Also on today’s menu:
AG Fights National Democrats’ Voter Suppression Effort
NextEra: Trust Us To Handle Nuclear Emergency
Canterbury lost its third bid at forming its own school district when the NH Board of Education rejected a committee report supporting its withdrawal from the Shaker Regional School District. Canterbury voters’ dissatisfaction with the Shaker district manifested itself in attempts to withdraw in 1981, 1993, and 2023. The majority report stated, “Geography, extracurricular activities, Advanced Placement courses, time span of bus routes, vocational programs and assessment scores all played a part in the Committee’s vote in favor of withdrawal.”
The five-person state board rejected the most recent proposal, 3-2, on Dec. 14. Had it approved the request, the question would go before Belmont and Canterbury voters at town meeting. The state board agreed with the committee’s minority opinion that argued, “there are no compelling economic or educational reasons to justify Canterbury’s withdrawal from the Shaker Regional School District; it would result in a greater financial burden on Canterbury as well as Belmont residents.”
Canterbury students attend the town’s elementary school through grade 5, then go to on to middle and high school in Belmont. If the withdrawal effort had succeeded, the committee recommended establishing tuition contracts for middle and high school attendance at schools in neighboring towns.
Discussion: Multi-town school districts formed to share economies of scale, making it possible to offer a more diverse range of academic and athletic programs, and to better coordinate the teaching curriculum as students advance from the lower to the higher grades. The laws governing school districts make it difficult for one town or group of towns to withdraw because of the potential disruptions, but an increasing number of communities are looking to take back control they fear they have lost by leaving educational decisions to a board that may not reflect their own values. Efforts by three towns in the Newfound Area School District to withdraw fall under different rules because of their special status, having formed a village district to build their own elementary school which they lease to the school district. The New Hampshire Legislature granted them authority to form a special-purpose school district that expands upon what they already have, and rather than requiring all seven district towns to vote on withdrawal, only Bridgewater, Hebron, and Groton will decide their fate.
AG Fights National Democrats’ Voter Suppression Effort
New Hampshire Attorney General John M. Formella issued a cease-and-desist order to the Democratic National Committee’s Rules & Bylaws Committee after learning of a January 5, 2024, letter that the RBC sent to the New Hampshire Democratic Party reiterating its call to “educate the public” that the upcoming Democratic Presidential Primary Election in New Hampshire is “meaningless”.
The letter from the RBC’s co-chairs, Minyon Moore and James Roosevelt Jr., reminded New Hampshire Democratic Party Chair Raymond Buckley that the RBC had “clearly stated” on December 13, 2023, that the New Hampshire Primary “cannot be used as the first determining stage of the state’s delegate selection process and is considered detrimental”. It continued, “The NHDP must take steps to education the public that January 23rd is a non-binding presidential preference event and is meaningless and the NHDP and presidential candidates should take all steps possible not to participate.”
Furthermore, the letter stated, “No delegates or alternates shall be appointed based on the results of the January 23, 2024 event” and that “No scheduling of events related to the selection of delegates or alternates in New Hampshire may be based on the January 23, 2024 event.”
New Hampshire state law requires the Granite State to hold the first presidential primary election, but President Joe Biden Jr. and Democratic National Committee ignored that law in order to reward South Carolina for being the first state to give Biden a win in his 2020 presidential campaign.
In his letter, Formella cited RSA 659:40, III, which states, “No person shall engage in voter suppression by knowingly attempting to prevent or deter another person from voting or registering to vote based on fraudulent, deceptive, misleading, or spurious grounds or information” including “Attempting to induce another person to refrain from registering to vote or from voting by providing that person with information that he or she knows to be false or misleading.”
Formella issued a statement saying, “Regardless of whether the DNC refuses to award delegates to the party’s national convention based on the results of the January 23, 2024, New Hampshire democratic Presidential Primary Election, this New Hampshire election is not ‘meaningless.’ RBC’s statements to the contrary are false, deceptive, and misleading. Telling any person qualified to register to vote or vote in New Hampshire that the January 23, 2024, New Hampshire democratic Presidential Primary Election is ‘meaningless,’ or soliciting NHDP or any other party to make such statements, constitutes an attempt to prevent or deter New Hampshire voters from participating in the January 23, 2024, New Hampshire democratic Presidential Primary Election, in violation of RSA 659:40, III.”
Discussion: Formella is absolutely correct in pointing out something that has been ignored so far: By saying they will not honor votes by New Hampshire citizens in the coming election, the Democratic National Committee is engaging in voter suppression. In this case, it is suppressing the votes of citizens in their own party! (I generally avoid using exclamation points, but this deserves one.) President Biden originally campaigned on bringing Americans together, but by his blatantly political manipulation of the election process, he is creating divisions that are sure to hurt the Democratic Party as well as his own standing in New Hampshire.
NextEra: Trust Us To Handle Nuclear Emergency
Senators Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan and representatives Annie Kuster and Chris Pappas sent a letter to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to say they have “serious questions” about emergency staffing under a coordinated planning and synchronization proposal from NextEra Energy Resources, the company that operates Seabrook Station and three other nuclear power plants in Florida and Wisconsin. “It is imperative that New Hampshire residents have ample time to review, understand, and provide input on decisions that impact their neighborhoods and lives,” they wrote.
NextEra Energy claims the changes under consideration by the NRC “will improve emergency preparedness through better deployment of our highly skilled team members and greater support from experts at our other company locations” by creating a “hybrid emergency response program” that includes both on-site roles and a remote command facility in Juno Beach, Florida.
Massachusetts senators Ed Markey and Elizabeth Warren urged the NRC to reject “any changes that would increase threats to communities living near nuclear power stations” and cited pre-submission documents that revealed a 50 percent increase in emergency response times, from 60 to 90 minutes, for at least 10 key positions. “The importance of emergency response proximity and timeliness cannot be overstated,” they wrote.
In an October letter to Justin Poole, project manager for Seabrook Station at the NRC, Executive Director Sarah Abramson of the nonprofit C-10 Research & Education Foundation wrote, “This request from NextEra openly states that they are making this request to ‘ease operator burden’ in exchange for reducing emergency response resources at each plant. It is a stark deviation from current regulations, and should the NRC grant NextEra permission to avoid those rules simply for NextEra to save money, it would be in direct conflict with the NRC’s stated mission to ‘ensure the safe use of radioactive materials for beneficial civilian purposes while protecting people and the environment.’”
Discussions: There has been a push for nuclear power as an alternative to fossil fuels, but even if new nuclear plants are safer than those of the past, they still pose risks, especially as they age. Seabrook Station is approaching old age, so safety risks are increasing. This is not the time to relax any safeguards. While it makes sense to expand the number of experienced emergency responders who are available by having the ability to pull them from other plants owned by NextEra, there should be no relaxation of any requirements just because they might “ease operator burden”.