“She won. Why is she still fighting?”
That was the reaction from one GOP House member after Gov. Kelly Ayotte’s appearance on the Jack Heath radio show Monday morning, where she once again pounded away at the budget passed by her fellow Republicans.
Her top issue remains the Committee of Conference’s attempt to undo a generous pension package Ayotte supports for 1,500 or so Group II state employees.
“I think it’s important for your listeners to understand this,” Ayotte said. “We did not keep a promise to those law enforcement, firefighters, and corrections officers in the system. We changed their retirement midstream, and I am trying to fix that.
“I ran on that (issue). I thought it was important for recruitment and retention, and for trust. We need to keep trust and faith with those who have the most dangerous jobs, and who keep us the safest state in the nation.”
Ayotte’s fix will cost around $340 million over 10 years, critics note.
“How can anyone defend $340 million for 1,526 people?” asked former state Senate President Jeb Bradley, who negotiated the pension deal in 2011 that created Group II retirement. He’s been an outspoken opponent of Ayotte’s efforts to undo the 2011 reforms.
Ayotte told Heath she was particularly bothered by the way legislators reworked the Group II portion of the budget, which comes up for a vote by the legislature this Thursday.
“The House passed the (Group II) provision to fix it, to support our first responders. Then the Senate passed it,” Ayotte pointed out. “And then, in a Committee of Conference, in a backroom deal, they changed it all. And they actually harmed the retirement for our first responders. And we’re talking about a devastating impact.”
Ayotte’s appearance Monday was a follow-up to her impromptu call-in to Heath’s show on Friday to rebut Bradley’s arguments. Bradley, a regular guest on the radio show, was highly critical of Ayotte’s proposal.
But on Monday, Ayotte wasn’t alone. Fellow Republican Mayor Jay Ruais, SEIU President Rich Gulla, and N.H. Professional Firefighters President Brian Ryll also appeared in a political show of force targeting opponents of the Ayotte pension proposal.
But multiple State House sources say the effort was unnecessary. The budget crafted by the Committee of Conference is a political orphan; the governor has pledged to veto it, and neither the House nor the Senate wants to pass it.
A no vote “is a free vote to suck up to the unions,” one Republican legislator told NHJournal Monday. “You can say, ‘Hey, I voted against that ‘backroom deal,’ I’m with you,’ knowing that the whole thing is dead.”
The thinking of several insiders who spoke with NHJournal on background is that the budget will probably go down in flames in the Senate on Thursday and never make it to the House. It only takes four Republicans to join the eight Democrats to create a 12-12 tie. Multiple sources say Ayotte is telling legislators she’s got commitments from enough senators to kill the Committee of Conference’s version of the budget.
And if state Senate President Sharon Carson (R-Londonderry) can somehow keep her caucus together and get the budget to the House, Majority Leader Jason Osborne (R-Auburn) says it’s almost certainly DOA once it gets there.
“Right now, there is not a majority in the House for this budget with this retirees’ spending in it,” Osborne told NHJournal.
“The real problem is the policy. We’re making everyone pay so a handful of people can get a $300,000 a year pension the rest of their lives. That’s the policy piece, and it needs to be fixed.
“Nobody wants to deny our police or first responders anything they want,” Osborne added. “Every Republican would pay them more, but not just to benefit union bosses and their allies.”
Ayotte pushed back Monday on the argument that her pension deal “is just about 1,500 people.”
“This is about 1.3 million people. It’s about our state as a whole. We are the safest state in the nation because we have phenomenal first responders.”
Ayotte also used her appearance on Heath’s show to repeat her threat that, if the Group II retirement isn’t in the budget, her willingness to accept slot machines and video lottery terminals (VLTs) could disappear, too.
“I want people to understand, Jack, that the revenue for this (Group II) was in the budget. In fact, it’s a new revenue source from slots, VLTs,” Ayotte said. “And I’m not a fan of gambling.”
“But I included it in my budget because I thought it was important to fund this, and it also provides more funding for other issues. So when opponents say the revenue isn’t there, well, there’s a new revenue source that I otherwise wouldn’t have supported, in order to address our public safety issue and to back our first responders.”
Even some opponents are admitting that the fight is over, and Ayotte is going to get her $340 million deal — or at least the down payment. (This legislature cannot force future bodies to fund the multi-year plan.) They believe they have the math, but Ayotte has the politics.
And in Concord, politics always wins.
If the budget is DOA, what happens next?
“There would likely be a continuing resolution for the basic funding, and then we’d have to get back at the table to address this issue and to obviously address other issues in the budget,” Ayotte said Monday.
However, Osborne says there’s another possible solution: go into emergency session.
“The Executive Council meets on Wednesday. If she wanted to, the governor — with the support of the Executive Council — could call a special session for Thursday. The two chambers could meet, pass some form of legislative ‘patch’ to get the additional Group II spending the governor wants, and then pass the budget.”
But that would likely involve Democrats joining a minority of Republicans to vote for the additional pension spending, and then the House GOP sticking together to pass the budget. That would also require the Senate to play along.
“It’s hard to see either chamber doing the other a favor right now,” one state house insider said.
While there are many moving parts involved in passing this unpopular budget, the idea itself isn’t unprecedented. In 2010, Gov. John Lynch (D) called the legislature into special session on June 9, a week after the last day of the regular session, as they wrangled over a budget with a $295 million shortfall.
