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Today’s New Hampshire Union Leader has three interesting stories that reveal the start of the public exposure of the NH Democrats’ emerging scandal surrounding the sale of taxpayer-prepared statewide voter lists. (Item #5 of NHGOP Chair Cullen’s top ten reasons things are looking up for Granite State Republicans) As it turns out, the unfolding story involves more than just Ray Buckley and the NH Democratic Party. As luck would have it, our two Democratic Congresspeople, Paul Hodes and Carol Shea Porter are knee deep in the muck as well. Turns out their recent "franked" (taxpayer-funded) mailings are connected to the voter-list brouhaha. Uh-oh! According to one of the UL stories,
both congressional offices last year directly or indirectly purchased from the state Democratic Party the state-generated voter mailing lists, which, under state law, should be made available only to entities that use them solely for "election or political campaign" purposes. [emphasis added- DL]
Did you get that? Let me repeat the last sentence about the mailing lists purchased by the NH Dem’s Dynamic Duo:
under state law, should be made available only to entities that use them solely for "election or political campaign" purposes.
Now, it’s bad enough that the state Democratic Party created a nice new "revenue stream" through the sale of the taxpaper-prepared voter lists (purchased from state of NH for less than $500 and resold at $5000!), but if it can shown that these lists were used for the generation of "franked" Congressional mailings, then that’s even worse. Why? Again, from one of the other UL stories:
House rules forbid the use of taxpayer funded, so-called "franked" mailers for self-promotion or political purposes [underline added- DL]
And of course both Hodes and CSP deny their mailings were anything of the sort. If that’s the case, then the lists, were used illegally, because, as we noted above, state law dictates they ONLY be used for political purposes. Sounds like no matter how you look at this one, the Granite State Democrats are in a fine mess. The tiny acorn becomes the mighty oak. This scandal, though sounding somewhat innocuous at first, promises to be something big, I think. Stay tuned. Something tells me this will make the Republicans and their phone-jamming scandal look like pikers in comparison…
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Click here to read thethird piece about this matter. Kudos to the Union Leader and its staff for their excellent reporting on this!