Also on today’s menu:
Write-In Campaign For Absent President
Sununu Veto Kills Burgess Biomass Plant
Flags At Half-Staff In Honor Of Shooting Victims
If undeclared voters were worried that they would not be able to vote in the Republican primary due to a resolution adopted by the New Hampshire Republican Party in January, Secretary of State David Scanlan has allayed those fears, saying the deadline for the chairman of the party to submit a letter about any rule change was October 11, and no such letter had been received.
GOP activist Karen Testerman of Franklin had written the resolution to bar undeclared voters from changing their party affiliation to Republican in order to vote in the primary, saying Democrats were urging independent voters do so in order to ensure that Donald Trump would not be the winner. The New Hampshire Republican Party adopted her resolution in January, but Scanlan said the law requires the chair of the state Republican Party — currently Chris Ager — to send him a letter informing him of the rule or bylaw change and that Ager has not done so.
The letter would have to had to be delivered before the filing period for office opens up, and that deadline was two weeks ago. “The presidential primary will be conducted in the same manner it has been conducted for decades,” Scanlan said.
Write-In Campaign For Absent President
With President Joe Biden Jr. going along with the Democratic National Committee in bypassing New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation presidential primary, state Democrats are launching a write-in campaign to make Biden New Hampshire’s Democratic nominee. Longtime campaign strategist Jim Demers said, “I’m beyond worrying about what the DNC did. I think the elections are about November and the November election is where my focus is. So I want to do everything possible to make sure that Joe Biden wins reelection.”
Although Biden will not be on the New Hampshire ballot, his primary opponents, including Marianne Williamson, the self-help author who ran for the Democratic nomination in 2020, will be, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is running as an independent candidate. Earlier this month, Secretary of State David Scanlan announced that 408 former Democrats had changed their party registration to Republican, and 3,542 Democrats had changed to “undeclared” voters, allowing them to vote in either primary.
A write-in campaign will make it more difficult for state and local election officials, who will need to hand-count those ballots, and Scanlan’s office has recommended that some cities and towns recruit more volunteers.
Sununu Veto Kills Burgess Biomass Plant
New Hampshire’s forest industry has taken a hit with the New Hampshire Legislature’s failure to override Governor Chris Sununu’s veto of House Bill 142, which would have given the Burgess biomass plant in Berlin two more years of ratepayer subsidies to allow the owners to find a way to cover expenses and generate electricity closer to the current wholesale rate. Without the subsidy, the plant will have to close on November 1, putting 30 people out of work and disrupting the forest products industry, especially in the North Country. The closure also will lead to higher water rates in Berlin and increased property taxes throughout Coos County.
In vetoing the bill, which has passed both the House and Senate, Sununu said the plant’s owners had repeatedly failed to find a solution to their financial difficulties, and state government already had given them time to solve the problem. He said the subsidies have cost Eversource ratepayers about $200 million and “Enough is enough.”
Representative Henry Noel (D-Berlin) blamed the Public Utilities Commission for the difficulty, saying the PUC added a provision requiring the plant to return money to ratepayers once its debt reaches $100 million. He said the plant has followed the purchase power contract it signed with Eversource before the PUC added to its debt. “The governor is asking us to blame an award-winning renewable power plant,” Noel said, when that problem “came from the PUC.”
The House has supported the plant, passing several earlier bills suspending the payback. Representative Corinne Cascadden (D-Berlin) said not overriding the veto would mean the loss of the one remaining biomass plant in the state, and one of the top three in the nation, calling the veto “a failure by caving in to politics.” She said the legislature should show the foresters, landowners, and citizens of the state that they will do what is right for New Hampshire again, but the veto override failed on a 194 -159 vote. The override would have required a two-thirds majority vote, or 235 affirmative votes.
Flags At Half-Staff In Honor Of Shooting Victims
Governor Chris Sununu has ordered flags on all public buildings and grounds to fly at half-staff “as a mark of respect for the victims of the unspeakable tragedy in Lewiston, Maine.” In announcing his executive order, Sununu said, “The State of New Hampshire stands with the people of Maine — they are our friends, families, and neighbors. State officials have been in constant contact with our counterparts in Maine, and have been assisting in the response and manhunt since [Wednesday] evening. We will continue to provide as many resources as necessary so that justice is served.”
Wednesday night’s mass shootings that killed 18 people at Just-in-Time Recreation and Schemengees Bar & Grille appear to be the deadliest such massacre this year in the United States, and is also the worst since a gunman killed 19 students and two teachers at a school in Uvalde, Texas, last year. There have been at least 566 mass shootings across the country this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive.
Authorities have not yet apprehended suspect Robert Card, 40, whom they consider armed and dangerous. Schools, businesses, and other facilities have remained closed over safety concerns while law enforcement officers search for Card, for whom an arrest warrant lists eight counts of murder. Card’s last known address was in Bowdoin, Maine, and his car was found abandoned in Lisbon, Maine.
Katherine Schweit, a former FBI senior official, said that, with his combat training, Card has an advantage. “He’s in his own backyard, and we’re coming into his own backyard to try to find him in a game of hide-and-seek. He knows what he’s looking for and where he’s going to go. He has a plan, and law enforcement has to follow those trails wherever they can find them until he makes a decision to stop. So, if he keeps going, that’s just what we’re facing.”
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