Politics

With summer officially here, it’s not just the weather heating up, but the political season as well. There are polls, ads, debates being scheduled, and big-name politicians coming in to support candidates. There's also already some drama, with one contender dropping out and another’s residency being questioned.  We’re looking at how the U.S. Congress, Senate, and N.H. Governor races are shaping up so far.

GUESTS:

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.

As expected, Democratic incumbent Jeanne Shaheen and Republican candidate Scott Brown have shown they will have very little trouble raising money in their race for the U.S. Senate.

Shaheen's campaign announced Monday she raised more than $2.8 million for her re-election campaign between April 1 and June 30 of this year, more than double the amount she collected from supporters in the previous two quarters combined.

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 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.

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen and her husband, William, earned an average of more than $472,000 a year in pre-tax income between 2006 and 2013, according to federal tax returns released by Shaheen’s campaign Tuesday.

The couple's joint returns were made available four days after Republican Senate candidate Scott Brown and his wife, Gail Huff, released eight years of joint state and federal returns. Shaheen had pledged to release her returns if her opponents did the same.

Republican Senate candidate Scott Brown released a trove of personal financial information Friday, including eight years of state and federal tax returns and a financial disclosure statement that showed before-tax income of more than $900,000 since the former Massachusetts senator left office in January 2013.

  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." 

The Republican front runner in the race for U.S. Senate – former Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown – will not take part in a debate in Merrimack tonight with his primary challengers.

U.S. Senate candidate Bob Smith filed his official election paperwork in Concord on Friday, and also picked up the endorsement of fellow Republican Karen Testerman.

Citing concerns over splitting the conservative vote, Testerman, an activist from Franklin, is dropping her bid for the seat held by Jeanne Shaheen.

“This is not about any individual, this is not about any agenda,” Testeran told supporters. “This is about the United States of America.”

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."

Republican candidate for governor Walt Havenstein wants state election officials to rule on whether he meets the residency requirements to hold the office.

Immediately after filing paperwork to officially launch his candidacy against Gov. Maggie Hassan in Concord on Wednesday, Havenstein submitted a petition to the state Ballot Law Commission, asking for an expedited hearing on the residency issue.

Senator Jeanne Shaheen stopped by the statehouse Monday to officially file her candidacy. A large crowd of supporters including union members from the Professional Fire Fighters Of New Hampshire cheered on the first-term Democrat.

Shaheen laid out her priorities and defended the Affordable Care Act, which is likely to be a key issue this November.

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: