Liz Canada 0:00

I heard a rumor actually that you have listened to the podcast before and that you listened to an episode that had Niko Papakonstantis on it about select boards and property taxes and deliberative sessions. And I'm my first question for you is Isn't Niko incredible? Isn't he a wonderful human being?

Congresswoman Goodlander 0:20

He really is. I mean, I'm not a person who listens to many podcasts at all, but I get to drive a lot these days. My husband said to me, you should just look for a podcast that interests you. So I I immediately found yours. It's the first podcast I really listened to.

Liz Canada 0:36

Okay. Well, I actually have the only podcast. There are no other podcasts out there. You're listening to New Hampshire Has Issues, and I am your host, Liz Canada. And even though I say this a whole bunch in the episode, I am so honored that Congresswoman Maggie Goodlander came onto my podcast and that she is a listener of the podcast. I suddenly feel an overwhelming amount of pressure. Not that I already didn't think about that with you as a listener, even if you are not a congressperson, but if you know a congressperson who should listen to the show, send them a link. We covered a lot of ground in this episode. We talked about the US Constitution, we talked about war powers, we talked about gerrymandering, we talked about term limits, we talked about what a discharge petition is, we talked about John McCain. We talked about uh post offices. We talked about the Epstein files. This is the weirdest sentence I have ever said aloud, which feels uh especially fitting in 2025. I am wishing 2025 goodbye forever, though I have loved making this podcast, and it will continue in 2026. I have a lot of guests already uh recorded and I'm going to spend my holiday break getting those ready. Uh and I have a lot more queued up with interviews in January and February. But if you have an idea for an episode, send me an email. Newhampshire hasissues at gmail.com. And if you would like to be a monthly supporter, of which I would be incredibly grateful, you can visit patreon.com slash nh has issues. Thank you to Seaco Soils who sponsors this podcast. But most of all, thank you for listening. Whether you're a congressperson or someone I know and have coffee with regularly, or we've never met, and I'm just a voice in your headphones or your car or your kitchen, and you don't even know what I look like. Thank you for listening. All right, I'm gonna pass it back over to me. I'm so honored that you've listened to this podcast. Thank you so much.

Congresswoman Goodlander 2:53

And in fact, today I was sitting with a select board member from another town, and I said, you've got to listen to the podcast with Niko, and you've got to get on this podcast because you know this because in your town you see it, that the the voter turnout for our town meetings, for really anything at the local level, it's just we need people to show up and to really be engaged at every level that it all fits together in such critical ways that we've got to hang on to it.

Liz Canada 3:21

Absolutely. And serving on the select board, you know, my wife is on the select board here in Exeter, and it's a big commitment to do, but it's so incredibly important because our t our state is really run by volunteers in a lot of way, people who step up to serve and want to make their communities a little bit better and a little bit stronger. So thank you for listening to that episode and uh any other episodes that you have. I should do your intro though. I'm gonna take a deep breath because this is quite the bio that I have in front of me. My guest today has been a naval officer, a foreign policy advisor to John McCain, a law clerk on the United States Supreme Court. She has served as counsel on the House Judiciary Committee during the first impeachment of Donald Trump. She was an attorney at the Department of Justice during the Biden administration. She was a senior White House advisor. She taught constitutional law, and now she's a member of the U.S. House of Representatives for New Hampshire's second district. Welcome to the show. The abundantly qualified for pretty much everything, Maggie Goodlander. Congresswoman, holy smokes, I'm so honored that you're here. Thank you for being on the show. I'm so thrilled to be here. I cannot put into words how excited I am that you're here. Let's start with a simple question. You know, I've done episodes about the New Hampshire House and Senate, the governor, the executive council, whatever that is. But my simple question for you, Congresswoman, is what the heck is Congress? What do you all do in Congress? Help me and help the listener understand. I was terrible in in high school and civics, so give me the breakdown. What is Congress?

Congresswoman Goodlander 4:58

Well, Congress, the word itself means it's got Latin roots, it means a coming together. The Congress, in many ways, I really believe that New Hampshire is the state that created the United States of America. We were the ninth to ratify our Constitution. But it really was the Congress that the roots of this Congress that I serve in now that were at the forefront of declaring independence, that really helped to forge the country that we are now working every day to continue. This really fragile experiment. But the Congress, what I'd say to your listeners, I'm gonna make a pitch for reading the Constitution because it takes 30 minutes, but even if you just started with Article One, it's a great read. And it really gives you the essential foundations of what Congress does. You know, we've got two houses of Congress, just as we do in the New Hampshire legislature, the House and the Senate. And the House is the first institution that the United States Constitution creates. So the idea was the world had never known anything like this.

Liz Canada 6:04

Yeah.

Congresswoman Goodlander 6:05

The idea of a directly elected representative from the people, of the people, by the people, for the people was not something that had ever happened before in human history. So we are we are the body that is closest at the federal level to the American people. So it's every two years we have to seek seek reelection. No one serves in the House of Representatives who has not been elected. There are no appointments to the House. And I think that that matters. You know, we live in a gerrymandered moment, but our roles and responsibilities are in the House. We have the power of the purse. We make the decisions about federal spending. We make decisions about taxation. We make decisions about declarations of war, and we're entrusted with the responsibility of managing our armed forces for the United States. These are all, I should say, these are three really core responsibilities that we have in Congress. We're responsible for creating post offices and postal roads. Um we have a lot of responsible for weights and measures. You guys are in charge of post, like making post offices? Yes, actually, it's right here in Article One. Um it's it it it's it's to establish post offices and post roads. It's right here in Article One.

Liz Canada 7:19

Listener, um, if this is an audio podcast, she is literally holding up the Constitution right before my eyes. She has it in her hand. It is it is weathered. You have read that before. I can tell.

Congresswoman Goodlander 7:30

I do. Oh my goodness. So it's in ways, big and small in this job, it is a really important point of reference. And I was looking at it today because we were having a conversation about war powers. And, you know, the Constitution makes clear that the president is the commander-in-chief, but it really entrusts a lot of responsibility for questions of war and peace in the United States Congress. And these are live questions and issues that we're grappling with every day. We are really in a posture right now in Congress where we are fighting to preserve and protect the basic responsibilities that we've been entrusted with. So just take the power of the purse, the power to spend to appropriate. You know, from January 20th, and I started this job January 3rd, from since January 20th, we have been dealing with really big questions around the basic usurpation. Like we're seeing the executive branch, we're seeing it in school districts all across the state of New Hampshire where money that has been promised to New Hampshire, appropriated for New Hampshire public schools, is being clawed back randomly for no good reasons. We're seeing when it comes to taxation, you know, the president has imposed historic tariffs that are not, in my view, and the Supreme Court will decide this very soon, we think. The basic question of whether the president can just take over the power to tax and raise revenue as he sees fit. This is something that is literally just so clearly in this document entrusted to Congress. And we're we're living through an extraordinary moment where our core powers and responsibilities are being contested in ways big and small every day.

Liz Canada 9:11

I wasn't a great high school student when it came to social studies and civics.

Congresswoman Goodlander 9:16

But I think I I don't believe that. I don't believe that.

Liz Canada 9:19

I'll call up every history teacher I had, Congresswoman. I promise you, they will confirm my uh my testimony here. But I'm pretty sure I remember that we didn't want a king in the United States. That's true. I think I remember that basic premise. So what is it like to have to, I don't know, deal with the things that you're dealing with as all of these responsibilities of Congress? It feels like they're kind of being chipped away a little bit, that they're, you know, they it's a little bit of stress to the system. How do you deal with that?

Congresswoman Goodlander 9:48

You know, we we are seeing challenges to to core bedrock principles um like we've never seen before. And I'm I'm representing New Hampshire in the most closely divided Congress that we've seen in a generation. And so, you know, so much of what we are able to get done here really depends on convincing five or more Republicans to agree with what we're trying to get done. So you take the release of the Epstein files. So this got a lot of attention. You know, to me, as someone I've served for years at the Justice Department, I believe deeply that sunlight is the most powerful disinfectant. It's an essential part of preserving and protecting and in many cases establishing public trust. We were able to advance this law through a mechanism called a discharge petition. So you need to get 218 signatures to have a discharge petition be passed in in the House. And some of the best work that we've been able to do, um, whether it's the bill that we passed last week to push back on the most vicious assault on federal workers that we've seen in American history, um, which was launched by the president in an executive order. We were able to write the ship to address that through a discharge petition. The same was true for the release of the Epstein Files. Right now, we have two discharge petitions that would do a whole lot to stem what will I fear be a death spiral for tens of thousands of families across our state, for critical access hospitals, for community health centers, um, who have already been hit this year with the biggest cuts to healthcare in American history.

Liz Canada 11:26

Yeah.

Congresswoman Goodlander 11:26

And who, with one voice, are speaking to say that we've got to extend the healthcare.gov, the Affordable Care Act tax credits that are a lifeline for so many hardworking people, small businesses, and healthcare providers in our state. So that's that's all happening through so what what do we do? What I do is I I try to bring the basic New Hampshire way to my work here every day. And that means doing the hard work of sitting, you know, eye to eye, palm to palm, knee to knee, and making the case for what I think we we we need to be doing. And sometimes it's a lot of defense, but it's a little bit of offense too.

Liz Canada 12:03

Yeah, I one of my questions was what does Congress have to do with New Hampshire, right? Like you go, you represent New Hampshire, the second district, you go there. How does what you do there impact what happens in our state here?

Congresswoman Goodlander 12:19

It drives literally everything that I do. So it drives my priorities, my legislative priorities, what I'm really fighting to get across the finish line. I've been able to do a lot more legislating, honestly, than I expected to, um, in part because I've I worked hard to get on two committees that are the most bipartisan committees, probably the only bipartisan committees that are left in in the House. Wow. But it drives, it drives literally everything that I do. It drives the questions I ask at hearings, and today we had the Small Business Administration come to talk about their uh disaster relief programs. And as I'm sure you know, New Hampshire, we're we're right now in the thick of a historic and still extremely severe drought in many corners of our state, um, including across the north country of our state, which I believe COWAS County is the comeback can-do county of America. And for too long, federal programs, federal funding that really is funding meant for communities impacted by natural disasters like the one we're living through right now, this drought, have struggled to access what is theirs. And um, today we had a witness from the small business administration and asked him a series of really basic questions about how an ordinary how a family farmer is going to be able to actually navigate the small business administration's disaster alone programs without an army of lawyers. And so as I'm trying to issue spot, find the opportunities, I'm truly guided in everything I do by the conversations I have, by the letters I receive. We get so much incredible input. We we're really lucky to live in a state where people are engaged in a real way. And I have a lot, I have a lot of inputs to work from in a way that a lot of my colleagues don't. They don't, they don't read the bills as I do. I read every bill that I vote on because I know that I'm gonna be asked. You know, why did you vote this way or that way? And I always want to be able to explain. And it's honestly, that's been one of the most surprising things about this job to see that um so few people actually read the bills that we write and vote on.

Liz Canada 14:26

I'm slightly horrified to find out that people vote on things that they haven't read. That's like showing up to my English class and not reading the book in advance and being like, no, no, I'll be fine. No, no, you won't. So maybe this gets into my next question, which is like when I hear about Congress on the news or the social medias, things feel divisive and tense and stressful. Is that your experience being there? Does it feel that way there, or are we getting a different vibe?

Congresswoman Goodlander 14:58

Well, it is a divided time, really. I think, you know, you see it at every level of government. It's never been a harder time to be in a position of public trust, to be a public servant, whether you are, you know, an election of whether you're a moderator for, you know, an election at the at the local, state, or federal level, whether you're serving, you know, really at any level of government, we've seen, and part of this has to do with the threats of violence and violence that we see um happening at a rate like never before against people who who who serve our communities, who serve our country, who serve our state. And so I think there's a lot of fear and there is a lot of division, and that's really what gets the headlines. But I I'll tell you, you know, I came to this work. I worked for John McCain early in my career. And, you know, he hired me, even though I voted for President Obama twice, and he knew that. And he actually really invited, he really liked to the way that he learned and the way that he thought through the issues was through debate and through being challenged and being pushed back at. He he used to call himself New Hampshire Senator from Arizona. He loved New Hampshire because he loved to get into it with New Hampshire voters. And he used to talk about Ted Kennedy, who was one of his favorite sparring partners, someone who he worked with closely on a lot of major things, including immigration reform. I mean, they worked together on really everything, but they they were intellectual sparring partners. Uh, but he used to quote Ted Kennedy, who used to say, you know, you gotta find the 30% with any person in Congress, you can find the 30% where you really do agree. And these days it's it's it's 30% is a huge luxury. Um if I could find 30% with every one of my colleagues, that would be just amazing. But you might know this, my initials are MTG, and I'm not the only MTG in the United States House of Representatives. There's another MTG from the state of Georgia. Listener, I'll let you figure out who it is.

Liz Canada 16:58

You'll have to write it out for yourself.

Congresswoman Goodlander 17:01

The other MTG. Well, listen, I mean, I've already found a number of bills that I didn't expect to be able to work on with their issues of real consequence. And so to me, you know, I'm not naive about the the deeply rooted disagreements, but I think my style is to try to find the areas where we do genuinely disagree and see things differently, but to find w and to create wherever possible the common ground that we're gonna need. And I haven't given up hope on that. I don't think it gets as much attention uh because it just isn't we don't have enough, we don't have enough podcasts like this one. We don't have enough journalists who are willing to report on, you know, sometimes the technical, not glamorous areas that are the real work that actually works.

Liz Canada 17:46

I wanted to talk to you about John McCain, actually, if that's okay. Yeah. Molly and I, we've two boys, 14, 12 years old. And so they don't know a time in politics that isn't like this. So we use the example of John McCain from 2008. He had a town hall type event, and you know, we tell the boys like there was a moment where someone who's like a supporter of John McCain says something about Barack Obama. And John McCain took the microphone and said, no, ma'am, that's not accurate. He's a decent man. And like he literally stopped, and I think he did that with a few people at that event. And I bring this up because I can't imagine that happening now, where someone would, you know, running for president. And I'll just say, like, it feels like it's in the Republican Party right now that that's not happening, that people aren't seeing the humanity in the other side. And I wonder from you, how do you see us moving forward? Like, how do you see whether it's your colleagues or our country? Like, how do we go back to a time, and not that everything was perfect before, not even close, but a time of that sort of like civility and that seeing each other's humanity. How do we get back there, Congresswoman? Or can we get back there?

Congresswoman Goodlander 19:06

Well, look, I I think a lot about the reforms that I want to see happen starting here in Article I in Congress. Look, if I could wave a wand, I would get rid of partisan gerrymandering and the kind of redistricting that has made us a body filled of people who overwhelmingly think about one election and one election only, and that is a primary election. They don't think about, they don't have competitive districts where they uh they are not lucky like I am to come from a state where not only do you have to talk to everyone, you really have to show up everywhere and be accountable. And we just we we've got to get back there so that we've got people who are representing us. It feels to so many Americans like, I'm sure, like taxation without representation, because they don't have representatives who are doing the hard work, are showing up and are. Actually duking it out on the basis of ideas and who who who come to this work in good faith, actually wanting to do a job. Um, you know, many of them are picked by, you know, party apparatus who uh don't really think a whole lot about governing. So, you know, I think there are some basic reforms that could help us clean house. I think that will really make a massive difference. I think we should have term limits in Congress. I think term limits are good government. It was hard, hard-earned wisdom for us to impose term limits on the presidency, and it was all for the best. I think we should have term limits on the Supreme Court too. Uh let's just put into place some basic principles of good government to make this place work better, to attract the the right kind of people, people of good faith who actually want to do the job and who don't want to park it here for years and years upon end. I think we've got to get rid of the real sources of distrust. So we've got a simple bill right now that would ban congressional stock trading. Like this is just such a kind of blows the mind that this was all, that this has all been legal. You know, I I came from the executive branch from the Justice Department where, you know, this is just not something that as a matter of practice was done. Now we're living in a in a totally new, we're under the most corrupt administration in American history, uh, where this all seems very quaint now. But we should, we've got to get, you know, the basic sources of conflict uh with the public good, with the common good, and with public trust out of our politics. And, you know, that that that may sound big and bold, but it's pretty simple and straightforward. And I think this is another one where some of my colleagues who I, Republican colleagues who have literally never agreed with on anything else, are persuaded that this is the right thing to do. So it's gonna be brick by brick, it's gonna be inch by inch. But the other thing I think we've got to do is is talk to each other more. I mean, I've been showing up and prioritizing going to places, to towns where most Democratic members of Congress, most people don't visit, you know, places where, you know, as a party, the Democratic Party may have given up on it. I like to me, it's my responsibility to represent everyone and to really show up and to learn and to listen. And so that's what I've tried to do. And I think we need more of that just as citizens, showing up and talking to one another. You know, I was in Pelham the other day, and that's not a town that a lot of a lot of my predecessors ever really visited. Uh, I actually don't know what the vote count was.

Liz Canada 22:33

You don't you don't have every count memorized of your votes, but I can't believe that.

Congresswoman Goodlander 22:38

I gotta.

Liz Canada 22:39

I work for all of them. I work for all of them. That's right.

Congresswoman Goodlander 22:42

That's right. It's a place where I have learned so much.

Liz Canada 22:44

I think you're out there talking to people all the time. I feel like I always hear that you are all around your district, you are talking to Granite Staters, and it sounds like you're trying to meet folks whether they voted for you or not. And so where does that come from? Like it would be easy for me to just hang out with the people who I know like me, but like, how do you do it? Where does that come from of wanting to talk to folks who might not have voted for you?

Congresswoman Goodlander 23:07

The most basic reason for this is it's my job. I represent everybody in the second district. I've all I grew up in a family where we disagreed passionately and consistently at the dinner table, and it's still the same way. We always have an animated holiday. I've I've in every job I've had, you know, whether it was when I was clerking on the Supreme Court and I was trying to think through a really hard legal question, the way that I I think it through is to pressure test it. You know, it's it's something I learned from Senator McCain as um as as his staffer. I I think it's really important, you know, for the credibility of our ideas and and honestly for the integrity of of my job, which is to represent everybody, um, whether they voted for me or not. And that's that's how I've tried to to govern. I think it it's helped me really pressure test ideas that have been improved upon, to, to see problems from a totally new angle, to basically be disabused of of orthodoxies that I did wasn't even aware of. So I think it's it's part of what makes our country beautiful. I think I think a lot about the the people who who helped write this document. And this, by the way, includes the declaration and the constitution. So it's a two-for-one. There you go. She has it all right there in her hand. And I handed it out to all my colleagues on Constitution Day. So it's everyone's got a copy here.

Liz Canada 24:36

And hopefully they all read it, as well as the bills that they're voting on.

Congresswoman Goodlander 24:40

We're still working on that, but it's it's um this is this is who we are as Americans. And I think we're really lucky to come from a state where this is still part of so part of our culture and how we do business.

Liz Canada 24:53

Aaron Powell Okay, you mentioned the holidays. You and I have a few things in common. And one of them, I think, is that you have family members who may be of a pol different political persuasion than you are or may feel differently or see things differently. And so I want to know what do holidays look like? And do you have holidays with those family members? Like, what's your advice to folks like me and others who have the family members who we don't agree with, and we may end up seeing each other very soon around a dinner table?

Congresswoman Goodlander 25:26

Well, I think deep breaths are really important. Um oxygen. It's good advice for everybody, yes. And not to be underestimated. You know, I come to these conversations with the people who've mattered most to me in my life, some of the people have mattered most to me in my life. Um, my beloved sister, who we have been sparring partners in every way. Uh, you know, I'm the middle child, so I, you know, she used to call me scrappy. She still does when she feels like she needs to remind me uh of my of the birth order.

Liz Canada 25:58

Yep.

Congresswoman Goodlander 25:58

You know, it it's it is humbling to me and it's important to me to be able to have it's it's but it's I don't want to undersell how difficult it is. And all of your, you know, anyone who's in this situation knows it's it is very challenging. It's challenging for for me uh personally right now, as someone who just in the course of doing my job, I've been on the receiving end of violent threats from the president that have have really had an impact on on me, on our team, on our community in New Hampshire. You know, we we had a shortly after the president issued a series of tweets, or I don't even know if they're true so truths. I guess they're called truths. I don't really call them.

Liz Canada 26:41

He said it somewhere, yep.

Congresswoman Goodlander 26:43

Social media posts. Um the impact on us was immediate. We had a bomb threat to our office in Concord. You know, I've been on the receiving end of death threats. He's the most powerful person in the world, and his words mean something and and have have a real impact on the world and the lives of everybody. And, you know, one could fairly ask the question, you know, how could how could someone I love so much see the world so differently and see this um this question of who should be the president of the United States so differently than I do? I'll tell you, I we had the the initial conversation after the election last year at the Thanksgiving dinner table, and uh Christmas is gonna be equally animated, and I'm still I'm still searching for the answer to that question, but I think it's an important one to understand. I am grateful that I have this challenge because it helps me and my job to really understand, you know, we we we we are we live in a purple state. We live in a state, it was the it was the closest state that President Trump lost in the election.

Liz Canada 27:45

And we have to talk to folks. Yeah, we have to talk to folks who may not agree with us, whether they're related to us or not. Uh that's one way forward, at least. All right, we have one other thing in common, and I know that we're close to our time. You used to teach, you taught constitutional law, which makes sense as you literally have it in your hand. I was a teacher, not of constitutional law, of English literature.

Congresswoman Goodlander 28:10

What did you love about teaching? For me, teaching the constitution was such it's a it's a learning experience for me. I mean, I fell in love with constitutional law, you know, in in my early 20s. I really I got caught in the grip of it. And it's just the it's at really for any age, and I've I love to teach constitutional law and to talk about the constitution with people who are not lawyers, because this was a document that was written in part by lawyers, but mostly actually by citizens, by people who had a rough and tumble experience of the revolution, who really disagreed on pretty fundamental questions, but who were able to come together and to write this document. It was written to be read by everybody. And it's why it was published in newspapers around the country and why we had a process of ratification that was really about involving the people. You can't have a government of buy-in for the people if you don't have buy-in from the people themselves. And so what we have is such a sp it's a it's the most extraordinary inheritance that any person could have. It's not perfect. In fact, it's intentionally meant to make us more perfect every day. And it's like the first sentence of the Constitution is that what we are about is a is is about it's a we. We start with the we, and that comes back to, you know, why it's our responsibility to sit with and to really engage with people, especially ones who we don't agree with. But it's about a journey towards something that is more perfect, a recognition that we are flawed, but that we contain the basic ingredients and the basic ideas. And I love, I learned something new about the constitution every time I teach it, every time I talk about it. That's what I loved about it. But I wish I had been your student because I feel like I don't know. I haven't I haven't read a novel in a really long time.

Liz Canada 30:01

All right. Well, trade. I'll read the Constitution this holiday season. You choose any novel of your choice, and you read that. How about that's our homework for each other?

Congresswoman Goodlander 30:11

I'm gonna need your syllabus. I'm gonna need your syllabus.

Liz Canada 30:13

I'll send it to you. No problem. I've got plenty of great books that you will be delighted by. Congresswoman, thank you so much for taking the time, talking with me, listening to the podcast. Oh my goodness. And please take care of yourself and your staff and stay strong in these wild times. We really appreciate all that you're doing.

Congresswoman Goodlander 30:35

Well, one thing about me is I will never get up the ship, and I feel like the luckiest person in the world to be doing this job. And I'm really glad that I got to spend some time with you. And I hope the next time it will be in the flesh.

Liz Canada 30:48

I hope so too. We will make that happen. We will swap notes of what we read.

Congresswoman Goodlander 30:59

In this job, I've probably spent more time sitting with select boards around New Hampshire than most members of Congress do because we all read Thornton Wilder's Our Town at Way Too Young an age. Oh my god. So but if you revisit it, it is it is very clear and I think convincing about the role of the select board in the public life, in the life of every community that has a select board in our state.