Josh Rogers

The realscottbrownrecord.com highlights what the NH PAC to Save America calls Brown’s deceptive tactic of criticizing Democrat Jeanne Shaheen for doing what he also did– support policies favored by President Obama.

Brown has made Jeanne Shaheen’s fealty to the president a key part of his campaign, but PAC adviser Mike Dennehy says Brown needs to be held to account for the fact that Congressional Quarterly found he voted with the President 78 percent of the time in 2012.

Campaigning in Concord today, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen took aim at the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that clears the way for some for-profit corporations to deny contraception coverage to their employees on religious grounds.

At a roundtable lunch with a half-dozen women, Shaheen warned that the ruling in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby restarts a bitter fight  -- across the country and in the U.S. Senate  -- over women’s health care.

The financially-troubled St. John International University will grant no more degrees. 

The state’s higher education commission has unanimously declined to renew its approval of the N.H. chartered, Torino-based school.

State education officials had been monitoring St. John international for several years.

The for profit college was chartred by the act of the legislature in 2009,  and three state senators – Democrats Sylvia Larsen and Lou D’Allesandro and Republican Nancy Stiles -- have sat on its board.

  The 3-2 vote by clears the way for Republican Walt Havenstein to run for governor. Havenstein sought the hearing after Democrats argued the former defense contractor hadn’t met the 7-year residency requirement set by the state constitution.

At issue was whether Havenstein surrendered New Hampshire as his domicile by living part time in Maryland from 2007-2012.

By a 3-2 vote, in which democratic member Martha Van Oot and joined Republicans Michael Eaton and Brad Cook, the commission said no.

The Senator’s new disclosure will reflect that she and her husband no longer hold stock options in a California firm that received federal stimulus funding.

Ultrawave Labs Inc. is a California company working on technology to help better detect breast cancer.

In 2009, the Senator’s husband, William Shaheen, was named adviser to the company. He received stock options Shaheen included on US Senate disclosure forms, most recently filed in May.

According to that form, the Ultrawave stock options were to expire in 2019.

  Scott Brown drew the middle seat in this first debate featuring the major Republican candidates for U.S. Senate, but did his best to look past his party rivals towards the general election.

Brown called a united GOP Jeanne Shaheen’s  “worst nightmare,” and  challenged the incumbent to match him by allowing the media to inspect 8 years of tax returns.

"Senator Shaheen said if I release my returns, my wife and my returns, that she would do the same. So I hope she lives up to her word and releases her returns, so that she can be just as transparent as I am." 

Governor Hassan pointed to the state budget, the expansion of the N.H’s Medicaid program, and the passage of the first gas tax increase in more than twenty years as examples of what she called bipartisan progress.

“We’ve expanded healthcare for 50,000 hard-working granite staters and we are funding improvements to our roads and bridges and the completion of I-93. And we created balanced and fiscally responsible budget, without a sales or income tax, which I continue to oppose and would veto."

On the Political Front this morning, NHPR's Josh Rogers talks about this year's legislative session, which wrapped up last week. 

Lawmakers passed some bills on contentious topics, but failed on others. And some notable names announced they won't seek office again.

The big bills that passed:

This week All Things Considered is looking at the key bills at the statehouse this year – which passed, which didn’t, and why.

Proponents of repealing New Hampshire's death penalty law had new allies this year, including Governor Maggie Hassan, who promised to sign a repeal measure as long as it didn't affect the sentence of Michael Addison, the state's lone death row inmate.

The State House approved a repeal measure, but the Senate deadlocked 12-12 over the bill and ultimately laid it on the table.

As he filed for office, Scott Brown said he was focused on the issues that matter.

“And what matters right now is making sure that people are getting  a good value for their dollars and they are not paying an exorbitant amount of many for their health care, and their medical care, obviously, and their energy prices.”

Lawmakers in the House and Senate this week will consider a deal between the state and hospitals on the Medicaid Enhancement Tax.

The deal, largely brokered by Governor Maggie Hassan, pulls 25 of the state’s 26 hospitals out of a lawsuit.

Two Superior Court judges had ruled the tax in its current form unconstitutional, and a ruling is pending before the state Supreme Court.

As NHPR’s Josh Rogers reports, the deal isn’t being seeing a positive step by all.

The deal hinges on a guarantee that hospitals will get more money for the care they provide.

It calls for payments for charity and uncompensated care to be no less 75 percent of costs at rural, so-called critical access hospitals,  and be as much as 50 percent at other hospitals. New London Republican Bob Odell helped broker the deal.

"This is not a perfect solution, but I think this takes us out of the courtroom for a while, and I think the fact that we have a tax decrease in this, however modest, is very important. So I think we made some progress."

To Liberty Caucus Chairman Aaron Day's way of thinking the symbolism of recent endorsements in this race is clear:

The GOP establishment has its candidate in former Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown and republicans who prize the constitution and tackle problems with ideas have theirs in Jim Rubens.

"He’s thoughtful, intelligent, and open to rational discussion and debate."

NHPR's Josh Rogers discusses plans to fix the state's Medicaid Enhancement Tax, which has been ruled unconstitutional by two superior court justices.

Lawmakers in the House and Senate are voting this week on possible fixes to the state’s Medicaid Enhancement Tax, which two superior court judges have ruled to be unconstitutional.