September
is here, and that means it’s time for legislative fun to begin again. September
9 was the first day that representatives could file LSRs (potential
bills/Legislative Service Requests) for 2014. September 27 is the last day to
file House LSRs. September 30 is the first day for Senate LSRs, and the cut off
date for the Senate is October 25.
So
far, House members have filed 86 LSRs. They have not yet been assigned numbers;
there is no actual bill text available, just the titles chosen by the sponsors
of the LSRs. Those titles sometimes provide great clarity into the potential
bill, and sometimes create more questions. It’s worth noting that 2014 is an
election year. Some legislators are intent appealing to voters through social
engineering. Some are intent on making a name for themselves through means that
the rest of us might find unusual.
The
very first LSR listed is quite clear: “repealing the death penalty in NH,” is sponsored
by Rep. Robert Cushing. At a time when other states are repealing their death
penalty statutes out of fiscal concern, NH chose to bring ours out of mothballs
and use it, thanks to former AG Kelly Ayotte, who rode a death penalty case
right to the US Senate. That case has already cost our state millions, and will
cost us many more before it is finished. It’s sad that the moral argument has
less power in this state than the financial – but the bottom line is pretty
simple. Are you willing to see an increase in your property taxes to pay for
executions?
Representative
Kathleen Souza has filed 2 bills that seem related to making a legal procedure
more difficult for women to avail themselves of in the state of NH. The first
has to do with the licensure of out patient abortion clinics, and the second
has to do with gathering data. Naturally women have no right to medical
privacy. Imagine a bill filed to gather data from the records of men getting
prescriptions for erectile dysfunction drugs? Would men meekly submit to having
their private medical records invaded by nosy number seekers?
Rep.
Leon Rideout has filed an LSR to include the term “fetus” in the definition of
“another” for the purpose of certain criminal offenses. This is a tactic
frequently engaged in by the uterus police in an attempt to create “fetal
personhood” which would grant a clump of cells the same legal rights as an
adult woman is supposed to have. In an election year we can expect to see more
bills aimed at regulating women from the crowd that is bitterly opposed to
regulating guns.
Rep.
George Lambert has filed 6 bills so far. Rep. Lambert is considering a run for
governor next year. Lambert would like to repeal the timber tax, eliminate
sugar packet requirements, and repeal the licensing of career schools. He also
has bills relative to the conferring of college degrees, relative to training
programs in career schools, and relative to funding career schools. These are
interesting areas of focus for a guy who is considering a run for governor in a
state where he has no name recognition. It sounds as if the freedom and liberty
crowd is gearing up for another attack on hair stylists and beauticians. Or to
put it more bluntly, an attack on women’s work.
NH currently has 500 bridges on the red list for structural impairment. Rep. John Cloutier, who proposes that the priority status of the widening of I-93 be repealed in the 10-year transportation plan update, filed the only LSR filed that has any grounding in infrastructure. Perhaps there will be some interest in solving our infrastructure problems when one of those bridges finally collapses and people are injured or killed.
Rep.
JR Hoell has filed an LSR requesting Congress investigate the Benghazi
incident. As we all know, Congress has, in fact, investigated. Rep. Hoell just
doesn’t like the results of that investigation, so he’s willing to waste $1500
of our tax dollars to get his name up in lights with a bill to nowhere.
The
NHGOP doesn’t seem to have heard, never mind heeded Louisiana Governor Bobby
Jindal’s warnings about the need to stop being “the party of stupid.” Former NH
State Senator Jim Rubens announced his intention to run against popular US
Senator Jeanne Shaheen. At his press conference, he described Senator Shaheen
as “out of touch” with New Hampshire voters.
Shortly
after the announcement, we learned of a blog post Rubens made in 2009, linking
women in the workplace to the incidence of mass shootings. It seems that women
have taken men’s jobs away from them, and that’s caused them to start gunning
people down. In this same blog post, Rubens also said that “tweaking the tax
code to add manufacturing jobs would be one way to relieve the stress on men.”
It seems Rubens slept right through NAFTA and all other free trade agreements,
and is unaware that the US gave the manufacturing industry away.
Rubens
has since removed that post from his blog, and put his blog behind a firewall
so that we can no longer see his odes to being part of the glorious one
percent: “I just returned from a not atypical vacation of private charter
flights, organic meals on white linen, and a private bungalow.” It seems likely
he wasn’t the inspiration for Aaron Copeland’s “Fanfare for the Common Man.”
This
is some kind of a record – beginning and ending a campaign on the same day.
It’s all over but the shouting (or the shooting). Rubens just doesn’t realize
it yet. Those who defend him will only serve to alienate female voters even
further, especially given that the gender wage gap is higher in NH than many
other states. Women in NH earn $0.77 for each dollar earned by men. Ten percent of NH women live in poverty.
Of minimum wage earners in our state, 69% are women. No wonder there haven’t
been any mass shootings here, eh Jim?
There
are a great many problems in our state and our nation that need serious
attention. It’s a shame they won’t be getting any this year.
“If stupidity got us into
this mess, than why can’t it get us out?” ~ Will Rogers
© sbruce 2013
published as a biweekly column in the Conway Daily Sun newspaper
1 comment:
Love the Will Rogers quote you used for an outcue!
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