WITH LITTLE FANFARE, Attorney General John Formella got permission last week to hire 10 new full-time staffers to serve under Medical Examiner Jennie Duval, a move he said would be “budget neutral” and might wind up saving the state a few bucks.
At issue was how to classify assistant deputy medical examiners who go to crime scenes and perform support duties, but are not forensic pathologists who perform autopsies.
For years, the state designated them as independent contractors, brought on in an as-needed basis.
Currently, the state uses 23 in such roles, and Duval told Formella that making 10 of them state employees would be more efficient.
Also driving the move, Formella admitted to the Executive Council, were questions from the Internal Revenue Service about whether the workers legally were independent contractors because they were under the direct control of the ME.
“We also think it would foster a better, overall cohesive team in the Medical Examiner’s Office,” Formella said.
Most already had been working as contractors.
Executive Councilor Cinde Warmington, D-Concord, wanted to know whether they will be covered under the state’s collective bargaining agreement (read: unionized workers).
Formella said no final decision on their status has been made, but the answer likely is no.
The AG already has many “unclassified” employees not covered under union contracts.
Sununu’s holiday wish
No surprise what Gov. Chris Sununu politically wants under the Christmas tree:
“I would settle for a four-point victory for @Nikki Haley on Jan. 23, and something tells me I might get it.”
Sununu said he planned to campaign with Haley when she’s back here over the final 30 days of the race, unless pressing state business conflicts.
Colorado’s gift to Trump
Sununu could not hide his frustration at the Colorado Supreme Court’s ruling knocking former President Donald Trump off that state’s primary ballot in 2024.
The ruling is stayed until Jan. 10 to give the U.S. Supreme Court time to weigh in on the controversy.
That’s five days before the first votes in the Iowa caucus, where Trump already has a king-sized lead over his rivals.
“Ultimately it plays right into Trump’s hand to be a ‘woe is me’ victim. ... Hopefully it gets resolved (reversed) quickly and we can move along,” Sununu said.
Trump’s biggest GOP nemesis in the race, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, was the first to say that voters at the polls, not justices in robes, should be empowered to reject Trump.
All of Trump’s major rivals followed suit. Ohio entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy went the furthest, vowing to take his name off the Colorado primary ballot unless the Supreme Court throws the decision out.
Scanlan: First things first
Secretary of State David Scanlan got a shock seeing U.S. Rep. Annie Kuster, D-N.H., opine on the future of the state’s presidential primary, given that President Joe Biden is not on the ballot.
“Well, I tell you my view on this, we are resurrecting the state’s cherished tradition,” Kuster said on WMUR’s “CloseUp”.
A strong write-in win for Biden would help preserve the primary, she said.
“We are demonstrating to the 2028 field, come to New Hampshire first,” Kuster said.
“We are working with all of the next generation Democrats to say, ‘Keep New Hampshire first and let’s get us right back on the ballot in 2028.’”
Scanlan said New Hampshire’s primary doesn’t need saving.
“I want to make it clear that New Hampshire is having the first in the nation primary in 2024 and we will be first in 2028, regardless of whether President Biden is successful with his write-in campaign or not,” Scanlan said.
Ballot won’t change
Some have asked whether the 2024 GOP candidates who already have pulled out of the race in New Hampshire, including former Vice President Mike Pence, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott and millionaire Michigan businessman Perry Johnson, will still be on the primary ballot.
The sample ballot released by Scanlan’s office reinforces they will.
Once the filing period ends, candidates who later pull out remain, unless legally they no longer qualify to run, for instance, because they move out of the country permanently or become too incapacitated to serve.
Discerning New Hampshire voters are very good at knowing who’s really running and who’s not.
On Feb. 1, 2016, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee dropped out after getting smoked by Trump and Ted Cruz in an Iowa caucus that Huckabee had won eight years earlier.
Eight days later in New Hampshire, he received 216 votes, barely edging gadfly Andy Martin, who got 202.
Primary gets prickly
Republican candidate for governor and former Senate President Chuck Morse fired one of the first shots in his primary race with former U.S. Sen. Kelly Ayotte last week.
Morse said Ayotte will need the nearly 3-to-1 money advantage she has over him to compete in 2024.
“She has to cover over her Washington votes, and you are going to need a lot of money to do that,” Morse told radio talk show host Jack Heath.
Morse later said, “When Kelly went to Washington, she became pretty liberal in how she handled herself, she was probably the third-most liberal (Republican) senator in the country when she left.
“One of the things we can talk about ... she certainly supported amnesty and that’s not acceptable right now, and the people are making that quite clear.”
Ayotte Campaign Manager John Corbett said Morse sounds like a candidate in freefall.
“For all his desperate lying, Chuck is going to get coal in his stocking. Kelly has never supported amnesty and never will,” Corbett said in a statement.
“She is the only candidate in this race with a track record of keeping New Hampshire safe — in fact, it was Chuck Morse who voted for New Hampshire’s failed bail reform that has led to more crime on our streets. Chuck is losing and lying, a very pathetic way to end the year.”
In 2013, then-Sen. Ayotte was one of 14 Senate Republicans who voted for the “Gang of Eight” immigration, which included a pathway to citizenship for illegals in this country once those already legally in line had gotten their own permanent residence status.
Ayotte’s mentor, the late Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, was one of the original bipartisan authors.
The Senate passed the measure, 68-32, with the support of all 52 Democrats, including New Hampshire’s Jeanne Shaheen.
The U.S. House, under then-GOP Speaker John Boehner, never took up the bill, which quietly died at the end of 2014.
Candidates on Colorado
Ayotte and Morse agree about the Trump ruling.
“Voters have a constitutional right to pick our presidents — not judges. We must leave it up to the voters to decide our elections at the ballot box,” Ayotte said.
Morse endorsed Trump for president eight days ago.
“They can’t beat Donald Trump at the ballot box so they are trying to beat him in the courts. What we are witnessing in Colorado is a blatant attempt to end democracy as we know it,” Morse said.Health director’s early gift
Sununu nominated Public Health Director Patricia Tilley as associate commissioner in Health and Human Services to replace Morissa Henn, recently promoted to deputy commissioner. If confirmed, she will make $148K a year.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Tilley earned high marks for helping carry out the state’s response, especially dealing at one point with technology glitches that left the state unable to report infectious disease cases for a short time.
Railroad lease extension
The Executive Council last week approved a short-term lease for one state lawmaker’s railroad line.
State Rep. Peter Leishman, D-Peterborough, is the chief executive of the Milford-Bennington Railroad Co. Inc., which provides freight service on a state-owned track from Wilton to Bennington.
His 10-year lease is up Dec. 31.
Since 2022, the Department of Transportation has required haulers on state-owned lines to carry more liability insurance while delivering either traditional freight ($3 million-to-$5 million) or hazardous freight ($5 million-to-$7 million).
Leishman said the new guidelines would cancel his existing insurance policies and force him to face steep cancellation fees.
The council agreed to give his railroad a six-month extension of its existing lease.
Commissioner Bill Cass said he will return to the council with a new 10-year lease once Leishman satisfies the insurance requirements.
The 12-term Rep. Leishman has GOP allies, as he hasn’t shied from opposing some spending requests from past and present Democratic leaders.
House Speaker Sherman Packard, D-Londonderry, named Leishman as the only Democrat to chair a subcommittee on the House Finance Committee and put him on the influential, Legislative Fiscal Committee.
Councilor opposes promotions
Executive Councilor and Democratic candidate for governor Warmington continued to oppose Sununu’s requests to place political allies in key state jobs.
She voted against naming former state Sen. and 2016 GOP candidate for governor Jeanie Forrester as director of intergovernmental affairs in the Department of Business and Economic Affairs ($95,000 a year) and Sununu Policy Director Adam Crepeau of Concord to become assistant commissioner with the Department of Environmental Services ($114,000 a year).
The four Republican councilors backed those picks.
NHDOJ to have neighbors
The Department of Justice is moving from across the State House into leased space at 1 Granite Place South, the former Lincoln Financial complex owned by developer and former GOP State Chairman Steve Duprey.
The state’s budget for renovations of the space for the DOJ is $7.6 million.
The council approved an amendment to allow the Department of Agriculture and the Judicial Council to move into some of that space.
Administrative Services Commissioner Charlie Arlinghaus said that in early 2024 there will be renovations at the State House Annex, the current home for those two small agencies.
The amendment doesn’t change the budget. Arlinghaus said the price to move and equip the two smaller groups will be $800,000.
NEC to host CNN debate
New England College will be home for the second and final televised debate of the GOP presidential primary campaign on Jan. 21, two days before Granite Staters go to the polls.
CNN made the move to NEC after earlier announcing that the debate would be Saint Anselm College without talking to school officials about the plan.
Saint Anselm’s New Hampshire Institute of Politics will be the home for a Jan. 18 GOP presidential debate, co-sponsored by ABC News and affiliate WMUR-TV.
“This is a rare chance to witness democracy in action as the candidates make their case to the country,” said NEC President Wayne Lesperance.
Pease lease dispute
Port City Air, the existing fuel farm at the Pease International Tradeport, will ask the New Hampshire Supreme Court next month to order state officials to let them play a part in the opposition to rival Million Air over its plan to build its own fuel farm on the property.
The state Wetlands Council ruled that because Port City was a lessee and not a property owner, it had no standing in the matter.
Some city officials and legislators from Portsmouth and Newington have questioned whether Million Air’s project could endanger nearby watersheds that lead to drinking water sources for the region.
Oral arguments on this case are set for Jan. 3 at 9:30 a.m.
Another special election
On the presidential primary date, voters in Portsmouth Ward 1 and Newington will start the process to replace first-term Rep. Robin Vogt, D-Portsmouth, who resigned his seat last month.
This is almost assuredly a pickup for the Democrats, but if Republicans do their legwork, they can make House Democrats wait a bit longer to add to their ranks.
The filing period for candidates ends this Friday.
If there’s only one Democrat and one Republican, the seat gets filled Jan. 23.
If there’s a primary in either party, the general election gets pushed out to March 12.
