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Today's available Sunday columns are Tom Fahey's, from the Union Leader and Kevin Landrigan's from The Nashua Telegraph.
Fahey opens with a report on unemployment benefits. The amount the state pays out will be higher, due to higher unemployment. Employers will also have to pay more into the system in 2010, while laid off employees will have to wait a week to collect.
Landrigan was following the money this morning. The link between Kelly Ayotte and the epic-failure- as-Governor Craig Benson was brought into focus. Well, he did give her her start as AG, which is her platform for her Senate run.
Reporting that most of Ayotte's money was raised from out of state political PACS, many donors have already maxed out, and much of her money can only be used in the general (optimistic!), Landrigan writes:
There was barely a member of the extended Benson-allied family (read campaign $$$) whom Ayotte missed in her maiden fundraising voyage.
Today's State House columns opened with reports on the SEA's negotiations with the state. Tom Fahey leads with Friday's impending deadline. Union leadership has urged members to vote against the contract. Workers are stuck between a rock and a hard place, deciding between unpaid furloughs and lay-offs. Also, the vote may pit workers with greater seniority against those without. Apparently, the contract restores "bumping rights" the legislature removed.
The Concord Monitor's Shira Schoenberg opens with the same story, different focus. There are apparently 1359 vacant positions at the state level.
Jay Ward, SEIU political director, said the state should examine unfilled positions before resorting to layoffs.
Ward said the list proves that state employees have already taken a hit. "For every person that doesn't get hired, we're picking up the slack for all of those unfilled positions," Ward said. Lynch is asking state employees to give up another $25 million, Ward said, but "how much has he already taken in personnel cuts?"
But Linda Hodgdon, Department of Administrative Services Commissioner, says the numbers Schoenberg got from the state website are misleading. Not all the positions were funded and not all the funds were set to come from the general fund.
It's been a long, difficult journey for both sides in this debate.
It seems the Monitor's "Capital Beat" is on vacation this week during the transition from Lauren Dorgan to Shira Shoenberg. But Tom Fahey and Kevin Landrigan have their respective columns.
Fahey opens with a report that the six year contract for running the state lottery is embroiled in a dispute. Scientific Games International filed a complaint against the panel overseeing the bidding, claiming that Intralot, the company that won the bid, changed specifics at the last minute, and that documents necessary to filing a complaint were withheld. This, coupled with the flap over the railroad contract makes me wonder about the efficiency of having an Executive Council. Do these kinds of problems crop up in other states, or is it easier for people to complain and sue in New Hampshire?
While Fahey opens with gambling news, Landrigan opens with an item about the two vacancies on the state liquor commission, how and for how long they will be filled. Chairman Mark Bodi would rather have a single CEO type in charge.
CHANGING TIMES, INDEED - I live in Lebanon, yet make the two hour drive (once-a-month) to North Conway to meet friends, traversing the rural and semi-rural traditionally Republican areas of the state. And so I get to see yard signs on the way: many for Ron Paul last year and even this past spring, then more McCain and Sununu signs in late summer/early autumn. But this weekend .....
New Hampshire politics sometimes go down hill fast, but not as fast as our favorite son Bodi man...and remember this is w/o the benefit if the U.S. Ski Team, he is flying solo this year.
Winter Sports Roundup
Bode wins 5th event, locks up 3rd super-combi title
VAL D'ISERE, France (AP) -- Bode Miller clinched his third super-combi World Cup title with a win Sunday after his closest competitor failed to finish the second leg.
Jean-Baptiste Grange's misstep gave Miller the win in the discipline standings before the American finished with a combined time of 2 minutes, 18.45 seconds.
"When I'm at 100 percent in the downhill, it gives me more maneuvering room over my opponents," Miller said. "I can then adjust in the slalom."
Miller won his fifth World Cup event of the season and increased his lead in the overall World Cup standings. Miller also won the super-combi title in 2003 and 2004.
like the best of New Hampshire, always winning out on the edge.
In today's Chicago Tribune there is a nice analysis of the change in New Hampshire politics, written by Jill Zuckman. Some money quotes:
"Carroll County was one of just three counties east of the Mississippi and north of the Mason-Dixon Line that voted for Barry Goldwater in 1964. Today it is trending Democratic".
In today's Boston Globe, there is a front-page story about the changes in New Hampshire that isn't bad. Perhaps the best line is this:
Bay Staters who settle north of the border tend to be conservatives who want cheaper housing, lower taxes, and less-liberal politics. Rather, it is a different wave of immigrants -- highly educated, well-heeled arrivals from New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut recruited to New Hampshire by the state's burgeoning healthcare, financial services, and high-tech industries -- that is slowly turning a red state blue (Smith said).
