NH Union Leader, December 20, 2011
MANCHESTER — Former state Rep. Peter Sullivan won the Democratic primary contest for a seat that will eventually decide a state representative for downtown Manchester, New Hampshire Democrats said.
“Peter Sullivan will be a voice for common sense in Concord, working to put an immediate stop to Speaker (Bill) O'Brien's reckless and irresponsible Tea Party agenda,” said Democratic Party Chair Raymond Buckley.
Sullivan ran against Mary Georges in the primary. He received 44 votes, while Georges received 39, according to Democratic Party spokesman Harrell Kirstein.
The Ward 3 seat was vacated when Mike Brunelle moved out of state to take a job.
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WARD 3 RESIDENTS may want to set aside a little time on Feb. 21 (2012) to head over to the Rines Center. There's a special House election that day.
Former Alderman and Democratic state Rep. Peter Sullivan is running against libertarian-minded Republican Muni Savyon for the Hillsborough District 10 seat left open by the departure of former state Democratic Party Executive Director Mike Brunelle.
Savyon ran for and lost the same seat in 2010 and at the time was endorsed by the Republican Liberty Caucus of New Hampshire and the New Hampshire Liberty Alliance. Attempts to reach Savyon last week were unsuccessful, but according to his website, savyon.com, he works as an engineer consultant.
Sullivan served three terms in the N.H. House, where he sponsored legislation to protect victims of domestic violence and reduce mercury levels in the air and water. Sullivan has pledged to focus on education and has won the support of NEA-NH, which represents Manchester teachers. He has also received the support of the Granite State Teamsters.
Source: "Sticker campaign seeks to lure Gatsas into governor race" By BETH LaMONTAGNE HALL, New Hampshire Union Leader, February 12, 2012.
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"Democrat Sullivan wins House seat in special election"
NH Union Leader, February 21, 2012
MANCHESTER – Former Alderman and Democratic state Rep. Peter Sullivan is the newest member of the state Legislature, defeating Republican Muni Savyon, 122-27, in the Hillsborough District 10 House seat special election on Tuesday.
The seat is one of three House seats that represent Ward 3 in Manchester.
Sullivan served three terms in the N.H. House, where he sponsored legislation to protect victims of domestic violence and reduce mercury levels in the air and water. Sullivan has pledged to focus on education and has won the support of NEA-NH, which represents Manchester teachers. He has also received the support of the Granite State Teamsters.
Sullivan won his way onto the special election ballot in December when he defeated fellow Democrat and community activist Mary Georges during a primary.
Savyon ran for and lost the same seat in 2010 and at the time was endorsed by the Republican Liberty Caucus of New Hampshire and the New Hampshire Liberty Alliance. According to his website, savyon.com, he works as an engineer consultant.
New Hampshire Democratic Party Chair Ray Buckley, who issued a statement shortly after the polls closed, said the results of this vote show that voters are rejecting Republican leadership.
“Tonight, as in three previous special elections, New Hampshire voters have sent a clear message that right to work for less, slashing of funding of public education, putting corporations before people, and the rest of the radical Free State agenda is fundamentally at odds with the values of the people of this state,” said Buckley.
Sullivan is filling the seat vacated by former Manchester Democratic Committee Chairman and state Democratic Committee Executive Director Mike Brunelle. He stepped down in July when he moved to Pennsylvania, where he will head the Service Employees International Union.
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NEWLY ELECTED Ward 3 state Rep. Peter Sullivan is heading into his new post full force, with the Republican House leadership in his sights.
Sullivan has opened an online petition aimed at House Speaker Bill O'Brien and House Majority Leader D.J. Bettencourt, asking they denounce “Rush Limbaugh's vicious, inappropriate, and sexist attacks” on Georgetown Law student Sandra Fluke. As of Thursday, Sullivan had more 100 people signed on.
Source: Beth LaMontagne Hall's City Hall: "Beaudry plan would keep more teachers, cut deficit by $2m", By BETH LaMONTAGNE HALL, New Hampshire Union Leader, March 11, 2012.
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"Lawmaker's call for tax prompts Hassan to restate her opposition"
The New Hampshire Union Leader, October 2, 2012
CONCORD — Maggie Hassan, the Democratic candidate for governor, on Monday reiterated her opposition to an income and sales tax after a Democratic lawmaker filed an intention to introduce an income tax bill in the 2013 legislative session.
Rep. Peter Sullivan, D-Manchester, filed a legislative service request calling for a 1 percent personal income tax “to fund chartered public schools.”
Republicans said Sullivan's request for legislation “exposed” a “Democratic income tax plan.”
Sullivan supported Hassan's former opponent in the Democratic gubernatorial primary, Jackie Cilley, who was open to the possibility of a broad-based tax.
Hassan spokesman Marc Goldberg said Monday, “Maggie has repeatedly said she does not support and would veto any income or sales tax legislation.”
Hassan, however, opposes a proposed constitutional amendment that would place an income tax ban in the state constitution, believing it is unwise to bind future legislatures and governors.
House Majority Leader Pete Silva, R-Nashua, said Sullivan “had the courage to throw back the veil of deception that the Democrats have tried to throw over the eyes of the voters and he has come out and had the guts to stand up and support the very income tax publicly that most Democrats support in private.
“That trickery is the same reason why Maggie Hassan, who once boldly supported an income tax, now takes the pledge, but refuses to support a constitutional amendment to ban an income tax.”
Silva said, “Anyone who says that they oppose an income tax like Peter Sullivan's, but who won't support (placing the ban in the constitution) is really just one more dishonest politician who is looking to say one thing to get elected, but who will vote to dismantle the New Hampshire Advantage the first chance he or she gets.”
House Deputy Majority Leader and Ways and Means Committee Chairman Stephen Stepanek, R-Amherst, said, “Maggie Hassan is against ballot Question 1, which puts her in the camp of those supporting an income tax. Unlike Rep. Sullivan, she just does not have the courage to publicly admit her private beliefs.”
State Republican Party Chairman Wayne MacDonald said Sullivan “has already blown the cover to the Democrats' secret agenda.”
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"Legislators ask to fortify NH privacy laws"
By SHAWNE K. WICKHAM, New Hampshire Sunday News, January 6, 2013
Rep. Peter Sullivan
Can a prospective employer demand your Facebook password to check you out before he hires you?
Should police be able to go through your garbage - or your cellphone records - without a warrant?
Do you want your personal information collected and shared with government agencies, the courts or marketers without your permission?
Just what does privacy look like in the digital age? Lawmakers will be taking up bills that try to address that question in 2013.
Rep. Peter Sullivan, D-Manchester, wants to bar employers from requiring an employee - or prospective one - to disclose social media passwords. A handful of other states, most recently California and Illinois, have passed such laws.
Sullivan said he has not heard of employers here asking for passwords. However, he said, "I think this is one of those areas where the law has not kept up with the technology. The way we communicate has outpaced the way we regulate privacy rights."
Rather than wait for it to become a problem here, he said, "I think it's better to make a statement at the outset that no, this is not something that's appropriate."
Co-sponsor Katherine Rogers, D-Concord, says the issue is about more than potentially embarrassing photos.
Many people use sites such as Facebook to update family and friends about personal issues, Rogers noted. The risk is that potential employers could find out information that they are legally barred from asking job applicants about, such as age, race, weight or medical conditions.
"Employers could use it to screen out people in a way they're not legally allowed to do," said Rogers, a former Merrimack County attorney.
Adrienne Rupp, vice president of communications for New Hampshire Business & Industry Association, said her organization has not yet discussed or taken a position on the pending bill. But she said she hasn't heard of any companies here asking for such passwords from job applicants.
"Maybe there's some other reason that it wouldn't be good to legislate it, but I don't think it's something that employers are asking for," she said.
Rep. Neal Kurk, R-Weare, a longtime privacy watchdog in the House, has submitted several LSRs - precursors to formal bills - that pertain to privacy rights. One would establish "an expectation of privacy for personal, communication and financial information."
State agencies should not be able to obtain personal information without a court order, whether that's your cellphone records or something you threw away, Kurk said. "They just can't simply make a request. They have to have an individualized case and special warrant in order to get that information," he said.
Kurk submitted another LSR to restrict collection of biometric data by state and municipal agencies. "The idea isn't to prevent this," he said. "The idea is to say if a state agency is going to do this kind of thing, they have to get permission from the Legislature."
He also proposes prohibiting anyone from tracking someone electronically without permission, whether through a cellphone, a GPS device or even a drone, for instance.
Another bill would prohibit taking images of a person's residence from the air. Kurk said he's not talking about the kind of overhead street mapping that companies such as Google already provide online.
"It's one thing to see that there's a building and that the building perhaps has windows in it. It's another thing to take that same picture with such detail that you can read what's inside the window or the lettering on the house," he said.
"We don't want Google Maps to become the cat-burglar's best aid."
Another Kurk measure would require consent before a utility company could install a "smart" meter on a customer's house that would send back detailed information about electricity usage, for instance.
And at the request of the Secretary of State's Office, Kurk submitted an LSR for a bill to limit information sent to the courts for preparation of jury lists. Currently, he said, names and addresses of registered voters are used to draw jury pools, but the courts recently began asking for additional data, such as birthdates. "They're over-reaching," he said.
Rep. Carol McGuire, R-Epsom, is prime sponsor of a bill that prohibits the use of New Hampshire motor vehicle records in any federal identification database. A similar measure passed last year, but then-Gov. John Lynch vetoed the bill, and though the House voted to override that veto, the Senate did not.
McGuire said the issue originally came up here because of problems with a federal immigration database. She said such a ban is in keeping with New Hampshire's past opposition to REAL ID and enhanced driver's licenses.
Her bill would allow law enforcement or other government agencies to obtain such records but only with a court order. "They can't just import the entire New Hampshire population of driver's licenses.
"I don't like the idea of the federal database that knows all," McGuire said. "It just makes my skin crawl."
As technology continues to advance, it's the job of lawmakers to figure out where to draw appropriate lines, Kurk said. "This is another round in the ongoing conflict or battle between commercial interests and privacy interests, and the Legislature is the right place for this battle to play out," he said.
And after 25 years as the House's top privacy watchdog, Kurk said he's heartened to see more lawmakers submitting LSRs to deal with such matters.
"Over the decades, more and more people have come to the conclusion that these are important interests that the citizens have, and that the Legislature needs to address," he said. "It's not just one man standing alone anymore."
Shawne Wickham may be reached at swickham@unionleader.com.
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"Bill would give NH families control of deceased member's Facebook"
By GARRY RAYNO, NH State House Bureau, January 16, 2013
CONCORD - Today's social media and electronic communications didn't exist when many of New Hampshire estate laws were written, a House committee was told Tuesday.
"We need to recognize our laws have not kept up with our technology," said the prime sponsor of House Bill 116, Rep. Peter Sullivan, D-Manchester, to the House Judiciary Committee.
The bill would give the executor or administrator of an estate control over the social media and electronic communications sites of the deceased.
"Somebody's online existence is part of their persona these days," said Sullivan. "But when someone dies, their online existence can live on."
He told of a friend who died a year-and-a-half ago, but whose name and image pops up in a box on Facebook urging him to attend Boston Bruins games.
And he told of Canadian teenager Amanda Todd, who committed suicide because of cyber-bullying. After she died, the bullying and outrageous comments continued to be posted on her Facebook page, he said. When her parents tried to take control of the page, the company said they could not.
"The taunting continued," Sullivan said. "They taunted her, her family and her friends after she died."
His bill would help bring closure to grieving families, he said, prevent cyber-bullying after someone dies and would create only a small inconvenience for the social media company.
"This is their right as a family," Sullivan said. "The family's right should take preference over a social media company."
He noted that Facebook has a policy of either memorializing the site by leaving it up, although people can continue to post comments on it, or deleting it. But he noted, the deceased's family cannot have control over the site and what is posted or deleted.
Several members were sympathetic, but indicated current law may prevent some of the problems Sullivan highlighted.
Rep. Robert Rowe, R-Amherst, noted when a person dies, all contracts end, and he would expect that to be true with Facebook pages as well.
And Rep. Larry Phillips, D-Keene, said someone may not want his or her family to have access to his or her emails.
John MacIntosh of the New Hampshire Bar Association said his association is sympathetic to the problems identified, but is not sure the bill addresses them.
"The problem is worthy of study," MacIntosh said, "but it may call for federal intervention."
The committee did not make an immediate recommendation on the bill.
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"Sides differ on 2 bills to up wage"
By KEVIN LANDRIGAN, Staff Writer, Nashua Telegraph, January 30, 2013
CONCORD – The state’s business community, large and small, turned out in force Tuesday to attack two bills that would raise the minimum wage while allies with organized labor and anti-poverty programs said reinstating a state minimum and raising it above the federal standard would have an economic stimulus effect.
Both Rep. Peter Sullivan, D-Manchester, and Rep. Timothy Robertson, D-Durham, said the new Legislature should undo the work of the last one, which got rid of a state minimum wage that had been on the books since 1949.
“We are all one community and raising this wage, in my view, is the way we show it,’’ said Robertson whose bill (HB 241) would raise the minimum wage by $2 an hour to $9.25. The current federal minimum wage is $7.25.
Sullivan’s bill (HB 127) would jump it to $8 hourly.
“A federal wage that is diluted by the lower cost of living in areas outside of New Hampshire does not adequately meet the needs of our communities and our residents,’’ Sullivan said.
New Hampshire is the only state among its neighbors without a higher wage than the federal standard. The minimum wage is $8.60 an hour in Vermont, $8 in Massachusetts and $7.50 in Maine.
The state Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that 14,000 people employed in the state make less the minimum although many of those are waiters and waitresses in restaurants who legally can get paid less because they also collect tips.
Chris Williams, president of the Greater Nashua Chamber of Commerce, warned this change would pass on pay increases to many more employees who make above the base salary.
“It does impact everyone else in these same companies who are making more,” he said.
And Williams made a direct plea to leadership Democrats who took back control of the House of Representatives from the Republicans in last November’s elections.
“This is not the kind of positive sign that ... small businesses are hoping to hear or hoping to see as we go into this new legislative session,” Williams said.
No one from the House Democratic leadership appeared to support the bill while House Deputy Republican Leader Shawn Jasper of Hudson showed up to fight it.
Steve Grenier owns Lago’s Ice Cream in Rye and estimated that increasing the minimum wage to $8 hourly could cost him $10,000 a year.
“If I had to raise the cost 25 cents apiece to cover this cost, I would have to sell 40,000 more ice cream cones in the six months I’m open for business. It’s not possible,” said Grenier, who was speaking for the New Hampshire Lodging and Restaurant Association.
Groups supporting the increase included the NH AFL-CIO, the Lutheran Social Services, American Friends Service Committee and the Carsey Institute at the University of New Hampshire through Beth Mattingly, its director of research.
Any parent making the minimum would earn $15,080 annually and would come up $500 a year short of making enough to reach the federal poverty level, Mattingly explained.
“A minimum wage that we have here is insufficient for any single parent and child to lift them out of poverty,” she added.
Yet David Juvet with the Business and Industry Association of New Hampshire said higher wage costs are the biggest reason company owners give for deciding to move their jobs overseas.
“This could lead to even more outsourcing of jobs,” Juvet warned.
“This is just wrong public policy, I think for people who are concerned about outsourcing.”
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Source: www.marilindagarcia.com
John DiStaso's Granite Status: "Harsh posts by Democratic state lawmaker put National Review spotlight on Garcia"
By John DiStaso, Senior Political Reporter, NH Union Leader, December 2, 2013
December 2, 2013 - "BOOST" FOR GARCIA? Republican congressional hopeful state Rep. Marilinda Garcia may have actually received a boost from a Democratic state lawmaker who last week disparagingly compared her to reality television star Kim Kardashian.
Manchester Democratic Rep. Peter Sullivan's Twitter posts critical of the latest GOP 2nd District U.S. House candidate resulted an opinion piece Monday entitled "The War on Conservative Minorities" by columnist John Fund on National Review Online.
Shortly after Garcia announced her candidacy on Nov. 25, Sullivan posted on Twitter, referencing conservative state Reps. Al Baldasaro of Londonderry and William O'Brien of Mont Vernon, the former New Hampshire House Speaker:
"She's Al Baldassaro (sic) in stiletto heels, a lightweight and O'Brien clone."
"Bill O'Brien + Kim Kardashian = Marilinda Garcia
"She is a right-wing, homophobic, anti-worker shill for the Koch Brothers."
He later wrote:
"After careful consideration, I want to apologize to Kim Kardashian for comparing her to a right-wing extremist like Marilinda Garcia."
The posts began a partisan war of words for a brief time on Twitter, and Garcia said in a statement, "To me, the most unfortunate by-products of such personal attacks, negativity and vitriol are that they discourage good people from getting involved in politics, cause citizens to be disgusted at the political process, and tarnish the reputations of all elected officials just by virtue of association."
Fund's opinion piece Monday brought national attention to Garcia, a 30-year-old four-term state representative and may actually help her gain support from conservatives and Republicans in general, not to mention women and minorities. Garcia is a Boston native of Italian/Hispanic descent who has lived in Salem since childhood.
Fund wrote that what he called Sullivan's "sexist smear" of Garcia received "virtually no" media attention in New Hampshire, "much less nationally." He compared it to the large amount of coverage some media outlets gave to Republican U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio taking a sip of water while delivering the GOP response to President Obama's State of the Union address last January.
"Progressives often reserve their deepest hostility for conservative minorities such as Garcia because they are a threat to the notion that minorities should only think and vote only like leftists," Fund wrote.
"As former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice, Justice Clarence Thomas, and former representative J. C. Watts can attest, people on the left reserve their harshest and most personal attacks for minorities who have the audacity to wander off the ideological plantation."
Sullivan, responding to the Fund piece, wrote on his Facebook page:
"I was just attacked by the National Review. My life is truly complete."
He wrote that Fund "is smitten with Miss Marilinda, and is butthurt that the mainstream media hasn't sufficiently hounded me."
Earlier Monday, Sullivan stood by his earlier posts, writing on his Facebook page:
"Yeah, I said it, and I stand by it. The comparison is accurate. Garcia is a creepy pseudo-Christian right wing extremist who gets a free pass because she doesn't look the part."
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"Outrage du jour Garcia, Sullivan and victimhood"
The NH Union Leader, Editorial, December 4, 2013
Last week, Rep. Marilinda Garcia, R-Salem, announced her candidacy for Congress in the 2nd District. Rep. Peter Sullivan, D-Manchester, reacted with his customary unhinged rant. Suddenly every Republican in New Hampshire was rising to defend young Garcia's honor.
Sullivan tweeted that Garcia was conservative state Rep. "Al Baldassaro (sic) in stiletto heels, a lightweight, and O'Brien clone." The insults kept coming. "Bill O'Brien + Kim Kardashian = Marilinda Garcia," he wrote. Asked to apologize, he later said the comparison was unfair to Kardashian. What a guy.
For those out of touch with pop culture, Kardashian is a pretty reality TV star with long black hair who gained national prominence when a private sex tape of hers was leaked. Garcia is a pretty young woman with long black hair who has bachelor's degrees from Tufts and the New England Conservatory of Music, a master's in public policy from Harvard, and who teaches harp (the instrument, not the beer).
With his little rant, Sullivan vaulted Garcia to national prominence. Suddenly she was the helpless victim of a sexist bully. What we saw was something different: a sad little partisan struggling to express himself because he hasn't the creativity to invent a better put down.
Sullivan has a long history of insult-laden temper tantrums. When his friend Jennifer Peabody (a brunette, incidentally) won a city school board seat, her residency was questioned after her election. Sullivan went online to accuse another Democrat of spreading lies about her after she kicked him out of Raxx Billiards, where she tended bar. The charge was not true (though the allegations about Peabody's residency were, and she had to resign her seat). This is his way. Scream first, think later.
Knowing Sullivan's history, we took his Kardashian comparison to mean that he thought Garcia was an intellectual lightweight, as he said, not that she was trampy, which he did not say. Sexism is a serious allegation, and although plausible in this case, it is debatable. Politics is cheapened by those who leap to label political opponents as sexists or racists or bigots on the flimsiest of evidence, and we were not about to do so here.
It was disappointing that so many Republicans chose to play the victim card here. (If there is one word that we would never think of to describe Marilinda Garcia, it is "victim.") It is a tenet of conservatism that the accusatory tactics of the left are tarnishing American politics. They should be eschewed, not copied.
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