State House Dome: House's No. 2 backing Ayotte

Mar. 22—HOUSE DEPUTY SPEAKER Steven Smith, R-Charlestown, is the latest prominent Republican to get on board the Kelly Ayotte-for-governor bandwagon.

"With Kelly Ayotte as our next governor, I know that Republicans in Concord will continue to deliver results for New Hampshire," Smith said.

"I'm proud to endorse Kelly and look forward to working with her to keep our state safe, prosperous and free."

What's notable here is that Smith, a seven-term Republican, often stays out of intramural party squabbles.

Unlike other House GOP leaders, he took a pass on the 2024 presidential primary, though Majority Leader Jason Osborne, R-Auburn, was an early backer of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' campaign.

In this race, Osborne came out for Ayotte when she announced. Smith had been staying back —until now.

Morse's tough road

Former Senate President Chuck Morse, R-Salem, is seeking to upset Ayotte in the GOP primary the old-fashioned way — by winning over one activist after another.

Morse has said that his early endorsement of former President Donald Trump's campaign in New Hampshire brought supporters even before he approached them. By contrast, Ayotte stayed neutral on Trump until endorsing him earlier this month.

The latest to join Morse's bid were Reps. Julius Soti, R-Windham, and Clayton Wood, R-Pittsfield.

Since early March, 15 other House members have declared for Morse that include eight-term Rep. Ralph Boehm, R-Litchfield, and Rep. Tom Mannion, R-Pelham.

Morse still has some catching up to do.

More than 300 past and public officials have backed Ayotte, including 90 current and former House members and the entire delegations of Manchester and Merrimack.

Morse returns for debate

GOP hopeful Morse was on hand in the State Senate Thursday for its long, often-bitter debate over legislation to ban sanctuary city policies.

"This is a critical piece of legislation that New Hampshire needs to deal with the crisis on the border that's affecting every state," Morse told reporters.

Morse's opponents in both parties probably will ask why the State Senate sent a similar bill (HB 1266) off to interim study (translation: death with dignity) in 2022 while Morse was Senate president, after the House had narrowly passed it, 172-162.

At the time, Sen. Sharon Carson, R-Londonderry, said senators were concerned how that bill would relate to the "State Police's Fairness in Policing Policy" and said it needed more work.

The language in the latest bill (SB 563), written by Sen. Daryl Abbas, R-Salem, is different.

Yet here's how the Office of Legislative Services summarized the 2022 measure: "This bill prohibits state, county, municipal, or judicial officials from adopting or enforcing policies restricting enforcement of federal immigration laws.

Here's the summary of the 2024 bill: "This bill prohibits state and local government entities from adopting sanctuary policies to prohibit or impede the enforcement of federal immigration law."

"I've always opposed sanctuary cities. Unfortunately the Judiciary Committee had found that the (2022) bill lacked critical details and overall depth to be passed," Morse said.

The fine-tuning that Abbas did ensured it would overcome any potential legal challenge, Morse added.

Warmington unfiltered

As we first reported this past week, Democratic candidate for governor Cinde Warmington's own internal campaign poll concludes that once both candidates' weaknesses are revealed to likely voters, she's in a dead heat with former Manchester Mayor Joyce Craig.

Warmington's camp declined to be specific about how much she revealed about her past to those who were polled.

We got a peek from someone who saw those questions, and Warmington's campaign surely didn't sugarcoat the candidate's negatives.

Respondents were told Warmington "profited from the opioid crisis" as a "paid lobbyist and mouthpiece" for Purdue Pharma two decades ago. They also cited her work for a "pill mill" during the crisis and reported that she received "tens of thousands" in campaign donations over the years from that clinic's owner, the late Dr. Michael O'Connell.

Tax 'party' could be over

Since last summer, we have reported that business tax collections, while strong, were less robust than in recent years.

The reason was a state law change that required corporations to claim refunds once they reached a level of surplus.

Since July 1, businesses have claimed $130 million in refunds, compared with $65 million by this time a year ago.

Through mid-March, business taxes were down separate from the profits issue — $13 million (10%) less than at the same point in 2023.

Retirement bill hits wall

House budget writers, this past week, opposed a bill (HB 1279) to permanently give cities and towns 7.5% support of retirement costs for all their public employees except for teacher pensions.

The House had included this in the state budget plan it adopted in the spring of 2023, but the Senate struck it out of the final budget deal Sununu signed.

Three House Democrats, Reps. Peter Leishman of Peterborough, Jerry Stringham of Woodstock and David Hout of Laconia, broke ranks and backed the 16-9 recommendation to kill this bill.

Rep. Dan McGuire, R-Epsom, said GOP leaders prefer a House-passed bill (HB 436) that would have the state pay down $50 million of the retirement system's unfunded liability.

McGuire admitted this won't produce as much property tax relief as reinstating state support of local retirement costs.

Sununu road show goes on

Gov. Chris Sununu continues to crisscross the country during his final year in office. This past week's itinerary took him to the Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California.

Sununu spoke about his four terms in office with David Trulio, president and chief executive officer of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute.

"He was strong, but he had style," Sununu said of Reagan, who he first met at age 10 in 1984.

Marker appeal fails

As expected, Merrimack County Superior Court Judge John Kissinger rejected an appeal by liberal activists who challenged Sununu's decision to take down a historical marker honoring Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, a Concord native and leader of the American Communist Party who was convicted of plotting the violent overthrow of the government.

Kissinger decided former American Friends Services Committee executive Arnold Alpert and fellow civil rights activist Mary Lee Sargent lacked standing to bring the suit.

They enlisted former Executive Councilor and 2020 Democratic candidate for governor Andru Volinsky to claim Sununu acted without authority to take the marker down and outside of an orderly state process.

Volinsky knew this was a difficult case to make but clearly felt it was worth the effort.

You don't need two hands to count the number of times each year a superior court judge strikes down a state government decision.

Alpert and Co. can ask the judge to reconsider his ruling and, if unsuccessful, could appeal it to the state Supreme Court.

Warmington gets backer

Two-term State Rep. Stringham endorsed Warmington late in the week.

"With Cinde at the top of the ticket, Democrats will win up and down the ballot by playing offense on critical issues like affordable housing, public education, and reproductive rights, issues Granite Staters talk about every day," Stringham said.

Stringham served on the House Finance Committee and played a major role last year in fashioning the rate increases for Medicaid providers contained in the current two-year state budget.

Fuel farm plan loses out

Million Air's plan to build a large fuel farm at the Pease International Tradeport just crash-landed, pleasing environmental activists.

The incumbent fuel supplier, Port City Air, has fought the competing plan with the support of some officials in Portsmouth and Newington, who raised concerns about the placement of the project so close to drinking water supplies.

The window for Million Air to submit a site plan to the Pease board recently closed.

Last fall, the Federal Aviation Administration threw a monkey wrench into this project, ordering the company had to produce an environmental impact statement that met FAA standards.

Million Air has not yet submitted that report.

Edelblut battles LBA

Education Commissioner Frank Edelblut is engaged in unusual pushback against an ongoing performance audit of the Department of Education's Education Freedom Account program.

In 2022, lawmakers passed a state law ordering the audit.

Christine Young, director of audits for the Legislative Budget Assistant's office, told a House-Senate oversight committee this past week that she couldn't complete the audit without getting detailed information about students in the EFA from the Children's Scholarship Program, the New York-based non-profit that administers it for the state.

Demanding a state contractor provide proprietary information about students would be unprecedented, Edelblut said.

"I am concerned we are on a little bit of a fishing expedition," Edelblut said.

Democrats on the audit panel said if that if Edelblut persists, critics could file a lawsuit to force him to comply.

"It takes my breath away a little bit that ... our taxpayers are spending millions and millions and millions of dollars on a program that's going to a private organization, and it's a complete black box," said Sen. Becky Whitley, D-Hopkinton.

AI bill deadlocks

House Democrats cried foul after the House Election Laws Committee deadlocked, 10-10, over whether to pass a bill (HB 1596) banning so-called "deep fakes" created with artificial intelligence in state elections.

Rep. Angela Brennan, D-Bow, said that high-level private meetings of lawmakers from both parties produced consensus for an amendment to this bill, especially after the illegal stunt by a Democratic consultant who used President Joe Biden's voice to urge Democrats not to vote in the first-in-the-nation presidential primary.

"This is to protect our voters, our candidates from being fraudulently deceptively manipulated by technology to believe something happened that did not occur in real life," Brennan said.

Rep. Aidan Ankarberg, R-Rochester, said this issue is too much in flux for lawmakers to adopt a hard-and-fast policy. He said the focus should be on getting social media companies to stop canceling criticism.

"That's the way to go at this point rather than the government stepping in to create a layer to potentially infringe on free speech,"

NH GOP lands rising star

U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Florida, will keynote the Republican State Committee's Amos Tuck Fundraising Dinner on May 17 in Portsmouth.

Trump has listed Donalds as one of those on his short list of potential running mates in 2024.

Kevin Landrigan is State House Bureau Chief for the New Hampshire Union Leader and Sunday News. Contact him at klandrigan@unionleader.com.