Democratic Senate District 9 candidates Jeanne Dietsch of Peterborough, Mark Fernald of Sharon and Bruce Fox of Dublin weighed in on the issues at a candidate forum and debate at the Temple Town Hall on Wednesday.
The winner of the primary will go on to run against the winner of the Republican primary.
The Republican candidates are Dan Hynes or Terry Wolf, both of Bedford. Incumbent Senator Andy Sanborn of Bedford is running for Congress.
District 9 is considered a pivot district – with a majority voting for President Donald Trump in 2016 and the majority voting for President Barack Obama in 2012.
Currently, the state senate is made up of 14 Republicans and 10 Democrats. If the Democrats want to gain a majority, they must flip at least three seats.
“We have some great senators up there and they’ve got great platforms. They have bills they’d love to get passed,” Fox said.
With a Democratic majority not guaranteed, the ability to talk across the aisle was a selling point for the candidates who spoke at Wednesday’s forum.
Dietsch pointed to her background in entrepreneurship and said she would be able to make arguments for the party’s platform to appeal to Republicans.
“If you give a fiscal argument when you talk about Democratic values, it really makes sense,” she told the crowd.
Fernald pointed to his prior experience in the senate and having been elected in District 11 in 1998 and 2000, a seat that was red both before and after his tenure there. Like Dietsch, he said, a fiscal argument was the best way to get across his message to the Republican party, and particularly, his platform on addressing New Hampshire’s tax structure, where the vast majority of the state’s expenses are paid on the back of the property tax.
The idea of a broad-based tax was brought up at several points during the night’s debate, with all three candidates saying they were not in favor of signing “the pledge,” referring to a pledge multiple lawmakers in the state have taken to not implement a sales or income tax.
Fernald came down harder than Dietsch or Fox on the issue of implementing a broad-based tax, saying it was the only alternative if New Hampshire residents wanted relief from property taxes that, he said, have become crippling to some families.
“You can tax what people own, what they buy, or what they make – a property tax, sales tax or income tax,” Fernald said. “If you agree that the property tax is unfair, you have to open your mind to the other two.”
Dietsch and Fox pushed back on that. Dietsch said that up to 30 percent of New Hampshire residents rent, and wouldn’t be overly impacted by reduction in property taxes. Fox said he didn’t think the state needed an immediate implementation of a broad-based tax, and would prefer to look at stopping tax cuts for corporations.
All three candidates said they would support setting a state minimum wage. Currently, the state doesn’t have a minimum wage, and relies on the federal standard of $7.25 per hour. However, when questioned if they would support a wage of $15 per hour, Fernald and Fox said they would support a wage more in line with that of surrounding states that have minimum wages set at $10 or $11 per hour.
All of the candidates agreed that legalizing recreational marijuana in new Hampshire was an increasing possibility, as surrounding states have taken that step. The conversation in New Hampshire was likely to turn from whether it should be legalized to how it should be regulated, they agreed.
Dietsch went a step further and said that if the state did legalize recreational marijuana, it should also grant amnesty for people arrested for small amounts of marijuana, saying marijuana arrests in New Hampshire continues to cost the state money and reduce its workforce.
Senate District 9 includes Bedford, Lyndeborough, Mont Vernon, Peterborough, Richmond, Sharon, Dublin, Fitzwilliam, Greenfield, Hancock, Jaffrey, New Boston, Temple and Troy.