Three Democratic candidates with experience in local government, education, hospitality, business and agriculture – Hannah Bissex, Jed Brummer and Tom Hsu – are running in the Sept. 10 primary to represent Rindge, Jaffrey and Dublin in the State House.  

The race for Cheshire County’s 18th District is one of two primaries for state Legislature in the Monadnock region this year.

The other is also among three  Democrats competing for two seats in Hillsborough County’s 33rd District representing Peterborough and Sharon. Undeclared voters are allowed to vote in the primary. People who wish to return to undeclared status after voting need to fill out a card or sign a list in order to do so.

Hannah Bissex

Bissex is an educator, farmer and mother of three. She’s a former math teacher and runs Farm to Fork, a program of the Peterborough-based nonprofit Cornucopia Project, where she teaches high-schoolers about agriculture and entrepreneurship.

Bissex first got into politics a few years ago when her house in Rindge, like several others, was the target of repeated vandalism. Though those incidents have since stopped, Bissex felt called to take action by running for state representative in Cheshire County’s 14th District in 2022. She lost to the longtime incumbent, Republican John Hunt.

From running that campaign, though, Bissex said she heard her community’s needs and that are not being met by the current state Legislature. She said she’ll support increasing the state’s share of education funding, eradicating Education Freedom Account vouchers, which she said are a “bad” program that detracts funding from public schools; and lowering property taxes. Bissex said she disagreed with the Legislature’s moves in recent years to cut the state’s interest and dividends tax, a move Phil Sletten, research director at the New Hampshire Fiscal Policy Institute, wrote disproportionately benefits wealthier people.

Bissex said she’s running because she wants a better, more-sustainable future for her children and because she believes the political landscape is “stuck” in a divide.

“I would like to be a legislator that represents the needs and values of our community, and I think the current legislators don’t,” Bissex said. “The perspective that I have as a mother, small-scale farmer, community member here in Rindge, I think, will really help build bridges and create solutions in the State House. I think we need to stop being afraid of each other and start engaging.”

Jed Brummer

Brummer has an active history in local government and the hospitality industry. His family owned and operated the Woodbound Inn in Rindge for decades, and he also used to be on Rindge’s Select Board and Planning Board. He has also chaired the state’s Lodging and Restaurant Association and the New England Innkeepers Association, and was formerly the president of the Rotary Club of Jaffrey-Rindge.

Brummer said property taxes used for education funding should be collected and disbursed equally statewide. He said it’s unfair that some localities, including in the Monadnock region, have to pay higher taxes than others based on each area’s property value. In some of New Hampshire’s more vacation-heavy areas, there may be more properties but fewer children in school, Brummer said, which he added leads to less of a tax burden in those areas.

“Why can’t that be shared?” Brummer said.

He believes there’s enough momentum in the Legislature to make substantive change on that front in the next few sessions.

“I want to be a spokesman for it, and I’ll be part of making that happen,” he said.

He’s also concerned about soaring taxes in general.

“Our property taxes are too high for particularly seniors and [people] on fixed income to be able to stay in their homes,” Brummer said. “Even for the middle class, our property taxes are getting too high for affordability.”

He views himself as a “small ‘D’ democrat” and a Jeffersonian – valuing personal freedoms and labeling himself politically as a centrist. 

“I’m tough, tested and ready,” said Brummer said, who also touts that he was the last student to legally ride a horse to Rindge Elementary School.

Tom Hsu

Hsu spent most of his life starting and running three education companies and publishing a dozen middle- and high-school science textbooks. Now, he’s chair of the Jaffrey Conservation Commission and advises the planning board in that role. Hsu also runs local open mic nights; he’s a singer-songwriter himself and mostly plays folk music and classic rock.

Hsu – who said he was asked to run by Richard Ames, another of Jaffrey’s state representatives – is campaigning on a mission to rework New Hampshire’s education funding model. The state’s share of education funding has ranked the lowest in the country, according to the New Hampshire Fiscal Policy Institute, which he said puts residents on the hook to make up the difference through high property taxes. While residents struggle to keep up with exorbitant property taxes, Hsu said, he admonished the Legislature’s vote to remove the state’s interest and dividends class. He expects the property tax to increase even more as a result.

He’s also a strong believer in personal freedoms and said the government should not be involved in telling women what health care they can receive or in telling anyone who they can be or they can love.

Hsu has also been working on affordable housing from a local angle. Jaffrey is considering changing its zoning laws to raise the number of units that can be built per lot. That decision will take place at the Town Meeting in March.

Hsu wants voters to know he’s there for them.

“I care about them, and I want to listen,” Hsu said. “This is not about being boss, this is about serving the people in your town.”

Charlotte Matherly is the State Hreporter for the Concord Monitor and Monadnock Ledger-Transcript in partnership with Report for America. Follow her on X at @charmatherly, or send her an email at cmatherly@cmonitor.com.