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New state budget will have 2016 election impact
By Paul Briand
Gov. Maggie Hassan’s political acumen is being tested with the creation of the new two-year state budget.
How the Democratic governor handles the challenges of a budget process and budget document from a Republican Legislature will say a lot about the 2016 election.
Many pieces in the political chessboard are in play, not only for the 2016 governor’s race, but for the 2016 U.S. Senate race as well.
The first question that has to be asked is: Will Hassan run for the U.S. Senate in 2016 and challenge incumbent first-term Republican Sen. Kelly Ayotte? (And there’s a subtext to that question: Will Ayotte be the Republican candidate for vice president? More about that later.)
Hassan isn’t talking about 2016 just yet, but, for the political punditry, it’s never too early to talk about and speculate about what might happen.
And the talk and speculation is that Hassan is the one Democrat best situated to take on Ayotte.
Hassan in 2014 was elected to a second two-year term as governor. She enjoys job approval numbers over 50 percent. According to the University of New Hampshire Survey Center, which polled her popularity most recently in February, “Hassan’s job approval rating has been over 50 percent since early in her first term.”
In February, she proposed an $11.5 billion budget to the Legislature. It was a modest budget, by most measures, nothing outlandish, with increases in the places a progressive Democrat would want the increases: local school aid, University System of New Hampshire, health and human services, and continued Medicaid expansion, more for road and bridge maintenance and repair, to name a few.
The Republican-controlled House in late March passed an $11.2 billion budget, essentially trimming $300 million from the proposal, reducing spending in exactly the areas where Hassan proposed increases.
The House budget is now in the state Senate, also controlled by Republicans. Senators have until June 30 to set its budget, reach consensus with the House, and get it to the governor for her consideration. The new budget budget starts on July 1 and runs for two fiscal years, ending June 30, 2017.
It’s not likely the budget, in whatever total is agreed to by the Legislature, is going to be much to Hassan’s liking. So it’ll be interesting to see what she does with it. She could take a page out of recent history and just let it become law without any action on her part, which happened in 2011 when then Gov. John Lynch received a budget he didn’t like from a Republican controlled Legislature.
Her handling of what will be a budget she doesn’t like will say a lot about her political intentions going forward. This budget is already a political issue in a political race that doesn’t even exist yet, at least not officially, between Hassan and Ayotte.
Crossroads GPS (the conservative political super PAC of former White House strategist Karl Rove) bought online ads criticizing Hassan for a proposed budget it says includes “more spending, higher taxes, and no real innovation.” Earlier, the National Republican Senatorial Committee launched a web video critical of Hassan’s proposal to create a position of Chief Operating Officer for state government.
As well, there is already polling for a race that doesn’t exist.
So, let’s say Hassan does decide to declare for U.S. Senate, it begs the question of who among the Republicans and Democrats would then run for the open seat in Concord. A few folks come to mind quickly, all from the Governor’s Executive Council: Republican Christopher Sununu of Newfields from District 3, Democrat Colin Van Ostern of Concord from District 2, and Democrat Christopher Pappas of Manchester from District 4. And what about the Legislature: Republican senators Chuck Morse of Salem and Jeb Bradley of Wolfboro. This list could get very long.
As noted earlier, there is the open question of Ayotte’s ultimate role in the 2016 presidential race.
Ayotte insists that her focus is on her current job as U.S. senator. But sees seen as a default choice as a vice president for the Republican nominee, particularly if the Democratic nominee is a woman in the name of Hillary Clinton.
The Daily Beast is calling her the “2016 front-runner for vice president.”
She could, if she wishes, choose to campaign as the vice presidential candidate and as a candidate for re-election to the U.S. Senate, according to WMUR.
Should she give up re-election and run as a vice presidential running mate, that would set off the compilation of another whole long list of GOP contenders for her U.S. Senate seat.
Granted, there are a lot of ifs right now with regard to 2016. But be prepared, if certain pieces fall in place the political chessboard in New Hampshire will start to move very fast very quickly.
Live Free or Die Alliance
www.livefreeordiealliance.org
Source: http://townhall.livefreeordiealliance.org/xn/detail/4091641:BlogPost:70698
