Rep. Tim Lang wants to become next speaker of NH House

LACONIA — Rep. Tim Lang, who lost out on a bid to chair the Belknap County Legislative Delegation, is now throwing his hat in the ring to be speaker of the New Hampshire House of Representatives.

The first step would be to get the speaker nomination from his Republican Party colleagues in the House. 

"I'm hoping Republicans are interested in a change at the statehouse and that I can be that change," he said. 

After that, the full House would vote, and he would work to get votes from both parties. 

Lang has been a voice of moderation in the Belknap County Delegation. He favored a remote option for a delegation meeting last week before it went on as planned in-person and in a room too small to allow social distancing.

At that meeting, he ran for chairman of the delegation, but lost 11-6 to Rep. Mike Sylvia.

Lang then successfully urged that a public budget discussion be postponed until it could be done with participation allowed through Zoom, which occurred Monday.

He was one of six representatives who attended that meeting in person, but he wore a mask and was socially distanced, while other representatives sat together and most did not wear masks.

Sylvia has said he doesn’t believe face masks are helpful, despite contrary advice from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He has called Zoom meetings “awkward at best” and has complained they don’t allow for “contemporaneous communication.”

On Monday night, Lang was one of several representatives who criticized the County Commission for making fund transfers for the County Nursing Home without first asking the delegation for permission, but he was the lone representative not to favor creating a committee with a $5,000 budget to formally investigate the matter.

He said the issue could be addressed in a non-adversarial way with commissioners and at less cost to taxpayers.

Lang said that before Hinch’s death, he was going to wait two years to run for speaker.

“I was completely content to serve these two years under the leadership of Speaker Hinch,” Lang said.

“Dick had made me the chair of Fish and Game, and I was looking forward to my assignment and the coming two years. Sadly though, and for horrible reasons we are here, and need to move forward to pick a new speaker.”

He draws a distinction between the Republican Party leadership and the House leadership.

“As speaker, I will leave the partisan politics to the parties, and will focus on keeping the House safe and open for all members,” he said.

Lang said the House leadership — speaker, deputy speaker and speaker pro-tem — “are supposed to be non-partisan.

“These are constitutional officers of the House, similar to the secretary of state and state treasurer. Sadly that has not been the case in the recent past, and I hope to change that.

“The speaker’s office should be such that all members of the House, Republican, Democrat or Libertarian feel the door is open and that they will get a fair and even shake from the speaker's office. Politics belong in the Republican and Democrat Party offices, process and fairness belong in the speaker’s office.”

The three-term representative from Sanbornton also said he has a good working relationship with Gov. Chris Sununu.