Darryn E. Remillard

Citizens Count Issue Survey, 2026

Do you support the “Education Freedom Account” program, which gives students access to the per-pupil share of state school funding to spend on private school or home school expenses?

"What I oppose specifically is the removal of income eligibility requirements from this program. The original intent of EFAs was to provide families who could not otherwise afford private schooling an alternative option. When income caps were removed, the program was transformed into something categorically different - a subsidy for families who were already paying private school tuition, funded by public tax dollars intended for public schools. That is not educational equity. That is a transfer of public resources to private and religious institutions with no accountability to NH taxpayers. I support restoring income eligibility requirements immediately.

"On the broader question: I am not opposed to homeschooling, and I am open to a more limited, specifically scoped EFA program tailored to families who genuinely pursue home education as their primary model. A well-designed, income-capped, homeschool-focused program is a conversation worth having. The current uncapped program that diverts public school funding to private institutions is not."

Citizens Count Issue Survey, 2026

Should New Hampshire’s anti-discrimination law allow segregation based on biological sex in some settings, such as bathrooms and locker rooms?

"My starting premise is that gender equality and transgender rights are both important to me, and that they are not mutually exclusive or in tension with one another. Creating balanced public policy that honors both is genuinely challenging. I do not believe that any current top-down, mandatory, one-size-fits-all statute would resolve this issue fairly.

"I want to address a specific piece of misinformation I have encountered personally, including in conversations with NH state legislators from both parties: the claim that opposition to 'transgender transition surgery for minors' is a relevant policy position in this debate. It is not - because gender transition surgery is not the current standard of care for transgender youth anywhere in the United States. Legislation built on this false premise produces policy that is both factually unsupported and unnecessarily harmful.

"The realistic scenario we are discussing is transgender individuals who have not surgically transitioned sharing facilities with cisgender individuals - in both directions, including the psychological harm that may ensue for transgender individuals in such situations. These are reasonable public policy questions to engage with honestly - while acknowledging how statistically rare these scenarios are in practice. I supported Governor Ayotte's veto of several bathroom bills based on the genuine concern that mandatory legislation would cause discrimination-based harm that outweighs any benefit.

"My preferred approach: as a legal minimum, schools should be required to provide reasonable accommodations such as single-use bathrooms. More broadly, I favor delegating decision-making authority to municipalities rather than imposing a statewide mandate in either direction. We already have laws against indecent exposure and predatory behavior that apply to everyone regardless of gender identity - those laws should be enforced and strengthened where needed, not used as a pretext for excluding transgender people from public life."

Citizens Count Issue Survey, 2026

Should New Hampshire ban abortions during the first trimester (e.g. after 6 weeks gestation)?

"As a veterinarian and the spouse of a physician, I approach this issue from a clinical perspective. I do not support government intrusion into the discussions and decisions that occur between a patient and their physician.

"Abortions after 24 weeks of gestation are not elective. They are exceptionally rare and occur almost exclusively in the context of lethal or catastrophic fetal health conditions. Medicine is already rigorously regulated through statute and professional oversight bodies. While I am not currently advocating for a full repeal of the existing ban on abortion after 24 weeks, I do favor amending state statute to reflect the genuine clinical reality in which these decisions take place - creating appropriate exceptions that restore full decision-making authority to patients and their physicians.

"I support the right to access abortion before 24 weeks of gestation without restriction. I am opposed to any ban on abortions during the first or second trimester. Finally - I want to state clearly: I would never under any circumstances support legislation that would compel any woman to seek out or undergo an abortion against her will. Reproductive autonomy runs in both directions. Government has no place in either decision."

Citizens Count Issue Survey, 2026

Should New Hampshire ban abortions during the second trimester (e.g. after 15 weeks gestation)?

"As a veterinarian and the spouse of a physician, I approach this issue from a clinical perspective. I do not support government intrusion into the discussions and decisions that occur between a patient and their physician.

"Abortions after 24 weeks of gestation are not elective. They are exceptionally rare and occur almost exclusively in the context of lethal or catastrophic fetal health conditions. Medicine is already rigorously regulated through statute and professional oversight bodies. While I am not currently advocating for a full repeal of the existing ban on abortion after 24 weeks, I do favor amending state statute to reflect the genuine clinical reality in which these decisions take place - creating appropriate exceptions that restore full decision-making authority to patients and their physicians.

"I support the right to access abortion before 24 weeks of gestation without restriction. I am opposed to any ban on abortions during the first or second trimester. Finally - I want to state clearly: I would never under any circumstances support legislation that would compel any woman to seek out or undergo an abortion against her will. Reproductive autonomy runs in both directions. Government has no place in either decision."

Citizens Count Issue Survey, 2026

Should NH add an income tax on earned income?

"I believe in the NH Advantage. A broad-based income tax on earned labor income is not something I support. Beyond principle, the practical reality is that New Hampshire's current population - and its expected near-term growth trajectory - does not support the scale required to make a broad-based income tax a viable or efficient revenue instrument. There is a reason economists say 'scale breaks things.' At roughly 1.4 million residents, NH lacks the population base to generate sufficient revenue from a broad-based income tax to justify the economic and political disruption of implementing one. If NH's population were to reach 3 million or more, that calculus might warrant revisiting. We are nowhere near that threshold."

Citizens Count Issue Survey, 2026

Should New Hampshire lower business taxes?

"The BET and BPT are not the same instrument and should not be discussed as if they are. The Business Enterprise Tax is a tax on the enterprise value of doing business in NH. The Business Profits Tax is a tax on corporate profits. Both have been reduced or phased out over the past decade on the premise that doing so would stimulate business formation and investment. Ten years in, the evidence that this policy achieved its stated objectives is not there. There is no virtuous cycle where new business growth and tax revenue from that growth offsets the revenue lost from reducing these taxes.

"The fundamental problem is that the value proposition of doing business in New Hampshire has never been primarily about tax rates. NH had a competitive BET and BPT rate before these reductions began. What actually attracts businesses here is quality of life, workforce quality, and proximity to the Boston market - none of which are improved by reducing business taxes at the cost of underfunding public services. I believe we have an opportunity to rebalance these tax instruments - with particular attention to supporting smaller businesses and new startup formation - while restoring the revenue needed to meet our public obligations."

Citizens Count Issue Survey, 2026

Should the state do more to encourage municipalities to remove zoning barriers to housing development?

"I am unconvinced that broad state encouragement of local zoning changes will achieve the actual policy objective - which is the construction of affordable starter homes and the reduction of rental costs and vacancy rate pressures across NH. Windham has led the state in percentage population growth over the past 25 years through deliberate, community-driven planning - not by eliminating zoning. We are nearly 20 years out from the landmark Workforce Housing Bill of 2008 and we broadly agree that NH still faces a housing deficit. That bill was not localized or specific enough to achieve its stated aim. A similar blunt-instrument approach is unlikely to produce different results.

"What is needed is targeted, intentional policy - transit-oriented development connected to existing infrastructure corridors, incentives specifically structured to produce starter homes, and local flexibility to design solutions that match local conditions. I will oppose top-down mandates that substitute state directives for local democratic decision-making."

Citizens Count Issue Survey, 2026

Should New Hampshire do more to encourage the development of nuclear power, including small modular reactors (SMR), in the state?

"I support the development of small modular reactors in New Hampshire. Traditional nuclear power plants cost tens of billions of dollars and require decades of development. Small modular reactors are categorically different - smaller, faster to deploy, largely designed to operate behind the meter, and benefit from decades of engineering refinement. I sought the counsel of a trusted friend with a background in nuclear engineering before forming this position. I am particularly encouraged by innovations in TRISO nuclear fuel design, which makes reactor meltdown scenarios exceedingly unlikely. NH faces persistently high electricity costs and SMRs are one meaningful part of a comprehensive solution that must also include expanded renewable generation, energy efficiency investment, and grid modernization."

Citizens Count Issue Survey, 2026

Do you support legislation to expand the net energy metering system capacity cap from 1 MW to 5 MW for all residential and commercial customers in New Hampshire?

"I support expanding net metering capacity from 1 MW to 5 MW for residential and commercial customers. New Hampshire faces persistently high electricity costs that burden households and businesses alike. Expanding net metering is one of the most direct and cost-effective tools available to incentivize adoption of renewable electricity generation - reducing ratepayer costs, decreasing dependence on centralized grid infrastructure, and accelerating the transition to cleaner energy sources. I will support this legislation."

Citizens Count Issue Survey, 2026

Should New Hampshire restore funding for the Office of the Child Advocate?

"I am a former foster child. I know firsthand what it means to be a child without adequate institutional protection - to exist in a system that is supposed to care for you but does not always have the resources or accountability to do so. The Office of the Child Advocate exists to provide independent oversight of the systems that are supposed to protect vulnerable children in New Hampshire. Defunding it is a decision to reduce accountability for how this state treats its most vulnerable children. I emphatically support restoring full funding to the Office of the Child Advocate and will advocate for this as a priority from my first day in Concord."

Citizens Count Issue Survey, 2026

Should New Hampshire guarantee the right to access abortion before 24 weeks?

"As a veterinarian and the spouse of a physician, I approach this issue from a clinical perspective. I do not support government intrusion into the discussions and decisions that occur between a patient and their physician.

"Abortions after 24 weeks of gestation are not elective. They are exceptionally rare and occur almost exclusively in the context of lethal or catastrophic fetal health conditions. Medicine is already rigorously regulated through statute and professional oversight bodies. While I am not currently advocating for a full repeal of the existing ban on abortion after 24 weeks, I do favor amending state statute to reflect the genuine clinical reality in which these decisions take place - creating appropriate exceptions that restore full decision-making authority to patients and their physicians.

"I support the right to access abortion before 24 weeks of gestation without restriction. I am opposed to any ban on abortions during the first or second trimester. Finally - I want to state clearly: I would never under any circumstances support legislation that would compel any woman to seek out or undergo an abortion against her will. Reproductive autonomy runs in both directions. Government has no place in either decision."

Citizens Count Issue Survey, 2026

Should New Hampshire reinstate the interest and dividends tax?

"I support reinstating the Interest and Dividends Tax and want to be precise about why: an I&D tax is a tax on capital income - returns on investments, dividends, and interest earnings. It is categorically different from a broad-based income tax, which taxes labor income. I oppose taxing labor. I support reinstating a modest tax on capital income, which is what the I&D tax does. The elimination of this tax removed approximately $135 million in annual revenue from the state - revenue that disproportionately benefited the wealthiest households - and shifted that burden onto local property taxpayers. The I&D tax was not broken. Eliminating it was a policy mistake that NH can and should correct."

Citizens Count Issue Survey, 2026

Do you support New Hampshire’s current system of public school funding, with about two-thirds of total funding coming from local property taxes?

"New Hampshire's current system - in which approximately two-thirds of public school funding comes from local property taxes - is producing wild disparities in educational quality across our state. Communities with strong commercial tax bases can fund excellent schools. Communities without that base cannot. The result is that the quality of a child's public education is determined largely by their zip code, not by the state's constitutional obligation to provide an adequate education to every child in New Hampshire.

"We have been arguing about the implications of the Claremont decisions for decades. The state's duty to ensure adequate public education is constitutionally established. Our funding mechanism systematically undermines that duty and we have never fully reckoned with that contradiction.

"I want to be direct about why this issue is not abstract to me. I spent some of my most vulnerable childhood years in foster care. The public school was the one institution that showed up for me regardless of my circumstances at home. My own life is living proof of why an adequate public education - available to every child, not just those in well-funded districts - matters. I will not support a system that makes that promise to some children and withholds it from others based on where they happen to live."

Citizens Count Issue Survey, 2026

Should New Hampshire legalize the recreational use of marijuana by allowing home-growing and private use without sales?

"I support the legalization and regulation of recreational marijuana in New Hampshire exclusively through the NH state liquor store system. This is the model NH already uses successfully for alcohol retail. State-run cannabis stores provide tighter quality control, consistent regulatory oversight, and direct revenue capture for the state. I have previously advocated for directing a significant portion of anticipated cannabis tax revenues - estimated at $30 to $60 million annually - toward state adequacy aid for public education."

Citizens Count Issue Survey, 2026

Should New Hampshire legalize the recreational use of marijuana by licensing growers and private retail locations?

"I support the legalization and regulation of recreational marijuana in New Hampshire exclusively through the NH state liquor store system. This is the model NH already uses successfully for alcohol retail. State-run cannabis stores provide tighter quality control, consistent regulatory oversight, and direct revenue capture for the state. I have previously advocated for directing a significant portion of anticipated cannabis tax revenues - estimated at $30 to $60 million annually - toward state adequacy aid for public education."

Citizens Count Issue Survey, 2026

Should New Hampshire legalize the recreational use of marijuana by establishing state-run cannabis stores?

"I support the legalization and regulation of recreational marijuana in New Hampshire exclusively through the NH state liquor store system. This is the model NH already uses successfully for alcohol retail. State-run cannabis stores provide tighter quality control, consistent regulatory oversight, and direct revenue capture for the state. I have previously advocated for directing a significant portion of anticipated cannabis tax revenues - estimated at $30 to $60 million annually - toward state adequacy aid for public education."

Citizens Count Issue Survey, 2026

Should New Hampshire require new voters to provide proof of U.S. citizenship, such as a birth certificate or passport, when registering to vote?

"I served our country for eight years as a United States Marine. I take seriously the rights and responsibilities that citizenship confers and demands. It is precisely because of that commitment that I cannot support this proposal in good conscience.

"I do not believe proof of citizenship requirements represent a good faith effort to ensure secure elections. I have not found convincing evidence that NH suffers from an epidemic of fraudulent voting by non-citizens. The practical burden this requirement imposes is also worth stating plainly: only about 40% of Americans hold a valid passport, and many Americans do not readily possess a birth certificate. Requiring these documents is not a neutral administrative step - it is a barrier that falls unevenly on specific populations of fully eligible citizens.

"We already have laws that expressly criminalize fraudulent voting. A more targeted and proportionate approach would be to increase funding for Secretary of State audits of election results and to hold accountable any individual found to have voted fraudulently. I would also advocate for exploring ranked-choice voting as a mechanism that better reflects the genuine preferences of the electorate and reduces the strategic calculation that binary elections force upon voters.

"New Hampshire leads the nation in voter turnout. That tradition is worth protecting - by making participation easier for eligible citizens, not by adding obstacles that solve a problem we cannot demonstrate exists at meaningful scale."

Citizens Count Issue Survey, 2026

Should New Hampshire allow at least 10% of students in each school district to enroll in a different public school, regardless of where they live?

"New Hampshire law already allows local school districts to opt into open enrollment on their own terms. That is the appropriate model - local democratic decision-making, responsive to community needs and capacity. What I oppose is a broad, top-down, mandatory open enrollment policy imposed by the state on every school district regardless of local conditions, infrastructure, or community preference.

"The policy objective of mandatory open enrollment is unclear. It does not obviously improve educational outcomes. What it does clearly do is undermine the traditional NH model of local democratic oversight of school districts, create significant administrative complexity and bureaucracy, destabilize school budgets that depend on enrollment-based funding projections, and impose a one-size-fits-all framework on communities that have very different circumstances."

Citizens Count Issue Survey, 2026

Should New Hampshire repeal the ban on abortion after 24 weeks gestation?

"As a veterinarian and the spouse of a physician, I approach this issue from a clinical perspective. I do not support government intrusion into the discussions and decisions that occur between a patient and their physician.

"Abortions after 24 weeks of gestation are not elective. They are exceptionally rare and occur almost exclusively in the context of lethal or catastrophic fetal health conditions. Medicine is already rigorously regulated through statute and professional oversight bodies. While I am not currently advocating for a full repeal of the existing ban on abortion after 24 weeks, I do favor amending state statute to reflect the genuine clinical reality in which these decisions take place - creating appropriate exceptions that restore full decision-making authority to patients and their physicians.

"I support the right to access abortion before 24 weeks of gestation without restriction. I am opposed to any ban on abortions during the first or second trimester. Finally - I want to state clearly: I would never under any circumstances support legislation that would compel any woman to seek out or undergo an abortion against her will. Reproductive autonomy runs in both directions. Government has no place in either decision."

Citizens Count Issue Survey, 2026

Should state law cap how much local school districts can increase their budget each year?

"I am emphatically opposed to a top-down, mandatory school district tax cap mandate imposed by the state. NH state law already permits municipalities to impose their own school district tax caps through local warrant articles. In the majority of communities where these warrant articles have been introduced, voters have rejected them. The response from proponents - that municipal election turnout is too low to reflect the true will of the people - is both cynical and unconvincing. Follow that logic to its conclusion and the consistent remedy would be to move all municipal elections to statewide election day. Nobody seriously proposes this, because everyone understands it would politicize and hyper-polarize municipal races in exactly the ways our tradition of off-cycle local elections was designed to prevent.

"The deeper issue is that the school tax burden has grown not because school districts are spending recklessly, but because state-level tax policy decisions - eliminating the Interest and Dividends Tax, phasing out the BET, reducing the BPT - have systematically shifted fiscal responsibility onto municipalities. Here in Windham, per-pupil spending has been relatively stable for years and runs below the state average. The problem is not local overspending. The problem is state underfunding. The traditional NH model of voters controlling their school budgets through elected school boards is the right model. I support it without reservation."

Citizens Count Issue Survey, 2026

Should NH pass stricter gun control laws?

"I do not support gun control legislation that violates the Second Amendment. I have previously owned firearms and no longer do - that was a personal decision. I respect the constitutional right of law-abiding New Hampshire citizens to keep and bear arms.

"What I do support are targeted, constitutionally sound measures: red flag laws that provide a legal mechanism to temporarily remove firearms from individuals adjudicated as posing a demonstrable danger to themselves or others; and legislation creating meaningful legal accountability for the unsafe storage of firearms when a weapon is subsequently accessed and used to commit a crime. That is not gun confiscation. That is accountability. NH currently lacks adequate statutory framework for this and I will support legislation that creates it."