GOP Overreach Backfires

If Democrats are too timid, then Republicans are too aggressive.

Buoyed by sweeping victories in the 2010 elections, the GOP tried to create radical changes in our system of government. And Republicans paid the price for their overreach.

In Wisconsin in 2010, newly-elected Republican Gov. Scott Walker and the GOP-dominated legislature passed a law that effectively ended collective bargaining rights for most public workers.

An aroused and annoyed electorate responded by recalling two Republican state senators and replacing them with Democrats. The angry reaction of the public continues this year as petitions are currently being circulated for the recall of Walker, Republican Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefsich, and at least three more GOP state senators.

In Ohio in 2010, newly-elected Republican Gov. John Kasich and a Republican-controlled legislature restricted collective bargaining by passing a law outlawing public-sector strikes, reducing bargaining rights for 360,000 public employees, and eliminating binding arbitration as a means of resolving management-labor disputes.

As in Wisconsin, the public responded to what it perceived as an undue attack on basic collective bargaining rights by overturning the law at the polls by a whopping 23 point margin.

Since their 2010 victories, Republicans across the nation have been busily engaged in attempting to restrict the voting rights of minorities and lower income Americans.

Their sin? Minorities and poorer people tend to vote Democratic.

In the recent November election, Mainers rose up and threw out a law passed by Republican Gov. Paul LePage and the GOP-run legislature to eliminate same-day voter registration.

Same-day registration had operated successfully in Maine for 40 years, and was credited with increasing voting. However, it also led to more Democrats voting, an unforgiveable sin to the GOP.

Columnist E.J. Dionne summarized the situation in the Washington Post (11/9/11). "Given an opportunity in 2010 to build a long-term majority, Republicans instead pursued extreme and partisan measures. On Tuesday, they reaped angry voter rebellions."

Have Republicans in New Hampshire also overreached? The GOP possesses supermajorities in the legislature, a prerequisite to the passage of self-interested and extreme legislation.

The answer to that question is clearly "yes, they have." Judge for yourself.

In the 2010 session of the legislature, the GOP-dominated legislature attempted to repeal mandatory kindergarten (HB 631), repeal compulsory school attendance (HB 542), and lower the dropout age from 18 to 16 (HB 429).

In addition, Republicans in the legislature attempted to pass into law a photo ID bill (SB 129) designed, when the artifices were stripped away, to suppress Democratic voting.

They also tried to defund public television (HB 113), and end New Hampshire's membership in a Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (HB 519), otherwise known as RGGI.

RGGI has the goal of reducing carbon dioxide in the air, and has generated more than $28 million in funding for New Hampshire through a cap-and-trade system of selling carbon credits.

Fortunately, all the preceding measures were defeated through the efforts of Democrats, a minority of moderate Republicans, and Democratic Gov. John Lynch.

A stalemate has developed with regard to so-called Right to Work legislation for New Hampshire.

Republicans proposed such a bill in 2011, but when GOP speaker Bill O'Brien discovered that he did not have the votes to override a veto by Lynch, he repeatedly delayed an override vote in the hope that due to Democratic absences, he might on a particular day have enough votes to sneak it through.

That day has yet to come.

Republican legislators may well want to remember the fate of their colleagues in Wisconsin and Ohio before voting for Right to Work.

However, Democrats, moderate Republicans, and Lynch were not enough to stop some other ill-advised GOP bills from becoming law.

The New Hampshire minimum wage has been repealed (HB 133) and the cigarette tax was lowered by 10 cents (HB 156), costing New Hampshire badly-needed revenue and putting the health of its citizens at greater risk.

And the Republican passionate love affair with guns still burns hot. Republicans instituted a rule that allows state representatives to carry concealed weapons on the floor of the legislature.

Imagine having an intense debate with someone who may be carrying a gun.

Previously, in this state, gun laws allowed citizens to use deadly force to protect themselves inside their homes and when threatened outside their dwellings, if they made an effort to safely retreat before shooting.

Now, someone with a gun no longer has to retreat, but can shoot anytime he feels threatened. Apparently, displays on manliness are more important than doing your best to avoid a shootout for the safety of all concerned.

Next gun law on the GOP wish list for 2012? HB 330, which allows a person to carry a gun either openly or concealed without a license.

Just imagine the gruesome consequences. T.S. Eliot wrote, "This is the way the world ends. Not with a bang but a whimper." 

Apparently, Eliot was wrong. It ends with a bang.

The Portsmouth Herald noted in an editorial (6/25/11), "The Republicans have made it to Crazytown in less than a year, and we look forward with great anticipation to 2012, when New Hampshire's compassionate, moderate and sensible voters throw them out of office."