New Hampshire: Governor

Gov. John Lynch (D)

John Lynch (D) Elected 2004, 2d full term up Jan. 2009
Born:	11-25-1952, Waltham, MA
Home:	Hopkinton
Education:	U of NH, B.A. 1974, Harvard U., M.B.A. 1979, Georgetown U., J.D. 1984
Religion:	Catholic
Marital Status:	married (Susan)
Professional Career:	Ex. Dir., NH Dem. party, 1975-77; Dir. of Admissions, Harvard Bus. Schl., 1982-86; Partner, consulting firm, 1987-94; Pres. and CEO, Knoll Inc., 1994-2001, Pres., Lynch Group, 2001-04.
DC Office	State House, 25 Capitol St., Concord, 3301 603-271-2121 Fax: 603-271-2130 Website: www.state.nh.us/governor
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John Lynch, a Democrat, was elected governor of New Hampshire in 2004 in his first run for political office. Lynch grew up in Waltham, Massachusetts, the fifth of six children; his father ran a local Boys Club and his mother was a schoolteacher. He graduated from the University of New Hampshire in 1974, got his MBA from Harvard Business School in 1979 and a law degree from Georgetown in 1984. He took an interest in politics in college, interned for Senator Tom McIntyre in 1975 and not long after became executive director of the Democratic state committee. He left state politics to attend business school and later became the school’s admissions director; in 1994, he became president and CEO of Knoll, Inc., a Pennsylvania-based high-end office furniture maker. All the while, he nurtured his New Hampshire connections. He commuted from Knoll’s headquarters in East Greenville, Pennsylvania, to his home in Hopkinton and served as president of the University of New Hampshire alumni association. In the mid-1980s and 1990s he dabbled in state and local politics by working for the Merrimack County Democratic party, contributing to various campaigns and working to establish a New Hampshire chapter of the centrist Democratic Leadership Council. In 2001, he left Knoll and later opened his own management consulting firm on Elm Street in Manchester. In 2000 Governor Jeanne Shaheen appointed Lynch to the University System of New Hampshire’s Board of Trustees, where he served as chairman from 2001 to 2004, when he resigned to run for governor. Lynch was seeking to oust Craig Benson, a wealthy political outsider who won his first term in 2002 in the state’s most expensive gubernatorial race ever. Benson, a high-tech entrepreneur, was one of three Republican former CEO’s elected to New England governorships that year (Massachusetts’ Mitt Romney and Rhode Island’s Donald Carcieri were the others) and the only one with the advantage of a Republican-controlled legislature. But he had a tough time making the transition to the public sector; his brusque and heavy-handed style alienated legislators from both parties. Benson fared well in polls in his first year, as voters gave him high approval ratings for his hard-charging style and his call for a constitutional amendment to limit tax increases. But Benson’s popularity began to fade after frequent missteps and controversies. Several of his appointees were forced to step down from office for ethical lapses; Benson and his state safety commissioner were accused of interfering with an investigation that eventually cleared Attorney General Peter Heed of allegations that he sexually harassed a woman. In October, the prosecutor cleared Benson and recommended that the safety commissioner be disciplined. Lynch made the ethics issue a cornerstone of his campaign and promised in his campaign kickoff speech that he would “restore integrity, trust and a bipartisan spirit” to state government. He faced lawyer and former legislator Paul McEachern, a twice-unsuccessful gubernatorial nominee making his fourth run for governor, in the September primary. McEachern argued that he was the only real Democrat in the race and called for a low-rate income tax to address the state’s chronic education funding problem. Lynch took the pledge not to support a sales or income tax and won 75%-25%. The general election was dominated by two issues, taxes and ethics. Lynch highlighted his opposition to a sales or income tax but did back an increase in the cigarette tax; he said he would provide targeted aid to schools while phasing out the state property tax adopted in 1999. Benson hewed to a hard anti-tax position and insisted that Lynch’s plan to repeal the statewide property tax would lead to a “back-door income tax.” Lynch denied Benson’s charges, insisting that existing revenues would enable him to pay for his spending priorities; he focused on the “culture of corruption” that he said marked the Benson administration and pointed out that Benson himself had been cited twice for having illegal landscaping in front of his beachfront home. The two candidates, both millionaires, largely self-financed their campaigns. Benson, after spending more than $9 million out of pocket in 2002, put up $3.3 million of his own money in 2004, out of a total of $4.1 million raised. Lynch raised $3 million, $2.1 million of it his own money. That was enough to keep him competitive through Election Day when he won 51%-49%. The governor’s vote closely tracked presidential returns: John Kerry ran just 600 votes ahead of Lynch, winning the state by 50% to George W. Bush’s 49%. Lynch and Kerry won the same six counties, both carrying western New Hampshire and Concord’s Merrimack County and both losing in Manchester’s Hillsborough County and Rockingham County. Benson became the first freshman governor in 78 years to be denied a second term; ever the outsider, he failed to give a concession speech or speak to campaign supporters on election night. In Lynch’s first act in office, he issued an executive order requiring everyone who works in the governor’s office, regardless of title or pay grade, to file a financial disclosure form that details their sources of income, loans of $5,000 or more, the location of real estate other than homes worth $2,500 or more and businesses they or their spouses are involved in if the investment is 1% or more of the outstanding stock or securities issued by the business. His mild-mannered and cautious style offered a marked contrast to Benson and enabled him to work productively with the Republican-controlled legislature. Lynch stressed the importance of a bipartisan approach. “Being bipartisan is exactly the right way to conduct myself as governor of New Hampshire,” he said. “I was not elected to represent a party.” In October, Lynch drew praise for his leadership when severe flooding devastated parts of southwestern New Hampshire; he flew back from a European trade mission to oversee flood recovery efforts and surprised homeowners and local officials by handing them laminated cards that included phone numbers of key state and National Guard officials, as well as his own personal cell phone number. Lynch failed to achieve everything he wanted in his first year—he was unable to repeal the statewide property tax, among other things—but his work with the state’s congressional delegation to help keep the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard open and his flood response led to high approval ratings. In 2006, Lynch had to deal with more flooding problems. He was able to establish an ethics commission for the executive branch; he signed a tough law cracking down on child sexual predators and “Michelle’s Law”, named for a cancer-stricken college student who was forced to continue attending classes so she could keep her insurance benefits, which required heath insurers to continue covering severely ill college students if doctors have certified that they are unable to maintain their status as full-time students.   Vermont and New Hampshire are the last two states with two-year gubernatorial terms and, Benson aside, voters in both states are inclined to grant their governors a second term. So with approval ratings in excess of 70% according to a May 2006 Granite State Poll, Lynch was solidly positioned for reelection in 2006. No well-known Republican stepped forward to run; little-known state Representative Jim Coburn, a successful businessman, had the party nomination to himself. Coburn and Lynch both opposed sales and income taxes but Coburn went a step beyond Lynch, arguing that fees and surcharges were also taxes. He said he didn’t support tax increases of any kind. In September, in the latest installment of New Hampshire’s long-running school funding saga, the state Supreme Court again ruled that the state’s system of funding education is unconstitutional; the court set a June 2007 deadline before it would impose its own financing system. Coburn supported a constitutional amendment to remove control of the education financing system from the courts. Lynch argued that the state could fund the public schools without a sales or income tax and indicated he would consider a narrowly-crafted constitutional amendment designed to give the state more flexibility; Coburn said Lynch’s position left open the possibility of broad-based taxes. The result wasn’t close. It was Lynch in a landslide, 74%-26%, the largest margin ever for a gubernatorial candidate in New Hampshire. Democrats won a stunning across the board victory, gaining 89 seats in the New Hampshire House to give them a 239–161 majority, along with a 14–10 majority in the state Senate and a 3–2 margin on the Executive Council. For the first time since the Civil War era, New Hampshire had a Democratic legislature and governor. In 2007 the legislature enacted one of Lynch’s priorities, an increase in the school dropout age from 16 to 18 and was active in ways that would have seemed unthinkable not so long ago. While it failed to accept the governor’s education funding plan, the minimum wage was increased, cigarette taxes increased by 28-cents per pack and the state’s parental notification abortion law was repealed. Lynch also signed a measure that made New Hampshire the fourth state to allow civil unions. One thing remained unchanged: a measure to make the state join the 49 others with a mandatory seat belt law failed in the Senate.