NH State Budget - Conflicts of Interest?

 

There is all manner of jiggery pokery going on with  the current state-budget-in-progress. Governor Sununu inserted the Hyde Amendment into his governor's budget, despite his attempts to convince us all that he's "pro-choice." 

That's why this piece caught my eye. Garry Rayno for InDepthNH.org

 "Subcommittees of the House Finance Committee have decided to end or drastically reduce two education programs Gov. Chris Sununu touted in his budget address.

One is a student loan forgiveness program for those in high demand professions like health-care that would use revenues generated by the state’s scholarship program, and the other the governor’s School Infrastructure Fund intended to help schools improve internet connectivity and building safety.

Meeting Monday, the committee’s Division II approved an amendment that removed the loan forgiveness program from House Bill 2, instead allowing New Hampshire College Tuition Savings Plan Advisory Commission to decide how to allocate the funds between the UNIQUE program and the Governor’s Scholarship program."

NH has the highest percentage of college students that graduate with debt.  NH has the second highest student debt out of 50 states . Only Connecticut is higher. Some student loan forgiveness would be a welcome relief for NH students - the kind that might allow them to stay in NH, rather than taking their talents and moving to states where higher paying jobs are. These student loan forgiveness programs that are being removed were regarded favorably by Governor Sununu. Whoever is wielding the scalpel doesn't care about that, which is interesting in itself. (What faction of the NH GOP doesn't care much for the governor?) 

This is the membership of the House Finance Committee:

Rep. Jess Edwards (R-Free State) is  on the Finance Committee. He's also the Chair of Finance Division III. 

Like many state representatives, Jess Edwards has a job. The state representative salary of $100 a year isn't exactly a living wage. This is from his Linkedin page: 

He works for Credit Adjudstments, Inc.  What do they do?

Who else works there? Check out their executive team:

  Representative Jason Osborne (R-Free State) is also the House Majority Leader. 

In a 400 member House, where there are no real ethics rules, there are bound to be all sorts of conflicts of interest. I don't mean to imply that these Reps are up to anything unseemly -  I just believe in transparency - especially in a legislature that has no real ethics rules. 

A budgetary provision that eliminates student loan forgiveness means that debt recovery agencies will still be profiting. If one works for a debt recovery agency - does this create a conflict of interest? 

As for NH House ethics: 

When legislators are about to vote on a bill that has a conflict of interest, they have to fill out a form. 

This sounds good so, far, right? Then comes part two:

Legislators fill out a form that essentially does nothing. If they choose, they can describe their conflict of interest and vote in their own interest anyhow. 

House Ethics Guidelines

I'm sure we can count on these honorable state representatives to do the right thing, fill out their forms, check off not participate, and recuse themselves from voting on the budget. 

Business as Usual

The voter fraud drum began cranking up in 2006, when the GOP lost control of the NH House for the first time since the Civil War. Last year the drummers reached new heights. Before the election, Chris Sununu was on the radio in Massachusetts complaining about busloads of Mass voters interfering in our elections. Shortly after the election, Donald Trump started tweeting his displeasure about voter fraud in NH. The next thing you know, there are 40 bills before the NH legislature in 2017 that have to do with voting.

A news story at NH1 this week has the Secretary of State’s office claiming over 400 letters to newly registered voters were either not answered or not deliverable. Anyone who thinks the Secretary of State’s office should be in the investigating business ought to take a look at the SoS website. It’s a nightmare. I suggest they stop trying to play Harriet the Spy, and focus on bringing that office from the 19^th to the 21^st century.

This week, the full Senate will be voting on SB 3, a big, messy, voter suppression bill. A voter will be required to demonstrate their intent to be domiciled here by renting or leasing, buying a house, obtaining a NH driver’s license or non-driver ID, enrolling children in a school, listing the residence on tax forms or other government forms, providing the address to the USPS, obtaining a resident hunting or fishing license, or obtaining utility services at that place for an indefinite period. Those registering on Election Day would be required to provide proof within 10 days following the election. There is a form for a same day registrant to fill out that is approximately as long as Tolstoy’s War and Peace.

Supervisors of the checklist will be required to follow up, and do investigative work; including visiting the address or sending “agents” to verify that the individual was domiciled there on Election Day. The original bill specified those “agents” would be police. The new, amended (but not improved) bill doesn’t define who those “agents” might be. They might be the police. The might be Cub Scouts. They might be members of an interpretive dance troupe. They might be armed vigilantes. Call me crazy, but I don’t believe that casting a ballot should include the threat of storm troopers knocking at the door. Be sure to ask Senator Bradley why he’s sponsoring this nasty bit of business.

The voter suppression folks keep carping about the need to ensure the integrity of our elections. Of course, they’re the same people who have been sowing the seeds of mistrust for over a decade. If only they worked this hard at solving real problems in our state. Speaking of integrity, three bills aimed at creating independent redistricting procedures all failed. The majority party wants to be able to continue to gerrymander every 10 years without interference.

Something we could solve is child lead poisoning. We don’t have 40 bills to address this actual problem. Lead paint has been banned since the 70’s, but still, NH children are exposed to lead paint, and lead in the water from old pipes. If we cared about kids, we’d do something about this – but every time some pesky do-gooder tries, the landlords start to complain about how much it will cost to fix. It seems we value landlords more than we do children. By the time you read this, the fate of SB 247 will be decided – the sole bill aimed at protecting NH children from lead.

The legislature has new ethics rules that have expanded reporting requirements. Lawmakers are expected to file a form saying they have a conflict on any given bill. They can still file legislation to protect their business, or enhance their profits, and they can still vote on it. This form is a sort of magic fig leaf, providing the illusion of ethical cover for the many conflicts of interest our volunteer legislators have on bills they sponsor and vote on. The fig leaf has no teeth – there are no punitive actions taken against those who enrich themselves at taxpayer expense.

The Senate will be voting on SB 244 this week, a bill to increase the amount of money exempted from taxation under the interest and dividends tax for both individuals and businesses. The lead sponsor is Senator Andy Sanborn – a business owner. The Senate passed the bill once, and referred it to the Finance Committee. In the initial vote, multimillionaire State Senator Jeb Bradley recused himself, citing a conflict of interest. Andy Sanborn proudly declared he’d filed his form, and went on to vote for a bill he sponsored, that will increase his wealth.

A summary: This week the NH Senate will continue to perpetuate the illusion of a problem, fail to solve a real problem, and vote for a tax break for the already wealthy.

Business as usual.

This was published as an op-ed in the March 31, 2017 edition of the Conway Daily Sun newspaper 

This is why people don't trust the media

Chris Matthews marching in a 4th of July parade. 

His wife is running for Congress. She's a former reporter, btw. From her campaign website, Kathleen Matthews for Congress:

Today MD-8 Democratic candidate Kathleen Matthews publicly endorsed Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton for President of the United States.

Here we see Chris transcend mere sycophancy to attack Sanders so that Hillary doesn't have to. 

This is why people don't trust the media. This is why the cries of "liberal biased media" don't ever go away. 

This is conflict of interest.  

Quaint Notions

Avoiding the appearance of impropriety used to be a matter of concern, especially for elected officials. Back in the olden days, a mayor or a congressman wouldn’t appoint his biggest campaign donor’s wayward progeny to a high paying job they were utterly unqualified for, because of ethical issues AND the appearance of impropriety.

Every now and then we give ethics a workout. Congressman Frank Guinta’s foolish acceptance of campaign funds from mommy was a thorny ethics problem for him, especially when he so vociferously called former Congresswoman Carol Shea-Porter a liar for actually pointing out HIS lies.

On the big stuff we sometimes pay attention. But when it comes to the small, ongoing questionable matters of ethics and conflict of interest, we don’t pay that much attention. Especially when it comes to New Hampshire’s 400 person volunteer legislature. The sheer number of legislators is problematic in itself. The other big problem is that there aren’t many investigative reporters working in our state any more. Newspapers are cutting back on staff, and trying to figure out how to survive and go forward into a very uncertain media future. In other words, nobody is really watching over the conflicts of interest our 400 state representatives and 24 senators may or may not have.

Are there conflicts of interest? Let’s take a look at a few bills.

HB 1554 is a bill to establish a sports lottery in NH. There would be lottery games for which one would purchase a ticket. There would also be lottery game machines.  The licenses for this sports lottery would be issued to individuals who have valid liquor licenses.

As it happens, the lead sponsor of HB 1554 is Representative Adam Schroadter, who owns a place that has live music, serves food and liquor.

HB 1252 is a bill that would permit employers to pay their employees either weekly or biweekly. An employer could petition the labor commissioner to pay even less frequently than that, although it would have to be once a month.

Many low wage workers work a couple of part time jobs. These are folks scraping to get by. Paying them even less frequently isn’t going to help them out any. Worse, though – is the impact this can have on tipped employees. Some restaurant/bar owners include credit card tips left for servers in their paychecks. This means a server might have to wait 2 weeks to get their tips. Given that the tipped wage is 45% of the minimum wage of $7.25 in NH, these folks aren’t paying their rent with their hourly wage. It does, however, benefit the employer who will spend less doing payroll and cutting checks for employees.

The lead sponsor of this bill is Representative Laurie Sanborn. She and her husband, State Senator Andy Sanborn own a sports bar in Concord. Representative Adam Schroadter is a sponsor, and so is Representative Keith Murphy. He owns a bar in Manchester.

HB 1540 is an act relative to shipments of beer. Sponsors? Murphy and Schroadter. HB 114 establishes beer specialty licenses. Sponsors? Murphy.

Murphy is a member of the Free State Project, those wacky armed miscreants moving to NH to take over our state government and threaten secession. The Free State Project party line is that the libertarians are coming to leave you alone! They want small government! Government small enough to benefit their own businesses and those of their allies.

No one said boo when Rep. Dan McGuire (R. Free State) sponsored a bill that would have caused taxpayers to foot the bill for the millions that would be required to move the Suncook River back after it jumped its streambed during a big storm. It wasn’t a feasible project, according to engineers, but McGuire went ahead. That his house is on the bank of the former riverbed was surely just a coincidence. It seems we don’t really pay much attention to conflicts of interest, and the “appearance of impropriety” is a quaint notion from the past.

The New Hampshire General Court Ethics Booklet is a useful publication. From Part One:

Public Office As A Public Trust
Legislators should treat their office as a public trust, only using the powers and resources of public office to advance public interests, and not to attain personal benefits or pursue any other private interest incompatible with the public good.

This sounds as if legislators shouldn’t be writing bills to benefit themselves or their own businesses. Hmmm. Will these restaurant and bar owners abstain from voting on their own bills? The odds that they will are slim to none – and slim is out of town.

There are a number of minimum wage bills, including bills that would increase the tipped minimum wage. All business owners should abstain from voting on these bills – especially owners of businesses in the hospitality industry. It’s the only industry where customers are expected to directly pay the wages of the staff. Imagine if you had to tip your bank teller or pharmacist. Owners love to howl that if they had to pay employees a decent wage they’d have to raise their prices sky high. As anyone who has ever traveled knows, other countries seem to make it work. Not only does it work - they all have single payer health care. Damned socialist hellholes.

In other news, the first in the nation primary is upon us. The calls, the door knocking, the mailings, and the ads…oh, it’s almost over.

Given that this is NH, I expect most readers have met at least one candidate, and been to events, and done some reading and talking and thinking about who to vote for.  I hope you’ll all find time to exercise the franchise on February 9^th. The NH legislature continues to try to solve the non-existent problem of voter fraud by attempting to make voter participation increasingly difficult. Vote while you still can. 

The primary circus will leave town, and we can get down to the serious business of our state elections. As big and colorful as the primary stuff is, the folks we elect to our local, county, and state governments have a much bigger impact on our daily lives than the president does. Thanks to Citizens United, the cash spigot will be flowing in ways we’ve never seen or imagined. We will all need to pay close attention.

This was published as an op-ed in the February 4, 2016 issue of the Conway Daily Sun.