Titanic struggle ahead in Concord
Kevin Landrigan
Published: Sunday, May 4, 2008
Titanic struggle ahead in Concord
Democrats control the state Legislature and the governor's office, but the closing weeks of the legislative session are shaping up for some real tough battles on policy during an election year.
Without a state budget and no additional money to spend, this started like a year that would have fewer spirited fights between the branches.
It isn't going to end that way.
Speedy approval last week of the bill (HB 1,601) that moves the shoreland protection law changes from April 1 to July 1 stands as a stark exception to the tough issues still very much up in the air.
Here are some prominent examples:
Retirement reform: The state Senate has changed virtually all of a House of Representatives-passed bill, with most of the changes to the liking of organized labor and not to that of the municipal lobby.
Senate leaders argue the cost to the system would be about the same for either, so why take steps such as the House did to require policemen and firefighters to have to work five additional years before getting their pensions?
Gov. John Lynch has become increasingly involved in this issue, but, characteristically, is behind the scenes. Why? Lynch doesn't want to upset his labor supporters by taking positions they wouldn't like.
For example, Lynch is said to prefer the House option for a pay increase for pensioners, a one-time 2.5 percent boost in the coming year or at least $500
one-time 2.5 percent boost in the coming year or at least $500 that wouldn't be figured into the base pay for future cost-of-living raises.
The Senate alternative up for a vote Thursday would give a four-year, 2.5 percent cost-of-living increase to retirees that would be capped at $750 for anyone who gets more than $30,000 a year.
The Senate plan would give those making less than $20,000 for the next four years a supplemental allowance of $1,000 that wouldn't be considered pension income.
Rep. Anne-Marie Irwin, D- Peterborough, tried to draw Lynch out publicly to take a stand on retirement reform specifics last week, but he declined to get specific when asked about it during a budget briefing Thursday.
Education aid: The House and Senate agree largely on the principles, but not the practicality of grants for the next two years.
The House wants to cap education grants for cities and towns that would lose money under the education aid changes and to not give more than a 15 percent increase to communities that would.
Sex-related crimes: House and Senate leaders have a fundamental difference of opinion about the age of victims of child pornography.
The House wants to raise it from 16 to 18, arguing this complies with federal law and would protect older teens.
The position of Senate Democratic leaders is that there isn't a great deal of difference between a 16- and an 18-year-old person visually, and that the state's focus should be centered on protecting its youngest residents from exploitation.
Prosecutors, police and domestic-violence advocates are also unhappy with a Senate committee's rewrite of their changes to the Sex Offender Registry that the House adopted in March.
One of them would remove the address of a sex offender's out-of-state employer from the public list, while another seeks to be able to suspend the driver's license of someone who refuses to register with the state within 30 days after conviction.
Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative: This would have New Hampshire join nine others to require power producers to buy allowances from the state for every ton of greenhouse gas they emit.
House and Senate leaders appear ready to fight over how much of that money should go to energy-efficiency projects and how much should be set aside to lower utility rates.
Another day, another change
House Democratic leaders have unified behind a proposed amendment to the state Constitution on education funding.
The $64 question is: Will this be the one that could garner enough votes to pass, ending more than a decade of failed questions that have come to the House?
This won't be known for sure until two key players are heard from definitively: Lynch and House Deputy Republican Leader David Hess, of Hooksett.
Both would likely have to climb aboard for this proposition to get the necessary 237 votes to make it out of the lower chamber.
The support of Speaker Terie Norelli, D-Portsmouth, was critical to restarting an amendment drive this year after a disappointing outcome for a 2007 version that had the backing of Lynch and other House Democratic leaders.
This edition has some built-in advantages to try to appeal to wavering House Democrats who abandoned their leadership. For starters, it doesn't change the standard of review of education aid laws by the Supreme Court.
The 2007 edition did, as it gave lawmakers the right to "reasonably define'' the level of education aid and standards school districts must meet.
That's one of the primary reasons why the slimmest of majorities in the House Democratic caucus
Lynch launching an aggressive lobbying effort.
That proposal also ensured that all communities would at least get some amount of money.
The latest plan doesn't change the role of the court, but it gives the Legislature maximum flexibility within the cost of an adequate education to target as much of that money to the neediest school districts.
It's clear that some liberal House Democrats won't go along with this language. They support the essence of the Claremont case rulings that the state's targeting is fine, but that it has to be above what is spent on an adequate education.
That's where Lynch and Hess come in.
Lynch is likely to endorse the proposal soon, because he has received much of what he wanted in this House Democratic alternative (CACR 34).
It's harder to fathom what Hess will do, because the amendment gives him little to cheer about in his camp.
Conservative House Republicans want the court out of the education funding mess, and moderate ones from the suburbs want some assurance that their richer towns would get some support.
On the other hand, this amendment allows future lawmakers to control the spiraling cost of education aid through the definition of what is adequate.
For example, the 2008 education aid bill that cleared the state Senate and is pending in the House sets the adequate education cost at just over $700 million.
Lawmakers then add more than another $230 million a year into the pot to reimburse schools for students who come from low-income families, who need special education or who are learning English as a second language.
Norelli has kept House GOP leaders in the loop and is hoping that contact helps secure some support.
"This is really about whether Republicans in the House want to be obstructionists and deny progress or do they want to be part of the solution," said one House leader, who asked not to be identified. "We remain optimistic."
Sin taxes
Lynch has come up with a budget-balancing strategy that the Legislature is likely to embrace. Sure, there could be falloff of some details. The House traditionally has voted against gambling taxes in recent years, so his proposal to slap an 18 percent sales tax on poker-tournament betting could slip through the cracks.
After all, last month the House was asked if it wanted to let chambers of commerce be able to conduct poker tournaments or Monte Carlo nights, as charities can. The vote to kill that bill was 276-39.
But politically, this balancing act is pretty bulletproof.
Yes, Lynch has gone back on his statement in January that no revenue increases would be needed to bring the state's fiscal shape into order. This will make him vulnerable to an attack from the GOP gubernatorial nominee this fall.
Yet the tax changes he has picked
Those sin taxes are the most popular option for getting revenue in any survey, with more than 70 percent voting in favor of raising the cigarette tax in past New Hampshire polls.
The increase in the cost of wine could be tweaked. Lynch wants to cut the discount from 20 percent to 10 percent for wine sold at the state's liquor warehouse.
Some House members were grumbling that change could hurt the smaller convenience and grocery stores that operate on a tighter profit margin. Smaller stores buy the wine at state liquor stores and get a 15 percent break; Lynch's change would eliminate it.
The House Finance panel will seriously consider carving out the smaller stores from this change, and that can be done without losing nearly the entire estimated $10 million windfall from the change. That's because Liquor Commission Chairman Mark Bodi points out 90 percent of the sales come from about 20 large retailers, including the big box discount stores and major grocery chains.
Interestingly, Bodi noted that these "off-premise'' licensees actually sell more wine than is sold at state liquor stores. Why? It isn't price, but convenience.
"They have 100 more locations in the state than we have liquor stores,'' Bodi said. "It's hard to compete with that kind of market penetration they have.''
The commission is examining ways it can lower the impact of this change on small retailers, he added.
Younger voters
New Hampshire isn't the only New England state seriously looking at letting younger people vote.
By the end of this month, the Supreme Court is likely to issue an advisory opinion on legislation here that would allow 17-year-olds to take part in primaries.
Vermont lawmakers are looking at doing the same thing, but through an amendment to that state's Constitution. The Vermont Senate has already approved the proposal.
This state's court could well decide that if New Hampshire wants to do this, it has to go the same constitutional amendment route, because ours says only those "18 years of age and upwards'' are permitted to vote.
Senate Majority Leader Joseph Foster, D-Nashua, believes his proposal could pass constitutional muster because primaries aren't elections, but contests for the political parties that the state runs.
Medicine audit
A pair of House committees will get to work May 15 with a briefing on the performance audit about the Board of Registration in Medicine.
The LBA audit includes 34 observations, numbers 117 pages and is among one of the most critical in recent years.
The House Executive Departments and Administration and the Health, Human Services and Elderly Affairs committees will conduct the session.
"It's a very complex report, and we need to quickly get down to working on it,'' said Irwin, who chairs the ED&A panel.
More for less
In exchange for less paperwork, it looks like lobbyists will have to pay more.
The House and Senate have already approved their own versions of legislation (HB 91) that would reduce monthly reporting of fees paid to lobbyists to four reports a year.
That's what the schedule had been before a 2006 reform act. That act also expanded the fees lobbyists had to publicly report to include the work they do trying to influence the executive branch of state government.
This reporting change would cost the state treasury, so Sen. Peter Burling, D-Cornish, has proposed a separate measure (HB 1,151) that would double the fee they must pay per client from $50 to $100 a year.
The $50 rate hasn't changed in more than two decades, and based on last year's reporting, it would raise about $45,000.
The Senate is likely to endorse the fee hike this week.
Medical money
Lynch received support from the Legislative Fiscal Committee for cutting $50 million from the state budget several months ago.
But last week, the panel balked at taking the step needed to carry out a big part of that blueprint, a cut to the state's acute-care hospitals.
Health and Human Services Commissioner Nicholas Toumpas had proposed achieving more than $3 million of a $7 million cut by shaving what the state pays hospitals for patients with Medicare by roughly 20 percent. This cut wouldn't have taken place in the so-called "critical-access'' hospitals that number about a dozen and are concentrated in the northern third of the state.
Rep. Marjorie Smith, D-Durham, called the cut "draconian'' and said the panel was reluctant to carry it out if there were other alternatives.
Apparently, there's at least one. Toumpas said the New Hampshire Hospital Association is examining whether it can classify a payment to the state as a "donation'' that would make them eligible for $2.3 million in federal support. Federal authorities have yet to weigh in on whether this would be legal.
The fiscal panel put the matter aside until a meeting next month.
Trend research
One of the best-kept secrets in economic forecasting is right here in New Hampshire.
It's called the Institute for Trend Research in Concord, and it produces a detailed monthly report on the national economy that includes 47 factors. The report is called Ecotrends, and it can be found at the company's Web site, www.ecotrends.org
The group has been in business for more than 20 years. It has nearly 400 business clients and is in the midst of creating a state economic report that it would publish on a monthly basis.
No more taxes
Republican congressional candidate John Stephen will have a special guest star with him at the official signing of the Americans for Tax Reform pledge against raising any taxes Friday.
ATR's president, Grover Norquist, will join him for the event.
Stephen got a pretty positive response when he met with the infamous Monday morning group of conservative lobbyists, movers and shakers that Norquist hosts.
Of course, Stephen's GOP opponent, former Congressman Jeb Bradley, also supports the pledge, as he did the three previous times running for the 1st Congressional District seat.
Stephen will hold his announcement tour May 12, when he'll crisscross the 1st District in a comfy motor home owned by John Labombard, of Lebanon.
Labombard has served as a campaign chauffeur for many a candidate, including President Bush in 2000 and this past year for former GOP presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani.
Campaign stops include North Conway, Laconia, Portsmouth, Raymond and Manchester.
The Price of support
GOP 2nd Congressional District hopeful Jennifer Horn of Nashua picked up an important endorsement last week from Rep. Pamela Price, R-Nashua.
Price is in her third term in the House, and she serves as one of two House Republican whips in the GOP leadership team, along with Amherst Rep. Stephen Stepanek.
"I think she's a strong, fresh face with a strong voice,'' Price said. "She stands for small government and low taxes, empowering the individual and support for families who know what is best for them.''
Horn said Price is a respected legislative leader and will help her build organizational support.
Price also should help Horn tap local business leaders and GOP activists for donations.
Live fee or die
House Republicans railed at House Democratic leaders on policy committees for adopting a bevy of fee increases this year.
They should take heart. The state Senate is getting ready to do its dirty work for them.
The House approved a $2 million-a-year increase in the fee that gasoline wholesalers have to pay to help pay for more oil discharge cleanups (HB 1426).
The Senate will vote this week on a change that would keep the fee the same, but set aside more of the existing charge to oil cleanups.
A move to finance a state hazardous materials emergency response program is still alive, but the state Senate is likely to reject a permanent funding source.
Supporters wanted to raise more than $1 million a year by charging a fee averaging $400 against the owners of all underground storage tanks. The House passed the fee increase.
Oil companies, gasoline station owners and the truckers lobby have banded together to convince the Senate to reject that fee and instead let them have up to $1.2 million in the coming year by withdrawing that much from the state's fire standards and emergency medical services training fund.
The proposed Senate bill would instead create a study group to examine ways to pay for this going forward (HB 1594).
Finally, there's the proposed $20 fee for a learner's permit (HB 1496) that also doubles the number of hours a student driver has to train with under parental supervision before taking the test.
The Senate recommendation is to ship that bill off to study for the year.
Industrial landmarks
Supporters of historic preservation are pointing to the preservation of a Rochester fiber products maker as an Earth Day initiative.
The project would repair a hydroelectric dam on the Salmon Falls River that the floods of 2006 destroyed.
Boston Felt Co. has relied on waterpower since 1825, and it installed a new generating station in 1984. The owners have asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for an extension to develop the plan to repair the dam.
Gerald DeMuro of Northern Heritage Mills said it isn't just about keeping jobs, but the state's character that's at stake.
"Although it is not in fashion to take a second look at the importance of our industrial landmarks and what we are losing besides jobs, there are many people who seriously believe there is a need to look forward and begin in earnest to reverse this trend and preserve our signature industrial landmarks that have defined our New England economy and culture,'' DeMuro said.
Quote of the week
"The board has demonstrated a pattern of hiring family members of current employees. Employing relatives of current employees, in addition to raising the possible appearance of impropriety or a conflict of interest, can limit the effectiveness of management controls when the dynamics of a familial and supervisor/subordinate relationships commingle, especially in a small office like the Board of Medicine with six full-time and one part-time employee.''
LEGISLATIVE BUDGET AUDITOR announcing the finding in its performance audit of the medical board that recommends the Legislature ban nepotism in hiring, promotion or supervision of state employees Kevin Landrigan can be reached at 224-8804 or klandrigan@nashuatelegraph.com
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