Is Leadership Opposing The Recall Bill? (HB 73)

Is Leadership Opposing The Recall Bill? (HB 73)
by Steve MacDonald

Sources in the NH State House have suggested to me that Dan Itse’s HB 73, ‘An Act establishing a process for recall of US Senators from New Hampshire, may be opposed by the Republican House leadership.

This information comes quickly after an article in the Union Leader yesterday in which the usual suspects on the left assumed that the bill was meant as an attack on Jeanne Shaheen. That thinking stems from the root of evil that is inside the Left’s party leadership. If the Democrats had proposed it, it would be to unseat a Republican Senator so they naturally assume that this is the intention.

Sorry. We really do not think that way.

I am not Senator Shaheen’s biggest fan, but I agree with Dan Itse whose response to that was no. It is not to unseat anyone. Six years is simply too long for any elected representative to be in office without any real sense of accountability and US Senators, be they Shaheen, Gregg, Ayotte, or whomever, have far too much time to exercise far too much power without any regard for its actual relevance or effect on the state they are meant to represent in that body. The history of the Senate since the institution of direct election is one of corruption, self enrichment, and political fiefdoms.

HB 73 would put the fear of “State” back into the thought process of a job holder who was never meant to be elected directly.

Only the US house was meant to be the peoples’ elected house. The Senate was the appointed chamber, picked by the state legislators who were themselves elected by the people. And being appointed, Senators were well aware that should they vote outside the interest of their state they could be recalled for discipline or even be replaced. That kind of accountability is rare in politics and desperately needed. And it was a critical mechanism to our Republic that was destroyed by the 17th amendment.

Mr. Itse is merely attempting to return that check and balance to New Hampshire. A check that on a national scale would have prevented the passage of trillions in spending and entitlement programs, reams of bureaucratic red tape, and even stopped the nightmare known as Obamacare.

So why might leadership oppose the measure, if that is in fact the case? I suspect it is a matter of priorities. The goal in the first session is to deal with the budget, spending, reducing the State deficit, and removing the bureaucratic boot off our necks placed there by four years of Democrat rule. Most other concerns, even legitimate ones, that do not fit that list of priorities, will have to wait until we can see our way through the foggy fiscal mess that the new majority has inherited from the math-challenged New Hampshire Democrat Party.

So while I support the need to hold our US Senators accountable, I’d be just as happy to see this bill in the next session.

But between then and now, I would recommend a media campaign to explain the merit of HB 73 and why it is good for New Hampshire to put a wedge between our Senators and displaced national party priorities or deep pocketed lobbyists. With that seed sown, a vote in the state legislature in 2012 on a recall measure would be less of a cudgel to be used on Republicans that support it, and more like a warm handshake introducing the people of the Granite State to their newly-found control over an seemingly unaccountable national body.