By Mya Blanchard, Nashua Ink Link

This article has been edited for length and clarity. 

Nashua native Maggie Goodlander is running to represent New Hampshire’s 2nd  Congressional District, succeeding outgoing Rep. Annie Kuster, a fellow Democrat.

Before beginning her congressional race, Goodlander worked as a foreign policy adviser in the U.S. Senate, and served as an intelligence officer for over a decade in the U.S. Navy Reserve. After graduating from Yale University Law School, she served as a clerk for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer and later taught law at the University of New Hampshire and Dartmouth College. Most recently, she worked in the U.S. Justice Department’s Antitrust Division until February 2024 and then briefly served as a White House senior adviser.

Q: With Roe v. Wade overturned by the Supreme Court, what is your stance on abortion and reproductive rights and what will you advocate for in Congress?

Maggie Goodlander: Two years ago, when the Supreme Court overruled Roe v. Wade, a fundamental freedom was ripped away from us. A fundamental freedom that is so core to gender equality in this country. It goes to the heart of the most personal and, in some cases, difficult decisions a person can possibly make. At bottom, they are health care decisions, but they're decisions that impact the course of a person's life — if, when, and how to become a parent.

What the Supreme Court's decision in Dobbs did, in addition to unleashing complete chaos on the country — including here in New Hampshire, where we're the only state in New England without any legal protections for abortion access on the state level — Planned Parenthood has been defunded in this state, a 15-day abortion ban introduced in our State House earlier this year. 15 days — I mean, it's crazy.

What we knew was coming was uncertainty across the full range of laws that impact these basic questions of if, when, and how to become a parent. So what we've seen is an attack on not just abortion access but also access to contraception. … Congress so far has failed to act to protect access to contraception. The same is true when it comes to IVF. 

The first agenda that we rolled out on this campaign was a reproductive freedom agenda, which is a starting point for the full range of reforms that we're going to need. But, from there, we've got a lot of cleanup work to do. All you need to do is read Project 2025's agenda when it comes to reproductive freedom. It is designed to rip away reproductive freedom with abortion bans. It’s the opposite of what we need, which are legal protections to access these healthcare services.

Q: New Hampshire is in a housing crisis, and the cost of housing is a concern for everyone, especially for young people. What do you think could be done to make housing more affordable and how would you address that?

Maggie Goodlander: Housing is the cornerstone of the American Dream. Everything flows from that.

To me, the two big pillars of this are, number one, we know that we need to increase the supply of housing in New Hampshire. We've got to build 60,000 new homes by 2030 at least — that is mission-critical, and I think probably the supply needs to increase even more. And so that's where Congress plays a really important role in guaranteeing the federal funding streams that are going to be needed to make that happen.

Also, leveraging all the tools of Congress to make sure that, when it comes to housing law, government's a team sport. We have to be laser-focused on working collaboratively with state and local partners to make sure that we get the job done. The second piece of it, though, goes to the tools that Congress can bring to make sure that the cost of buying a home and renting a home is affordable. 

I've seen the ways in which our existing laws can be enforced to try to do good to lower the cost of housing, but Congress has got to step up and provide even more powerful tools to make sure that hardworking people in the state who who simply cannot find a place to live that's affordable can pursue the American dream.

Q: What are your thoughts on climate change and how do you plan to address that issue in Congress?

Maggie Goodlander: It's an existential crisis. When we say, even the words “climate change,” it fails to describe the problem. “Crisis” comes closer, but it's like our language fails us in describing just the stakes of the challenge.

It's a crisis where there is a lot of opportunity. What we know is that making New Hampshire and the United States of America the clean energy superpower of the world is going to lower energy costs. It's going to create jobs, and it's going to combat the existential crisis of our time.

My hope is that we will look back two years from now and see the Inflation Reduction Act as an important first step in the right direction. But there's a lot more we've got to do, and I'm inspired by the work that I've seen across the 2nd District, but Congress has got to do more to make sure that we're getting the federal dollars flowing into our communities right. 

Q: New Hampshire is the only New England state that hasn’t legalized marijuana. A legalization bill was narrowly tabled by the House during the last legislative session. What are your thoughts on marijuana and what will you be advocating for in Congress?

Maggie Goodlander: I think that there is a responsible pathway to legalization. What I see and what I saw working at the Justice Department was the ways in which, for a very long time, law enforcement was focused on the wrong pieces of the problem that we have. The No. 1 killer of Americans between the ages of 18 and 45 are synthetic opioids and other deadly drugs. And we're seeing a lot of good progress on that front. I'm really encouraged that overdose rates in Nashua and Manchester have gone down.

There's data that suggests that we're actually seeing a reduction in the supply of these kinds of deadly drugs, because the Biden-Harris Administration has been focused on this piece of the problem of preventing deadly drugs from entering our communities. This is the drug crisis that we should be focused on and where federal dollars and resources should be directed.

Q: What is your stance on gun control and what will you advocate for in Congress?

Maggie Goodlander: Gun violence is the No. 1 killer of our kids and young people in America, and we are an outlier among developed countries in the world when it comes to this problem. It breaks my heart that every single day, kids are going into school afraid and, unfortunately, it's justifiable fear.

Thoughts and prayers are not enough. Congress has got to step up and take action. There's a full range of common-sense gun safety solutions that are completely consistent with the Second Amendment to the Constitution. The imperatives are closing loopholes like the “Charleston loophole” that has been exploited for far too long, working to make sure that background checks can be stepped up in a way that will prevent deadly weapons from getting into the wrong hands.

Weapons of war have no place in our communities. There are bipartisan solutions. Donald Trump and his administration supported the banning of bump stocks. That is a common sense solution that we should work to advance in Congress. This is another area where the gun industry for far too long has exploited massive loopholes in federal law and evaded accountability, and I want to take this fight to Congress because I believe that the industry should be held accountable, just like every industry in the American economy should be held accountable. 

These articles are being shared by partners in theGranite State News Collaborativeand the Know Your Vote youth voter guide. The Know Your Vote youth voter guide  project was designed, reported and produced by student and young professional journalists from The Clock, Concord Monitor, The Equinox, Granite State News Collaborative, Keene State College, Laconia Daily Sun, Monadnock Ledger-Transcript, Nashua Ink Link, and The Presidency and the Press program at Franklin Pierce University. You can see the full guide at www.collaborativenh.org/know-your-vote.