Why I voted against Gordon A. MacDonald to be Chief Justice

Cinde Warmington (Courtesy photo)

To the residents of New Hampshire:

After hearing testimony yesterday and asking my own questions of Attorney General MacDonald, I had substantial concerns about his nomination, particularly his commitment to the protection of reproductive rights and voting rights in New Hampshire. Gordon MacDonald would be the first Chief Justice in a century to be appointed with no judicial experience. Without a judicial record, we have only his responses to questioning, and what he has done in his past positions as a practicing attorney and as state Attorney General, to understand his approach.
As Attorney General, MacDonald has supported the redirection of public funds to private and religious schools. He has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars of taxpayer funds to defend voter suppression legislation that has been ruled unconstitutional.
MacDonald described a judicial philosophy wherein he determines the meaning of the Constitution based on the meaning of the words at the time they were written. Other conservative justices adopt standards which envision the Constitution to be a living, breathing document which left outstanding questions that the Framers left to be resolved another day. I strongly believe we need a judiciary prepared to face the challenges of the day. Racial injustice, political division, gender inequality. These are issues that will be best addressed by a judiciary that does not bind itself to rigid, robotic computations, but one that is true both to the words of our Constitution and to the complexities of factual considerations in a changing world.
While I respect him, his legal scholarship and his integrity, I think a court lead by MacDonald will exacerbate rather than heal the wounds of division and injustice in our state.

- Cinde Warmington, D-Concord,

NH Executive Council, Dist. 2