The state’s biggest newspaper, the New Hampshire Union Leader, is filling the position vacated by State House Bureau Chief Tom Fahey with a part-time staffer.
The Lobby reports Garry Rayno has been rehired by the Union Leader to a part-time position to cover state government. Rayno was laid off by the Union Leader just last week after the paper’s largest union, the Manchester Newspaper Guild, unanimously rejected the publisher’s contract offer.
At the beginning of the year, the Union Leader dropped The Associates Press as a news provider. “We would prefer that New Hampshire news consumers get that information directly from us,” said publisher Joseph McQuaid.
Tom Fahey reports the bid to override Gov. Lynch’s veto of SB 57, which would bring back predatory lending with interest rates of up to 25 percent a month, is gaining momentum in the House.
It passed narrowly in the House, 180-171, nowhere near the two-thirds majority needed for an override.
But one company behind the bill, LoanMax of Alpharetta, Ga., now has two lobbying firms — Bianco Associates and Sheehan Phinney. They are steadily swinging votes toward a win.
Legislators taking their marching orders from LoanMax might want to take a closer look at the company they’re inviting to do business in the state. The Better Business Bureau gives LoanMax an “F” grade (on a scale of A+ to F).
Tom Fahey reports state House Speaker O’Brien has appointed the members of ten House study committees — and they’re all Republicans. It’s just a coincidence.
O’Brien’s policy director, Greg Moore, said O’Brien picks members who will bring the best value to each committee.
“It’s not a matter of what party a person belongs to. It is a case of who can create the best work product on proposed legislation for next year.”
When state House Speaker Bill O’Brien notified House members that most would not be reimbursed for travel expenses in July and August, many — Democrats and Republicans — complained.
Things went downhill fast. Rep. Steven Lindsey, D-Keene, accused leadership of “penny-ante thinking that will make us the laughingstock of New England.” Majority Leader D.J. Bettencourt fired back, saying Lindsey made the state a laughingstock first with some of bills he’s filed. He must have been thinking of Lindsey’s proposal a couple of years ago to designate a State House cat, or this year’s bill urging the National Park System to exhume Merriwether Lewis.
Lindsey responded quickly, reminding Bettencourt he called the bishop of Manchester a “pedophile pimp.”
O’Brien jumped into the fray at that point. He said in an email to all legislators that Democrats who complained about the policy were engaging in “the tired rhetoric of class warfare.”
O’Brien overlooked the Republican complaints.
Cigarette prices will go down, college tuitions will go up and state services will be cut in the $10.3 billion state budget House and Senate negotiators agreed to Thursday.
— Tom Fahey, Union Leader
