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In the ongoing saga that is this year's Redistricting Committee mess in New Hampshire, a new chapter: access to the state-developed (and NH taxpayer funded) redistricting software.
Redistricting software was developed earlier this year to aid in preparing and proposing plans for redistricting. As such, you would expect that the entire NH Redistricting Committee -- as well as others -- would be able to access and use the program.
But not so, according to House Speaker Bill O'Brien - or Chair Paul Mirski (R-Enfield) or House Counsel Ed Mosca, depending on who is covering for the shell game today - because it appears that only Republican legislators are being allowed to access and use the software.
A new video by Granite State Progress shows several scenes from the Cheshire County public hearing on redistricting and this week's most recent Special Committee on Redistricting meeting where members of the public and Democratic legislators can be seen requesting access to the state-developed redistricting software. In response, Mirski and Vice Chair David Bates (R-Windham) state several times that no one has used the software and that it might not be released to the public - immediately before other Republican legislators expressly admit to having access to the software.
(Very Important Stuff... Please turn out and let Zandra know. - promoted by Mike Hoefer)
As referenced in a diary last week, the House Redistricting Committee - or at least the Chair of such, due to public pressure - has released a list of upcoming public hearings to solicit feedback on the redistricting process. (Don't bother looking for a plan to comment on, because there isn't one.)
All meetings start at 7:00 p.m. I'm posting the full list here along with the chair or vice chair who will be running it. If you can make it, please let us know. We'd love to send you information on back channels to assist with good questions to ask and points to make in your respective area(s).
Thursday, October 13th at 7:00 p.m. Carroll County - Mountain View Community Nursing Home, Ossipee (Rep. Mirski) Hillsborough County - Nashua Public Library, Theatre Room, Nashua (Rep. Bates)
Tuesday, October 18th at 7:00 p.m. Belknap County - Belknap Mill, 25 Beacon Street East, Laconia (Rep. Mirski) Cheshire County - Keene Public Library Auditorium, Keene (Rep. Bates)
Thursday, October 20th at 7:00 p.m. Grafton County - UNH Cooperative Extension, 3855 Dartmouth College Highway, N. Haverhill (Rep. Mirski) Rockingham County - Hilton Auditorium, Rockingham County Nursing Home, Brentwood (Rep. Bates)
Tuesday, October 25th at 7:00 p.m. Coos County - Lancaster Town Hall, Lancaster (Rep. Mirski) Strafford County - Strafford County Superior Court, Court Room 1, Dover (Rep. Bates)
Thursday, October 27th at 7:00 p.m. Sullivan County - Probate Court, 3rd floor, Sullivan County Administrative Building, Newport (Rep. Mirski) Merrimack County - Merrimack County Administration Building, Basement Conference Room, Concord (Rep. Bates)
Additionally, if you have points or questions to consider (keeping in mind that this is a public forum), post them here or email them to us on the link provided above and we'll help re-circulate. Thanks, all.
Want to see licensing disappear, taxes, the environment disappear too? Its all possible now.
Here they go again...wanna see the insanity take place ?
Third Floor L.O.B. this afternoon the kangaroo Commission meets.
If you are from labor movt and you get appointed they put you on the environment committee, no labor folks on the Labor and Work rules study committee...at least that's what I've been told, that Mirski split in in two.
(a) Review New Hampshire's business oversights that fall under the umbrella of labor and workforce regulations.
(b) Review New Hampshire's business oversights that fall under the umbrella of environmental and construction/permitting regulations.
So reading between the lines they want to continue to attacke labor, air and water, on behalf of profits and jobs. Sick.
http://www.gencourt.state.nh.u...
HOUSE BILL 248- Final Version
AN ACT establishing a commission to study business regulations in New Hampshire.
This bill establishes a commission to study business regulations in New Hampshire.
Approved: Enacted in accordance with Article 44, Part II, of N.H. Constitution, without the signature of the governor, July 14, 2011.
These poor House Republican leaders just can't seem to get it right.
Last week, the Chair of the Special Committee on Redistricting, Rep. Paul Mirski (R- Enfield), took heat during a committee hearing for the obvious lack of transparency and public input in the redistricting process this year. The criticism so bothered Rep. Mirski that, even though he had recused himself from the committee at that particular point to introduce and lobby for a bill he was introducing, he retook his seat specifically to negate the charges.
Disagreeing with the criticism levied by America Votes NH, Chair Mirski told committee members that the public did not need to be involved in the redistricting process because:
"It's a very complicated problem and quite frankly because it is a mathematical problem it doesn't lend itself to the sort of give and take with the public that may have been the case in the previous redistricting ... We have been holding off on this because we really have no way to utilize the public forum to get those answers. I just want to make that point." - Rep. Mirski, Redistricting Committee, 9.20.11
Never mind that public input sessions are a common and expected practice of past redistricting committees.
Just over a week later, though, Rep. Mirski is changing his tune and has announced a press conference for this coming Tuesday morning to release details on a series of 10 public hearings across the state related to redistricting. (Perhaps our poking around State House archives and the several inquiries to committee members past and present to determine the public input process and timeline for past redistricting committees caught his attention?)
Because House Republican leadership can never get enough of making themselves look like vindictive and incompetent stumblebums, Legislative Administration Chairman and L'Affaire Brunelle High Inquisitor Paul Mirski decided, just as he did last week, that the optimal move was to toss the matter to a person outside the committee (that was charged by the House with dealing with the matter) to fiddle with for a while and drag out this imbecilic and hypocritical juvenile prank of a political hatchet job a bit longer.
Hatchet job? That might be giving them a little too much credit. It's more like a bad indie remake of "The Lizzie Borden Story," where Lizzie is drunk, blindfolded and armed with a herring.
The Four Seasons. Studio 54. The Russian Tea Room. The Tilt'n Diner. The Puritan Backroom. Every great city has one -- the It place. Where the glitterati go to see and be seen. Thursday in Concord, that place was Room 104 of the Legislative Office Building, for the grand (Second? Third? Who can keep track?!) work session of the Legislative Administration Committee on Representative Michael Brunelle's qualifications to serve subject to Part II, Article 7 of the NH Constitution. Were you there? Of course not. You're a nobody. But your reporter was there among your betters to be your eyes and ears.
And what a room it was! More egos than a Latin grammar book. More swells than Scarlett Johansson's sweater. More Brylcreem and flop sweat than Mitt Romney prepping a concession speech. Bodies packed in like skeletons in Mitch McConnell's closet ...you get the picture.
Oh, did I say "get the picture"? I got the pictures. What, after all, would be the purpose of a celebrity turning out to such an exclusive event if their public, hunched over camp stoves in the kitchens of their foreclosed homes, couldn't catch a whiff of the glamour as they heat their beans? Let me lay the scene for you, as if you had been one of the elite...
