AR-News: (NH - US) Governor Benson has condemned scores of greyhounds

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Apparently NH Governor Benson does have a price where common sense and the will of the state's legislature can be over ridden by special interest concerns of the Greyhound racing industry.  
 
NH: Benson has condemned scores of greyhounds 
By MICHAEL TROMBLEY
Guest Commentary

ON MAY 17, Gov. Craig Benson vetoed House Bill 520, which would have implemented record-keeping requirements for the greyhound racing industry. Currently there is no accountability to the citizens of New Hampshire as to the ultimate fate of greyhounds who race or are injured at New Hampshire tracks, despite this being an industry that, in Craig Benson’s words, “is subject to enough regulation as it is.” 

The House and Senate agreed that this bill would implement necessary and important safeguards to protect the welfare of greyhounds and the integrity of wagers placed at New Hampshire racetracks. Most other states that permit greyhound racing have instituted laws that require public access to disposition records. Why would the governor veto a bill that would simply require accountability from an industry that has none? Allow me to connect the dots. 

When Craig Benson was at Cabletron, he hired former Senate President Ed Dupont as his lobbyist. When Benson was elected governor, Ed Dupont served on his inauguration committee and was soon thereafter appointed by Benson to serve on the board of trustees of the University System of New Hampshire. The lobbyist for Hinsdale Greyhound Park is former Senate President Ed Dupont. Get the picture? 

Craig Benson ran for governor on a platform that portrayed him as a non-politician, an outsider who would not be swayed by lobbyists and special interests. Inside deals such as this one should dispel that myth completely. 

Probable gubernatorial candidate John Lynch was quoted as alluding to Craig Benson as “someone who puts himself and his buddies first.” Benson has certainly proved that to be true in this case. After the veto, Benson announced that he would form a task force to look at animal abuse. He struck down a law that would have instilled true accountability in favor of one more powerless, do-nothing, blue-ribbon task force, taking a page straight from the Jeanne Shaheen handbook of pretend leadership. Do you really think this task force will ever set foot inside a greyhound kennel? If it does, you can be sure it will be after the tracks are given several weeks notice of their visit. 

Gov. Benson claimed that HB 520 would cost the state money, but he didn’t say how much. He said it would cost the state jobs, but he didn’t say which ones. The Pari-Mutuel Commission claimed that in order to implement HB 520, it would have to hire 2½ new full-time employees and spend tens of thousands of dollars on computer software. All the bill requires of the Pari-Mutuel Commission is that it store some forms and compile some statistics. The commission has claimed all along that most of those records are already being kept and, if the commission is to be believed about the welfare of racing greyhounds in New Hampshire, that there are very few deaths and injuries to report in the first place. 

Under this bill, state employees aren’t even the ones that would have to prepare the forms. So why would it take 2½ full-time employees to file a few dozen forms? It wouldn’t, and anyone with half a brain should see that the Pari-Mutuel Commission simply made up some numbers that it hoped would turn people off to HB 520. 

The truth is that HB 520 would cost the state less than what Jack Heath will be paid for a couple months of part-time work. But it’s obviously less important to the Benson administration to hold the racing industry accountable to the citizens of New Hampshire than to have the ability to put out a good press release that will convince the public that the accountability is already there. 

I have years of experience with the abuse and corruption of the greyhound racing industry in New Hampshire. I’ve seen horrible cases of neglect at tracks. I’ve seen dogs put to death for no sound medical reason. You don’t need a government task force to tell you that killing a dog because it doesn’t run very fast is abusive. About the only thing worse is running a dog so hard that its legs break and then killing it. 

Estimates of the number of dogs buried behind Hinsdale Greyhound Park alone range into the thousands. Only a tiny fraction of those dogs were ever injured in a race. Most met their fate simply by being too slow to win any money. 

Thanks to Craig Benson’s cronyism and political payback, we can be sure that thousands more greyhounds will disappear without a trace into the New Hampshire soil. 

Michael Trombley was deputy director of the New Hampshire Pari-Mutuel Commission from 1996 to 1999. 

http://www.theunionleader.com/artic...l?article=38433