What Can 20K Liberty Activists Accomplish in NH?

NOTE: The opinions and commentary expressed in this essay are those of the author and are an exercise of free speech. They do not necessarily represent the views of Free State Project Inc., its Directors, its Officers, or its Participants.

What Can 20,000 Liberty Activists Accomplish in New Hampshire?

by Jason Sorens – April 12, 2004

This essay is a significant revision of an earlier article, "What Can 20,000 Liberty Activists Accomplish?".

The main goal of the Free State Project is to recruit 20,000 liberty-friendly Americans to move to New Hampshire over the next several years. The purpose of this cooperative migration is to create a freer, better society through the electoral process and cultural change. Those of us who believe government in the U.S. is far too involved in our daily lives and far too removed from the control and influence of ordinary people represent a substantial minority in the U.S., but a minority nonetheless. In all our political efforts to date, we have been thwarted by powerful special interests in D.C., by the ignorance or apathy of many Americans, and by the self-interest of politicians themselves. The idea behind the Free State Project, therefore, is that by concentrating pro-freedom resources in a single, friendly state we will leverage our influence more effectively while also enjoying immediately the benefits of a freer state culture.

So much is clear. But why 20,000? What is the logic behind this number? There is certainly nothing magical about it. When the FSP started, 20,000 signatures seemed like an attainable goal, and one that would mean something. Further research showed that 20,000 people could significantly influence several states, assuming that they were all active in politics or civil society, not just passive onlookers. This essay expands on that research to consider exactly what 20,000 Free Staters could accomplish in the state we've chosen, New Hampshire.

In my first essay on the topic, I looked at two figures that seemed analogous to what we were attempting. I examined the Parti Quebecois (PQ) and their rise from a minor party favoring Quebec secession to the governing party of Quebec. When they won their first absolute majority in the Quebec parliament, in 1976, there were approximately 100,000 PQ party members in a Quebec population of about 6 million, a ratio of 1 member to 60 residents. If the individual-liberty movement of which the FSP is a part is analogous to the Quebec independence movement, and the average Free Stater is as active as the average PQ member, then the individual-liberty movement might expect to be able to win a majority in a U.S. state of about 1.2 million population (assuming 20,000 Free Staters there). Another figure I examined was Libertarian Party membership in the U.S. The Libertarian Party is one of the political parties popular among FSP members, and therefore their experience certainly seems analogous. In the year 2000, the Libertarians briefly reached a membership of 40,000 and was able to raise $5.2 million that year. If 20,000 Free Staters could raise as much on a per capita basis, that means at least $5.2 million raised by Free Staters every two-year election cycle. $5.2 million in an election cycle is competitive with the entire Republican or Democratic (or both!) expenditure in several states.

Both of those figures imply that FSP participants have the potential to create significant political momentum in a state. However, subsequent research shows that they may in fact be quite conservative. For instance, the PQ became the second largest party in Quebec when they had 60,000 members, in 1973. When that happened, their ultimate victory was only a matter of time, because the voters would tire of the incumbent government eventually, and the PQ was the only relevant alternative. Thus, once the PQ reached a 1 in 100 member-to-population ratio, their eventual electoral success seemed assured. Put another way, their rise from 60,000 to 100,000 members was a consequence of their rising popularity in the 1970s, not a cause of it. So applying the same ratio to New Hampshire's population (just under 1.3 million), we see that under 13,000 Free Staters may be able to have the same sort of impact there.

Likewise, the comparison based on Libertarian Party fundraising does not take into account the fact that state legislative elections are much cheaper than federal congressional elections. The 2002 gubernatorial race in New Hampshire was hugely expensive (over $15 million, more than $10 million of which was spent by Craig Benson from his own fortune), but it appears that just over $2 million total were earmarked for state house and senate elections (source). Moreover, money does not strictly determine election results: Democrats slightly outspent Republicans but were decimated in the election for proposing an income tax.

The upshot of all this is that purely by the numbers, well organized Free Staters could have a significant effect on state-level politics in New Hampshire even if they numbered just eight, ten, or twelve thousand. However, this purely statistical analysis also does not take into account the specific circumstances of our state. Many of the advantages of New Hampshire for freedom-seeking Americans are well known features that sold the state to thousands of FSP members, but I intend to take the well-known lists of "desirable features" to induce a more general picture of the state, a "Theory of New Hampshire" if you will.

I class New Hampshire's advantages in two categories, cultural and institutional. Cultural aspects of New Hampshire relate to the friendliness of Granite Staters to our ideas. Institutional aspects of New Hampshire make it easy for grassroots political movements to have their say in state politics.

First, cultural aspects. The litany of advantages here, well detailed in the "101 Reasons to Vote for New Hampshire" report, is nearly overwhelming - no state sales or income tax, the lowest state and local tax burden in the continental U.S., no adult seatbelt law, no helmet law, very few gun laws, a governor and many state legislators who've been explicitly welcoming, a large percentage of political independents, extremely low dependence on federal subsidies, low government employment, and so forth. What has been missing from all the talk of New Hampshire's independent spirit of tolerance and responsibility is an understanding of the sources of this spirit. As a political scientist, I tend to believe that broad social attitudes on these issues are often influenced by very basic historical and socioeconomic factors.

Let's start with history. As Bryan and McClaughry point out in The Vermont Papers, Vermont and New Hampshire historically developed a specific type of libertarianism to match their settlement patterns, centered around small towns occupying rills, dales, and valleys among the hills and mountains of the area. The town meeting system allowed citizens to keep their government officials close enough to "grab them by the scruff of their necks" if they overstepped their power. Essentially what developed was a kind of "communal libertarianism" different from the individualism of the West, where one could simply escape the company of others. This town meeting system with its emphasis on local government is still largely intact in New Hampshire today. The libertarian frontier spirit of New Hampshire was immortalized in the state constitution, Article 10 protecting the right of revolution and resistance to arbitrary rule.

While New Hampshire did develop a manufacturing base early in the 20th century, it never developed a large metropolis. The largest city in New Hampshire, Manchester, is quite different from most other cities of about the same size (approximately 100,000 residents). It is much more conservative in its voting patterns. Metropolitan areas have typically been left-leaning, because they were historically controlled by corrupt party machines or dominated by labor unions. Furthermore, metropolitan areas have had higher concentrations of free thinkers and people looking to shake off the values of the past. For many of these people, "progressivism" in the 20th century meant socialism. While this tendency is likely to change in the future (and in fact urbanized areas in Europe already tend to be more classically liberal than the countryside), for our purposes, the Boston-Washington corridor, the Rust Belt states, and the Pacific coast are too heavily urbanized and thus too statist. We could not have picked any of those states and had success.

Economically, New Hampshire has the advantage of a dynamic economy centered around knowledge-based and service industries. Such industries tend to favor the global economy and a leaner scale of government that makes rapid adaptation possible. New Hampshire's high per capita income also means that residents pay much more to the federal government in taxes than they receive in expenditures. New Hampshire is thus quite different from neighboring Vermont and Maine, which have struggled economically, and from the interior states of the West and Midwest, which are dependent on agriculture and natural resources and hence take a more insular view of the world. Such societies tend to fear change and integration into the global economy.

Socially, New Hampshire has always ranked as one of the more tolerant states in the country. This fact is related to its religious diversity. States with a very high evangelical Protestant population or a very high Catholic population tend to be socially authoritarian in different ways. New Hampshire is not necessarily secular, but it is pluralist. The Southern states are all too socially conservative, and most of them are also very dependent on the federal government.

New Hampshire thus combines the best of all worlds and ends up with an ideal socioeconomic and cultural mix. Most of the states that are socially tolerant and economically advanced tend to be heavily urbanized and leftist, while most of the states that are not heavily urbanized tend to be poor or too rightist. New Hampshire is the only state in the country that I can identify that is tolerant, advanced, not federally dependent, not too urbanized, and historically libertarian-oriented. If a libertarian movement were to succeed anywhere in the country, maybe in the world, it would be in New Hampshire.

Let's take a look now at New Hampshire's unique institutional advantages. The main "institutional" disadvantage of New Hampshire is that it does not have the absolute lowest population of any state. However, as the analysis above shows, several thousand Free Staters should be able to influence New Hampshire very strongly despite its small-but-not-smallest size.

In addition, a multitude of institutional advantages seem to outweigh the population problem. First, New Hampshire has a large state house, the third largest legislature in the English-speaking world. Low district size means that outsiders and independents can win elections by running a good campaign. For example, several Libertarian Party legislators won election to the NH House in the 1990's. The $100 per year salary for NH House representatives ($200 for state senators) ensures that career politicians do not dominate the legislature. The practice of fusion voting, rare in the U.S., allows politicians to run for election with multiple party endorsements, making it easier for third parties to win votes. Biennial elections for all state elective offices ensures strict popular control of government. Despite the fact that New Hampshire has no initiative and referendum process, the ease of getting on the ballot combined with biennial elections for every state office means that virtually every statewide election is a referendum on the policies of the incumbent government. Another institutional advantage is the aforementioned strength of town government. Schooling is an important policy area that activists can change at the local level in New Hampshire. The state constitution forbids unfunded state mandates on local government.

New Hampshire's institutions thus reflect the state's history and political culture, providing a unique opportunity for a "free state" movement.

Are you interested in helping to secure the future of individual rights, tolerance, and the rule of law? Would you enjoy living in a society that respected your values? Then join us in New Hampshire! My own analysis indicates that there is no better place on earth. Do your own analysis and discover where you'd like to be in the future.

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