Andy Smith, UNH's right-leaning pollster, had an interesting comment quoted locally this week:
There’s a popular myth about the N.H. Legislature, says Andrew Smith, associate professor of political science at the University of New Hampshire. The myth is that, with 400 state representatives and 24 state senators, every citizen personally knows his or her local legislator. But that’s not necessarily the case.
“The reality is that nobody really knows who their state rep is or who they’re voting for,” said Smith, director of the UNH Survey Center. “They vote for the Republican or the Democrat, depending on their political leanings.”
The results of this, which, combined with poor turnout among Democrats last November, were made painfully obvious in the last couple of days as the slashing of services in the Republican state budget were released. A local representative admitted that he had told a constituent who called him about cuts to programs for the mentally ill and disabled, among many that this budget calls for (courts, community health centers, education, anything that the rich can buy but the rest of us can), that he had a solution:
A Republican House member said he doesn't think he needs to apologize for telling a voter he thinks eugenics and exile to Siberia are solutions to mental illness.
Read the whole thing. And this e-mail from our fabulous PickUp Patriots, which I received and will quote in its entirety:
“Send the "defective people" to Siberia to freeze to death and clean up the population.” Rep. Marty Harty’s (R) Barrington answer to decreasing demands on the budget from those with mental illness, developmental or physical disabilities.
When asked by a constituent to please funds in the budget for the mentally ill and those with developmental disabilities, Rep. Marty Harty, R, Barrington responded with the following:
"I'm sorry I don't agree with your side. I and several of us in the state house believe in eugenics...I think the world is too populated. So we believe that there is too many defective people...You know the mentally ill, the retarded, people with physical disabilities and drug addictions - the defective people society would be better off with out. I wish we had a Siberia so we could ship them all off to freeze to death and die and clean up the population. If you women didn't try to give yourself abortions, you wouldn't end up with defective children"
After Rep. Harty acknowledged saying these things, Speaker O'Brien, being pressured to remove Harty and extract an apology, had this to say: "With the amount of time and effort he has given us all, he has earned the right to say what he thinks."
We at Pickuppatriots.com don't believe that age or military service entitles anyone to degrade and dehumanize thousands of our New Hampshire citizens. We had hoped that Speaker O'Brien would have exhibited the leadership and integrity to distance himself from Representative Harty's outrageous and insensitive remarks. Afterall, just this week the CEO of NPR, Vivian Schiller, resigned after one of her executive team members made disparaging remarks about the Tea Party. We are not asking the Speaker to resign, we are simply asking for his condemnation. Once again, Speaker O'Brien fails to meet the tests of true leadership.
Note that the rep says there are others like him. And also note that apparently having served in WWII entitles you to say anything you please!