Good morning!
Here is a rundown of today’s must-see, must-read news and opinion!
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Senate votes Monday on 4 gun-control proposals
The Senate, divided over how to respond to the nation’s latest mass shooting, will vote Monday on four measures supporters say would keep guns out of the hands of terrorists.
All of them have failed in political show votes after previous massacres. All need 60 votes to pass, an enormous hurdle — especially in an overheated election season on a topic on which compromise is hard to find. -The proposals: — Democrats are lining up behind a measure by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., that would give the government broad authority to block gun sales to people who have been subject to terrorism investigations in the past five years. Such people would be flagged during the gun background check. The government could then veto the sale if the Justice Department decides there is a “reasonable suspicion” that the buyer has become involved in terrorism or is preparing to do so.
Layoffs, ‘cluster’ classes at PSU
Plymouth State University said it is cutting staff as it plans to eliminate traditional colleges and departments in favor of strategic clusters of learning that will better prepare students. “We have to restructure ourselves, so we’re more efficiently utilizing the resources we have, both people and dollars that we get,” President Don Birx said during an interview in Manchester last week.Administrators have approved the departure of 78 faculty and staff members by late December out of 743 employees. Fifteen people will be laid off this month while the other 63 people will take voluntary retirement or separation packages. Of the 78 vacated positions, 40 to 50 will remain unfilled.
Ayotte cosponsors a compromise in efforts to ‘keep guns out of the hands of terrorists’
With observers predicting failure for two measures that come before the U.S. Senate today to prevent terrorists from buying guns, Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-NH, is touting a “targeted, compromise proposal” she says is generating bipartisan support. “We don’t need another political football,” Ayotte said on Sunday. “I want to get something done. What we need is something that makes sense, a measure that keeps guns out of the hands of terrorists, while protecting the rights of Americans. I think what we are proposing does that.” Ayotte said she has been working with Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, on a proposal that would prohibit the sale of guns to terrorism suspects who appear on the government’s “No Fly” list or the so-called “selectee” list that requires additional screening at airports. –
This Summer, The N.H. State House Will Be Open for Saturday Tours
New Hampshire, home of the first-in-the-nation presidential primary, will be opening its Statehouse on weekends for the first time in nearly two decades. Gov. Maggie Hassan signed into law this week a bill that paves the way for the Greater Concord Chamber of Commerce pay the security costs and provide docents to lead tours. Chamber director Tim Sink said the plan is to offer Saturdaytours Memorial Day through Columbus Day, but tours this year probably won’t get off the ground until the fall. He says having a “working museum” right in the middle of Concord’s downtown will lure tourists who may also shop and dine.
OPINION
Balancing rights: Rape shield law faces challenge (Union Leader)
The New Hampshire Supreme Court is correctly proceeding with caution as it considers a challenge to New Hampshire’s rape shield law. Statute and the rules of evidence prohibit a sexual assault victim’s sexual history with anyone other than the accused from being entered into evidence, or even released in pretrial discovery. Seth Mazzaglia, convicted of raping and murdering 19-year old Lizzi Marriott in 2014, argues that his defense team should have had access to records of Marriott’s past. The Supreme Court recently changed its rules to give it authority to unseal records sealed by lower courts. But that doesn’t mean it has to do so.
Do something! Whether or not it does any good (Union Leader)
Politicians are panicking. In Concord. In Washington. Deadly terrorist attacks and a three-year-old epidemic of drug overdoses have left politicians scrambling for legislative solutions to problems that can’t be solved by more laws. That hasn’t stopped them from trying. Anything. Task forces. Special sessions. Drug courts. Granite Hammer. Background checks. Do something! Anything! In response to a radical Islamic terrorist who passed a background check and was dropped from the FBI’s watchlist, Democrats are demanding votes on gun control bills to expand background checks and tie gun purchases to a watch list. But they don’t want to actually solve the problem. They just want to “Do something!” Change at Plymouth State: Birx shakes things up (Union Leader)
Donald Birx is shaking things up at Plymouth State University. Maybe he’s rearranging deck chairs as higher education heads toward the iceberg, but we like that he’s trying.
As Union Leader staff reporter Michael Cousineau writes today, the PSU president is reorganizing the school from three colleges and a graduate program spread over 24 academic departments to seven “Strategic Clusters.” The “innovation and entrepreneurship” cluster will overlap with the others, and students will be encouraged to build their academic plan across disciplines. Frankly, there is a lot of academic jargon in Birx’s plan, but the result of the reorganization plan will be a leaner school.
Garry Rayno’s State House Dome: Some things never change
THURSDAY’S HOUSE session ended the two-year 2015-16 term the same way it began Dec. 3, 2014 – with an intramural squabble among Republicans. The 2015-16 term began with Organization Day, when House members anointed a leader for the next two years. In a daylong donnybrook, former House Speaker William O’Brien – the GOP caucus’s nominee – lost to longtime member Shawn Jasper, who received the backing of a minority of Republican members and the Democrats, to claim the gavel. On the final day of the term, the same camps clashed over suspending the rules in order to enable a vote on a bill to spend $1.5 million for law enforcement grants to target street-level drug dealers. –
A land bill that deserves to be buried (Concord Monitor)
One legislator saw it as a plan to pave the way for an invasion by waterway, a la Rogers’ Rangers. Another, when told by the attorney general’s office that the proposed law, Senate Bill 324, was unenforceable, said no one believed the word of the attorney general over the opinion of one of the Legislature’s many self-anointed constitutional scholars. And it wasn’t even a full moon. Now the proposed law, which purports to declare a moratorium on federal land acquisition in New Hampshire and restrict federal ownership of land in the state to 2 percent or less, is awaiting a decision from Gov. Hassan. Hassan should veto the crackpot legislation, which could needlessly complicate and compromise conservation efforts and possibly interfere with the state’s ability to receive federal money under the Land and Water Conservation Act and other programs.
CAMPAIGN 2016
Laying the odds on the veepstakes
There is a flood of early talk in political circles about who will get the vice presidential nods from Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.The strategy for picking a running mate this year is wildly different from anything seen before. The textbook on picking a VP calls for a heavy focus on adding swing-state support for the top of the ticket. The book also advises finding a running mate seen by voters as plausibly able to take over as president. Well, throw out the textbook. No one believes that any running mate is going to tip this year’s electoral map. And no strong, silent type fits the bill at a moment when voters want to shake up the system. When Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) paid a visit to Clinton just days after she claimed the nomination, speculation kicked into overdrive.
Wall Street donors seek to block Warren VP pick
Big Wall Street donors have a message for Hillary Clinton: Keep Elizabeth Warren off the ticket or risk losing millions of dollars in contributions.
In a dozen interviews, major Democratic donors in the financial services industry said they saw little chance that Clinton would pick the liberal firebrand as her vice presidential nominee. These donors despise Warren’s attacks on the financial industry. But they also think her selection would be damaging to the economy. And they warned that if Clinton surprises them and taps Warren, big donations from the industry could vanish.
NH Democrats rally over disdain for Trump, GOP at state convention
A fired-up crowd of Democrats rallied behind their candidates while attacking GOP officials during Saturday’s New Hampshire Democratic Party State Convention. In preparation for November’s election, 752 Democrat delegates gathered to advance the Democratic platform, promote the campaign season and boost their candidates. Throughout the process, Democrats attacked Donald Trump and Sen. Kelly Ayotte, while also praising Bernie Sanders and lauding Hillary Clinton. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen described Trump as a “national embarrassment” who is unfit to be commander in chief.
IN OTHER NEWS
Former Bush admistration official Card to step down as FPU president
Forest Society Appeals Northern Pass Property Rights Suit to NH Supreme Court
Here are the winners of this fall’s moose hunt in New Hampshire
Jim Rivers
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