If you’re a New Hampshire resident, the Presidential primary last Tuesday meant a merciful end to the crazy rush of candidates, pollsters, media—and most of all, political commercials.
A staggering $100 million was spent on TV ads for the primary, according to one report (much of it aired over Boston stations that reach the Southern New Hampshire market). Residents must feel blessed to return to the usual banality of beer and pizza spots.
It was in that context that, just two days after the primary, Republican Senator Kelly Ayotte smartly proposed a “People’s Pledge,” to cut down on the ad onslaught in her high-profile re-election battle with current Democratic Governor Maggie Hassan.
As Massachusetts residents probably recall, the People’s Pledge was an agreement between Scott Brown and Elizabeth Warren, to pay heavy penalties to charity if other groups advertised on their behalf. It worked: party committees and interest groups held their fire in that hotly contested race.
A few races have adopted similar agreements since then—most notably, Ed Markey and Stephen Lynch in the Democratic Senate primary in 2013.
In several other cases, however, public posturing over the popular idea of a Pledge has not resulted in agreement.
That includes the last Senate race in New Hampshire—featuring the same Scott Brown, who had just moved north of the border. Democratic incumbent Jeanne Shaheen proposed a People’s Pledge for that race, but Brown declined.
This year, outside groups on both sides are chomping at the bit to get involved in the Ayotte-Hassan showdown, which could determine which party controls the Senate next year. In fact, Republicans have already spent more than a million dollars for Ayotte, while groups on the left hit Ayotte over gun control issues last year.
On Thursday, Ayotte announced that she had signed a People’s Pledge and sent it to Hassan, asking her to ink the deal.
Hassan responded the following day, by signing a different version, and sending that one back to Ayotte.
Hassan had significantly upped the ante—or, deliberately sabotaged the deal, depending on who you ask—by adding a $15 million spending cap for the campaigns themselves.
This was a populist-sounding twist, that seems more than a bit self-serving: Ayotte has already raised, and spent, far more than Hassan, and would thus start quite a bit closer to the cap.
Of course, one could argue that Ayotte’s big lead in campaign funds is her own self-serving reason to propose the Pledge in the first place: she wants both campaigns limited to their just their own funds, where Ayotte has the advantage.
My conversations with people close to both campaigns suggest that there is little chance of an actual agreement taking place. The Hassan camp sounds more interested in negotiating than Ayotte’s, but both sides seem primarily concerned with painting the other as the unreasonable one.
Maybe that will change. More likely, however, New Hampshire television watchers are enjoying only a temporary post-primary reprieve from the political ad wars.
To nominate a justice?
Antonin Scalia’s death had barely been confirmed before a battle broke out over the naming of his successor on the Supreme Court.
Not, as usual, concerning the individual to be nominated by the President, and considered for confirmation by the Senate, but whether Barack Obama should nominate someone at all—and if he does, whether the Senate should even consider that nomination.
Unsurprisingly, the battle lines mostly fell along predictably partisan lines. Republicans argue that the ninth seat, which could decide many big cases on an otherwise ideologically divided court—should remain empty until a new President is chosen this November. Democrats disagree.
That extended to New England’s delegation as well. Elizabeth Warren, for example, quickly came out strongly critical of Republican Senators who say they will refuse to move on any nomination this year.
Ayotte’s reaction was closely watched. She is one of a handful of Republicans in tough re-election fights; if those Senators felt they could be hurt by stalling an Obama nomination, they could join Democrats to form a majority to move forward.
But late on Sunday, Ayotte put out the following statement on social media:
“We’re in the midst of a consequential election year, and Americans deserve an opportunity to weigh in given the significant implications this nomination could have for the Supreme Court and our country for decades to come. I believe the Senate should not move forward with the confirmation process until the American people have spoken by electing a new President.”
A LIHEAP of trouble
President Obama released his proposed budget for the 2017 fiscal year last week, and New England’s representatives in Washington are disappointed in the amount slated for the federal Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP).
This is hardly surprising; fighting for more LIHEAP funding is an annual rite on a par with rooting for the Red Sox and Patriots.
The concern is real, nevertheless. Obama’s budget calls for an even $3 billion, a cut of more than 10 percent from the 2016 level—to say nothing of the 2010 figure of $5.1 billion.
All 12 New England Senators signed a letter last month calling on Obama to slate “no less than $4.7 billion for LIHEAP. Several of the area’s Senators and Representatives lamented the lower figure when the budget proposal was released on Tuesday, and promised to fight for more as the Congress takes up its work on the budget in coming months.
In theory at least, the President’s proposal makes up the difference in other ways. One is a new contingency fund of $560 million, and the other is an additional $1.4 billion in a multi-agency fund.
However, as the National Energy Assistance Directors Association (NEADA) notes in an advisory about the budget proposal, both of those new funding avenues would require new authorizing laws—which, like everything else, is “highly unlikely to get approved before the elections in the fall.”
With the 2017 fiscal year slated to begin on October 1, expect New England’s delegations to talk up LIHEAP straight through Red Sox season.
