Cornerstone Action
Candidate Corner
Re-Elect Reps. McGuire, Garcia, Burt, Avard and Seidel
In the fourth installation of our Candidate Corner feature, Cornerstone is recommending five highly effective incumbents that we’d like you to support to ensure the next Legislature benefits from their leadership. Rep. Dan McGuire of Epsom, Rep. Marilinda Garcia of Salem, Rep. John Burt of Goffstown, and Reps. Kevin Avard and Carl Seidel of Nashua all top their primary races as Cornerstone’s
Families First choice.
Please support Reps. McGuire, Garcia, Burt, Avard and Seidel’s candidacies today!
Reps. Dan McGuire and Marilinda Garcia both served as co-chairs for the House Republican Alliance along with Rep. Stephen Palmer, whom we’ll feature later. The House Republican Alliance serves as the conservative conscience of the House on its “
pink sheet,” an internal GOP metric distributed to Republicans that recommends for or against bills based on
the N.H. Republican Party Platform.
“We argued a lot of pro-family positions on the pink sheet, and I think we did well on most of them,” Rep. McGuire said. “We didn’t get gay 'marriage' or our constitutional amendment like we wanted, but other than that, we got pretty much everything.”
Rep. Dan McGuire, who’s running in a three-person primary for two seats in Epsom and Pittsfield (Merrimack 21), was one of the leaders on the House Finance Committee who helped build the $1 billion, 11 percent budget cut that passed the Legislature. The Epsom Republican, who scored 97 percent on
Cornerstone’s Families First Scorecard, said it was great that the Legislature was able to hold the line on taxes, but he was disappointed there weren’t more tax cuts. Upon reelection, Rep. McGuire said he’d work toward at least another $400 million in budget cuts to allow for real tax cuts that would benefit New Hampshire’s businesses and families.
During the session, Rep. McGuire was prime sponsor of
HB 1585, which reduced the number of annual truck inspections from two to one, saving trucking companies $10 million a year. He also supported bills that would have given more power to family members when dealing with end-of-life issues, but those efforts will need to be continued in the next session, he said.
Rep. McGuire’s prime objective going forward will be to pass comprehensive health insurance deregulation. He said he would sponsor bills to eliminate community rating and guaranteed issue as well as a bill to provide an exception to health insurance mandates so companies that offer plans including all the state-required mandates could also sell plans without them. All of these ideas would drastically decrease the cost of health insurance in New Hampshire.
Rep. Marilinda Garcia, a Finance Committee member who voted with Cornerstone 94 percent of the time, sponsored economic development, health insurance, pro-life and homeschooling legislation, making her the top candidate for Salem (Rockingham 8), which has 11 candidates running for nine seats.
As a co-sponsor of
HB 545, Rep. Garcia helped deregulate homeschooling by repealing the annual reporting requirements of homeschooling parents, granting more oversight over rulemaking, and restricting local communities from making stricter homeschooling laws than the state. She also co-sponsored the parental notification bill (
HB 329) and introduced a bill to require abortion statistics to be accurately reported, which passed in limited form.
Rep. Garcia said she would work in her next term to make sure New Hampshire joins the majority of other states that require abortion statistics reporting.
Also, while one of her core bills (
HB 1642) that deregulated specialty hospitals didn’t pass, Garcia’s effort supporting that bill helped pass the broader
HB 1617, which will eventually repeal the so-called Certificate of Need Board that controls the health care market in New Hampshire. Rep. Garcia said she would focus in the next term on making sure the board goes away for good, which would remove the largest regulatory obstacle to free-market development in the health care industry. She also hopes to introduce a health care price transparency bill to make sure patients know the costs they’re facing before they agree to do business with a particular facility.
Rep. John Burt, who voted with Cornerstone 97 percent of the time, is facing a primary in Goffstown (Hillsborough 6), where eight candidates are vying for five seats. Rep. Burt, who proved to be a formidable supporter of conservative values on the Municipal and County Government Committee,
said he wanted to work on ethics reform in the coming session. Despite New Hampshire having a citizen legislature, far too many representatives and senators have conflicts of interest that they don’t disclose and then vote on the issues anyway, which is something he thinks should change, Rep. Burt said. On the flip side, Rep. Burt, who organized a "Hot Dog Day" charity benefit for the
New Hampshire Foundation for Companion Animal Care on the State House lawn, said he was not allowed to raise money for the benefit as a state representative because it would violate ethics rules, and he had to recruit a third-party to raise the money for the event. This is something he thinks should change, too, he said.
During the current session, Burt passed
HB 582, which allows employers to communicate directly with employees who are members of a union to make sure that accurate information is delivered directly to the people who will be voting on new union contracts. Previously, state employers could only communicate with employees through their union. Burt was also excited about his role in the budget cut as well as the elimination of the $30 license plate registration fee and the camping tax. He said he hoped to shave $400 million to $600 million more off the budget in the next biennium to
ensure major tax cuts. He also proposed phasing out the state Department of Education to encourage local control of schools.
Rep. Burt added that he would continue to work to repeal gay "marriage" in the next biennium, and fight for the right to life.
Reps. Avard and Seidel are both vying for three seats in a race with five candidates in Nashua Ward 1 (Hillsborough 28), and they’re clearly Cornerstone’s preferred candidates. Avard scored 100 percent on Cornerstone’s scorecard, while Seidel scored 97 percent.
Rep. Kevin Avard said he was proudest of his role in passing CACR 26, which, if approved by the People this November, would amend Part 2, Article 73-a in the N.H. Constitution and restore some of the Legislature’s authority to approve administrative rules in the Judicial Branch. Back in 1978, Article 73-a was added and gave full autonomy to the courts to pass administrative rules that have “the force and effect of law.” This change led to rules that have become law without representation, Rep. Avard said.
Most notably, Judicial Branch Rule 1.2 allows the courts to waive all rules. This rule has been used in the family courts to waive the rules of evidence and allow hearsay evidence to be used against parents, Rep. Avard said. And Rule 1.9 gives the court discretion to deny appeals to the Supreme Court, despite the fact that the N.H. Constitution protects that right. When the same government body that interprets the N.H. Constitution is allowed to waive the constitution by passing a rule, it makes the body untouchable, Rep. Avard said.
The constitutional amendment CACR 26 will make the Judicial Branch accountable to the people again by allowing the Legislature to pass laws that nullify these court rules, he said. Avard said if the amendment passes, he will file bills to do just that.
As a member of the recently revived Redress of Grievances Committee, Rep. Avard said he personally witnessed citizens who were comforted by finally having a place to turn to seek justice for the first time in years.
One of his main priorities for the coming session will be maintaining the Redress of Grievances Committee, he said, but he will also introduce bills from ideas generated by people who testified in front of the committee this past session.
Among the issues still needing to be addressed, Rep. Avard said parents are currently not allowed to see the evidence against them when a Guardian Ad Litem is trying to keep their children away from them. The evidence is kept in a sealed envelope and given to the judge, and parents are not allowed to see it, despite the constitutional requirements that citizens have a right to face their accuser and see the evidence against them. Avard intends to file a bill to fix this problem, so parents’ constitutional rights will be restored. Additionally, Avard said he intends to introduce impeachment proceedings against the judges who have done things like this and work on a bill to remove immunity for judicial officials who misrepresent the truth, whether intentional or unintentional.
Rep. Carl Seidel, a Public Works and Highways committee member, was also a co-sponsor of the parental notification bill (
HB 329) that is now the law of New Hampshire. Additionally, Rep. Seidel was prime sponsor of a bill that would give more time to start-up companies to recover their losses before having to pay taxes on their income.
HB 242increased the amount of losses investors can carry-forward on their business tax returns from $1 million to $10 million. This will very clearly increase the number of people willing to give seed money to entrepreneurs with good ideas, and that will definitely help the economy, he said.
In an ongoing effort, Seidel now sits on the commission that studies business regulations in New Hampshire created by
HB 248, a bill he co-sponsored. He said the commission has a report due on Nov. 1, which upon reelection he will use to introduce legislation that reduces regulations, improves the business environment in New Hampshire and helps establish a smaller, more efficient state government. He will also work on efforts to require performance reviews for all contractors who do public works projects for the state, which will eliminate waste, fraud and abuse.
To support Reps. McGuire, Garcia, Burt, Avard, Seidel and other candidates like them, please donate to the Cornerstone PAC today.
For families,
Shannon McGinley
Acting Executive Director
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