We Ain’t Making Sausage Here
MARSHALL COBLEIGH

Former Speaker of the House Marshall Cobleigh is a legend in New Hampshire politics. A significant force in legislature reform, he modernized the New Hampshire House of Representatives. His straight shooting style made him extremely controversial, but unlike many of today’s politicians, “you always knew where Marshall stood.”

He desired a career of elected leadership that would culminate in becoming a key figure in Washington, DC, but that ambition eluded him. He served as chief of staff for a congressman and in the General Services Administration in Washington, but was not elected to national office.

Marshall was the driving force and sponsor for important local legislation, such as that which created the technical-vocational school in Nashua, the Health Careers College in Concord, and the turnpike liquor stores in Nashua, Portsmouth, and Hooksett, that have raised substantial revenue to help the state finance unmet needs. He sponsored bills which became laws that mandated ramps on public buildings to assist the physically handicapped, provided free tuition for children of prisoners of the war in Asia, controlled the sale of unsafe flammable fabrics with special emphasis on children’s nightwear.

Cobleigh was a champion for the “first in the nation” status of the New Hampshire primary, which brings an estimated 300 million dollars in revenue with each run, and adds to the state’s public relations and promotion programs. He also sponsored legislation for an interstate compact for the cleanup of the Nashua River, and a Constitutional amendment providing for freedom of speech in the New Hampshire Bill of Rights, among many others. Learn more of his contributions and how he truly shaped the face of New Hampshire in so many ways, in We Ain’t Making Sausage Here, the story of how he accomplished many of these great deeds, which continue to benefit the citizens of NH. There aren’t many politicians today like him. One can only hope that others will come along, to follow his model of public service and community commitment.

Marshall knows New Hampshire government and the people who ran it, as intimately as anyone this century.

 

 

“If you can have only one guy with you in a foxhole, I’ll take Marshall Cobleigh.”

—Congressman Bill Zeliff

 

“Marshall has a unique perspective on New Hampshire politics on both sides of the aisle, and he knows where every political skeleton of the last fifty years resides.”

—Senator John A. Durkin