The following is a special presentation Civics and Civility, a conversation with Governor Chris Sununu.

Good afternoon.

I'm Haydin Simmons, your 2023 New Hampshire kit, Governor.

New Hampshire's Kid Governor.

A program of New Hampshire civics means so much to me.

The definition of civics is the studies of duties and rights of citizenship.

It is important that all citizens learn not only their rights, but especially their duties.

My New Hampshire Kid Governor program has given me and 11 year old kid a voice to educate and encourage not only kids but adults in the state of New Hampshire.

The reason I believe that teaching civics in school is so important is to teach kids that change begins in their community and that if everyone takes an active part in not only projects but in the local government that their voice counts.

And now I'd like to introduce our guests.

New Hampshire.. New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu and Laura Knoy.

Governor.

Governor Sununu was first elected in 2017 and is now serving for his fourth term.

Before becoming governor, he served and is as an executive councilor.

Our moderator is Laura Knoy, one of New.

Hampshire's most well-known and well respected journalists.

For 25 years, Laura was the host of The Exchange on the New Hampshire Public Radio.

Today, she is the director of Community Engagement at the UNH Franklin Pierce School of Law.

Could both, Governor Sununu, please come on stage now.

Good to see you Hi..

Welcome.

Well, welcome, everyone, and it's just great to be here.

And, Haydin, thank you so much for that lovely introduction.

We're we're just so proud of you.

It's wonderful to see so many people in the audience to talk about this very important topic.

And I'm very grateful to Governor Sununu for giving us his time as well.

So thank you so much for being here.

So let's begin.

And Governor Sununu at an event on civics in D.C. this spring, you said civics starts with civility.

So how do you define civility, Governor?

What is it?

What is it?

Sure.

No, it's a great question.

This is great.

Thank you guys for having us here.

It's such an important topic, by the way.

Right?

This is what everybody in America is looking for, especially on a national level.

I think we do pretty well here in New Hampshire.

Not always perfect, right?

Not always perfect.

But we do it, I think, better here than most other places.

So I love that.

I love the topic.

So civic starts with civility.

Civility is about inclusiveness.

Civility is about making sure everyone gets invited to the table and feels invited and knows they can throw the ideas out.

Now, you may disagree on the ideas.

You may could disagree on the policy.

You can have good, heated, tough discussion.

That is absolutely fine.

That's a very important part of the process.

If everyone always agreed something's wrong.

My wife doesn't agree with me on everything.

So it's not about agreement.

It's more about making sure everyone feels like they have a voice.

They're empowered.

We in the statehouse don't have the answers.

We really don't.

We might have a couple ideas here and there, but the answers really come from the public, right?

And so having that empowerment and engagement with the public saying, hey, we're talking about mental health, let's bring a bunch of parents in where the system didn't work for them or their kids.

We're talking about opioids.

Let's bring folks that are in recovery or folks that have family members in recovery where the system didn't work or they're going through.

You know, the recidivism is high.

Let's find out where those barriers are.

So by making sure that everyone feels like they have a voice, I think that's where it really all started.

One definition of civility that we came across at New Hampshire Civics comes from longtime diplomat and policymaker Richard HAASS.

He has a book called The Bill of Obligations.

So instead of the bill of, you know, the Bill of Rights, he has a bill of obligations, He says obligation number four should be to remain civil, he says, adding that civility makes it possible for differences to be reduced or even bridged.

And if not, civility allows for dialog and relationships related to what you just talked to, to continue on other issues where agreement might not be out of the question.

So, Governor, what examples have you seen in your own time in office where civility helped bridge differences so people actually could come together on certain issues?

So I think one of the best examples happened very recently.

So bear with me in Washington, D.C.

The House of the.

House of Representatives is slightly more Republican.

The Democrat.

Right.

By maybe like 20 votes or something.

And you have these extremes on both sides that especially on the extreme right, where right now the Republicans are in control, they they're trying to control things that would be very political and making all these high demands.

And everyone said, by the way, in Washington, nothing's ever getting done.

And as we know, very little ever gets done in Washington.

Well, in New Hampshire, our House of Representatives is 200 Republicans to 198 Democrats.

And they said, good luck, governor.

Nothing's ever going to get done.

They're right.

It's split right down the middle.

You'll never get agreement that.

But just the opposite happened with good leadership.

Not only did we get our budget done, we got the budget done with everything from Medicaid increases to more school choice to all these things.

Everybody got a little bit of something because we kind of shunned the extremes, those polar and by extremes.

What we're talking about is folks that don't want to be civil.

Governor Sununu, you work with a lot of people in public office, lawmakers, mayors, city councilors, executive councilors.

Who stands out as a beacon of civility?

I like as an individual.

Yes.

Someone that we should emulate in terms of civility in this.

I'll say this in the state, a beacon of civility.

You know, I'll tell you, some of the Democrats I really respect and work with on the other side, like Steve Shurtliff, the former speaker, Donna Soucy, the former Senate president, Jeb Bradley, who's the current Senate president, Sherman Packard.

Right.

Sherman Packard is the current speaker of the House.

He's a Republican.

And one of the first things he did when he got elected speaker was turn to Steve Shurtliff, the Democrat, and named him, I think, speaker emeritus.

And emeritus or something to say, hey, look, we got we're only going to be successful if we do this kind of stuff together.

Right.

And so for the Republicans, speaker, for the first thing he does turn to the Democrats say, you're with me on this, right?

Like, you don't have to be with me.

But this is New Hampshire first.

This has to be a team effort.

I'm I struck by that.

What was the reaction in the Republican Party to?

It was great that they got it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

They really got like I said, the extremes on both sides will never like any time you're talking to someone politically, politically on the side.

But they're the minority, they're loud.

But really the the extremes of both parties really are the minority, even though that gets the attention, that gets the news, that gets the clicks.

So this is an event on civility and civics.

So I do need to ask you a couple of civics questions, Governor, which I love.

So how do you define civics and what are your hopes for this new law?

This is pretty exciting, this new law that will require an expansion of civics education in our schools.

So let me let me take a step back before you talk about civics.

Let's talk about our system, because civics is really understanding the systems that come into play where the pushes and pulls are what can be changed, what should we change, what shouldn't be changed?

A how to use the system both as a citizen and as an elected official or as a volunteer, how to engage with it.

And it's all comes back to one thing.

How do we make our community better?

Right.

What's the system that can make leadership in our communities better?

The public aspect of our communities better?

The American system is phenomenal.

It is a it is a rock.

And people say and I'm going to go a little far afield here.

I hear a lot of people say, oh, the democracy is threatened.

Oh, the system is going to fall apart.

Guys our... think of what our system has gone through.

We had a civil war.

The system stood.

1968.

A lot of I wasn't even alive and 60.

But let's talk about 1968.

And I bring this up.

It's actually not that long ago you had assassinations of some of the greatest voices in America, right?

You had the Vietnam War, massive political unrest.

We got through it.

You had you had the 911 external threats to our system, to our foundations.

It stood we didn't drastically change our system.

It stood the test of time.

You had January 6th, huge assault on the system.

You know what happened?

The afternoon of January 6th, Congress met and they certified the election and there was a peaceful transfer of power.

The system stood.

And that's why even though I get nervous about the political stuff that could happen and I might disagree with where this country could go with policy, the foundations of our system are actually really, really solid.

So I'm very optimistic in that sense.

So understanding that first, having an appreciation of this amazing thing called the United States of America and understanding the foundations of that system.

So therefore, we know we can push on it and it it really won't collapse.

It's going to withstand the test of time.

We might not agree with the decisions all the time, but that's different than the system.

And so, if I may, what's the last most important foundation of that system?

You run it.

I don't run it.

You run it.

Your vote matters.

Your voice matters.

You can.

The people still have all the power to effect the policy changes within that system.

So that allows for that.

You really want this new this new expanded civics education in the schools.

You want it to be expanded to have people appreciate how strong the system is, but also that they have a responsibility to keep that strength, to keep the strength and to have have a voice.

We are so fortunate to be joined by New Hampshire's kid governors and kid executive counselors.

I really want to bring our state's young elected leaders into our discussion now.

It's just great that they're here and they've been preparing their questions for the governor.

So we will go to them now.

And first up is Lola Gianelli.

She was New Hampshire's kid governor in 2019 at the time she attended Sunset Heights Elementary School in Nashua.

Now, Lola is in Great ten at Nashua High School south.

And Lola, thank you for going first.

And go ahead with your question for the governor.

Please.

So when I was governor back in fifth grade, I had to come up with a platform and a plan of action.

I chose to stop animal cruelty.

In the course of action we tried to implement was the dog toy club making puppy mills illegal and many other things.

Governor Sununu, please describe an essential element of your platform and what obstacles you faced in putting that platform into action.

When I became governor, I will never seven of eight kids.

I think we talked about.

So I didn't have any pets growing up.

And I love and also great, but I didn't really know much about them.

But boy, when I became governor, we had a crisis with a massive puppy mill up in Wolfeboro, which was tough.

And we had to had to deal with that.

We had an issue with them wanting to shoot the bears because they were eating trash, which I thought was a mundane thing at the time, but it blew up into this big thing.

We realized there was these issues around declawing cats, and that actually has come up.

I've been inundated with issues on animals, so it's and I've learned to actually I love the process, by the way, that there's a lot of passion on both sides within issues around animals.

And one thing I the reason I bring this up as a topic, because I know it's very much at your heart and a huge part of your platform, animals is politically agnostic.

I've made a lot of Democrat friends and I wasn't trying to make make it.

But just because what we did with animals and animals, our family is something I never really proved how much people really love and appreciate the animals as family.

I had a dog and a cat whole thing.

So I bring that up because there's issues that you never think are going to be part a strong part of your platform.

Sometimes the groups that are all advocates for getting rid of animal cruelty and taking care of animals and making sure that animals have, you know, are protected and aren't abused and all that, sometimes even amongst themselves, they disagree vehemently.

Right.

Some internal dynamics there, which I found very interesting.

One of the obstacles then that you faced is the internal stuff.

They're not maybe being familiar with it because of your of your upbringing.

And I would say, oh, well, you know, the SPCA, you know, they have an idea to do this.

So, you know, it makes perfect sense.

We'll do it.

And then another animal rights group would come and say, we don't completely agree with that.

I would have said they all had the same vision, but they have a different way of getting there.

So the reason I bring that up is from a civic standpoint is you never know where the battle is going to come.

Sometimes they're internal.

But you know what we did?

We made sure everyone had a voice at the table.

Gets back to what you said earlier.

They all had a voicemail, had a relationship.

And Lola, we could talk forever.

This issue clearly.

Thank you so much for the question.

We really appreciate it.

Next up, we're going to hear from Andrew Swanson.

He's serving as a kid executive counselor this year at the time of his election.

Andrew was at North Salem Elementary School.

He's now in sixth grade at Woodbury Middle School in Salem.

And Andrew, a big welcome.

And please go ahead with your question for the governor.

How can civic minded students such as ourselves support democracy and help bridge the political divide that only seems to be getting deeper in this country?

Yeah, great question.

First and foremost, positivity, right?

Go into everything with with a sense of.

Sometimes it's hard to stay positive and really tough situations.

But when you do that, it's it can be contagious.

Be optimistic.

Be positive.

Doesn't mean you have to agree.

It doesn't mean you can't speak passionately on an issue and fight really hard.

But to be kind of passionate and positive encourages everyone else to come to the table as opposed to running to their corners.

I'm going to run to, you know what all the while this negativity, I'm not going to engage with you here because it's just too negative for me.

I'm just going to go home on social media and tear you apart.

Right.

That's what we do too often.

It's really, really bad.

But if we all kind of build those personal relationships, spread a little optimism and positivity it invites everybody else's people, people feel so much more comfortable coming and having a real conversation with you.

And that's exactly how you get stuff done right with one on one with conversations.

Thank you so much, Andrew.

Really appreciate the question.

With our next question is Charlotte Cotti.

She was New Hampshire's kid governor in 2022 when she was a fifth grader at Pollard Elementary School in Plaistow.

Now, Charlotte is in seventh grade at Timberlane Middle School.

A big welcome, Charlotte, And go ahead with your question, please.

Thank you.

I think being civil requires you to recognize that many people may not agree with you, but that you both have valuable opinions and means not to give up, but instead try to help others understand where you're coming from and to make an effort to understand them.

What are some ways you would suggest people use to support their opinion while remaining civil?

Great question.

I'm going to go back to the pandemic for this March 16 hits.

We realize this might take a couple of weeks to get out of this, and within about 48 hours, we realize this is not a couple week problem.

And so I went into my team and I said, look, here's the deal, guys.

Politically, I'm over.

I'm done.

I'm never going to get elected to anything again because I quickly realize I'm going to have to make some amazingly unique, horrible decisions that no one should ever have to make.

And I'm probably going to get everybody upset with me.

But by making the decision early on, no more politics.

We don't care about any of this, anything political.

We're only going to do what we firmly believe is based on data and we believe is right for the state of New Hampshire.

And we'll get through it.

And I figured 2020 will come and there's no way I'll ever get elected again.

But that's okay.

We're going to do right by the state.

But the second part of that was and everything I do is going to be completely transparent.

And I learned very quickly transparency is the foundation of public trust.

I would stand every day.

I do at least one press conference, if not too early on, everything that Dr. Chan and the team and I were talking about in the pandemic, I would just answer everything.

And my goal, what I told my staff was I said, I don't care how long these press conferences take, I'm going to stand there till the press ask me every single question they have because I in a crisis, I never want anyone to say, you know what, It's 4:00.

We got to go.

Sorry, you'll have to ask me tomorrow.

No way.

Super transparent, constant information.

And when I don't know, something most important thing you can never say is.

I don't know.

That's a good question.

I. I don't know what I'm going to have to dig in this this evening and get back to you.

And by saying that it led people, it kind of humanizes the situation.

It lets folks know that they're scared.

We're scared.

There's insecurity there.

We're going to get them the information.

We don't have all the answers.

We're going to do our best to get then make the best decisions possible.

But by being super transparent, you know, we say we're all in this together.

Well, we could say that, but I said it's not enough.

I need people to really know what I know.

And that way we are all in this together.

So transparent Transparency was the foundation was the pull of that public trust.

And that is the foundation of, again, getting that civil action and people being more civil in some very stressful, tough, tough times.

And I think overall, we did really, really well.

Amazingly got elected again.

So it must have worked out okay.

But but yeah, by kind of throwing all the politics to the wind, it just it was amazingly freeing in a really, really tough, tough time for everybody.

So.

Charlotte, thank you so much for the question.

Really appreciate it.

Governor, Next, we have Charlie Olson, who was New.

Hampshire's kid governor in 2021 when he was in fifth grade at Auburn Village School.

Charlie is now in eighth grade.

And Charlie, welcome.

And let's hear your question.

Go ahead, please.

Governor Sununu, as you may remember, back in 2021 year to taking you had taken your executive council meetings on the road.

I was asked as kid governor to speak about my platform of childhood mental health at the October meeting held at the Institute of Politics.

There were people outside the building protesting the COVID vaccine requirements.

As we all arrived, the situation quickly escalated and the protesters demanded to be allowed into the meeting.

Another guest speaker was removed from the building and did not present due to security concerns.

My mom and I decided to stay and witness democracy in action only because there was a large security and police presence.

I did present my speech for protesters, yelled, paced, waved flags and even tried to use what I was saying against you.

A couple of those same protesters did compliment me a job well done.

State police escorted my mother and me to the car.

The entire meeting was ultimately postponed due to safety and civility issues.

This leads me to my question.

Civility is a very ambiguous concept, with many people having very different views of what is it?

What is acceptable?

How and where do we draw the line in constitutional, appropriate behavior, in discourse, debate and protest situations?

So when Charlie was about to walk up to him, I wonder if he's going to ask about the day because you were there.

That was awful.

It was a rough, rough day.

Now, we did the right thing.

We had to postpone meeting postpone the meeting, unfortunately, because it got way more out of control than we thought.

So how do we how do we get through times like that?

I mean, let let me let me just jump.

How do we draw the line believing in the inappropriate behavior?

So understanding that the system works.

Understanding that the system allows for people's voices and understanding that you win some and you lose some.

And that is the best part of our system.

If everybody got everything they wanted, it wouldn't be the system would be screwed up.

That's, you know, that's a broke very much of a broken system.

So you have to have the dialog.

So the best way to get through stuff like that is I go back to getting people to understand how good the system is.

There's a time and a place for their voice and disrupting and, you know, shouting down a young kid and disrupting a meeting to the point where government can't happen.

Right?

These are people that believe in government.

But we're going to make sure that government can't happen.

No, that's that's I mean, I don't know how I don't even know how to argue with that type of of of backwards thinking.

It's very, very backwards.

Emotions get high.

I get it.

But there's an appropriate process for everyone, whether it's getting a pothole fixed to your house.

Medicaid increases, implemented better mental health for your kids.

Whatever it is, there is a process for all of this.

Maybe two schools in the Department of Education.

Maybe it's something through your school board.

Maybe it's advocating for less rules and regulations around how insurance covers your opioid treatment or whatever it is.

But there's there really is a process.

So for a public voice in all of this.

And I think by believing in the system and understanding the foundationally, it's really strong.

We can encourage people to use the right avenues, use the right paths so they don't feel like they have to come to a meeting and and just, you know, shout folks down.

Yeah, you did great, man.

Thank you.

New haircut, by the way.

Charlie, thank you so much for the question.

Thank you.

Our next question comes from Connor Nixon, who served on the Kid Executive Council in 2022.

When he was elected, Connor was at Sutton Central Elementary School.

He's currently a seventh grader at Kearsarge Regional Middle School.

And Connor, great to have you.

And go ahead, please.

Thank you.

Hello, Mr.

Governor.

You touched upon this briefly, but my question is for you.

Social media plays such a big role in our society today.

And what are your thoughts on the impact of social media on civics and civility?

Yeah, it's really bad.

It's really it's more negative than it is positive.

Right.

Let's talk about Facebook.

Like five years ago.

Facebook was the thing.

Everyone use Facebook for social media, right?

How many of you are under 21 and use Facebook?

Yeah.

Zero.

You know why?

Because people don't engage in that anymore.

It's become this kind of place of political discourse.

Right.

So no one's I mean, the sign up place like Facebook aren't working.

So the good news is this.

People react to that.

I don't want to be part of that community.

Instagram.

All right.

Let's talk about Instagram for a second.

Instagram, if you notice, is really not very political.

I mean, there's a little bit of it there, but it's not made for the comments and the attacks.

Right.

Because you you specifically have to dig for an Instagram comment.

It's just about posting something out, usually as positive.

If people want to engage in a political fight, it's actually quite minimal.

So the market is responding in Instagram's now what the most popular social media sites.

So I do believe the markets will ultimately take care of it.

And so my hope is that, yeah, there's enough platforms and there's enough segregation, if you will, that if you want to engage in that, you're over there.

But don't mix with us who are trying to stay positive over here.

Now, I saw a post on why three things are Twitter, Facebook and Instagram and that's it.

That's just that I started doing that seven years ago.

I'll keep doing that as governor, but I'm not going to lie to you like the day after.

I'm not governor.

I'm out.

I'm tapping out on social media and I maybe Instagram, I don't know.

But I'm I can't wait to just not be a part of that at all.

Wow.

It's interesting.

That's a great question.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Mr.

Governor.

Our final question comes from Kid Governor excuse me, Kid executive counselor Sierra Boulanger, who serves in this role through January of 2024.

Now, Sierra is a sixth grade student at Namaste Montessori School in Goffstown.

And Sierra, thank you for waiting to go last.

How do you believe the kid governor program has informed involved the state of New Hampshire civically?

I mean, I'm going to go back to Charlie for a second.

You know, you came up with these ideas on kids with mental health, and I said Phenomenal.

I think we put like $3 million behind that guy's ideas.

Why?

Because he was living it.

He was he was there.

Right.

This was somebody that was going through this, where the barriers were, where it was working, where it wasn't working, and came up with these ideas.

And I thought, well, who better to come up with that than someone where the system wasn't working?

So by having you guys participate, I mean, I think we're really trying to go the extra mile to say it isn't just a nice thing to do.

No, this is like there's really good ideas here sometimes.

And we're engaging with a voice.

The younger you know, I'll call it the, you know, the 14 years old and under who have a very different perspective on things and there's a huge value to that.

So I think by engaging with you guys more, you know, again, we can't do everything, can't wave a magic wand and infinite money and all that sort of thing.

But engaging with you guys more, I think has clearly made the program bigger, which tells me more people want to engage with more people, which tells me more people are getting to those basics of civics and civility in the foundations of the process and the system.

The idea that everyone has a voice and you don't just have to shout on social media and we do have to be civil and build relationships.

I mean, if you notice, we're not the best part about all this.

You're here, right?

We're one on one.

We're not like trading emails.

And that's one of the biggest problems with all of civility right now and civics as well, is, again, you can do too much on a screen.

You can do too much online.

It's too easy, frankly, to get by, not be the best version of yourself, but to get by just on a screen.

And sometimes there's a need for that, and it can be a valuable tool.

But, boy, having nothing built, how do you build a relationship on a screen?

You really can't.

I mean, we can go back to mental health, and I think that's one of the foundations of the problems that exacerbate mental health, especially amongst kids.

Too much screen time and and all of that.

Now you can't get rid of screens.

That's a whole different story.

But we have to, again, learn how to use them responsibly and manage the time.

But if we're minimal, I always go back to why do I want to minimize screen time for kids?

Because it forces them to have real time with people, and that forces them to appreciate the value of a relationship which allows civics and civility to happen.

Sarah, thank you very much.

It's wonderful to have you.

And that is all the time that we have for now.

I want to thank New Hampshire Civic for putting this event together.

And thank you also to the Marlin Fitzwater, Center for for Communication at Franklin Pierce University.

They've been great.

Also, our friends at New Hampshire, PBS.

It's been wonderful to work with them as well.

I really want to thank both Governor Sununu and the kid governors and kid executive councilors for coming here in the rain to be with us today.

It's just been great.

Thank you guys so much.

This has been a special presentation, Civics and Civility, a Conversation with Governor Chris Sununu.