Story Archives of 'Politics'

It's a legislative process of the US Senate where a vote can be passed by a simple majority and block a possible filibuster. The US Senate has used reconciliation a number of times since being introduced in 1974, often to pass especially contentious bills. Now the process is being brought up again by President Obama to pass his health care plan. We’ll look at how reconciliation works, how it’s been used in the past and the risks that can come to both parties if used.

Guests

• Dean Spiliotes, civic scholar in the school of liberal arts at Southern New Hampshire University and author of NHPoliticalCapital.com
• TBA

Small town democracy is as New Hampshire as maple syrup. Residents in nearly 200 towns are just wrapping up a week where citizens have weighed in on decisions as large as approving multi-million dollar budgets and as small as spending 120 dollars on new library shelves.

Fans of government at this scale say it promotes civic engagement and produces elected officials who are more responsive to local needs.

Skeptics say it’s actually very inefficient and puts too big a burden on taxpayers.

As part of NHPR’s week-long series on governance, we’ve invited two seasoned observers of town government to discuss the merits and the disadvantages of how we do things.

Ken Weyler represents the town of Kingston at the state house. He served on the town planning board for 17 years and has been on the Rockingham Planning Commission for over 30 years.

Peter Francese is a demographer and economic consultant. In a documentary called Communities and Consequences, he looks at the intersecting trends of local governance, population shifts and the labor market in New Hampshire.

If you looked at government as if it were a car, you would design different parts to do different things. You'd have an engine for power, brakes to slow you down, and a steering wheel to get you where you wanted to go. Some people believe New Hampshire suffers with a chronic flaw in the steering system -- the 2-year term of the governor. They argue a chief executive needs four years to focus on managing and improving the departments that do the actual work of government.

This idea has taken hold in 48 other states, Vermont is the other exception, but in New Hampshire, the concept has gone nowhere. As part of our week-long series on governance, NHPR’s Jon Greenberg decided to poke around under the hood.

Doris Haddock, better known as Granny D, passed away last night.

She was 100.

At age 89, the political activist made national headlines as she began a 14 month trek across the United States to raise support for campaign finance reform.

New Hampshire Public Radio’s Dan Gorenstein has this remembrance.