Well of COURSE Progressive Kathy Sullivan wants more centralization of Govt functions! - Granite Grok

Well of COURSE Progressive Kathy Sullivan wants more centralization of Govt functions!

Kathy_Sullivan_Shrill_KathyTo be honest, from just an engineer’s view, I used to think the same way – small State, duplication of effort, higher costs, inefficiencies;  do we need three levels of Govt?

Sidenote: with the Regional Planning Commissions, we actually have 4 levels but that’s for another post

If the goal is just in having the most efficiently running government possible, no, we don’t need Counties in a state that is just 1.3 million resident strong.  Heck, I could take an ax and make it REAL efficient (for I do think there are far better ways to get the same things done with a far more limited (and less expensive) government.  But now having been a political blogger that has been FORCED to relearn our political history and philosophy, it really is NOT not the point.  It is that checks and balances are needed, even in a small State as ours as humans are subject to, well, failure.

Failure to execute properly, failure to remain within the spirit of The Law (and our Constitution), failure to remain humble, and failure to keep from getting greedy (for power, for money).  Checks and balances were put in place to PREVENT abuses at best and to compartmentalize the after-effects.  Those that wrote our Constitution, I am afraid, knew well how important this was; Sullivan with her Progressive “technocrats with only good intentions” believes she knows better.

Besides, Kathy Sullivan (former NH Dem Chair and current Dem National Committee member) did a pretty bad job in making the attempt to cut out the Counties in her UL Op-Ed a bit ago as her “shooting star examples” are not what she wants us to think they are – pssst, these can happen at ANY level of government.  Her single raison d’etre in this exercise is to shape the battlespace for the furthering of power to Concord and to the bureaucracy emanating from there.  A few comments along the way:

We need to rethink some of our county government positions

TWO RECENT incidents involving county government again reminded me that it is way past time for the Legislature to take a long, hard look at county government, with an eye toward eliminating some of its functions and consolidating others. We are, after all, a state of only about 1.3 million people. Do we need three layers of government (four, if you count the federal government) in their current forms?

The first incident took place in Grafton County (the one to the north of Sullivan County). No one filed for the office of Grafton County Register of Probate, for good reason. Formerly, the register of probate in each county had a significant amount of authority and responsibility. The register was generally responsible for the administration of the county probate court in his or her county. These were the courts that handled estates, name changes and adoptions. In addition, the probate office managed all the estate records for the county.

As a result of a recent court reorganization, the probate courts were folded into the circuit court system. The administrative duties of the registers were eliminated, and the register salaries reduced to a nominal $100. However, since the office of register of probate is created in the New Hampshire Constitution, the position continues, and elections are held. This year, a Dartmouth student noticed that there were no candidates for the position in Grafton County, so he organized a write-in campaign for one of his fraternity brothers. The result: Michael Wopinski, a Dartmouth senior, was elected with 20 votes.

Well, sometimes you get the results you want – and never game out the problems that can arise from those decisions.  Sure, technology can transform process and procedures but it can’t change human nature.  And what failed to happen was that the “resulting holes in the system” were missed and then, like human nature is wont to do, was exploited.  The problem ISN’T that there is county government, it is one of human nature.  Sullivan only blames the system – and to a degree, she is right but her remedy is completely wrong.

The job won’t interfere with his duties as the Dartmouth rugby team social secretary. As one local attorney said in the Valley News, “I am unaware of any role that the elected official has in the probate office since the reorganization of the probate.” Wopinski won’t serve long; he plans to move to New York after graduation.

Gosh, Kathy, if that is his “intent”, and he voted for himself, does that put him in jeopardy of the NH AG paying him a visit for violating NH election law?  After all, it is the Democrats that have all but made it clear that unless we know of someone’s “intent”, NH election law has more holes than a lobster pot.  SO THANK YOU for catching a lawbreaker for us.

Good for Wopinski and his buddies for executing a successful write-in campaign. Bad for the Legislature, which has not submitted to voters a constitutional amendment eliminating this position. Until the New Hampshire Constitution is amended, we will continue to waste tax dollars paying for the election of 10 county registers of probate.

As I said – it is the fault of those “redesigning” the system within the level of County government that are at fault.  NO fault at all for the Legislature at all – for you have provided NO proof that the aforementioned system design defect was even brought to light, did you?  Thus, you, at worst, make the Legislature look like the Keystone Kops (which label may apply but for other reasons) – with that absence, I can only presume that it was the vaunted Progressive technocrats that made this decision – after all, I have NEVER seen a Progressive ever decide to allow Power of Government ever flow downward back to the more local level or to Citizens but only upward.

The second incident involved the Rockingham County Attorney’s office, which is gaining more headlines for internal issues than it is for successful prosecutions. Like the registers of probate, county attorneys are elected. Unlike the current registers, however, county attorneys continue to have significant responsibilities. In counties with small populations, the county attorneys actually prosecute cases. In others, the county attorney is more of an administrator, overseeing a staff of attorneys and other staff.

The Rockingham County Attorney’s office has been a mess for at least a year. The former county attorney was suspended by the state Attorney General in late 2013 because of allegations of inappropriate conduct toward female staff and other questions about management of the office. After suing the Attorney General, he was allowed back to work. He decided not to run for re-election, but this did not end the controversy. Less than 24 hours after the new county attorney was sworn in, she fired an assistant prosecutor. According to newspaper reports, that assistant prosecutor had provided information to the state’s investigators during the investigation of the prior county attorney. Charges, counter charges and drama ensued. I do not know who is right or wrong in this ongoing saga. What I do know is that neither the county commissioners nor the Attorney General has the authority needed when there are problems in a county attorney’s office because it is an elected position. Problems may not happen often, but when they do, it creates issues for the administration of justice. Electing 10 of the top law enforcement officers in the state by partisan ballot, rather than hiring based on merit, makes little sense. Under the current system, a bad county attorney can be elected because of party affiliation in a wave year, while an excellent county attorney can be voted out just because he or she has the wrong party affiliation.

This is a non-starter – it is simply a problem that HAPPENED to be at the county level.  She is right in that it became a media story that turned out to have legs – but this could have also been duplicated at any of our larger departments (specifically to that function, not exactly apples to oranges but similar).  Once again, it was a failure (or perception that it was a failure) to do the job correctly.  Yes, it did slow the discharge of justice, especially because it is an elected position.

But what is to say that OTHER problems can’t arise as the bureaucracy grows ever larger?  In such an Administrative State, it becomes infinitely harder to hold non-elected officials and employees accountable to the citizens that pay the salaries to these “public servants”.  That election process makes someone absolutely accountable to the voters – and emphasizes that it is supposed to be that public servants are to SERVE the public and not become an entity unto themselves.

Which we are seeing as it gets larger and larger and issues more and more regulations to 1) self-justify its existence in “doing something” and 2) moves the tipping point of who serves who as those regulations have the force of Law.  And the ordinary person has little they can do to fight the Leviathan.

This is the story in Hillsborough County, when Peter McDonough, the longtime county attorney, was voted out by a Republican wave in 2002. Since then, Hillsborough has had five different county attorneys. In addition, why pay several county attorneys to be administrators? How much could taxpayers save if, instead of 10 administrative systems, there was one?

Streamlining and consolidating county government is not something that can be done overnight. Unless the Legislature takes a serious look at it, however, we will not know whether there is a better and less expensive way to provide county services.

Again, the “watch this hand” and don’t notice the other.  Local control is the game – the more local the better it is for Accountability by citizens.  ‘Tis far easier to be able to walk or short drive to someone elected official in my town than it is having to go to Concord in order to seek redress. THAT is how our system is supposed to work with Citizens in charge.  But as Government grows ever larger and is either embued with more powers by elected officials who fail to work with an adherence to the Law and Spirit of our Constitutions, or those Administrative departments simply TAKE that power for themselves (like Grokster Susan nailing the Earl of Sweeny in the Public Safety Department over unauthorized changes to carry applications, for a small but important example), that Accountability becomes more and more important to recognize – and protect.

Kathy Sullivan is an attorney in Manchester and a member of the Democratic National Committee. She was state Democratic Party chairman from 1999-2007.

She is also a lover of larger and more powerful government because GOVERNMENT knows better what is for us than we do ourselves.  And that is FAR more dangerous indeed – right, Jonathan Gruber?

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