Strange Musings from Bob Odell

by: hannah

Thu Apr 22, 2010 at 16:25:54 PM EDT

I'll just point out a few sections of his report that struck me as strange.

To see the Chief Justice of New Hampshire essentially begging the legislature not to further cut the budget of the Judicial Branch and suggesting that the Governor with his new proposed $4 million cut is leading to the closing of our court system was a shocker.

Then he apparently mis-spoke:

The Chief Justice responded directly with plenty of "with respect" and "respectfully" but did not back down. He said the proposed cuts would do damage to the court system no one wanted. And, he said the courts, unlike other state agencies are an obligation of the state required by our constitution and have been since 1784.

Or perhaps his subconscious blurted out his true feelings about "the court system no one wanted" but courts "are an obligation of the state."  And we all know how Republicans really feel about obligations.

Thereupon followed a bit of hyperbole.

It was an historic moment. To see the obvious conflicts between the Governor as the executive branch, the legislature and the judiciary was a stand off to remember.

Really?  An obvious conflict?  To be remembered by whom?  If one didn't know better, one would think someone was writing a script for Wallywood.  And I thought Odell was the Governor's friend.  Didn't Lynch go out on a limb to endorse the Republican for the Senate?

The next few paragraphs feature numbers.  Perhaps to bring a bit of objectivity into the scene.  Or perhaps to provide a context for bringing up the number of pages in the Governor's presentation as a sort of echo of Washington Republicans nattering about the size of the health insurance reform proposal.

Senator Sgambati introduced Senate Bill 450 which is the bill upon which the Governor's plans will be amended. Then, the Governor using a 20 page presentation made the case for his proposal. He said we needed to "work together" and his plan was a "balanced solution."

And then there's pathos and another reference to conflict.  Was that the talking point the press was supposed to pick up?

I struggle for the words to express how critical the situation is when the Judicial Branch is petitioning and lobbying to avoid budget cuts and in so doing creating a battle line with the Governor and legislature. This budget conflict touches on the very basis of how government is supposed to run.

Surely this is not all just in response to some pet project of Odell's being cut--the Connecticut River Valley Resource Commission getting "free money" from the feds.  Twenty years of promoting tourism sounds to me like another one of those projects that's designed to fail so the effort can go on and on.