Van Ostern Pulls In Over 1000 Individual Donations

John DiStaso reports that with six months to go before the election, Democrat Colin Van Ostern has already received more than 1000 individual donations — the state’s first Executive Council candidate to ever reach that milestone.

Van Ostern says his campaign has raised over $100,000 with an average contribution of roughly $100 and more than three-quarters of the funds coming from New Hampshire voters. No donor to his campaign has yet given the maximum contribution, he says. 

“This overwhelming grassroots support is a clear signal that New Hampshire voters in every corner of the state are rallying behind our call for more focus on jobs and the economy, and less government interference in our personal lives,” Van Ostern says in a statement. “Other campaigns may have bigger bank accounts in this election, but I am proud of the widespread, grassroots support that is reflected in the historic number of voters investing in our campaign.”

Executive Council Rejects Federal Funds for Rail Study

While all eyes were on the House rollback of women’s rights yesterday, the state’s Executive Council was rejecting a $3.2 million federal grant to help pay for a feasibility study for a commuter rail line between Boston and Concord.

The federal grant, which had strong bipartisan support from Gov. Lynch, Nashua officials and business leaders, would have funded most of the $3.6 million feasibility study. The remainder would have come from private donors and state-backed bonds in a previous public works budget.

Councilors Wheeler, Sununu and St. Hilaire voted against accepting the grant. Colin Van Ostern, who is running against St. Hilaire for the District Two council seat, accused the council of putting “their personal anti-government zeal ahead of a practical bipartisan solution — this time, one that would have cut commuting costs and helped economic development across the Greater Concord area.”

Former state senator Peter Burling, the past chairman of a rail transit authority that has pushed for the project, was upset by the vote. The refusal to use federal money to simply study the issue left him “breathless with incredulity,” and the funding will likely now be used by another state, he said.

“It felt like foolishness,” he said. “It felt like ignorance triumphing over inquiry.”

“The action by three executive councilors, who decided based on dogma instead of information, is an overt insult to the nonpartisan donors of the original effort,” he said.

Under the Radar: Executive Council Redistricting Plan

With little fanfare, the House Special Committee on Redistricting approved a redistricting plan for the five Executive Council districts this week.

The most dramatic change in the new map is in District Two, currently held by Councilor Dan St. Hilaire. Here’s Rep. Lucy Weber’s description:

District Two now resembles a dragon that has swallowed a medium sized mammal.  This most tortuous of districts starts at the Connecticut River with Charlestown and Walpole, curves south to include Keene east to Marlborough to Dublin, then curves north only to bulge out again around the Concord area, from whence it zigzags east in a line a single town wide until it reaches the seacoast and curves south again to end at Portsmouth. 

The newly drawn district should be a safe Democratic seat with the addition of Democratic strongholds Keene (D+19), Durham (D+21), Dover (D+11) and Portsmouth (D+18). The district would become six points more Democratic than it is today.

The primary Republican beneficiary of this gerrymandering is Councilor Chris Sununu. His District Three loses Durham, Dover and Portsmouth and gains Hudson (R+4), Pelham (R+8) and Raymond (R+5). The proposed district would be five points more Republican than it is currently.

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Councilors Challenge Planned Parenthood Contract

Three Executive Councilors have taken legal action to stop access to preventive care at Planned Parenthood centers in New Hampshire. Councilors David Wheeler, Dan St. Hilaire and Ray Wieczorek joined forces with the Arizona-based Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) in an attempt to void a federal grant awarded to Planned Parenthood for family planning services.

The federal government had stepped in and awarded the grant after the Executive Council left 16,000 New Hampshire residents without access to vital health care services including cervical cancer screenings, breast exams and sexually transmitted infections.

In the legal filing, the councilors claim the federal grant is “improper, irregular, unnecessary, in contravention of the authority of the Executive Council and its duly elected members, and in disregard for the sovereignty of the State of New Hampshire.” 

“We decided to pursue this right after we found out the long arm of Washington came in to contravene the decision we made… ,” Wieczorek said. “We’ve got a constitution in this country — the 10th amendment — we have state’s rights.”

St. Hilaire said he was contacted by ADF about signing the letter. “The legal counsel contacted us and said they wanted to file a letter and asked us to sign off on it,” which he did, he said.

The Alliance Defense Fund is a conservative Christian legal organization founded by high-profile Religious Right leaders including D. James Kennedy and James Dobson. The ADF is known for promoting “marriage protection,” exposing the “homosexual agenda” and fighting the supposed “war on Christmas.”

ICYMI: Feds Step In When Executive Council Fails to Act

When the Executive Council voted not to renew the state’s contract with Planned Parenthood to provide Title X family planning services, 16,000 New Hampshire residents were left without health care services ranging from birth control to cancer exams.

This week, the federal Department of Health and Human Services stepped in to protect the health of Granite State families by awarding a replacement grant to Planned Parenthood citing the “urgent need.”

Title X family planning services have not been provided in the areas of the state previously served by PPNNE since the contract between NHDHHS and PPNNE ended on June 30, 2011. There is an urgent need to reinstate services with an experienced provider that is familiar with the provision of Title X family planning services and applicable laws, regulations and administrative requirements, and has a history of successfully providing services in these areas of the state.

Councilor Dan St. Hilaire, one of the three councilors voting against renewing the contract, said he opposed the contract because Planned Parenthood also provides abortion services.

“Actually funding an agency that performs the actual event is something that I would object to, and I have objected to. That’s what I voted against it.”

St. Hilaire was silent on where the 16,000 men, women and teenagers would now turn for vital health care services including cervical cancer screenings, breast exams and sexually transmitted infections. Following the Executive Council’s dereliction of duty, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen stepped in and asked Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to consider a direct federal contract. She applauded the federal government’s action.

“Women in every part of the state deserve access to affordable reproductive health services, and Planned Parenthood is a critical provider of those services in our state,” Shaheen said. “These clinics also provide vital preventive care, such as screenings for breast and cervical cancer. In some parts of New Hampshire, Planned Parenthood is the only provider of these preventive services to low-income women. I am glad the federal government has stepped up to provide this new contract, so that women in every part of New Hampshire will have somewhere to turn for basic health issues.”

Quote of the Day: We Must Do Better

This election will come down to our values: do we want an Executive Council that is willing to damage our state in order to amplify the partisan extremism in Concord, or do we want to moderate it with smart, and jobs-focused management instead? Frankly, I’m embarrassed by the antics we’ve seen lately in the State House. Putting a fringe ideology ahead of what’s best for New Hampshire families and our state economy would never fly in the private sector where I work as a business manager today, it would never be accepted at the New Hampshire nonprofits I’ve helped grow over the past decade, and it would never be tolerated by the elected leaders to whom I’ve served as senior adviser. We must do better.

— Colin Van Ostern, announcing his candidacy for the Executive Council

“Planned Parenthood May Have Saved My Life”

Hillary Nelson shares a moving tale of living in New York, with “almost no money and no health insurance,” and having a precancerous condition discovered and treated by doctors at Planned Parenthood. Then she confronts the Executive Councilors who refused to renew the state’s contract with Planned Parenthood.

They’re taking a calculated risk that the tens of thousands of under-insured and uninsured poor women who rely on the organization don’t follow politics and that the rest of us can’t figure out that their stupidity will cost us more money in the end, not less.

But come the next election they’ll discover there are a lot of women in their districts like me, who were young once, and careless, and poor, who relied on Planned Parenthood. Who perhaps even had their lives saved by Planned Parenthood.

We’re older now, and wiser. Maybe even a little richer.

And we vote.

The personal is political.

NH Supports Planned Parenthood

Cornerstone Executive Director Kevin Smith organized a press conference and rally yesterday to applaud the Executive Council for cancelling a Planned Parenthood contract that would provide health services for thousands of women. Smith said the Executive Council “correctly read the mood of taxpayers.” All evidence to the contrary.

Approximately two dozen people with Cornerstone walked past approximately twice as many Planned Parenthood supporters and faced them during the press conference.

The audience booed Musgrave, a former member of Congress from Colorado, and one person shouted “liar” after she accused Planned Parenthood of aiding and abetting sex trafficking.

(For the record, the Planned Parenthood sex trafficking allegation has been thoroughly discredited.)

Mr. Privileged White Male Executive Council Members

Today we salute you, Mr. Privileged White Male Executive Council Members (Mr. Privileged WhiteMaleExecutiveCouncil Memmmmbeerrs!). Because of you, 15,000 NH women are attempting to pull themselves out from underneath that bus you so carelessly threw them under (Man, it’s dirty under this busssss). You don’t have vaginas, but that’s not stopping you from making decisions about our bodies. When STD, cancer, and pregnancies rates go sky high, don’t blame us (babies everywheerree!).

And so, Mr. Privileged White Male Executive Council Members, this vid’s for YOU:

Executive Councilor Tries to Rewrite History

Yesterday, Dean Barker documented the Executive Council’s rejection of a two-year $1.8 million Planned Parenthood contract to provide health care services for New Hampshire women.

Steve Trombley, Planned Parenthood of Northern New England CEO, said he will continue to pursue the contract including the possibility of a legal challenge.

“We obviously don’t believe this is a settled issue at this point,” he said. “We intend to challenge this at every level we can possibly challenge it.”

Beyond asking the council to rehear its request, Trombley said the organization is looking into filing a lawsuit.

The likelihood of a court battle (and Planned Parenthood win) may have just increased. In a similar case, a federal judge ruled Friday that Indiana cannot cut off funding for Planned Parenthood clinics.

Indiana is not allowed to cut off Planned Parenthood’s public funding for general health services solely because the organization also provides abortions, a federal judge said Friday in blocking parts of the state’s tough new abortion law.

This may explain why Executive Councilor St. Hilare told Kevin Landrigan that his vote rejecting the contract had nothing to do with the fact that Planned Parenthood performs abortions.

St. Hilare said it wasn’t abortion rights that moved him to turn down the pact. Instead, it was the $250,000 salary for the executive director and the fact that the group isn’t based in New Hampshire.

But soon after the vote, St. Hilare told Dan Gorenstein that was precisely why he voted again the contract.

“Actually funding an agency that performs the actual event is something that I would object to, and I have objected to. That’s why I voted against it.”

The so-called ‘event’ is abortions.

Hilaire and two of the other councilors rejected the $1.8 million dollar federal and state contract because they oppose taxpayer money supporting organizations that provide abortions.

You can listen here:

The NH GOP Assault on Women’s Health (cont.)

This week, the five Republicans on the state Executive Council voted 3-2 to reject a $1.8 million, two-year contract with Planned Parenthood to provide women’s health services. Councilor Dan St. Hilaire, the deciding vote, cited the fact that the organization provides abortions as the reason he voted against the contract.

Last year in New Hampshire, Planned Parenthood saw more than 15,000 patients and provided:

• 6,112 breast exams
• 5,548 cervical cancer screenings
• 18,858 tests for sexually transmitted infections
• 13,242 contraceptive care consultations

No taxpayer funds are used for abortions, which make up just 3% of Planned Parenthood’s services and are covered either by health insurance or patient payment.

Federal courts in Texas and Missouri have ruled that it is unconstitutional to deny funding to health care providers because they perform abortions. Planned Parenthood his investigating the possibility of filing a lawsuit against the state.

Update: A federal court has ruled that Indiana cannot cut off Planned Parenthood funding solely because the organization also provides abortions.