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Speaker O’Brien to blame for GOP collapse

By Staff | Nov 13, 2012

When New Hampshire Democratic Party officials sit down at the Thanksgiving table next week to give thanks, they ought to save a few words for something that took place two years ago largely outside of their control.

That was the decisive third-ballot victory that House Republicans delivered to Rep. William O’Brien, then a two-term state lawmaker from Mont Vernon, to be the new speaker for the 2011-12 session.

Why?

Because a reasonable case can be made that O’Brien’s heavy-handed and secretive style of leadership, coupled with some embarrassing behavior on the part of some of his rank-and-file, not only determined the fate of the House elections, but influenced races higher up the ballot, too.

For many independents in the state – and perhaps even some Republicans – we suspect the image of a Gov. Ovide Lamontagne working shoulder-to-shoulder with a Speaker O’Brien was just too much to bear.

Instead, New Hampshire residents awoke last Wednesday morning to a new Democratic governor in Maggie Hassan, a roughly 40-seat Democratic majority in the House and a much narrower 13-11 Republican edge in the Senate.

Of course, it didn’t have to be this way. Presiding over a near 3-1 advantage after the GOP landslide of 2010, O’Brien and his lieutenants had a key strategic choice to make:

Keep their election promise to focus on the economy and jobs – and give at least some pretense to working with the Democratic minority – or take full advantage of their veto-proof majority during this two-year period like the proverbial kid in the candy store.

And it didn’t take long to figure out which path O’Brien would choose to take. During the first three weeks of the 2011 session, the new speaker threw his support behind bids to end a 40-year ban on carrying guns on the House floor, removing a lawmaker because he worked full time for the state Democratic Party, and preventing out-of-state students from voting in New Hampshire.

O’Brien also made it clear he wouldn’t tolerate disloyalty to the cause, pressuring Republican colleagues to support pet bills in committee and removing some members when they didn’t. One of those casualties was his own Deputy Majority Leader Shawn Jasper, R-Hudson, who was tossed from the House Election Laws Committee after balking over voter ID.

Along the way, O’Brien would be sued by two former state senators for clearing the House gallery during a testy debate on the state budget, accused of bullying by a female GOP lawmaker, and roundly criticized for barring a Concord Monitor reporter from attending a press conference in his office.

By last week, voters had seen enough. They not only flipped the House to Democratic rule – a remarkable swing of at least 115 seats – but nearly voted him out of office. In fact, O’Brien still must survive a Wednesday recount of his 67-vote lead over New Boston Democrat Kary Jencks to retain his seat in the House.

To be fair, O’Brien isn’t to blame for everything that befell the Republican Party last Tuesday night. Certainly, there were other factors that contributed to the shifting of power from Republican to Democrat rule for the next two years.

But actions have consequences – and the embattled speaker’s actions made him the poster boy for everything that was wrong with state government today.

That he won’t be back next session as speaker is something for which we can all be thankful.

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