Norm Silber: Voters need, deserve sound, thoughtful leadership from elected officials

To The Daily Sun,

In his four years in the NH House, Rep Mike Bordes has gone from poor to bad to terrible. In the last two years, he has been ranked second or third worst among self-declared Republicans.

In 2023, Bordes had the second-worst score of all 200 Republicans. He voted 37 times with Democrats against a supermajority of Republicans, in most cases 95%.

More than 95% of Republican representatives supported the Parents’ Bill of Rights in Education, which, among other things, said that teachers should not lie to parents about potential gender transitioning of children. Bordes strenuously opposed the Parents’ Bill of Rights, even to the point of co-sponsoring a Democrat amendment to weaken the bill. Some of Bordes’ other bad votes:

Cost of living — voted for higher energy costs

Parental controls — voted for ignoring any parental complaint of inappropriate materials; voted against ensuring that materials in schools are age appropriate and not harmful to minors; voted against establishing the Parental Bill of Rights; voted against parental choice regarding intrusive surveys; and voted against prohibiting mandatory mask policies in schools

Education: voted against expanding eligibility to the Education Freedom Account program; voted against expanding the Education Freedom Account program; and voted against increasing eligibility to the Education Freedom Account program

Constitutional rights: voted against allowing exemptions from vaccination mandates in state medical facilities; and voted against forgiving small business fines/penalties for violation of COVID restrictions

Belknap District 5 has a five for four primary. The other candidates are Dawn Johnson, who has a perfect voting record, Steven Bogert and Richard Littlefield, who both have mediocre records (which means much better than Bordes), and Sheri Minor, who has no record (which is much better than Bordes).

The voters need and deserve sound, sober and thoughtful leadership from their elected officials.

Norm Silber

Gilford