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U.S. Rep. Chris Pappas says the Biden’ Build Back Better” plan he voted for last Friday “is fully paid for and will reduce the deficit by $112 billion.”

Rep. Annie Kuster also says the bill “is fully paid for” by “making super-wealthy corporations and the top one percent pay their fair share.”

But nearly every economic review of the legislation, including the Congressional Budget Office analysis they both claim to rely on, says the bill will add billions in new debt. And the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB) projects the actual cost of the bill is closer to $5 trillion.

That is just one aspect of the budget reconciliation bill Kuster and Pappas helped pass in a straight partisan vote (Maine’s Rep. Jared Golden was the only Democratic “no” vote) that has received little attention from New Hampshire’s media. Democrats say the Child Tax Credit monthly checks, increased healthcare subsidies, and taxpayer-funded pre-K for all will be popular with voters. And they may be right. But there are other details almost certain to appear in campaign ads next year.

ADDING TO THE DEBT

New Hampshire’s congressional delegation touted their votes when the House bill passed last week, even as the Congressional Budget Office released a report indicating the $1.75 trillion social spending bill could increase the deficit between $160 and $360 billion over ten years, despite Biden administration promises the spending will be covered by increased taxes.

And the CRFB points out the Democrats’ plan includes ten years of revenue, but only includes spending on some of the largest items for five years — or even one. For example, the Child Tax Credit sending monthly checks to couples earning up to $150,000 costs $130 billion. But Democrats only include it in their 10-year plan for just one year. Assuming the checks don’t stop in 2024 — an election year– and instead last for the entire 1o years, the actual cost is an additional $1 trillion. None of which is paid for in the current plan.

BENEFITS FOR ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS

Under the Trump administration, recipients of the monthly Child Tax Credit checks ($300 per child under age six and $250 for each child ages six to 17) had to have Social Security numbers. Under the Build Back Better bill passed by Kuster and Pappas, that requirement is gone, allowing many more people in the U.S. illegally to collect the taxpayer-funded benefit.

The bill also includes a 10-year “amnesty-lite” program in the form of work permits, Social Security numbers, eligibility for welfare benefits, and the ability to get a driver’s license for some 4 or 6 million illegal immigrants. The Washington Post calls it “the largest mass-legalization program for undocumented immigrants in U.S. history.”

TAX CUTS FOR THE WEALTHY

The Biden budget lifts the cap on state and local tax (SALT) deductions for federal filers from $10,000 to $80,000. Few Americans — and very few Granite Staters — pay $80,000 in state and local taxes. According to the left-leaning Tax Policy Center, the top 20 percent of earners would reap more than 96 percent of the benefits of a SALT repeal, and the top one percent of all earners would see 57 percent of benefits.

Lifting the SALT deduction cap helps subsidize the costs of high local taxes in places like Massachusetts, New York and California. But it does little for the taxpayers of the Granite State. The roughly 10 percent of folks in New Hampshire who itemize deductions only receive about 0.4 percent of the total SALT deduction benefits.

MASSIVE INCREASE IN THE SIZE OF THE IRS

Public pressure killed the Biden administration’s plans to increase bank reporting requirements to reach more lower-income earners — a plan supported early on by both Kuster and Pappas. However, House Democrats did vote to drastically increase the size of the IRS in hopes of collecting more tax revenues.

Democrats voted to add $88 billion of new funding for the IRS, including $45 billion dedicated to enforcement and $4 billion to administer green energy initiatives. The biggest expense will be some 80,000 new IRS agents to conduct audits. The revenue target set by the legislation is $400 billion in additional tax collections over ten years. Given that high-income earners tend to have tax attorneys handling their finances, many observers believe this $40 billion a year will come from small business owners and upper-middle-class individuals.

Democrats dismiss this data, arguing the benefits of the bill outweigh any problems.

“This legislation will lower taxes while bringing down the cost of the everyday expenses that burden so many Granite Staters,” Pappas said. “It will invest in a strong workforce that will help our small businesses and economy thrive. It will lift up working people, give our kids the best head start we can, and chart a course for a healthier, stronger, more resilient future.”

Granite State U.S. Reps. Annie Kuster and Chris Pappas have a reputation for being loyal Democratic Party soldiers. But on one of the hottest political issues of the moment — cash payouts to immigrant families separated at the border — they have both broken with President Joe Biden and progressives in their party.

At issue is the Biden Justice Department’s current negotiations with the ACLU and other immigrant advocates over a proposal to pay perhaps as much as $450,000 in reparations to illegal immigrants who were separated from their children during the Trump administration.

First asked about the reports, Biden called them “garbage,” adding “That’s not gonna happen.”

But just three days later, on November 6, Biden reversed his stance and claimed any such taxpayer-funded payments were a moral obligation. “If in fact, because of the outrageous behavior of the last administration, you coming across the border, whether it was legal or illegal, and you lost your child, you lost your child! … you deserve some kind of compensation no matter what the circumstance. What that will be, I have no idea,” Biden said.

The Trump administration separated around 5,500 children from their families when they were caught illegally crossing the border. At the reported $450,000 per child, the settlement will be close to $2.5 billion.

It’s a position embraced by pro-immigration advocates and social-justice organizations — but rejected by Kuster and Pappas.

“Absolutely not. I don’t support any kind of settlement like that,” Pappas told radio host Jack Heath on Wednesday.

Pappas is heading into an uphill reelection fight once the new map for the First Congressional District is complete in the spring. With a likely GOP advantage in a newly-drawn district, supporting payouts to undocumented migrants is politically problematic.

The next day, Kuster echoed Pappas’ position on the same radio show.

“That’s not happening. The president has said that’s not happening,” Kuster mistakenly told Heath.

With New Hampshire Republicans turning her district even more Democrat-leaning (no Republican has carried it since 2010), Kuster is believed to have a safe seat, despite her unimpressive polling. However, it’s possible a national Republican wave election could break against Kuster, particularly with Biden polling in the 30s in swing states like New Hampshire.

A recent NBC News poll found Americans trust Republicans more on border security than Democrats by a 27-point margin, their largest advantage among 13 areas polled. In the most recent Washington Post/ABC News poll, Americans said they’d prefer to be represented by a Republican in Congress over a Democrat by a margin of 51 to 41 percent. That’s the largest GOP advantage in the generic preference question in the history of the poll.

“If you’re a Democrat and President Biden won your seat by 16 points, you’re in a competitive race next year,” House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) recently declared. “You are no longer safe.”

Kuster and Pappas aren’t just abandoning the Biden administration’s position, they are also moving to the right of immigrant activists and progressives with their position. 

Eva Castillo, director of the New Hampshire Alliance for Immigrants and Refugees, said the families are owed something for the resulting trauma.

“I think they should pay the families something,” Castillo said. “It was a callous decision on the part of the government, the least we could do is pay them for their pain and suffering,” she said.

The ACLU, which is suing the government over the separations, also agrees that families ought to be compensated.

“For the sake of these families, the Biden administration must repair the harms inflicted by family separation and ensure such an atrocity never happens again,” Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project wrote.

While illegal border crossings have been trending downward since July, the number of migrants apprehended at the U.S. southern border in October is 128 percent higher than October 2020, when Trump was still president, according to data released this week by Customs and Border Protection (CBP). July saw more than 213,000 border crossings, a 20-year high.

U.S. Rep. Annie Kuster stood in the White House Rose Garden Monday moments before President Joe Biden was due to sign the $1.2 trillion infrastructure spending, celebrating the spending.

“A billion dollars coming to New Hampshire for roads and bridges and highways, we’re even going to get rail back to New Hampshire,” Kuster said in a video posted to Twitter.

As Kuster spoke, the United States Marine Corps Band played “76 Trombones” from the Broadway show, “The Music Man,” about a con artist who made big promises he couldn’t keep.

Kuster and the rest of New Hampshire’s congressional delegation celebrated Biden’s signing of the bill, citing the investments in roads and bridges, as well as broadband internet for rural areas like New Hampshire, public transportation expansion, and investments in clean drinking water.

“This bill has so many elements that will be game-changers for our families and our economy,” said Sen. Maggie Hassan.

Hassan is facing a potentially tough reelection bid despite presumed front-runner Gov. Chris Sununu bowing out of the race last week. Polls show Biden’s spending package is popular, even if the president himself is not.

Rep. Chris Pappas, whose congressional career faces possible extinction thanks to Republican-led redistricting, also supported the spending plan.

“I’m pleased the president has signed this legislation into law, and I look forward to beginning the work of repairing our infrastructure,” he said.

Both Pappas and Kuster’s poll ratings dipped into negative territory in the latest New Hampshire Institute of Politics poll, a first for both of them. Pappas was at 42 percent favorable to 46 percent unfavorable, Kuster landed at 40 percent to 46 percent.

The only Democrat not facing reelection this year, Sen. Janne Shaheen, touted her role in crafting the spending legislation.

“As a lead negotiator, I fought to ensure New Hampshire priorities were front and center: that includes investments to upgrade our water infrastructure – including robust support to combat PFAS contamination – and to bring high-speed internet to every corner of our state,” she said.

Backing the nominally bipartisan infrastructure plan, which had 13 Republican House votes, is risky for the three incumbents facing voters next year. Biden is underwater with Granite State voters, according to the most recent polling data. His recent polling average is 42 percent approve/52 percent disapprove. As Gallup reports, “Currently, 34 percent of independents approve of the job Biden is doing, the lowest of his term to date. His approval among independents has fallen a total of 21 points since June, including nine points since August.”

Biden is also trying to push through his $1.75 trillion Build Back Better social safety net spending package that includes spending on daycare, cash payments to parents, and green energy policies. Given a 30 percent spike in inflation, a majority of New Hampshire voters may not want to see all of that spending. Only 37 percent of Granite Staters want the “Build Back Better” multi-trillion-dollar spending package to pass, while 40 percent would like to see both spending bills killed, according to the polls.

And a Scott Rasmussen poll taken in August, before inflation become a top-tier issue, found 59 percent of voters nationwide believe increased government spending leads to inflation. Only 14 percent disagreed.

On Friday night, the media coverage was dominated by the question: “Will she or won’t she?” Would Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) get the votes she needed to pass the “BIF” — the bipartisan infrastructure bill?

Now that it has passed in the House by a 228-206 vote, with 13 Republicans voting in favor and six Democrats voting against it, it’s time for another question:

What the heck did Congress just vote for?

All four members of the New Hampshire delegation voted for the $1.2 trillion spending plan. (Sens. Maggie Hassan and Jeanne Shaheen voted for it nearly three months ago. It was trapped in the House since.)

Most of the coverage of the “BIF” has focused on the traditional infrastructure spending, including:

— $110 billion in funding for roads, bridges, and major projects;

— $66 billion investment in rail, most of which will go to Amtrak;

— $65 billion for broadband infrastructure and development;

— $7.5 billion for electric vehicle chargers.

That’s certainly the focus of Hassan and Rep. Chris Pappas. “Investments in our roads and bridges, water systems, and broadband are critical to our future economic growth and way of life in New Hampshire, and they will help us continue to rebuild our economy and regain our competitiveness following the COVID-19 pandemic,” Pappas said after the vote.

Pappas specifically touted the more than $1.5 billion in the additional road, bridge, and transit spending over the next five years, “representing a 47 percent funding increase in fiscal year 2022 and additional increases in years to come.”

Who could object to a nearly 50 percent jump in spending on roads? And cell phone users who travel the Granite State are likely pleased by the idea that their notoriously spotty service might improve.

But these are the headlines of Friday’s late-night vote. In the fine-print, Granite Staters will find New Hampshire’s delegation also voted for:

More Deficit Spending

Despite repeated assurances from President Joe Biden that infrastructure spending “costs zero dollars,” the BIF  costs more than $1 trillion. What Biden meant, his allies say, is that it won’t cost any borrowed dollars, that Americans can feel good that neither of his infrastructure bills will add to the deficit.

Unfortunately, they’re wrong on that count as well. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) published its score of the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (as opposed to the much-bigger reconciliation) in August, and they found the legislation would directly add more than $340 billion to the deficit.

A Vehicle Mileage User Fee Pilot Program

SEC. 13002 of the bill is the “National Moter Vehicle Per-Mile User Fee Pilot Program.” The objectives of the program, according to the legislation, are to “test the design, acceptance, implementation, and financial sustainability of a national motor vehicle per-mile user fee” and “address the need for additional revenues for surface transportation infrastructure.”

Critics of the program point to the phrase “additional revenue” as opposed to “replacing revenue.” They say it’s a sign the goal is to add a mileage tax on top of the current gasoline taxes, rather than to replace them. And, they note, a mileage tax takes away one of the few incentives to drive an electric car — namely, lower costs.

Biden’s defenders say it’s just a pilot program and the administration has no (announced) plans to impose such a national fee. The pilot might encourage individual states to pursue it, however. Just as the state of New York has passed a ban on the sale of regular internal-combustion engine cars as of 2035. Every car sold as of that date in New York must be a zero-emissions vehicle.

EV Chargers for Electric Cars That Don’t Exist

Speaking of EVs…

The $7.5 billion Congress just passed for electric vehicle (EV) chargers is, according to the White House, just a down payment on the funding needed to install 500,000 public EV charging stations by 2030.

The question is, who’s going to use them?

First, from a statistical standpoint, virtually nobody owns EVs in the U.S. As climate expert Matthew Lewis recently noted, of the 280 million or so registered cars and trucks in the country, only about 2 million are fully electric. Even if the nation added another 2 million electric vehicles a year — which would be a sales level far beyond anything the nation has seen — there would still be fewer than 15 million EVs on the road — still a tiny fraction of the total.

And then there’s the charger technology. In a recent interview for Emerging Tech, EV expert Brendan Jones, president of Blink Charging, talked about the chargers this tax money will buy:

“Jones said that in a good scenario, it takes about six months for an L2 charger—which need up to 8 hours to fully charge a car and make up 82 percent of public chargers in the U.S.—to go through permitting and get in the ground. Meanwhile, a D.C. fast charger (also known as an L3 charger) takes 60 to 90 minutes to charge a car, but can take considerably longer to build.”

How many drivers can park in a public lot for 8 hours to charge their cars? Or even for 90 minutes?

Advancing The Controversial Reconciliation Spending Bill

In the wee hours of Saturday morning, the House cast a straight party-line vote to move Biden’s so-called “Build Back Better” bill forward. It was a key step to get to what Pelosi says will be a vote before Thanksgiving on the legislation itself.

That’s the $4 trillion plan that includes massive social spending and more than half a billion on green energy policy. In the new Suffolk University poll for USA Today released Sunday, Americans are split on this bill, with just 47 supporting it and 44 percent in opposition. And only one in four Americans says they believe it will help them and their families.

Which brings up perhaps the most relevant fact about the votes cast for the infrastructure bill by New Hampshire’s congressional delegation: They didn’t address the issues Americans care about most.

Inflation. Bare store shelves. A lack of workers. The lingering impacts of COVID on daily lives, particularly on schools and children. Those are the things voters said last week brought them to the polls. Notably absent: Road and bridge construction, train travel, or the Green New Deal.

Even if Americans were in the mood to add billions to the national debt, there isn’t much information to show Americans would want to borrow this much money for EV chargers and Amtrack trains.

It had the support of all four members of the New Hamshire congressional delegation and 50 members of the U.S. Senate, but a Democratic bill to federalize state and local elections was blocked by Senate Republicans Wednesday afternoon.

It’s the latest attempt by the delegation to pass legislation limiting the power of state officials like Secretary of State Bill Gardner (D) to oversee Granite State elections are conducted — including the state’s signature First In The Nation primary.

New Hampshire Democrats have been among the most outspoken advocates for the law.

“Today, I’m voting yes on the #FreedomToVoteAct,” Sen. Maggie Hassan tweeted Wednesday. “Free and fair elections are the bedrock of our democracy, and this bill would help stop billionaires from buying our elections, crack down on dark money, and make sure every American can have their voice heard.”

Reps. Annie Kuster and Chris Pappas both signed a letter urging the Senate to pass the legislation.
“The Freedom to Vote Act can fortify our democracy and bring Americans of all political stripes back into the town square,” the letter reads.

Critics note the legislation would prevent voters in the town square from making the rules for their own elections.

“Our position hasn’t changed,” Deputy Secretary of State David M. Scanlan told NHJournal. “This bill would be a federal takeover of New Hampshire’s elections.” He called the bill’s defeat in the Senate “good news.”

“The bill is hundreds of pages long, and it covers aspects ranging from requiring states to mail every voter an application for an absentee ballot, to drop off boxes for ballots, and at locations other than with the city and town clerks. That creates logistical problems of getting ballots to where they belong, and doing so securely,” Scanlon said.

The defeated bill would also:

— Force New Hampshire to send postage-paid mail-in ballots to every voter who requests them, rather than having Election Day voting supplemented by absentee ballots;

— Require New Hampshire to have at least 13 days of early voting, including weekends, and to count ballots that come in late;

— Ban voter ID requirements by mandating allowing voters without ID to cast ballots based on a signed statement alone;

— Give millions of public dollars to political candidates to use on campaign staff, TV ads, attack mailers, etc.

And of special concern in New Hampshire, the law would cover “a primary election held for the expression of a preference for the nomination of persons for election to the office of president.” In other words, the First In The Nation primary.

That’s something not even the more expansive For The People Act attempted. According to Garder, this fundamentally changes the primary, which is currently a state election involving state officials, aka representatives to the Electoral College.

“The point is they did this now, and they didn’t do it in the first bill,” Gardner said. “You had a 1,500-page bill and now you have a 600-page bill, but they are still fundamentally changing how we conduct and participate in our election.”

“This is a terrible way to do this,” Gardner said.

The overwhelming support for the bill among New Hampshire’s elected Democrats is raising questions yet again about their support for the FITN primary. Polls show most Granite State Democrats don’t support the state’s law protecting the primary. And the state Democratic Party recently handed New Hampshire’s slot on a key DNC committee to a Washington, D.C. resident with few ties to the state.

The DNC’s leadership has repeatedly complained about New Hamsphire’s first-in-line primary position.

The primary isn’t just an important part of the national political process, it’s a key part of the Granite State’s economy, bringing in millions of dollars of business into the state. The fact that all four Democrats in the delegation are willing to back bills that endanger it is a telling political development in the Granite State.

The U.S. government just told American households should expect to see their heating bills jump as much as 54 percent over last winter.

The many Granite Staters who rely on heating oil and propane could wind up spending $500 more to heat their homes this year, it reported.

Here in New Hampshire, a state that already pays the fifth-highest electricity prices in the continental U.S., the New Hampshire Electric Cooperative (NHEC) announced an overall bill increase for most residential members of about 17 percent starting next month.

New Hampshire’s Consumer Advocates Donald M. Kreis says “Your electric and natural gas bills are about to go up, substantially, and you are not going to be happy about it.”

State Rep. Michael Harrington (R-Stafford) a former member of the Public Utility Commission (PUC) agrees. “Regrettably, Don is correct. Rates are going way up this winter,” he told NHJournal.

And that’s on top of a 30 percent surge in the cost of gasoline in the past year, from $2/gallon to around $3.10.

That’s a lot of economic pain, which would traditionally mean an opportunity for political gain. So, why aren’t any New Hampshire politicians talking about energy prices?

It’s not hard to make the case that New Hampshire’s congressional delegation is on the wrong side of the issue. The top reason for rising prices is the lack of access to natural gas, and New Hampshire’s federal legislators are supporting policies to restrict natural gas production.

“In New England, most of our electricity is produced by burning natural gas,” Kreis notes, observing that on a typical day, “56 percent of the electricity in New England was being produced by natural gas generators.  So when the price of natural gas goes up, our electricity rates increase as well.”

That is certainly the case for co-op customers. “Natural gas and electricity prices in New England are closely linked,” said Brian Callnan, NHEC Vice President of Power Resources & Access. “As the price of natural gas has risen over the past several months, so has the cost to purchase electricity to serve our members.”

Natural gas prices are soaring in part because we had a relatively warm summer. Gas that would have been stored for the winter was used to generate electricity for AC. But they’re also rising because global demand is surging, while the Biden administration and Democrats in Congress are discouraging natural gas production and transportation.

Pipeline politics are popular among Democrats. On his first day in office, President Biden issued an executive order canceling the Keystone XL pipeline. In July, Dominion Energy and Duke Energy announced they were canceling the Atlantic Coast pipeline due to “legal uncertainty” in the face of repeated challenges from progressive pipeline opponents. And the plug was pulled on the PennEast pipeline just months after winning a major victory before the Supreme Court for similar reasons.

Then there are the restrictions on production. “Under the Biden administration, no new drilling has been allowed on federal lands,” Harrington says. “Remember, the Bureau of Land Management owns about 10 percent of the land west of the Mississippi River. So over the past eight months, existing wells have closed, as all wells do eventually. But unlike last year, new ones didn’t open. As this continues, prices for natural gas will continue to go up.”

If this looks like a perfect storm of pain for energy customers, the forecast is actually worse. The Build Back Better plan backed by Sens. Maggie Hassan and Jeanne Shaheen includes huge increases in energy costs for consumers, according to analysts. A big one is the $150 billion “Clean Electricity Performance Program,” which will raise costs on utilities that don’t increase their level of carbon-free electricity each year.

That, in turn, will force Granite State utilities into price competition for that in-demand power and costs are all but certain to rise — thanks to policies pushed by Democrats. Those policies can be defended as part of the fight against climate change, but it’s hard to argue they aren’t adding to consumers’ costs.

If you’re a member of Congress running for re-election, this is not an argument you want to have. And in the past, Reps. Annie Kuster and Chris Pappas, along with Hassan and Shaheen, have largely been able to avoid the most extreme green politics in their party. The “Green New Deal” resolution in the House has more than 1oo cosponsors, but none of them are for New Hampshire. Hassan and Shaheen have repeatedly refused to take a position on the legislation, either.

But if the expensive green policies currently in the Build Back Better reconciliation bill are still there when Democrats pass the bill, the Granite State’s delegation will have no place to hide.

The Puritan Backroom, a popular Manchester restaurant owned by New Hampshire Democrat Rep. Chris Pappas, issued a statement Friday expressing condolences to the family of a man who contracted the norovirus and died — one of 18 people who became ill after visiting the restaurant. However, questions remain as to why the news of the outbreak at their location wasn’t revealed until a month after the incident.

And Rep. Pappas continues to decline repeated requests for comment.

Restaurant co-owner Eric Zink released the statement a day after NHJournal broke the news that a group of patrons became ill from the norovirus after eating at the Pappas family’s restaurant.  The incident occurred on the Sunday before Thanksgiving, but the restaurant never made a public statement at the time. And while WMUR reported that a norovirus outbreak two weeks after the fact, they never revealed the name of the restaurant, only referring to a “function hall.”

According to Manchester Alderman Joseph Kelly Levasseur, 62-year-old John Lewis of Auburn, N.H passed away after his visit to the Puritan Backroom. His obituary is linked here.

The restaurant issued a statement offering condolences while avoiding any acknowledgment that the victim’s death was linked to contracting the norovirus.

“The Manchester Health Department visited the Puritan in response to an event that was hosted in the Conference Center on November 24th.  Of the 46 guests that attended the event, the Health Department told us 18 guests later became ill, including one guest who sadly passed away from unidentified causes. [Emphasis added.] We have communicated our condolences to the family and we express our deepest sympathies in this difficult time.”

In a statement, Beth Daly of the Manchester Health Department reported it this way: “Several individuals tested positive for Norovirus and one person who attended the event later passed away.”

The Puritan Backroom’s statement also points out the finding of the Manchester Health Department  that the outbreak was “due to indeterminate transmission — no ill food handlers or attendees at the time of the event, and no statistically significant food items were identified.”  However, the health department noted in its original report that one of the waitstaff was among those sickened by the virus.

According to the CDC, food service workers are often the source of norovirus outbreaks.

Manchester Health Department records show that the restaurant hasn’t had a mandatory health inspection of the restaurant since January or of the function hall since early February, despite regulations requiring them once every six months.

In a statement to NHJournal, Philip J. Alexakos of the Manchester Health Department said his organization was asked by NH DHHS “to conduct an environmental inspection of the Puritan Backroom.”

“As a result of this assessment and in consultation with the NH DHHS, it was determined that there was no imminent hazard to the public and thus no public notification. Had there been an imminent hazard, immediate action would have been taken.”

But wouldn’t the MHD notice that their department hadn’t conducted a scheduled inspection? Particularly given that the Puritan Backroom restaurant had scored a disturbingly low 84 on its previous inspection in January?

Neither Zink nor representatives of the MHD responded to questions about these issues from NHJournal, and Rep. Chris Pappas isn’t either. And why should they?

They nearly got away with covering up a virus outbreak at a public restaurant that left a man dead.

After months of avoiding questions about his views on impeachment, Rep. Chris Pappas took to the friendly media environs of New Hampshire Public Radio to discuss his support for impeaching President Trump and removing him from office.

Unfortunately, a few significant questions somehow slipped through the cracks. We here at New Hampshire Journal have sent them over to Rep. Pappas’ office. When we get his answers, we’ll be happy to share them with the voters of the First Congressional District.

1: Rep. Pappas, you said these impeachment articles represent “a very strong, clear-cut case with respect to the issue of Ukraine.” A clear-cut case of what? Neither article of impeachment alleges President Trump broke the law. Do you believe future Democratic presidents should face the prospect of removal from office by a Republican Congress without even the assertion of having violated any federal law?

2: Rep. Pappas, you’re supporting articles of impeachment that have no bipartisan support. In fact, even some of your fellow House Democrats are voting against impeachment. Do you view an entirely partisan impeachment vote to be as legitimate as a bipartisan one, such as the 410-4 vote in 1973 to start an impeachment inquiry into President Richard Nixon?

3: When the House of Representatives voted articles of impeachment in 1998, 31 Democrats joined with Republicans to impeach President Bill Clinton, who admitted that he had committed perjury before a federal judge and federal grand jury. Rep. Pappas, do you believe the impeachment of President Clinton was legitimate? Would you have voted to impeach him?  If not, why?

4: Rep. Pappas, you said you objected to Senate Republicans coordinating the handling of the impeachment trial with the White House, calling it “colluding.” But then-Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) has acknowledged that he frequently met with the Clinton White House during the impeachment process. And the Clinton White House issued demands that there be no witnesses called during the impeachment, a demand upheld by the Democratic minority in the Senate.  Should Republican presidents be impeached differently from Democrats?

5: Rep. Pappas, you rejected the suggestion that your support for impeachment is a sign that you’re merely a water carrier for Speaker Nancy Pelosi and your party’s leadership. “I’m also willing to stand up to members of my own party when they’re wrong for New Hampshire,” you told NHPR.  Can you give an example?

And a bonus question, the same question New Hampshire Journal’s been asking the congressman since he first announced his support for an impeachment inquiry in July:

Rep. Pappas, what is your message to the majority of voters in your district, who voted to make Trump president and whose votes you’d be overruling by removing Trump from office?

We look forward to sharing Rep. Pappas’ answers to these reasonable and timely questions in this space.

The only question NH political observers have about Chris Pappas’ announcement that he’ll vote to impeach President Donald Trump is what took him so long?

Sticking with his fellow Democrats was always the smart play for Pappas, one of the 31 Democrats in Congress representing a district Trump carried in 2016. While polls show swing voters tend to oppose impeachment and removal of President Trump — and that opposition is rising — for Pappas there’s simply no upside to breaking with his party leadership and going rogue.

“Voting against impeachment won’t get him a single Republican vote, and voting for it won’t cost him a single Democrat,” one NH Democratic insider told NHJournal. “Pappas was always going to vote this way.”

That certainly appeared to be the case in July when Pappas became the first Democrat from a Trump district to back the impeachment inquiry. It was an unusually aggressive move from the reputedly mild-mannered congressman, one that left some NH Democrats puzzled.

Was Pappas going to aggressively embrace the impeachment push?

Instead, the congressman quickly dropped the subject, refusing months of requests for comment and leaving the impeachment topic out of his public statements and social media, even as the debate raged in Washington, D.C. and on the front pages of New Hampshire’s newspapers.

Sunday night, with the impeachment vote looming and most Granite Staters watching the NFL, Pappas posted a statement on his website announcing his decision.

“I have reviewed the articles and the underlying evidence and testimony very closely. I have heard from constituents on all sides of this issue. Ultimately, this comes down to the facts, the Constitution, and my conscience,” according to the statement. “What the President has done is blatantly wrong, and I will not stand idly by when a President compromises the rule of law and our national security for his own personal political benefit.

“I will support both articles when they come to the floor for a vote. The President abused the powers of his office and obstructed Congress as it sought to put facts on the table for the American people and hold him accountable,” Pappas wrote. “Our nation’s founders created a government with shared powers and co-equal branches of government. They gave us the presidency — not a monarchy.

“They created a system where no one is above the law, even the President of the United States. If Congress does not act in this case where bright Constitutional lines have been crossed, we dishonor the wisdom of our founders and undermine the institutions of our democracy.”

A new Suffolk Poll released Sunday finds that only 41 percent of Americans say House members should vote to impeach Trump. Independent voters, who will determine Pappas’ fate next November, oppose a House impeachment vote by an 11-point margin, 52-41 percent.

The NHGOP and the Trump campaign immediately went on the attack.

Trump ally and former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski told NHJournal, “Chris Pappas’s vote for impeachment is in direct conflict with the people of the First Congressional District who voted to elect Donald J. Trump President.

“Congressman Pappas has sold his vote to appease AOC, Rashid Tlaib and the extreme left of the Democrat party.  I predict he will be a one-term Congressman because NH voters don’t support a ‘Do-Nothing Democrat’ who has accomplished nothing while in Washington, D.C.”

Other GOP sources tell NHJournal internal polling shows voting for impeachment is unpopular among NH-01 voters, and they believe it creates an opportunity to take back a seat they lost in 2016.

“Chris Pappas just let down all those in the First District who want a Congress that works for them, not for the far-left Democrat base. Coming out in favor of impeaching the President on a Sunday night after weeks of lackluster Democrat circus hearings in D.C. is disgraceful,” NHGOP chairman Steve Stepanek said in a statement. “Congressman Pappas clearly didn’t listen to Granite Staters when making his decision, and voters will swiftly replace him on November 3rd.”

RNC Spokesperson Nina McLaughlin said, “Chris Pappas’ choice to support the impeachment sham is the ultimate betrayal of his constituents. Granite Staters won’t forget that Pappas chose Nancy Pelosi and the socialist squad over them.”

Pappas joins fellow NH Democrat Rep. Annie Kuster in publicly announcing his support for impeachment, and both U.S. senators, Democrats Maggie Hassan and Jeanne Shaheen, are expected to vote to remove Trump from office when the impeachment comes to the Senate floor next year.

Interestingly, even in announcing his decision, Pappas declined yet again to answer the same, simple question: What’s his message to the majority of voters in his district who backed President Trump in 2016 and whose vote he’s now attempting to overturn?

His inability to answer is yet another sign of how tricky the impeachment issue is for swing-district Democrats like Pappas.

In July, New Hampshire Rep. Chris Pappas became the first Democrat representing a Trump district to endorse an impeachment inquiry into the president. But now that actual articles of impeachment are under consideration, Granite Staters are asking: Where’s Chris?

While many of his fellow Congressional Democrats have declared their support for impeachment — including New Hampshire’s other member of Congress Rep. Annie Kuster who called Trump a “clear and present danger”  — Pappas remains noncommittal. “I will review these articles and the underlying evidence further before this moves to the House floor for a vote,” Pappas said in a statement to WMUR. “I remain committed to considering the unbiased facts of this case with the thought and care that this moment requires.”

That’s a far cry from Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff’s (D-Calif.) statement that “the evidence of the president’s misconduct is overwhelming and uncontested.”

Not only has Pappas refused to give his position on impeachment for months, he hasn’t even posted a public statement on his website or social media feed about the articles of impeachment. A search of his official website came back with zero hits for “impeach.” In fact, after declaring his support for an inquiry in July, the freshman congressman has gone virtually radio silent on the issue, declining repeated requests for comment.

All of which adds to speculation that, however impeachment plays out in Washington, DC, it may not be a winner in New Hampshire.

While there’s no publicly-available polling data from the NH-01 congressional district on impeachment, polls indicate that among swing and independent voters in states like New Hampshire, support for impeachment has fallen since Speaker Pelosi announced her decision to back the inquiry.

According to The Washington Post, a poll of eight key battleground states (including New Hampshire) found only 44 percent of voters supported impeachment while 51 percent opposed.  “And national polls since the start of public hearings show independents are now divided: 42 percent in support and 44 percent opposed,” the Post reports.

In fact, the same day Democrats announced their two articles of impeachment, a new Quinnipiac poll was released showing “slightly more than half of all registered voters, 51 percent, think that President Trump should not be impeached and removed from office, while 45 percent say he should.” It’s the highest level of opposition to impeachment since September, Quinnipiac says.

Meanwhile, Morning Consult reports that the state where Trump has enjoyed the biggest jump in support since the impeachment inquiry began is New Hampshire — he’s had a seven-point spike. President Trump is still underwater in the Granite State, but given that he carried Pappas’ district in 2016, it’s likely the increase in support is disproportionately in NH-01.

Republicans apparently think so. Pappas is on the list of seats targeted by the GOP in 2020, and the RNC isn’t wasting any time calling him out.

“By siding with Nancy Pelosi and the socialist squad in pursuing this baseless impeachment witch hunt, Chris Pappas is clearly ignoring the will of his constituents. New Hampshire’s First Congressional District supports President Trump and will hold Pappas accountable in 2020 for choosing party over people,” RNC spokesperson Nina McLaughlin told NHJournal.

The GOP also points to polls showing independent voters oppose Democrats’ efforts to remove President Trump from office by a 13-point margin. Those are the voters who will determine the outcome in the 31 districts Trump won but are currently represented by Democrats in Congress.

The three Republicans planning to run against Pappas believe impeachment will help their cause.

“Voters I talk to tell me this is a transparent attempt to overturn the will of the people because Democrats don’t like Trump,” said attorney Matt Burrill of Newton, N.H. “I think it’s a ‘fill-in-the-blank’ impeachment. They were going to do it no matter what.”

Former NH Republican Party vice chair Matt Mayberry called impeachment “an absolute waste of money, time and effort,” adding, “I am extremely confident that we will spend the next year talking about Mr. Pappas’ voting record, especially in regards to impeachment.”

And former White House advisor Matt Mowers said, “Chris Pappas will follow the radical socialists in Congress off the ledge every time in order to support Nancy Pelosi — even if it means neglecting the needs of New Hampshire families.”

Democrats dismiss the idea that Pappas is in any trouble, pointing to Trump’s dismal numbers in New Hampshire and Pappas’ eight-point victory in 2018. At the same time, New Hampshire’s First CD is one of the “swingingist” districts in the country, flipping between GOP and Democratic control five times since 2006.

Since July, New Hampshire Journal has been asking Rep. Pappas the same question: What is your message to the voters in your district who backed Trump in 2016, and whose votes would be overturned by impeachment?

For five months, he has declined to give an answer.

Perhaps Pappas is reluctant to talk about impeachment because he doesn’t have one.