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(Tomorrow in Concord: Day of Action to Protect Women's Health, part moved below the fold - promoted by William Tucker)
Today I held a press conference to discuss several bills that would negatively impact women's health care in New Hampshire. These reckless bills will be coming before the full House for a vote this week.
Below are my prepared remarks:
Concord - Thank you all for joining me today. My name is Terie Norelli, and I am the Democratic Leader in the New Hampshire House.
The recent attacks on women's health by New Hampshire House Republicans have been appalling. I never thought in 2012 that women would once again have to fight for access to contraception. This only goes to show that the House Republican focus on jobs is no more than lip service.
For the third time in the last month, House Republicans called a press conference to announce "jobs" as their top priority for the upcoming Legislative session. If this prioritization sounds like news to you, it's because the only time House Republicans actually talk about jobs is at press conferences.
The 2012 legislative session has been dominated by reckless bills, most notably a proposal to allow guns in civic arenas and on college campuses. House Republicans have issued 18 press releases promoting specific bills since January, covering such important topics as TSA searches, Arizona's immigration law, and abortion policy. Jobs have been mentioned only twice, in press releases promoting payday loans and the repeal of insurance mandates.
Republican leadership in the House appears more than willing to take on high-profile social issues instead of concentrating on job creation. Less than a week after trying to downplay their support of a bill repealing New Hampshire's marriage equality law, House Speaker Bill O'Brien told the New Hampshire Union Leader that "this is the right time" to debate and repeal marriage rights for same-sex couples. The Speaker's promotion of this issue not only distracts from Republicans' self-proclaimed "jobs" agenda; it completely ignores the will of Granite Staters who support marriage equality by a margin of 2 to 1.
When Republican-backed legislation influenced the job market, it had a detrimental effect. The state budget passed last June was the single biggest job-killer, as nearly 2,000 jobs were lost due to new taxes on hospitals and unprecedented cuts to higher education. New Hampshire's unemployment rate spiked after the Republican budget became law and it remains higher today than when the budget first took effect.
Hundreds of small business people have also felt it necessary to take time out of their workday to travel to Concord to try to avert the passage of bills seeking to repeal licensing requirements the businesses believe are beneficial to their profession and to the consumer. And now the Republican leadership is backing a bill that bill that would decrease the availability and affordability of workforce housing. Understanding the need for employees to access affordable housing, the Business and Industry Association opposes this move.
When Democrats were in the majority, we worked with Gov. John Lynch to improve the job market in a number of ways. Programs such as NH Working and the Job Training Fund helped businesses retain and train employees during a time when the recession was forcing record numbers of layoffs across the country. With the help of these programs, our unemployment rate remained well below the national average throughout the recession, and New Hampshire was widely credited as a leader in the national economic recovery.
Democrats improved educational opportunities for every child in New Hampshire by bringing public kindergarten to every community, defining and fully funding an "adequate education" for the first time since the Claremont ruling, and investing in our university system. Because an educated workforce is necessary for business to thrive, Democrats made education an integral part of our economic development strategy.
With these accomplishments in mind, Lynch implored legislators to "do no harm" during his recent State of the State address. Progress has been hindered by budget cuts and policy changes enacted by the Republican legislature last year, but further damage can be avoided. House Republicans would be wise to shift their attention away from guns, gay marriage and press conferences, and onto legislation that provides the educated workforce businesses need to create jobs.
(No revenue means no services = the goal of the Teabaglicans. - promoted by susanthe)
Forget about poor old Mr. Harty. A bigger story this next week is the legislature's plan to dismantle the state's revenue structure. The House will be voting on 4 bills that go a long way towards fulfilling Grover Nyquist's vision of defunding state government. All 4 have been recommended by the tax committee and will almost certainly pass the House.
The first is HB213, which reduces the business profits tax by a cool $20,000,000 per year. The reason for this is to make NH 'more competitive' of course.
That's nothing compared to HB557, which for all intents and purposes eliminates business taxes on LLCs, proprietorships, and partnerships. It allows these entities to claim any profits they earn are actually personal income to the owners, so they can avoid having to pay tax on their business profits. And since we don't have a personal income tax, they won't pay taxes on it at all. The cost to the state for this nifty tax dodge is between $25 and $50 million per year, no one knows for sure.
(Because "Facts" have a well known liberal bias... - promoted by Mike Hoefer)
The House GOP's 'big idea' for the budget this term is to underestimate revenues, cut a whole range of taxes, reject federal aid, and at the same time maintain all funding support for the cities and towns and increase some costs with silly mean-spirited bills. They will square all this with cost cuts elsewhere and somehow end up with a balanced budget.
As Rep. Foose said in the Concord Monitor, with two weeks to go the majority party hasn't even presented their budget plan to the Finance Committee. And they can't, because the plan they want to propose doesn't add up. You can't lower revenue estimates, cut taxes, maintain local revenues, cut costs responsibly, and still be balanced. GOP leadership is trying to figure out how to cut enough programs to make up the shortfall in their revenues, but it's pretty clear what will work financially is politically unacceptable.
I can hardly believe that a sitting state representative would name his own bill the "Don't Touch My Junk" bill, but I can less believe the editors of the UL would have put that headline there themselves.
Andrew Manuse (R-Derry) wrote an op-ed in the UL titled: Why I sponsored the TSA "don't touch my junk" bill. Here is part of the case he makes for the bill.(bold mine)
Remember, the TSA is not enforcing federal law. It is only enforcing an unconstitutional agency policy. We can tell them to stop. In reality, there is nothing the TSA can do to stop us from putting one of their agents' names on our sex offender registry. And thus, we chose this approach because it is the only thing we can do to send the message to Washington that the abuses of the TSA have got to stop, and they have to stop now.
What does Rep Manuse think should be done instead?
I think before any kind of enhanced screening is conducted, the TSA must conduct behavioral profiling and should consider using some bomb-sniffing dogs as well. If these methods result in some level of articulable suspicion, I think the next step is to use interrogation methods to further determine the level of threat.
Now I also question the full body scans, etc. in the wake of the "underwear bomber". But I am not a security expert. Surely there are other ways to voice skepticism about this policy than to pass a state law turning airport security agents into sex offenders, and instituting airport interrogation rooms.
One of the big themes in Concord this year is Nullification. We've seen the crazy bills introduced to nullify some or all of the federal government's authority: everything from making it a crime for TSA staffers to do their job at Manchester airport to arresting federal officials for enforcing gun laws or healthcare reform legislation.
But Nullification comes of age on March 19 at the Nullify Now! conference at SNHU, where speakers will give "the logical, moral, and constitutionally sound case for nullification".
They sponsors, who include the Koch Brother's Americans for Prosperity, are promising an interesting cast of speakers for the conference. There will be Dan Itse, chair of the NH House's Constitutional review committee. He was a given. Also, Jack Kimball, GOP chair. And wonder of wonder, Speaker O'Brien will be taking time off from focusing on the budget and state deficit to speak about the joys of telling Washington to go to hell. A wild time is promised for all.
There ought to be a price paid for this sort of misbehavior, but with the state's newspapers essentially ignoring it, there doesn't appear to be any.
We have too many educated people in the state, and let's face it, that's a problem. Well, at least Rep. Pariso (R-New Ipswich) thinks so. He's seen the number of school drop outs plummet from 2500 a year in 2007 to just 700 last year. He believes this is a threat to our NH way of life.
Where will the elevator operators of tomorrow come from? Who will check the tire pressure of cars and wash their windshields at the full-service gas stations? The people who go out in the woods to trap fur-bearing mammals, and the men and women who make sure that milk is delivered fresh to our doors every morning; where will we find them if the supply of the under-educated continues to shrink?
Fortunately, Rep. Pariso has the answer- a bill that simply lowers the age a student can dropout from the current 18 back to 16. You don't want an educated work force? Fine, don't educate them. He's not alone in supporting this sure fire solution to preserve the NH Advantage, either. Five other GOP representatives, including three hand-picked members of Boss O'Brien's stellar leadership team, have joined him in his noble quest to make sure the pool of future day laborers, busboys, cowherds, supermarket bag boys, and assistant retail clerks doesn't dry up.
Way, way back in the dim recesses of time... in January, Boss O'Brien changed House rules to allow committees to 'exec' (i.e. vote) on bills without providing specific advance notice to the public. All they had to do was put a notice in the house jounal that Executive session may follow. There was a hue and cry from all sides about this lack of transparency, and rightfully so. Even his underling, Bettencourt, criticized O'Brien for this, claiming he'd never heard of the change and saying we need to
ensure that we conduct ourselves with the greatest degree of openness, transparency, fairness and are in accordance with our constitutional rights.
Under pressure, O'Brien walked his rule change back, explaining he was misunderstood and exec sessions without a specific notice would only be done in unusual circumstances.
For example, a bill in which the sponsor has asked that his or her legislation be killed or a memorial bridge naming or a motion to simply retain a bill in the committee for further work will be permitted immediately following a public hearing.
I took a look at this week's House calendar and guess what? There are more than 45 committee meeting listed with the dreaded words Executive session may follow. No other details about what bills or why. So in effect, any of more than 150 bill can be voted on with no one watching, because 'notice' has been given. And surprising, none of these bills is for naming a bridge.
Thanks for the transparency, Mr. Speaker. Thanks for keeping your word.
When I was a boy and my dad took me to the circus, I recall that between the big acts like the lion tamer and the tightrope walker there would be little interludes when the clowns would come running out in their midget cars and entertain the crowd doing silly stuff. I loved it.
In the NH House circus, Al Baldasaro's State-Federal Relations committee is one of these clown acts. Whenever I need a laugh or two, I look at the bills they are dealing with. One of the current bills is HCR6 , a resolution requiring the Congress of the United States of America to reaffirm its adherence to the Constitution of the United States regarding international agreements and treaties. It is sponsored by the usual suspects- Itse, Ulery and Tregenza- and is full of the usual John Bircher/Tenther bluster and bull, saying among other things
New Hampshire can not be bound by any treaty that fails to meet the wording and intent of the Constitution and lacks the approval of 2/3 of the United States Senate;
And then there's this:
...the SPP's stated goals compromise and infringe upon the sovereignty and independence of the sovereign Republic of New Hampshire...
Yep, it's official. Somehow, when we weren't paying attention , something happened. We became a Republic. This isn't a clerical error. The sponsors repeat the claim several more times.
...the United States of America has not been delegated either the right or the authority to surrender any of the sovereignty or independence of the Republic of New Hampshire to any foreign or supranational body...
...the Constitution for the United States as accepted by the people of New Hampshire requires and demands National federal protection of the sovereignty and independence of the Republic of New Hampshire...
...the New Hampshire Congressional delegation is urged to use diligence in all of its efforts and energies to prevent any further involvement of the government of the Republic of New Hampshire with agreements and treaties..
In the non-stop circus that the GOP has made of the New Hampshire House, the clowns keep plenty busy pulling their zany stunts. A case in point is the performance of Representatives Vaillancourt and Blankenbecker in a Q&A session during the floor debate yesterday over HB89, the bill that orders the Attorney General to join the lawsuit against the healthcare reform law. The Attorney General has warned the legislature this is unconstitutional because it violates the separation of powers that is the basis of our constitution.
Vaillancourt : Rather than threatening to sue the state of NH, could the Attorney General, if he can't carry out his job and not recognize legislative supremacy in this area, couldn't he simply resign, so another Attorney General be appointed who would do the job?
Loud cheers from the peanut gallery.
Blankenbecker: Thank you, representative Vaillancourt. Yes that is a viable option.
Roars of laughter from the peanut gallery.
Got that? If the AG won't recognize that the House is the supreme authority in the land and bow to its whims, he needs to hit the road. My way or the highway. Funny stuff! Oh, by the way, Rep. Vaillancourt, the AG is not going to 'sue the state of New Hampshire'. He's going to sue the legislature. There actually is a difference.
Blankenbecker went on to call the Attorney General 'arrogant', 'defiant', 'sophomoric', 'unprofessional', and 'childish'. All violations of House Rules of course. But hey, the circus is in town so who cares?
A press release from the NH House GOP office caught my attention. (Sorry, but for some reason, they decided not to post their own press release on their own website, so you have to go to NH Insider for the details). In the release, House leadership goes after a member of their own team, specifically Rep. Hoell of Dunbarton. He is no doubt one of the clowns that O'Brien was complaining about to Fahey in Sunday's UL.
Hoell's sin is his sponsorship of HB536, a bill about our natural right to carry a firearm, openly or concealed, without a license. Basically, the bill says every person, and by this I guess he means man, woman, child, and babe-in-arms, has the god-given right to strap on a gun anywhere and everywhere they like. Ditto for blackjacks, knives, and brass knuckles, in case you were wondering. A public official who infringes on your 'natural' right is in a heap of trouble: he or she will have to pay your court costs and will henceforth be barred from holding any public office in the state. These guys want you to know they are not fooling around!
All you gotta do is not pass HB484, a mean-spirited bill to randomly drug test food stamp recipients. This little beauty is sponsored by 6 members of your crack legislative team. Their 'big idea' is to deny food stamps to people who take illegal drugs. Probably a great topic for a right-wing talk radio bitch session and for sure it's red meat to a certain type of authoritarian conservative. "Why should these shiftless people get something for free? Let's punish those bad drug users for their bad deeds!"
Now aside from the little problem (heck, maybe in your opinion it's not so much a problem as a feature) that the bill will starve kids to punish their parents for getting high, there's a big problem with the bill which even you guys should understand. Very simply, we can't afford it. Why not? HHS estimates all this drug testing you want to do will cost the state about $8 million a year... and it won't save us a dime, because all the money for the food stamp program comes from Washington. D'oh!
And here's the kicker. The bill downshifts more costs to cities and towns. By NH law, every town is responsible for the welfare of its residents. Like it or not, we don't want people to starve to death in the Granite State. It may make you guys feel all warm inside when some unlucky woman and her three kids are thrown off the Food Stamps program, but they can just turn around and go directly to their local town hall and get money to feed themselves, all courtesy of the local property tax payers. So the real effect of HB484 is it makes the state pay $8 million to downshift about $10 million in food costs from Washington to local communities. Double d'oh!
Do the geniuses who sponsored this bill understand this? Is it really worth it for the state to spend $18 million a year just so we can hassle some of our neighbors?
Writing effective legislation is hard word. I really have to wonder if you guys are up to the challenge. Well, actually I don't have to wonder. The evidence is pretty clear.
... is about to get a whole lot more difficult. Not content with telling us who can and cannot get married, the GOP now wants to tell us who can get divorced.
Current NH law allows couples to file for divorce for a variety of very specific reasons as well as the general catch-all reason of irreconcilable differences. But now the GOP wants to restrict your right to divorce if you have children under the age of 18!
If this bill passes and you have children, you would only be allowed to divorce your spouse if he or she was an adulterer, extremely cruel (sorry, your average run-of-the-mill cruelty won't be enough), or a felon who is serving more than a year of actual time in the pokey. Or if he or she has seriously injured you, has been missing for at least 2 years, or has been on a drunken bender that has lasted at least 2 years. Oh, plus if he or she has joined a cult that denies marriage is valid. If none of these applies, you are out of luck- you must remain married until the last of your children turns 18 and escapes your loveless home. Think about the implications of that.
In the past, only the most extreme sort of Representative would file this kind of bill. This term, in this legislature, the four sponsors are all chairman and vice chairman of House committees, hand-picked members of O'Brien's leadership team.
I find that remarkable. Is this what NH voted for?
(Focused like a laser on the budget... - promoted by William Tucker)
This is a serious question. It's the only possible explanation for the utterly insane bills that have been showing up on the statehouse register the last few days. OK, maybe legislative services is fed up with all the malarkey they have been dealing with and posted these as some sort of sick joke. That's also possible.
In case anyone is in any doubt that our state is officially to be known from now on as 'North Mississippi', here are some of the bills the third largest legislative body in the English-speaking world will be pondering in the next few weeks. Read 'em and weep, as an old friend used to say.
HCR11, urging Congress to withdraw the United States from the United Nations so that the United States may retain its sovereignty and control over its own funds and military forces.
Here's my personal favorite line from this bill:
Whereas, many of the member nations of the United Nations are not friendly to the United States and support many things that are detrimental to this country and against its interests, yet expect the United States to provide the finances and manpower to solve all of the world's problems, even putting the lives of this nation's military forces in danger...
HCR13, urging Congress to pass legislation against losses in value due to money supply by the federal reserve; restoring gold and silver money; and phasing out the federal reserve system That's right, it's back to ancient times for our monetary system. Two lectures in a middling quality state university would tell you why this bill is stunningly bad, but that's two more lectures than the sponsors bothered to sit through.
Here's an interesting bill from our GOP legislators. Not content with ordering the AG to do their bidding, threatening to imprison federal agents, telling the EPA to cancel cap-and-trade regulations, picking a fight with Washington over healthcare, and ordering the Canadian government to obey its commands, the most powerful legislative body in the world is now giving orders to Mother Nature herself!
They have introduced a bill that sets the high water mark of Ossippee Lake at 406 feet above sea level. Imagine that. Not 405 or 407, but precisely 406 feet. Unstated in the bill is the penalty that Ma Nature faces if she fails to comply with this legislative edict. But one look at how the GOP is using its powers to gut a range of environmental regulations ought to tell her that she would be wise to keep the water level right where they want it. Or else. If you get my meaning.
Who knew our legislature had such power and authority? Why doesn't Speaker O'Brien use the full weight and majesty of his office to end this cold snap. And then corral his team back to focusing like a laser beam on the budget and other important issues facing the state.
This was published as an op-ed in the Jan. 21 edition of the Conway Daily Sun. I know that all this is not news to political junkies, but it is to my readers up north.
The new, GOP dominated NH legislature has been sworn in, and begun to act. As you will recall, they campaigned on "cut spending, cut taxes, jobs, jobs, jobs." These newly minted legislators intended to focus "like a laser" on spending cuts and job creation. A look at the priorities thus far could give one the impression that they need a new laser. For those readers who are musically inclined, it would not be inappropriate to sing, "Send in the Clowns" as you read.
So the Joint Fiscal Committee will be discussing whether to accept $2 million in federal funding to implement health insurance reform this morning. If they don't, it's completely wrong. That federal money is OUR money, money NH taxpayers sent to the US government with our federal tax payments. New Hampshire needs that money to follow the law. This is not the 1830s, for goodness sake! Nullification was used to keep human slavery going, now it is being used to keep people slaves to a broken health care system.
One million dollars is to set up an exchange, the other million is to help the state investigate premium increases and make sure they are justified.
The folks at the NH Department of Insurance put a great deal of effort into explaining the importance of accepting these grants to the new majority.
Leslie Ludtke (of the state Insurance Department):"The education really was to ensure that we understood, they understood, the federal government understood, that it was a common understanding all around that by accepting the million in funding for the first phase of these grants that the state of NH was making no commitments relative to implementing federal reform."
Fiscal Committee Chairman Ken Weyler says he's comfortable with the "no strings attached" approach that Insurance Commissioner Roger Sevigny described to him.
Representative Ken Weyler:"He feels that we need to be prepared. Even if Obamacare is canceled, he would do it on a contract, so that if something happens between giving him the money and Obamacare going away, he'd be able to cancel the contract."
In any event, if the state doesn't design an exchange, it will have to accept a boilerplate fed version.
State Senator Ray White (R-Bedford) and Rep. Ken Weyler (R-Kingston) both refer to "Obamacare". That's just playing to their base. But go ahead, party like it's 2009. Only 18% of Americans want reform repealed.
The House Commerce and Labor Committees are key committees helping to grow our economy. So you would you think they would be 'focused like a laser', to coin a phrase, on helping the Governor keep NH moving forward. The reality suggests otherwise. Looking at the bills these committees are hearing, you see the following, all submitted by members of O'Brien's hand-picked leadership team.
HB142, relative to sales of artificial flowers and miniature flags. This bill repeals the prohibition on the sale of artificial flowers and miniature flags by street vendors. I am confident it will create thousands of new jobs in the weeks and months ahead. My biggest worry is whether the streets will become so crowded with newly enfranchised street peddlers that we won't be able to maneuver our cars around.
HB143, relative to the sale of stove polish. This bill repeals the prohibition on the sale of inflammable stove polish intended for domestic use. Finally! The inflammable stove polish industry will be able to shake off the shackles of burdensome state regulation and boom again! I imagine dozens of factories all across North Country employing thousands of people busy turning out mountains of inflammable stove polish for domestic use.
Ken Weyler, point man for budget issues in the House and a key member of the O'Brienista junta, is arrogant and dangerous. That is the only possible conclusion after the events of this week.
On Thursday, Weyler introduced a bill, HB89, ordering the Attorney General to sue the federal government to stop the federal healthcare and cap-and-trade regulation.
In the hearing on the bill, Weyler gave no rationale for why his bill would be good for NH other than a single 16 word sentence about how he read somewhere the bill will save the state a billion dollars. This is a double lie. The first is that the bill will not save a billion dollars; the second is that he read this somewhere. He did not. He made this up out of whole cloth.
In response, the Attorney General told the committee hearing Weyler's bill that it is unconstitutional on its face. The legislature cannot order the Attorney General to start a law suit against the federal government, just as it can't order him to indict an individual simply because it wants him to. It is the job of the Attorney General to interpret the law and determine who has committed a crime. Weyler's bill is trying to change the Attorney General's office "from an independent department of the executive branch into a political rubber stamp for the legislative majority." The Attorney General said, "for important reasons that strike at the heart of our democracy, the Legislature does not have the right to tell the attorney general what state and federal laws he or she should enforce or challenge."
Yesterday Team O'Brien expressed a small degree of contriteness and promised to be good little doobies and start focusing on the economy and the budget. I didn't hear the words "like a laser beam", but that was implied, I guess.
Today, the text for HB125, an act relative to lawful commerce in firearms, including manufacture and sale in New Hampshire was released. This bit of insanity is sponsored by Representative Dan Itse, Team O'Brien's lead man for all things constitutional, and is straight out of the Tenther playbook. In fact, the bill leads with that in an odd preamble justifying itself.
This bill essentially says to the Federal government, "When it comes to guns, stay the hell out of our state." And it backs it up with the threat to incarcerate any federal officer who dares to enforce federal gun laws here for up to seven years. If you are a state officer it's even worse. The penalty for trying to enforce federal gun laws is at least seven years in jail.
We all know that all sorts of odd bills get filed every year. That's part of the charm of a citizen legislature. But when a key member of House GOP leadership, and the guy handpicked by O'Brien to evaluate constitutionality is behind this kind of craziness, you have to start to wonder what the hell is going on up there in Concord. I don't want to see my state playing a game of chicken with Washington, and I don't think many of the citizens of the state do either. Come on, Team O'Brien, cut out the games and get down to business.
