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Legislation

Save HB 540 – Biannual Auto Inspections [updated]

Steve MacDonald

It’s not unsafe.  It will not turn into a short film titled ‘Death on The Highway II,’ but it will save everyone a few hours and a few bucks.  It’s HB 540, the bill to move New Hampshire from annual auto inspections to every other year.

Opponents have come up with all kinds of reasons why we shouldn’t do this but my favorite was this; that an inspector might have to let something go that was not yet in violation but that could become a violation before the next inspection.  So we’re all unsafe, irresponsible dopes?  No sense of self preservation apparently either.  We just drive along until the next inspection….I don’t think so but nice try.  The other classes of opponents are bureaucrats and rent seeking mechanics who enjoy state mandated visits to their repair shops.  I’ve no time for them either. 

Then there is this.  It is testimony from Rep Steve Vaillancourt, a fellow Blogger at NH Insider, and a guy who can post more content than me on a good day.  He’s also someone with whom I disagree on most social issues, but we see eye to eye on taxes and spending (as far as I can tell), and on HB 540.

Here is Steve’s testimony before the Senate Committee, courtesy of BikerBill (on the jump).  It’s only three plus minutes so check it out.   Then check out Steve’s Blog at NHI and Bill’s Youtube Channel, both worthy excursions across the New Hampshire Political Landscape.

And don’t forget to contact the committee to tell them you support HB 540.  And remember to be polite.

Email

james.rausch@leg.state.nh.us

dboutin1465@comcast.net

james.forsythe@leg.state.nh.us

molly.kelly@leg.state.nh.us

nancy.stiles@leg.state.nh.us

Phone

Senator Jim Rausch (R-Derry) (Senate District 19) 271-8630.

Senator David Boutin (R-Hooksett) (Senate District 16) 271-2709

Senator James Forsythe (R-Strafford) (Senate District 4) 271-3096

Senator Molly Kelly (D-Keene) (Senate District 10) 271-2166

Senator Nancy Stiles (R-Hampton) (Senate District 24) 271-6933

 

 

 

Update: Removed Senator Jim Luthur who is not on this committee; added the correct email for Senator Jim Rausch who is. Thanks to our commenters below for the correction.

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Republican Change In New Hampshire

Steve MacDonald

NH State SealH/T to Patricia Wulfson for sending me this first.

“The New Hampshire House of Representatives received a mandate from the voters of this state to cut state spending; reduce taxes and fees; return fiscal sanity to the state; promote economic development and create jobs; mend a state retirement system that was nearing insolvency; provide our children with an education based on excellence; protect the personal rights and freedoms of its citizens; and maintain transparency in state government. Listed here is a compilation of legislation passed by the 2011 New Hampshire House of Representatives in response to that message that they received in November from the voters.

 

Trans-formative Change:

• Passed a constitutional amendment to require a super-majority in the House and Senate to raise taxes or borrowing. (CACR 6)

• For the first time in NH history, that included more that 50 attempts in the legislature, the House passed a constitutional amendment to expand local control of education funding by returning authority to elected officials, not unelected judges. (CACR 12) Setting an example for our citizens by “living within our means:”

• Passed a fiscally responsible budget that, (1) was balanced by using realistic revenue figures; (2) did not increase taxes or fees; (3) does not downshift onto local property taxpayers; and (4) does not increase borrowing, setting New Hampshire on a financially sustainable path will allow our economy to grow and create more jobs. (HB 1 & 2)

• Passed an education funding formula that maintains existing levels of aid to communities and allows additional targeted aid to needy cities and towns. (HB 337)

• Passed a bill to allow local communities to enact tax and spending caps. (HB 341) Moving our economy forward, creating more jobs and putting out the “Open for Business sign” in New Hampshire once again.

• Passed a small business tax cut to protect reasonable compensation from the business profits tax. (HB 557)

(more on the jump…)

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Who Missed The Vote? [updated]

Steve MacDonald

Someone asked…who didn’t vote on HB1 and HB2.  Who are these reps anyway?  OK, we’re here to deliver.  HB 1 here, HB 2 on the jump!

[update] So everyone knows, I am not passing judgment here, just posting the list.  Plenty of these folks will have been excused, or approved absences, even important or necessary business that kept them away or took them away from the State House.  Your job is verify the absences of your reps if they concern you, and if you are unable to find good cause, discuss it with them as time permits.

Only four democrats skipped the vote on HB 1 while  twenty six Republicans did not cast a vote.

House Rep Party County District Vote
Beattie, Thomas  Republican Hillsborough 17 Not Voting
Belanger, Ronald  Republican Rockingham 4 Not Voting
Brosseau, Charles  Republican Grafton 6 Not Voting
Coughlin, Sean  Republican Hillsborough 6 Not Voting
DeJong, Cameron  Republican Hillsborough 9 Not Voting
Dowling, Patricia  Republican Rockingham 5 Not Voting
Dwinell, Richard  Republican Cheshire 5 Not Voting
Eaton, Stephanie  Republican Grafton 1 Not Voting
Emerton, Larry  Republican Hillsborough 7 Not Voting
Flanders, Donald  Republican Belknap 4 Not Voting
Hawkes, Samuel  Democrat Cheshire 3 Not Voting
Hogan, Timothy  Republican Hillsborough 23 Not Voting
Hutchinson, Karen  Republican Rockingham 3 Not Voting
Huxley, Robert  Republican Hillsborough 3 Not Voting
Keane, Thomas  Republican Merrimack 13 Not Voting
Kingsbury, Robert  Republican Belknap 4 Not Voting
Larsen, Kirst
en 		 Republican Strafford 2 Not Voting
Moody, Marcia  Democrat Rockingham 12 Not Voting
Parison, James  Republican Hillsborough 3 Not Voting
Peckham, Michele  Republican Rockingham 13 Not Voting
Pelletier, Marsha  Democrat Strafford 5 Not Voting
Pepino, Leo  Republican Hillsborough 11 Not Voting
Quandt, Matt  Republican Rockingham 13 Not Voting
Roberts, Kris  Democrat Cheshire 3 Not Voting
Sapienza, Marie  Republican Rockingham 8 Not Voting
Simpson, Tyler  Republican Belknap 1 Not Voting
Souza, Kathleen  Republican Hillsborough 11 Not Voting
Stroud, Kathleen  Republican Hillsborough 19 Not Voting
Summers, James  Republican Hillsborough 26 Not Voting
Terrio, Ross  Republican Hillsborough 14 Not Voting

 

Click through for HB 2

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Spoiled Brat Unions Don’t Want Parity – Again.

Steve MacDonald

The measure states–if I understand it correctly–that if the union contract expires and has not been renewed, and no new contract is yet negotiated, those employees become at-will workers who can be treated (wait for it) like everyone else.

Teachers Get Help From Republicans

Steve MacDonald

A bill (HB 375) is being debated in New Hampshire that, if passed, would protect teachers from civil or criminal penalties when they use physical force in the classroom. The bill is designed to protect teachers who feel helpless against aggressive students because they are afraid of being sued by parents.

How About Some Cheese With Your Hamm?

Steve MacDonald

Tax TrapIf the democrats in New Hampshire want anyone to take them seriously on why we should not lower the cigarette tax, they had best find a better spokesperson than House rep. Christine Hamm from the Peoples Republic of Hopkinton.(PRH)

From this mornings union leader..

Rep. Christine Hamm, D-Hopkinton, argued against the change. She said no state has seen tobacco tax revenue increase after a tax cut.

“This is yet another expensive exercise in futility,” she said. When it comes to tobacco, she said, “Every tax hike produces new revenue, and every tax cut reduces it.”

Oregon tried a 10-cent cut, and saw revenues fall by 10 percent, she said.

“To do the same thing would be fiscally stupid,” Hamm said

You know what else is stupid?  Listening to Christine Hamm.  Oh, and comparing Oregon to New Hampshire?  There are almost no demographic similarities, the most important of which is the sheer size of Oregon and the proximity of neighboring states which are also huge.

No one is driving across Washington State, or up from California, or Idaho, or anywhere else to buy cigarettes in Oregon.  Only Washington State taxes them more (the last I checked.) No incentive, no gain.

But here in New England, where people can buy almost everything cheaper in New Hampshire, the classic New England maxim does not apply–"you can get there from her," or here from there, and they do.  People shop here from other states to save money.  So reducing taxes on cigarettes (or anything else) gives them one more incentive to make the trip or to buy more while they are here.

Need proof?

Raising the tax already cost us revenue.  Last August Maine announced that it’s sales had increased 20%.  That is most likely money that used to get spent here but which the tax hike diverted back to Maine. (I wrote about it here)

And more Proof?

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Northern Pass: Redux Of 1970’s Pope County Michigan

Rick Olson

Northern Pass wants to build a build a 180-mile power line corridor through 44 Granite State Communities from as far North as Pittsburg down to Deerfield.

Powerline_Book.jpg

House Bill 648, “An act relative to eminent domain petitions by public utilities” brought 250 supporters, roughly 170 of which are property owners located on the proposed or alternative route of the project. According to the Bill’s analysis section, the bill seeks to, “Prohibit public utilities from petitioning for permission to take private land or property rights for the construction or operation of a private large scale transmission line.” The bill drew overwhelming support by those who fear their land might be taken from them or rendered worthless.

Such fears are not without precedent. This fight is not a new fight. This very situation played out in Minnesota in the early 1970’s where farmers waged a fight against big power companies taking farmland by eminent domain. The farmers ultimately lost this fight. This account is detailed in the book Powerline: the first battle of America’s energy war, written by the late Senator Paul D. Wellstone and Barry M. Casper (Forward in 2003 by lefty Senator Tom Harkin). Aside from the book being written by a couple of liberal progressives, the book is otherwise instructive in the plight of these farmers against Big Power.

Arguments against the project range from blighting the landscape and disparately affecting the tourism industry to devaluation of land have been leveled. those are all reasonable. But there is one component given very little attention in the discussion here.

Big Power will nearly always make an attractive financial offer to you for a utility easement over your land. But what few really comprehend what happens after such an easement is given by a landowner. Read the account of a Fond-du-Lac Wisconsin Farmer that granted a power company a lease to install a wind turbine on his farm land.

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Elderly Drivers: To Test or Not To Test?

Rick Olson

Representative Bob Williams wants to discontinue road testing for Elderly Drivers. Is that a wise idea? House Bill 549 eliminates the requirement for a road test currently in place for Granite State drivers over age seventy five. Prime Sponsor of the bill is 84-year-old Representative Bob Williams, a Concord Democrat. Williams calls the present law, … Read more

Reuters Headline: What The?

Steve MacDonald

Reuters is referring to DOMA, the defense of marriage act, which is not an anti-gay marriage law. It does not prevent a state from passing a same sex marriage law. It is a federal law that allows states to define marriage for themselves and does not require them to recognize any form of marriage which the majority of that states residents may object to.

Keeping Family Court Simple, Ain’t So Simple

Rick Olson

A Union Leader editorial today, entitled, “Keep it simple: Family court rules work,” asserts that HB 259, “AN ACT requiring the supreme court to adopt rules of evidence for the judicial branch family division“, is a bad idea. The Editorial suggests that implementation of evidentiary rules would overburden a system where the majority of the litigants are not represented by attorneys, give an inequitable disadvantage to a party who is represented by counsel over one who is not, and would drum up business for lawyers, making the system unwieldy and inefficient. I couldn’t disagree more with my friends at the Union Leader.

divorce-decree_small.jpg

The editorial informs us that About 70 percent of people who use the family courts do so without lawyers, mostly because they can’t afford them. While we might agree that it is desirable to have a court system that is accessible to laymen, not being able to afford a lawyer should not absolve people from the responsibility to be reasonable in what they present to the family court in furtherance of their legal positions. The UL asserts, “Alleged facts can be rebutted by the other side,” and while that is fundamentally true, the UL overlooks the notion that unsubstantiated allegations from a bitter and angry spouse inevitably triggers costly ancillary resources and services.

The UL writes, “The loose rules allow people to, say, introduce a phone bill as evidence instead of have a phone company employee testify, or have a witness present to back up an allegation if it’s challenged instead of having to put all witnesses on the stand.” That notion exists already and is more commonly referred to as a “prima facie” offering; that is, the evidence is presumed true on its face unless otherwise rebutted.

The UL tells us, (the present system allows) cases to proceed swiftly, but most importantly it allows people to get divorced or settle custody disputes without hiring lawyers they otherwise cannot afford. Few would disagree hiring legal counsel to navigate through the twists and turns of a divorce case can be costly. There are a significant number of people who simply do not possess the financial means to retain legal services. But what the UL also fails to point out from a fiscal standpoint, is that in a significant number of cases where children are concerned, a guardian ad litem is frequently appointed and the court invariably generates an order requiring one or both parties to pay for the services of a court-appointed GAL…who is most often, A lawyer. And, whether or not they can afford it is inconsequential when they get that first bill from the office of cost containment.

Streamlined Judicial economy is hardly a credible reason for fast food-style divorces that forego evidentiary standards in favor of expediency. The New Hampshire Supreme Court is chucked full of slip opinions deciding, “what is evidence” and “what is not evidence,” all argued by lawyers, I might add, where the personal philosophies of judges and masters prevailed, triggering those appeals.

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Smoking Weed With Dignity

Steve MacDonald

Chuck Weed is back again to take another shot at the death with dignity bill. This year it is called HB531 and according to this morning’s paper it is about to die without much dignity. I think we can call that smoking Weed. (Sorry medical marijuana advocates, this is not a story about pot.)

Two Congressmen And A Free Throw

Steve MacDonald

HR 1 The US House just finished it’s work on HR1, cleaning up after democrats who in 2010 abrogated yet another  obligation when they found themselves incapable of writing the budget they really wanted right before an election.

The liberal-progressives wanted more spending but that was not politically advantageous.  And since the single driving-force behind all Democrat decisions is politics the budget got relegated to the back of the bus, where the electorate’s short attention spans were meant to forget that democrats were never fiscally conscious representatives–they just tried to play them on the campaign trail. 

But avoiding the high profile budget battle was more evidence that they had something to hide. The Democrat House majority was appropriately sedated and placed under observation, while the Senate saw minor adjustments but no change in leadership.  So the process of changing our spending ways would still have to go through a Democrat controlled Senate and across the desk of a President who thinks the words "spending cuts" are just a rhetorical flourish used to provide cover for more spending.

Obama’s budget is proof enough of that.

But Obama only proposes a budget.  The House is in charge of spending.  So the new Republican congress went to the back seat of the Hopey-changey bus and picked up the budget obligations abandoned by the 111th congress.  This wwas a free shot at changing the fiscal direction of the country before writing their own first official budget, which was not due until later in 2011.  It was a gimme, a free throw, but one that had to survive the democrat Senate and the Spender in Chief.

So how did it turn out?

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Second Amendment Bills: Invitations To Prevarication

Rick Olson

HB 330 came before the House Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee yesterday. As expected both bills were opposed by law enforcement community and as often is, it’s reasonably predictable what the nature of those objections are.

New Hampshire State Police Capt. John Lalacheur told the committee that changes in the law will make it difficult for police to fight gang and drug violence. Lalacheur also citied issues with the Outlaw HB_330_Graphic.jpgMotorcycle group and an upcoming Hells Angels World meet slated for this summer. Captain Lalacheur also made another statement to the committee that caught my attention. In speaking of the current laws supposed limitations, he asserted to the committee that only felons are precluded from receiving a license so a person with a history of misdemeanor assaults can legally obtain (and must be issued) a New Hampshire Pistol Revolver License. We all know full well that simply isn’t true.

On March 31, 2006 Dover Police Chief William Fenniman sent a letter to Edward J. Bleiler, notifying him that his New Hampshire Pistol Revolver License was revoked citing that Bleiler was, “not a suitable person at this time.” Bleiler appealed the revocation in District court as prescribed by statute and the District Court upheld the action by the Dover Police Chief. This case was heard in the New Hampshire Supreme Court which upheld the District court’s affirmation of Bleiler’s revocation.

It is important to point out that Bleiler was never charged with a crime. The Dover Police Department revoked his license on the basis that his haughty, raucous behavior was such that he has caused several people to be alarmed by his inappropriate firearms handling, silly statements, and refusal to address them when asked to do so. (It doesn’t matter whether one agrees or disagrees with the court’s holding in this case. All who possess, handle and carry guns know there are things one simply does not say or do when exercising constitutional rights)

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RGGI is One – Less – Tax

Steve MacDonald

The New Hampshire House voted overwhelmingly to take the state out of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) yesterday. The vote signals the beginning of the end of another failed left wing experiment.

Don’t Ban My Cell Phone – Ban Teenage Drivers Instead

Steve MacDonald

Ban cell phones?HB 546 would ban cell phone use in your vehicle while driving.  But is that the actual problem?  Up until we had Ray LaHood the phone-o-phobe running the NHTSA from the department of Transportation most of the data indicated that talking on a cell phone was no less dangerous than having a conversation in the vehicle with another person.  As of this writing, you can’t find that data anymore.  In fact the NHTSA and the government have a dedicated web site to distracted driving that highlights cell phones as a major cause of driver distraction and even Oprah is in on the action, but that tidbit appears to be missing.

Suspicious?  You should be.

Looking at the large picture cell phones have become the bogeyman equivalent of CO2.  The Democrats and their green $pecial intere$t friend$ say CO2 is making the planet hotter but despite there being millions more tons of it about it hasn’t gotten warmer.  It has gotten cooler.  And rich liberals keep buying up expensive ocean front property despite dire warnings of rising sea-levels.  Insurance scam or hypocrisy?

So what’s the deal with cell phones?

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Protecting Your Vote

Steve MacDonald

You can probably think of a list of things you need a photo ID for but if you live in New Hampshire voting is not one of them. HB 356 would change that. It will require a valid state issued photo ID to receive a ballot and vote in person.

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