Ayotte, K GOV Sen

10 25 GOV NH

New England women GOP last stand of moderates? Snow etc

CLETA? GERRY 10 25

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lcv 56/35 %

http://scorecard.lcv.org/moc/kelly-ayotte

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AN 10 25

Corey Lewandowski, a senior adviser at the Department of Homeland Security and longtime ally of President Donald Trump, is considering a run for governor of New Hampshire, Politico reported Thursday.

The report comes as the White House weighs backing a primary challenge against current Gov. Kelly Ayotte (R).

“Governor is the only job in politics I would ever consider giving up what I am currently doing for,” Lewandowski told Politico.

According to the report, he did not indicate whether the potential run had been discussed with the White House.

The possible candidacy comes amid growing tensions between the Trump administration and Ayotte over redistricting.

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The White House is reportedly frustrated with Ayotte’s resistance to redrawing congressional maps that would strengthen Republican control of the U.S. House ahead of the midterms.

The report noted that Lewandowski’s role at DHS has drawn internal scrutiny. Initially appointed as a special governmental employee, a position limited to 130 days of unpaid work per year, questions have emerged about how his time is being counted.

Despite the temporary designation, he has wielded significant influence, with current and former administration officials saying he has veto power over DHS contracts and grants exceeding $100,000.

He is listed on the agency's website as a chief adviser to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and is regularly seen traveling with her.

Speculation about Lewandowski’s future at DHS intensified this week amid reports he might be leaving the department.

Lewandowski addressed the rumors in a post on the social platform X Wednesday night, writing, “I thought it only fitting today to share the words of the famous Mark Twain … ‘The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.’ Lots of Fake News out there… don’t believe the MSM.”

He previously floated a 2020 Senate bid against Democrat Jeanne Shaheen, which failed to gain traction within the state’s GOP establishment.

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an 7 25

While Massachusetts remains a Democratic stronghold, it's New England neighbor New Hampshire is much more of a swing state.

New Hampshire has a conservative Republican governor: Kelly Ayotte, who followed another GOP governor, Chris Sununu. But New Hampshire's U.S. Senate delegation is entirely Democratic with both Maggie Hassan and Jeanne Shaheen representing the Granite State in the upper chamber of Congress. And Democratic 2024 presidential nominee Kamala Harris won New Hampshire by roughly 3 percent compared to 25 percent in Massachusetts.

On Tuesday, July 15, Ayotte defied far-right MAGA Republicans when she vetoed New Hampshire House Bill 324. The measure encouraged parents to help remove from classrooms material they considered obscene, but critics of the bill argued that it went too far and allowed gay-oriented literature to be unfairly targeted even if wasn't explicit.

Ayotte, according to the New Hampshire Bulletin, said of her HB 324 veto, "Current state law appears to provide a mechanism for parents through their local school district to exercise their rights to ensure their children are not exposed to inappropriate materials. Therefore, I do not believe the State of New Hampshire needs to, nor should it, engage in the role of addressing questions of literary value and appropriateness, particularly where the system created by House Bill 324 calls for monetary penalties based on subjective standards."

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But HB 324 wasn't the only MAGA-sponsored bill Ayotte vetoed on July 15.

The New Republic's Malcolm Ferguson reports, "There was also House Bill 148, which would have allowed stores, jails, and workspaces to ignore gender identity and categorize people based on their assigned gender at birth…. She killed House Bill 358, which would have streamlined the 'religious exemption' process for parents who don't want to vaccinate their children; House Bill 446, which would have required schools to receive parental permission to conduct non-academic surveys; and House Bill 667, an anti-abortion bill that would have forced students to view 'a high- quality computer generated animation or ultrasound video that shows the development of the heart, brain, and other vital organs in early fetal development,' according to The New Hampshire Bulletin."

In her veto of HB 148, Ayotte explained, "I believe there are important and legitimate privacy and safety concerns raised by biological males using places such as female locker rooms and being placed in female correctional facilities. At the same time, I see that House Bill 148 is overly broad and impractical to enforce, potentially creating an exclusionary environment for some of our citizens."

Ferguson describes those vetoes as a firm rebuke of far-right culture warriors in her New England state.

The New Republic reporter notes, "Ayotte's vetoes are a rejection of her party's attempt to assert cultural control throughout the state, and the country. Lawmakers would need a two-thirds majority in both the state House and Senate to overturn Ayotte’s vetoes, which will be a very tall task given that Republicans don’t have those numbers."

*Read Malcolm Ferguson's full New Republic article at this link and The New Hampshire Bulletin's coverage here.

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http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/11/the-greening-of-kelly-ayotte/447783/

Sen. Kelly Ayotte says politics has nothing to do with her support for President Obama’s sweeping climate-change plan.

“I took the position looking at the impact on New Hampshire, and that’s my focus. The issues in terms of the ballot box—other people can analyze that that are political pundits,” the New Hampshire Republican said in the Capitol on Tuesday.

Ayotte, one of the most vulnerable GOP members up for reelection next year, was answering a question about the politics of her recently announced backing of Environmental Protection Agency rules mandating cuts in carbon-dioxide emissions from the nation’s power plants.

She’s the first (and thus far only) GOP senator to back the rules, a stance that drew applause from several green groups but puts her starkly at odds with her party’s main White House hopefuls and Capitol Hill leadership, who are pushing to block the regulations.

But while Ayotte says her motivations are unrelated to the 2016 elections, her backing of the EPA initiative could affect her race against Democratic Gov. Maggie Hassan (a contest that National Journal political analyst Charlie Cook calls a “toss-up”).

And it’s a race that will help decide the balance of power in the Senate, as Republicans defend a number of vulnerable seats in a cycle that has Democrats hoping to regain control of the chamber.

“New Hampshire Republicans have more moderate opinions on climate change and environmental regulation than you will find among Republicans elsewhere,” said Dante Scala, a political science professor at the University of New Hampshire. “I think what she is hoping to do is to shore up her standing among independent voters here, which is net favorable, and I think she does so without fear of losing too many Republicans.”

Scala sees Ayotte seeking to take climate change and the environment “off the front burner” in the race.

The power-plant regulations are the central pillar of Obama’s second-term climate agenda, and they’re a top priority for environmentalists, including the groups that are most active in electoral politics.

The two groups with the biggest political operations—the League of Conservation Voters and the Sierra Club—both endorsed Ayotte’s Democratic opponent, Paul Hodes, in the 2010 race for the open seat that former Sen. Judd Gregg was vacating.

But the groups say they have not made any decisions about getting involved in the 2016 New Hampshire contest.

“It is a long way off in terms of LCV’s consideration of this race,” said Rob Werner, LCV’s New Hampshire state director. He called Ayotte’s stance on the climate plan “highly significant,” but added that LCV won’t make a decision on involvement in the race until sometime next year.

In 2010, the group spent at least $115,000 trying unsuccessfully to elect Hodes in his race against Ayotte, according to Federal Election Commission figures compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics.

While the Sierra Club welcomes Ayotte’s stance on the power-plant rule, the group says its process will examine Ayotte’s record more broadly.

“Our endorsements originate from the ground up, and that process has not yet begun for this race. During the course of any endorsement consideration, multiple factors are taken into account, including a candidate’s voting record on policies designed to ensure that all American families have clean air, clean water, and a safe climate,” said Khalid Pitts, the group’s political director, in a statement to National Journal.

Similarly, an aide to California billionaire and climate activist Tom Steyer, who poured $74 million into various 2014 contests with mixed results and plans to get involved in multiple 2016 races, did not say whether he would spend money on the New Hampshire contest.

Ayotte’s campaign spokeswoman did not respond to an inquiry about whether she would seek the endorsement of environmental groups or is at least hoping they do not work against her in next year’s election.

Scala, the New Hampshire politics expert, said that keeping green groups active in elections away from her race would be a victory. “Surely, she would hope to keep a group like that on the sidelines in New Hampshire,” he said of Steyer’s operation.

Ayotte, whose career ranking on LCV’s scorecard is just 23 percent, remains on the other side of green groups on multiple issues they prioritize,including the Keystone XL oil-sands pipeline.

And on Tuesday, she voted in favor of GOP-led bills to overturn another green-movement priority: new EPA regulations aimed at ensuring Clean Water Act protections for streams and wetlands. Major business groups and Republicans call the rules an overreach. One of them advanced but has already drawn a White House veto threat.

Still, Ayotte has increasingly been emphasizing climate change, the biggest issue overall for the environmental movement.

Late last week, she and three other GOP senators—Lindsey Graham, Mark Kirk, and Lamar Alexander—announced a “Senate Energy and Environment Working Group that will focus on ways we can protect our environment and climate while also bolstering clean energy innovation that helps drive job creation.”

The group will “meet periodically to discuss general energy and environmental issues and exchange ideas about potential legislation,” the Oct. 29 announcement stated.

And one major environmental group is already spending money to highlight Ayotte’s stance on the carbon-emissions rules for power plants. In late October, the Environmental Defense Fund announced it had begun a weeklong digital-ad campaign thanking Ayotte for her stance on the Obama administration rule, which is known as the Clean Power Plan.

“Senator Ayotte’s support for the Clean Power Plan demonstrates real leadership on climate change and breaks with those in her own caucus who have sided with polluters and continue attempts to block clean air protections at every turn,” the group said in rolling out the campaign.

https://thinkprogress.org/these-4-republican-senators-are-forming-a-group-to-tackle-climate-change-dc667e9f8eb5#.lb11aa1tc

kirk lg

outside $ to ayotte?

Justice Antonin Scalia’s body was barely cold when Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell, looking like an angry old snapping turtle, stood in front of a bank of television cameras on Capitol Hill and drew a political battle line unprecedented in living memory.

Because Republicans controlled the Senate, McConnell declared roughly an hour after Scalia died, the party could and would categorically reject anyone Democratic President Barack Obama nominated as Scalia’s successor. He swore that the ninth seat on the nation’s highest court—frequently the tiebreaking vote on the most controversial issues of the day—would remain empty for a year awaiting the results of the current presidential circus.

Whether intentional or not, McConnell’s remarkable pronouncement also shone a spotlight on 2016’s undercard fight for control of the U.S. Senate. Sure, the presidential campaign gets top billing. But the party that controls the Senate, everybody was suddenly reminded, can act as either an enabler of or bulwark against the president’s plans: legislation, treaties, and, yes, judicial nominations that will shape our nation’s laws on issues such as abortion, campaign finance, and energy policy for years to come.

That is particularly crucial given that our next president will be, according to polls, one of the two most disliked and distrusted nominees ever put forward by a major political party. If you loathe Hillary Clinton, you desperately want the Senate to stay in Republican hands in case she wins; if you detest Donald Trump, you just as eagerly want Democrats to gain control and stop him.

This brings us to the friendly little state of New Hampshire, where Democratic Governor Maggie Hassan is challenging Republican Senator Kelly Ayotte. There, unlike the lesser-of-two-evils presidential race, voters have the pleasure of choosing between two well-liked, smart, effective public servants in a race that, especially since the Scalia earthquake, has turned into a white-knuckle fight for control of the upper house.

Democrats need to gain five seats to ensure a majority in the Senate. Their most likely gains, experts on all sides agree, are in Illinois, Wisconsin, and Florida. The next two possibilities, the states that will decide whether it’s Trump or Clinton who gets to choose the crucial ninth Supreme Court justice, are Ohio and New Hampshire.

The Senate races in both states are in a dead heat, and political experts predict the Ayotte-Hassan showdown will stay that way. “I don’t expect [the race] to leave the margin of error” in polls, says Jennifer Duffy, senior editor of the Cook Political Report.

Everybody in politics knows that a mere few thousand votes in the Granite State—maybe a few hundred, or even a dozen—could profoundly change the course of American society. So tens of millions of dollars are flowing in—much of it from Massachusetts or raised by Bay State power brokers including Elizabeth Warren—to target the 750,000 or so voters expected to cast ballots in November. Already a marquee matchup expected to break records for outside spending, the race has exploded into a nuclear political showdown as attack ads from special interest groups drown out the candidates’ own messages and records. In a political season dominated by two widely disliked presidential candidates, New Hampshire’s Senate contest is rapidly getting dragged down by national forces beyond anyone’s control—forcing Hassan and Ayotte to define themselves not by who they are and what they stand for, but by the political distance they can keep from the next president of the United States.

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Hassan has found plenty of reasons to visit Boston of late. In April she attended at least four private fundraisers and also delivered UMass Boston’s annual Robert C. Wood Lecture of Public and Urban Affairs. Though largely forgotten today, Wood was a major Boston figure. A leading urbanist at MIT, he spent four years helping President Lyndon Johnson launch the Department of Housing and Urban Development, served as superintendent of Boston Public Schools under Mayor Kevin White, and seriously considered running for governor and senator. He was also Maggie Hassan’s father.

Born in Boston and raised in Lincoln, Hassan attended Brown University when her father was running the Boston schools. She graduated from Northeastern University School of Law in the early 1980s while her parents were living in the South End. “Her father set an example of public service, and both of us thought it was very important to do things that are good for the community,” says Margaret Wood, Hassan’s mother, who now lives in Cambridge. “That’s what we expected in life, and she grew up expecting that.”

Despite her high-profile father, Hassanis hardly the elitist some Republicans try to paint her as. Her father grew up in Florida and was never wealthy. Hassan went to public schools in Lincoln and also in Washington, DC, where her father worked with President Johnson while the city was dealing with desegregation. Later in life, she married a teacher who worked his way up to become principal of the tony Phillips Exeter Academy, and had two children, Meg, 23, and Ben, 27, who suffers from cerebral palsy. Ben now appears with his mother in campaign commercials; she cites his disorder as one of the reasons she got into politics.

When it comes to Ayotte, her common-woman touch is a real part of her appeal; she lives humbly in Washington and returns to New Hampshire on most weekends. “I’ve had to drop her off to get a gallon of milk on the way home from DC,” says Simon Thomson, a former Ayotte staffer. “She hasn’t lost touch.”

Born and raised in Nashua, Ayotte went out of state for college and law school but returned to forge a career in public and private law. She married a pilot in the Air National Guard who flew combat missions in Iraq, and eventually worked her way up to state attorney general, an appointed office in New Hampshire, in 2004—the same year Hassan won her first election to the state Senate. Six years later, Ayotte ran for office for the first time and became a U.S. senator. She rapidly earned her stripes on Capitol Hill and became a frequent guest on the Sunday network talk shows—in part because of her abilities, in part because she’s a rare Republican female officeholder, and in part because of New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation presidential primary.

Because of her prominence within the Republican Party, it’s easy to forget how new Ayotte is to the political game. In the middle of our phone conversation, Ayotte suddenly, and quite self-deprecatingly, cut me off to apologize for not agreeing to an interview for my 2014 feature about her in this magazine. “Bear in mind, I was attorney general, but this is my first elected office,” she said, explaining why her staff had shielded her from me back then. “Your first term in elected office, you learn a lot.”

It’s hardly what you expect to hear from someone who was on everybody’s short list for Republican vice president in 2012.

Hassan sometimes displays a similarly endearing attitude behind her political façade. Talking about Ben, or about her father as she did at UMass, she occasionally drops her rather robotic campaign rhetoric (comparisons to Martha Coakley are unfortunate but not inaccurate) and becomes the warm, relatable person that people who know her say she is.

Nevertheless, neither candidate is an oratorical wonder, to put it mildly. They are not flashy, in dress or demeanor. They are both professional, both lawyerly: hardworking, careful, thorough, and thoughtful. And now, facing each other from atop the state’s political pyramid, they are forced to all but abandon their natural tendencies and distance themselves from their unpopular parties and presidential candidates

http://www.globalpossibilities.org/why-this-republican-senator-just-came-out-in-support-of-obamas-climate-rule/

http://grist.org/climate-energy/getting-warmer-more-republicans-are-starting-to-take-climate-change-seriously/

Sen. Kelly Ayotte (N.H.) is angling to turn herself into a Republican leader on climate change — at least in part to fight a 2016 reelection challenge from a climate-hawk Democrat.

On Sunday, Ayotte became the first GOP senator to express support for President Obama’s Clean Power Plan, which will rein in CO2 emissions from electric utilities. On Wednesday, she released touting that position and her other efforts to protect the environment. And on Thursday, she announced the formation of a new Senate Energy and Environment Working Group, which a spokesperson said will “talk about ways to build support for protecting the environment and climate and promoting cleaner energy production while also helping the economy.”

The new working group will include three other Republican senators who’ve acknowledged that climate change is a real problem: Lamar Alexander (Tenn.), Lindsey Graham (S.C.), and Mark Kirk (Ill.). Kirk, like Ayotte, is facing a tough reelection race in a moderate state. He appeared to waffle on climate science earlier this year, but has apparently settled on saying it’s a real, human-caused problem and trying to do something about it.

Politico’s Andrew Restuccia writes, “The establishment of the working group shows the shifting political dynamics at play over environmental policy, with some in the GOP worried that Republicans’ skepticism of mainstream climate science and opposition to air and water regulations isn’t sustainable in the long-term.”

We see a similar dynamic at play in the House, where Rep. Chris Gibson (R-N.Y.) is rounding up a handful of Republicans who want to shift the party’s approach on climate change (and inoculate themselves against election-season charges of obstructing climate action). Last month, as noted by Grist’s Ben Adler, Gibson and 10 other House Republicans introduced a resolution affirming their acceptance of climate science and their support for (as-yet-undefined) action to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

And these more climate-friendly congressional Republicans have some big-money backers. Jay Faison, a wealthy North Carolina businessman, has donated to Graham and other GOP candidates, and he plans to spend $175 million to push the GOP to address climate change. Andy Sabin is another wealthy businessman supporting Republicans who want to cut carbon emissions. In an interview with Grist earlier this month, Sabin named Ayotte, Kirk, Graham, and Gibson as Republicans he’s excited about.

Some of those same names cropped up last week at the Conservative Clean Energy Summit in Washington, D.C., a first-of-its-kind gathering of Republicans pushing for “energy reform.” Amanda Little, who’s been interviewing conservative climate leaders for a Grist special series, attended the conference and reported on it for The New Yorker. From her piece:

The summit was organized and hosted by Michele Combs, who heads up the group Young Conservatives for Energy Reform (Y.C.E.R.), and her mother, Roberta Combs, the president and C.E.O. of the Christian Coalition of America. … “Clean energy is not a Democrat issue, it’s a family issue,” [Michele] told me. … The summit was part of an ongoing effort to move the issues of climate change and clean energy from the margins of the Republican Party to its mainstream. Although the Combses scarcely spoke at the event, they chose others to make their case — the executive of a solar-power company, a three-star and a four-star general, two congressman, and six U.S. senators. …

The long-term goal of Y.C.E.R., Michele Combs told me, is to help get “a comprehensive energy-reform bill” passed in the Senate soon after the next administration takes office — a bill that could also, in effect, break the congressional climate-legislation stalemate. … “We’re building grassroots to provide cover — to keep senators politically safe when they support energy reform,” Combs said. “First, we’re establishing common ground and a new terminology. Terms like ‘energy reform’ will bring a lot more conservatives to the table than ‘climate change.’”

No matter what they call it, changing most Republican politicians’ hearts and minds will be a tough slog. The majority of GOP members of Congress still don’t accept the well-established science of climate change, and even those who do are more likely to criticize Democrats’ proposed solutions than to propose their own.

It’s a good sign that Ayotte feels she needs to support climate protections if she wants to be reelected. We might see more of that from her GOP colleagues in the Senate, all of whom need to be elected by statewide constituencies. But in the House, Gibson and his fellow resolution signers are anomalies — they’re in moderate districts, while most of their Republican colleagues are in dark-red districts and risk being primaried out of office if they call for cutting CO2 emissions.

If Combs and her allies could change that dynamic, it would be huge. It’s highly unlikely to happen anytime soon, but you won’t find anyone better positioned to lead the charge. As Little wrote in the intro to a Grist interview with Combs, she’s “possibly the most impassioned and unexpected messenger on clean energy and climate change the GOP has ever seen.” And with a mom who’s president of the Christian Coalition, she’s certainly got conservative cred.

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http://www.globalpossibilities.org/senate-rejects-effort-to-teach-kids-about-climate-change-in-schools/

sierra 5/15

KELLY AYOTTE (R-NH) Joined the League: January 3, 2011 Hometown: Nashua, NH BIO: With a solid record at the plate by taking cuts at energy consumption, Senator Ayotte could be a contributor to the Aces and deliver clean energy wins for New Hampshire families. Still, it’ll take some practice — and some improved performance at the plate against big polluters, as she’s not been successful in standing up for growing the Granite State’s clean energy economy. She’s hit some easy pitches on climate science, but she’ll need to show she can handle the tough stuff to make the Aces. QUOTED: “There is scientific evidence that demonstrates there is some impact from human activities...However I don’t think the evidence is conclusive.”57 THIS SEASON: « Senator Ayotte voted right on amendments acknowledging that humans are significantly contributing to climate change and that our national security is threatened by the climate crisis. « Senator Ayotte voted against supporting wind energy and supporting the clean energy economy. STATS: « Climate: « Clean Air: « Clean Energy: « Energy Efficiency: W

Ayotte

NH-Sen (R) Kelly Ayotte “There is scientific evidence that demonstrates there is some impact

from human activities. However, I don’t think the evidence is conclusive.”

(McDermott 2010)

MN-Rep (R) Michele Bachmann “…the science indicates that

ucs

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And the Kochs are by no means the only rich guys aiming to elect more Republicans. As Politico reported Tuesday:

A group of major GOP donors, led by New York billionaire Paul Singer, is quietly expanding its political footprint ahead of the midterm elections in an increasingly assertive effort to shape the direction of the Republican Party.

The operation was launched discreetly last year, with the previously unreported formation of a club called theAmerican Opportunity Allianceto bring together some of the richest pro-business GOP donors in the country … Around the same time, Singer and his allies also formed a federal fundraising committee calledFriends for an American Majority that raised big checks for a select list of the GOP’s most highly touted 2014 Senate hopefuls.

Those candidates are among the big names expected at a two-day retreat organized by the American Opportunity Alliance set for the last week of February at a swanky Colorado resort. The closed-door event — which is also expected to draw House SpeakerJohn Boehner and New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte,according to Republicans familiar with the plans — is seen in GOP finance circles as a grand debut of sorts for Singer’s still-amorphous club. …

[T]he list of big-name pols expected at the American Opportunity Alliance’s upcoming Colorado gathering highlights the influence that only a few big donors can command in the post-Citizens United era, when a small group of wealthy individuals can reorder elections with just a few huge checks.

Singer’s group is backing Alaska Senate Republican hopeful Dan Sullivan, who was appointed by Sarah Palin to serve as state natural resources commissioner. Sullivan used the position to advocate for his state’s right to exploit natural resources and against federal efforts to protect Alaskan land.

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