equal, endowed by our Creator with the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, unimpeded by intrusive government regulation and control.
We believe that the New Hampshire and United States Constitutions were written by our forefathers to limit our government, not our freedom.
We believe that individual liberty is guaranteed under the Constitutions of the United States and New Hampshire, that the liberty of the people must be protected above the power of the government, and that it is only through an adherence to our founding documents that we will continue to grow as a free, Constitutional Republic.
We believe that the Founding Fathers gave the 1st Amendment its preeminent position with intent that religious freedom deserves to be protected.
We believe that the 2nd Amendment is in a position of prominence with the intent that law-abiding citizens of the United States of America have a right to protect and defend their lives, their families, and their property without government infringement.
We believe in free people, free markets, and free enterprise.
We believe that happiness and success are the result of individual effort, hard work, and dedication to a purpose.
We believe that economies flourish when all people retain as much of their hard-earned income as possible, to spend and invest as they see fit.
We believe that low taxes are the result of low spending; that the government has a moral obligation to the people to be as cost effective as possible, to always limit spending and growth of government, and to cut spending and cost of government at every possible turn.
We believe that a strong national defense is necessary to preserve freedom and opportunity in America, and we believe that secure national borders are an integral part of a strong national defense.
We believe that freedom can exist only in a nation that is willing to defend it. The utmost honor must be bestowed upon those who are willing to serve and sacrifice in the United States Military. Let us never forget those whose greatest sacrifice has protected a free and strong America for all.
We believe that life is sacred, from conception to natural death and that we cannot diminish the value of one category of human life without diminishing the value of all human life.
We believe that traditional families are the foundation of strong communities, and that family life best nurtures love of country, faith in God, morality, and concern for others.
We believe that we the people are strongest when we stand together, that it is our responsibility to hold the government accountable and that it is through the integrity of the ballot box that we do so.
We believe that every child is filled with potential and is unique in their own right; as such we believe there is no one-size-fits-all education solution; we support expanded education choices, including but not limited to: education tax credits, charter schools, and homeschooling. We believe in local educational control, beginning with parents, teachers, and principals.
We believe as the New Hampshire Constitution states, that acquiring, possessing, and protecting property is a natural, essential and inherent right.
We believe that New Hampshire, with her rock-solid values and proud history of political activism, must preserve our First In The Nation Primary position.
We believe that the history of the Republican Party is a story of strength, courage and patriotism; our party was founded in the fight to end the despicable practice of slavery, it was the Republican Party that fought for the right of all women to vote, it was Republicans in Congress who fought to overcome the southern Democrats’ resistance to pass civil rights legislation and it is Republican values that will lead our nation forward in freedom and opportunity for all.
We believe that local governments should not be allowed to infringe on individual rights and that the state should ensure protection from such local government overreach.
We believe that the liberty of parents to direct the upbringing, healthcare, education, and wellbeing of their children is a fundamental right. Decisions regarding the upbringing, healthcare, education, and wellbeing of children should be the free choice of parents, acting on the children’s behalf, unimpeded by intrusive government regulation and control.
We, the people of the New Hampshire Republican Party, pledge to our neighbors across our great, beautiful, and proud state, that we remain dedicated to maintaining a limited, affordable government, to lead with integrity, character and compassion, and to forever defend the freedom that has made the United States of America a beacon of hope for all people.
We support legal immigration and believe that enforcement of immigration laws is in New Hampshire’s best interests. Effective enforcement of both the northern and southern borders will combat the severe adverse societal impacts of illegal immigration such as drug smuggling, human trafficking, child exploitation and gang violence.
We oppose amnesty for anyone who enters New Hampshire illegally. Giving amnesty to illegal immigrants undermines the system and encourages a wide range of illegal activity. We encourage the enforcement of trespassing laws on New Hampshire conservation and private lands. New Hampshire agencies should assist affected landowners in apprehending and prosecuting criminal trespassers and in appropriate tort or property damage claims. We support enforcement of federal immigration laws, condemn lawlessness and oppose the formation of sanctuary cities.
We believe dumping toxic chemicals into the air in order to mitigate the supposed threat of global warming by blocking the sun is insane and dangerous, that geoengineering in all its forms must be opposed in order to preserve the beauty and environment of New Hampshire.
“That the history of the nation during the last (six) years has fully established the propriety and necessity of the organization and perpetuation of the Republican Party, and that the causes that called it into existence are permanent in their nature, and now, more than ever before, demand its peaceful and constitutional triumph…
That the present Democratic Administration has far exceeded our worst apprehensions in its measureless subserviency to the exactions of (special) interests…and in its general and unvarying abuse of the power entrusted to it by a confiding people…
That the people justly view with alarm the reckless extravagance which pervades every department of the Federal Government; that a return to rigid economy and accountability is indispensable to arrest the systematic plunder of the public treasury by favored partisans… (and)
Finally, having thus set forth our distinctive principles and views, we invite the co-operation of all citizens, however differing on other questions, who substantially agree with us in their affirmance and support.” – Republican Platform, 1860
APPLICATION OF PRINCIPLES:
JOBS AND ECONOMY
IMPROVING NEW HAMPSHIRE’S BUSINESS CLIMATE
• Remove barriers to business formation and encourage small businesses
• Minimize business regulations, permits, licenses and paperwork
• Keep state government lean to allow lower business taxes
• Foster an attitude of assistance and cooperation with business and increase responsiveness
• Prefer incentives to penalties and issue warnings before fines
• Work with municipalities to streamline planning and zoning barriers to business
• Support the development of a robust telecommunications and technology infrastructure throughout New Hampshire
• Support cost-efficient means to protect, develop and market agricultural, forest and high value natural resource products
NEW HAMPSHIRE’S WORKFORCE
• Uphold the right to join or avoid labor unions without coercion or intimidation; support “right to work” legislation
• Support legislation to allow workers to decide the allocation of the portion of their union dues used for political purposes
• Encourage apprenticeships
• Support the concept of “merit pay”
TAXES AND SPENDING
LOW TAXES ARE THE RESULT OF LOW SPENDING
• Strongly oppose new taxes and fees, including an income, sales and capital gains tax
• Cut or eliminate taxes which inhibit enterprise, earnings and savings and investment, such as the Interest and Dividends Tax and the Business Enterprise/Business Profits Tax
• Limit the growth of state spending to not more than the rate of inflation plus population growth
• Require supermajorities to raise taxes
• Oppose “downshifting” of costs and regulatory enforcement from state to local government
• Maintain local control of spending and taxes designed to support local services
• Work to reduce energy costs and remove New Hampshire from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative
• Reject expanded casino and video lottery gambling as a means to balance the budget or increase spending
GOVERNMENT STRUCTURE
• Justify expenditures against measurable benefits
• Prioritize programs to ensure effective spending
• Reward employees who save money and/or exceed their goals
• Sunset programs and regulations to force periodic reevaluation
• Privatize programs and functions that can be handled more effectively by the private sector
• Ensure that public employee benefits are similar to and do not exceed those of the private sector
• Support the concept of a people’s veto
• Expand openness and transparency to employment, expenditures and all recipients of taxpayers’ funds
• Protect the privacy of individuals from government agencies and employees who abuse their power and position
HEALTH
• Support the repeal of Obamacare and oppose its implementation in New Hampshire
• Allow free market driven health care plans and “ala carte” insurance plans free from government mandates
• Allow the purchase of insurance plans across state lines
• Allow for “portability” of health care plans
• Increase the use of market forces to improve health care and lower costs
• Improve access to the information necessary to make informed health care decisions, including information about the quality and cost of services provided by physicians, hospitals and insurers
• Require informed consent, free from coercion, with regard to all medical treatment and intervention, including abortion procedures and gender reassignment therapy or surgery.
• Support the prevention and elimination of payment for all unnecessary medical procedures covered by or proposed to be covered by Medicaid.
• Support the moral and ethical right of informed consent with regard to all medical treatment and intervention
• Provide for the special needs of seniors, including opportunities for personalized home health care and less expensive alternatives to hospital stays and prescription medication
• Respect New Hampshire’s honored veterans by ensuring that they receive the benefits they have rightfully earned and deserve, particularly by combating homelessness and making all medical facilities available to qualified veterans
EDUCATION
EXCELLENCE IN EDUCATION
• Promote education freedom and parental rights to control the education of their children
• Encourage education freedom to allow all parents to choose the best public, private, charter or home school program for their children
• Expand education tax credits and support universal education freedom accounts
• Repeal the Blaine Amendment to end discrimination against religious schools
• Support market forces to provide and improve education
• Support the right for biological females to compete in sports exclusively amongst themselves
• Teach that no one race or sex is inherently superior or inferior to another
• Teach that America is NOT a racist country
• Prohibit public schools and universities from maintaining or funding diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs
• Promote legislation for age appropriate materials that are not harmful to minors in school and public libraries
• Pass parent’s rights legislation and/or constitutional amendment
• Promote accountability and transparency in education
• Support self-funded home education and resist efforts to enact greater government control and regulation of home education.
LOCAL CONTROL AND FUNDING OF PUBLIC SCHOOLS
• Promote local control of education policy and funding in order to create the best-managed school systems
• Amend the Constitution to overturn the poorly decided Claremont rulings and return educational funding and policy to the people at the local level
• Remove mandates, particularly unfunded mandates, as a condition for receiving state or federal aid
• Common Core (CCSSI) should be abolished in New Hampshire in order to protect local control of education, students, their families and teachers, and to prevent invasions of privacy and to prevent impingements on school choice
THE CLASSROOM
• Emphasize knowledge attainment and academic achievement
• Support freedom of speech at all education levels
• Emphasize marketable skills at the high school and post-secondary levels
• Support innovative measures to reduce tuition costs and increase national competitiveness
• Promote personal responsibility and consequences for one’s actions
• Implement the nation’s highest competency and accountability standards for our superintendent, principal, teachers, and students; empower teachers to maintain orderly, disciplined classrooms
• Eliminate tenure and institute merit pay
• Reform the teacher certification process to include participation by individuals outside the standard education paradigm whose experiences will elevate appreciation for knowledge in the classroom
• Enable and encourage a momentary silent prayer or reflective silence in the classroom along with the Pledge of Allegiance at the start of each school day
THE FAMILY
• Support the pre-born child’s fundamental right to life and personhood under the Fourteenth Amendment, and implement all Constitutional and legal protections
• Encourage individuals and organizations who provide alternatives to abortion by meeting the needs of mothers through adoption, support, counseling and educational services
• Require parental consent for minors seeking abortions, ban the use of public resources to fund or promote abortion, support the unity of the family and the sanctity of innocent life, and support similar efforts at the federal level
• Recognize marriage as the legal and sacred union between one man and one woman as ordained by God, encouraged by the State, and traditional to humankind, and the core of the Family
• Maintain the fundamental role and responsibility of both parents in the care, upbringing and discipline of their children
• Oppose euthanasia and physician assisted suicide
• Support a Life at Conception Act guaranteeing the protections of Life and Personhood to the pre-born under the Fourteenth Amendment of the US Constitution
• We believe that the children’s best interest is to have a substantial relationship with each parent and the government should only interfere with that relationship with just cause
• Defend women’s sports against biological males
• Protect women against biological males in locker rooms
• Require a person to attain the age of majority before gender reassignment surgery
LAW AND ORDER
• Protect the rights of law-abiding individuals to own and carry firearms to defend themselves, their families and their property; oppose any taxation, licensing restrictions, or registration of firearms; oppose the requirement to obtain a license to carry a concealed firearm; oppose any “assault weapons” ban; support the universal right of self-defense wherever one has a legal right to be
• Ensure due process rights of those accused of child abuse or neglect
• Establish strict laws against sexual predators including life incarceration as appropriate
• Strengthen prosecution and fair enforcement of death penalty laws
• Prosecute violations of election law and ensure voting is done by New Hampshire resident citizens only; to prevent voter fraud we support the requirement to produce positive identification upon both registering and voting
• Support the State’s Constitutional right to determine legal restrictions on possession of controlled substances
THE JUDICIARY
• Demand the appointment of judges who recognize their proper and limited interpretive role, relying only on the original intent of the federal and state constitutions
• Implement reasonable and periodic oversight of judicial officers, including term limitations
• Support the constitutional right of citizens to petition the general court for redress of grievances
• Support the people’s oversight of the Judiciary through their elected Legislature
• Provide instructions for juries in criminal proceedings that they have the power both to judge the facts and the application of the law to those facts
• Recognize that the Supreme Court of the United States correctly decided the New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen, a landmark case, relative to the personal carry of firearms which broadly requires an originalist interpretation of our constitution for future legal cases and oppose any laws contrary to the originalist interpretation of the Second Amendment
THE ENVIRONMENT
• Recognize that private property owners are the most effective land stewards and have a fundamental right to freely use and enjoy their property
• Promote conservation of open space, sensitive ecosystems, wildlife, scenic vistas, historic and cultural landscapes, and especially New Hampshire’s state historic sites
• Require that all energy and infrastructure projects constructed within New Hampshire be constructed in a manner which does not negatively affect New Hampshire’s natural beauty and personal property values
• Encourage landowners to keep their property open and accessible to responsible recreation
• Provide public access to all public lands and great ponds, subject to adequate protection for indigenous plants and animals
• Encourage private development of a balanced, safe and environmentally sensitive transportation system to provide greater commuter and commercial access to and within our state
• Improve highways and reduce traffic congestion to increase access to recreation and tourism in rural areas
• Support policies that encourage research and development of our energy resources, including natural gas, hydroelectric power, nuclear energy and new technologies
FEDERALISM
• Demand the enforcement of national border security and immigration laws
• Oppose any form of amnesty for illegal aliens
• Define trespass to include illegal presence in New Hampshire
• Oppose federal programs that contradict the ninth or tenth amendment to the US Constitution; these amendments reserve unenumerated rights and powers to the states and the people
• Oppose all laws, programs, and mandates from local, national, and international organizations and governments contrary to our principles: including, but not limited to, educational standards, United Nations programs, international treaties, sustainable development initiatives, wealth redistribution plans, and punitive environmental controls
• Take any and all actions possible to protect against the implementation of any part of Sharia law in New Hampshire, including legislation outlawing Sharia law
• Prosecute violations of election law and ensure voting is done by New Hampshire resident citizens only; to prevent voter fraud we support the requirement to produce positive identification and proof of citizenship upon registering at your city or town clerk and on voting day during same day registration. A signed affidavit is not adequate proof of domicile or citizenship
• Support enforcement of federal immigration law and condemn lawlessness
• Oppose so-called ‘sanctuary’ policies that inhibit the enforcement of federal immigration law
• Support merit-based legal immigration that is necessary and beneficial to the United States of America
• Promote assimilation of legal immigrants seeking to achieve the American Dream
• Demand that Congress exercise their sole authority over war declarations and protect the New Hampshire National Guard by requiring a Congressional declaration of war prior to any National Guardsman deployment to overseas combat zones.
PLATFORM ADOPTION
The delegates of the New Hampshire Republican Party, in convention assembled, in Concord, NH, on April 13, 2024, pursuant to RSA 667: 21 I, do hereby adopt the foregoing Platform of Republican Principles.
May God forever bless the United States of America and the great State of New Hampshire.