New Hampshire Legislature Turns Policy Reins Over To ALEC

Posted: 28 Jan 2012 02:00 PM PST

Republicans in the New Hampshire legislature seemingly have ceded all control of the state to the American Legislative Exchange Council by introducing an unprecedented seven of ALEC's pieces of model legislation in the past week.

ALEC legislation is basically written by corporations to protect their own interests and the organization is behind a rash of legislation across the U.S. that has assaulted working families, attacked unions and sought to unravel the American social safety net. Granite State Progress is watching the progress of the New Hampshire bills:

"This is an incredible illustration of how the current leadership of the New Hampshire House and Senate are selling our state out to the highest bidder," said Zandra Rice Hawkins, Director of Granite State Progress. "Corporations already funnel unlimited money into our political system but to hand them the pen and paper to craft legislation is just plain wrong."
ALEC model legislation heard in committees this week range from repealing new consumer protections under the Affordable Care Act to creating specialized tax credits for businesses and privatizing education to limiting voter access at the ballot box.

"Each of these pieces of legislation benefit special interests at the expense of everyday, hardworking Granite Staters," Rice Hawkins said. "We need to reject corporate-written legislation and focus on ways to ensure New Hampshire state laws benefit New Hampshire state residents."

The ALEC-inspired legislation includes:

HB 1607 "Education Tax Credit": Would divert public education money to private schools in a way to effect vouchers

HB 1560 Health Care Compact: Would allow member states to opt out of any and all national health care rules, including Medicaid and Medicare

CACR 6 Super Majority Act: A thinly-veiled Taxpayer Bill of Rights clone that would handcuff state spending and devastate all services and programs

SB 289 and SB 318 Photo ID to Vote: A photo identification would be required for all voters, despite there being little to no voter fraud in the state, designed specifically to suppress poor and minority voters

HB 1658 Eliminating Support Services for Newborn Children: The title of this one is pretty straightforward and horrific in and of itself. It would specifically target newborn children whose parents are on Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, so it goes after the poorest families

SB 372 "Education Tax Credits": Senate version of HB 1607 The New Hampshire General Court, the state's legislature, is controlled by Republicans 19-5 in the Senate and 298-104 in the House, but the governor is Democrat John Lynch, so it seems unlikely that most of these bills will make it into law. 

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Election 2012: 'Swift-boat on Steroids'

Activists rally in Washington, D.C. on January 21,
2011 for an amendment overturning Citizens United.
(photo: Public Citizen/Flickr)

By Ruth Conniff, The Progressive

14 January 12

he Presidential primary season has never seemed less relevant to ordinary Americans.

As the Mitt Romney juggernaut moves through New Hampshire and South Carolina, the sense that voters, even in early primary states, have anything at all to say about the eventual outcome of the elections is rapidly diminishing.

"This will be the most spending, in 2012, that we've ever seen in the history of the country - and even the world," Lisa Graves of the Center for Media and Democracy said in a telephone conference with reporters today. Thanks to the Supreme Court's two-year-old Citizens United decision, most of that spending, she added, is "dark money" - money spent by shadowy groups in order to influence the outcome of elections.

"It's swift-boat on steroids," Graves quipped.

No wonder Americans have trouble mustering much enthusiasm for the process.

But even as the presidential primary carnival devolves into more of a sideshow than ever this year, citizens' groups are mobilizing unprecedented political energy to combat the hijacking of our democracy by corporate cash.  READ MORE