Kyle Haines
Running for: NH House Hillsborough County District 12
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 program was created with an income cap explicitly as a promise to direct help to lower-income families and keep costs down. In June 2025 that cap was removed entirely, and the result was an increase in spending to a projected figure of over $100 million, drawn from the fund that supports every public school, without even asking who needs it. I also have genuine constitutional concerns about public education dollars flowing to religious schools. I hold the principle that public money shouldn't fund religious establishment, and a program that routes taxpayer education funding into religious schooling, with little accountability, sits uncomfortably with it. I'm aware courts have recently read the Establishment Clause much more narrowly, but a principle doesn't stop being worth defending because a court reads it as such. And finally there's also a serious accountability problem. This year the Legislature killed multiple reasonable oversight measures: a bill to report EFA students' standardized test scores, bills to make the program's financial records public, and to disclose measures of students' educational progress also failed. These are all measures public schools are required to take, and asking the same of voucher recipients is no unjust burden. Meanwhile, the legislative committee specifically charged with monitoring the program didn't meet for over a year and missed its required annual report. We are spending public education dollars and actively declining to measure where they go or what they accomplish."Other| 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?
"There are two distinctions this question collapses and I want to clarify them. The first regards public versus private. A private gym or club should be free to set its own locker-room or bathroom policy and people can choose to patronize them accordingly. But in the institutions the state itself controls and requires people to be in, such as public schools or prisons, the state does have a legitimate interest in ensuring adequate privacy standards are upheld. But that brings us to: Second, the intimacy of the space. A communal shower or locker room facility raises real privacy, comfort, and safety concerns that a bathroom with stalls simply doesn't. So in genuinely intimate, state-controlled spaces, I think protecting privacy on the basis of biological sex is reasonable."Against| Read My Position
Citizens Count Issue Survey, 2026
Should New Hampshire ban abortions during the first trimester (e.g. after 6 weeks gestation)?
"New Hampshire's current viability based standard is a reasonable place for the line to sit, and I wouldn't vote to repeal it. I support protecting access before viability and I'm against the proposals to move that line any earlier. I would also fight against restrictive bans that potentially inject legal hesitation into time critical medical decisions. I wouldn't want a doctor to feel the need to consult a lawyer mid emergency any more than I'd want a pilot doing it before diverting around a storm. The current framework reflects a workable balance, and I'm not interested in relitigating it."Against| Read My Position
Citizens Count Issue Survey, 2026
Should New Hampshire ban abortions during the second trimester (e.g. after 15 weeks gestation)?
"New Hampshire's current viability based standard is a reasonable place for the line to sit, and I wouldn't vote to repeal it. I support protecting access before viability and I'm against the proposals to move that line any earlier. I would also fight against restrictive bans that potentially inject legal hesitation into time critical medical decisions. I wouldn't want a doctor to feel the need to consult a lawyer mid emergency any more than I'd want a pilot doing it before diverting around a storm. The current framework reflects a workable balance, and I'm not interested in relitigating it."Against| Read My Position
Citizens Count Issue Survey, 2026
Should NH add an income tax on earned income?
"Adding a new broad based tax is a structural change I don't think we need. The fiscally responsible path is restoring stable sources we already had and chose to give up, not building an entirely new tax apparatus from scratch."Against| Read My Position
Citizens Count Issue Survey, 2026
Should New Hampshire lower business taxes?
"The most recent state audit shows business tax revenue came in $131 million below estimate right when federal pandemic money ended and the state covered the $67 million shortfall by drawing from the Rainy Day Fund. Cutting business taxes any further while we're already taking money from the rainy day fund on a sunny day isn't fiscal responsibility."For| Read My Position
Citizens Count Issue Survey, 2026
Should the state do more to encourage municipalities to remove zoning barriers to housing development?
"This question is fundamentally about property rights: Too many local zoning rules forbid people from building housing on land they own. Laws like minimum lot sizes, parking minimums, bans on mixed-use and on the 'missing middle' housing types that towns built routinely a century ago lead to the situation we are in where the only economical options are single family homes and large apartment complexes. Simplifying those rules lets owners use their own property to help solve a real housing shortage. The usual objection is property values, but that is a speculative, unprovable effect. And importantly, even if it weren't, one is not entitled to a perpetual increase in home value, and the 'right' to that certainly isn't a reason for government to forbid someone's lawful use of their own property."For| 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?
"I am for this, emphatically. New Hampshire should encourage nuclear, including SMRs through streamlining siting, removing unnecessary regulatory barriers, and investing in workforce development. But I'd be remiss not to mention that 'encourage' undersells what I truly believe we need. Nuclear is among the least carbon intensive energy sources available and it also happens to deliver firm, reliable power regardless of weather or season, which is exactly what our grid needs, especially given our state's susceptibility to winter demand peaks. It also does all of this with remarkable land efficiency, a real advantage in the second most forested state in the country. I think the state has a more active role to play than simply encouraging new nuclear. I've developed a detailed framework for a large scale Public Power Authority with a real mandate and the capacity to build the grid we need to ensure New Hampshire's resilience. Encouragement is the floor, not the ceiling."Against| 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?
"Raising the net-metering cap expands a subsidy structure that is not as beneficial to New Hampshire residents as other options. Net metering credits generators at the full retail rate, which bundles in the fixed costs of the grid that everyone relies on. A large generator credited at retail rates avoids contributing to those fixed costs, and that shortfall is shifted onto the ratepayers who don't have their own generation, often lower and middle income families who cannot afford rooftop solar. I'd rather direct New Hampshire's limited resources toward firm, dispatchable generation that strengthens reliability for every ratepayer and can actually help us to achieve a green energy future."For| Read My Position
Citizens Count Issue Survey, 2026
Should New Hampshire restore funding for the Office of the Child Advocate?
"Cutting the OCA is the textbook definition of penny wise and pound foolish, especially when this office oversees a youth detention system that produced one of the largest child abuse scandals in the country. I maintain the following principle that I have expressed elsewhere in this survey: Institutions that handle vulnerable people require real, independent oversight, and you don't get to defund the watchdog when their findings are inconvenient. This case also points to a deeper structural problem in how our 'independent' oversight bodies run. They aren't actually insulated from the branches they're meant to check, who can defund them at will. That's a design flaw worth taking seriously. But in the immediate term it is the best we have and we should restore the funding and stop treating the watchdog as the line item to cut."For| Read My Position
Citizens Count Issue Survey, 2026
Should New Hampshire guarantee the right to access abortion before 24 weeks?
"New Hampshire's current viability based standard is a reasonable place for the line to sit, and I wouldn't vote to repeal it. I support protecting access before viability and I'm against the proposals to move that line any earlier. I would also fight against restrictive bans that potentially inject legal hesitation into time critical medical decisions. I wouldn't want a doctor to feel the need to consult a lawyer mid emergency any more than I'd want a pilot doing it before diverting around a storm. The current framework reflects a workable balance, and I'm not interested in relitigating it."For| Read My Position
Citizens Count Issue Survey, 2026
Should New Hampshire reinstate the interest and dividends tax?
"With a decrease in liquor and tobacco tax revenue becoming a trend rather than a single data point, the state is in need of a stable revenue source to ensure excessive cuts aren't made to crucial infrastructure, and to give the state freedom to explore revenue sharing models with the towns to ease some of the property tax burden."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?
"Funding roughly two-thirds of public education through local property taxes is regressive and unstable. The current model ties a child's education to their town's property wealth and puts the heaviest burden on homeowners regardless of ability to pay, and especially on working families. The direction we move in has to be toward a more stable, less regressive state contribution that eases the load on local property taxpayers. Restoring stable state revenue, like a reasonable interest and dividends tax, is one possible piece."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?
"I support legalization, and I'd structure it on New Hampshire's already well run infrastructure. Home-growing and personal use shouldn't be criminalized at all. Production should be handled by licensed private growers. But for retail, I'd favor selling through our existing state store system rather than establishing a network of private storefronts. That keeps the revenue working for New Hampshire and uses an operation the state already runs competently. I'd extend the same logic to psilocybin: legalize it, sell it, and treat adults like adults."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?
"I support legalization, and I'd structure it on New Hampshire's already well run infrastructure. Home-growing and personal use shouldn't be criminalized at all. Production should be handled by licensed private growers. But for retail, I'd favor selling through our existing state store system rather than establishing a network of private storefronts. That keeps the revenue working for New Hampshire and uses an operation the state already runs competently. I'd extend the same logic to psilocybin: legalize it, sell it, and treat adults like adults."For| Read My Position
Citizens Count Issue Survey, 2026
Should New Hampshire legalize the recreational use of marijuana by establishing state-run cannabis stores?
"I support legalization, and I'd structure it on New Hampshire's already well run infrastructure. Home-growing and personal use shouldn't be criminalized at all. Production should be handled by licensed private growers. But for retail, I'd favor selling through our existing state store system rather than establishing a network of private storefronts. That keeps the revenue working for New Hampshire and uses an operation the state already runs competently. I'd extend the same logic to psilocybin: legalize it, sell it, and treat adults like adults."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?
"New Hampshire has always required citizenship to vote and that should not change. The prior system had new registrants attest to their citizenship status under penalty of perjury. The problem such a proposal seeks to 'solve' was tiny, with affidavits being used by under 1% of registrants. But the burden is on the people proposing to add a document barrier to demonstrate that it's solving a real, demonstrated problem, and they haven't. Proponents have never shown that non-citizen voting is a meaningful problem in New Hampshire, while the cost is concrete and proven. A no-exceptions documentation requirement turns away eligible citizens who don't have a passport or birth certificate on hand."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?
"Open enrollment drains students and funding from the districts least able to absorb the loss thus weakening the school for every child who stays, and it hits poor and rural districts hardest. It also makes responsible planning nearly impossible, with schools' budgeting of both staff and dollars being reliant on stable enrollment. I'd rather invest in making every school strong than bleeding districts dry."Against| Read My Position
Citizens Count Issue Survey, 2026
Should New Hampshire repeal the ban on abortion after 24 weeks gestation?
"New Hampshire's current viability based standard is a reasonable place for the line to sit, and I wouldn't vote to repeal it. I support protecting access before viability and I'm against the proposals to move that line any earlier. I would also fight against restrictive bans that potentially inject legal hesitation into time critical medical decisions. I wouldn't want a doctor to feel the need to consult a lawyer mid emergency any more than I'd want a pilot doing it before diverting around a storm. The current framework reflects a workable balance, and I'm not interested in relitigating it."Against| Read My Position
Citizens Count Issue Survey, 2026
Should state law cap how much local school districts can increase their budget each year?
"This is worse than an unfunded mandate. The state and federal government require local schools to provide a laundry list of services that towns are legally obligated to deliver and to pay for. A state cap layered on top of all these policy mandates then constrains the town's ability to raise the money to pay for it. The town is left obligated to provide what it is neither funded for nor fully permitted to pay for. Also, on the concept of local control, this isn't a case where the state needs to step in to protect anyone's rights. It's local self-governance over local schools, and the remedy for a budget residents think is too high already exists: the voters can reject it at their own town meeting. Where a genuine right is at stake, I want the state to act, but a town funding its own schools by its own vote isn't that. If the concern is runaway budgets, the answer is a stronger, more transparent local budget process, not a single state ceiling imposed on districts whose needs and circumstances differ enormously."Against| Read My Position
Citizens Count Issue Survey, 2026
Should NH pass stricter gun control laws?
"I hold the right to keep and bear arms as the most fundamental check on government power, and I start from the premise that the burden is on the state to justify any restriction rather than on the citizen to justify the right. Most of the gun control proposals fail that burden in that they impose real costs on law-abiding people while doing little to address the actual sources of violence, which the data shows are concentrated in ways these broad measures don't touch. Several also carry serious due process concerns. Proposals that strip rights based on watch lists or red-flag mechanisms without robust due process should concern anyone who values civil liberties. I take the underlying problem of violence seriously but I don't grant the premise that these particular laws are common sense or the actual answer, and I'm not willing to trade away Constitutional rights or due process for measures that wouldn't deliver the safety they promise."
