We took Executive Councilor
It didn’t take long to see the campaign for what it was: fodder for talk show hosts and zealots to smear the organization. Sununu, until then known as a pro-life politician, took the bait, declaring he couldn’t back the contract since Planned Parenthood was “immersed in scandal and currently being investigated by Congress.” Nothing became of the Congressional investigation — not an uncommon thing these days — and a grand jury not only cleared Planned Parenthood of wrongdoing, but instead indicted the two video makers for their actions.
Last week, Sununu put that regrettable vote behind him when he cast another deciding vote, this time to approve $638,000 in contracts for women’s health and planning services, including at Planned Parenthood’s clinic in Claremont. None of the money will go to fund abortions, the Concord Monitor noted.
Sununu seemingly found the high ground that was lost to him last year, saying, “There’s a public trust involved, and I’m not going to let politics stand between the importance of funds that go to help low-income women. . . . It would have been very politically convenient for me to case a ‘no’ vote today. But that is not why the people of this state elected me.”
To be sure, there was no easy course for Sununu. Democrats were ready to pounce on a negative vote and use it against him if he wins the Republican nomination for governor. Indeed, state Sen. Jeanie Forrester, of Meredith, another Republican gubernatorial hopeful, said “Conservatives cannot trust Chris Sununu. He just doesn’t get it.”
Perhaps left with no politically expedient choices, Sununu was guided by his own principles. Or perhaps he decided he could sustain attacks from the right in a primary, but could not afford to be seen as extreme in a general election. In any case, he has done the right thing, and women and families in New Hampshire will no longer be punished by the effects of ginned-up controversies that make health services harder to come by.
On a less positive note, Republican Executive Councilor Joe Kenney, of Wakefield, who represents a number of Upper Valley towns, sent logic on a detour at the meeting last week when he suggested that the money instead go to the state’s opioid crisis. “Somehow family planning services is not the crisis of the day,’’ he insisted. “To me, that’s where the priorities of the state are.”
Despite Kenney’s assertion, family planning remains urgent for the women of New Hampshire who need it, and the lack of it can lead to real crises. It’s remarkable that he could overlook that, unless simply attacking Planned Parenthood remains his own top priority.