legislative action alert week of june 6, 2011

8/6/2019 Legislative Action Alert Week of June 6, 2011

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Legislative Action AlertWeek of June 6, 2011

Jackie Cilley [email protected]

When Middle Ground Doesn’t Exist

Late last week an area newspaper carried an editorial titled “The Right Placeis in the Middle.” http://bit.ly/mN6kI1 The point was this right-leaning paperwas in agreement with the left-leaning Boston Globe that there should becompromise, a meeting in the middle (more to the right of the middleaccording to the editorial) over the national budget – the perfect spot wassomewhere between Rep. Paul Ryan’s plan and that supported by theObama administration.

The editorial echoed other recent articles and letters to the editor suggestingthe public wants negotiation and compromise, it wants “civility in discourse”

and it wants to see those who represent us working together. Ideas of finding the middle ground have been on my mind a great deal lately.

As a former elected official I believed compromise could be a path to betteroutcomes. While I may have fallen short of always meeting others halfway, Inonetheless fully embraced the notion that negotiation and compromisewere admirable approaches to governance. I believed what I believed mostfolks believe. And, I believe that most folks do, indeed, believe that.

The current chasm in policy arguments is causing me to rethink this. I findmyself repeatedly coming back to one central question: Is it possible to find

middle ground between a myth or lie and fact? Is it possible, for example, tofind a consensus view of our nation’s history between Sarah Palin’s distortionof Paul Revere’s ride and the historical account that even Revere himself conveyed to the ages? Is it possible to find negotiated solutions to climatechange between those who don’t believe it is occurring at all and theoverwhelming majority of the world’s credible scientists who say our climateis changing in dangerous ways propelled, at least in part, by human activity?Is it possible to find meaningful economic solutions between those whoadhere to the thoroughly debunked idea of supply side “economics” andthose who subscribe to almost any other supportable economic theory?

A case in point of an adherence to a baseless ideology is the story of Arizona(a state that just so happens to have the highest number of legislators whohave signed the Grover Norquist pledge explained in an earlier issue of theAlert). Since 1992 Arizona has cut more than 45 individual taxes and fees.In the current year, the Arizona legislature once again passed a package of tax cuts that will trim an additional $538 million from state coffers despiterunning a deficit in excess of $3 billion.

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mailto:[email protected]

http://bit.ly/mN6kI1


http://bit.ly/mN6kI1



The particularly interesting thing about Arizona lawmakers’ unflagging marchtoward yet still lower taxes is that every single time they have instituted atax cut they have used the exact same mantra that businesses will now beable to “create new high paying jobs and grow the economy.” The actualfactual results: Arizona is 48th in job creation, it has lost 300,000+ jobs since

the beginning of the recession, has some of the highest foreclosure rates inthe country while continuously shifting the tax burden to local propertytaxpayers and away from businesses (this will have a very familiar ring inNew Hampshire soon), and has sold off most of its state assets including itsstate Capitol which it must now lease back – ultimately costing the state farmore. Add to those pieces of data that 18.9 percent of Arizona’s citizenslack health insurance and more than a quarter of a million children in thestate do not have coverage.

Arizona is a microcosm of what is happening on a national level and in stateafter state currently. It has served as a laboratory for the fullest experiment

of supply side economics we have seen in this country. On every singlemeasure the evidence is clear and compelling that the policy is an abysmalfailure. Certainly the notion that repeatedly cutting taxes produces “highpaying jobs and grows the economy” has been utterly discredited. How doesone find middle ground when one side of the debate is grounded in a falsepremise?

The problem closer to home in New Hampshire goes even deeper. Theargument proffered by the Free State/Tea Party faction with increasinglymore influence over the Republican side of the aisle is that government islargely unnecessary save for “the protection of life, liberty and property”

interpreted in the narrowest possible way. How do we find workable middleground solutions to challenges in education when one side begins with theposition that public education is unnecessary? How do we find negotiatedconsumer protections when one side argues that the very market from whichcertain harms arise will self-correct – if, and that’s a big “if,” it does at all itwill only do so after significant harm has befallen some group(s) of consumers.

One conclusion that I have drawn from these considerations is that folks maysay they want compromise and negotiation but they most assuredly don’twant halfway solutions. We all really want sound solutions, solutions that

produce real, measurable results, to the problems we face. We often makethe assumption that these are more likely from compromise. In truth, thatcan only happen if both sides begin with evidence-basedpositions/approaches and negotiate from there. There really isn’t a viablemid-point between a lie and a truth, between a myth and a fact.

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Contents

Page Thought for the Week: When Middle Ground Doesn’t Exist 1Late Breaking News 3 The Week in Brief 4

CoC Schedule a Mystery4Right to Work Vote More of a Mystery 5

Road’s End for Select Legislation 5New Hampshire’s Minimum Wage 5Is RGGI In or Out 6NH Gets Expanded Death Penalty 7

Senate Has Its Own Drama 8

Late Breaking News

As the Alert was being readied for distribution today (Thursday, June 9) thefirst Committee of Conference on the biennial budget met. While the policydecisions underscoring the budget have yet to be hammered out, arguablythe most important decision was made this afternoon. House and Senateconferees agreed that they would spend $24 million less than the Senateused in revenue estimates.

You may recall that there was a difference of $75 million between theHouse’s utterly draconian budget and the Senate’s merely really painfulbudget that was itself $244 million less than the Governor’s proposedbudget. It now appears that the difference between the two chambers willbe $51 million and there will be more cuts coming.

The budget conferees have from now until Thursday, June 16 to come toagreement on where the revenues they have agreed to will be spent. Therewas considerable difference between the two chambers on priorities withinthe budget with the Senate clearly directing more funding to Health andHuman Service programs for persons with mental illness and persons withdevelopmental disabilities. The next schedule meeting of the CoC on the

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budget is Sunday, June 12 at 1 p.m. in Rm 210/211 of the LOB (LegislativeOffice Building) .

The Week in Brief

The deadline of June 23, the final day for any legislative action on allCommittee of Conference reports, looms ahead for the legislature. Amongthe highest profile and important pieces of legislation going into the CoCprocess is the biennial budget. Negotiations on the budget began this week. There is no indication at present how much time may be needed to resolvethe differences between the House and Senate over the budget.

Schedule of Committees of Conference a Mystery:

Tracking Committees of Conference may be far more difficult than istypically the case. Despite having there being a rule that CoC’s must begiven a 24 hour notice in order to allow interested parties to attend thesepublic discussions, there have already been CoC’s held at the same time thatnotice was provided about there being a committee meeting. So much for that transparency thing.

Granite State Progress, a “multi-issue progressive advocacy group,” locatedin Concord, NH issued the following bulletin on Thursday of this week:

An urgent alert to everyone that there are several committees of

conference meeting today with NO PRIOR NOTICE.

If you are following a COC, do not rely on the online posting or the

postings in the Clerk's office -- there was a committee that started at 1:00

pm today -- the exact same time it was posted. Please call friendly

legislators and find out whether your conference is meeting. For those

following the Budget, there is a 2:00 pm coc.

Granite State Progress has spoken to several lawyers in the last hour. We

are seeking to file an injunction since law clearly states 24 hours notice is

needed. It is unclear whether Democratic members of the committees were

informed prior; it is abundantely clear that advocacy groups and consumers

have had no prior notice.

IF ONE OF THE COMMITTEES YOU ARE FOLLOWING DID A LAST-MINUTE MEETING,

PLEASE CONTACT US. We will be seeking specific examples in addition to the

physical evidence we have - time-stamped print outs of the online postings and mid-

morning pictures from the Clerk's Wall. Please copy both

zandra@granitestateprogress and [email protected] on the

example. Thank you so much.

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mailto:zandra@granitestateprogress


mailto:zandra@granitestateprogress




Although it cannot be trusted to list all CoC’s that have been scheduled thereis a legislative website listing scheduled CoC’s (at least those they don’tmind your knowing about in advance). The schedule can be found athttp://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/committee_of_conference/cofc.asp

Vote on Right to Work More of a Mystery:

For the third week in a row NH House Speaker Bill O’Brien refused to call avote on the infamous HB 474, Right to Work Act. Following the Governor’sveto of this bill that has been discussed on several occasions in the Alert, theHouse has included it in the House calendar as a possibility to be taken up.Each week has come and gone without the Speaker doing so and despiteseveral calls from fellow legislators to put it to a vote. The Speaker has fromnow until December 31 of this year to hold that vote and many fear that he

will pick a time when those supporting the veto are outnumbered by the two-thirds required to overturn the veto.

In the mean time rumors abound about relentless strong arm tactics used toencourage legislators to change their vote or to take a walk . This week,according to sources, House leadership stooped so low as to use the death of former Governor Walter Peterson. Following the demise of this universallyadmired statesman, a number of legislators claimed House leadershipsuggested they simply say they attended the Governor’s funeral and couldnot attend Wednesday’s House session. That did not happen, but it certainlyshowed the lengths leadership is willing to go meet their agenda. Shame or

embarrassment seems to be an utterly emotional ability among these folks.

The Road’s End for Select Legislation??

Over the next three weeks the legislature will wrap up its work andlegislation not retained, re-referred to committee or tabled will head to theGovernor’s desk. Once a bill reaches his desk, Governor Lynch has theoption of signing it, vetoing the bill or allowing it to become law without hissignature. As we have seen with HB 474, the Right to Work Act, that processhas already begun. Below are is an overview of the disposition of some of the bills that we have followed and reported on in the Alert. In cases of

vetoes, of course, we may not know the epilogue until much later in the year.

Will New Hampshire Keep Its Own Minimum Wage?

Despite the fact that the minimum wage was originally championed by atleast two well-regarded Republican governors and despite the fact NewHampshire has had its own minimum wage since 1949, both the House andSenate resoundingly passed a bill that repealed New Hampshire’s minimum

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http://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/committee_of_conference/cofc.asp

http://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/committee_of_conference/cofc.asp



wage. That legislation has now reached the Governor who swiftly vetoed it.Unfortunately for our workers and for the traditions of our state, HB 133repealing the minimum wage passed both the House and Senate by veto-proof majorities (239-106 in the House; 19-5 in the Senate). There is littlereason to believe that this bill won’t make its way into law.

Is RGGI In or Out?

In the tortuous manner that some legislation makes its way through thepipeline of the legislature, there is now a bill on the way to Governor’s deskthat would repeal New Hampshire’s participation in the regional greenhousegas initiative. It’s not the bill that started out to do this, but it accomplishesthe goal nonetheless. You may recall the Alert tracking HB 519 that startedout to repeal RGGI. The House passed that bill with a veto-proof majority.Once it reached the Senate, that body rewrote the whole bill retaining theprogram and changing the way that it functioned as well tied its fate to anystate that decided to leave the program. The Senate’s action sent the House

into a snit leading that chamber to replace the original of language of HB 519onto SB 154 an important bill to the Senate containing changes to theComprehensive Shoreland Protection Act.

I hope you’re still with me here because the trail of these two policy positionsfurther winds its way along. The Senate clearly signaled its intent to retainthe RGGI program, but it really wanted its changes to the ComprehensiveShoreland Protection Act. So, it did several things to accomplish its goals.First, it tucked the language of SB 154 on the CSP into HB 2 the narrative of the budget bill. As added insurance that it would get its changes to the CSP,the Senate went ahead and concurred with the House amended SB 154 even

though that bill now contained the repeal of RGGI.

The Governor has indicated that he will veto SB 154 when it reaches him inthe next few days. The fate of this legislation containing two major policymatters is unknown. The House passed the original repeal of RGGI with aveto-proof majority so presumably it has the votes to override a veto. TheSenate, on the other hand, has sent a clear message that it wants to retainthe program. The hope, then, is that the Senate will sustain the veto. Did you follow all that??

Expansion of Death Penalty:

New Hampshire is likely to soon have an expanded use of the death penalty.HB 147 was a priority bill for speaker O’Brien who has already dubbed it theKimberly Cate Bill after the mother murdered in his home town of Temple.Under the House version of HB 147 the death penalty could be invoked formurder committed during a home invasion. The Senate amended the bill toextend the use of the death penalty to murder committed wherever a personwas entitled to be.

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The Governor signaled his intent to sign the bill in its original language aspassed by the House. Despite changes made by the Senate it is still widelyanticipated that it will receive his signature.

Turns Out Senate Has Its Own Drama

Talk to political observers over this legislative term and invariably thediscussion would turn to whether the Senate was ideologically aligned withthe House. Veteran Statehouse players consistently ruminated over whetherthe NH Senate would be “more disciplined” than its sister chamber. The useof the term “discipline” here refers to whether the most important goal forSenators was to be re-electable and re-elected over and above even theircore ideology. Being ideologically pure is not always the best prescription forbeing re-elected as federal officeholders who signed onto killing the popularMedicare program are finding.

The jury is still out on this issue relative to the NH Senate. There are,however, some early indications that it may be difficult for those withextreme views to contain themselves and follow along with the goals of leadership in the Senate. Last week, for instance, a group referred to byStatehouse watchers as the Sanborn Caucus (named for Senator AndySanborn of District 7) created quite a stir for the larger Republican caucus.

According to several sources, shortly before the vote on the Senate’s budgetwas set to take place, the Sanborn Caucus informed Senate Majority Leader Jeb Bradley that they would not vote for the budget unless another

billion dollars was lopped off. Word has it that it was immaterial to thiscrew where the billion dollars might come from, they just wanted thatamount cut willy nilly from the bottom line. It is worth noting that several of these elected officials campaigned for office saying they would take ascalpel to the budget not an axe. Clipping 10% off the biennial state budgetthat is already trimmed by at least 5% which by itself fails to meet the needsof the state seems pretty much like an axe or a machete or a buzz saw. Inaddition to Sanborn, the purported members who meet regularly in thiscaucus include Sen. Jim Forsythe of District 4, Sen. Fenton Groen of District 6and Sen. Raymond White of District 9 (for a list of communities comprisingeach district please see http://bit.ly/maXWze).

You might consider reaching out and asking these axe-wielders what elsethey want to cut in a budget that currently downshifts more than $100million to local communities, leaves our elderly behind, lays off more than400 public employees, hits our hospitals with an unexpected $115 million innew taxes and another $135 million loss of Medicaid funds to name a fewimpacts. Ask for specifics and if you can’t get specifics, question just howserious and thoughtful a representative he is for you and for New Hampshire.

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http://bit.ly/maXWze

http://bit.ly/maXWze



Additional fissures of the Senate majority were evident on the vote to reducethe high school drop-out age. The bill that would allow students to drop outat age 16 rather than the current 18 years of age is strictly ideological and isthoroughly unpopular with the general public in New Hampshire. Even themost conservative newspapers in the state advocated against this regressive

measure that flies in the face of New Hampshire’s recent achievement assecond in the nation for low drop-out rates. Ignoring the outcry against thisbill and voting against the recommendation of the Senate EducationCommittee to kill the bill was the Sanborn coalition of Sens. Sanborn,Forsythe, Groen and White as well as Sen. Sharon Carson of District 14 andSen. Jim Luther of District 12. If they’re willing to lop a billion dollars off thebudget it probably makes sense to them to encourage as many students as possible to exit early and reduce the burden of educating them – yousuppose??

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legislative action alert week of june 6, 2011

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