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The field for the upcoming special election of State Senate District #16 has been set. The district includes Wards #1, #2 and #12 in Manchester (which is Hillsborough County), as well as the Towns of Bow, Dunbarton & Hooksett in Merrimack County and the Town of Candia in Rockingham County.
Since more than one Republican filed, we have a primary on January 12th, 2010, followed by the main event on February 16th. The two Republicans are Terry Pfaff and State Rep. David Boutin. The one Democrat is State Rep. Jeff Goley, the chair of the Labor Committee. Bob Backus is not running.
There is an independent who announced his attention to run: Joseph "JR" Hoell of Dunbarton. We may see a legal skirmish associated with his efforts to gather a fairly large number of nominating petitions: 750, if I am not mistaken. He has to get them in by January 5, 2010, which is a daunting task. A "housekeeping bill" passed last session with little fanfare, HB 623, states (amongst other seemingly mundane provisions) that nominating petitions have to be dated the same year as the election. This is not a big problem (although some Libertarians were fussing about it) when the deadline is in early September, more than 8 months after New Year's Day. But, it is probably not reasonable to expect Hoell to collect his petitions just during the first 4 days of the new year.
It seems a little foolhardy for someone to run for the State Senate seat as an independent, meaning you have to collect all those petitions and jump through some other hoops, when it costs just $2.00 to file as a candidate in one of the primaries. But no doubt Mr Hoell has a good reason for running that way.
Should Goley or Boutin win the election--- and they both seem more likely than Pfaff or Hoell--- the House will have a vacant seat for the rest of the biennium, since no special election can be held after March 15th, and the new Senator won't take office till approximately February 15th.
