In the last weeks of his first bid for governor, Chris Sununu told voters “yes, absolutely” he would support a paid family and medical leave program for all New Hampshire citizens. Two and a half years later, what do working families have to show for that election eve promise? Nothing.
Paid family and medical leave is not a partisan issue. Polls show 82% of Republican women and 69% of Republican men support creation of a family and medical leave insurance program for the state. In the previous legislative session, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives passed a bipartisan bill to ensure all working people had access to affordable insurance that would provide temporary partial wage replacement to employees who need time away from work to care for themselves or a family member who is sick or injured.
Initial hopes that bill would earn bipartisan support in the Republican-controlled Senate were dashed when Gov. Sununu sent a letter to the Senate threatening to veto the bill if they passed it. That letter led to the first party-line vote for paid leave.
It was Gov. Sununu who injected partisan politics in the way of this common-sense, widely supported policy.
The governor did not, then, work with the Republican-controlled Legislature to advance paid leave policy and he has refused to even discuss it with current leaders of the Democratically-controlled Legislature.
Instead he promises to veto what he calls “the Democrats’ legislation,” which has a bipartisan list of co-sponsors and is the only proposal on the table built on best practices from other states with active, sustainable paid leave programs.
To dodge backlash for vetoing such a popular policy, Gov. Sununu has a two-pronged strategy to protect his image for his next election.
The governor’s self preservation strategy hinges on mischaracterization of the paid leave program funding. The program is designed just like unemployment insurance, which makes sense as it is meeting the same basic need, proving a temporary financial bridge when a working person suddenly loses their ability to go to work. Employers who pay quarterly unemployment premiums would include with that payment the premiums, averaging just $5 per week per employee, for family and medical leave insurance benefits. Employers would pay the premiums but would have the option to pass some or all of the cost of the paid leave portion on to their employees.
The governor says he has his own plan. He recently asked insurance companies for input into how to structure his idea and project costs.
Not a single one of the six insurance companies that responded provided cost estimates for workers in the private sector who would opt into coverage. The only companies that acknowledged the voluntary part of the governor’s concept did so to raise concerns about the challenges of pricing and administering voluntary benefits. They suggested making the insurance more expensive for people more likely to use it, like women of childbearing age and older workers, and suggested denying coverage for pre-existing conditions.
All of these concerns from insurance companies underscore our concerns with the governor’s idea: The people who need this benefit would not be able to afford it or be able to use it when they need it.
In other words, it would lead to a continuation of the status quo.
The governor has failed to acknowledge the fact that his plan wouldn’t make affordable paid leave benefits available to all, and he still won’t talk with the advocates or legislators working to make real paid leave a reality for Granite Staters.
Waiting in his office, alone with his veto pen, Gov. Sununu is failing a key test of leadership. It appears he cares more about winning on his own unworkable terms, or about Democrats losing, than about the needs of our state.
The people of New Hampshire re-elected him in November, but they also elected this Legislature and expect them to work together to advance meaningful policies. Threatening to veto paid leave legislation, the state budget, and countless other policies gaining support in the House and Senate, it’s becoming easier by the day to see what Gov. Sununu wants out of this Legislature and out of his second term.
Nothing.
Unfortunately, that is what we are learning to expect from Gov. Sununu.
Achieving nothing is not good enough for New Hampshire families.
Family and medical leave insurance would help working people make ends meet while taking time to care for an aging spouse or parent following a surgery, a new baby, an adult child recovering from opioid addiction or to care for themselves when battling cancer. Doing nothing to meet these needs should not be an option.
(Amanda Sears is director of the Campaign for a Family Friendly Economy.)