Hello friends,

​First and foremost, I want to thank the thousands of folks who supported me in 2018 and 2020. It's been an honor and a privilege to represent the Newfound community that I grew up in, the Squam, and Mascoma communities in the New Hampshire House. 

The 2020 redistricting process saw the Republican Majority turn the old Grafton 17 House District into a giant, 10 town floterial district that is both barely and near impossible to campaign in while working full time as I do. Grafton 16, which is only the town of Enfield, makes up a portion of that broader floterial seat, and with the retirement of Representative Dontonville this year, I decided I would seek re-re-election in the newly configured Grafton 16. 

Redistricting is messy, but so are our politics today. Working class people do not feel their voices are capable of breeching the corporate control of the halls of power, and that frustration is real. Our abysmal healthcare system denies care to those who need it the most, leading people to hold off care until it's too late. We are currently in the longest stretch in almost 100 years with no increase to the minimum wage, and people are suffering as a consequence. Real estate developers and vulture capital firms continue to be prioritized over the housing needs of working people, making it extremely difficult to find safe and reliable housing. 

These are all issues that have shaped my politics personally. I have held off on medical care out of concerns of bills, I have worked for minimum wage, often multiple jobs at once, and I know the feeling of seeing "no results found" on a craigslist page when searching for local housing. It's that kind of personal understanding that makes me want to return to Concord to make Medicaid a Public Option, raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour, and have the state of New Hampshire begin to build housing. I'll be on the ballot for State Representative in the town of Enfield, NH, and I would kindly ask for your support on November 8th. 

Since coming to Concord...

In 2018, the centerpiece of my campaign for the House was funding for public education. Increasing the State Aid To Education had two extremely important benefits. It provided children in schools outside of New Hampshire's suburbs the same educational opportunity as their wealthier peers. Even in the state of New Hampshire, a child's education opportunity is partially linked to where they grow up. Parents know this, because they spend a lot of time in deciding where to live considering the value of the local schools. Instead of having every parent chase a handful of desk seats in well performing schools, we can improve all of them, and that's what SATE sought to do. The other major benefit was property tax relief. Refusal by the State of New Hampshire to raise corporate taxes has downshifted responsibilities onto homeowners in our communities who pay the highest property taxes in America. It locks new families out of homeownership, makes our communities unaffordable, and I helped secure 200 million dollars in direct property tax relief for cities and towns across New Hampshire in the 2019 State Budget, filling that campaign promise. 

When COVID-19 broke out, The State of New Hampshire was not prepared. Overnight, tens of thousands of the most financially vulnerable people in the State of New Hampshire found themselves applying for unemployment on the most ramshackle website online, which crashed immediately as it surged. The eviction and foreclosure moratorium that the Governor put in place had one fatal flaw, at the end of the State of Emergency, all back rent and mortgage payments were due immediately or you could lose your home instantly. I didn't think it was fair for the State of New Hampshire to take away working people's jobs, and then allow them to lose their home because the State didn't have it's act together. Thus, I introduced the Housing Security Act, which would have saved homes for people who were financially impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Josh successfully passed it through the House and Senate with the help of Senator Feltes, and though the Governor didn't sign it, more emergency funds were dedicated to keeping homes secure. 

In 2022, the House considered a Cost of Living Adjustment for New Hampshire retirees to help offset the pains they were feeling from the pandemic and inflation. I happily supported the 1.5% COLA when it came though the House, but when it came back from Finance, a bait and switch had occurred. The bill now was a means tested one time payment of $500, comically lower than what was originally passed in the House. Everyone said "we couldn't afford it" and "it was better than nothing", both of which were untrue. Not only were state revenues actually up, but the week prior, the House had voted to light hundreds of millions of dollars on fire in the form of tax giveaways to the rich and corporations. I felt this was wrong, and so he fought the establishments of both parties to return the bill to a proper COLA. When the Establishment Majority in Concord voted overwhelmingly to kill the COLA , it was a reminder that even if the vote is 399-1, I will always stand on the side of an issue that he feels is right, whether it's COLA's for seniors, or America's first Corporate Welfare Bill that I introduced to go after corporations that underpay their employees and get subsidized by our public benefits.

I served on the House Labor Committee during the 2021-2022 session, and I believe I've found my committee home in Concord. The House Labor Committee is where disastrous programs like Right to Work For Les come, and I proudly voted against that anti-union garbage. Even though I never have had union representation, and unions unfortunately make up a smaller and smaller portion of the American workforce, an attack on organized labor is an attack on all labor, and once they get rid of the unions, they'll come for minimum wage, and OSHA, and overtime. The forces of capital have all the time and resources and energy in the world, and we have to stand together as working people to secure our rights. On the Labor Committee, I also had the priviledge of voting for a minimum wage of $15 dollars an hour, because, as my hero, the man from Independence himself, Mr. Harry S Truman said, "The Minimum Wage adds to our economic strength, and is based on the belief that human dignity requires a minimum level of economic security and sufficiency." I was also the prime sponsor of HB 1076, a bill that would have reigned in the productivity quotas used by Big Tech companies like Amazon that force their employees to have to use the bathroom in bottles just to keep up. 

Goals for 2022...

Josh believes that our current, for-profit healthcare industry does far more harm than it does good, and it is absurd that we are the last major country on Earth that runs healthcare this way. It costs far more, our outcomes are worse, and people suffer the consequences. Until a federal Single Payer plan is adopted, Josh will work on the state level to expand healthcare for Granite Stater's. Not "Access" to "Affordable" healthcare. Real Healthcare. The current income limits for Medicaid are far too low, and if you double them, you get close to where employers start to offer insurance coverage. I will work in the 2022 term to eliminate the upper income limits on Medicaid, so that everyone in the State of New Hampshire can get the coverage that could save their lives. Far too often, people prolong treatment until it's too late. This is unacceptable. Until we have Medicare for All, I will continue to introduce plans for Medicaid for All in the State of New Hampshire.

One of the first Presidential elections I remember vividly was the 2012 election between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney. Part of the reason why President Obama won re-election was Mitt Romney's association with Bain Capital, the Vulture Capital company who purchased companies across the United States, fired the staff, stripped them for parts, and liquidated the assets for profit. The American people recognized the issue with that, but the root issue still remains today. Blackrock, one of the worst of the worst "investment" firms is purchasing an insane amount of housing stock in the United States, sometimes entire neighborhoods. These vulture capital firms far outbid families looking to buy homes, and then take single family homes to rent them. Not turn them into apartments, just rent them forever. That drives up the cost of housing, makes it hard for families to create wealth for retirement, and corners our housing market until it's inoperable. I will be submitting a bill to outlaw the purchase of single family homes by these companies to ensure that housing remains availible for familes in New Hampshire, and isnt' just a toy for big Wall St firms.

I'm honored to have Representative Dontonville's endorsement to succeed him as solely Enfield's State Representative in the House, and I hope to do him, and the rest of our community proud. 

Questions on issues you didn't see listed?

Email: josh.adjutant@leg.state.nh.us

Thank you!