Legislative Action Alert

Week of May 23, 2011

Jackie Cilley
jcilley@aol.com

Main Street and the Middle Class

Their Futures Intertwined

I recently asked a restaurateur a simple question: “If a fellow who received a

$6 million windfall ate here how much would he spend?” Looking quizzically
at me he theorized maybe he’d buy the most expensive meal, lobster and all
the trimmings. “How many of those would he buy,” I asked. Clearly
wondering where I was going with this, he replied that more than likely our
hypothetical jackpot winner would purchase one such meal unless he was a
truly big eater.

Taking it a step further, I asked what would happen if 60,000 people in the
area had $1,000 more in their pockets each year. The light bulb was going
on. We had been talking about tax and labor policies. He was beginning to
see how policies he had supported might be harming his business and its
future.

It has long puzzled me why so many small business owners support policies
that demonstrably harm their long term future prospects. Two weeks ago I
discussed the evidence that tax cuts have not led to job creation and, in fact,
have contributed to our deficit. I pointed out jobs are created to fill demand
and demand comes from desire and ability to purchase specific products. It
isn’t that someone has more money in their pocket that creates jobs. It is
the fact there is a productive place for money to make more money. That’s
what capitalists do. Indeed, it’s their rightful role in a capitalistic society.

If demand for one’s product doesn’t exist here or elsewhere, the capitalist
finds more productive places for his money – investments in pork bellies,
Chinese clean energy technologies, whatever. What he doesn’t do is create
jobs here in the US that serve no useful purpose and don’t give him a return
on investment.

It follows that a robust middle class is necessary for a strong Main Street.
Just like the restaurant owner, small businesses can’t rely on one wealthy

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customer. They need numerous average folks for a healthy customer base.
Anything that endangers the middle class imperils small businesses as well.

Yet, we’ve accepted policies that imperil both for several decades now.
Whether it’s the debunked trickle down economics shell game or the
notion that busting up unions will lead to greater prosperity (also a
demonstrable myth), too many of us have supported policies that hurt our
own selves, our families, our community, our small businesses and our
overall economy.

Take the Right to Work [for less] legislation that may well pass this week.
Every previous legislature, Republican or Democrat, has defeated this in the
past. They knew RTW produced lower wages ($5,300 less), higher rates of
worker injuries, higher work-related death rates (53% higher), lower levels of
healthcare coverage (21% lower) and a lower standard of living. Suddenly,
those now in power claim this is just the prescription for businesses wanting
to come here with more jobs. Even if that were the case (and the evidence
on this is not fully vetted), what kind of jobs would those be? More Walmart-
style jobs?

Some might say “jobs is jobs.” Here’s what a Walmart economy looks like: 3
better paying local jobs killed for every two produced by a new Walmart
store, 2.7% decline in retail employment “in every county they enter,” 10-
40% decline in supermarket and other retailers sales when Walmart enters a
market and loss of wages and benefits in the marketplace (southern CA
estimates a $2.8 billion loss in wages and benefits from the new Walmart
economy in that region). Walmart costs taxpayers money from the
thousands of associates who make below poverty wages and qualify for
Medicaid. Only $43 of money spent at Walmart circulates in the local
economy while $68 spent at a local business stays local. And, oh by the
way, among these and other sad statistics, Walmart acknowledged that they
failed to pay $2.95 billion in taxes owed for 2009. Is that a bit like
misplacing your car keys?? http://pubadvocate.nyc.gov/files/Walmart.pdf

Whether it’s Walmart’s or other low wage/low benefit companies seeking to

locate in a state that offers up its workers for servitude the cycle will likely
be the same. Wages fall forcing more shoppers to low cost alternatives that
bring more low cost alternatives into the market driving out locally owned
businesses and producing more low wage jobs forcing more shoppers to seek
yet lower cost alternatives.

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Until Main Street businesses understand their fate is tied to that of the
workers in their marketplace, the $6 million man will eat his $30 meal of
lobster and 60,000 potential customers with their potential $10 meal will slip
silently away.

Contents

Page
Thought for the Week: Middle Class & Main Street 1
The Week in Brief 3
Senate Reads the Tea Leaves
Senate Floor Action 5
State’s Capital Budget Plan 5
Performance Measurement Reviews on Hold 6
Parental Notification Amendment 6
Senate Hearings on Select Bills
Filming Officers on Duty But Not Legislators 6
Kangaroo Court in Our Statehouse 7
Governor’s Veto Message 8

♦♦♦♦♦

The Week in Brief

The upcoming week will be the final week of hearings and Senate
committees’ final actions on House bills with the exception of the biennial
budget bill. The full Senate chamber will vote on committee
recommendations on 23 bills, while two committees will hear the final three
House bills on their docket.

As the Senate meets in session on Wednesday, May 25, the House will meet
to take up 23 bills, 13 on the consent calendar (these are voted on as a block
due to unanimous consent on the recommendation of the committee) and 10
on the regular calendar. No new hearings are scheduled.

The most noteworthy legislation to be taken up will undoubtedly include the

attempted override of the Governor’s veto on HB 474, the Right to Work Act,
(see the Governor’s veto message at the end of the Alert), the Senate’s
shunning of a priority nullification bill pushed by Free Staters and extreme
libertarians, parental notification, and a bill to bar utilities from applying
eminent domain when no public benefit is evident. Then, there will also be

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the sad display of the redress of grievance committee, a must read
on p. 7.

For the full details of House and Senate calendars, please visit the General
Court website at http://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/. You may also want to
download the Journals from that same site for each chamber. In those you
can read the remarks made by legislators during debates on legislation –
always good nighttime reading entertainment! Additionally, the Journals
contain the roll call votes of each legislator. You will be able to see how your
legislator voted on any bill of importance to you.

Senate Reads the Tea Leaves

Of particular interest over the past week is the impact upon the Senate of
the Hillsborough District 4 special election. On Tuesday, May 17 a special
election was held for the communities of Mount Vernon, Temple, New
Boston, Wilton and Lyndeborough between Republican Peter Kucmas and
Democrat Jennifer Daler. When the final votes were counted, Daler emerged
as the newest State Representative with an impressive 58% to 42% win.
Hillsborough District 4 includes Speaker Bill O’Brien’s home town of Mount
Vernon who had noted that the results of the election would be “a
referendum” on the agenda of the legislature. Daler won Mount Vernon by
a margin of 278 to 188.

The lopsided win for the Democrats appears to have had an immediate and
profound impact upon the Senate’s action on core House bills that House
leadership put considerable muscle behind passing. As Sen. Gary Lambert
told Kevin Landrigan of the Nashua Telegraph “We all need to ask ourselves
what are the voters saying in that election in the speaker’s district.

Consequently, despite Senate committee recommendations for ought to pass

on several Tea Party/Free Stater-sponsored prime bills, the Senate tabled
each. These bills include HCR 6, requiring the Congress to reaffirm its
adherence to the US Constitution regarding international agreements and
treaties, HCR 11 urging Congress to withdraw from the United Nations, HCR
12 urging Congress to withdraw the US from the North American Free Trade
Agreement (NAFTA) and HB 590 declaring federal grants unconstitutional
and establishing a committee to review all such grants.

Assuming there is no intention to remove the bills from the table (an action
that can be made if there are sufficient votes for passage until Thursday,
June 2 the deadline for any action on House bills), the bills will be effectively
killed. One may reasonably ask, if there is no intention to pass a bill why not
kill it outright? Tabling preserves the ability to bring a bill up in the next
legislative year. If a bill is voted ITL (inexpedient to legislate/kill the bill)

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House and Senate rules presumably prevent the same subject matter from
being brought forth in the second year of the biennium.

In a similar snub to the House this week and purportedly driven by the same
concerns, the Senate Committee on Internal Affairs has shelved one of the
most important bills to the libertarian wing of the GOP supermajority. HCR
19, a bill that would allow the NH Legislature to nullify any federal law not to
its liking, was passed overwhelmingly by 242 to 109 on a roll call vote of the
House. This same legislation introduced in the previous legislature was the
impetus for instituting the weapons ban in the Statehouse.

Two years ago when this legislation was put forward, angry supporters of the
bill created a commotion in the House gallery when it appeared that the bill
would go down in defeat. At the time of the outburst there were visiting
fourth graders in the gallery as well and concern was expressed by several
parents and teachers over the emotional agitation of visitors who were
visibly well-armed. That incident lead to the joint facilities committee
instituting a weapons ban in the Statehouse which was subsequently
overturned as the first act of the new legislature.

The Senate Internal Affairs committee has recommended that HCR 19 be re-
referred to committee by a 5-0 vote. Bills that are re-referred to committee
are sometimes studied further, but as often are held for a more propitious
time for passage or a time when it might be less noticeable that a piece of
legislation is killed. This bill and others that have been re-referred to
committees will need to come to the floor eventually. In New Hampshire no
bills can die in committee. Each needs to receive a full vote of at least one
chamber. It will be interesting to see if the NullifyNow crowd shows up
sporting plenty of fire power and screaming at the Senate members as they
try to slide this bill back under the rug the way that they did when it came up
under the previous administration.

Detailed below is a selection of noteworthy bills to be voted on by the full

Senate as well as those being heard in committee. For a comprehensive list
of floor action and committee hearings please go to
http://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/scaljourns/

Bills on the Senate Floor in the Upcoming Week

One bill that has received only secondary attention to the biennial budget bill
is HB 25 containing the legislature’s priorities for capital expenditures. HB
25 is sent to the Senate floor with a 6-0 recommendation of OTP by the
Capital Budget Committee. The committee is recommending $87 million of
new borrowing and a $218 million overall spending plan for repairs,
renovations and new construction. This figure includes bonding against
future tax revenues, highway and federal funds.

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Two bills that may have moved the state toward the ability to measure the
effectiveness of programs have been re-referred to committee. HB 508
would have established a performance measurement system for state
agencies. Such a process would begin with establishing goals for any state
program and end with the ability to measure whether such goals were being
met. Many businesses use such an approach in order to make timely and
cost-effective adjustments in order to obtain desired outcomes. Similarly, HB
520 would require that every legislative bill with an attached fiscal note (this
details the costs of a proposed bill) would also contain details of anticipated
outcomes associated with the bill.

For the second time the NH Senate has passed a parental notification bill.
HB 329 requires that parents be notified before an abortion is performed on
a minor in cases other than an emergency. The bill does offer an alternative
to parental notification through the courts and makes the lack of notification
a misdemeanor crime. An amendment to HB 329 is being proposed that will
allow a young woman to consult with her physician as opposed to a judge
that will protect the patient and address concerns of those young women
who cannot go to their parents. The amendment will allow for these
decisions to be made precisely where they ought to be, between a doctor
and his/her patient, and will protect the health and safety of that patient.
Please contact your Senator and ask that s/he vote down HB 329 and vote
for the amended language.

Senate Committee Hearings

Of the three bills to be heard in the upcoming week, the most controversial is
likely to be HB 145 permitting the audio and video recording of a law
enforcement officer while in the course of his or her official duties. Bills of
this nature have been before the legislature before but have been defeated
due to concerns over possibilities of videotaping innocent bystanders during
law enforcement actions. This year’s bill passed the House by a roll call vote
of 215 – 151, suggesting that the bill has only moderate support even in the
originating chamber. HB 145 will be heard before the Senate Judiciary
Committee in Rm. 101 of the LOB (Legislative Office Building) at 1:15 p.m.

Ironically, our protectors of transparency and freedom are working to ensure

a bright spotlight on any officer pulling over an erratic driver, but are
becoming increasingly edgy about being transparent themselves. Folks who
have been filming hearing at the Statehouse have been quizzed about why
they are taping the sessions. Dah? Might it be that there’s simply no other
way to capture the full, animated absurdity of what is happening in our
Statehouse than to capture it live??

♦♦♦♦♦

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 Kangaroo Court

Of all the absurdity that has been on display at what was once our stately
and honored Capital perhaps the most disturbing can be seen in the
retrogressive Redress of Grievances Committee. You may recall last week’s
story about Chairman Ingrebretson’s recusal from hearings related to one
David Johnson’s petition for redress related to his long-standing custody
battle and the judge involved. As the story went, Chairman Ingrebretson sat
through an entire morning’s worth of the hearing without divulging to the
committee that he knew Mr. Johnson and that he had, indeed, been
supervising child visitations between said Johnson and his child for a total of
200 hours over the past year. It was only after a complaint alleging a
conflict of interest that the Chair saw fit to share this information with his
committee members.

After ‘fessing up about knowing Johnson for a lengthy period of time,

Ingrebretson told the committee that he had checked with the Speaker who
did not feel there was a conflict of interest, then he put it to a vote of his
committee to poll their feelings. Shockingly, only one member of the
committee said she was disturbed by the revelation. Ingrebretson went on
to continue chairing the proceedings and several days later after negative
news coverage he finally made the decision to step down.

However, these details were far from the full story. What Ingrebretson failed
to tell his committee is that he had already gone through staged redress
proceedings with Mr. Johnson some two years ago in June 2009.
Ingrebretson knew full well what Mr. Johnson would present, including the full
range of public accusations about his ex-wife’s alleged behaviors because he
had heard it all during play acting as a redress committee in 2009.
Moreover, he was not alone in the mock proceedings. Joining him in role
playing at political campaign offices across from the Statehouse were
numerous members of current leadership, including Speaker O’Brien (recall
he cleared Ingrebetson of any conflict of interest!), Chief of Staff Bob Mead,
Rep. Carol McGuire, Rep. Warren Groen, Rep. Al Baldassaro and others. The
full tapes of the hearings can be found below a discussion of “Subversive
Government” on a Free State-related website at
http://bikerbillnh.blogspot.com/2009/06/subversive-government.html

All of this would have been problematic enough for those who care about a
democratic process, but truly egregious was the public testimony in an open
room about the ex-wife of Mr. Johnson who was accused of all manner of
things. Ingrebretson hadn’t seen fit to invite the former Mrs. Johnson or to
allow her to hear the accusations or to respond to them. For these
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constitution-thumping defenders of liberty, one might question how much
liberty they are protecting for this woman and her child. The Redress of
Grievance Committee will meet at 10 a.m. in Rm. 205, LOB on Thursday, May
26. This one could use witnesses, folks!

Governor Lynch’s Veto Message on HB 474

Press Release
For Immediate Release Contact:
May 11, 2011 Communications Director
Office of the Governor
603-271-2121

Governor Lynch's Veto Message Regarding HB 474

By the authority vested in me, pursuant to part II, Article 44 of the New
Hampshire Constitution, on May 11, 2011, I vetoed HB 474.

States should not interfere with the rights of businesses and their employees
to freely negotiate contracts. That is unless there is a compelling public
interest, and there is no compelling public interest in passing this legislation.

There is no evidence that this legislation will offer any benefits to New
Hampshire's economy or workers.

As I have said repeatedly, New Hampshire has an economic strategy that is

working. New Hampshire has one of the strongest and fastest-growing
economies in the nation. We have one of the lowest unemployment rates
and one of the highest median incomes in the nation. We are considered one
of the safest states and one of the healthiest states, and a high percentage
of our citizens have private health insurance.

New Hampshire has a lower unemployment rate and a stronger economy

than most states with so-called right-to-work laws. In states with a right-to-
work law, workers on average have a lower standard of living, bringing home
less in their paychecks and going without health insurance more frequently.

In my time as a CEO, in my years spent in the private sector turning around

companies, and in my seven years as Governor, I have never seen the so-
called right-to-work law serve as a valuable economic development tool.

In the last seven years of recruiting businesses to move to New Hampshire,

not one business leader has ever even asked me if New Hampshire had a
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right-to-work law, let alone suggested it was a factor in the company's
location decision. No New Hampshire business leaders have ever told me
that the lack of a so-called right-to-work law prevented them from expanding
or hiring new workers here in New Hampshire. And no New Hampshire
workers have ever told me they couldn't get a job because New Hampshire
doesn't have a so-called right-to-work law.

The debate over the so-called right-to-work bill in New Hampshire appears to
be largely driven by national outside interest groups, and is not a result of
problems facing New Hampshire businesses or workers.

There is no justification in this case for state government to interfere with

the right of private businesses to freely negotiate and enter into contracts
with their employees. Therefore, I am vetoing HB 474.