Kuster bids farewell to Congress in last House floor address

U.S. Rep. Annie Kuster, D-N.H., discusses health care and rehabilitation for incarcerated people in March 2023 during a meeting in Keene on funding for Cheshire County’s emergency communications system. Kuster, 68, of Hopkinton did not seek reelection.

U.S. Rep. Annie Kuster, D-N.H., discusses health care and rehabilitation for incarcerated people in March 2023 during a meeting in Keene on funding for Cheshire County’s emergency communications system. Kuster, 68, of Hopkinton did not seek reelection. HANNAH SCHROEDER—Keene Sentinel staff photo, file

By RICK GREEN

The Keene Sentinel

Published: 12-19-2024 10:36 AM

Democratic Congresswoman Annie Kuster pleaded for bipartisanship Wednesday in her final address on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives as she neared the end of a 12-year tenure representing New Hampshire’s 2nd District.

Kuster, 68, of Hopkinton, did not seek reelection. Maggie Goodlander, a Nashua Democrat, will be sworn in on Jan. 3 to succeed her in a district that takes in much of the state, including the Monadnock Region.

“Over the past 12 years, I’ve seen Congress as its most and least efficient,” Kuster said. “With the clarity of hindsight, I can say that our government really, truly does work best when Republicans and Democrats come together to solve our nation’s greatest challenges.”

Kuster is the founder and co-chair of the Bipartisan Mental Health and Substance Use Disorder Task Force, which she said helped pass legislation that brought federal dollars to communities to fight the opioid crisis.

She also is the founder and co-chair of the Bipartisan Task Force to End Sexual Violence. She has shared publicly that she was sexually assaulted while a student at Dartmouth College.

“We didn’t always agree on how to tackle the challenges but we listened to each other, we debated the ideas on the merits and we focused on the mission of delivering for our constituents,” Kuster said in the livestreamed U.S. House speech. 

But she also said that bipartisanship has become increasingly rare.

“Sadly my time in these halls in recent years has been defined more and more by extreme partisanship,” Kuster said. “As lawmakers, we must reject the cynicism and the notion that Congress and our institutions are destined for dysfunction and disorder.”

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Through much of her time in office, the public approval rating of Congress has hovered below 20 percent. Her tenure has included multiple government-shutdown battles, threats to default on the nation’s debt, protracted fights over who would be House speaker, and the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by a mob of Trump supporters.

“We must not lose sight of our purpose and why we are here — to fight for our communities, to lead by example, to tackle the biggest challenges facing our country, not create them,” she said.

“So now at the end of my tenure, a little older, hopefully a little wiser, I urge my colleagues and the incoming members of the 119th Congress to lead with courage, to face the division and recommit to building bridges, not tearing them down.”

Kuster was first elected to the U.S. House in 2012, defeating the Republican incumbent, Charles Bass. She won re-election easily in 2022, defeating Robert Burns, a strong supporter of Trump.

Her successor, Goodlander, 38, is a former White House adviser in the Biden administration. She defeated her libertarian-leaning Republican competitor, Lily Tang Williams, 211,641-187,810.

Goodlander won the Democratic primary against a candidate Kuster endorsed, former N.H. Executive Councilor Colin Van Ostern.

Kuster is a graduate of Dartmouth and Georgetown University Law School. She and her husband, Brad Kuster, have two grown children, Zach and Travis.

She noted in her farewell speech that she grew up in a Republican household in Concord. Her late mother, Susan McLane, was a state senator and her late father, Malcolm McLane, was mayor of Concord and a member of the N.H. Executive Council.

Rick Green can be reached at 603-352-1234, extension 1435, or rgreen@keenesentinel.com.

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