Out of State Special Interests

We’ve survived the recent round of primary elections. The outcomes provided little in the way of surprise to most anyone save for Lawrence Lessig of the MayDay PAC. Lessig is a professor at Harvard who has worked to reduce legal restrictions on copyrights and trademarks. More recently he’s been active in promoting a Constitutional Convention. This year he initiated the NH Rebellion, a group that took some long walks to bring attention to the need for campaign finance reform. In May he launched the MayDay PAC, which was to be used to help elect candidates to Congress that would pass campaign finance reform.

MayDay PAC picked Senate candidate Jim Rubens to support in the recent primary. Like all single-issue organizations, this was all about campaign finance reform. I understood the initial strategy: vote for Rubens to oust Brown from the primary. I didn’t think it was apt to be successful, but I understood it. That Rubens had repellent views on women and wants to finish building a wall at the southern border didn’t matter to MayDay. It didn’t seem to occur to them that those OTHER views could be problematic.

Then Lessig made the fatal mistake of giving over $100,000 to the Stark 360 PAC. Stark 360 is a PAC created by rabid Republitarian Aaron Day of the Free State Project. On a state level, they’ve lobbied against campaign finance reform. Stark 360 ran some cheesy anti-Scott Brown ads, and had people at the polls with handouts telling folks not to vote for Brown. They were paid to be there, and under questioning, proved completely unable to explain why one should vote for Rubens. Stark 360 also seems to have diverted some of that MayDay cash into ads for Andrew Hemingway and Marilinda Garcia. Stark 360 didn’t have any money till Lessig came along to share his largesse. Many of the folks who donated to Lessig were furious. Giving money to folks who fight against your cause in the naïve hope that they’ll promote your candidate (Stark 360’s website never mentioned Rubens) is not a winning strategy. Rubens lost big. The only reason the liberty crowd supported Rubens was because of guns. They think Scott Brown is wussy on guns – and they oppose campaign finance reform. Lessig has been very cranky about all the criticism he’s recieved, and still doesn’t seem to grasp where and how he went wrong.

Every candidate gets a ton of questionnaires from special interest groups. The rule of thumb has always been, if you want to be on the record with this group fill out the questionnaire. If not – don’t. When I ran for the NH House in 2002, I only filled out a few. Over a decade later there are many, many more questionnaires. Ron Paul’s “Campaign for Liberty” group has a questionnaire. Their website is full of the usual florid libertarian rhetoric about our glorious tradition of freedom and resistance to oppression. They point out that their Constitution is NOT a living document, and it seems likely they’d just as soon eliminate a number of those pesky amendments, notably the 19^th. Their questionnaire is comprised of seven questions. Ron and the Liberty boys oppose any gun regulations, Obamacare, Common Core, and any tax and fee increases. The questionnaire is online, along with the results. It amused me that only two Carroll County candidates (both Democrats!) have answered the survey. Ron Paul supporter Ed Comeau is conspicuously absent, along with the rest of the local liberty crowd.

Another so-called liberty group, liberty.com also has a candidate questionnaire. They’re an offshoot band of Paullowers, and their questionnaire is considerably longer and requires more than yes or no answers. “How should we fight a war on terror?” “Should the US maintain its standing army?” You get the idea. These are issues that will not be decided by the NH state legislature. Free State Project participants (and NH House candidates) Max Abramson of Seabrook and Shem Kellogg of Plaistow have both filled these out. Abramson would like for the US to pull out of all overseas bases and put those troops on the Mexican border. Freedom and liberty only extends so far, it seems. The liberty crowd is quite concerned about immigrants from south of the border. The liberty crowd is comprised, almost entirely, of pale people.

Max Abramson also proudly announces that he’s signed “every taxpayer pledge known to man.” As I’ve said before, signing pledges means never having to think for one’s self. Shem Kellogg’s answer to “What corrective actions could we take right now to improve the economy?” is “you and I could opt out of the state’s system whenever possible.” Ponder that for a few minutes. Then run through the list all of the countries that have successful libertarian economic systems.

It’s never a good idea to elect people who hate government to be the government.

NH badly needs some folks with vision to serve in our state government, not regressives desperate to return to a fictionalized version of the past. We have some very real problems looming, and we’ve done nothing to plan for them. Electing folks whose real concern is getting the US out of the UN and MOAR GUNZ isn’t helpful.

NH is not a big government state. It never has been. The Free Staters come with the intent of taking over and dismantling our state. They are woefully and deliberately ignorant of our state history and traditions. No different, really, than any other out of state special interest group that comes in thinking they know what is best for us.  

© 2014 sbruce 

Published as an op-ed in the September 19 edition of the Conway Daily Sun newspaper

Know Your Candidates

The midterm primary elections are coming up on September 9. In a state where most of the media skews to the right, getting an accurate picture of candidates can be challenging. One must go beyond the conventional (newspaper and TV) sources and dig a little deeper. Candidate research is crucial in order to avoid electing people who will be a huge embarrassment right out of the gate. With a 400 member House, there will be others who will require more time to maximize their embarrassment potential.

The highest profile primary contest is for the GOP nominee for US Senate. The winner will go on to face popular Senator Jeanne Shaheen in November. The three top candidates are Scott Brown, Jim Rubens, and Bob Smith. Brown and Smith are both former US Senators, Smith from NH and Brown from MA. Brown’s campaign has been strange. In Colebrook he knocked on the doors of supporters and called that “campaigning.” In N. Conway he ran away from a reporter and hid in the bathroom. Days ago on the radio in Massachusetts, he urged folks to come to NH and use our same day registration policy to vote for him. He has a lot of money, the party establishment has lined up behind him, and he looks pretty. Will that carry the day?

Rubens is a Dartmouth grad who has made a boatload of money. He once had a public blog called oversuccess.com. When some of the content from that blog went public, the blog went private. No longer can we peons read about the perils of being wealthy: “I have bathed in camera light during press conferences, political opponents skulking in the rear of ballrooms, forced to tolerate my applause lines, sycophants and well-wishers beaming and waiting in line to shake my hand or offer their help.” Rubens also ran afoul on that same blog by suggesting that the increasing number of women in the workplace has resulted in mass shootings. The implication being, of course, that those women are taking men’s jobs away from them. Rubens signed on to the campaign finance reform bandwagon and won the support of Lawrence Lessig and his MayDay PAC. He’s also jumped on the libertea bandwagon, and has attempted to be photographed in every gun store in NH.

Former Senator Bob Smith lost his bad toupee in Florida. He may have updated his hair, but not his ideology. Smith is working overtime to appeal to the farthest right fringe, but they seem more interested in Rubens. He’s unlikely to do well in the primary.

In the GOP primary for governor, the contest comes down to Walt Havenstein and Andrew Hemingway. Havenstein was the CEO at BAE Systems. BAE is a defense contractor. Walt boasts about the jobs he created there. He may have hired people, but those jobs were actually created by US taxpayers. The obscene US military spending is made possible by folks like you and me. Without the public teat to suckle from, Walt wouldn’t have been hiring.

Havenstein also entered the race with some confusion about his residency. He claimed that he’s always lived in NH, but he signed a homestead deduction in Maryland that stipulated he lived there in order to save a few thousand a year. The NH ballot commission ruled that he is a NH resident, and Maryland sent him a bill for the tax money he defrauded them for. He’s “considering” whether or not to pay it, a luxury not available to the rest of us.

Andrew Hemingway is the darling of the libertea crowd. A look at his website reveals he’s promoting the same old “solutions” that have been failing NH for decades. Neither Havenstein nor Hemingway mentions the word “infrastructure” on their campaign websites.

In Congressional District 1, the race comes down to former Congressman Frank Guinta and former Dean of the former Whittemore School of Business at UNH, now renamed the Peter T. Paul College of Business and Economics.

Frank Guinta slid into Congress during the red tide of 2010. He stayed for one term. Guinta “found” a bank account that provided his campaign with a $350,000 infusion of cash in 2010. That “find” didn’t match up with his income. The FEC investigation appears to be moving at the speed of the tectonic plates. Frank also distinguished himself by campaigning loudly about Congresswoman Carol Shea Porter’s alleged abuses of the Congressional franking system. In 2011, he spent more on franked mail than any other Congressperson. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) rated him one of the most corrupt legislators.

Dan Innis became the Dean of the business school at UNH in 2007. In 2008, the business school received a big wad of cash ($25 million) from alumnus Peter T. Paul. The school built what his now known as the Peter T. Paul College of Business and Economics. Peter T. Paul amassed a fortune selling subprime mortgages, and later devising ways to package and sell mortgage debt to investors – a practice that has been cited as a key factor in the economic meltdown of 2008. In 2013, Innis stepped down from his position as Dean to explore a run for Congress. In 2014, Peter T. Paul created a Super Pac to help his friend Dan Innis beat Guinta in the primary. If Innis gets to Washington what kind of regulatory oversight will he be providing? Will he protect voters or his benefactor?

This is why it’s important to know the candidates. Do they already have a record of corruption? Where do their loyalties lie? Are they bought and paid for?

On the local level, we’ll also be electing House and Senate candidates, and various county positions. Last biennium, the House and Senate were both filled with rabid ideologues and obstructionists who did their best to subvert the process. Anyone who tells you that cutting taxes and eliminating regulations is the key to job growth in NH is lying. NH has failed for decades to invest in our state and the results of that failure are now hobbling our economy. The GOP inability to be honest about that is a shameful and deliberate failure.

In order for the NH legislature to accomplish anything, there has to be some bipartisan cooperation and compromise. Electing people who claim government is bad and broken leads to a self-fulfilling prophecy. It’s up to voters to decide whether they want to elect serious people who are interested in working to fix some of NH’s very real problems, or if they want bellicose obstructionists trumpeting the usual slogans.

                          *                                *                                       *

This was written as my regular column in the Conway Daily Sun newspaper, in NH's First Congressional District, which is why I didn't include the CD 2 race. 

I've been encouraged to add in information about the GOP primary in CD 2, to determine who will run against Congresswoman Ann Kuster. 

There are 3 Republicans in the race. 

Marilinda Garcia is a former state representative. She was one of former Speaker Bill O'Brien's acolytes. She's also distinguished herself by being heavily funded by the Koch brothers. A young attractive woman with a Latino surname who espouses the beliefs of the far right libertea fringe doesn't come along every day for the GOP. She wants to repeal Obamacare and replace it with the same GOP plan that has failed us all for decades - the marketplace! She mentions Bowles Simpson which is a coy way of saying she wants to privatize Social Security. She wants to cut gummint spending.

Garcia's inexperience showed at the debate last week when she refused to shake opponent Gary Lambert's hand, because he "lied about her positions." Time to toughen up Buttercup. This isn't the 400 member NH House, this is hardball. 

She's also made the classic rookie mistake of airing all this on her campaign blog. Repeating what he's said in his ads is giving him double the advertisement space. Former Rep. Garcia is not ready for prime time. 

Gary Lambert wants to force women to serve as involuntary incubators, secure our borders, repeal Obama care, and give us MOAR GUNZ! He has a Wake Up Washington Pledge on his campaign website, full of promises of term limits and not taking a pension or a pay raise! Funny how these guys who claim to hate career politicians are desperate to become career politicians. 

Jim Lawrence promises to Win Back NH for NH. He's going to repeal Obamacare and replace it with the same old market "solutions." He's going to secure our border! He's going to fix the IRS! He's going to give us a strong foreign policy! He's going to prevent NH from having wind turbines! He's going to eliminate regulations and give everyone MOAR GUNZ! 

Three far right fringe candidates with no new ideas. Welcome to today's GOP. 

© sbruce 2014

published as an op-ed in the Conway Daily Sun newspaper, Sept. 5, 2014

It's All Over But The Shooting

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