Meet the Gen-Z New Hampshire State Legislators

On Wednesday, February 11, the Dartmouth Political Union and Dartmouth Civics host­ed three New Hampshire state legislators, all of whom ini­tially ran for their respective first terms under the age of twenty. The three who spoke to students were Representa­tive James Thibault of Franklin and Northfield, Representative Valerie McDonnell of Salem, and Representative Cassandra Levesque of Barrington. Rep­resentative Jonah Wheeler of Peterborough and Sharon was also scheduled to attend, but he was not present.

The legislators responded to a wide-ranging set of ques­tions about their reasons for running, their legislative pri­orities, their experiences with constituent outreach, their re­sponsibilities in committees, and more.

All three legislators deal with other pressures on their time, which complicate serv­ing their constituents. Rep. Levesque works a separate job when she is not acting as a state representative, and she spoke about the fact that she needed to find a position suffi­ciently flexible to allow her to move around the state on short notice. Rep. Thibault spoke about the need to divide his time between hearing from his constituents in Franklin, vot­ing in Concord, and attending classes at St. Anslem College in Manchester. Rep. McDonnell balances both education and employment with service as a legislator: she has a part-time job, she is currently enrolled in law school, and she still rep­resents her Salem constituents in Concord.

As the legislators men­tioned, the unusually low sal­ary that comes with a position in the New Hampshire House of Representatives (only $100/year) means that it is easiest for retirees who do not need to divide their time with anoth­er job (that pays the bills) to serve in the chamber. Accord­ingly, the representatives who visited Dartmouth are certain­ly very significantly younger than the vast majority of other individuals around whom they serve. 

Rather than demeaning the older members or speaking about this state of affairs as an issue, however, the three legis­lators maintained a respectful tone. Rep. Thibault specifical­ly stressed the importance of “humility” in his position, Rep. McDonnell spoke about her desire to learn from her older colleagues, and Rep. Levesque emphasized how she worked to make her interest in work­ing with fellow members of all ages clear. They all denied any desire to push out or fully dis­place the older members from influence, and this healthy at­titude will enable them to serve as a conduit through which in­stitutional knowledge from the older members can be passed on to new generations once the members in question reach the end of their careers.

While they all made refer­ence to the fact that they have much to learn, they did come into the legislature with a sur­prising amount of knowledge and pertinent experience, giv­en their ages. Rep. McDonnell has a background in advocacy on behalf of mandatory civics education in NH schools. Rep. Levesque grew her network of connections and her un­derstanding of the legislative process through her efforts to advocate for raising the New Hampshire marriage age to eighteen (a change which took place in 2024), which began when she was fifteen years old. Rep. Thibault similarly began working with New Hampshire legislators at the age of fifteen: he worked for (and eventually chaired) the New Hampshire Legislative Youth Advisory Council, which advises sitting members of the House on pol­icy issues.

All three of the members noted that there is generally a high level of cordiality and respect within the NH legis­lature, even across partisan lines. Rep. Levesque particu­larly spoke about the role the COVID lockdowns (ironically) played in bringing legislators closer together since the legis­lators bonded over the shared experience of attempting to navigate being productive de­spite the restrictions.

All three members also as­serted the existence of instanc­es in which they had broken with most of their respective parties, and Rep. Thibault stat­ed that members often listen to floor speeches with open minds and that representatives engage productively when de­bating in session. Represen­tative McDonnell noted that a sizable portion of votes do not meaningfully break down on party lines at all, but those that do are the ones most extensive­ly covered by the media (dis­torting public perceptions). She further explained that NH legislators, who can receive neither money nor fame from serving in the House, are mo­tivated chiefly by a genuine desire to serve their constit­uents (and thus less suscepti­ble to being strong-armed by party leadership). Rep. Thi­bault expressed that part of what enables the House to be so productive despite meeting for such a small portion of the year is that many measures are so uncontroversial and pass committees so easily that they get bundled into large package votes: most floor time is thus reserved for the portion of is­sues about which there is dis­agreement.

Despite the fact that Rep. Thibault and Rep. McDon­nell are Republicans and Rep. Levesque is a Democrat, all three were very friendly with one another throughout the event. This may have some­thing to do with the fact that most of the time centered around a discussion of legisla­tors’ personal experiences and the procedure of the NH House rather than hotly contested current issues. The main issue that the legislators did discuss, however, was education policy (being that they all completed their respective K-12 educa­tions relatively recently, this is a subject on which they should be able to contribute especially well). Both Republicans dis­cussed their respective roles in expanding New Hampshire’s school choice program, along­side offering a robust defense of the legislative initiative as a whole. Rep. Levesque did not directly respond to those state­ments, but later she did men­tion other resources she would like to see allocated to educa­tion. However, by no means did this event begin as a debate or devolve into one.

On the whole, it was an in­teresting opportunity to better understand the experience of some of the youngest state leg­islators in the country (in the case of Rep. Thibault, literally the youngest). Legislators like them are somewhat uniquely made possible by the unusual­ly large size of the NH House relative to the state’s popula­tion. On top of that, many of their discussions of legislative procedure (like how commit­tees function, or how they ini­tiated the process of running for office) had the capacity to generally teach Dartmouth students about how the state in which they live, study, and work functions.