Gov. Chris Sununu planned to make four stops across New Hampshire on Friday as he signed five different bills passed by the state legislature.
While the signings and photo opportunities are all official gubernatorial events organized by the Corner Office, there are obvious political fringe benefits for the three-term Republican governor who’s running for reelection this year.
Sununu’s schedule starts at Laconia High School’s football stadium, where he’ll sign HB 1624, a bill benefiting students with disabilities. Then he’s off to Wolfeboro Town Hall, where he’ll put his signature on two bills – SB 273 and SB 445 – on broadband infrastructure funding and grants, followed by an event at the Conway Town Hall to sign legislation – SB 401 – on increased appropriations for the state Department of Transportation.
The governor wraps up his one-day swing at Frisbie Memorial Hospital in Rochester, where he’ll sign into law SB 459, a bill concerning a health care facility workplace violence prevention program.
Friday’s events bring the number of bill signings Sununu’s held across the state to roughly a dozen since the end of this year’s legislative session. Sitting governors of both parties running for reelection for decades have held such signings, in a time-honored political tradition across the country of making the most of the powers of incumbency.
Republican Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia earlier this year held a slew of bill signings across his state that were popular with conservative voters as he successfully fended off a primary challenge from former U.S. Sen. David Perdue, who was backed by former President Donald Trump.
And it’s not just bill signings.
In Sununu’s case, the governor’s attended ribbon cuttings, delivered commencement addresses, and has marched in parades that were all billed as official events. Before that, he held nearly daily press conferences during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Every governor I’ve known in the last 50 years has found informative and politically useful ways to use their incumbency, whether it’s issuing proclamations in towns, signing bills, attending fairs and parades,” former longtime New Hampshire GOP chair and former longtime Republican National Committee member Steve Duprey told the Monitor.
“It’s a smart move politically but it’s also a smart move for governing,” Duprey said.
The governor’s had unusually terse words for members of his own party as he criticized three conservative state representatives from Belknap County who sit on the Gunstock Area Commission.
This week the Gunstock Mountain Resort closes its ziplines, mountain coaster and other summer attractions after its management team resigned en masse following increased tensions with the five-member panel that oversees the popular resort.
Sununu argued in a letter Thursday to Belknap County citizens that the three lawmakers – state Reps. Mike Sylvia, Norm Silber, and Gregg Hough – “along with the remaining members of the Gunstock Area Commission have lost the trust of the citizens of Belknap County.”
“These individuals have made bad decisions, and until they are removed from their positions and replaced with good people who recognize the wonderful asset that Gunstock is, the County will continue to suffer,” the governor charged.
The Democratic National Committee this week resumes its process of reordering its presidential nominating calendar, which threatens New Hampshire’s century-old cherished tradition of holding the first primary in the race for the White House.
The DNC’s Rules and Bylaws Committee was scheduled to hold a virtual meeting on Friday, to discuss the ongoing efforts to change the primary schedule, in part to increase the diversity of the first states to vote in the process.
Earlier this year the DNC moved to require Iowa, New Hampshire, as well as Nevada and South Carolina, which the last couple of cycles have held the third and fourth contests, to reapply for early state status in the 2024 calendar. Other states that are interested in moving up to the top of the calendar also were allowed to apply. The DNC is also considering allowing a fifth state to obtain carve-out status, meaning it would get to hold its presidential nominating primary ahead of March 2024, when the remaining states start holding their contests.
The knock for years against Iowa and New Hampshire among many Democrats has been that they are too white, lack any major urban areas, and aren’t representative of a Democratic Party that’s become increasingly diverse over the past several decades. Nevada and South Carolina are much more diverse than either Iowa or New Hampshire.
Complicating matters, Nevada Democrats last year passed a law that would transform the state’s presidential caucus into a primary and aim to move the contest to the leadoff position in the race for the White House, ahead of Iowa and New Hampshire. Compounding Iowa’s issues was the botched reporting of the 2020 caucuses, which became a national and international story and an embarrassment for Iowa Democrats as well as the DNC.
The current conventional wisdom is that Iowa, due to its 2020 caucus reporting woes and the fact that’s its trended towards the GOP in recent general election cycles, is likely to lose its lead off position, while New Hampshire is expected to keep its early state status, thanks in part to running a smooth primary which allows independents to vote in either party’s contests.In addition, the state remains a heavily contested general election battleground.
A major sticking point is New Hampshire’s state law that shields its first-in-the-nation status, giving the Secretary of State the power to move up the date of the contest to protect its primary tradition. A showdown would likely occur if the DNC kept New Hampshire second in the calendar but moved another state’s primary to the top of the order.
The Rules and Bylaws committee is expected make a final recommendation when it meets again during the first week of August. The full DNC membership would then vote on the recommendation when the national party holds its summer meeting in early September.