Garrett Muscatel, I am told, was a great guy. That, from some Republicans who knew him. And I’m happy to hear it. But he took a NH House seat from an actual resident by being allowed to claim his temporary dorm housing as proof of permanent residency.
Related: Where is (Grafton Dist. 12) NH House Rep – Garrett Muscatel? Home – In California!
But he voted here, and voted on legislation in the legislature, so how do we know he didn’t ‘live’ in New Hampshire? COVID-19, that’s how.
The address listed on his NH House web page is 12 Mass Row, Hanover. That’s on-campus housing at Dartmouth. A place you can’t live at or call home when they kick you off-campus. Coronavirus forced everyone to return home. That place they actually live. The legal address for the absentee ballot you fill out and mail back from 12 Mass Row, Hanover New Hampshire.
If Garrett lived in NH, he would have been sheltering in place, at a residence in New Hampshire. But when Dartmouth kicked his out-of-state-ass out, he had to leave. Garrett could not stay at 12 Mass Row, Hanover. So, where did he go? Home to California, where he actually lives.
The place from which he continued to claim his NH Residency, and his House seat.
After the NHGOP questioned whether Muscatel had relinquished his New Hampshire residency, Muscatel said, “I am and will continue to be a New Hampshire resident.”
Despite calls from the NHGOP that he step down from his seat, Muscatel gave no indication at that time that he do so, although he had announced previously that he would not seek reelection.
And then he suddenly up and resigned? Why? Well, the House is back in Session starting “Thursday at the Whittemore Center on the UNH campus,” according to WMUR, and Muscatel can’t attend. It could be that speaker Shurtleff could not sign off on his commuting costs from and back to Thousand Oaks, California, where he lives with his parents. But it is most likely because he has no New Hampshire residence with which to return.
I honestly don’t see the problem. If California residents can claim transient dorm housing to vote here and hold elected office (make laws, work on budgets that spend actual NH Residents money), why not just put him up at the Motel 6 in Portsmouth?
Or, he could skip law school and run for the NH State Senate from Martha Fuller Clark’s House. She’s not doing that anymore. And it hardly matters that her neighborhood is not zoned for Democrat voter flop housing. It’s just a thing, Democrats, in New Hampshire do. Which is why his planned Democrat replacement and this is Hanover so unless he has a primary he’s a shoo-in, is Riley Gordon (New York City) and he doesn’t live here either.
