TUESDAY, JUNE 5, UPDATE: THE SANBORN MOVE. Andy and Laurie Sanborn resigned from the state Senate and House, respectively, on Tuesday and at the same time have applied for a change in domicile to Bedford.

The Sanborns said several months ago that they intended to relocate from Henniker to Bedford to run for office from that community. Senate redistricting has put the Sanborns' former home town of Henniker into District 15, a highly Democratic district that also includes Concord and is expected to be an easy win for Democrat Sylvia Larsen.

Even before redistricting was being worked on, current District 9 Sen. Ray White, R-Bedford, announced that he would not be seeking reelection, leaving the seat open for this year's election.

Andy Sanborn said he and his wife are relocating to Bedford because they “want to continue to serve the people of New Hampshire today and tomorrow.”

Sanborn said that while “Henniker has been until today our primary residence, we do have a home in Bedford, which will now become our legal primary residence.”

He said he and his wife also want to live closer to Laurie Sanborn's elderly father, who lives in Nashua.

Sanborn said he worked closely with Secretary of State Bill Gardner to be sure that there were no legal issues. He said he and his wife had to resign on Tuesday because the filing period for the 2012 elections begins on Wednesday.

He said he and his wife applied for a change in domicile so they can run for an office to represent the town. He said he expects the checklist supervisors will take up the application Tuesday night and expects they will approve it.

Sanborn said he and his wife will declare their candidacies for the Senate and House on Wednesday.

He will have GOP primary opposition for the District 9 Senate seat from state Rep. Ken Hawkins, R-Bedford. Democrat Lee Nyquist of New Boston has also announced his candidacy for the seat.

Sources told the Granite Status that even without Sanborn on the floor for Wednesday's big vote on an education funding constitutional amendment, there are enough supporters in the Senate for the necessary three-fifths majority vote to pass the measure.

Sanborn said he knows he will be called a “carpetbagger” by political opponents.

But he said, “As a fourth generation Granite Stater, and a lifelong resident of New Hampshire, I find it ironic that people who have lived here only 10 years are calling me the carpetbagger.

“This is my home. This is the only place I've lived in my life,” he said of New Hampshire. “And family has got to come first.

“Many different independent things came into play at the same time,” he said. “We knew we were having some personal challenges that involved my wife's family. And when Ray (White) said he wasn't going to run again, it kind of opened up that opportunity.

“I'd like to continue to serve the people,” he said. “I'd like to think I'm doing a good job. But I didn't want to run against a sitting senator. I felt that was inappropriate.”

House Majority Leader Peter Silva praised Laurie Sanborn's work ethic and House Speaker William O'Brien called her "a tremendous advocate for creating a pro-business environment here in New Hampshire."

She had been the assistant majority leader.

(Earlier updates and the full May 31 Granite Status follow.)

TUESDAY, JUNE 5, UPDATE: Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies (GPS), an issues advocacy group co-founded by former George W. Bush advisor Karl Rove, is hitting President Obama with its third issues ad in the past four week on New Hampshire television.

The group said it will spend $500,000 on the television buy, part of a $1.8 million effort in the state “to focus the issue debate on jobs, the economy, taxes and debt.”

The ad, entitled “Stopwatch,” says Obama, by failing to curb the rising national debt and deficit, is “mortgaging our children's future.”

The Democratic National Committee said, “Karl Rove's newest deceptive ad reminds us of what he and Mitt Romney have in common -- zero credibility when it comes to debt. Because of the policies of the last administration-massive tax cuts that weren't paid for, two wars that weren't paid for, and the effects of the recession, President Obama entered office facing the largest deficit relative to the economy since World War II.”

The DNC said Obama “slowed federal spending growth to its lowest rate in nearly 60 years, enacted $2 trillion in deficit reduction, and proposed a balanced plan to reduce the deficit by more than $4 trillion over the next decade.

“Following the playbook of his Republican allies in Washington, Mitt Romney ran up the debt as Governor of Massachusetts, increasing it by 16 percent over four years and leaving the state with the largest per capita debt in the nation,” the DNC said.

The television buy includes network affiliates in New Hampshire as well as Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, North Carolina, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia.

Crossroads GPS says its overall national issue advocacy effort totals $25 million.

The new ad will run for two weeks.

“While Europe is in the throes of debt-fueled economic crisis, President Obama keeps spending and charging more on the nation's maxed-out credit cards,” said Steven Law, president of Crossroads GPS. “We want to encourage a serious debate on the national debt that transcends President Obama's class-warfare tax hikes.”

Crossroads said that since Obama took office, the national debt has increased by more than $5 trillion.

(Earlier updates and the full May 31 Granite Status follow.)

TUESDAY, JUNE 5, UPDATE: After weighing her options for several weeks, former state Senate President and Executive Councilor Beverly Hollingworth has made it official that she is running again for the District 24 state Senate seat.

The Hampton Democrat in a statement Tuesday blasted the “radical” Republican-dominated House and Senate on a variety of issues and cited “all the great work that prior legislatures -- Republicans, Democrats and independents -- took years to accomplish, making New Hampshire the great state it is before these radical lawmakers took charge, bent on the dismantling of government, not just less government.

“I am running so we focus again on common-sense, mainstream solutions to the challenges facing our families: jobs, the economy, good schools, and access to affordable health care,” Hollingworth said.

Hollingworth served for five terms in the Senate from 1990 through 1994 and from 1996 through 2002. She was elected Senate President in 1999 following the death of Clesson Blaisdell and presided over the historic Senate impeachment trial that acquitted then-Chief Justice David Brock of charges levied by the House.

She later served two terms on the Executive Council before being defeated by Chris Sununu in 2010.

Earlier in her legislative service, she was in the House from 1980 to 1990.

(Earlier updates and the full May 31 Granite Status follow.)

MONDAY, JUNE 4, UPDATE: MONDAY, JUNE 4, UPDATE: JOBS, PAY EQUITY AND A NEW AD. The campaigns of President Barack Obama and challenger Mitt Romney attacked each other on jobs and pay equity today, as Obama's campaign began airing a new ad in New Hampshire hitting Romney's jobs record in Massachusetts.

The ad says that while Romney was Bay State governor, the state had “one of the worst economic records in the country.”

The ad cites Massachusetts labor statistics from December 2002 to December 2006 to say that while he was governor “Massachusetts lost 40,000 manufacturing jobs,” which was “twice the national average.”

It notes that Massachusetts ranked 47th on job creation from 2002 to 2006.”

“So now, when Mitt Romney talks about what he'd do as President,” that is, create jobs, “remember, we've heard it all before.”

The ad comes on the heels of a new national jobs report last week that unemployment still remains at 8.2 percent.

It is viewed by Romney supporters as an attempt to deflect attention from the poor jobs report.

The Romney campaign says that Romney, as governor, lowered the Massachusetts unemployment rate to 4.7 percent.

In addition to New Hampshire, the ad is airing in Colorado, Florida, Iowa, North Carolina, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia.

Also Monday, Democrats Ann McLane Kuster and Kathy Sullivan called on Romney to say whether he supports equal pay for women, noting that he has not yet given his opinion of the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.

With the Paycheck Fairness Act, slated to be before the U.S. Senate for a procedural vote on Tuesday, Kuster, an attorney and candidate for the 2nd District U.S. House seat, said that in New Hampshire, the average working woman is paid only 78 cents for every dollar paid to a man.

The bill, she said, would “stop pay discrimination before it starts and make key improvements in promoting pay equity.”

Kuster said Romney has yet to make his position clear on the Ledbetter Act, the first piece of legislation signed into law by Obama.

Kuster is challenging U.S. Rep. Charlie Bass, R-N.H., for the 2nd District House seat for the second consecutive election.

Bass said in a separate conference call set up by the Romney campaign, “I believe in fair pay. I believe in equal pay and I believe that there is legal recourse for discrimination.

“However, there are issues associated with the (Paycheck Fairness Act) that can create enormous potential liability for employers which have the net impact of not creating pay fairness but discouraging employers from hiring new people because of the specter of litigation and uncertainty as to what their liability might be," Bass said..

Bass said Obama administration “wants to do everything it possibly can to avoid talking about its fundamental failure in turning this economy around in the last three-and-a-half years. They will move the debate to different issues in order to try to change the subject.”

He said the Obama campaign is talking about “issues that aren't as core to the turnaround of the economy as the uncertainty that's being created by the health are law, environmental regulations and the fact that we've squandered away trillions of dollars and have gotten nothing for it.”

“Equal pay is not just about women,” said Sullivan, a Democratic National Committeewoman and attorney. “It's about families and their economic security.”

“There are signs that there are some Republicans who want to take us back in time and Mitt Romney has not shown much of a willingness to stand up to those regressive forces within his party.”

The Obama call also included Scott Baetz, a small business owner from Windham, who said, “The values Mitt Romney lived by in business,” heading Bain Capital, “and would live by as President would be reckless and probably a disaster for the middle class.”

“Nobody has supported small business more than the President,” said Baetz, who said he is a former Republican and currently a registered independent. He said Obama has signed into law 18 tax cuts for small businesses.

Bass, heading the Romney campaign call, said, “This President I believe views business as a necessary evil in the process of making America work. He's done little over the last four year to encourage entrepreneurship and opportunity for people to get into businesses and move businesses along.”

Bass cited the “sad news” last week “that the economy is still flat, and unemployment has now been over 8 percent for more than 40 months,” while Romney, he said, “has a great record of reducing unemployment in Massachusetts and building jobs.”

Republican Rep. Chris Ahlgren, who owns a waterfront cafe in Wolfeboro, said high gasoline prices are hurting tourism and that under Obama's Affordable Care Act, “I can't grow beyond where I am or I will have to take on new regulations.”

Jack Gilchrist of Gilchrist Metal Fabricating in Hudson, said Obama's moratorium on deepwater drilling permit “devastated my business.” He said he had to cut his staff by 12 percent to 40 and his gross profit has decreased by 24 percent. He said one of his customers, which manufactures devices for casings for deepwater drilling and has been hurt by the moratorium.

“I want somebody who can generate equity for me as one of the stockholders of America,” Gilchrist said. “We need a leaders who takes responsibility, not a fund-raising professor that blames others.”:

(Earlier updates and the full May 31 Granite Status follows.)

FRIDAY, JUNE 1, UPDATE: AT ODDS WITH LYNCH. Although Democratic Gov. John Lynch is in support of the proposed constitutional amendment that would allow future lawmakers to target education funding, the two major Democratic candidates who want to succeed him are opposed.

Former state Sen. Maggie Hassan, in a statement to the Granite Status, said:

“Given the actions we have seen from this Legislature, cutting public funding for higher education in half, cutting aid to local schools at the same time they want to send $16 million in taxpayer money to private schools, I am concerned that this amendment would allow them to reduce the state's responsibility to education, hurting local schools and raising local property taxes”

On Thursday, former state Sen. Jackie Cilley said the proposed amendment “sends us back to the days of using educational funding as a political football. Powerful legislators snag money for their districts at the expense of yours. Parents, educators and most of all businesses, hoping for a well educated workforce, should stand united against CACR 12.”

On the Republican side, Ovide Lamontagne supports the proposal, saying it “would restore local control of educational policy and funding decisions, while shifting the role to the legislature for targeting aid to communities that need it most, and eliminating the inequitable donor town system.”

Lamontagne said it would also “dramatically reduce the risk of a broad-based tax being forced upon New Hampshire, something I have pledged to oppose if I am elected governor.”

Republican Kevin Smith also supports the plan.

"If adopted, this amendment will take control of education funding away from the courts and put it back into the hands of elected lawmakers," he said. "It is an essential first step in addressing the education funding needs of the Granite State.

Smith said that even if the amendment passes and is approved by voters, "there is much more to be done to improve education. As governor, I will work to ensure that communities are receiving the resources they need to properly educate our children, and to enable greater educational opportunities for families and children across the state."

(Earlier updates and the full May 31 Granite Status follow.)

THURSDAY, MAY 31, UPDATE: GREGOIRE FOR MAGGIE. Democratic candidate for governor Maggie Hassan will pick up more out-of-state fund-raising help in mid-June from Gov. Christine Gregoire of Washington.

Gregoire will be the special guest at a reception for Hassan on Saturday, June 16, at the home of Manchester Ward 1 Alderman Joyce Craig. Contribution levels range from $50 to $500.

Gregoire, who is retiring after two terms in office, is a former chair of the National Governors Association. In February she signed legislation allowing Washington to become the seventh state to legalize same-sex marriage.

Earlier this month, Hassan hosted a Boston fund-raiser attended by Sen. John Kerry, while EMILY's List national president Stephanie Schriock will appear at fund-raisers for Hassan in Hopkinton and Kensington June 7.

(The full May 31 Granite Status follows.)

THURSDAY, MAY 31: KEVIN ON THE AIR. Republican Kevin Smith became the first candidate for governor to hit the airwaves with advertising this week. His radio piece combines a positive view of the future with veiled criticism of three of the others vying for the same office.

Also, a seasoned New Hampshire political media consultant has joined Smith's campaign.

It's logical that Smith would be the first on the air with an “introductory” ad since, at least on the Republican side, he trails Ovide Lamontagne in name recognition and in a head-to-head match-up, according to recent polls.

Smith's goal in the ad is to introduce himself as a fresh face in New Hampshire politics and as someone with a full plan to deal with the budget and economy.

Although neither Lamontagne, who is making his fourth run for office, nor Democrats Maggie Hassan and Jackie Cilley, both former state senators, are mentioned, his ad begins with an announcer saying, “Career politicians and perennial candidates are full of empty rhetoric.”

Ouch!

The announcer goes on to call Smith “a bold, new voice,” before Smith says he's running “to end the status quo in Concord and chart a new vision for New Hampshire.”

He then says his plan calls for “cutting taxes, lowering health care costs and improving opportunities for young workers.”

Smith's campaign says the ad is part of a “substantial and sustained” statewide buy.

Also Wednesday, Smith's campaign hired long-time media relations consultant Alicia Preston to handle communications.

Preston has been with numerous campaigns in New Hampshire and elsewhere, including Rudy Giuliani, George Pataki, Frank Guinta and Jeb Bradley.

She arrives as the campaign says it is beginning to expand its operations to ramp up for the summer months.

Meanwhile, Cilley, Hassan and fellow Democratic candidate for governor Bill Kennedy are scheduled to debate at New England College on Thursday.

Smith will hold his fifth town hall meeting today (Thursday) at the Richards Free Library in Newport at 6 p.m.

His campaign says, “With the summer upon us, Kevin Smith remains the only candidate for governor — Republican or Democrat — who has announced and held town hall-style meetings that are open for the general public to attend and ask questions.

Smith is in the midst of a town hall schedule spanning May and June with additional meetings to be scheduled throughout the summer.

- - - - - - - -

PERSONAL BOOST. On the Democratic side, Hassan will get a personal boost from the top person at EMILY's List next week.

PAC President Stephanie Schriock will appear at fundraisers for Hassan in Hopkinton and Kensington June 7.

EMILY's List endorsed Hassan on April 30 with Schriock calling her “a principled leader with a proven record of working hard for New Hampshire's women and families.”

- - - - - - - -

NEW FIELD REP. Lamontagne, meanwhile, has a new field staffer to handle Rockingham and Strafford counties.

Luke Botting of Atkinson was a staffer in the Salem GOP Victory office in 2010 and also worked on state Rep. Marilinda Garcia's campaign.

- - - - - - - -

NEW NHGOP HIRE. On the grassroots level, the Republican's Victory operation continues to take shape.

We reported the hiring of Brennan Ward as Victory director several weeks ago.

This week, the NHGOP announced that Jacob Avery is moving from the post of party field director to deputy director of the Victory operation.

Meg Stone has joined the NHGOP as field director and deputy press secretary.

Avery has worked on campaigns in New Hampshire and New York since 2006. Prior to his position at the NHGOP, in 2010 he served as field director for State Sen. Andy Sanborn and State Rep. Laurie Sanborn during their successful campaigns.

Stone started the College Republicans at Keene State College and was chairman from 2010 through the recently completed semester.

She was on the field staff for Mitt Romney for President during the 2012 New Hampshire Primary and in 2010, was volunteer coordinator for Jim Bender's U.S. Senate campaign. She is on the executive board of the New Hampshire Young Republicans and received the Norris Cotton Award for Cheshire County in 2012.

- - - - - - - -

“GOOD” TIMING. With the cloud of the D.J. Bettencourt scandal hanging over them, hundreds of New Hampshire Republicans gathered at the Radisson Center of New Hampshire in Manchester last night for a major “Victory” fund-raiser, featuring former presidential candidate and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.

The state party was looking to last night's event as a key financial boost for its election-year operations, and it could be the swan song for Bill Binnie as party finance chairman.

He's been a bit unclear about his plans, but has not denied outright rumors that he intends to step away from the post following last night's event.

The Bettencourt debacle and other issues surrounding the House Republican majority this year, including former chief of staff Bob Mead being reimbursed mileage money for political “outreach,” have many Republicans quietly worried.

They're not going to talk openly about it, but behind the scenes, there is concern that while it's not going to be decisive in the election, it could be a drag on the entire ticket, from Mitt Romney on down, come the fall.

The positive from the GOP perspective is that it's only May 31, with five months before the general election.

The hope is that people have short memories, despite the Democrats' clear (and understandable) intention to remind voters of Bettencourt and the other controversies almost daily from now until Nov. 6.

For now, the Romney camp has done what it can to distance itself from Bettencourt.

The disgraced former majority leader had been on Romney's original slate of 10 alternate delegates to the Republican National Convention.

But because the Republican National Committee cut the New Hampshire delegation in half as punishment for the first-in-the-nation primary being held earlier than allowed by party rules, the party gets 12 instead of 23 delegates.

Romney gets seven of those 12 delegates and seven alternates.

And Bettencourt was among the three Romney alternates who didn't make the cut.

Bettencourt has also severed his ties with Lamontagne's campaign.

“D.J. has withdrawn from his involvement with Ovide's campaign, including from his service on Ovide's steering committee,” Lamontagne senior advisor Jim Merrill said. “The charges in this matter are serious and disappointing, and accordingly, we have accepted D.J.'s withdrawal.”

- - - - - - - -

“FULL ACCOUNTING” SOUGHT. House Democrats began a full-court press on the Bettencourt internship and Mead mileage debacles on Wednesday with a letter asking specific questions of House Speaker O'Brien and seeking an “independent review.”

House Democratic Leader Terie Norelli and nine senior House Democrats tell O'Brien in the two-page letter that “the image of the New Hampshire House has been tarnished by recent events.”

The letter recounts the Mead situation and, regarding Bettencourt, says, “the people of New Hampshire deserve to know whether the Speaker's office collaborated in efforts to cover up, conceal and excuse the former Majority Leader's alleged fraud.”

The letter asks O'Brien:

-- “Why did you agree to allow Rep. Bettencourt to cover up the reasons for his resignation?

-- “Why, if you felt his actions required him to resign, did you not request his resignation immediately instead of allowing him to serve through the end of the session?

-- “Why didn't you take action when you heard Rep. Bettencourt's original explanation for his resignation, stating that he was resigning because he was getting married and taking a job working for you?

-- “Was Rep. Bettencourt's job with your legal advocacy group (New Hampshire Legal Rights Foundation) arranged before or after you learned of Rep. Guida's (sic) claims?

-- “Prior to the disclosure by the Concord Monitor that Bob Mead was charging mileage for campaign activities, did you or anyone on your staff or your leadership team know that Bob Mead was being paid a salary by the state for the same hours that he was performing campaign activities for the Republican Party ?”

The letter says, “Given the refusal of the Speaker's office to deal with these issues forthrightly, for the sake of the House's reputation, we have no choice but to urgently request an independent review that will provide to the public a full accounting of both of these scandals.”

Greg Moore, the speaker's chief of staff, said that neither he nor O'Brien would have any comment on the letter.

- - - - - - - -

STATE DEMOCRATS CONVENE. Democrats will gather Saturday at Memorial High School in Manchester for their state convention, featuring Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley, who is being talked about as a possible 2016 presidential candidate.

Party Chairman Raymond Buckley said more than 500 delegates are pre-registered. They will also hear from Gov. John Lynch, who will be honored for his eight years in office, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen and current candidates for office.

There will also be more than a dozen workshops and panel discussions, Buckley said.

Buckley said that while there will be dozens of lapel stickers and buttons promoting candidates and causes, he thinks the most popular will be the one emblazoned: “NO'BRIEN; NOVIDE!”

- - - - - - - -

SENATE CANDIDATE. Democrat Richard Leonard, a pharmacist from New Durham is running in state Senate District 6.

Leonard, owner of Miller Farm in New Durham, works in Alton and raised his family in Rochester where he lived for nearly 30 years.

The recently widowed father of four and grandfather of seven said, “It is time to give back to my state and community. I look forward to serving my friends and neighbors in the New Hampshire state Senate.”

- - - - - - - -

GRAND OPENING. Mitt Romney's son, Tagg, and Executive Councilor Chris Sununu are slated to be the featured attractions at the grand opening of Romney's New Hampshire headquarters Saturday at 10 a.m.

The headquarters is located at 273 S. River Road in Bedford and is former headquarters for Tim Pawlenty and Rick Santorum.

Phone banking and door-knocking will follow.

- - - - - - - -

THE GOP PLATFORM. The first two public hearings by the state Republican Party's Platform Committee will be held Saturday.

The panel members will be at the GOP office on Main Street in Littleton at 10 a.m. and in the Community Room in Lebanon at 1:30 p.m.

The meetings are open to all Republicans but only registered Republicans can submit proposed amendments, said committee chair Jennifer Horn.

John DiStaso is senior political reporter of the New Hampshire Union Leader and New Hampshire Sunday News. He can be reached at jdistaso@unionleader.com. Follow him on Twitter: @jdistaso.