Heather Raymond
Running for: NH House Hillsborough County District 05
Completed our 2026 State Candidate Survey
Position on Issues
Against| Read My Position
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?
"The EFA voucher program has vastly exceeded its budget every year since inception without any meaningful oversight. The total budget for EFAs in the 2025-2026 state budget was $74 million, spending is on track to be close to $200 million. In every state with EFA style vouchers, the program overspends and under-delivers. Here in NH we don't even know if the program is delivering educational outcomes because there is no requirement that students participate in state testing and no auditing of academic progress. Lastly, over 94% of students in the EFA program have not attended public schools. This is entirely new state spending at a time when property taxpayers are overburdened."Against| Read My Position
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?
"Against"Against| Read My Position
Citizens Count Issue Survey, 2026
Should New Hampshire ban abortions during the first trimester (e.g. after 6 weeks gestation)?
"I believe that family planning decisions should be between a pregnant person and their doctor and that politicians have no business making medical decisions for other people."Against| Read My Position
Citizens Count Issue Survey, 2026
Should New Hampshire ban abortions during the second trimester (e.g. after 15 weeks gestation)?
"I believe that family planning decisions should be between a pregnant person and their doctor and that politicians have no business making medical decisions for other people."Against| Read My Position
Citizens Count Issue Survey, 2026
Should NH add an income tax on earned income?
"Against"Against| Read My Position
Citizens Count Issue Survey, 2026
Should New Hampshire lower business taxes?
"New Hampshire has lowered business taxes 6 times in the past 10 years. A recent analysis by the NH Fiscal Policy Institute found no statistically significant relationship between business tax cuts and job growth, and that state level corporate tax revenues increased faster both nationally and in our neighboring states than they did in NH. This means that the tax cuts did not spur growth nor create jobs. But the state revenue loss did negatively impact the state's ability to meet its obligations to citizens."Undecided| Read My Position
Citizens Count Issue Survey, 2026
Should the state do more to encourage municipalities to remove zoning barriers to housing development?
"NH has a housing shortage, however local municipalities should be able to consider water and waste water infrastructure, wetlands and green space management, and parking availability when deciding on development. Many areas of the state are in significant drought and simply do not have the well capacity to expand. Urban areas must be allowed to manage waste water and water runoff in order to avoid flooding. I support carefully worded legislation to make development easier but also to ensure those moving into new housing have and adequate quality of living."Other| Read My Position
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?
"Nuclear requires decades of planning and building. While it is important to be forward thinking and planning for the future, I don't support placing additional burdens on NH taxpayers at this time. Especially given that NH is already a net exporter of electricity and a recent analysis by the NH Department of Energy indicated that a second nuclear plant will unlikely lower electricity rates for NH residents in the future due to the high cost of developing the plant. Should there be federal funding or sources of investment capital outside of NH taxpayers, I would be willing to consider the proposal. I oppose unregulated SMRs"For| Read My Position
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?
"Many businesses and residents have been asking for this change for years. It makes sense to create pathways toward energy independence."For| Read My Position
Citizens Count Issue Survey, 2026
Should New Hampshire restore funding for the Office of the Child Advocate?
"NH created the Office of the Child Advocate after a number of high profile child murders. Since then, the office has uncovered abuse in residential facilities and inadequacies in DCYF reporting and investigations. It is a critical tool for protecting the safety of granite state children and is currently so understaffed that it cannot meet its statutory obligations."For| Read My Position
Citizens Count Issue Survey, 2026
Should New Hampshire guarantee the right to access abortion before 24 weeks?
"I believe that family planning decisions should be between a pregnant person and their doctor and that politicians have no business making medical decisions for other people."For| Read My Position
Citizens Count Issue Survey, 2026
Should New Hampshire reinstate the interest and dividends tax?
"I think that the Income and Dividends tax should be reinstated with higher exemption levels to ensure that the tax works as designed and doesn't penalize retirees."Against| Read My Position
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?
"There have been multiple state supreme court rulings that the state has failed to meet its constitutional obligations toward funding public schools. NH ranks last in the nation for its state public school funding. A direct result of this underfunding is that property tax payers have to fund a disproportionate share of education costs, property tax bills and per pupil spending varies wildy across the state, and small districts lack the ability to adapt when there are unexpected cost increases for state mandated services like Special Education and transportation. Its important to note that while the state pays about 25% of public education funding, it only pays 10% of special education funding. It is an extremely inefficient and inequitable system."For| Read My Position
Citizens Count Issue Survey, 2026
Should New Hampshire legalize the recreational use of marijuana by allowing home-growing and private use without sales?
"For"For| Read My Position
Citizens Count Issue Survey, 2026
Should New Hampshire legalize the recreational use of marijuana by licensing growers and private retail locations?
"For"For| Read My Position
Citizens Count Issue Survey, 2026
Should New Hampshire legalize the recreational use of marijuana by establishing state-run cannabis stores?
"For"Against| Read My Position
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?
"Non-citizens face significant legal consequences for trying to vote illegally. And the NH Secretary of State's office has repeatedly reported that voter fraud by non-citizens is vanishingly rare. I believe that requiring documents that cost money to obtain in order to register to vote is an unconstitutional poll tax that disproportionally impacts married women."Against| Read My Position
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?
"10% of Nashua's enrollment is 970 students. Every proposal thus far for open enrollment would require the sending district to pay 80-100% of the receiving district per pupil costs. Nashua spends about $18,000 per student; significantly less than the state average of $21,000 per student. If 970 Nashua students attended schools outside the district at $21,000 each it would cost more than $20million dollars, while unlikely to save the district that much in expenses across our 19 school buildings. Unless the state bears a greater burden for public school expenses than local taxpayers, open enrollement will drastically increase the costs of public education across the state. It does not currently make economic sense and there are significant concerns about the impact for special education and CTE programs. Nashua currently is the only district in the state offering a program for deaf and hard of hearing students. We charge tuition to other districts. We could not afford to run the program at $18,000 per student and other districts likely cannot afford to add the physical building modifications, specialized instructors, and interpreters."For| Read My Position
Citizens Count Issue Survey, 2026
Should New Hampshire repeal the ban on abortion after 24 weeks gestation?
"I believe that family planning decisions should be between a pregnant person and their doctor and that politicians have no business making medical decisions for other people."Against| Read My Position
Citizens Count Issue Survey, 2026
Should state law cap how much local school districts can increase their budget each year?
"17 communities had warrant articles in March 2026 for school district tax caps and in every case, the measure failed. Tax caps do not address the rising costs of health care, transportation, and special education which are the top three reasons why school district expenses are rising. All are governed by market forces. Special education has a significant scarcity of people qualified and willing to do the work, rising numbers of students who qualify for services, and increasing complexity of needs. When every district is struggling with the same major cost drivers, the answer should be to create pathways to reducing costs like creating pathways for training and certification, creating cost-sharing and service sharing between districts, and mechanisms to reduce market volitility. A cap will not address any of the reasons for the budget increases, but it will remove local control and exacerbate staff shortages and the loss of non-required educational services like career and technical classes, AP course, and extracurriculars - the exact things that families say they want to have in their schools. There is ample evidence of this in the districts that already have caps."Other| Read My Position
Citizens Count Issue Survey, 2026
Should NH pass stricter gun control laws?
"NH has a proud tradition of hunting and sportsmanship. I fully support the right of folks to own firearms for those purposes and for personal protection. However guns are tools, not toys and NH should do a better job of ensuring that guns are not accessible to children or known perpetrators of violence."
