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Andrew Cline has been editorial page editor of the New Hampshire Union Leader since October of 2001. His writing has appeared in more than 100 newspapers and magazines, including The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and National Review.Illegal opposition? Who are spending-cap foes?
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Reader commentsManchester's spending cap movement is and always has been a local, grass-roots initiative by city taxpayers fed up with ever-increasing city spending and taxes. But the primary organization working to oppose the cap is far from the local, grass-roots organization it claims to be.
Keep Manchester Moving, formed solely to oppose the cap, is a coalition of public employee unions and left-wing activist groups. Its official Web site is a page on the Web site of another coalition of left-wing activist groups, Granite State Progress. Its chairman, Josiette White, is a full-time political activist employed by America Votes, a community organizing group based in Washington, D.C., that lists as its primary goal, "coordinate independent electoral activity."
White, as an employee of America Votes, has actively opposed tax and spending caps in New Hampshire for more than a year. Last year she wrote to Concord City Council member William Stetson urging "more time" before the city allowed a vote on its cap. "A municipal election is the best place for it to be decided," she wrote.
In Manchester, however, White and her group have taken the opposite stance. In August, Keep Manchester Moving filed a legal challenge to keep the city's proposed cap off this year's municipal ballot.
Why the discrepancy? Both moves were designed to keep the caps off the next election ballot. When White wrote her letter last September, the deadline for getting the cap on the 2008 ballot had passed. She was urging Stetson to delay the vote on the cap for another year instead of holding a special election. Likewise, the point of her group's legal challenge was to prevent a vote on Manchester's cap.
Want to know exactly who Keep Manchester Moving is? Good luck. The group's filings with the City Clerk's Office list no contributors or expenses. And the organization is not registered with the secretary of state, as required by law. All businesses and nonprofits that conduct business under an assumed name must register with the secretary of state's Corporation Division.
In an interview, White insisted that her group is a grass-roots collection of Manchester residents. And many of its most active participants, including White, reside in the city. But who funds and organizes the group's activism?
Last month, Keep Manchester Moving released a study that assessed Franklin's tax cap. However, Keep Manchester Moving's two expense reports filed with the City Clerk's Office list no expenses. So who paid for the study?
Economist Brian Gottlob, the study's author, told us on Friday that he was paid by Granite State Progress, America Votes and a labor union. Keep Manchester Moving may have avoided listing its campaign expenses by getting other groups to pay them.
At a city public meeting on the spending cap, Zandra Rice Hawkins, director of Granite State Progress, an affiliate of Keep Manchester Moving, criticized the New Hampshire Advantage Coalition for spending a lot of money to promote the spending cap. Having affiliate groups pay its expenses allows Keep Manchester Moving to claim to be a low-budget volunteer group when in reality its activities are financed by well-funded activist organizations.
White's employer, America Votes, last filed a campaign report with the secretary of state in August 2008. That report lists 19 donations totaling $4,300. Every one of the donors was from out of state. Six were from California; five were from New York.
Opposition to Manchester's spending cap is being underwritten by left-wing donors from Berkeley, Calif., and New York City, in the name of an organization that appears to be operating illegally. If Manchester's constant tax increases were not enough to anger city voters, that should do the trick. The state Attorney General's Office needs to investigate this group to see if it is, as it seems, operating in violation of state law, and whether its city campaign finance reports are proper.
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YOUR COMMENTS
Why aren't local news stations in Manchester covering this story? A grass roots organization that is illegally operating to influence public opinion with calls, advertising and paid PR articles and studies? Pretending to be localally organized? And doing it secretly?
If this group with a nice name is actually paid community group representing liberal activists and agendas out of Washington DC are pushing for voting "No" on the Tax Cap and promoting unlimited taxes on NH citizens - why?
NH citizens should choose what's best of NH. The money behind influencing government at all level for more government control without limitations is unsettling. Democracy works best when we are all informed fairly.
I overheard an independent voter at Dunkin Donuts saying he was called by this group to vote "No" to "support teachers, firefighters and others who would have their pay slashed." Is that true? I wonder.
I am voting "Yes" on the tax cap. Local government needs to run better, not inefficiently on more tax dollars. Are they hiding it on the back of the ballot as I've heard? They tried very hard not to even have it appear for a public vote.
I'm also voting "Yes" to keep my property and other taxes down. Too many tax burdens without any limitation has never helped people throughout history.
- Chris, Manchester NH
Mr. Cline,
Great peice but, it would have been much more hard-hitting as a front page news 'expose' rather than an op-ed. Keep up the good work.
- Jim, Manchester
Glen of Manchester, you are not naive at all. My best guess to answer your question is that the national Democratic Party has targeted the largest city in each state to ensure liberal left-wing measures are passed while measures empowering taxpayers are defeated. My hunch is that the national Democratic Party feels the best hope for liberal successes in each state lies in each state's most populous city, so they try to make them liberal. I am not a Democrat and not privy to their inside strategy, but that is my guess.
- Nick, Manchester
People profit when you pass laws all the time. People profit when you don't pass laws even more often. I'm not worried about weather the 'greens' or the 'dirties' make profits (or rahter if the green arm or the dirty arm of the same mega-corp makes more $$), as long as there are some side benefits for the people. Cap and Trade has an enormous cost and ALMOST no side benefits (even if you ASSUME global warming is real). Ethanol has no side-benefits for the people.
But insulation projects, economically feasible alternative [DOMESTIC] energy projects, and recycled cooking oil to fuel schemes have some side benefits.
My point is I think we have to be a little more discerning, rather than just pooh-poohing all things 'green.'
- Jim, Manchester
Didn't Manchester's democrat aldermen, who met in secret cloak rooms to plot against this cap, delay its vote for a year in order to "educate" the citizenry on the cap? I've hardly heard a peep from them all year.
It looks like their hiding under the skirts of these neo-liberal PAC's so we can get a "fair" assessment of the cap.
- Greg Salts, Manchester
None of this surprises me. Look how much corruption emanates from the Democrats both in Washington DC and here in New England –especially in MA. Just add this NH case to the long list along with ACORN and their friends over at MoveOn.org, and the Daily KOS.
As a concerned (and REAL) NH resident, I will do my part to partition our State Government to take action and properly investigate any possible impropriety, fraud, and other illegal activities coming from these out-of-state radical Left lobbying groups. Who knows just how far up the chain of command the trail of out-of-state Left-Wing lobbying fraud will lead? Can we say that the NH state DNC and some self-serving Democrats in our state government might try to sweep this under the rug?
Well, welcome to the Boston / NYC / Chicago / Washington DC corrupt Democrat machine politics folks. Hopefully there are still enough concerned NH residents willing help expose, fight and push out these impostors / opportunistic frauds out of our State Government. The NH state Democrats won’t be able to save face and spin this one away – this clearly reflects their “win at all costs” attitude, even if means breaking the law. If a state investigation turns up any illegal activity, all those involved should face full prosecution under the law.
- Mac Wade, everettdiggles@hotmail.com
At the risk of sounding naive, why do people in NY and CA care if Manchester (or Concord, or Laconia, etc) has a tax cap? Our tax cap in no way impacts their politics or policy. Maybe if they thought it would give McCain a boost if it were on last year's ballot, perhaps I could see it.
What that leaves is the idea that people in these other states are blindly giving money to liberal causes for the only purpose being to spread liberalism. This, to me, is the most dangerous component of this entire prospect: people not content to make their own city or state liberal, but to remove the option of going somewhere else that is less liberal.
- Glen, Manchester, NH
The more that the opponents say we can't and shouldn't have something the more likely this will and should get passed, and I'm a rebel anyways will vote for this. This is our only mechanism to keep us in our homes and free from 5,6,7 +% increases. I am willing to take a chance, who cares about our bond rating, we shouldn't be borrowing that much anyways.
- Jack Alex, Manchester
Thank you, Union Leader, for this information. I was at one of the public hearings and sat behind one of the anti-spending cap individuals. When asked to raise hands if they were paid to be there, she looked around and did nothing. Come to find out, someone is paying her to be there. That's a small blip, her hiding this information, but it is a sign that perhaps points to the discrepancies the Union Leader has found in its research. Yes, I moved here from North Carolina a few years ago. But I'll tell you one thing. I respect the motto "Live Free or Die," which to me means fiscal responsibility on money matters.
- Cameron DeJong, Manchester
It has been said that anyone or group can pay for a report that favors their position on an issue.
In Laconia 2005 we passed the tax (spending) cap charter amendment.
That did not happen without someone or group who had funds available to run full page ads in on of our local papers for several days in opposition to the people's amendment.
I can tell you that we did it with $200 which we used for just one ad.
Other than my friends Ken Merrifield and Tony Giunta we had no outside help - and that's the way we wanted it. We truly were a grassroots effort - and successful!
Pass the amendment. YOU will be glad you did. And dafter awhile the bureaucrats and some city employees will either work with you or try to if they are silly enough to; work against your wishes. Especially your school board.
bnyoung@metrocast.net
- Niel Young, Laconia
If there's such a worry about how campaigns are being run, why is this an Op-Ed instead of a real news story?
That's right, journalistic integrity necessitates a real story for it to be news.
- Jim Sullivan, Claremont
Anyone who thinks giving more money to government is ever a solution to budget shortfalls spends no time actually looking at how government managed what it already had to spend. They hear words like for the children and get fooled by being guided by emotions rather than anything to do with common sense.
A government that gives you all you desire can also take it away one day when the time is right. Today we even have the Federal government using tax payer money to hold states up for ransom if they don't do what the Feds want them to do. What a dangerous slope that is for state rights. The founders envisioned the states have more individual rights than the Federal government and now we have the Federal government dictating to us what we eat and drink. The key word there for some of you is dictating. Get it?
- Deb, Derry
Good job UL for putting this out. Once the politicians who are fighting tax caps through out the state are outed only then can local opposition build to throw these bums out.
In Merrimack Councilors Mahon, Tenhave, Harrington, Rothhaus, McCarthy and Yakuboff voted down a charter amendment for a spending cap in January of this year.
Tenhave and Harrington are up for reelection in April 2010.
- Chris, Merrimack
I'm not surprised in the least that opposition to the spending cap is being funded by out of state money. New Hampshire residents like fiscal discipline, so it makes sense they'd have to go to California to find someone to fight against our way of life.
And they're breaking election law to boot.
- Jack, Concord
Remember CBM? Ultra liberal Citizens for a Better Manchester of the late 1990's- note that they got the largest contribution in Manchester's history from a non-NH organziation, Citizen Action of Washington DC: but at least they filed with the City Of Manchester so we knew they were selling out to Washington Leftist PACs.
- Marc, Manchester
A toxic brew of out of state leftists again targeting our small state with the help of NH democrats. Let's see if these infractions reported in the UL are addressed.....I'm not holding my breath.
- Jay Collins, Laconia
More and more out of staters trying to influence NH issues. Sort of like the Conservation Law Foundation. Don't they have enough of their own local issues. Mass sure does.
- Bob, Salem
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