Representative Jason Bedrick

Last week the House met to decide whether to concur with Senate changes to House bills or to non-concur and possibly request committees of conference. In layman’s terms, we were deciding whether to take it, leave it, or duke it out.

Republicans made a few last-ditch efforts to kill some bad bills (such as HB 1436, the evergreen clause bill and HB 1309, redefining tax-free “cigarillos” as taxable cigarettes) and attempted to modify the House Ways & Means Committee revenue estimates (HR 28) which ridiculously predict that revenue from the gas tax will remain constant over the next two years despite the fact that they’ve already been declining for a few months. Unfortunately (and predictably), all these efforts failed.

The biggest battle of the day was over HB 1645, a bill to reform the state retirement system. The House plan was favored by the cities and towns because of its measures to “stop the hemorrhaging” of the retirement system (in the words of the Democrat Chair of the Executive Departments & Administration Committee), while the Senate version was favored by the public workers unions. It’s an excruciatingly complicated issue, but a recent Concord Monitor editorial effectively summarized the major differences between the two plans:

The House passed a tough plan to bring the funding level up to snuff; cities and towns support it. The Senate plan accomplishes many of the same goals while preserving more benefits for employees. The House plan, for example, raises the retirement age for police officers and firefighters from 45 to 50. The Senate plan does not. The House plan replaces four public employee slots on the 14-member board of trustees with people with financial expertise. The Senate plan retains the overwhelming employee majority on the board.

The House plan does the better job of bringing public employee pension and health care benefits in line with times that are harsher for taxpayers and private-sector employees. It also saves taxpayers more money in the long run. Since adopting the House version could cause court fights that could slow or stall progress, progress will take compromise.

I must commend the Concord Monitor’s editorial board for endorsing the House version of the bill, but I should note that when they write that “the House version could cause court fights” they really mean “if the House version is adopted, the public workers unions will go bonkers and use every means at their disposal, including lawsuits, to prevent these necessary changes from being implemented.”

Right now, certain members of the House and Senate are meeting to draft a compromise version of the bill. I’ll keep you posted as to the outcome.

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From the Union Leader:

Tax, borrow, spend: Lynch’s budget plan

GOV. JOHN LYNCH was supposed to be a kinder, gentler Craig Benson. He’d be the millionaire former business executive who balanced the state budget without raising taxes, but also without angering state employees by slashing jobs or upsetting the apple cart too much.

Oops.

During four years in office, Gov. Lynch has shown that he has no interest in cutting taxes, but lots of interest in raising them to pay for increased state spending.

The governor cannot hide behind the excuse that he had to raise taxes because the economy is bad. He raised taxes his first year in office — when the state budget was in surplus. In 2005, he proposed and got a 28-cents per pack cigarette tax increase. Last year, he got another 28-cents increase. This year he proposed a 25-cents per pack hike. That’s three cigarette tax hikes in four years.

Last year the governor proposed — and got — tax increases totaling more than $100 million. They helped pay for the largest general fund budget increase in 20 years — 17.5 percent.

Unfortunately, they didn’t pay for all of it. The hole in the state budget exceeds $200 million and is growing. To fill it, the governor is raising taxes again. He’s pushed a new tax on charity poker, another cigarette tax hike, and raising the discount offered to wine dealers through the state liquor stores.

His enthusiasm for tax hikes has encouraged the Democrat-controlled Legislature to go for even more. In fact, the very first bill passed in the House after the governor’s State of the State address in January was a new tax on animal vaccines.

This new revenue is not enough to cover the massive spending increases approved last year. So the governor has recommended borrowing money to pay for $80 million in school construction aid that always had been paid with cash from the general fund.

Tax and spend? Gov. Lynch says, “OK!” Borrow and spend? “OK to that, too!”

This is not what the people of New Hampshire expected from the former furniture company CEO who famously made tough decisions to turn around a failing business.

The people expected the governor to make the same type of hard-nosed decisions he made then. Instead, he sold out to the Democratic Party’s host of special interest groups that directly benefit from increased government spending. And as a direct result we’ve seen our state budget and taxes grow at irresponsible and unaffordable rates. What a disappointment.

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My friends over at the great Granite Grok blog posted a piece of satire I wrote mimicking the Democrat press release which attacked the New Hampshire Advantage Coalition. See if you can tell which one is real!

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Last week the House voted down the Governor’s newest attempt at a constitutional amendment 222-140. It was a horrible amendment and its defeat was a terrible blow against the Governor and the Speaker, who chose the amendment as the first time to take a public position on any issue. More on the substance of the amendment in the “Ugly” section below.

The House had very high attendance for the Wednesday session, but abysmally low attendance for the Thursday session. In fact, we spent most of the day below the 2/3rds quorum, which required a 2/3rds majority to act on any bill. At one point we even fell below the 50% attendance necessary to take any action at all so the Speaker instructed the Sergeant-at-Arms to gather some of the legislators who were in the antechamber and hallway and bring them to Representatives Hall. Toward the end of the day, the Speaker ordered the Sergeant-at-Arms to bar the doors to prevent any legislator from leaving.

As for the bills:

HR 25: This House resolution would have urged Congress to fully implement the Secure Fence Act of 2006. The Democrats cowardly voted to “table” this resolution before we could even fully debate it. Even more upsetting is that it was a Republican who made the tabling motion…

SB 210: An unnecessary regulation of the plumbing industry.

CACR 34: Where to begin? While I support a constitutional amendment regarding education, this is the wrong one. It does nothing to refutes the Court’s activism — in fact, it writes the Claremont decision into the state constitution.

The amendment gives the authority to the state to target aid, so long as every community gets a “meaningful share” — a what? What’s a “meaningful share”? Some said it was between 25%-75% but who really knows? This sort of vague language is an opening for the Court to decide. (Remember, they defined “cherish” as the requirement to “define and fully fund an adequate education” so you can’t leave anything to their imagination!)

The amendment also states that an “adequate education” is that which prepares the student to become a “productive and contributing citizen” — huh? Some might argue that in today’s economy, a college degree is necessary to be a “productive and contributing citizen.” Others could plausibly argue that only an 8th grade education is necessary. Does someone really need to know calculus to be a productive and contributing citizen? For that matter, do they need art classes? Had we not defeated this bill, I’m sure the Court would have been happy to provide an answer.

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Jason Bedrick on “Capital Access”, Denis Goddard’s Public Access TV Show

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Jason Bedrick on Marijuana Decriminalization
National Public Radio [Real Player at 17:35]

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This week there were no “good” or “ugly” bills to report. There was one bad bill and then two absolutely horrific bills. Tomorrow the House will consider CACR 34, a constitutional amendment relative to “adequate” education. The Union Leader, which supported last year’s constitutional amendment, correctly identifies the flaws with the new amendment in today’s editorial: “No on CACR 34: Quarter-loaf is not enough.”

Note that SB 530 and SB 539 were amended by the Finance Committee so my report is different from my previous reports on these bills.

The Bad: Bills that SHOULD NOT have passed, but DID.

SB 350: Another increased “fee” which is being used to raise revenue rather than simply to cover the cost of providing a service. That’s the purpose of taxes, not fees. This bill extends the surcharge on certain probate courts entry fees.

SB 530: This kindergarten aid bill mandates kindergarten for all communities, including the 12 school districts which have not voted to offer public kindergarten. This bill is unconstitutional because it creates a new state mandate without fully funding it, a violation of Part I, Art. 28-a of our state constitution. It also repeals current state law that prohibits school boards from spending any money beyond that authorized by the voters (the “no means no” statutes, RSA 32:8 and 32:11). This one would be in the running for Worst Bill of the Year but the next one is even worse!

SB 539: The latest education funding plan adds $128 million dollars to create a nearly one BILLION dollar plan over the next biennium. This is in a year when we’re facing a $200 million deficit and the bill contains no means of raising the necessary funds. This bill is paving the way for new broad based taxes, most likely an income tax. The arbitrary costing formula relies on the number of “free and reduced lunch” students as well artificially inflated teacher and staff salaries (apparently an “adequate education” requires that all staff, including janitors, have at least three years of experience — I’m not making that up!). The bill re-establishes 37 donor towns and it also violates the state constitution’s ban on unfunded mandates (Part I, Art. 28-a).

Fiscally irresponsible, arbitrary, irrational, and unconstitutional, this might well be the Worst Bill of the Year!

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The House met very briefly last week to continue voting on bills which have already passed the Senate. Continuing our one-a-week record of victories, we managed to overturn the committee report on SB 416 which would have allowed planning boards to waive their own regulations. This means that a 3-person majority on a 5-person committee could simply choose to ignore local regulations willy-nilly. Such a change would seriously undermine public confidence that laws will be applied fairly and equally. Fortunately, the legislature recognized this problem and defeated the bill 195-120.

At the end of the year, I plan to send out a compete and updated Good/Bad/Ugly list which includes information about which “bad bills” the Senate ultimately killed and which ones the Governor signed. In advance of this, I’m hoping to expand the distribution of this list. If you know any NH voters who might be interested in joining this list — especially if they live in Windham or Salem — please invite them to join and have them email me! Also, I’m always available for any questions you might have.

The Good: Bills that SHOULD have passed, but DID NOT.

SB 464: This bill would’ve provided more flexibility to the state in assigning hard-to-place children in foster homes.

The Bad: Bills that SHOULD NOT have passed, but DID.

SB 259: Another business regulation that’s attempting to push what the free market is already solving. The bill establishes energy efficiency standards on certain appliances, forbidden the sale of appliances which don’t meet the standard. Energy-conscious consumers are already demanding more energy-efficient models and the market is responding. On the other hand, the banned models are often less expensive, so this bill makes things harder for those who can least afford it.

The Ugly: Bills so bad that even the Dems wouldn’t pass them!

SB 470: This bill’s title was: “allowing lobbyists and those connected to lobbyists to sit on committees established by the judicial branch” — yikes!

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