As the New York Times reports:
An attempt to repeal New Hampshire’s same-sex marriage law failed on Wednesday in the House of Representatives, with members of the Republican-dominated chamber voting 211-116 to kill the bill. …
With Republicans outnumbering Democrats by three to one in the House, which has approved a number of socially conservative bills this session, proponents of same-sex marriage feared early on that there was little chance of preserving the law.
“Every step forward is a sign of momentum,” said Marc Solomon, national campaign director for Freedom to Marry, a group that lobbies for same-sex marriage nationwide. “The fact that we got two-thirds of the vote, in one of the most heavily Republican legislatures in the country, will make a serious impact.”
The leftwing flagship Daily Kos ran a story headlined, “New Hampshire’s tea party-run legislature … upholds gay marriage.” It concluded, rightly, “In other words, progress.”
5 Comments for “A Good Sign”
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posted by Tom Scharbach on
“In other words, progress.”
I agree. A significant number of Republicans voted against repeal of marriage equality, and an equally significant number of Republicans elected not to vote on the issue. Between them and the Democrats, marriage equality prevailed.
In this case, for the first time of which I’m aware, Republicans bowed to public opinion, which ran 65% against repeal, on an equality issue. The interesting thing to me is how different this vote was to the DADT vote, in which almost all Republicans ignored the fact that 75% of Americans wanted DADT repealed.
I don’t know whether that’s because New Hampshire still has moderate Republicans, whether New Hampshire representatives (unlike Congressional representatives) personally know their constituents and are accustomed to responding to them, or whether this is an early signal of change in the Republican Party.
Whichever is the case, NOM has announced that it intends to hold the Republicans who voted against repeal “accountable”, so we’ll have to gear up for a fight, yet again. It never ends.
posted by Houndentenor on
Any analysis on how so many Republicans were convinced to vote to retain marriage equality in NH? It’s good that they were, but now we need to know how this success could be duplicated in other states.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
Any analysis on how so many Republicans were convinced to vote to retain marriage equality in NH? It’s good that they were, but now we need to know how this success could be duplicated in other states.
From what I’ve read over the last couple of months, I think that the situation was complicated, and may not be easily duplicated.
The “repeal marriage” bill was introduced after the 2010 election. Marriage repeal was part of the Republican 2010 platform, and seemed inevitable. The vote was initially scheduled for early January.
The first crack in the wall seems to have been the decision by the Republican leadership put off the vote until after the New Hampshire primary. Commentators at the time suggested that the leadership made this move to avoid creating unnecessary trouble for President-Elect Romney, who needed a strong majority in the state after Iowa. I don’t know if that is accurate.
Whatever the reason, the stall allowed pro-marriage groups time to work on public opinion. Opposition to repeal increased as people became aware of the law’s import and thought about it. By the time the bill was brought up, polling indicated that the people of New Hampshire opposed repeal in high numbers — hovering about two thirds in opposition, and over 50% in strong opposition.
The stall also gave pro-marriage groups to work on legislators, ground-up, sending citizens who opposed the bill to talk with their representatives in the House. In New Hampshire, the House is large compared to most states — just under 400 representatives, or roughly 1:3,500 people, as opposed to, say, Wisconsin, which has 99 representatives, or 1:55,000 people. The 1:3,500 ration means that individuals tend to know their representatives and have more personal influence than is the case in most states. The strategy had a good chance of working, and it seems to have been a key factor.
As people talked with their representatives, Republicans began to raise questions about the bill, and the bill was amended several times in the weeks before the vote. Among other things, the bill was amended so that existing marriages were protected, and amended to provide for a “non-binding referendum” vote from the people before the bill was put into effect, making it almost certain, given the polling, that the bill would have to be repealed before it went into effect.
Meanwhile, NOM and the rest of anti-marriage groups came swooping in like a ton of bricks, spreading the usual idiotic bullshit and scare-mongering. I suspect, given the up-close-and-personal nature of New Hampshire politics in the House, that the out-of-state browbeating backfired.
Involved as well, I think, is that Democrats in New Hampshire clearly indicated that they would use the bill, if it passed, as a hammer against Republicans in swing districts who voted for it. In a state with a 1:3,500 representative ratio, individual campaigns are cheap and can be targeted, and I suspect that Democratic willingness to “reverse wedge” on the bill made a lot of Republicans nervous.
After Republican legislators began to voice concern, and it became more and more likely that enough Republicans would defect to make a veto override unlikely, it looks like the Republican leadership hung the bill out to dry, making no serious effort to impose party discipline.
I think, in the end, that refusal to enforce party discipline was the key, because it allowed Republicans to vote for self-preservation and, in some cases, I hope, out of conscience. I haven’t done a complete analysis yet, but it looks to me, based on a sampling, that most of the Republican anti-repeal votes and no-votes (which were a significant number) seem to come from districts that aren’t “safe” for Republicans.
That’s my read, anyway. I’m sure that there are other explanations.
posted by TomJeffersonIII on
The pro-family progress in New Hampshire may be difficult to cut and past neatly into other States. 1. Their is a fairly strong, from what I hear, libertarian sentiment in both major parties. In fact I think some sort of libertarian colony or something set up shop their a few years ago. 2. Public opinion was basically supportive. They had same sex marriage and it did not really seem to cause all the evils that the anti-family side claimed that it would. 3. The pro-family side used personal contact and conversation with locals (voters, Democrats, Republicans, Independents) while the anti-gay, anti-family side used lots of outsiders and certain arguments that are probably not as easily shoveled.