By MATT MURRAY
For the Monitor
Saturday, July 19, 2014
http://bit.ly/1n04J1n
http://bit.ly/1n04J1n
We are well into the 2014 election season, and there’s a lot at stake.
Not just control of the U.S. Senate, as
newly minted New Hampshire resident Scott Brown ignores his GOP primary
opponents in his rush to target incumbent Sen. Jeanne Shaheen.
Not just the perversity quotient of the
U.S. House, as primary voters sort through which candidates –
representing which wing of the Republican Party? – will challenge
Democratic incumbents Annie Kuster and Carol Shea-Porter.
Not just the balance of power in the New
Hampshire General Court, as we’re still trying to forget – or at least
recover from – the two-year reign of House Speaker “Bully” O’Brien.
I hate to mention this, but there’s also
the 2016 presidential campaign right around the corner. And if we’re
going to fulfill the responsibility of the “First in the Nation”
primary, then New Hampshire needs to have solid – and sane – political
parties.
You see, New Hampshire is the focus of a
unique political experiment, started in 2001 by then-Yale doctoral
student Jason Sorens. His idea was to get 20,000 activists to move to a
single state with a small population and an easily accessible
government.
“Once we’ve taken over the state
government, we can slash state and local budgets, which make up a
sizeable proportion of the tax and regulatory burden we face every day.
Furthermore, we can eliminate substantial federal interference by
refusing to take highway funds and the strings attached to them. Once
we’ve accomplished these things, we can bargain with the national
government over reducing the role of the national government in our
state. We can use the threat of secession as leverage to do this.”
Snowplowing? Bridge safety? An adequately
funded judicial system? Public colleges? These things are nowhere on
the Free Staters’ priority list.
No, the Free Staters – at least those in
Keene – seem to be more interested in marijuana and videotaping the
city’s parking enforcement officers.
Here’s where it gets serious: Free Staters
don’t care about political parties. That’s how two Free Staters, who
lived in the same house, ran for state representative on opposite sides
of the ticket. (The Democratic candidate won.) Free State candidates
don’t advertise their allegiance to the project, they just join up with a
political party and run for office.
In their 2012 election results roundup,
the project outlined the progress they had made: Over the past eight
years, FSP participants who have become state representatives went from
zero to 1, to four, to 12 to 14 in 2010, to eleven this cycle. Only
1,100 movers are on the ground. With only 5 percent of the goal movers
in New Hampshire, political FSP participants held onto the status quo
while Republicans got trounced. Baby steps, people. It ain’t called a
“project” for nothing!
Twenty-thousand movers could translate into 200 state reps, half the house. Imagine what fun would ensue.
One-fourth of the legislators identified as belonging to FSP ran as Democrats.
And now it’s 2014, election season again.
Is it going to get even weirder this year?
Sen. Peter Bragdon is retiring, and “Free
State” mover Dan Hynes is running for his seat. Apparently Hynes has
offered free room and board to FSPers willing to work for his campaign.
And here’s what his campaign website says
about why he’s running (under “Smaller Gov”): “Dan Hynes opposes
government regulations that force people to do things against their
will, or that prevents them from doing things that bring them happiness
as long as it does not harm other people.”
But don’t we need rules about which side
of the road to drive on? Laws to protect property? What happens when the
things that make one person happy conflict with what makes other people
happy? What happens when most people want to have our highways plowed,
but some people don’t want to pay for it?
People actually think that this kind of chaos is a good idea? And they’re moving to New Hampshire to create it?
Hasn’t New Hampshire already had enough
nuttiness from our politicians? Can’t we all agree that we need a
functioning government? And rational political parties? And that Granite
Staters don’t really want to secede from the United States?
This election year, we need to pay close
attention to who we’re voting for, where their allegiance lies and what
sort of a government they believe in (if any).
There’s a lot at stake.
(Matt Murray is the creator and
editor of the NH Labor News, an online blog that focuses on politics and
their effect on working families. He lives in Merrimack.)