https://www.nytimes.com/video/science/100000002588110/rube-goldberg-man-behind-the-machines.html

Republican leaders in Concord want to dismantle public schools. They’ll try every which way to do it, creating attacks that would make Rube Goldberg proud.

These efforts include diverting hundreds of millions of dollars to private, often religious, schools while trying to reverse the Claremont school funding cases, redefining what constitutes a constitutionally adequate education, and failing to comply with the NH Supreme Court’s directive that state funding for schools increase by half a billion dollars pursuant to the ConVal decision issued more than a year ago. Now there is an under-handed question on your November 3rd ballot.

NH has a Ballot Question on November 3rd for Voters to Answer

Here’s the question. Adopt or reject?

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Challenged in Court

The ballot question was challenged in court by a taxpayer from Warner and a school board member from Campton who asserted Ballot Question 2 should not be on your ballot because it is confusing. The state’s lawyer, one of the assistant attorneys general from the Rand case, defended the question as just another political decision that the legislature is allowed to make. Merrimack County Superior Court Judge Dan St. Hilaire ruled for the state. The plaintiffs appealed to the Supreme Court and a single judge on the Court upheld St. Hilaire’s ruling. That judge was Ayotte’s former campaign lawyer, Justice Bryan Gould.

What’s the problem with a confusing Ballot Question?

People don’t know what the proposition means and some may vote for it thinking it means one thing and others support it thinking it means another. That’s the basic issue. The explanation that a tax cap won’t affect services is also untrue.

What about that explanation?

The question on your ballot has a formal explanation with it that was approved by the Republican majority in the NH House and Senate and then signed into law by Governor Ayotte. The explanation promises that the tax cap will “not affect classroom instruction, school-based services, or other municipal expenditures.”

How can this statement be true?

Ballot Question 2 limits your school district’s “local property tax levy” to the “prior year’s amount, adjusted for inflation and new construction.” Otherwise, your budget requires a super majority to pass.

What’s a “local property tax levy?” The term isn’t defined but it is likely the assessed value of real estate in your community times your tax rate. The NH Department of Education publishes a chart with this information here.

If you want this levy in “equalized” terms so you can compare the amount of a local property tax levy in one community to another, multiply column 3 times column 12 in the chart. Then divide by 1000 (i.e., remove the last three digits) because our tax rates are expressed in dollars per $1000 in value.

The local property tax levy for schools in Portsmouth was $45.05 million in tax year 2024-25. The local property tax levy for schools in the much larger Manchester was $100.94 million for the same year. The Manchester School District has 12,730 students. Portsmouth has 2,067. Manchester’s local equalized school tax rate was $5.15. Portsmouth’s was $4.25. With a lower tax rate, Portsmouth raises almost three times as much revenue per student from local taxes than Manchester.

Portsmouth’s real estate is worth three and a third times what Manchester’s property is worth on a per pupil basis. The tax cap does nothing to change the consequences of these vastly different values in a school funding system that is overreliant on local property taxes.

Does the Ballot Question separate out the school district’s levy from the local property tax levy for regular municipal expenses? Unclear.

Did your community vote to buy a new fire truck?

A standard type 1 pumper truck costs about $1 million. If you live in a small rural district, unless the local property tax levy is separated out for municipal versus school expenses, there goes your tax cap and your school services will be cut to pay for the fire truck unless voters give a new school budget a super majority.

Let’s assume the school budget is analyzed separately under Ballot Question 2. Your local budget under the cap will require 60 percent of voters plus one to be approved if it goes up by more than inflation. Put another way, a minority of voters in a district with a tax cap can stymie the school budget even if that budget has majority support to exceed the rate of inflation.

Why might a carefully crafted, frugal school budget exceed the rate of inflation?

Rely on your own experience with the cost of living under Trump.

Do you heat with oil? So do a lot of schools. What’s happened to the cost of heating oil as a result of Trump’s war with Iran?

The war with Iran has pushed the cost of heating oil, which is essentially diesel, higher than it ever has been. It is hovering around $6 a gallon across much of the Northeast, where about 82 percent of homes that burn the fuel are located. That’s compared to the mid-$3 range in February. The National Energy Assistance Directors Association, or NEADA, projects that the cost of warming a home with that fossil fuel will go up 50 percent across those states.

Do you pay for health insurance? School districts pay for their employees’ health insurance.

What happened to the costs of your health insurance under Trump and the Republicans? They went up.

The risk pools that insure school employees in NH gave school districts quite a shock last year as reported by NHPR.

Members of the Londonderry School Board had barely begun their budgeting process last September when they received a jolt. SchoolCare, the organization that provided the district’s health care, said it had underestimated the cost of claims, and Londonderry owed $2.1 million to fill the gap. If the district didn’t pay the surprise fee by January, SchoolCare would begin denying district employees’ insurance claims. . .

Statewide, SchoolCare faced a $30 million deficit. In total, 65 school districts and 25 municipalities received similar letters with similar fees. . . .

The Concord School District responded to the unexpected health insurance fee by raising taxes. Somersworth cut staff.

Tariffs have affected the cost of food and construction materials for all of us, including schools. Teachers and other employees bargain for wage increases and lock in benefits. As many collective bargaining agreements are multi-year, school boards can’t change what they’ve already agreed to in order to accommodate a new tax cap.

Sore Losers Undermining Local Control

Ballot Question 2 isn’t the first effort by Republicans to impose tax caps. Previously, Republicans passed a law that made it easy to get an article on your local school district warrant that, if passed, imposed a similar tax cap. All it took was 25 signatures to require your local district to vote on a tax cap. Most of these efforts to impose tax caps failed. So, the Republicans came back with this statewide cap, because it turns out people don’t want their local budgets capped.

Why didn’t they just pass a statewide cap into law? Likely because some genius advised the NH Senate that this ballot question would be a rallying cry to attract Republican voters to the polls. Republican candidates for the NH senate appear to be pushing this approach on my Facebook feed.

Periclis Karoutas is a paid advisor to NH’s Republican senators. One wonders if he advised this strategy. He was also the advisor to Gordon MacDonald and the other NH Supreme Court justices who released a false public statement about the Dianne Martin affair that led to MacDonald’s resignation as chief justice.

There are communities in the state with tax caps already built into their city charters. You can judge the quality of schools and services in these communities for yourself. Many of these cities suffer with low property values and insufficient state funding. Franklin was the first city in NH to impose a tax cap. Manchester has one, too. So do Rochester and Somersworth.

There will be court challenges to Ballot Question 2 if it passes. For one, NH is not a referendum state. It is hard to legislate in NH based on ballot questions. Jeanne Shaheen learned this when she was governor. Court challenges, however, are decided by the NH Supreme Court. It’s better not to trust our Court to respect prior precedent or do the right thing.

It’s better to defeat Ballot Question 2 at the polls and, while you’re at it, defeat the Republicans who supported the ballot question.

https://andruvolinsky.substack.com/publish/post/217999102?back=%2Fpublish%2Fposts%2Fscheduled

Is it legitimate to ask if NH Governors Sununu and Ayotte have engineered a Supreme Court designed to overturn the Claremont school funding principles?

Since 2023, the Supreme Court is a conservative, all Republican body for the first time in decades. Two of the current justices, plus Chief Justice MacDonald who recently resigned, were also lawyers in school funding cases on the side opposed to school districts, children and taxpayers. A fourth justice, Governor Ayotte’s former campaign lawyer Bryan Gould, was described by a Republican wag as a “torpedo” aimed at Claremont.

My client in the current school funding case, Steve Rand, recently shared an email with me that he wrote to an elected official. Steve summed up concerns about the NH court system in very polite terms.

As the named party in the Rand lawsuit, I rather obviously feel that the Supreme court is not sufficiently unbiased to make a decision that will pass the test of public confidence. The public needs to believe that justice is served, and that the intent of the Constitution is being upheld . . . .

Public confidence in the courts was shaken by MacDonald’s resignation two weeks ago based on facts that also implicate three other justices. The crux of those facts involve lying to the public.

The Rand case, now on appeal, provides another challenge to public confidence in the Court. Our legal team moved to recuse, or disqualify, Justices MacDonald, Donovan, Gould, and Dan Will from hearing the case because they present the appearance of being biased. The challenge to MacDonald is moot with his resignation.

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The “Surprise” Effort to Reverse Claremont.

Judge David Ruoff ruled in August 2025 that State funding is constitutionally deficient for base adequacy and for differentiated aid, the part of adequacy dedicated to children who fit certain categories for poverty, English language learners and special education. The State seeks not only to overturn the trial order but to go back to 1993 and reverse the Claremont I school funding case. And also to reverse Claremont II (1997), the Londonderry school funding cases (2006 and 2008), the ConVal II school funding case (2025) and a half dozen advisory Opinions of the Justices concerning school funding. The ConVal II case upheld an order by the trial judge to increase state funding for public schools by half a billion dollars. The State challenges the ConVal decision as illegitimate because the majority that rendered it included two substitute justices appointed pursuant to NHRSA 490:3.

Over the last 33 years, a dozen members of the NH Supreme Court have ruled in favor of school districts, children and taxpayers concluding that, in one way or another, NH’s school funding system is unfair. Five of the twelve were Republicans.

NH’s system of funding public schools is more dependent on local property values than any other funding system in the nation, by a lot. The over dependence on local property values means school taxes vary widely across the state. In the end, school funding is a math problem. The lower local property values, the higher school taxes must be to raise money for schools.

The first time the State’s lawyers challenged the correctness of Claremont and its progeny in either the ConVal or Rand cases was when it filed its notice of appeal on February 24, 2026. The two cases were pending for a combined total of 83 months and nary a word of challenge to Claremont was uttered by the State’s lawyers or by the outside legal team from Missouri. In fact, the State relied on the Claremont precedents during the Rand litigation when it suited them.

NH, by the way, spent $4 million defending against these two cases.

What changed?

The first challenge to Claremont and its progeny was lodged by the State thirteen days after Dan Will became a justice and five months after Bryan Gould was appointed. Until then, nothing.

Justice Will’s appointment created what some call an extraordinary Murderer’s Row against the principles of school funding announced in the Claremont cases with a majority of the NH Supreme Court being lawyers who previously represented the state of NH against school districts, children and taxpayers.

Patrick Donovan was my counterpart in the Claremont II trial. Gordon MacDonald was the attorney general during the litigation of ConVal I. Dan Will argued on behalf of the state in ConVal I as solicitor general.

A fourth justice, Bryan Gould, was confirmed by the Executive Council after its dean, David Wheeler, publicly proclaimed that he would not vote for Gould unless Gould committed to reversing Claremont. Gould got Wheeler’s vote. Did someone vouch for Gould to secure Wheeler’s vote?

What are recusals?

In NH, justices are nominated to the Supreme Court by the Governor and confirmed after a hearing by the Executive Council. In most states, members of the state senate confirm the nominees. Massachusetts and NH, with their executive councils, are outliers. Once confirmed, justices are presumed to be unbiased. Litigants who seek a justice’s disqualification, or recusal, bear a significant burden to overcome this presumption. This is as it should be.

The standard for disqualifying a judge, or justice, is not whether the judge can perform some complex mental gymnastics to put aside all the positions he argued for years while representing the other side of a case. The standard is one of the reasonable appearance of bias.

Under Judicial Conduct Rule 2.11, “A judge shall disqualify himself or herself in any proceeding in which the judge’s impartiality might reasonably be questioned. . . .”

The problem is that NH’s recusal rules are self-policing. The justice who is the very subject of the motion for recusal rules on whether his or her impartiality might be reasonably questioned. There is only a limited appeal from the challenged justice’s original decision.

Social science clearly demonstrates inherent limitations in the self-assessment of bias.

Recent social science research demonstrates that individuals—including judges—are often unable to accurately assess their own biases. Some judges agree.

“As noted by Judge Richard A. Posner in his book ‘How Judges Think’ (Harvard University Press, 2008), judges ‘use introspection to acquit ourselves of accusations of bias, while using realistic notions of human behavior to identify bias in others.’ These tendencies make it difficult for judges to identify their own biases.”

Studies in cognitive psychology have consistently shown that people are subject to unconscious biases that affect their judgment, even when they believe themselves to be acting impartially. Judges, despite their training and commitment to neutrality, are subject to the same cognitive errors and illusions as other individuals. For example, a widely cited study of 167 federal magistrate judges found that judges were influenced by five common cognitive illusions that had previously been identified to affect the lay population. As the authors wrote in their conclusion, “Judges, it seems, are human. Like the rest of us, their judgment is affected by cognitive illusions that can produce systematic errors in judgment.”

As Professor Melinda Marbes summarized in her article about blind spot bias, “we are unable to accurately assess the influence of our own biases using introspection and are seldom persuaded that we are influenced by biases—cognitive or motivational.” The bias blind spot has serious implications for judicial recusal; “the jurist who is tasked with deciding whether he or she is disqualified due to some alleged bias will not be able to see his or her own biases objectively.”

This body of research suggests that permitting judges to be the arbiters of their own impartiality is inconsistent with the realities of human cognition and the need for public confidence in the judiciary. Only by removing the challenged judge from the recusal decision can the legal system ensure both actual and perceived impartiality, and protect litigants’ rights while maintaining public confidence in the judiciary.

[Thanks to the Rand litigation team and particularly Alice Tsier for the substance of the preceding four paragraphs that are drawn from our motion to suspend NH’s recusal procedures because four of the Court’s five members were challenged. The motion was denied.]

All of the motions for recusal have been denied by the justices who were the subjects of the motions. Two of the four motions for reconsideration have also been denied by the remaining justices in very brief orders. The reconsideration motion challenging Chief Justice MacDonald’s recusal is mooted by his resignation. The reconsideration motion concerning Justice Will remains pending.

Ironies Abound

The Dianne Martin saga and the efforts to disqualify arguably biased justices in the Rand case overlap both in time and in irony. Both affect the public’s view of the Court.

Both the Martin affair and the recusal litigation happened at the same time.

On the irony front, MacDonald’s lawyers sought to disqualify members of the JCC panel and the JCC’s lead investigator Phil Haystack, for appearing biased based upon the same constitutional provision against biased judges that we cited. It’s part I, article 35 of the NH Constitution.

Also, Chief Justice MacDonald denied our motion to disqualify him for appearing to be biased while he was actively under investigation for lying to the public. MacDonald didn’t just deny our motion. He turned his order into an ethics lecture.

MacDonald wrote: “It is not appropriate to suggest, as plaintiffs’ counsel do, that if the outcome they seek — my disqualification — is not achieved, then the integrity of the court, public confidence in the judiciary, and the rule of law itself will be undermined . . . .” (Order 6-4-26).

Briefs are now being written in the Rand appeal. Expect oral arguments before the NH Supreme Court early next year and a decision late in the spring.

Chronological Timeline (2017–2026)

• April 13, 2017 – Gordon MacDonald appointed NH Attorney General.

• May 8, 2018 – Patrick Donovan appointed to the NH Supreme Court.

• August 20, 2018 – Dan Will appointed NH Solicitor General (serving as the state’s very first Solicitor General). Will left this position to become a trial court judge in 2021.

• March 13, 2019 – ConVal school funding suit filed by the Contoocook Valley School District. Coincidentally, also my birthday.

• March 23, 2021 – ConVal I decided (The NH Supreme Court reversed a ruling in favor of the school districts and remanded the case back to the trial court for a full trial).

• March 4, 2021 – Gordon MacDonald appointed to the NH Supreme Court (sworn in as Chief Justice).

• June 29, 2022 - Rand v. State filed on behalf of five individual property taxpayers and two corporate property taxpayers.

• January 2, 2024 – Melissa Countway appointed to the NH Supreme Court .

• June 2025 – ConVal II decided (The NH Supreme Court upheld the lower court’s ruling that the state’s base educational aid was unconstitutionally low. Decision was rendered by panel with two Superior Court judges substituting for Chief Justice MacDonald and Justice Hantz Marconi.).

• August 18, 2025 – Rand v. State funding sufficiency issue decided on the merits by Judge David Ruoff, Rockingham County Superior Court, finding state funding deficient for both base adequacy and differentiated aid for children living in poverty, learning English or who qualify for special ed.)

• September 18, 2025 – Bryan Gould appointed to the NH Supreme Court.

• January 26, 2026 – Rand v. State motion for reconsideration by State denied by Judge Ruoff.

• February 11, 2026 – Dan Will appointed to the NH Supreme Court

• February 24, 2026 – State of NH files notice of appeal in Rand v. State and for the first time in either the ConVal or Rand litigation seeks to reverse the Claremont School funding case and its progeny that includes the ConVal case.

It pains me to write this. I’ve been a trial lawyer all of my professional life. I’ve tried cases of all types before scores of judges and I can say that most were hard working, thoughtful and highly ethical. A great number of them sacrificed personal freedom and higher earnings for a position on the bench. I so respect them, but not all people who become judges fit this mold.

There is so much to write about the NH Supreme Court that I am trying something new with this post. It is in two parts. The first part focuses on justices lying to the public. The second part, to be published next Wednesday, will bring you up to date about the Rand case.

Public Confidence in NH Courts

There isn’t polling over time about confidence in the NH Supreme Court as there is with the US Supreme Court, but I’d say confidence in the NH Supreme Court is at an all time low. Chief Justice Gordon MacDonald resigned effective September 15th pursuant to a stipulation, or agreement, with the Judicial Conduct Committee (JCC) in which he agreed that he committed judicial misconduct. MacDonald admitted to arranging a $50,000 payout from state funds to Dianne Martin, a key lieutenant, while also participating in the release of a false statement to the public about how Ms. Martin came to leave one position with the court system for another.

Only two other state court chief justices were removed from their jobs or resigned in lieu of removal during the modern era. The modern era began in 1960 when California adopted an independent commission to review the conduct of judges. The ABA promulgated a model code for judicial conduct in 1972.

Allen Loughry of West Virginia resigned in 2018 after federal fraud convictions and Roy Moore was removed from office in 2003 for disobeying a federal order about the Ten Commandments monument he installed in Alabama’s main courthouse. He was re-elected and removed again in 2016, this time for ordering probate judges to reject gay marriages despite the Obergefell US Supreme Court decision (2015) recognizing them.

Why did Gordon MacDonald resign as NH’s chief justice?

In short, MacDonald showed favoritism towards an employee and lied to the public about it.

The JCC released a summary report about its proceedings. The report provides an insider’s glimpse of what happened including discussion of how the implicated justices, MacDonald, Donovan, Countway, and Gould, engaged in conduct that could be considered stonewalling of the investigation. These justices also tried to scuttle the entire investigation by seeking an injunction to stop it. Finally, the justices sought to remove the JCC’s investigator, Phil Waystack.

The employee at the center of all this tumult is Dianne Martin. Martin was a long time assistant attorney general when MacDonald was appointed to be the NH Attorney General by Governor Chris Sununu. MacDonald promoted Martin to be his chief of staff. The promotion came with a $25,000 raise.

Sununu then nominated MacDonald to be the head of the entire judiciary as chief justice. A chief is both a judge who decides cases and an administrator who runs the court system with its many judges and civilians at all levels of courts. I opposed MacDonald’s appointment to the Supreme Court as an executive councilor in 2019. In a Concord Monitor op-ed I questioned MacDonald’s leadership, lack of trial and judging experience and extreme partisanship. Sununu accused the Executive Council of violating the “tradition going back literally hundreds of years, working in a nonpartisan manner, executing their responsibility of confirming nominees based on their qualifications, body of work, and merit – without political bias.”

Sununu, of course, only appointed Republicans to the NH Supreme Court, ignoring the decades old practice of nominating justices who represented a balance between the two major political parties. Sununu also nominated arch conservative Republican Justice Robert Lynn, and now extremist state rep, to be chief justice. In doing so, Sununu passed over the more senior Justice Gary Hicks who was a Democrat.

Sununu renominated MacDonald to be chief justice after the Republicans regained control of the Executive Council in 2020.

After MacDonald left the AG’s office, Sununu appointed Martin to the Public Utilities Commission with a $130,000 salary. She then followed MacDonald to the court system, leaving the PUC two years into her six year term.

Martin became the head of the administrative office of courts (AOC) with a salary of $143,000. The AOC, formed in 1983, “is responsible for the Judicial Branch’s statewide administrative functions, including audit, communications, facilities, fiscal, legal, human resources, information technology, security, and treatment court services.”

Martin’s Shortcomings as a Manager

The JCC found that under Ms. Martin’s leadership virtually all of the court system’s human relations staff quit. It was so bad that the Department of Administrative Services, an executive branch agency, had to take over the court’s HR functions.

Martin, the JCC concluded, also left important court positions unfilled including the position of Director of Domestic Violence who is responsible for inputting domestic violence protective orders issued by NH courts into the national database for such orders. The database is important because federal law, and some state laws, prohibit some people subject to protective orders from owning or possessing a gun. “[W]hen an abusive partner has access to a gun, a domestic violence victim is five times more likely to be killed.”

Martin, the JCC concluded, also failed to timely pay bills such that court buildings received utility cut-off and eviction notices.

Martin’s extensive shortcomings as a manager were all communicated to Gordon MacDonald as chief justice.

A Surprising Twist-Justice Hantz Marconi Investigated Martin

The JCC wrote in their report, “As Chief Justice you knew about the difficulties with the operation of AOC. Associate Justice Anna Barbara Hantz Marconi undertook an investigation of what was happening at the AOC. After Justice Hantz Marconi was placed on administrative leave, Associate Justice Patrick Donovan became involved in taking over the work of investigating AOC because of substantial and widespread concerns about Ms. Martin’s management. . . .” (Emphasis supplied.) Justice Melissa Countway later joined Justice Donovan’s effort and on February 28, 2025 Donovan and Countway met with Martin and relieved her of her duties as head of the AOC. They offered her a position with the Court’s bar admissions office. Chief Justice MacDonald was furious with his colleagues and acted out by slamming doors and yelling at them. He later apologized for his conduct.

Hantz Marconi and MacDonald were part of another legal drama at the NH Supreme Court. Hantz Marconi was placed on administrative leave from her position as a justice in July 2024 and prosecuted for allegedly meeting with Governor Chris Sununu in an effort to have him influence the prosecution of Geno Marconi, Hantz Marconi’s husband. She eventually pled no contest to a low level misdemeanor and paid a fine. A part of the prosecution of Hantz Marconi relied directly on testimony from Chief Justice MacDonald. Hantz Marconi asserted that MacDonald sanctioned her meeting with Sununu before the meeting occurred. Reporting indicates that MacDonald later denied the claim when interviewed as part of the criminal investigation.

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Now things got dicey.

Martin apparently complained about being shown the door and didn’t like the idea of becoming general counsel to the office that oversees admissions to the NH bar. Also, there was already a lawyer in that position who wouldn’t retire for months.

The solution was to have Martin break precedent and shadow the then bar counsel for five months, four and a half months longer than the overlap allowed by court personnel rules. The five months of shadowing meant that two employees, each paid $154,109 a year, did a job that one employee successfully managed previously.

To further sweeten the deal, Martin took a 48 hour break between the two jobs. The couple days off converted the job transfer to a “termination” that triggered a $50,000 payment to Martin for accrued sick, vacation and termination pay.

Then a whistleblower stepped in and reported the matter to the Department of Administrative Services. Todd Bookman of NHPR also started investigating and the story of special treatment started to leak.

How to deal with the uncomplimentary story?

The Court hired a lobbyist for $10,000 a month right after Bookman broke his story. Republican lobbyist Periclis Karoutas was hired within days after the story of Martin’s new job leaked. His no bid, non-public contract was signed on January 10, 2026, but was made retroactive to October 27, 2025. Bookman’s story broke on October 23, 2025.

Karoutas’ firm was hired to provide: “expert consulting services related to communications strategies, developing an assessment of the Branch’s current communications efforts, and identifying opportunities for improvement in order to promote public trust and confidence in the judicial branch.”

Karoutas reported directly to the lawyer for the judicial branch instead of the chief justice or the existing communications manager in order to shield his work from public view under the attorney client privilege.

The public statement claiming there “is nothing to see here” was issued on October 31, 2025, eight days after Bookman’s story broke and four days after lobbyist Karoutas’ retroactive contract date. The public statement was issued through the court system’s communications manager. It is entitled, “Statement of Supreme Court Justices MacDonald, Donovan, Countway and Gould.”

In the public statement, four Supreme Court justices falsely claimed Martin’s re-assignment was part of “a comprehensive review of its administrative operations and costs as part of an effort to improve efficiency, better align staffing with current needs, and lower overall costs for taxpayers.” The four justices claimed the review that led to the change in Martin’s employment was part of a systemic re-organization that had been ongoing “[s]ince early 2024.” The statement characterized Martin’s transfer as a layoff and alluded to her entitlement to three weeks notice presumably to point out that she would receive three weeks pay in lieu of the required notice. Three weeks pay would have been $8,250.

The statement didn’t mention that three justices investigated Martin’s work or that her employment was terminated because of what was considered poor management. The public statement didn’t mention that she received a $50,000 payout or that two people would perform the job of bar counsel for five months.

Martin’s job as head of the AOC also continued to exist after she left the position and was immediately filled by Judge Chris Keating. The position was not re-organized out of existence for months and now is performed by Keating but with the title of judge administrator.

The Chief’s Resignation

Gordon MacDonald resigned his position as chief justice and admitted he violated the Code of Judicial Conduct, ethical rules that apply to judges, for his role in crafting the unorthodox and contrived termination of Dianne Martin and in lying to the public about it.

In the language of the stipulation that MacDonald agreed:

The Code of Judicial Conduct that the JCC enforces is adopted as part of the rules enacted by the NH Supreme Court. The code is organized into broad statements called “canons” and more specific implementing rules. The preamble to the Code states its purpose.

Canon 1 requires judges to avoid even the appearance of impropriety. Canon 2 requires judges to perform their jobs competently, diligently and impartially.

Rule 1.2, which MacDonald agreed he violated, requires judges at all times to promote confidence in the judiciary. Rule 2.5 makes clear the duty applies equally to a judge’s role as an administrator. Finally, Rule 2.13 provides that “In making administrative appointments, a judge: (1) shall exercise the power of appointment impartially and on the basis of merit; and (2) shall avoid nepotism, favoritism and unnecessary appointments.”

In their summary report, the JCC noted that it could not remove a justice from the Court. It could only suspend him. Removal required action by the legislature and the governor. It accepted MacDonald’s resignation without a public hearing because it was a better outcome than the JCC could order if MacDonald was found guilty of everything.

What about the other justices who also issued the false statement and agreed to the Martin payout scheme?

What about those other justices?

The JCC and Justices Donovan, Countway and Gould have been mum about whether there is an ongoing investigation of these justices for their conduct with respect to Martin or the public statement.

Next week, the Rand case.

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The Law of War

The article was entitled, “Law of War and Sea in Modern Conflicts.” I expected the article to describe the principles involved in law of war treaties but the article focused on the need to update treaties to accommodate new technologies and non-state actors. Those interviewed for the article admitted however that attempting to pass updates would be futile.

Why wouldn’t the international community of nations be interested in up-to-date treaties that provide guidance on what is permissible and what is illegal in modern warfare? That is the article that I wanted to read, but it wasn’t there.

The article included the example of a non-military bomb maker. The International Committee of the Red Cross considers the bomb maker “targetable” only while he is engaged in bomb making. The US considers the bomb maker legally targetable at any time until he completely and irrevocably renounces his bomb making activities.

That’s all well and good.

What about the civilian family that harbors a terrorist cell? What about a civilian hospital that has tunnels beneath it in which arms are stored?

Before anyone accuses me of being prone to propaganda, I don’t believe that Hamas hid its munitions under all the hospitals in Gaza so the Israelis could justify blowing up the entire medical infrastructure used by Gaza’s population of 2.2 million people. Nor do I believe Hamas used all of its schools and universities to hide arms. The historians use the term “scholasticide” for the intentional destruction of a nation’s institutions of learning. This was more likely what happened rather than Hamas not learning from the first Israeli bombing of a school or hospital cache of arms.

Genocide

The term “genocide” is tossed around a lot and, depending on one’s point of view, candidates are rejected or supported for how quickly they adopt the term or reject the characterization completely. I am not a fan of either approach. Genocide is a serious allegation and its consideration deserves rigor. Rigor requires thought and time.

Under existing treaties, the term “genocide” requires proof of both physical acts and a mental state that motivates the acts. Wishing the destruction of a people without acting is not genocide. Engaging in action that harms a population without the specific intent to destroy the targeted group is also not genocide. The UN’s Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, adopted in 1948, identifies five specific acts that must be committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group. The five acts are killing, causing serious bodily or mental harm, deliberately inflicting destructive living conditions, imposing birth prevention measures, and forcibly transferring children.

Deliberately targeting a girls’ school in Iran, if part of a larger plan to destroy the ethnic population of girls who attend the school, would likely be a genocidal act. Destroying the same school by accident may be a lot of other things but probably would not qualify as genocide.

The US and Israel have both adopted the 1948 Genocide Convention. Countries may be prosecuted for committing genocide by the UN’s International Court of Justice (ICJ). The country of South Africa petitioned for Israel’s prosecution in December 2023. It followed up its petition with a “Memorial” that detailed the evidence supporting its claim of genocide.

The Memorial – the name for the document recording the main case of South Africa against Israel – contains evidence which shows how the government of Israel has violated the genocide convention by promoting the destruction of Palestinians living in Gaza, physically killing them with an assortment of destructive weapons, depriving them access to humanitarian assistance, causing conditions of life which are aimed at their physical destruction and ignoring and defying several provisional measures of the International Court of Justice, and using starvation as a weapon of war and to further Israel’s aims to depopulate Gaza through mass death and forced displacement of Palestinians.

The International Court of Justice however lacks enforcement powers. Any action against a country found to engage in genocide must be approved by the UN’s General Assembly over which the UN’s Security Council holds veto power. The US is a permanent member of the Security Council making UN action against Israel for genocide in Gaza highly unlikely. Russia is also a member of the UN’s Security Council and can block actions taken with regard to the war in Ukraine.

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The ICJ v. the ICC

The International Criminal Court (ICC) is a different legal body with a different charter and different responsibilities. The ICC focuses on prosecuting individuals for war crimes while the ICJ is focused on the conduct of nations. The ICJ derives its authority for adjudicating claims of genocide from the 1948 Genocide Convention. The ICC derives its legal authority from the 1998 Rome Statute. The US and Israel are not signatories to the Rome Statute and do not agree to be bound by its prohibitions against war crimes which include killing individuals as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against a civilian population (Article 7). Killing members of a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group with intent to destroy that group is also prohibited as genocide under the Rome Statute (Article 6).

As Israel is not bound by the Rome Statute. Prime Minister Netanyahu cannot be arrested for war crimes, including genocide, for a prosecution that begins in Israel. He can, however, be arrested and transferred to the ICC in the Hague if his arrest occurs while traveling to a nation that subscribes to the Rome Statute. One hundred twenty five nations across the globe have fully ratified the Rome Statute.

No Quarter

Killing combatants who have surrendered is also a war crime under the Rome Statute. Even if one credits the claim that Venezuelans in drug boats are committing acts of war against the US, once the boats are disabled or the operators surrender, they may not be further attacked or blown up, as the US is reported to have done. An order to “give no quarter” is strictly prohibited and giving of this kind of order, even if it is ultimately not followed, is subject to international prosecution.

Under US laws of war, it is also a crime for a military commander to order that prisoners be given no quarter. Under the War Crimes Act (18 U.S.C. § 2441), violations of the law of war—including the denial of quarter—are federal criminal offenses that may be prosecuted in US courts. A prosecution under US law requires the US Attorney to certify “that a prosecution by the United States is in the public interest and necessary to secure substantial justice.”

Senator Mark Kelly responded in a letter to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth when Hegseth appeared to order that no quarter be given:

. . . Senator Mark Kelly (D-AZ) demanded clarification from Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth after he publicly said that “no quarter” would be given to enemies of the United States, a phrase with clear meaning under the Law of Armed Conflict, referring to denying enemy combatants the opportunity to surrender and instead killing them. Kelly said that it “is expressly prohibited under international law, including the Geneva and Hague Conventions and would be a war crime punishable under the War Crimes Act of 1996 (18 U.S.C. 2441). . .members of the United States Armed Forces are legally obligated to comply with the law of armed conflict—and equally obligated not to follow unlawful orders—public statements by senior civilian leaders carry significant weight and can create confusion if they appear inconsistent with those legal obligations. . . .

While it feels odd to think of applying “laws of war” or studying them, they do have a purpose. If not to advance our own sense of justice, the laws protect our civilians and our service members when they’re in conflict. These laws also serve the purpose of keeping our leaders in check. No one in the US should be considered above the law, not the sailor on a boat, the Secretary of Defense or the President of the United States and, before we defend or debate their actions, or the actions of other nations, we ought to know what we are talking about.

This happened late yesterday. Chief Justice Gordon MacDonald resigned from office due to ethical violations. NHPR and Todd Bookman deserve credit for breaking the story last November that led to the resignation. Here’s the current piece by Bookman.

Here’s the piece I wrote for publication today, September 16, 2026.

Not every war is unjust. I can support the war efforts of Ukraine while opposing Trump’s war in Iran. There may be a fine line that distinguishes between just and unjust wars but we need not debate where that line falls with these two conflicts.

I chose not to write about 9/11 last week because I thought others would say plenty. One writer worth reading is Rev. William Barber who writes about the unjust wars that followed 9/11, and lots of other things. I include an excerpt from Rev. Barber’s piece about 9/11 below. The full post is here.

2016 DNC Speech

I first encountered Rev. Barber at the 2016 Democratic National Convention. I was a delegate for Bernie Sanders. Rev. Barber was the most electric speaker of the entire convention. He spoke about morality and faith after describing himself as a preacher and a “theologically conservative liberal evangelical biblicist.” He was conservative in that he sought to conserve the “divine tradition that teaches us to do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with our God.” That reference is to Micah 6:8. A version of the passage hung on the wall of my campaign office when I ran for governor in 2020. I say, “a version” because I left the God part out. The ethos for our campaign was simply, “Do Justice, Love Mercy, Walk Humbly.”

Rev. Barber’s speech from ten years ago is just as relevant today. We must be the “moral defibrillators of our time” shocking the heart into action. Rev. Barber invited us to be wary of “those who say so much about what God said so little while saying so little about what God said so much.” Barber also invoked the Constitution’s call to “commit our government to establish justice, to promote the general welfare, to provide for the common defense, and to promote domestic tranquility.”

We are in serious breach of the Constitution’s entreaties but we cannot repair the breach using the same morally bankrupt and bullying ways of those in power. We must find, as Rev. Barber implored us, a better way.

Here is a recording of Rev. Barber’s 2016 DNC speech. Save it. Go back to it from time to time, particularly when you feel lost. That is what I do.

And here is the excerpt of Rev. Barber’s 9/11 post.

William J. Barber, II on 9/11

Sep 12, 2026

. . . as our nation concludes another anniversary of September 11, those memories are being desecrated as we tragically find ourselves not only entangled in yet another war in the Middle East, but also once again driven by false information, unconstitutional mandates, and a profound moral failure.

None of us who were alive on September 11, 2001 can forget the anguish of that terrible day. We remember the violence and cowardice of the attacks. We remember the pain of the loss, and we remember the shock we felt as the world we knew was turned upside down.

But in the midst of that terror, we also remember the sincere outpouring of courage, compassion and neighborly love we saw from the first responders who ran towards tragedy to the families who held each other close to drive away the dread and the sorrow.

Unfortunately, in the days, months and years that followed the attacks, the American people were lied to again and again. So-called leaders exploited our national trauma, telling us for the sake of self preservation and to eliminate weapons of mass destruction that threatened our families, America needed to go to war.

Now we know not only that those claims were entirely untrue, but also that deception cost more than 100,000 lives and over $3 trillion.

It grieves me to see the nation mark this anniversary while we watch the same thing happening again.

Repeatedly for the past six months, the claims the current administration has made about operations in Iran have been proven false, if not by the facts on the ground then by their own contradictions. Meanwhile, we are engaged in an illegal and immoral war with no congressional approval, and the costs continue to rise as it steals our energy, steals our wages, and steals the lives of our service men and women and innocent civilians…even children.

Costs continue to rise because, while our leaders waste billions on bombs, bullets and madness, they fail to provide guaranteed healthcare for our people, refuse to pay poor and low-wage workers a living wage, and leave public education underfunded and ecological devastation unaddressed. . . .

Happy New Year

Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, began on the evening of September 11th this year. Jewish holidays follow a lunar calendar and don’t fall on the same date in the Gregorian calendar each year. Yom Kippur, the day of atonement, begins on September 20th. I wish you a happy and healthy new year and an easy fast on Yom Kippur. Although I no longer attend synagogue, I still believe in a day of fasting and reflection.

Beshalom.

Ma’a as-salama

///I have not recorded a version of this post.///

Man, was I ever wrong.

This is the line from which the speech draws its name:

Bryan’s 1896 speech to the Democratic Convention in Chicago was about the gold standard that he equated with all the monied interests in his party and in America. The gold standard tied paper money and investments to the value of gold. The “investments” were often debt owed by working people on farms and in factories, “the laboring interests and toiling masses,” who were indebted to eastern creditors and industrialists. The populist Bryan sided with the debtors in support of “bimetallism” which meant using a standard of either gold or silver. Who knows whether silver was better than gold for setting a standard? Bryan knew who controlled gold and he wanted to even the odds against them with an alternative standard.

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Today’s Cross of Gold

Bryan came to mind for his descent from a revered populist to a deranged man who sought to prosecute the teaching of evolution. Ideals that started as good and strong were corrupted by a kind of purity that allowed Bryan’s warped mind to “other” those with whom he disagreed, even if ten or twenty years earlier they would have happily joined in pursuit of a common goal of economic equality.

What would be today’s “Cross of Gold” against which a brave populist could rail at the next Democratic Convention? For me, it would be the AI data centers.

AI Data Centers

In its simplest form, AI, short for Artificial Intelligence, is a complex computing process that requires a large capacity of advanced computer hardware. The computers require tons of electricity to run and must be cooled against overheating. There’s the rub. Large quantities of electricity must be produced to run the data centers. Depending on the source of electricity, production is more or less harmful to the environment. In a time of human caused climate change, data center cooling systems add to the problems of an overheated planet and the water used to cool the data centers causes environmental damage to the source of that water.

As with the gold of Bryan’s Gilded Age, data centers are also symbolic of the huge wealth disparities that exist in today’s economy. The use of artificial intelligence has and will continue to displace jobs and expand fortunes. The jobs that are lost are not only the entry level, iterative jobs performed by less skilled labor. They are also the middle class jobs for which young people were encouraged to train, particularly in the computer sciences. Our system of providing health insurance through employers magnifies the impact of these job losses. Lose your job, lose your insurance, too.

How it’s playing out in NH (and elsewhere).

Courtesy The Sierra Club

Bow, a community adjacent to my hometown, has a history of taking advantage of its neighbors. It wants to continue this effort with a data center. Bow is a small town in central NH with an agricultural past that’s been developed into a bedroom community with cul de sacs of McMansions. For decades, Bow was the home of a coal fired power plant that sat in a small industrial area adjacent to the Merrimack River. The value of the coal plant property allowed the residents of Bow to enjoy significant tax advantages in NH’s system of school and municipal funding. The power plant subsidized the residents of Bow.

Hooksett, which is downstream from Bow, and Pembroke, which is downwind, did not enjoy the tax advantages of having a local power plant. They did, however, get all of the disadvantages of producing power by burning coal.

The Bow power plant, officially dubbed “Merrimack Station,” was built in the 1960s to provide baseload electricity to Public Service of New Hampshire. It ran two coal fired units around the clock at 70-90 percent of capacity for decades. The plant transitioned to a peak-only plant in the early 2000s when environmental regulations toughened and cheaper natural gas generators, with their own environmental problems, came on the scene. Public Service sold the plant to Granite Shores Power in 2018. Granite Shores settled Clean Water Act lawsuits with the EPA, Sierra Club, and Conservation Law Foundation, agreeing to close the plant by 2028. The plant ultimately shuttered ahead of schedule on September 12, 2025, with plans to transition the site into a “renewable energy park” featuring solar and battery storage.

Historically, Merrimack Station was the largest single point source of global warming gases in New Hampshire, emitting up to 3.7 million tons of carbon annually at peak operation.

NH naturalist Eric Orff wrote in 2009:

I have lived in the shadow of the Bow NH Merrimack Station coal fired power plant smokestack for 35 years . . . The top of the smokestack at the power plant is visible not far from my house . . . At a glance I can gauge the likely power output by the plume of smoke shooting my way from the snout of the ancient dragon. Yes, the Merrimack Station is over 40 years old as is the technology on which it was built. Technology from the middle of the last century when clean water was of little concern let alone clean air.

A mercury scrubber on the coal fired units wasn’t operational until 2012 fifty years after the plant became operational. The scrubber finally reduced toxic mercury emissions by 80 percent. Before the scrubber was operational, the plant released roughly 120 pounds of mercury each year that settled in surrounding soils and water bodies.

Ratepayers, not shareholders, were stuck with the bill for the scrubber that ballooned from an initial estimate of $250 million to almost $400 million on completion.

And now Bow, and places like it, want to do it again; build data centers to improve their town’s economics and stick the region with the environmental and power costs.

What should we do?

There’s a lot to this. First, we need guardrails around data centers. A moratorium on their development will give us time to address environmental and energy concerns.

As importantly, we need a change in attitude. The idea that some places succeed while their neighbors fail is not acceptable. The idea that that tech billionaires profit while everyone else picks up the tab must be rejected.

If developers want data centers in our communities, let’s talk about them paying their fair share of taxes locally and nationally.

Let’s talk about building a healthcare system that treats healthcare as a right, not a privilege. Let’s talk about paying for tuition free community colleges and trade schools to “skill up” the people in our communities. Let’s talk about funding public schools at a level commensurate with advancing a common public good. While we’re at it, let’s talk about removing the cap on Social Security contributions and support seniors in retirement.

And, let’s not just talk about change.

Either share the wealth from AI, or there should be no wealth.

Find your polling place: https://app.sos.nh.gov/pollingplacesampleballot

Trump is sending military lawyers to oversee elections in NH and MA.

Go vote.

Thanks for listening.

“The First Vote, Engraving published in Harper’s Weekly, 1867,” Document Bank of Virginia, accessed August 30, 2026,

The engraving above is maintained by the Library of Congress. The Library warns that some of its historical materials might be offensive to modern viewers. Here is part of the description of the First Vote.

Black men in Virginia were able to vote for the first time in 1867 as a result of a law passed by Congress that year. Known as the First Reconstruction Act, the law required the former Confederate states to hold conventions to write new state constitutions. Black men were eligible to vote and to be elected to those conventions. On October 22, 1867, more than 90,000 Black men out of the 105,832 who had registered to vote in Virginia went to the polls to elect delegates to the convention in the election that was overseen by United States military officers. Of the 105 men elected to the convention, twenty-four were Black. The constitution was ratified in July 1869 and its democratic reforms included the right to vote for Black men.

Your Right to Vote in NH

Elections are supervised by state officials, not by the president. You are entitled to vote in NH if you are a US citizen, at least 18 years of age and your domicile is in NH. You are entitled not to be harassed or questioned by anyone other than the moderator and the voting clerks. There is no minimum length of residency to vote. Domicile is where you intend to engage in your community’s civic life. You cannot have more than one domicile and you cannot vote in more than one place in any election. If you live and work in Massachusetts where your children attend school and you also happen to own a second home in NH’s beautiful White Mountains, your domicile is in Massachusetts and you should vote there.

You must prove you are entitled to vote in NH when you register to vote. This should not be a big deal, but can be if you are not prepared. Your drivers license has your date of birth and your residence. This proves two of the three requirements to register to vote. It is also a photo ID, which is a separate requirement for voters. Bring your drivers license with you when you register to vote and when, if you are already registered, you go to your polling place to vote. Your drivers license, however, does not prove you are a citizen. Use your passport for this purpose. You may also use your birth certificate, or a certified copy of your birth certificate, which shows you were born in the US. If you are a naturalized citizen, bring your naturalization papers. Please know you only show documents to the clerk when you register. You don’t leave your documents with the clerk.

If you don’t have the documents necessary to register with you, you may complete an affidavit and swear that you are domiciled in your town, that you are at least 18 and that you are a US citizen. Be prepared for someone to later ask for your documentation after the election. The right to use an affidavit to register has been a longstanding alternative that Republicans in the legislature tried to remove in 2024. A federal lawsuit brought by the NH ACLU stopped them. Thanks, Devon, Gilles and company.

If you are a student, or recently moved to NH, your drivers license may have a different address than your current domicile. Bring a utility bill in your name or a lease in your name to prove your current address. Kelly Ayotte and the Republicans recently passed a bill that bars the use of student IDs to register to vote or to be your required photo ID. Use a government issued ID for these purposes. And, yes, Republicans don’t like college student voting.

NH allows you to register to vote before Election Day at your city or town clerk’s office. Check when your city or town clerk is open for business. You may also register to vote on Election Day at your polling place. Find your polling place here.

People who have changed their names since their documents were issued need to be ready to prove who they are. Unfortunately this extra hassle falls particularly on women who changed their names when they were married.

Voting by Absentee Ballots

It is too late to request an absentee ballot by mail and have it arrive at your polling place in time to be counted. NH absentee ballots have always been counted at the polling places on Election Day. Here’s what you can still do if you have a legitimate inability to vote on the 8^th. Go to your city or town hall in person now and ask the city or town clerk for an absentee ballot, fill it out and hand it in. The clerk will see your absentee ballot is transferred to your polling place to be counted on Election Day. Bring your photo ID. You can also register in this way.

NH takes an antiquated view of absentee voting. You must be unable to appear at your polling place while it is open on Election Day. Other states have “no excuse” absentee voting. This allows absentee voting for a good reason, no reason or because it is more convenient. Maine has no excuse absentee voting. A voter can obtain a ballot form their town clerk and drop it in an approved secure ballot box at their town offices during office hours in advance of the election. The process reduces lines and crowding on Election Day and nothing about it delegitimizes the vote.

Independent or Undeclared Voters

If you are registered as a voter whose party is “undeclared,” congrats. This makes you an Independent. You can choose which party’s ballot you want when you get to the polls on Election Day. You can do the same with an absentee ballot at your town clerk’s office, just ask the ballot clerk when you check in for the ballot for the party of your choice in this election. You can return to being an Independent or undeclared voter immediately after you turn in your completed ballot by advising the clerk when you check out.

Stay in Line

If you are in line when your polling place closes, you are entitled to vote. Most moderators when they supervise voting on Election Day are trained to identify the last person in line at closing time. The moderators will sometimes give the last person a card to hand in when they get to the front of the line. Sometimes they put a bright orange cone behind the last person in line at closing time. People behind the cone get sent away.

Report Your Problems Voting

NH has a long and proud history of well run elections. I give credit to Secretary of State David Scanlon and his predecessor Bill Gardner for administering elections and recounts in a very professional manner, even though I disagree with their decisions to support legislation that makes it harder to vote. There have, however, been efforts to interfere with the smooth running of elections by jamming the phones of people working to get out the vote or by challenging voters in an effort to slow processing and create long lines. Representatives of the NH Secretary of State, the NH Department of Justice and the US Attorney have been available in prior years to help iron out the minor disputes that inevitably arise on Election Day. They’ve always been reliable and fair.

There are reasons to worry that some may work to disrupt the orderly process of voting in NH during this election. I’ve previously written about the Trump administration assigning military lawyers to “oversee” elections in NH.

It is unlikely that there will be efforts to interfere with elections in NH on September 8th in part because the election is to select each party’s representatives for the general election. We don’t decide who goes to Congress or Concord on September 8th. That happens at the general election on November 3rd. However, there could be efforts to try out tactics that will be deployed on November 3rd when the general election is held.

If you encounter a problem registering or voting, or you see a problem when registering or voting, please look for a designated election official or a designated election protection lawyer at the polls. If you think of it, please also let me know by commenting on this Substack post. I’ll do a recap in order to help everyone prepare for the election in November.

Go VOTE!

Thank you.

Christian Urrutia

Carleigh Beriont

Sarah Chadzynski

Heath Howard

Not pro-Medicare for All

Maura Sullivan

Stefany Shaheen

Every Republican

Christian’s Ad in support of Medicare for All

TV Ads by all other candidates in Support of Medicare for All

NONE

News article describing Christian’s Medicare for All press conference of August 17, 2026

News Conferences in the last month by other candidates in support of Medicare for All.

NONE.

Ding, ding, ding. The race to the bottom of the dark money Super PAC pit has widened and deepened in the CD-1 race for Congress. The anti-algorithm candidate is now supported by digital spending paid for by a Super PAC.

Candidate and Harvard Professor Carleigh Beriont now has a Super PAC spending on digital ads to support her campaign. The first spend of the Live Free PAC occurred this week. The Super PAC was created in June.

Say it ain’t so.

But what can Carleigh do?

Elizabeth Warren and Scott Brown in their 2012 senate race figured out how to keep Super PAC dark money out of their race. The two voluntarily agreed to cause their campaigns to contribute to a charity to offset Super PAC dark money spent on their behalf. Both campaigns agreed to hurt their campaigns financially if Super PACs violated their wishes and made independent expenditures that benefitted them. Super PACS must report their spending to the FEC, even though their donors remain undisclosed.

The strategy worked.

The ball is now in Beriont’s court.

Meanwhile, dark money spending to benefit Maura Sullivan has nearly doubled since I last wrote and Super PACs for Shaheen have also increased their spending. Well over $2 million in dark money has now been spent on behalf of candidates in this primary. Unfortunately, as we head down the stretch, there will be more to come.

Why are Super PACs so toxic?

Undisclosed donors get to influence elections and call in favors later. It’s no wonder why candidates who purport to be for change get cold feet after they’re elected. Open Secrets identified at least $54 million in third party independent spending by members of the healthcare sector in the 2022 federal elections.

Christian Urrutia and Sarah Chadzynski do not have Super PACs spending on their behalf. Heath Howard did not have a Super PAC helping him either, but he just dropped out of the race to endorse Professor Beriont.

Beriont, in turn, called Howard a “leading voice for a bold progressive agenda.”

Not everyone agrees.

According to recent reporting,

Howard’s support doesn’t come without some baggage. He’s openly embraced the Democratic Socialists of America and has been under fire from fellow progressives over his allegedly misogynistic and anti-transgender behavior. And his anti-AIPAC rhetoric has spilled over into what some see as antisemitism, including denying Israel’s right to exist.

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Medicare for All—the change we need.

Christian Urrutia, Beriont and activist Sarah Chadzynski support Medicare for All. None of the Republicans support it.

Urrutia’s television ad touts his support for Medicare for All. He also held a press conference last week about Medicare for All. Bernie Sanders and Liz Warren are the two members of the US Senate most associated with Medicare for All, which some call universal healthcare.

Maura Sullivan and Stefany Shaheen, the two best known, well connected and best financed candidates in this race do not support universal healthcare. They do their best to muddy the waters.

What is Medicare for All?

Medicare for All is a universal healthcare system that is designed to replace the for-profit system of health insurance now in place in the US. About 80 countries have universal healthcare. Some are “single payer” plans where the providers are generally private entities and the government acts as the insurer that pays for services. The idea is to cover everyone. Canada and Norway are examples of single payer approaches. In other universal healthcare systems, the government is the provider. Great Britain and Spain are government owned systems. Medicare for All is a single payer approach.

The Yale study, which builds on a 2020 study, was released last week. The $1 trillion in annual savings amounts to a 20 percent cut in healthcare costs achieved by lowering pharmaceutical prices, paying Medicare-level payments to providers, drastically reducing administrative overhead, lessening fraudulent billing, and by replacing avoidable emergency department visits and hospitalizations with preventative care and early access to treatment. The $1 trillion in savings accrues even after accounting for an estimated $300 billion in additional spending to meet unmet medical needs, reimburse care that now goes unpaid, and including universal dental coverage.

How is it Different from a Public Option?

Distinct from a single payer system is continuation of our current private health insurance system but adding a public option. A single payer system and a system with a public option are two very different things. Rather than bringing everyone into one system, a public option loads high need and lower income folks into a government plan and relieves private insurers of this burden. Those who can’t go elsewhere go into the public option.

Think of a public option like riding the bus.

There are advantages to riding the bus. Someone else maintains the bus. You can sleep or read as you ride. But if you travel in the same lanes with cars and trucks, you don’t get there any faster. Your outcome—getting to your destination on time—remains unpredictable. Having a few people take the bus doesn’t reduce the congestion and climate damage from folks still in their cars.

Maura Sullivan’s Position-The Modifier is the Key

Maura Sullivan touts Medicare for All Who Want It. The modifier is the key. The “who want it” part is really a matter of “who can’t afford better.” It’s rhetoric over reality. The dodge originated with Pete Buttigieg who promoted the approach during his 2020 presidential campaign. He was rightly criticized because Medicare for All Who Want It does nothing to bring down the cost of private insurance and leaves the United Healthcare executives of the world with control over most of our medical decisions.

Stefany Shaheen-All of the Above Equals No Change

Stefany Shaheen touts her experience in the healthcare field in two separate television ads. Neither mentions universal healthcare. When questioned by reporters, she says she is for everything.

That’s putting the cars, trucks, busses, bicycles, and walkers in the same lane of traffic and hoping for the best.

Stefany’s website claims, “I’m with Bernie Sanders and support Medicare for All. We need a public option in this country, which means keeping every option on the table to deliver necessary change.” That’s a mouthful.

The Primary Election in NH is September 8^th.

Registering to Vote and Absentee Ballots.

NH residents can register to vote on Election Day at their polling place. Bring a photo ID and be prepared to establish your place of domicile (the address on your driver’s license or a utility bill in your name), your age is at least 18 (driver’s license or birth certificate) and that you are a US citizen (US passport). If you don’t have access to documents, you may complete an affidavit on Election Day at the polls but be prepared that someone may ask for your documentation after the election.

People who have changed their names since their documents were issued need to be ready to document who they are. Unfortunately this extra hassle falls particularly on women who changed their names when they were married.

Also, it is too late to request an absentee ballot by mail and have it arrive at your polling place in time to be counted. NH absentee ballots have always been counted at the polling place on Election Day. Here’s what you can still do if you have a legitimate inability to vote on the 8^th. Go to your city or town hall in person now and ask the city or town clerk for an absentee ballot, fill it out and hand it in. Bring your photo ID. You can also register in this way.

Independent or Undeclared Voters

If you are registered as a voter whose party is “undeclared,” you can choose which party’s ballot you want when you get to the polls on Election Day. You can do the same with an absentee ballot at your town clerk’s office, just ask the ballot clerk when you check in for the ballot of your choice. You can return to being an Independent or Undeclared voter immediately after you turn in your completed ballot by advising the clerk when you check out.

When a fire broke out, the Triangle women found a key exit door was locked, the elevator did not work and the fire escape was not up to the task. One hundred forty six garment workers perished in the fire, some jumping to their deaths in scenes similar to the 9/11 tragedy. The fire spurred Perkins and other reformers to action, many from the International Ladies Garment Workers Union.

Remove the Cap on Social Security Contributions to Save Social Security Benefits.

Before I present my essay, I should note that my friend Christian Urrutia, who is running for Congress in CD-1 (Manchester, Laconia and the Seacoast), supports saving Social Security by removing the cap on Social Security contributions so that the wealthiest lawyers and businessmen stop paying into the Social Security fund at a rate less than teachers, firefighters, cops, and most normal people. Right now, a fat corporate CEO earning $1 million in wages pays an effective rate of less than 1.5 percent into Social Security while a teacher earning $70,000 pays the full 6.2%. I believe most of the candidates running for the Democratic nomination support Christian’s position on removing the cap. I am unsure of the Republicans’ position on removing the artificial cap.

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An apology for Kate Alterman

November 6, 2009

I was first introduced to Kate Alterman during law school, though I didn’t know her name for many years. She was an immigrant girl who worked in the factories of New York. It was her work in a particular factory that eventually brought Kate into contact with Max Steuer, one of the most famous trial lawyers of her time. The event that brought Steuer and Alterman together was the tragic Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire that occurred on March 25, 1911. Frances Perkins, the first woman appointed to a federal cabinet post, is also a part of this story.

A well-regarded evidence professor used Steuer’s example to teach cross-examination. He sternly admonished us never to allow a witness to repeat harmful testimony. Steuer broke this rule when defending the owners of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory who were prosecuted for locking the factory doors and thereby preventing escape from the fire. Steuer cross-examined the immigrant girl by asking her to repeat her testimony about the locked door. He realized in the repetition that she had omitted a piece of her description and asked her to start anew. She did so, correcting her oversight. Steuer used the girl’s memorized testimony to argue that her story was a practiced fabrication and won an acquittal of the factory owners.

It was only years after law school that I learned the name of the witness, Kate Alterman, and that she was new to America and spoke English as her second language. This factory was full of immigrants, mostly from Italy and Eastern Europe. Most were teenaged girls. Some were legal and some, like my grandfather, were quasi-legal.

Kate Alterman, it turns out, did practice her testimony over and over, but not because it was a fabrication. She practiced because she was afraid to make a mistake in her new language.

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory made women’s garments. Its conditions were unsanitary and unsafe. The young women who worked in the factory were paid pitifully, many by the piece. When the fire engulfed the eighth, ninth and 10th floors of the Asch Building where the company was located, the workers learned that the elevator did not work, the outside fire escape gave way under the weight of those fleeing and, indeed, a door that led to a stairway was locked. The factory did not have sprinklers and the hoses and ladders of the New York City Fire Department could not reach these upper floors.

Frances Perkins happened onto the fire that Saturday and saw workers perched on the ninth floor window sills between engulfing flames and fire department nets too frail to the task of catching them. One hundred and forty-six workers died in the fire, hundreds more were injured. Workers compensation funds did not exist. Death benefits were unheard of. Years later, the factory’s insurers paid about $75 in compensation to families of the workers who had died.

Perkins helped form the New York State Factory Commission, which was created in the aftermath of the fire to review conditions in the sweatshops. Four years later, based on the commission’s work and lots of work by organized labor, New York had its first comprehensive package of worker safety and wage protection laws.

Twenty years or so after the fire, FDR appointed Frances Perkins to be his Secretary of Labor. Many of the laws first adopted through Perkins’ work on the Factory Commission became federal law under Roosevelt. These laws were directly influenced by what Perkins had witnessed that tragic Saturday in March 1911.

For some time, I have felt that I owe Kate Alterman an apology for misunderstanding her role in the trial. She was a witness who, like many witnesses, tried too hard. I did not bother to learn why or to learn the context of her efforts. My view was much too narrow and overly focused on Steuer and what there was for me to learn from him. I did not question my professor and I missed learning of the factories of Steuer’s time and the ill treatment of the immigrants – “aliens” in today’s parlance – in those factories.

A lasting vision of justice cannot be achieved through such a limited perspective. I hope, over the years, that I have learned to do better.

Thanks for listening and reading. Please share and encourage others to subscribe.

Best,

Andru

It’s about leadership.

Amy and I have different last names and not everyone knows we’re married. Amy has been on a non-profit daycare center’s board for decades. The director of the center reached out to Amy to tell her that an early childhood ed advocate had been criticized for aggressively advocating for daycares. The advocate, who is a woman, told the daycare center director that she is angry about the criticism she received. Her quote was that “no one calls Andru Volinsky unnecessarily aggressive when he advocates for public education.” The advocate didn’t know the comparison would get back to me.

Amy waited for my reaction.

My first reaction was to laugh at the absurdity of this story getting back to me. We also talked about the double standard applied to women who advocate, not just for good public policies, but for most anything. One of my few current clients is a woman executive who was characterized as being overly aggressive when she learned her subordinates were withholding key financial information from her that was critical to her doing her job.

There is no shame in being a strong advocate. Women have it rougher than men when they advocate. If you’re interested, here’s a short piece on the problem faced by women in leadership that I referenced in a recent pleading. It’s by the Society for Human Resource Management, not a hotbed of radical thought.

“Are Women Leaders Unfairly Held to Higher Standards?”

Women who exhibit assertiveness and authority may be perceived as forceful or aggressive. It is also worth noting that men in leadership positions may be celebrated for exhibiting the same qualities. On the other hand, when women leaders adopt a more empathetic and collaborative leadership style, they may be viewed as lacking authority.

As I was going to sleep that night, Amy’s story also made me think of an adventure I had ten years ago.

About half a dozen of us were hiking in NH’s White Mountains in the dead of winter. We stayed one night in a mountain hut and then hiked across a really beautiful, isolated area of the national forest called the Bonds and encountered some weather. When I write “some weather,” I mean that when the wind gusted it could knock me over. At this point, I was hiking with my friend Rick. Rick is a very large man who likes gear. The combination of his size and his love for equipment makes him a perfect wind break. He’s also a very kind and thoughtful soul, but in this story his girth stands out.

When Rick blocked me from the wind, I could walk unchallenged by the wind. When I walked alone, I needed to be aggressive to make any progressive. Someone watching me leaning dramatically forward in my goggles and hooded winter coat and jamming my poles into the snow would have thought me “unnecessarily aggressive.” That’s the way it is when you lead. Sometimes, when you’re charting a new course by yourself you appear to be unnecessarily aggressive when you’re just trying to make progress from Point A to Point B.

This is from Section Hiker. That’s not me, but this is the route we took.

No one likes taxes! Huh?

My story for Amy had fewer layers. It was worth a smile or maybe a smirk and that was about it.

A Democratic state rep from the Conway area posted a colorful graphic on Facebook that exclaimed, “Democrats Do Not Support A State Income Tax.” Her post was met with about 250 comments. More than 200 or so said, “yea, we kinda do support an income tax that has our state’s wealthiest residents pay their fair share.”

No doubt the posting was sparked by the lame Republican campaign to avoid blame for NH’s property taxes being sky high even though Republican’s have basically controlled all branches of state government for the last decade and used their power to cut taxes on NH’s wealthiest residents and most profitable businesses.

The 3-3 Tax Savings Plan.

I used the Facebook post to remind people of our tax calculator that allows NH residents to input a bit of information to learn how the proposed 3-3 Tax Savings Plan would affect them. The plan combines a 3 percent income tax with deductions as large as we could legally go with a $3 true statewide property tax that includes a $250,000 homestead exemption for taxpayers whose primary residence is in NH, whether that residence is owned or rented. A typical family of four wouldn’t pay the income tax and would see their local school taxes plummet by two thirds.

You can find the calculator at NHTaxSavingsCalculator.com.

Note, there isn’t a recorded version of this post.

Best,

Andru

https://maurafornh.com/media/

Here’s the report showing who has made “independent expenditures” for Shaheen ($616,742) and Sullivan ($795,796).

https://www.quiverquant.com/election-fundraising/house/NH/1

Here’s where to learn more about Christian Urrutia for Congress.

UrrutiaforNH.com

Who will decide this race, the Super PACs supported by billionaires or you?

Last week, I wrote about Trump coming for our elections. NH Governor Kelly Ayotte’s response was “no big deal,” another example of the normalizing of Trump’s extreme and erratic behavior that challenges legal, ethical and moral norms.

This week, I am writing about another threat to fair elections, one that is on both the Republican and Democratic sides of the aisle. The second threat is the pernicious impact of money in politics, particularly when the money is “dark.” Shady non-profits and LLCs often funded by a very few, very wealthy individuals spend money to influence elections through Super PACs. The money is considered “dark” because there is no public record of who funds the Super PACs. You can be sure the candidates understand who put up the money, but the public doesn’t really know.

This Super PAC spending should be distinguished from campaign spending where the candidates do the work, with help from friends and family. Candidates who don’t do the hard work to raise money can’t compete because they can’t communicate their message and teach voters who they are.

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PAC v. Super PAC

A PAC is a political action committee. PACs are limited in how much they may contribute directly to a candidate. The limit is really on what a candidate may accept from a PAC. It’s $5000 per federal election. The maximum a candidate may receive from an individual is $3500 per federal election.

Super PACs don’t have any limits, in theory, because they don’t contribute directly to the candidates they support. They act “independently” to avoid disclosing who funds them. Super PACs aren’t required to publish where their money comes from, although nothing prevents them from doing so.

The infamous Citizens United Supreme Court case decided in 2010 led to the creation of Super PACs. The case resulted from a conservative group’s effort to air an anti-Hillary film in 2007. The film was considered an “electioneering communication” that was prohibited by the Bipartisan Election Reform Act of 2002. The conservative group was called “Citizens United.”

According to the Brennan Center,

The Supreme Court eventually decided 5–4 that Citizens United was within its First Amendment rights to spend its money disseminating the film. But rather than opining solely on the case before it as it had been asked to do, the Court took the opportunity to entirely strike down century-old prohibitions on corporate “independent” spending — money that doesn’t go directly to a candidate or party. This applied to labor unions as well. Lower courts applying the ruling extended it to invalidate almost all fundraising and spending restrictions for groups that purport to be separate from candidates, many of which are today known as “super PACs.”

How big is the problem?

Again, from the Brennan Center,

From 2010 to 2022, super PACs spent approximately $6.4 billion on federal elections. In the 2024 election, they set a record of at least $2.7 billion. Super PAC money has largely eclipsed donations by small donors (people giving $200 or less), despite funds from small donors growing. For example, in the 2022 midterms, just 21 of the biggest donor families contributed $783 million and billionaires provided 15 percent of all federal election financing — most of which went to super PACs supporting congressional campaigns. These donors easily outspent the total given by the millions of small donors giving to House and Senate candidates that cycle.

Elon Musk was the biggest donor/spender/manipulator of the 2024 cycle. Musk just announced he’ll spend between $100 million and $120 million across eight states in 2026 through his Super PAC, America PAC. Maine, where Susan Collins is facing off against Troy Jackson for US Senate, is one of Musk’s chosen battleground states.

Can dark money be regulated by states in the absence of federal regulations?

A case argued before the US Court of Appeal for the First Circuit in Boston last week will provide the next step in answering this question. Ultimately, the US Supreme Court will weigh in and I can’t imagine that we’ll like their answer.

Maine voters adopted a citizen’s initiative in 2024 to require action by the Maine state legislature on Super PACs. Three fourths of Maine voters supported the measure and Maine adopted a spending cap of $5000 per election on Super PACS operating in Maine. A group called Dinner Table Action represented by the law firm of Pierce Atwood immediately challenged the law and a federal judge enjoined its operation following the Citizens United precedent. A coalition of groups, including the Maine Attorney General, appealed the injunction to the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in Boston. A coterie of well-known and experienced lawyers argued last week for the Court of Appeals to allow the law to operate. Among them were Lawrence Lessig of Harvard and a non-profit called, “Equal Citizens” and Neal Katyal, a partner at Milbank LLP and professor at Georgetown. Katyal was acting solicitor general under Obama. The solicitor general ordinarily represents the United States before the US Supreme Court.

The argument in Boston centered on who funds Super PACs and whether they are independent. NH’s own Judge Seth Aframe was interested in the question of whether a Super PAC relying on a single funder, like Elon Musk or another billionaire, distorted the intent of Citizens United. Other judges asked about whether Super PAC expenditures are actually independent of the candidate that is being supported.

“Red Boxing”

There are tons of ways that campaigns and Super PACs coordinate. Perhaps the most egregious is “red boxing.” In red boxing, the federal candidate actually posts the messaging and photos or videos that the candidate would like the Super PAC to use in its “independent expenditures.” By using the preferred materials, the Super PAC’s ads, flyers, and digital copy perfectly align with the candidate’s strategy.

The practice is both brazen and breathtakingly simple. To work around the prohibition on directly coordinating with super PACs, candidates are posting their instructions to them inside the red boxes on public pages that super PACs continuously monitor.

The boxes highlight the aspects of candidates’ biographies that they want amplified and the skeletons in their opponents’ closets that they want exposed. Then, they add instructions that can be extremely detailed: Steering advertising spending to particular cities or counties, asking for different types of advertising and even slicing who should be targeted by age, gender and ethnicity.

Maura Sullivan’s “red box” is here.

It literally tells her “Independent” Super PACS what she wants.

A Super PAC called Vote Vets has sent multiple mailers into the Congressional District on behalf of Maura Sullivan and spent $400,000 on television and digital adds. The total reported spend by Vote Vets to support Sullivan’s campaign exceeds $600,000.

A second Super PAC called the Servant Leaders Fund, LLC spent almost $185,000 in support of Ms. Sullivan. In the 2022 cycle, this fund contributed a quarter of a million dollars to the Republican Congressional Committee and $38,000 to Mar-a-lago Club, LLC. Why on earth is this Republican oriented Super PAC spending money to help a Democratic candidate in the 2026 Democratic Primary?

Stefany Shaheen has engaged in some of the same conduct. Tim Smith of Manchester reports on Facebook that he received a mailer touting Stefany Shaheen from Article One PAC, which abbreviated is A1PAC. A1PAC, he notes, kind of looks like AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

A1PAC has spent almost $617,000 in support of Stefany Shaheen’s campaign by paying for said mailers and digital advertising.

A1PAC has shown up in a number of races across the country. Robert Granieri, the billionaire founder of Jane Street Capital, is one of the few identified funders of A1PAC.

Since 2023, Wikipedia reports, Granieri has donated $5 million to Super PACs in US elections, most pro-Israel. Open Secrets reports the details of his contributions which are to both liberal and conservative Super PACs.

Christian Urrutia opposes Dark Money.

I am pessimistic about the chances of the new Maine law, and similar laws in Hawaii and Montana. I wish it were otherwise. Ultimately, the US Supreme Court will rule on these laws and the current Supreme Court is not open to campaign finance reform. The answer, at least for the rest of my lifetime, must be political. Voters must take into account which candidates play in the system of dark money. They must ask, can these folks beholden as they are to the billionaires and special interests, really be expected to change anything?

Understanding the corrupting influence of dark money, candidate Christian Urrutia called for all the candidates for Congress in NH’s CD-1 to refrain from inviting dark money into the race. That was weeks ago. Now we know why candidates Shaheen and Sullivan declined to do so.