Rep. Lee Quandt: “Why Did You Stab Us in the Back?”

GOP state Rep. Lee Quandt says thousands of New Hampshire Republicans have been driven from the party by the “arrogance and self serving decisions” from Speaker Bill O’Brien and the House leadership team.

There are thousands of union Republicans that have been driven away from the party. The current make up of the Republican Party has no use for senior citizens, veterans, gays, or the working middle class. They have proven this by, not only the right to work issue; but, the myriad of other anti working class bills that they have put in.

The bad House leadership has brought down the Republican Party in NH. The arrogance and self serving decisions that are coming out of our leadership team is being hard to believe according to many active republicans that are watching what is going on. They don’t listen and have put themselves in an un-winnable situation.

While the thousands of public middle class republicans can ask, “why did you stab us in the back, what did we do to deserve this”?

Poll Finds Support Plummeting for NH GOP & Tea Party

In the past year, support for the New Hampshire GOP legislative agenda has plummeted, House Speaker Bill O’Brien’s favorability rating has declined, and there has been a significant drop in support for the Tea Party.

A new survey from Democratic pollster Benenson Strategy Group found likely voters oppose the agenda of Republicans in the legislature by a 51 percent to 38 percent margin. Last year at this time, voters approved of the agenda by a 49 percent to 38 percent margin. “Notably, nearly one-in-five registered New Hampshire Republicans now opposes the legislative agenda of their own party.”

House Speaker Bill O’Brien, who has championed the agenda, fared no better. As he has become better known by the electorate, O’Brien is less liked. Of the 40 percent of likely voters who could identify O’Brien in May, 2011, six percent had a favorable impression compared to 16 percent with an unfavorable impression. Today, 69 percent of voters can identify him and his net favorability rating has dropped to -14 points (15 percent positive, 29 percent negative).

Support for the Tea Party in New Hampshire continues to drop also. Today, 29 percent say they view the Tea Party favorably, compared to 50 percent who view the Tea Party unfavorably, a net 14 percent drop since the February, 2011 survey. This is consistent with an earlier Suffolk University/7 News tracking poll that also measured a “drastic shift” in Tea Party support among likely GOP primary voters.

Benenson surveyed 600 likely voters in the 2012 general election between January 30 and February 1, 2012. The margin of error is ±4.00%.

Witnesses Contradict O’Brien’s Bullying Denial

Last spring, GOP Rep. Susan Emerson accused House Speaker Bill O’Brien of yelling and swearing at her when he objected to her House budget bill amendments.

He was three inches from my face and started screaming at me that he had forbidden a Republican to put any amendments in. … The Sergeant at Arms from the Senate, who is a retired state trooper, came and stood next to me because he thought O’Brien was going to hit me.

In an interview with Kevin Landrigan last month, O’Brien flatly denied the altercation ever took place and said she made it all up.

“There were no loud voices, no abuse, no bullying. We were having a conversation, and I made clear to her the House was not going to adopt any of her amendments,” O’Brien said.

“She was emotional about it, but not because of anything I said. It pains me to this day to say Rep. Emerson has fabricated all of this,” O’Brien added.

Last week, the Senate sergeant-at-arms backed-up Emerson in testimony before the House committee investigating the incident.

Doug Wyman, who was the sergeant-at-arms for the Senate last year, corroborated Emerson’s account last week, according to members of the House Constitutional Review and Statutory Recodification Committee.

Wyman said O’Brien and Bettencourt had Emerson backed up to a wall, according to legislators at the hearing. He heard the yelling through a closed door, opened it to investigate and sent O’Brien and Bettencourt on their way, they said.

A contingent from the Alvirne High School chorus, who were singing the National Anthem that day, also witnessed the fracas. The director confirmed Emerson’s account to Rep. Lee Quandt.

I also had the chance to talk to the Alvirne choir director who re-affirmed the attack on Susan did take place.

O’Brien had accused “Democratic Party operatives and union member Republicans” of creating the “false story” to discredit his record of accomplishment. He has not responded to the accounts from the sergeant-at-arms and choir director.

Here We Go Again: Right-to-Work Hearing Today

It was just two months ago that House failed to override Gov. Lynch’s veto of right-to-work legislation and the union busting law went down to defeat.

Today, the House Labor, Industrial and Rehabilitative Services Committee meets to hear testimony on House Bill 1677, a similar bill that would prohibit collective bargaining agreements from requiring non-union employees to pay union fees and would eliminate the requirement that public unions represent non-union members.

House Speaker Bill O’Brien continues to pursue his white whale and has, once again, made the anti-union legislation his highest priority. He claims passage would grow our economy and attract manufacturers — despite all evidence to the contrary. New Hampshire AFL-CIO President Mark MacKenzie disagrees.

“We should be talking about the condition of our secondary roads, our crumbling schools and bridges and expanding I-93, to finish that project,” he said. “We should be investing in New Hampshire and its infrastructure so we can be the kind of state we want to be and provide opportunities going forward. That’s what our focus should be.” [Union Leader, February 8, 2012]

Protect New Hampshire Families has organized a Grassroots Lobby Day to push back against this politically-motivated attack on New Hampshire’s middle class. The fun starts with a pre-hearing briefing at noon at America Votes in Room 302 at 4 Park Street in Concord.

CACR 28: “Like a College Student Naming a Committee of His Drinking Buddies to Grade His Finals”

House Speaker Bill O’Brien’s attack on the judiciary continues unabated. Last week, O’Brien testified in favor of CACR 28, a proposed constitutional amendment that would grant the legislature final authority to determine the constitutionality of legislative acts.

Rep. Lucy Weber (D-Walpole) succinctly describes the amendment’s impact:

This CACR would do away with the courts traditional role of protector of the constitutional rights of the minority from the tyranny of the majority. … This is a very dangerous piece of legislation.

Writing about a similar bill in Oklahoma, Julie DelCour has a more waggish analysis:

[L]awmakers could write a law and then appoint a body to review its constitutionality. Sweet! It’d be like a college student naming an ad hoc committee of his drinking buddies to grade his finals.

DelCour goes on to give credit where credit is due by noting the Sooner State has no monopoly on “half-baked, half-cocked and half-arsed” legislation.

While Shortey’s plan to eliminate judicial review by our highest court is a bad idea, it is not an original one. … The New Hampshire Legislature … will try for the third time to eliminate its high court’s power of judicial review so it can take over that function itself.

As one observer put it, “The next thing you know, New Hampshire lawmakers will be reciting the Magna Carta while brandishing guns. All perfectly legal when you are judge and jury.”

Point/Counterpoint: State Health Insurance Exchange

House Bill 1297 would prohibit the state from planning, creating, or participating in a state health insurance exchange. If New Hampshire’s exchange is not up and running by 2014, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will require the state to join a federal exchange.

House Speaker Bill O’Brien, House Majority Leader D.J. Bettencourt and GOP Rep. Andrew Manuse argue a state exchange “could be the nail in the coffin of the New Hampshire Advantage.”

“Yes, if we have a federal health insurance exchange all decisions would be made in Washington by federal bureaucrats in a central location. However, if we adopted a state exchange, regardless of what type, we still would end up answering to and obeying these same federal bureaucrats. 

“Let’s keep up our promises to voters by passing this law and prohibiting the state of New Hampshire from creating a state exchange that could be the nail in the coffin of the New Hampshire Advantage.”

Not so, respond a group of conservative business leaders, chambers of commerce and trade associations:

“Business owners, managers and senior executives believe a state-based exchange is the better option for New Hampshire. … New Hampshire would be able to shape and control, to a greater degree, the structure and function of a state-based exchange than it would a federally-imposed one. Business leaders have a real and vested stake in what a health insurance exchange would look like in New Hampshire since they may consider shopping in an exchange or sending their employees to an exchange to buy health insurance.”

— Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield in New Hampshire, Business and Industry Association (BIA), CGI Employee Benefits Group, City Fuel Co. Inc., Greater Concord Chamber of Commerce, Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce, Greater Nashua Chamber of Commerce, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care of New England, MVP Health Care, New Hampshire Association of Insurance Agents, New Hampshire Automobile Dealers Association, Northeast Delta Dental and Ski NH

GOP Preaches Responsibility, Blocks Family Planning

Under the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program, a mother receiving public assistance is granted, on average, an additional $72.50 a month for the birth of a child. Last year, House Speaker Bill O’Brien threw his weight behind House Bill 1658, which would bar the increase.

“We’re going to require people to make responsible decisions. If you don’t have enough money to take care of the family you have, you don’t have more children,” O’Brien said.

In testimony before the House Finance Committee this week, sponsor Rep. Neal Kurk elaborated.

“I think it’s bad public policy for the state to make a payment to an individual that is an unnecessary payment when it is within the individual’s control to avoid the problem for the state,” Kurk said.

“When I try to help somebody in a private charitable venture I don’t expect them to do things that will make it more expensive for me to help them. I just will not give money to that kind of a charity or that kind of a person.

In other news, the House passed a bill that would eliminate all funding for basic, preventive health care services — including family planning — for over 16,000 New Hampshire women, men, and families who receive services from Planned Parenthood and other health facilities that offer full reproductive health care.

That Was Then, This Is Now: O’Brien’s Selective Outrage

Last year, the New Hampshire Democratic Party was fined for violating the state election law that requires prerecorded political messages to disclose who paid for the call. State House Speaker Bill O’Brien was outraged and called for Chairman Ray Buckley’s ouster.

“New Hampshire has never stood for Boston-style or Chicago-style, dirty politics like this,” O’Brien said in an interview…

“Unless the Democratic Party takes concrete steps to prevent this from happening again such as removing their chairman, removing their current leadership and move into the mainstream of New Hampshire politics, those are the type of issues through a subsequent civil suit that we feel almost compelled to ask,” O’Brien said in the interview.

Last week, a firm conducting a push poll on behalf of Frank Guinta’s 2010 congressional campaign was fined for making the calls without the required disclosures. O’Brien’s response? Crickets…

h/t: Jeff Feingold

Quote of the Day: Let Despotism Rule

The tragedy is that Republicans won so many seats in 2010 that O’Brien and company have come to believe that they can do absolutely anything they choose. To hell with the spirit of compromise. To hell with the Constitution. Let despotism rule. That’s the modus operandi for Speaker O’Brien…

— GOP state Rep. Steve Vaillancourt

GOP Rep Accuses Speaker O’Brien of Ethics Violations

In an open letter to the chairman of the House Ethics Committee, GOP state Rep. Steve Vaillancourt asks if Speaker Bill O’Brien “and his minions” violated two provisions of the New Hampshire General Court Ethics Guidelines involving coercion and lack of openness.

The first provision Vaillancourt cites is the Principle On Independent Objective Judgment which states, “Legislators should employ independent objective judgment in performing their duties, deciding all matters on merits free from conflicts of interest and both real and apparent improper influences.”

To me, this means that all legislators must put the interests of the Constitution and the people who elected us ahead of party interests. To me, this means that bullying, coercion, or intimidation by party leaders to change votes would constitute a conflict of interest. [emphasis added]

Vaillancourt details several instances of O’Brien’s coercion and intimidation, the most recent which occurred during the debate over the House redistricting plan.

In an absolute stunning development, an amendment … passed by a margin of 170-153. This was not what the Speaker and Republican leadership wanted, so the Speaker immediately called a recess for a caucus. While I don’t feel at liberty to detail what went on in the caucus, in my opinion there was blatant intimidation, coercion, arm twisting, whatever word or phrase you might choose to use. …

I ask for your clarification as to how much coercion is allowed before it would be in violation of the ethics provision I noted here. Clearly, as we learn in testimony from the Emerson bill, intimidation has been at record level this year. It seems to me that the Speaker and his minions and those who have failed to employ independent objective judgment are guilty of ethics violations many times over, but then I’m not a lawyer.

The second ethics provision Vaillancourt cites is the Principle of Accountability which reads, “Legislators should assure that government is conducted openly, equitably and honorably in a manner that permits the citizenry to make informed judgments and hold government officials accountable.”

Others have charged, and I am beginning to agree, that most of the House redistricting process was not “conducted openly”. … An investigation, sadly, would likely show that much of the redistricting work was done behind closed doors by non-elected officials. … Clearly, others were secretly involved. Clearly, these others ignored what little public input there was. The question is how much secrecy is allowed before violation of Section III occurs. Certainly, words have meaning, and if meaning is to be followed, can such secrecy be acceptable?

Quote of the Day: Petty Political Gain

The Constitution is a statement of principles and rights, and the architecture of our form of government. O’Brien and Bettencourt are using a document that our forefathers fought a revolution for [for] petty political gain.

— Kathy Sullivan, DNC member and former state party chair, on House passage of CACR 13, a proposed constitutional amendment to prohibit new taxes on income.

What did the Speaker Know and When Did He Know It?

Did state House Speaker Bill O’Brien have advance knowledge that James O’Keefe would be sending his associates to obtain New Hampshire primary ballots using the names of deceased voters? Did he get a sneak preview of the video before it was made public? Writing in The Lobby, the anonymous “Mr. Snitch” suggests he did.

Bully’s sure been busy now that the session is in full swing. So busy, in fact, you’d think he wouldn’t have the time to act as a production consultant with James O’Keefe, conservative activist, pretend journalist and Mama’s Boy (what else do you call a 27-year-old male son who still lives at home, nicely ensconced in Mom-and-Pop’s North Jersey manse, Snitcherinos?)

Turns out Jimmy the Jerk, a convicted felon BTW, gave Bully a heads up on his little voter fraud skit. Explains why Bully was all set with his righteous indignation sound bites for Channel 9 after the video magically appeared.