Local Control Under Attack

Our far right legislators love to talk about how much they hate big government. Big government imposes its will on the people, Big Government takes away the voice of towns, cities, and states… yesiree Bob, they hate Big Gummint…until they love it.

By the time you read this, there will have been a hearing on HB 1749, a bill that would remove the right of NH cities or towns to establish their own gun ordinances. Your town doesn’t want target shooting on town land? Your city doesn’t want guns on town property? Tough luck. The libertea gundamentalists are going to eliminate local control, and give that control to the state. That’s right - the same state they complain about all the time.

According to this bill, “the general court will have exclusive authority and jurisdiction by statute over the sale, purchase, ownership, use, possession, transportation, licensing, permitting, taxation, or other matters pertaining to firearms, firearms components, ammunition, firearms supplies, and knives in this state.”

Take that, taxpayers of Anytown, NH. Your town doesn’t get to make decisions about guns, ammo, or knives, because the legislature controls your town’s decisions. You still get to pay taxes, but if you don’t want Bubba and his drunken cousin shooting targets in the park, that’s tough luck.  In fact, they’ll probably be able to shoot at the school playground too, because the bill opposes banning guns at schools, and schools are public property. Nothing goes together like small children and firearms.

It’s a bold power grab. Lead sponsor JR Hoell has never respected local control, and the bill reflects his disdain. Line I makes a point of saying that NH is not a home rule state. That NH has a long-standing (nigh on to sacred) tradition of local control is of no interest to the parade of far right activists that have signed on to this. Free State Project mover Ed Comeau of Brookfield is the only sponsor from the top half of the state, an area where folks are pretty serious about local control. There are no sponsors from Grafton or Coos County. There’s a hearing on Wednesday, and the executive session will follow the hearing. The vote will probably be scheduled for the following week. They don’t want voters to know about this until it’s a fait accompli. 

The other sponsors (from the bottom half of the state) include Representatives Al Baldasaro, John Burt, self-styled Constitutional expert Dan Itse, and James Spillane. Representative Michael Sylvia of Belmont is the other Free Stater sponsoring the bill. The founding document of the Free State Project calls for people to move to NH, take over and dismantle the state government, and then threaten secession. I trust I’m not the only one to see the humor in the would-be dismantlers of the state government, attempting to take local power away from municipalities and hand it to the state government.

They’re counting on the fact that voters aren’t paying attention, and if they hear about it at all, will interpret it as “nobody gonna tell me what I can do with my gun” and leave it at that.

The silence around this bill should concern all of us. There was endless publicity about “Constitutional Carry,” the name the out-of-state special interests came up with for eliminating the permitting process for concealed carry firearms. All the gun groups churned out continuous propaganda emails. The governor made it his very first legislative priority. To get a concealed carry license, a gun owner had to apply to the police chief in his/her town. The “Constitutional Carry” bill eliminated that step. It was the first step in eliminating local control. This latest move to disempower municipalities should come as no surprise.

It should come with rejection. This is the second attack on local control. If these radicals succeed, they’ll be further emboldened. What will be next? What will be the next erosion of local control engineered by the radical ideologues of today’s GOP? What do towns control that these folks hate? Hint: schools. I predict that will be next on their agenda.

There have been amendments proposed to the NH Constitution at different times to make NH a “home rule” state. Every time, the most vehement opposition comes from the liberty crowd. They hate big gummint, until they become the big government - and then they’ll do anything to protect and expand their power.  

For years we’ve heard that it’s the evil liberals who want big government to control every aspect of our lives. It turns out that it’s the NHGOP that wants their idea of big government to run our towns from Concord. It’s a brilliant strategy. The average Republican voter would expect this from liberals, but never from his own party.

Dear Republicans: your demise is being engineered from within. 

This was published as an op-ed in the January 12, 2018 edition of the Conway Daily Sun newspaper 

When Freedumb Fighters Become Tyrants

HOUSE BILL 1749-FN

AN ACT relative to the state's authority to prohibit or regulate firearms and relative to the selectmen's authority to manage town property.

SPONSORS: Rep. Hoell, Merr. 23; Rep. Comeau, Carr. 5; Rep. Itse, Rock. 10; Rep. Sylvia, Belk. 6; Rep. Burt, Hills. 39; Rep. Spillane, Rock. 2; Rep. Notter, Hills. 21; Rep. Baldasaro, Rock. 5; Rep. McConnell, Ches. 12; Rep. Wallace, Rock. 33

COMMITTEE: Municipal and County Government

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ANALYSIS

This bill revises the law on the state's authority to prohibit or regulate firearms, firearms components, ammunition, firearms supplies, and knives.  The bill also renders the selectmen's authority to manage town property subject to the provision of RSA 159:26.

STATE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE

In the Year of Our Lord Two Thousand Eighteen

AN ACT relative to the state's authority to prohibit or regulate firearms and relative to the selectmen's authority to manage town property.

Be it Enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in General Court convened:

1  Legislative Findings and Purpose.  The general court finds that:

I.  New Hampshire is not a home rule state.

II.  Municipal ordinances and regulations regarding firearm regulation may differ from municipality to municipality which may place a citizen in danger of inadvertently violating the law.

III.  A growing number of towns and local boards are violating RSA 159:26.

IV.  The issue is a growing problem as in the last 6 months, the following events have transpired, all of which violate RSA 159:26:

(a) The board of selectmen of the town of Milford has banned target shooting on town land.

(b) The city of Lebanon school board is attempting to ban firearms in or on school property and at school events that take place on non-school property.

(c)  The Lebanon police department has pledged to enforce the illegal gun ban enacted by the Lebanon school board.

V.  It is in the best interest of the citizens of the state of New Hampshire for the resources of local units of government to be used to enforce current law and not to waste time enforcing decisions that are in clear violation of statutes.

VI.  Repealing and reenacting RSA 159:26 to clarify the intent and further, to include penalties, will prevent these violations of state law.

2  Firearms, Ammunition, and Knives; Authority of the State.  RSA 159:26 is repealed and reenacted to read as follows:

159:26  Firearms, Ammunition, and Knives; Authority of the State. 

I.  The general court shall have exclusive authority and jurisdiction by statute over the sale, purchase, ownership, use, possession, transportation, licensing or permitting, taxation, or other matters pertaining to firearms, firearms components, ammunition, firearms supplies, and knives in the state.  Notwithstanding any other provision of law to the contrary, all delegations of legislative authority shall be by statute and shall explicitly state the extent and limits of the jurisdiction or authority delegated.  Except as otherwise specifically provided in statute, no ordinance, regulation, rule, or policy of an agency, political subdivision, committee, or other governmental unit of the state, or agent thereof may prohibit or regulate in any way the sale, purchase, ownership, use, possession, transportation, licensing or permitting, taxation, or other matter pertaining to firearms, firearms components, ammunition, firearms supplies, or knives in the state.  

HB 1749

Local control has always been sacred in NH. Past tense. Some municipalities are enacting gun ordinances for THEIR towns that the freedumb and libertea crowd disapproves of. This bill would remove local control and hand it to the legislature. 

These people (especially Free Staters Ed Comeau and Michael Sylvia) all bray about gummint tyranny - but vote them into government and they become the tyrants. 

JR Hoell - Who Needs Local Control?

GOP Favors Local Control Except When They Don't         h/t Tuck

Obstruction is Easy

In the process of crafting a budget for our state, first the Governor gives the legislature his or her budget. This year it was written by our new governor and his  budget advisor  Charlie Arlinghaus of the Josiah Bartlett Center, a far right wing think tank. The House Finance Committee then uses the governor’s budget as both a model and a jumping off point for creating their own version. At crossover, the budget goes to the Senate where they tinker with it, and then send it back. The differences are hammered out in a committee of conference where everyone works hard to ensure that there isn’t enough money to run the state as if it mattered, and then it’s done.

Not this year. This year, a cabal of obstructionists calling themselves the Freedom Caucus decided they didn’t like the budget. It spent too much money, they said. This cabal is comprised of legislators who are still angry that their leader, Bill O’Brien was defeated in his second bid to become Speaker, after what was widely acknowledged as a disastrous first term in that position. Even though O’Brien is no longer part of the legislature, he’s driving this bozo bus. This is the same O’Brien who, in 2013, gave a floor speech congratulating the House on the passage of what he called, “An O’Brien budget.” Minutes before, he’d actually voted against it.  

The Freedumb caucus is comprised of the same guys who want to make changes to the SNAP program that will cost the state more to administer, while saving no money, so you know they have the best interests of taxpayers at heart. These are the same guys who have been obstructing and delaying  at every opportunity since 2013.They’re libertarians, Free Staters, and Tea Partiers,  puffed up with manly pride that they’ve made a stand against Big Gummint Spending!

They refused to vote for the budget. The Democrats refused to vote for it, too, but not for the same reasons. The Democrats had some very modest (timid) additions they wanted to see added in. They offered to work out a compromise with Speaker Shawn Jasper, who rebuffed them half a dozen times.  Apparently he was unable to make a deal with the Freedumb caucus, even after he brought the governor in to yell at them, and so, for the first time ever, the House failed to send a budget to the Senate. This means that when the Senate comes up with a budget, the House will have no bargaining chips in the Committee of Conference. The one thing we can be sure of is that there won’t be enough money in this budget to run this state like a business, which is often presented as a goal.  The GOP should be incredibly embarrassed by this failure, yet none are brave enough to speak against the hostage taking actions by the O’Brienistas.

Obstruction is easy. The GOP has been specializing in it since 2009 when Obama took office. On the local level, we’ve had a Democrat in the corner office since one-term Republican Governor Craig Benson. As long as a Democrat held the executive power, the libertea branch of the GOP was free to obstruct anything and everything – and they certainly did, often just for the sake of doing it. With a Republican majority, there’s no one left for them to obstruct except each other.

Obstruction is easy. Governing is hard.

Passing ideological legislation is not governing. It’s easy when you have the majority. What is increasingly beyond the ability of the Republican Party is compromise, as this group illustrates so perfectly. Unless they get their way, they’re going to stomp their big boy feet and no one will get to use the playground swings.

As I’ve said before, this is what you get when you elect people who hate government to be the government.  

I’m often asked, “How do these people keep getting reelected?” Stories about what they do, how they behave, and how they vote are few and far between. This is a group of about 30 and most of them are men. Locally, this group includes Ed Comeau, Lino Avellani, and Glenn Cordelli. Ask yourselves why you keep electing them.

Then ask your other Republican representatives why they are silent. Ask them why you should keep voting for them, when party loyalty means more to them than their role as an elected representative of the people. Finally, ask them if they are a little ashamed that their party has been taken over by tantrum throwing toddlers.

Obstruction is easy. Governing is hard. 


From the NH Legislative Handbook:

 Members should at all times conduct themselves in a way that exhibits the utmost respect for their elected office, their constituents and the people of the State of New Hampshire.


published as an op-ed in the April 14 edition of the Conway Daily Sun newspaper

Be Sure to Ask Them Why

The last voting session of the NH legislature was June 24. That was the day our state representatives and senators voted on the budget and the committee of conference reports. Bills originate in either the House or Senate. They go through committee, get tinkered with and get voted on.  Midway through the session, the bills are swapped over to the other body. The other body may amend that bill, could even go as far as changing the title and text of the original bill completely. After it’s voted on the original body has to concur with the changes made to the bill. If they do not, the bill is sent to a Committee of Conference. The CoC is made up of members of both political parties from the House and Senate. If they can work out a compromise, the CoC report has to be adopted by both bodies. That’s what was happening on June 24.

One of those bills was HB 681. It originated in the House (HB means house bill). It was intended to increase the fee for marriage licenses in the state, with the monies from the increase going to fund the state’s domestic violence grant program that acts as an umbrella organization to distribute funds to domestic violence programs around the state. It passed the House on a roll call vote of 223-146. The Carroll County Representatives that voted for the bill: Buco, Butler, Crawford, McConkey, Nelson, Parker, Schmidt, Ticehurst, and Umberger. Those who voted against funding for domestic violence were Representatives Avellani, Chandler, Comeau, Cordelli, McCarthy, and Wright.

The bill moved over to the Senate, where during the Senate vote, garnered three floor amendments. The first amendment made an appropriation of the princely sum of $160,000 to fund the domestic violent grant program. Thanks Senator Sanborn! The second amendment stipulated that a convicted abuser would pay a $50 fine. The monies from the fine would go to the domestic violence grant program. This eliminated the increase in the marriage license fee. The third floor amendment came from our own Senator Bradley, who added the increase in the marriage license fee back to the bill, so that it would include both the fine and the fee increase. The House did not concur, so a Committee of Conference was requested.

The biggest sticking point seemed to be that the House members of the committee were worried that a low-income convicted abuser wouldn’t be able to pay the fine and might be incarcerated as a result. The amendment was changed to give the judge the discretion to either defer the fine or set up a payment plan as needed. The Sanborn amendment was ditched. The bill includes both the fee increase and the fine.

This Committee of Conference report was voted on June 24. The Senate voted to adopt the report with a voice vote. The House with a roll call vote of 204-144 adopted the report. In Carroll County, Representatives Butler, Chandler, Parker, Schmidt, Ticehurst, and Umberger voted to help fund domestic violence programs in our state. Representatives Avellani, Buco, Comeau, Cordelli, McConkey, McCarthy, Nelson, and Wright voted not to fund domestic violence programs. Representative Crawford was not voting.

I spoke with Representative Buco, who has a good record of supporting domestic violence funding. He voted against the CoC report on HB 681 because he voted against all of the CoC reports. He felt as though he didn’t know enough about what had transpired in any of the committees of conference, so he just voted no on everything.

Representative Comeau is a member of the Free State Project, and all of the Free Staters who were present on June 24 voted against adopting the CoC report. All but one of them voted against the original bill, back in March. The one who did was Elizabeth Edwards. Edwards ran as a Democrat in Manchester, as did fellow Free Stater Amanda Bouldin. Representative Bouldin votes with the GOP, thereby defrauding the people who voted for her.  Edwards is a little more thoughtful. Both Bouldin and Edwards were absent on June 24. Instead of representing their constituents, they were at the annual Free Stater frat party in Lancaster.

Free Staters and their libertea allies hate domestic violence bills, because a conviction means that an abuser will lose his or her firearms. Last year libertea ally JR Hoell voted against the bill that made domestic violence a crime in NH. When I asked why, he mumbled something about unintended consequences. I asked, “Oh, like having their guns taken away?” He ran away. No one was ever as glad to see Josh McElveen of WMUR as Hoell was that day.

The entity known as the House Liberty Alliance, a group originally formed by the Free State Project (though they will deny it) passes out a handout to legislators heading in to the session. The handout is called, “The Gold Standard.” (insert roll-eyes here) It tells the legislator how to vote on selected bills. It’s so much easier than thinking.

As for the rest of the Carroll County Republicans who voted against funding domestic violence programs – I suspect that they’ll tell you that they signed pledges that said NO FEE INCREASES or FINES. Again, taking pledges is so much easier than thinking.

Over the last ten years, domestic violence homicides comprise half of NH murders. Between the years of 2011 and 2013, the numbers dropped to 47%. In the years 2011 -2013, of the victims murdered by their partners, three out of four were women. Forty-two percent of the domestic violence homicides involved a gun. Domestic violence happens to men, women, children, the elderly, and the physically or mentally disabled in our state, regardless of income, race, sexual orientation, age, or gender. It’s estimated that 33.5% of women and 24% of men in our state have experienced a physical assault by an intimate partner.

Half the murders in our state are domestic violence murders, yet a number of our local state legislators don’t want to fund programs to help victims and educate others.

Be sure to ask them why.   

Published as an op-ed in the June 10 edition of the Conway Daily Sun newspaper

Our Would Be Liberators

Earlier this month, in New Brunswick, a young man named Justin Bourque killed RCMP Constables Fabrice Gevaudan, Dave Ross, and Douglas Larche. He wounded two other Mounties. Justin Bourque was an angry young man, ginned up on conspiracy theories and fears about gun grabbers. (Definition: anyone believing that not every person should have access to firearms is a gun grabber.) One of his Facebook friends is being detained for threatening to kill police.

A few days ago, two police officers having lunch at a pizza place in Las Vegas were gunned down by Jerad and Amanda Miller, who put a swastika and a Gadsden flag on the bodies of the officers, announced the revolution was starting, grabbed their weapons, and went to a nearby Wal-Mart. They killed a man there. Jerad and Amanda were also ginned up on conspiracy theories and gundamentalist fears that the gummint was coming to take their guns away.

These killings happened in two different countries, and the killings were done by people who didn’t know each other. They did, however, have something in common. CopBlock. If you spend any time on social media, you’ve probably seen CopBlock memes; a picture with some message about police violence or authoritarian overreach. CopBlock claims their goal is police accountability. From their website:

We do not “hate cops.” We believe that no one – not even those with badges – has extra rights. The failure to realize and act on that is to our detriment. By focusing the disinfecting light of transparency on public officials we safeguard not just our rights but those of future generations.

Sounds good, doesn’t it? If only we could take these folks at their word.

A regular writer for CopBlock is a guy named Chris Cantwell. Cantwell was kicked out of the Free State Project (in a big public way) for advocating violence, which goes against what the FSP claims to believe. Cantwell, in his capacity as CopBlock administrator had the ability to use the CopBlock twitter account. While Justin Bourque was out killing Mounties, CopBlock sent out a tweet that read, “What the world needs is more people like Justin Bourque not fewer.” The same CopBlock that claims it doesn’t condone violence, the same CopBlock that claims adherence to something called the “Non Aggression Principle.”

Cantwell has lengthy rants on his blog where he waxes on about the reasons to kill cops. It’s not for the faint of heart or stomach. He’s an angry, angry man who doesn’t kill cops because HE doesn’t want to go to jail. He’d like to incite you to do the work for him. He cheered on Justin Bourque. He eulogized the Millers. And when Officer Stephen Arkell was killed in Brentwood, NH last month, Cantwell not only blamed Arkell for getting killed, he celebrated it. 

Justin Bourque had CopBlock memes on his Facebook page. Amanda Miller had a link to a YouTube video from the CopBlock channel that asks, “When is it Okay to Kill a Cop?” with words from an anarchist/Free Stater named Larken Rose. Jason Stam, the friend of Justin Bourque now in custody for threatening cops, posted Chris Cantwell’s CopBlock support for Bourque on his page.

CopBlock was co-founded by Adam Mueller, who calls himself Ademo Freeman and Pete Eyre. Mueller and Eyre are both members of the Free State Project. The Free State Project is the group of libertarians moving to NH with the intent of liberating us by occupying, colonizing, and taking over and dismantling the state government, and threatening secession. They claim to be nonviolent and peaceful. I serve on the board of a peace organization. We don’t have any videos that address when it would be okay to kill cops. That doesn’t fit into the category of peace – at least not as I understand it.

CopBlock has gotten a lot of negative media attention since the recent cop killing incidents took place. On June 11, they posted a notice on the CopBlock site that Cantwell is now a former author, and they pledged their adherence to the non-aggression principle. It was signed by a number of folks affiliated with the site, including co-founder Pete Eyre. It was not signed by Adam Mueller. He sent out a tweet saying that Cantwell “is no longer an admin of the FB page. Gotta be PC, ya know. Otherwise slaves won't like CopBlock.” In other words, they ditched Cantwell so that they can keep on getting well-intended folks to keep posting their memes and sending them money. That’s what they call non-Free Staters, by the way. Slaves.

Many members of the Free State Project will be appearing on ballots around the state this fall. At least one will be on the ballot in Carroll County. Ed Comeau of Brookfield is running for the NH House. Some of you will recognize Ed as the person who tapes a variety of public meetings, including the Carroll County Commissioners. The level of dysfunction we’ve seen in our county government may well have been nurtured by the FSP. Remember, their goal is the destruction of our form of government. What better way to begin than to ensure chaos, obstruction, and gridlock? It’s happening both in Concord and on the county level, engineered by Free Staters and their fellow travelers in the Tea Party and the John Birch Society. Always research your candidates to find out things like: What do they believe in? How do they support themselves financially? What groups are they associated with?

As for CopBlock, don’t be fooled by their attempt at a whitewash. They’ve allowed Cantwell’s rants all this time. The “When is it Okay to Shoot a Cop” video has been up on YouTube for over a year. If no cops had been killed, Cantwell would still be an administrator, and no one would be the wiser. The underbelly of our would-be liberators does not match their public face.

© sbruce 2014  

Published in the June 13 edition of the Conway Daily Sun newspaper.