Many Granite Staters are scratching their heads over how a Dem tax bill (HB451) could make it to the Corner office, especially with a red House and an even redder Senate. This is not the first time our Senate has failed to be a firewall against a bad House bill. Never forget Queen Sharon, Senate Judiciary, and the rest of that body in 2024 as the Damn Emperor signed the RTK tax (HB1002) later that summer.
I’ve already said a lot about the Senate, but no good Monday morning quarterbacking leaves stones unturned. How did HB451 even make it to the Senate? There was no House roll call or floor discussion because House Commerce put it on the Consent Calendar, giving it a first-class ticket to “the other side of the wall,” as members of both chambers often say when addressing their peers. Instead of saying “TO” the other side of the wall, I should say “THROUGH the wall,” to use Harry Potter parlance.
Do you know who’s big into Harry Potter? Victoria Sullivan Not only that, but Victoria did her homework and uncovered some unpleasant truths about PaintCare. She even presented her findings in the form of polite questions to Tim Lang during the January 7 meeting of the Senate and later tweeted more details. As many already know, 5 RINOs assisted the enemy camp in passing HB451, which is sadly NOT going back to the House because the Murphy amendment was not adopted.
House bills that pass the Senate in their unamended House form advance to the Corner Office, which is what’s happening with HB451. Don’t be fooled by Tim Lang hanging onto that bill all summer long and doing nothing to alter it! Let’s talk about why NO reps thought HB451 is a tax or have expressed regret. There are plenty of decent people in the House, but they’ve been duped by ENEMY OF 91A Rep Hunt, the chair of House Commerce. That’s one way to look at it. Another way to look at it is leadership incompetence; both the carelessness of Rep Hunt and the carelessness of the Speaker for having a careless rep in a leadership position. A team should be able to trust the captain, and Rep Hunt, failing to give HB451 the proper scrutiny it needed, has proven himself untrustworthy during the executive session. He did some grandstanding that day in claiming to be against new taxes, but his self-perceived “get out of jail free” card is claiming he doesn’t think it’s a tax. That makes Rep Hunt no better than Tim Lang or Melanie Levesque. If someone is delusional enough to think something is not true when it is true, how do you reason with an irrational person? Billy Joel says you should never argue with a crazy mind, but having crazy minds in our legislature is a problem, especially if they’re in leadership.
And back to all those good reps that voice voted to adopt a Consent Calendar containing HB451, Rep Hunt owes them an apology for blemishing their records. Dietrich Bonhoeffer has discussed the danger of stupidity and how it compares with malice. Whether Rep Hunt’s handling of HB451 as the Commerce chair was stupidity or malice, I don’t have enough intel to have an opinion, but Rindge voters ought to consider the question (in addition to his voting record) before filing time later this spring.
