Free Staters Love Small Gummint....Except When They Don't

                                                    (Just a meme - not O'Flaherty.)


Our friends from the Free State Project claim to worship at the altar of small gummint. They claim to believe that gummint shouldn't be involved in our personal lives.

It's completely consistent that Free State legislators Tim O'Flaherty and Carol McGuire sponsored a bill to repeal the crime of adultery: HB 1125 . It's an old, outdated crime that's still on the NH books.

The bill comes out of the Children and Family Law Committee with a 15-0 recommendation that the entire house should pass the bill.

Quickly we veer off into the land of inconsistent, with HB 1218. Rep. O'Flaherty is the only sponsor of this bill  - one that redefines the "acts" that constitute the crime of adultery.

From the bill:

645:3 Adultery. A person is guilty of a class B misdemeanor if, being a married person, he or she engages in sexual intercourse with another not his or her spouse or, being unmarried, engages in sexual intercourse with another known by him or her to be married. In this section, “sexual intercourse” shall include anal penetration.

This bill doesn't seem to fall into the "gummint should stay out of our personal lives" belief system that our Free Stater brethren claim to adhere to. 

I'm guessing that this is a BIG IRONY move on the part of O'Flaherty. He's gonna teach us statists a lesson by making a mockery of the system. Former (one-term) Representative Seth Cohn made an amendment to a bill to repeal marriage equality that would have banned left handed people from getting married. Cohn's move was aimed at getting national attention for himself. O'Flaherty (coached by Cohn) wants to make a mockery of the system that he hates being part of. 





Rather than do any actual work to get support for the repeal bill, O'Flaherty filed two bills - the better to waste the taxpayer's dollars, and the time of his colleagues.

O'Flaherty  admits it "turns his stomach" to be a part of the legislature. If he had even an iota of integrity, he'd resign at once.


Prediction: Seth Cohn will comment within an hour of this blog going online.

Related: Rep. Against Big Gummint Until She Is For It


UPDATE


Rep. O'Flaherty's expanded adultery bill was soundly voted down. Curious that he didn't mention oral sex, isn't it? Free Staters are so male-centric it wouldn't occur to them to think about/include women. 

Rep. O'Flaherty's bill repealing NH's antique adultery statute did pass. 

Someone must have duct taped Seth Cohn to a chair.

A Hoell Lot of Nanny State

JR Hoell, at the Concord City Council meeting on August 14, 2013. One of the issues the City Council was taking up at this meeting was whether or not to accept a federal grant to purchase a BearCat armored vehicle. Rep. Hoell is the tall man in a blue blazer, standing against the wall on the far right next to a tripod. He's the state Representative for the towns of Bow and Dunbarton. Concord is not part of his district. At the time I wondered how Rep. Hoell would respond to Concord Representatives coming to tell the Dunbarton selectmen what they ought to be doing. 

Hoell's a gun guy. His whole purpose in the legislature seems to be to write gun legislation. Bow's population is about 8,000 and Dunbarton's is around 2500. It just seems unlikely that thousands of constituents call Hoell on a regular basis and beg him to write another gun bill. On average he writes five a year. The gun bills aren't getting that closed bridge in Dunbarton fixed. The gun bills aren't creating jobs in Bow or Dunbarton, or lowering their property taxes. What does he do for his district? Nothing really, unless you think MOAR GUNZ are the answer to everything. To be fair, he's also opposed to state revenue, education, and women having bodily autonomy.  His agenda appeals to a small cadre of like minded thinkers in the two towns. The rest of his constituents don't know what he's up to, because the media doesn't report on it. When Hoell threatened armed insurrection recently, it went unreported by most of the NH media. Only Tuck at  Miscellany Blue and Tony Schinella of the Concord Patch covered the story. 


After his time in the spotlight around the BearCat issue, Hoell decided that he could ride that pony a little further, and wrote a bill to make sure that NO town or city in the state should be able to purchase armored vehicles - or weaponry that isn't available on the open market. His co-sponsor for  HB 1307 is Rep. Timothy O'Flaherty, a Free Stater from Manchester.

The Concord Monitor published a story about this piece of legislation. This is telling: 

None of the activists who flooded the Concord City Council’s public hearings on the BearCat last year came to yesterday’s hearing. Only Hoell testified in favor of the bill, while Keene’s police chief and a state Department of Safety official testified against it.

None of Hoell's Free Stater buddies came to testify in favor of his bill. None of his libertea colleagues came to testify. Even his co-sponsor didn't testify in favor of the bill. Ouch. 

Specifically, Hoell’s bill would prohibit state agencies and municipalities from acquiring, purchasing or accepting any military-style equipment, including vehicles and weapons, that aren’t available on an open national commercial market. The National Guard would be exempt from this.

And

Several members of the House Executive Departments and Administration committee said the bill appeared to take away local control. Rep. Mary Nelson, a Nashua Democrat, asked Hoell what he sees as the appropriate role of the Legislature in telling communities how to spend their money.

“The role of the state, in this case, is to make sure the citizens have the best law enforcement and not one that’s overly militarized,” said Hoell, who added that he is in favor of local control.

Hmm. This bill says otherwise. 

"Sadist University; Turns my Stomach": NH Rep. O'Flaherty on his work as a legislator

The Free State Project (libertarians who intend to move into NH, colonize, and take over the state) had a "Keenevention" recently in the western part of the state. They claim it was a huge success with "over 100 participants, volunteers, panelists, and VIPs." One of their panels was on the NH legislature. The participants were former state rep. Seth Cohn who served one term and had no hope of getting reelected, Eileen Landies of the NH Liberty Alliance (an FSP offshoot), current State Rep. Tim O'Flaherty of Manchester who ran as a Democrat in order to get elected, but is closely allied with the far right, and former state rep. Spec Bowers who served one term and wasn't able to win reelection. In short, not a very inspiring panel.

This is what Representative O'Flaherty had to say about his experience representing the people  of his district:





Representative O'Flaherty will be returning to Sadist University in January 2014 when the legislature reconvenes.

NH House Republican Alliance Legislator Ratings

The NH House Republican Alliance just came out with their rankings of state representatives, based on 100 votes. All those roll call votes were essential to this process. This is how they explain the ratings system on their website:

 A grade of 100% indicates that a legislator voted in perfect conformity to the NH State Constitution, traditional Republican values, and the NH State Party Platform.  On the other hand, a grade of 0% indicates that a legislator never voted with the NH State Constitution, traditional Republican values, or the NH State Party Platform.

Let's just say that Nate Silver isn't going to be calling them for ideas on gathering polling data. The scorecard does have some interesting results. According to the Concord Monitor:

Majority Leader Steve Shurtleff, a Penacook Democrat who participated in all 100 votes, scored 16 percent.

Six Republicans had perfect, 100 percent ratings: Jeanine Notter of Merrimack, Moe Villeneuve of Bedford, Emily Sandblade of Manchester, Joe Duarte of Candia, Daniel Tamburello of Londonderry and Kyle Tasker of Nottingham.

The highest-ranked Democrat was Michael Garcia of Nashua, at 87.5 percent – he frequently sides with the GOP caucus. The lowest-ranked Republican was Carolyn Gargasz of Hollis, at 40.7 percent, followed by David Kidder of New London at 44.7 percent.

What the Monitor doesn't point out is also interesting. Emily Sandblade, one of the perfect 100% rated Republicans is a Free Stater. So is Michael Garcia, the high ranking Democrat. There's a reason he "frequently sides with the GOP caucus." He's not actually a Democrat. He ran as a Democrat so that he could get elected in his district. (He would have come under much more scrutiny as a Republican. The Democratic Party has turned a blind eye to Free State fauxDems.)  Garcia's HRA rating is higher than that of Gene Chandler - the House Minority Leader, and lifetime conservative Republican. 

Free Stater and fauxDem Tim O'Flaherty got a 75.8% rating from the HRA. He voted "right" 69 times out of the 91 votes he cast. Free Stater Democrat Joel Winters voted right 63 times, and scored a 63% from the HRA, on his 100 votes. 

Free State Republican Mark Warden voted right 80 times, and scored a 90.9% from the HRA on 88 votes. Other Free State Republicans: Laura Jones voted right 92 times out of 100, and received a 92% rating from the HRA. Dan McGuire voted right 93 times out of 97 votes and scored a 95.9% rating. Calvin Pratt voted right 84 times out of 85, and got a 98.8% rating. Carol McGuire voted right 99 times out of 100, and got a 99% rating. 

It is interesting to note that Kyle Tasker, who failed to vote for months, even if he was present, scored a perfect NHRA 100%. Tasker voted right 37 times. Of course he only voted 37 times out of 100. Where was young Tasker when he wasn't voting? Practicing his quick draw skills in the hallway perhaps?

Other GOP notables:

JR Hoell voted right 83 times out of 85, and rated a 97.6%. Disgraced former speaker Bill O'Brien (who refused a committee assignment this year) voted right 85 times out of 87, and earned a 97.7% rating. Goobernatorial candidate George Lambert voted right 90 times out of 91, which gave him a 98.9% score. Rep. John Burt voted "right" 99 times out of 100 and got a 99% score. Former State Rep. Stella Tremblay voted right 54 times out of 83, and earned a 91.5% score. 

A legislator in line and marching in lockstep with the Tea Party/John Birch/Free Stater ideology of today's NH GOP is going to have a high score, regardless of party affiliation. 

These are not folks concerned with what is best for the state. They're concerned with adhering to the ideology of the freedumb and libertea crowd. Their agenda seems to consist of GUNS, GUNS, GUNS, regulating ovaries and voters, GUNS, no new or increased revenue sources, GUNS, and did I mention, GUNS?

The scoring system doesn't reward effective legislators. Jeanine Notter sponsored 10 bills this year. Seven were ITL'd (voted inexpedient to legislate) and three were retained in committee. Kyle Tasker, another 100% rated legislator sponsored 7 bills. Of those 7 bills, 2 passed and one was retained. One concerned home wine production, and two concerned marijuana. Again, not an effective legislator, but clearly one who enjoys recreational drugs. Emily Sandblade sponsored 5 bills. Three were ITL'd, one is retained in committee, and one passed.

Apparently as ineffectual (and in Tasker's case, weirdly absent) as they all are, they voted for the freedumb version of the CONSTATOOSHUN and that's all that matters.