Protesters jam a NH House Finance Committee vote (Granite State Progress)

Maine is not the only New England state afflicted by virulently anti-union Republican electeds. In New Hampshire:

Late on Tuesday evening, Republicans on a House panel in New Hampshire voted to advance legislation that resembles Scott Walker's law in Wisconsin ending collective bargaining rights for public sector unions. It's actually farther reaching. Under the terms of this plan, public sector workers in the state would become "at will" employees if and when their contracts expire. That eliminates all the leverage state employees have in negotiation with their employers, and could ultimately end up busting the unions entirely.

Hundreds rallied in protest yesterday as the state House Finance Committee voted to keep the anti-worker amendment in the bill.

At birch paper, Dean Barker suggests that since Republicans are unlikely to be able to override a veto from Democratic Gov. John Lynch, the endgame is most likely that, after grandstanding for national attention,

In the end, they’ll strip the amendment - for the price of the keeping the rest of the tremendously harmful budget bill intact.

(For a list of the staggering ways House Republicans plan to gut education, see here. Then remember it's not just education they're going after.)

Unlike in Wisconsin or Ohio, New Hampshire's working people do have, in John Lynch, some protection from the worst the GOP would pass. (Something I never thought I'd be saying about Lynch.) But just because these measures are being pushed in New Hampshire not by a governor with a national profile but by a large crowd of relatively anonymous state representatives doesn't mean they can't do tremendous damage.