SEN. CHUCK MORSE has had it with the long-delayed Medicaid management computer system.

Morse, chair of the Senate Finance Committee, led the charge Friday to get Attorney General Michael Delaney to meet with lawyers for ACS, the company the state hired six years ago to create the MMIS, as it is known. The contract, worth $61 million, has dragged out past repeated deadlines and completion dates.

Morse said that in the past nine months alone it has been pushed back three times.

“We are running out of patience and options,” Morse told the Joint Legislative Fiscal Committee. “This has been going on for too long, and while I regret that we have to involve attorneys to move forward, I don’t think we have any other choice at this time.”

He wants Delaney to come back to the committee next month to lay out legal options in the matter. Delaney said he’s happy to get involved.

Morse tried to get a consulting report on the MMIS, which is due by the end of this week, but the state hasn’t been able to find a company willing to do an analysis. ACS offered to pay for the study.

ACS declined comment on the controversy last week, saying in a statement that it is working “to ensure New Hampshire will have a viable solution to help improve the healthcare of its citizens and lower costs.”

Health and Human Services Commissioner Nick Toumpas said that the state is about to throw a curveball at the project. It was designed to handle traditional payments to physicians and other health-care providers. Now, the Legislature wants it to handle a managed-care system for all Medicaid clients.

“It will require a change, but it is not clear now if it will be large or small,” Toumpas said. The move to managed care is supposed to be in place by July 2012 and save the state $16 million in Medicaid costs.

The state’s contract with ACS leaves all cost overruns with the company, but changing the direction of the project at this point will likely start costing the state money.

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SENATE PRESIDENT Peter Bragdon, mindful of the showdown the Senate and House got into this year, made it clear that the committee vote on ACS was not a directive, but a request to Delaney.

A pending House resolution that will be voted on next month calls for repudiation of a state Supreme Court opinion that a bill ordering Delaney to join a lawsuit over federal healthcare reform would be unconstitutional.

The resolution also calls for the Senate to pass the bill, SB 89, anyway. That would eventually send the bill to the Supreme Court, where the outcome is pretty clear.

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THE FISCAL meeting also included a unique vote to change a letter Transportation Commissioner Christopher Clement wrote to the committee explaining his plan for plowing and maintenance. On a motion by Rep. Stephen Stepanek, R-Amherst, the committee voted to delete the closing paragraph of his letter.

For those who want to know what Clement said anyhow, he noted that the state budget lowers highways and bridge spending by $36.5 million on top of the $40 million that is endangered, at a time of low construction prices and stiff competition among contractors.

Stepanek and others said they felt the paragraph was more commentary than information.

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THE SPECIAL House election last week drew some heavy-hitters into the fray.

Republican presidential candidates got behind David Simpson in his contest against Democrat Peter Leishman.

Simpson posted Facebook thank-you’s to the campaigns for Mitt Romney, Rick Perry, Ron Paul, Buddy Roemer as well as U.S. Sen. Kelly Ayotte and the Young Republicans.

It turned out to be the biggest special election loss for the GOP yet this year, with Leishman taking 60 percent of the vote.

Why would the presidentials weigh in on a little House race?

Perry campaign consultant Paul Young said, “Nothing is insignificant in New Hampshire when you’re running for President, and the campaigns would do well to cover all the bases.” He said having Republicans in office is part of winning the state back from Democrats in the presidential race.

His camp had several staffers volunteer to work phone banks and go door-to-door.

Ryan Williams of the Romney campaign said he also had people working phones, election places and door-knocking.

Leishman had phone bank and volunteer support from the state Democatic party and state workers. He said he was surprised to get endorsements from police organizations, which he never sought.

The dimensions of the race hit him late, he said, when he spotted Republican volunteers in New Ipswich last weekend climbing out of a Cadillac Escalade with Simpson signs.

“I recognized this wasn’t just a House race. It was much bigger than that,” he said. The 60-40 margin of victory, he said left him “humbled and overwhelmed.”

State GOP chair Wayne MacDonald was gracious over the loss. “Unfortunately, the results were not as we hoped, but David was able to continue spreading the Republican principles of lower taxes, less spending and limited government and together we will all continue to promote those ideals,” he said.

While the Leishman win is the third defeat for Republicans, it’s strike four for Speaker of the House William O’Brien. He’s trying to override Lynch’s veto of the right-to-work bill. All four special elections have produced votes to support Lynch on the issue.

Democratic Party spokesman Harrell Kirstein said elections so far show that independent voters are deciding to go Democrat. “Folks are really turned off by what they’ve been seeing in the Legislature these days,” he said.

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THE CULPRIT who damaged Rep. Rick Watrous’ car in the legislative parking garage this month, and then left a nasty note blaming Watrous has contacted him and confessed. Watrous said at this point “we will work it out between us.”

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THE HOUSE next week takes up a long list of bills it retained for fall work. They will be voted on in January.

Included in the pile are a bill to loosen restrictions on carrying firearms (HB 536), another voter ID bill (HB 356), a proposed constitutional amendment on education funding (CACR 7) and work on all the budget cutting bills that were brought into the mix earlier this month.

Work also begins in earnest on the latest bill to expand gambling, a House measure that would allow two casinos to be built two years apart, with 5,000 slot machines each.

Given House voting records in the past, this bill (HB 593) has an uphill battle to get past both the Legislature and Gov. John Lynch’s desk.

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SECRETARY OF STATE Bill Gardner will be a panelist at a day-long forum that MIT is hosting Oct. 1 on election integrity.

Gardner will be among speakers on one of three panels who address the use of computer technology in the election process. Both MIT and Caltech sponsor the Voting Technology Project. This symposium is being held on the 25th anniversary of the initial event, at which Gardner was also a panelist..

Tom Fahey is State House bureau chief for New Hampshire Union Leader and New Hampshire Sunday News.