Planned Parenthood’s $500,000 grassroots campaign

Planned Parenthood is rolling out a $500,000 campaign of direct mail, phone calls and canvassing to educate and motivate New Hampshire women voters.

The campaign will provide support for Maggie Hassan’s gubernatorial campaign and will work to win back support for women’s health on the executive council by electing Democrats Colin Van Ostern and Chris Pappas.

“Women’s health is at stake at every level of the ballot,” said senior policy advisor Jennifer Frizzell. “We have launched our most comprehensive campaign ever to protect access to critical health services.”

Don’t believe everything you read on the Internet

2nd District Executive Council candidate Michael Tierney has issued a press release in which he claims “Planned Parenthood is hiring ‘grassroots’ campaign operatives at a rate of $100 per hour in Manchester, Concord and Dover to lobby for the election of pro-abortion candidates like Mr. Van Ostern.” (emphasis added)

$100 per hour? Seriously? The source for his laughable claim is a GraniteGrok post that refers to a Craigslist job listing for Planned Parenthood canvassers. Yes, there’s a typo in a bullet point that lists the compensation as $100/hour, but the body of the ad is quite specific: “The pay is $100/shift and you have the potential to gross more than $2500 between now and the November election.”

In his zeal to promote his ideological agenda, Tierney failed to question a claim on a right-wing blog that was clearly erroneous — and unwittingly provided voters a clear indication of how he would manage the state’s business on the Executive Council.

Board rejects complaint by birth control foe

Yesterday, the state pharmacy board rejected an attempt by GOP Executive Council candidate Michael Tierney to block Planned Parenthood from dispensing birth control prescriptions.

Tierney had claimed Planned Parenthood lost the right to fill prescriptions when the Executive Council ended state funding of the clinics in June, 2011. The board rejected his complaint without comment and voted unanimously to renew Planned Parenthood’s license.

Tierney, who is running for the Executive Council in the 2nd District, has a long history of opposition to birth control, reproductive rights and legal family planning care in New Hampshire. His opponent, Democrat Colin Van Ostern, applauded the board’s action and criticized Tierney for pushing a “divisive ideological agenda.”

“Mr. Tierney’s push to restrict birth control access and his crusade against Planned Parenthood should not stand between New Hampshire women and their health care, and I am glad to see the pharmacy board unanimously reject his latest complaint,” he wrote. “We need a state government focused on jobs and economic development, not pushing this divisive ideological agenda.”

Exec. Council candidate goes after Planned Parenthood

Michael Tierney, a Republican candidate for the Executive Council, is representing New Hampshire Right to Life in an attempt to stop Planned Parenthood from dispensing birth control prescriptions in New Hampshire.

State law requires prescriptions to be filled by a licensed pharmacist but includes an exemption for family-planning clinics that operate under a state contract. 

Tierney claims Planned Parenthood lost the right to dispense prescriptions when the Executive Council ended state funding of the clinics in June 2011. He is demanding that the Board of Pharmacy, whose members are confirmed by the Executive Council, reject Planned Parenthood’s license renewal application when they meet next week.

Tierney, who is running for the Executive Council in the 2nd District, has a long history of opposition to birth control, reproductive rights and legal family planning care in New Hampshire.

Democratic candidate Colin Van Ostern responded on Twitter saying, “Mr. Tierney’s constant and repeated efforts to eliminate birth control pills at [Planned Parenthood] health centers are a dangerous distraction, dangerous because he would restrict access to birth control for tens of thousands of New Hampshire women and families [and] a distraction because this obsessive campaign does nothing to help our economy or support economic development.”

Lynch Criticizes Executive Council over Rail Inaction

In his state of the state address to the Greater Nashua Chamber of Commerce today, Gov. John Lynch voiced strong support for regional rail service, which he says will help revive and strengthen the state’s economy.

[Lynch] reiterated his disappointment with the Executive Council for rejecting the request for $3.6 million that would have allowed a study to gather pertinent information about the viability of extending rail service into Nashua and beyond.

“It’s important to look beyond the next few years, and continue to look at rail for a bunch of reasons, including economic development not only in Nashua, but throughout the region,” Lynch said.

Democrats running for Executive Council seats agree with Lynch and say the council’s ideological agenda has trumped rational business decisions.

Bill Duncan, who is vying to replace Councilor Chris Sununu, says Sununu’s vote against the rail study is “evidence that the ‘ideological disease’ of the tea party has ‘infected’ the council.” He is running, he says, to provide a balance against that extreme agenda.

Colin Van Oster, who is running for the council seat currently held by Dan St. Hilaire, accused the council of putting “their personal anti-government zeal ahead of a practical bipartisan solution — this time, one that would have cut commuting costs and helped economic development across the Greater Concord area.”

Van Ostern Pulls In Over 1000 Individual Donations

John DiStaso reports that with six months to go before the election, Democrat Colin Van Ostern has already received more than 1000 individual donations — the state’s first Executive Council candidate to ever reach that milestone.

Van Ostern says his campaign has raised over $100,000 with an average contribution of roughly $100 and more than three-quarters of the funds coming from New Hampshire voters. No donor to his campaign has yet given the maximum contribution, he says. 

“This overwhelming grassroots support is a clear signal that New Hampshire voters in every corner of the state are rallying behind our call for more focus on jobs and the economy, and less government interference in our personal lives,” Van Ostern says in a statement. “Other campaigns may have bigger bank accounts in this election, but I am proud of the widespread, grassroots support that is reflected in the historic number of voters investing in our campaign.”

Executive Council Rejects Federal Funds for Rail Study

While all eyes were on the House rollback of women’s rights yesterday, the state’s Executive Council was rejecting a $3.2 million federal grant to help pay for a feasibility study for a commuter rail line between Boston and Concord.

The federal grant, which had strong bipartisan support from Gov. Lynch, Nashua officials and business leaders, would have funded most of the $3.6 million feasibility study. The remainder would have come from private donors and state-backed bonds in a previous public works budget.

Councilors Wheeler, Sununu and St. Hilaire voted against accepting the grant. Colin Van Ostern, who is running against St. Hilaire for the District Two council seat, accused the council of putting “their personal anti-government zeal ahead of a practical bipartisan solution — this time, one that would have cut commuting costs and helped economic development across the Greater Concord area.”

Former state senator Peter Burling, the past chairman of a rail transit authority that has pushed for the project, was upset by the vote. The refusal to use federal money to simply study the issue left him “breathless with incredulity,” and the funding will likely now be used by another state, he said.

“It felt like foolishness,” he said. “It felt like ignorance triumphing over inquiry.”

“The action by three executive councilors, who decided based on dogma instead of information, is an overt insult to the nonpartisan donors of the original effort,” he said.

N.H. Legislative Committee: Reject Federal Funding

A legislative committee says the state should refuse all federal funding for education, nutritional programs and fuel assistance. Committee chair Gregory Sorg defends the recommendation saying, “Such funding schemes amount to all intents and purposes of bribing the state of New Hampshire to surrender its sovereignty.”

The members of the committee say it is unconstitutional for the state to accept those grants because the federal government has violated the 10th Amendment by funding programs for health, safety and welfare.

To determine the constitutionality of future federal grants, the committee specifically excluded court rulings on issues of constitutionality and made the bizarre recommendation that lawmakers should cite the essay number of the Federalist Papers that would authorize funding.

Sorg admits that all of the committee members share his extreme ideology. “We’re just trying to persuade the rest of the House, or the working majority of the House and the working majority of the Senate, to adopt this view.”

Colin Van Ostern, Democratic candidate for the Executive Council, points to the Executive Council action this summer rejecting federal aid for Planned Parenthood health centers and says this is no idle threat.

Let’s be clear: refusing to accept these federal funds in New Hampshire will not lower anyone’s taxes, or repay even a dime of the national debt. The federal tax dollars that you and I work hard and pay every year are simply being rejected for ideological reasons, and sent to other states.

What this will do, however, is strike a tremendous blow against the quality of life we live here in our state.

How many new businesses will invest in growing jobs here, while every other state has far more resources to educate its workforce?

How many young people will chose to stay in NH, knowing that so many of their federal tax dollars will never return to them?

How many will choose to raise their family here, if we shred our most basic social safety net and let thousands of children go hungry to make a symbolic political point?

In fiscal year 2010, over a third of New Hampshire’s $5.12 billion budget ($1.76 billion) was from federal funding.

Quote of the Day: We Must Do Better

This election will come down to our values: do we want an Executive Council that is willing to damage our state in order to amplify the partisan extremism in Concord, or do we want to moderate it with smart, and jobs-focused management instead? Frankly, I’m embarrassed by the antics we’ve seen lately in the State House. Putting a fringe ideology ahead of what’s best for New Hampshire families and our state economy would never fly in the private sector where I work as a business manager today, it would never be accepted at the New Hampshire nonprofits I’ve helped grow over the past decade, and it would never be tolerated by the elected leaders to whom I’ve served as senior adviser. We must do better.

— Colin Van Ostern, announcing his candidacy for the Executive Council