As Gov. Sununu officially files for a second term as governor, it’s an important time to look back on his record and think about what two more years of Chris Sununu in office would mean for the people of New Hampshire.
Sununu’s first term can largely be characterized by corporate tax cuts, warrantless partisan attacks and Trump equivocations. His philosophy of always helping his family, friends and corporate donors at the expense of hard-working Granite Staters infiltrated every aspect of his legislative priorities over the past two years and would most certainly continue if he were to be re-elected.
If given two more years in office, Sununu has admitted he would make passing a school voucher bill his first priority. This comes as no surprise after his voucher legislation failed this session in three separate votes. Sununu’s voucher bills failed because they hurt students and would cost towns hundreds of millions of dollars over the next 10 years. Sununu ignored these realities and chose to listen to Koch-brother studies and unqualified Education Secretary Betsy DeVos. If he is re-elected, New Hampshire will have to fight for two more years to keep Sununu from pushing legislation that will send hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to unregulated private, religious and parochial schools.
Sununu will also continue to push and support Republican efforts to dismantle the Affordable Care Act. For the past two years, Sununu not only supported Trump’s repeal efforts, but even claimed credit for helping draft the Graham-Cassidy bill, a version of Trumpcare that would have turned Medicaid into block grants. Ignoring the thousands of Granite Staters who spoke out against these repeal efforts and urged Sununu to join our delegation in opposing these bills, Sununu chose instead to stick to his GOP talking points.
Nowhere else were Sununu’s corporate principles more on display than with his budget. Last year, Sununu used his position as governor to give $100 million in tax cuts to the wealthiest 3 percent of corporations instead of fully funding the alcohol fund, freezing college tuition, and funding workforce development or job training. If given the chance to pull together a budget for a second time, who knows how much more he’ll give to corporations, or what the rest of us will have to give up for him to pay for it.
Sununu will also most certainly continue to push his NRA-sponsored opinions on the state Legislature, knocking down any form of gun safety legislation that comes to his desk. In the wake of the tragic Parkland shooting this past February, New Hampshire saw first-hand that Sununu will always choose to preserve his A-rating from the NRA over the safety of our students. After all, the first bill Sununu signed into law as governor was a permitless concealed carry bill that the N.H. Association of Chiefs of Police called “dangerous,” and he’s since refused to consider any of the gun safety bills that Democrats have proposed.
If we give Sununu another two years in office, New Hampshire will once again have to fight tooth and nail to defeat his destructive policies. Even if Democrats win back a majority in the state Legislature and advocate for legislation that will help Granite Staters like paid family leave, gun safety legislation or commuter rail, they will face fierce opposition from the man in the corner office. The best thing New Hampshire voters can do to prevent this fate is to vote for the Democratic nominee in November.
(Ray Buckley is the chairman of the New Hampshire Democratic Party and a former state representative.)