Politics

A New Hampshire judge has struck down a law requiring out-of-state students to establish legal residency before being allowed to vote.

The New Hampshire Civil Liberties Union challenged the law on behalf of four out-of-state college students two years ago, shortly after lawmakers overrode a veto by then-Gov. John Lynch and passed Senate Bill 318.

Former Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina told more than 200 Republican activists that the GOP needs to do better when it comes to winning the support of women.

She said all Republicans -- but females in particular -- need to fight what she called the "baseless propaganda" that GOP is waging a war on women.

Fiorina says the best way to do that is through grassroots organizing and one to one outreach.

The attack ads with the cartoon sheep began airing in May, followed by the negative mailers.

Paid for by a conservative nonprofit called Citizens for a Strong New Hampshire, they targeted Republican state senators who supported Medicaid expansion and a four-cent hike in the state gas tax. According to a spokesman, it was just the beginning of the group’s efforts to “fight” for a more fiscally conservative senate.

Update:  Thursday afternoon an attorney for the Hassan campaign asked New Hampshire Attorney General Joe Foster to expedite a review of the Republican party’s allegations.

New Hampshire Republicans have accused Gov. Maggie Hassan of accepting illegal campaign contributions from organized labor and have asked the Attorney General to investigate. At issue is a total of $45,000 in donations to the governor’s re-election campaign from three labor unions.

The latest campaign finance reports show Democratic incumbents Carol Shea-Porter and Annie Kuster raised far more money in the last three months than their potential Republican challengers in New Hampshire's two House races.

Kuster had the best quarter, raising $565,000 between April 1 and June 30, and has $1.7 million on hand for her 2nd District race. Republican Marilinda Garcia took in $128,000 and has $125,000 on hand, while Gary Lambert raised $103,000 and has $305,000 on hand. Republican Jim Lawrence reported $5,200 in contributions and $25,000 in debts.

Top Democrats rallied volunteers and worked the phones Monday in Portsmouth. Their goal was to call attention to the US Supreme Court’s “Hobby Lobby” ruling, which found a closely held company could not be forced to pay for all birth control procedures required by the Affordable Care Act.

Democrats hope Supreme Court rulings like the Hobby Lobby and the striking down of Massachusetts’s abortion clinic buffer zone law will motivate women voters, helping the party overcome certain challenges.

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."