4/8/2005

Score Two for the Good Guys

Susan Bruce

—This past Wednesday was full of surprises. The first was easily finding a parking space in Concord on a day when the House was in session. This may seem like a small thing—but I assure you, it is not. Parking is a nightmare in Concord, and as someone who spends a day a week there, I’m all too familiar with the fluorescent green envelope under my windshield. If everyone did their job with the dedication of Concord meter readers, the world would run far more smoothly. Concord doesn’t mess around. As few as five unpaid tickets can result in a car getting the boot.

The second surprise was watching HB 665 pass the House. HB 665 raises the minimum wage in New Hampshire from the federal standard of $5.15 an hour to $6.16. The raising will be done incrementally, over an 18-month period. Last year, a similar bill was defeated by a single vote—former House Speaker Gene Chandler cast the deciding vote against the increase. The debate was fascinating. House Majority Leader Michael O’Neil spoke against the increase, saying that raising the minimum wage would hamper economic development by forcing businesses to either spend more, or lay off employees. Apparently the N.H. economy is so fragile, that it could be completely destroyed by paying the people at the bottom rung of the ladder another whole dollar an hour.

We saw the same arguments during the debate on the federal minimum wage. New Hampshire’s own John Sununu Jr. spoke of the devastating possibilities that might result from paying the folks at the bottom a slight increase in slave wages. Our economy can continue to pay exorbitant sums to those at the top—but the system will crash if we give a few extra shekels to those at the bottom? What a great system we have—for the wealthy.

Rep. Terie Norelli pointed out that people earning minimum wage also qualify for a number of social services, paid for by our tax dollars. Businesses pay substandard wages, and the rest of us pick up the tab for programs like food stamps, fuel assistance, et cetera. That’s how Wal-Mart has built an empire—they’re the ultimate in corporate welfare. They pay lousy wages, offer benefits their employees can’t afford, and we pick up the tab for food stamps and Medicaid. The Waltons are among the top ten wealthiest people in the world. This is an ongoing obscenity.

There is an internal battle going on amongst the N.H. House Republicans. Apparently the conservatives are accusing the more moderate Republicans of failing to uphold party principle on important votes. Michael O’Neil and Speaker Doug Scammon have been the subject of criticism by the uber-conservatives. It seems O’Neil needed to show the conservatives “Yes, I am too a Republican,” and the easiest way was to grind his heel into the necks of the poor. If you think that legislators are down in Concord working for the common good, I urge you to spend a little time down there and watch the internecine battles. It’s all about games, one-upmanship, and power. The common folk don’t enter into the equation very often, and when they do, it’s usually to their detriment.

The next big surprise was watching the amended version of HB 90 pass the House. HB 90 would repeal last year’s corporate special interest bill, SB 458, which allowed CMI, the race track developer, to bypass the vote at Tamworth Town Meeting. HB 90 was sponsored by Reps. David Babson and Harry Merrow, who were outraged by the silent passage of SB 458. Conway’s own Rep. Howard Dickinson signed on as a sponsor. One of HB 90’s sponsors was Rep. Betsey Patten of Moultonborough. The bill went to her committee, where she did her level best to kill it. The committee had two hearings, heard hours of testimony in favor of the bill, then ruled against it, on the basis of the testimony of two Tamworth selectmen, and the rumor of a “silent majority.” Fascinating. One can only wonder why Patten sponsored the bill, only to work tirelessly to kill it in committee, and then again, in the House. One wonders if perhaps that was the point all along.

During the floor debate, Rep. Jack Dowd of Derry spoke disparagingly of the citizen group “with a lot of money” deciding they know better than the town. It’s a wonder we didn’t all fall out of the gallery laughing at that one. CMI’s tactic from the very beginning has been to divide and conquer the town on the basis of economics, saying that the folks who want the town to be able to regulate the track are wealthy dilettantes; whereas the hard-working folks are just dying to see their taxes go down as a result of the track. (If anyone can point out to me one instance of a town’s taxes going down as the result of corporate development, I’ll be most grateful.) Dowd is asking us to believe that the race track developers are a bunch of humble working stiffs.

Dowd is confused about exactly whom “a lot of money” belongs to in this situation. CMI retains Scott Tranchemontagne as their PR flack. He works for the Manchester firm of O’Neil Griffin, Bodi—a pricey PR firm that represents a lot of GOP interests. CMI retains the pricey Concord law firm of Devine, Millinet, and Branch as their attorney. The president of Devine, Millinet, and Branch is Susan Duprey, who has taken the firm's role CMI’s business quite seriously. Devine, Millinet, and Branch are intertwined with the GOP. Susan Duprey was the co-chair of Craig Benson’s finance committee in 2002, and the co-chair of the finance committee for the Bush/Cheney presidential campaign. Her husband is former N.H. GOP party chairperson, Steve Duprey. Current N.H. GOP party chair Warren Henderson appeared in the House gallery to hear the debate on HB 90. Let us be very clear about where the money and influence are in this scenario—it is certainly not with a citizen group trying to return local control to their town. It will be hugely interesting to follow the money trail in the next election cycle.

Reps. Babson, Merrow, and Dickinson should all be congratulated for their hard work in defending the time-honored N.H. tradition of local control. Rep. Peter Schmidt of Dover was so disgusted with the county and municipal government committee’s recommendation to kill HB 90 that he resigned from the committee, and spoke quite eloquently against the majority opinion. Not all of our local state representatives were so concerned with local control. Reps. Gene Chandler, Mark McConkey, and Carolyn Brown voted against HB 90. Representative Brown had indicated support for the bill in February, but apparently had a flip flop in the interim period. Carolyn Brown is a lovely person, but hardly a maverick, as she marches in perpetual lockstep with party leadership.

It was a day of surprises—the good guys won twice in the same day, and I didn’t get a parking ticket.

“Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest.” —Mark Twain

Susan Bruce is a writer and activist, who lives in Jackson. She can be reached at madameovary@msn.com