I'm Back

I’m back.

As you know, I was involved in a serious car accident in November. I had a crushed femur, 4 compression fractures in my vertebrae, and a bunch of broken ribs. This resulted in 2 surgeries, a 2-month hospital stay, and in ongoing physical therapy. I’m hoping to be walking again by spring. I’m feeling pretty fortunate – I didn’t die! I was also really lucky to learn that I have the best friends and the best support system anyone could hope for.

Enough about me. On to the legislature!

The big news so far this year was the O’Brien vs. Jasper upset vote for Speaker of the NH House. Former Speaker Bill O’Brien was so sure he was going to be Speaker again that he was boasting about it in the press. His supporters were negotiating deals on committee chair positions.

Then he lost. The libertea crowd lives in a bubble. They only talk to each other. This insularity leads them to believe that their rabid ideology is far more popular than it actually is; that they are far more popular than they really are. O’Brien made a lot of promises to be a different sort of speaker this time – one with an open door policy, and presumably one that wouldn’t close the House gallery to the people, or deny reporters access to his press conferences. Those promises fell on skeptical ears. 

On the day of the election, O’Brien tried to change the rules so that he could be king. Then he failed to get a majority in the first vote. After that, Republican Shawn Jasper entered the contest. Jasper managed to secure bi-partisan support, and finally won the speakership. O’Brien had a Rumpelstiltskin style tantrum, declared himself the real leader, and opened an office across the street from the State House to. …lead, or something. The libertea crowd has been calling conservative Republican Shawn Jasper a RINO and a (gasp!) Democrat ever since. If this sounds childish, that’s because it is.  O’Brien went to the Iowa Freedom Summit last month to mumble into a microphone and announce that he is the current Republican NH House Leader, which probably came as a surprise to Rep. Jack Flanagan who actually holds that position.

The O’Brien cabal is now doing all that it can to subvert the process. Bills that come out of committee with a unanimous or near unanimous recommendation (like a vote of 15-0 that the bill ought to pass) go on the Consent Calendar, which is a section of the House voting session that is usually pretty quickly dispatched by voice votes. Occasionally a representative will pull a bill off Consent, to try to sway his or her fellow legislators that the recommendation is wrong, and this bill deserves greater consideration. The libertea crowd has begun pulling everything off Consent in an effort to slow down the process. They know they aren’t going to change the outcome, but they can obstruct and delay, and that’s the goal.

The Speaker assigns the seating in the House chamber. Jasper sat the most obnoxious members of the libertea crowd  in the middle of what is called “Murderer’s Row” in the middle section of the chamber. Murderer’s Row is a reference to the 1920’s NY Yankees batting line up. In the case of this particular legislature, it’s a lot of angry men wedged in together, forced to climb over one another to get to the podium to speak. They heckle, make sexist remarks about women, and they plot their next moves in the obstruction and delay derby that appears to be their idea of how to best serve their constituents. Lucky for them, their constituents appear to vote solely on the basis of party affiliation, and pay no attention to how effective their state representatives actually are.

This is a budget year in the biennium, so the predictable talk about revenue and budget cuts has already begun. Given how little revenue NH raises to run the state, it’s interesting to watch the GOP try to starve the state even further. The Senate recently passed a bill to eliminate the concealed carry permit. This will create an approximate annual loss of a million dollars to the state, which bill sponsor Senator Jeb Bradley blithely dismissed as unimportant in an interview with NHPR. Given Bradley’s sudden toadying up to the gundamentalists, the lack of concern for revenue, and recent spate of mountain climbing publicity, it’s likely that Bradley has plans to run for higher office in 2016.

The bill to reduce the amount of the business profits tax from 8.5% to 7% would reduce revenue to the state by $60,000,000 in 2016. A bill to exempt businesses doing business as a proprietorship from the business enterprise tax would decrease revenue to the state by $17,100,000 in fiscal year 2016, and unknown amounts in the future, according to the fiscal note attached to the bill. Another bill to exempt proprietorships from taxation under the business profits tax would decrease state revenue by $17,025,000 in fiscal year 2016, and unknown amounts in the future. SB 6, a bill to increase the research and development tax credit against the business profits tax would decrease state general fund and education fund revenues by $500,000,000. Add in the million dollars from Jeb Bradley's gun bill and we're looking at somewhere in the neighborhood of $600,000,000. 

This is fiscal irresponsibility of on an epic scale. If all of these bills pass, NH will be in a mess. It will take decades to recover.

The libertea crowd is under the impression that once they eliminate business taxes and unions, then companies will be lined up at the door to relocate to NH. This is further evidence of the bubble. NH property taxes are outrageous. We do not invest in education. Our energy costs are exorbitant, and we have the 11^th worst infrastructure in the nation. It’s clear to any company considering a move that we don’t invest in our state, so why would they?

Will the bubble burst? Stay tuned.  



Edited to fix the numbers - thanks Tony Schinella!

This was published as an op-ed in the February 20, 2015 issue of the Conway Daily Sun newspaper. 

Crossover

March 27 is Crossover Day in the NH legislature. It’s the day when the House turns over their bills to the Senate, and the Senate returns the favor. This year there was so much delay and obstructionism that there was some doubt as to whether the deadline would actually be met. The House had 2 voting session days throughout the month of March, and the Speaker threatened to add a third session day on March 27.

It is difficult to know what the obstructionist’s goal is in holding everything up. They aren’t doing the People’s business. They aren’t enacting legislation, or doing what is best for the state. They are wasting taxpayer dollars and treating their colleagues with a glaring lack of respect.  They get all caught up in the drama of it; adult sized boys, buzzing around the chamber for whispered consultations and making “secret” signals from the sidelines. These aren’t votes they can win - the goal is just to slow the process down as much as possible. As I’ve said before, this is what you get when you elect people who hate government to BE the government.

There were 13 roll call votes on the March 12 session day. Two of them concerned a mandatory headlight use bill. That bill was debated for 2 hours, even though everyone in the chamber knew it wasn’t going anywhere. The whole process did, at least, amuse the New York Times reporter I was sitting next to. A bill regulating the use of alkaline hydrolysis as a means of disposing of human remains provided a stage for Rep. Jordan Ulery to leap upon and very dramatically describe the process of alkaline hydrolysis to the few legislators who stayed in the chamber.  The same bill had been proposed last year. This wasn’t new information, but when gumming up the works is the goal, no corpse must be left un-described. No one was going to be forced to dispose of a dead person this way unless they wanted to, but the loudest believers in freedom and liberty only seem to do so when its convenient for them. If a free gun came with alkaline hydrolysis, they’d be lining up around the block to throw Granny into the chamber.

There was also a lengthy debate that same day on repealing the death penalty. To the credit of all, that was mostly an intelligent and respectful debate. Most of our Carroll County delegation voted for repeal, and the bill passed the House. By the time you read this, the Senate Judiciary Committee will have had a public hearing on the bill. NH has spent $7 million so far on the death penalty case of Michael Addison, and we’re nowhere near done. The death chamber hasn’t been built. The drugs – Europe won’t sell us the drugs any more, because we’re barbarians. We don’t know what kind of drugs we’ll be using, or how much they’ll cost. Expect the entire shebang to tally up to near $20 million. Remember that, as you drive down East Conway Road. Assuming you return from that voyage be sure to ask Representatives Chandler, Buco, and McConkey where the money’s going to come from to execute that one guy.

Speaking of warm and fuzzy, a truly significant piece of legislation was recently passed and signed into law by the governor. Medicaid expansion will ensure that many low-wage workers in the North Country will have access to health insurance. A report recently issued by the Robert Woods Johnson Foundation and the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute found that Coos County is the least healthy county in NH. Carroll County wasn’t far behind. In both Coos and Carroll, 17% of the population is uninsured. In both Coos and Carroll 18% of the population engages in excessive drinking. In Coos 18% of the population is in fair or poor health. The ratio of patients to mental health providers is 932:1. There is 7.7% unemployment in Coos, and 23% child poverty. In Carroll County there is 20% child poverty, and 17% of residents have severe housing problems. In Grafton County, 15% of the population is uninsured.

The bill originated in the NH Senate, where our own Senator Jeb Bradley was a supporter. The vote in the House fell largely – but not entirely – along party lines. There were a few Republicans who voted for people over ideology. Not many, but there were a few from the North Country. One of the conservative talking points suggested that “those people” would have no incentive to work if they got “free” health care. Most of us  know how hard people work up here just to stay afloat. Affordable health care isn’t going to pay their rent or put groceries on the table. It may well make the difference between preventative care and expensive “I waited because I couldn’t afford to go to the doctor” kind of care.

Given the dire situation in the North Country, it was depressing (though unsurprising) to learn that our newly minted Executive Councilor, Joe Kenney, voted against approving Medicaid Expansion. In other words, one of his first acts in office was to vote against the best interests of nearly 50% of the population in his district. Ray Burton would not have voted that way, but then, Ray was often described as the “champion of the north country,” a sobriquet that will never be applied to Joe Kenney.

Everyone should spend a session day at the State House to witness the full spectacle. The General Court website has streaming audio on session days, which I encourage folks to listen to, but it is not the same as being there to see all of the sideline drama. I’m pleased to report that no one from the Carroll County delegation is a major player in Obstructionist Theater, but all of you really should go see your representatives in action. It might well change the way you vote in November.

NH County Health Rankings

© sbruce 2014  

Published in the 4-4-14 issue of the Conway Daily Sun newspaper

Our Citizen Legislature

Our state’s august legislative body finally wrapped up the voting on 2013 bills about 2 weeks ago. They should have been done much sooner, but the liberty crowd did their very best to obstruct and needlessly bog down the process. There were endless roll call votes on issues that didn’t merit such attention. They didn’t win anything; they just wasted taxpayer dollars and the time of their colleagues. Their war cry is “gummint is broken” and so they’re doing their level best to break it so they can say neener neener. The lesson? Do not elect people who hate government to be the government.

All the delay and obstruction means that the 2014 bills are behind, and the weather has conspired to put the legislature even more behind. After next week, legislators can count on two session days each week for most of March. It’s unfortunate that leadership (minority or majority) can’t seem to do anything about the obstructionist cabal.

The committee process is where one can still find representatives actually working together and listening to new information. At a recent executive session on HB 1170, the bill to repeal NH’s death penalty, 4 legislators came forward and said that because of all they had learned, they’d changed their minds about the death penalty. They’d come into the process as supporters. They cast their committee votes to recommend that the full House repeal the death penalty. This is what we always hope we will see: our citizen legislature working together for the good of our state.

We don’t always. At a hearing of SB 319, a bill to establish a 25-foot buffer zone around women’s health clinics, Senator Sam Cataldo was far more interested in airing a grievance about a union work site that he’s been nursing since 1966. He brought it up at least half a dozen times to women who testified in support of the bill. It was so disrespectful. One of the men who came to testify in opposition to the bill is affiliated with a terrorist group, the Army of God. Remember them? Eric Robert Rudolph, Clayton Waagner, and James Kopp are some of the more famous bombers and murderers. In no other aspect of our society would protestors and self-styled “sidewalk counselors” be allowed to harass people.

Just imagine the outcome if a group of earnest sober people started counseling patrons at our highway liquor stores. Or if a group committed to nonviolence began counseling about anger management in front of a gun shop. This harassment is allowed to continue because after all, this only affects women. We turn a blind eye to enabling terrorists because after all, it’s only women. If we were attempting to legislate MALE reproductive systems, all protests in front of all medical facilities would end forthwith. Fortunately, the Senate voted to pass the bill, so now it moves on to the House.

The Senate also voted to pass SB 318, a bill to establish the crime of domestic violence. It’s always been prosecuted under other statutes. At the hearing for this bill, Senator Boutin suggested strengthening the bill by adding stalking to the statute, a suggestion everyone applauded. It was added to the bill as an amendment.

As always, there are endless gun bills, and other bills aimed at eliminating revenue streams from our state government. Meanwhile, NH has the 11^th worst infrastructure in the United States. We have over 300 bridges on the red list for structural impairment. We cannot finish work begun on highways because there is no money – and still we are told that NH has a spending problem, not a revenue problem. We do have a spending problem: we’re averse to raising enough money to spend on fixing our decaying infrastructure. We will firmly bury our heads and pretend that it’s some other guy’s problem for as long as we can. When a dam fails, or a bridge collapses – well then maybe we’ll start thinking about the future.

Meanwhile, companies will continue to relocate to states that have the kind of transportation and telecommunications infrastructure that will support their business needs.

A bill to increase the minimum wage will be coming up soon for a vote. Already Americans for Prosperity and other similar minded special interest groups are howling with outrage about how this will kill jobs. NH has the lowest minimum wage in New England. Massachusetts and Vermont have the highest. Both states are faring far better than NH in adding new jobs. Most people who are paid minimum wage are adults. Most are women, trying to support children. No one works harder than low wage workers.

At the same time, NH has some of the highest housing costs in the nation, and there is great resistance to building multi-unit housing, because THOSE PEOPLE will move to town. We heard it for years in Conway. Welfare recipients from Massachusetts were just waiting to move to affordable housing. All the public transportation and safety net programs we offer here were a veritable beacon to the impoverished.

A new study from the Economic Policy Institute finds that 83% of the income growth in NH between 2009-2011 went to the top 1%. Meanwhile, the jobs that have been created since the recession are mostly low paying service jobs. This is not unique to NH. This is what’s happening all over the country. 

At some point we (the societal we) will have to make some decisions about work, pay, poverty, and the future. If not, we’re likely to hear the sounds of tumbrels rumbling in the distance.

Sow the same seed of rapacious license and oppression over again, and it will surely yield the same fruit according to its kind. ~ Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

© sbruce 2014

Published in the Conway Daily Sun Newspaper.