We no longer have any doubt that Sens. Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan are disinterested in representing the people of New Hampshire in the U.S. Senate and are now exclusively committed to placating their party bosses and obstructing President Donald Trump’s positive agenda.
This became very clear when Shaheen and Hassan voted against Mike Pompeo’s nomination to be the next secretary of state despite both having voted to approve him as CIA director just last year. Way back then (2017), Shaheen said she was “impressed with his strong condemnation of Russian aggression” and felt he was qualified to steer the CIA’s mission “to protect our nation against foreign adversaries.”
What changed? This time they folded to pressure from Democratic Party bigwigs and leftist outside groups, whose interests they placed above our nation’s security. Notably, state and national media outlets mocked Shaheen and Hassan for their half-baked rationales.
ShaHassan pulled the same stunt earlier this year when the partisan pair voted to shut down the government rather than compromise on the issue of illegal immigration. Prior to that they both voted in lockstep with their party against the successful Republican tax reform measure, which today fuels our economy, creates new jobs, and puts more money into people’s paychecks. They both voted against the nomination of highly qualified jurist Neil Gorsuch, now a justice on the U.S. Supreme Court.
RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel was right when she said congressional Democrats “hate this president more than they love this country.”
You don’t have to take my word for it. The Lugar Center-McCourt School released its Bipartisan Index recently. NH Journal’s Michael Graham observed that, “while Sen. (Kelly) Ayotte was the 12th most bipartisan U.S. Senator in the previous Congress, Sen. Hassan currently ranks 71st in reaching across the partisan aisle among the Senate’s 100 members.” Hassan either lied during the campaign or broke her promise once in office when she pledged to be an independent voice in the Senate.
Essentially, New Hampshire’s federal delegation has become objectively more partisan in just the last year and a half. This is unfortunate because New Hampshire is a bipartisan place. It’s unfortunate also because it results in bad government and poor representation in Washington for the people of the Granite State. New Hampshire deserves something more valuable than puppets on a string for Sen. Chuck Schumer.
While the Democrats deliver nothing but partisan obstruction, Republicans are delivering prosperity.
Good things are starting to happen for regular, working Americans as New Hampshire’s partisan delegation sits on the sidelines, arms crossed and pouting. The nation’s 4.1 percent unemployment rate is the lowest we’ve seen since 2000. U.S. weekly jobless claims are the lowest they’ve been since bellbottoms and butterfly collars were in fashion. In March, the U.S. trade deficit shrank for the first time in seven months. New Hampshire has the lowest unemployment in New England.
It’s all too much for ShaHassan to take, apparently.
Granite Staters and all Americans have a choice. We can follow ShaHassan down the road of obstruction and hyper-partisanship. Or we can continue to pursue responsible Republican policies that deliver prosperity.
(Jeanie Forrester is the chairwoman of the New Hampshire Republican State Committee.)