by Edward Mosca

This coming week, the House is set to take up a so-called bipartisan constitutional amendment on education funding. But the amendment is bipartisan only in the sense that it is supported by both Democrat and Republican House members. As far as the substance is concerned, the amendment is totally one-sided in the Democrats’ favor.

Essentially, the amendment writes the Supreme Court’s misbegotten Claremont/Londonderry decisions into the State Constitution. More specifically, the Legislature would be required to define an adequate education, determine its cost, and fund the cost exclusively with state taxes. All of this would be done under the highest level of judicial oversight.

What this means is that anybody can go to court at any time and sue the Legislature on the grounds that it hasn’t properly defined an adequate education and/or that it hasn’t set the cost high enough, and it will be the Legislature’s burden to prove otherwise. As a practical matter, unelected judges will have the ultimate say on what is taught in the public schools, how it is taught, and how much we are taxed to pay for it.

According to Republican policy leader Gene Chandler, this amendment “meets our Republican ideals.” If Chandler and other Republican “leaders” really believe that the education mandarins in Concord can make better education policy than local school boards, teachers and parents, and that unelected judges should have the ultimate say on the curriculum and cost of public education, to paraphrase Obi-Wan, “Well then they are truly lost.”

If this amendment passes, say goodbye forever to local control. The education mandarins in Concord would determine what the locals should be paying for public education. And those school districts that did not receive full funding would have to make up the difference through the local property tax.

And say hello to a broad-based tax. Because the amendment envisions the Supreme Court having the final say on the cost of an adequate education, anybody can run into Court and claim that the $1 billion the Legislature has determined an adequate education costs is “inadequate.” If the Court agrees, the amendment requires the Legislature to pay for whatever the Court says the cost is.

The only tweak to Londonderry/Claremont is that the Legislature would not have to distribute funding on a comparable per pupil basis. However, at the insistence of House Republican leadership the amendment also provides “every school district shall receive a meaningful share of these funds.” In other words, no town, no matter how affluent, can be denied a “meaningful” spot at the education funding trough. Let the feeding frenzy begin!

The so-called bipartisan amendment is not just antithetical to “Republican ideals”, it is also really stupid politics.

Republicans are going to lose, not gain, votes in the 2008 election by supporting this amendment. Voters who believe that unelected, elitist judges should be running our public schools aren’t going to suddenly switch their affiliation to Republican. On the other hand, voters who believe in fiscal responsibility and/or local control and/or that the judicial branch has no business setting education policy will have good reasons not to vote Republican.

But it is not just public education where elected Republicans are truly lost. Can you name a single major policy proposal that Republicans have brought forward since John Lynch was elected Governor back in 2004?

Worse still, it’s not just that Republicans are only offering “same-but-less”, rather, some of the most egregious examples of “nanny-state” legislation in the last legislative session have been supported and sponsored by Republicans. For example, it was Republican State Senator Bob Clegg who sponsored legislation mandating that health insurers cover bariatric surgery.

Republicans seem to be staking the entire 2008 campaign on the State’s budget deficit. One problem with this strategy is that voters don’t get all that worked up about deficits. Remember Ross Perot? All he talked about during the 1992 election was the deficit, and all that got him was a distant third place.

The other problem with making the 2008 election all about the deficit is that we won’t really have a handle on the size of the deficit until 2009 because that is when most of the red-ink is projected to occur.

What Rep. Chandler and the other Republican “leaders” don’t seem to understand is that you can’t beat something with nothing. And, aside from carping –albeit quite correctly– about the budget deficit they appear to have no alternative approaches to the issues facing the State.

by Evan F. Nappen Esq.

Those pesky Granite State gun owners have damaged the anti-gun spin machine of the Violence Policy Center.  In a recent news release, the credibility-challenged VPC proclaimed, "Pro-Gun States Lead the Nation in Per Capita Firearm Death Rates.” The news release goes on to say, “The analysis [of data from the CDC, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] reveals that the five states with the highest per capita gun death rates were Louisiana, Alaska, Montana, Tennessee and Alabama. Each of these states had a per capita gun death rate far exceeding the national per capita gun death rate of 10.32 per 100,000. By contrast, states with strong gun laws and low rates of gun ownership had far lower rates of firearm-related death. Ranking last in the nation for gun death was Hawaii, followed by Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Jersey and New York.”

The VPC dares not look at the bottom seven (7) states instead of the arbitrary five (5). That is because, lo and behold, New Hampshire ranks seventh from the bottom in per-capita gun deaths. New Hampshire is undeniably a strong pro-gun state that greatly respects the individual right to keep and bear arms.  New Hampshire is beat only by sixth-place Connecticut, the home of “Gun Valley,” a major area of gun making in the United States.  For that matter, all of New England is in the bottom 12.  Low gun deaths in New England are more attributable to the culture and character of the region than to the availability of firearms.  By contrast, the West is still somewhat wild and the South has not fully lost its rebel yell.

The VPC also has to purposely limit their selectively picked data to states rather than cities. This is because the one jurisdiction with the strictest gun control in the entire nation is the District of Columbia. In D.C., all handguns are banned, long arms must be stored disassembled, locked, and unloaded, and law-abiding citizens have no right to carry guns. According to the same 2005 CDC data relied upon by the VPC in their news release, D.C. has the highest death rate of any place in the US!  D.C has well over double the national average.

The VPC also conveniently fails to mention that the total number of deaths in the entire United States is ever so slightly over one hundredth of one percent — .0103% to be exact, and that is with approximately 250 million guns in the country.  Additionally, those are all firearm deaths, including police shootings, justifiable self defense, and suicide.

The reason for the VPC’s new propaganda push is obvious, and they unknowingly reveal it in their news release. They are scared “to death” of the very real possibility of a Supreme Court victory in June for the Second Amendment in the celebrated Heller case. Ironically, the Heller case is a challenge to the very D.C. anti-gun law ignored by the VPC.  VPC Legislative Director Kristen Rand states, "Blind allegiance to the Second Amendment comes at a deadly price. Many residents in pro-gun states cheer the possibility of a June Supreme Court ruling that could place gun controls across the nation at risk, never realizing that those states stand as proof of the need for such laws.” Well, unfortunately for the VPC agenda, the District of Columbia torpedoes their glorification of anti-gun laws and New Hampshire stands as granite counter-proof that there is no need for such laws.

by Richard H (Dick) Olson

Superior Court Judge Patricia Coffey has resigned under pressure from Governor John Lynch. I find that amazing since a panel of her piers, The Judicial Conduct Committee, only recommended a three(3) month suspension and the NH Supreme Court imposed a three (3) year suspension.

Since Judge Coffee participated in fraud by helping her disbarred husband by hiding personal assets, why wasn’t she disbarred and fired? She and her husband cost NH taxpayers thousands of dollars when she helped hide $10,000 from stock sales and hid $76,000 from the sale of an office condo. This money was supposed to be used to reimburse the NH court system for investigative costs.

Oh well! I suppose the suspension is better than disbarment and allows her to collect a pension and still earn a living as a lawyer.

General John Stark did not mean that trusted government officials should live on the state when he said; “Live Free or Die”.

By Richard H. Olson, Jaffrey NH

Well, FairPoint Communications Corp. has officially taken over Verizon’s “land lines” and DSL services. I sided with New Hampshire ’s Consumer Advocate and the Chair of New Hampshire’s Public Utilities Commission and said that it was not a good fit for New Hampshire residents.

Promises! Promises! I just received my first bill from FairPoint and found out that they do not have a website that is capable of paying my phone or internet bill. I have a choice of using my bank’s “bill pay” or sending a paper check.

The explanation I received was that they needed time to set this up. Hmmmm! Wouldn’t you think that as “technology savvy” company like FairPoint was touted by supporters would already be “on line” to receive payments? After all, part of their deal depended on cash flow to support the acquisition and building the DSL network .

Creepy Politics?

by John Clark

When Barack Obama needed contacts to help his 'community' efforts in Chicago some twenty years ago, he turned to a very dynamic preacher. Jeremiah Wright was in the process of building a congregation from less than one hundred to several thousand. Openly, and under the conventional radar, he based the premise of 'social theology' in a racially appealing, politically motivated manner which attracted attention only within the black community. ( Wright deserves to be recognized for such an achievement.) 

The relationship worked very successfully for both Obama and Wright, not just coincidentally it also worked for Louis Farakhan, another close associate of the congregation. All parties grew to achieve national stature.

Then, Barack Obama became a candidate for President of the United States of America, until he gained 'front runner status' his prior relationships were not relevant, now they are.

Why did Jeremiah Wright retire as soon as the relevance or connection between the two began to be significant?

Is it really necessary to be the 'past Pastor' to attempt expiation of Obama?

The fact is that the Pastor, retired or not, has now surpassed Jesse Jackson etal as the most recognized spokesman for most of the black community. 

It must be posited that the growth of his message during the past ONE week has eclipsed a million times the growth of the previous twenty years.

If Obama 'used' Wright to achieve his goals, now it would appear that Wright's message has superseded that of Obama, only time will tell which man is the more important to our Country and the direction which we shall take.

Certainly Jeremiah Wright has clearly 'stayed on message', whilst Obama is attempting the biggest 'flip-flop' ever attempted in political history.

John Clark,   Louisville Ky (former resident Peterborough, NH)