State Rep. Jonah Wheeler is set to speak at a panel next month in Manchester, with a focus on discussing political polarization and “the importance of civility in public life,” according to a press release.
Wheeler, a 22-year-old Democrat who represents Peterborough and Sharon, will join fellow young legislators for a discussion about the current political climate. Other speakers are Sam Farrington, a Republican from Rochester; Jessica Grill, a Democrat from Manchester; and James Thibault, a Republican from Franklin.
Wheeler has encountered contentious politics in his two terms as a state representative. He has broken ranks with the Democratic Party on several occasions and faced a raucous crowd of constituents at a Peterborough town hall event earlier this year after he supported a bill that would have allowed the separation of bathrooms by biological sex instead of gender.
He also called on leaders in the New Hampshire House of Representatives to fix a culture that he says stifles questions and discussion among legislators.
The panel will be hosted by the conservative-leaning Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy. The organization’s president, Andrew Cline, said the idea for it came after conservative activist Charlie Kirk’s assassination in September, when a need to “lower the political temperature” became clear.
“By design, our government forces us to share power with each other,” Cline said in a press release. “It’s past time we relearned how to do that.”
The discussion is the first in the center’s Civil Discourses series, which will focus on helping young people with different political views come together. It’s scheduled for Monday, Dec. 1, with a 6 p.m. reception before the 6:30 p.m. program. The discussion will be at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics at Saint Anselm College.