With 2026 around the corner, the Monadnock region’s 25 state lawmakers are preparing to return to Concord.
This year brought a $16 billion state budget, local zoning overhauls aimed at creating more housing, and the elimination of required safety inspections for cars.
None of that happens without the participation of the people that each community has elected to represent them in the State House. So how often did legislators show up for work?
Many lawmakers get an “A” in that regard, earning an average of 94% attendance score on voting days, according to state data analyzed by the nonpartisan nonprofit Citizens Count.
In the Monadnock region, that score was higher, at above 95%. Local lawmakers also participated in more than 91% of all roll-call votes, on average.
The data measures participation in roll-call votes and does not represent all votes taken in the 2025 legislative session. Roll calls often cover more partisan and divisive issues than other voting methods, like a consent agenda or a voice vote. They are the only method that tracks whether and how each lawmaker votes on a bill.
Reps. Jim Fedolfi, whose district includes Antrim and Bennington, and John Suiter, who serves Mason and Greenville, had the lowest attendance scores in the Monadnock region, at 75%.
Suiter, who participated in 60% of roll-call votes, said he loves being a state representative but missed some session days to take care of his family.
“The schools don’t let your kids come to school sick, and you can’t afford to let your spouse take off work because that’s the only income you have,” he said. “What else do you do?”
He’s now set up neighbors and others who can watch his children if needed, so he hopes to attend more sessions in 2026.
Fedolfi, who participated in 38% of the roll-call votes, didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Partisanship stays high in the State House
In roll-call votes, just 26 of New Hampshire’s 424 lawmakers voted with their party less than 90% of the time.
Among those are two Democrats representing Peterborough and Sharon. Rep. Jonah Wheeler departed from the party line 25% of the time, and Rep. Peter Leishman did so 17% of the time.
Both of them, for example, broke from Democrats and voted for a bill this year that would have allowed the separation of bathrooms and locker rooms by biological sex instead of gender identity. Both of them also share many of their party’s ideals, including on things like gun safety and public education.
“I don’t really march in lockstep with anybody, I guess, and think it’s probably a good thing,” Leishman said.
Wheeler said he doesn’t vote based on any one person or party.
“My district has about 7,500 people, and so I serve the interests of all of them,” he said. Sometimes that means representing the majority view. Other times it means supporting the minority perspective, he added.
The rest of the Monadnock region’s legislators all vote with their party anywhere from 93% to 100% of the time, according to the Citizens Count analysis.
New Hampshire is often hailed for its ability to work across the aisle, but the major political parties have moved further apart in recent decades.
Citizens Count has tracked party unity — calculated by measuring the number of roll-call votes in which the majority of one party opposed the majority of the other party — for 26 years.
These so-called “party unity” votes made up just 61% of Senate roll-call votes back in 1999. Now, they account for 90%. In the House of Representatives, that number jumped from 66% to 93%.
“More frequently, we have the majority of Democrats voting against majority of Republicans without crossing party lines,” said Anna Brown, executive director of Citizens Count.
Party leaders on both sides of the aisle said roll-call votes are more partisan than other types of votes and don’t represent the issues where legislators are more aligned. The number of roll-call votes taken in the House has trended upward over the past 20 years.
“Hundreds of bills move through the consent calendar with unanimous, bipartisan support and little public attention,” Exeter Rep. Alexis Simpson, the House Democratic leader, said in a statement. “Much of the most meaningful lawmaking happens in committee, where members work across party lines to reach consensus, leaving the most divisive issues to dominate floor debate and produce roll-call votes.”
Rep. Jason Osborne, the Republican majority leader from Auburn, echoed that sentiment, and said more partisan roll calls are a sign of “improved operational efficiency.”
“Party-line votes tend to stand out because they involve fundamental differences in philosophy, not because cooperation has disappeared,” he said in a statement.
At the same time, lawmakers on both ends of the political spectrum have said their party leaders foster a culture that can smother disagreements and encourage lawmakers to toe the party line, as the Ledger-Transcript previously reported.
Brown said having distinct parties and political values isn’t necessarily a bad thing. The line in the sand could help voters know what they’re getting when they select a candidate, she said, and each party is effectively uniting to accomplish its own priorities.
Historically, though, that’s not how New Hampshire does it, Brown said.
As of Nov. 3, roughly 375,000 people — 39% of the state’s registered voters — had not declared a party allegiance, according to the Secretary of State’s office. Voters routinely send members of different parties to Congress, the State House and the corner office. The Granite State is home to many so-called “ticket-splitters” who don’t go all red or all blue down the ballot.
While useful in some respects, Wheeler said, the party system doesn’t account for the best interests of every single town in New Hampshire.
“The process by which we serve our constituents in the Legislature is one which parties can aid in, but ultimately it is individual representatives going forward” and voting on behalf of their individual communities, Wheeler said.