Bullying happens at the state house. There’s so much of it that it should be renamed Fairgrounds School, known locally as the host of the Ward 6 polls and by WMUR as the Nashua epicenter of bullying. Legislator scorecards are a toned-down version of bullying in the sense that they’re carrots on a stick for weak Republicans.
So?
I had never read or heard the word GENUFLECT until my then-senator admonished me in a text when I vented about a particular group’s scorecard and its management dragging its feet when it published misinformation about me as a Rep candidate in 2022. I had to look it up, and I later observed that genuflect has to be one of his favorite words. COVID tyranny spawned this group, and I happen to support its values, but not necessarily the personalities of its management. I won’t get into trashing each member of the brass individually, but in it is a loud-mouthed Trump hater and several arrogant people who are quick to kick you in the shin over any disagreement or criticism. Let’s move on.
The next group had ousted its founder and experienced some personnel changes in its upper management. Those things are not uncommon, and I happen to support their views on many issues, but NOT on this housing bill madness. I took their survey in 2020 as a rep candidate and gave honest answers. Later that campaign season, they did another survey, which was focused on family leave. I object to being forced to pay for someone else’s free vacation, regardless of the reason for the employee’s time off, because participation should be voluntary. Choosing a job that offers this amenity (or not) is also a voluntary decision.
To the Hoosier and the lawyer, who dislike the use of the word LOBBYIST, I point out that shopping for a job and accepting an employment offer should be based on informed consent, and the same should apply to shopping for a place to live or property to buy. One example of bullying is this particular group and its apologists accusing people of being anti-family when they disagree with them or criticize them on various policy issues. I reject government-forced preferential treatment of one group at the expense of another, no matter what the family situation of either group happens to be.
Another group has a lot of money from influential elderly brothers far from NH. This group offers plenty of freebies in the form of generously catered events, workshops, and campaign resources. Unfortunately, its upper management hates Trump and spared no expense in bombarding people with daily junk mail before 1/23/24. Yeah, free speech, we all know that. This is also a scorecard group as are the previous ones I just mentioned. My ex-senator has been an ardent critic, claiming they’re not anti-choice enough for him, but his other complaints have included that this group supports open borders and pot. I don’t care about his favorite issue as much as the previous group I mentioned, but I certainly oppose open borders and had to look into that one. I found information contrary to his complaint, and upon showing it to him, he replied with evidence backing up his complaint, but let’s move on to pot. I personally don’t care about pot, but I know plenty of passionate people on both sides of that issue.
Rep Gary Daniels, prior to his 2-year involuntary hiatus from the legislature, was the Senate Finance chair and very much well-liked by that last group. Not only did he sit next to Kevin in the Senate chamber, but their voting records were almost identical, including voting against pot. Stay with me here, because this is where the selective pressure comes into play. That well-funded group unleashed mailers to District 12 constituents, instructing them to pressure their senator into changing his mind, but they did NOT do the same in District 11. Fans of this group should be asking why. As much as we might like the Dems to be counted as only 3/5 of a vote most of the time, a vote is a vote in the Senate chamber, and all 24 of them count equally.
I could go on and discuss other groups, such as two more that have been champing at the bit about zoning, but I want to return to genuflecting and the matter of housing. While I don’t always agree with Kevin, there’s plenty of merit to what he said to me in 2022 as a Rep candidate, and it’s quotable. “They want you to genuflect to their altar of political superiority, stay independent.” Shortly after he texted those words, we had a conversation about scorecards, and the takeaways from that discussion can apply to scorecards issued by ANY group, no matter how popular the group is.
Unfortunately, some of the groups out there, particularly the 4th and 5th groups, which have a lot of overlap in their memberships, have the flavor of a political Jonestown. That’s very worrisome to people willing to pay attention to the truth, the whole truth, and all the inconvenient details of the truth. I urge members of any group, but particularly the 3rd, 4th, and 5th groups, to eschew blind obedience to their scorecards and meticulously examine the things these groups are promoting and ponder why they’re promoting this housing issue. And I’ll finish with a question for the readers to ask. Why are the 3rd, 4th and 5th group ignoring and avoiding questions about the Metropolitan Abundance Project?
