"ML Strategies Hires Former New Hampshire Congressman Frank Guinta as Senior Vice President in Washington, D.C."
BusinessWire (A Berkshire Hathaway Company), March 12, 2018
WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- ML Strategies, LLC, a wholly-owned consulting subsidiary of Mintz Levin, has added Frank C. Guinta as Senior Vice President. Mr. Guinta has a long history of government service and has held a number of positions on both the local, state and national level. He will be based out of the Washington, D.C. office.
Mr. Guinta represented New Hampshire’s 1st congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives. He served for two nonconsecutive terms, from 2011 to 2013 and from 2015 to 2017. During his time in Congress, Mr. Guinta served on several House committees. During his most recent term, he was a member of the Committee on Financial Services and served on its Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit as well as its Monetary Policy and Trade sub-committees. He was also Chairman of the House Task Force called "Bipartisan Task Force to Combat the Heroin Epidemic. Previously, he served on the Committee on the Budget, the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, and the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. He maintains relationships with former colleagues in the House and Senate, as well with those in senior leadership positions throughout the Administration, including at agencies such as the Office of Management and Budget, Health and Human Services, and Departments of Interior and Energy. Mr. Guinta’s government experience also includes having served for four years as the Mayor of Manchester, the state’s largest city.
“Frank is well-known and highly-respected by his former Congressional colleagues,” said Stephen P. Tocco, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of ML Strategies. “Frank will bring a great value to our clients given his years of experience in and his keen understanding of the intersection of business and government.”
In addition to his government service, Mr. Guinta brings a strong business background to his positions. He served as Chairman Emeritus of the Independent Business Council of New Hampshire. Earlier in his professional career, he also began his own insurance consulting firm having previously worked for Travelers Insurance and other entities in the insurance industry.
Mr. Guinta is a member of the National Advisory Board of the Addiction Policy Forum, a partnership of organizations, policymakers, and stakeholders committed to increasing addiction awareness and improving national policies.
For more information about ML Strategies and Mintz Levin, please visit www.mlstrategies.com or www.mintz.com.
Contacts
Mintz Levin
Brian Moynihan, 617-348-1648
bpmoynihan@mintz.com
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180312005899/en/ML-Strategies-Hires-New-Hampshire-Congressman-Frank
----------
CAPITAL SOURCE
“Former N.H. congressman Frank Guinta now a lobbyist”
By James Pindell, Boston Globe Staff, March 15, 2018
When Frank Guinta first ran for the New Hampshire congressional seat he won eight years ago, he was quick to criticize one of his biggest challengers for being a lobbyist.
Now, after being defeated in 2016 . . . well, you know where this is going.
A full year out of office, Guinta has joined ML Strategies, the lobbying arm of the Mintz Levin law firm. ML Strategies is the largest lobbying firm in Massachusetts, according to the Boston Business Journal. He joins the firm’s Washington office.
In addition to serving two terms in Congress, Guinta also served as the mayor of Manchester.
“Frank is well-known and highly-respected by his former congressional colleagues,” said Stephen P. Tocco, chairman and chief executive officer of ML Strategies. “Frank will bring a great value to our clients given his years of experience in and his keen understanding of the intersection of business and government.”
Guinta could not be reached for comment.
Guinta had a rocky tenure in Congress. New Hampshire’s First Congressional District is the biggest swing district in the country; Guinta won two races for the seat and lost two. While he was in office, he admitted to filing improper campaign finance records in which he failed to properly record a loan from a family trust.
Prior to being mayor, he worked as a key congressional aide and in the health care industry.
James Pindell can be reached at james.pindell@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @jamespindell or subscribe to his Ground Game newsletter on politics: http://pages.email.bostonglobe.com/GroundGameSignUp
----------
September 19, 2021
Hello Editor of the NH Union Leader,
I enjoyed your newspaper's editorials about Manchester Mayor Joyce Craig, who is a Democrat and is therefore automatically an enemy of the conservative Union Leader newspaper, and New Hampshire voters electing Mr. or Ms. Nobody to local, state and federal office so that we can say we voted for Nobody to represent us in government.
I wish to remind everyone that Frank Guinta served as Mayor of Manchester and then U.S. Congressman, where he illegally spent $381,000 of his parents' money to fund his 2010 Congressional campaign and then lied about it for years. Frank Guinta is now a K Street lobbyist, which is the lowest form of swamp creature in the Swamp.
Ted Gatsas then served as Mayor, while he also ran for Governor of New Hampshire, but lost to Chris Sununu. Mayor Ted Gatsas showed his true colors when he ran for reelection after he would have left Manchester for Concord a year earlier. Manchester voters didn't forget, and Gatsas lost his second election in a row this time to Joyce Craig.
Now there is Mayor Joyce Craig, whose excessive municipal budgets rival President Joe Biden's federal spending binges, running for reelection in 2021. But at least Mayor Joyce Craig isn't a lying lobbyist like Frank Guinta or a stepping stone career politician like Ted Gatsas.
Jonathan A. Melle
----------
September 27, 2021
Re: Manchester NH versus Pittsfield politics
Hello NH Union Leader newspaper, and Manchester Ink Link,
I grew up in Pittsfield Massachusetts where my father was elected to a couple of Pittsfield offices, including to the School Committee in the 1970s, which had more power prior to Proposition 2.5, and the Berkshire County Commission, which was abolished and taken over by Beacon Hill effective July 1, 2000. Pittsfield politics is made up of a China-like one political (Democratic) party leftist group of interrelated families and their cronies that has produced one of the most distressed and unequal local economies in 21 Century post-industrial America. I still follow Pittsfield politics from my new home in Amherst, New Hampshire because its systemic political corruption in state and local government interests me in the way that a incestuous-like small group of political insider state and local government hacks can effectively intimidate and thereby always screw over the working class and underclass residents who live there with no adverse consequences to their political careers. When my dad and I spoke out about state and local politics during his tenure as a Berkshire County Commissioner (1997 - mid-2000), we received more retribution from Pittsfield politics and Beacon Hill in Boston than anyone could possibly imagine. And it still goes on today, as illustrated by the Boston Democratic Party Officials' conspiratorial, sleazy, homophobic smear campaign that took place during the Summer of 2020 against challenger Alex Morse who opposed "K Street PAC Man" Richie Neal in last year's Democratic Party primary election for U.S. Congress, and as I write this email, the Boston Democratic Party Officials are all still in their same offices, and they never apologized to Alex Morse for their mean-spirited persecution of him.
I lived in Manchester NH for 4 years of my adult life (early-2005 to early-2009), and I observed state and local politics there. Concord's State House downshifted enormous costs onto the City of Manchester, and the local officials complained about then Governor John Lynch's state budget shell games to no avail. Then Mayor Frank Guinta always proposed low-ball city budgets that the Aldermen had to discard and then pass their own city budgets for Guinta to sign into law. Then-Mayor Frank Guinta's biggest failure was in public education when I lived in Manchester back then, and some of his decisions, such as banning to showing of the Diary of Anne Frank film to school children, as well as his underfunding the school district, were very controversial. Many residents of Manchester knew that Republican Party candidate Frank Guinta really wanted to win a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, and his time in the Mayor's Office was only a stepping stone to win a seat on Capitol Hill. We all know what Frank Guinta did next: He illegally spent $381,000 of his parents' money (elder abuse) to fund his successful 2010 Congressional campaign, and then he lied about it for many years afterwards. After Frank Guinta's political career ended in disgrace, he is now a sleazy K Street lobbyist in the Swamp. Frank Guinta should have NEVER been the Mayor of Manchester!
When I lived in Manchester from early-2005 to early-2009, I got to know Joe Kelly Levasseur, who was always active in city politics. He accepted my friendship, despite me being a Democrat, and he always cared about the City of Manchester. It should not matter that Levasseur is a Republican and an avid supporter of former President Donald Trump when it comes to municipal government because local government is supposed to be about investing in the people who live, work and visit the city so that the people can then invest their time and money back into the city. Since Joe Kelly Levasseur is committed to that worthwhile cause, then his support of Republican Party politics and Donald Trump are irrelevant.
From a public finance standpoint, I would like to tell Joe Kelly Levasseur that his allegiance to the city tax cap is somewhat misguided, similar to the flawed Proposition 2.5 law in Massachusetts, because arbitrary caps on public spending often miss the mark on optimal budgeting for city services and public education. Rather than his myopic view on the city tax cap, the Mayor and Board of Aldermen in Manchester should look at how much revenue is needed to fund city services and public education, and then pass a budget to meet those needs with a focus on the city taxpayers. I never liked Proposition 2.5 in Massachusetts municipal government, and I am skeptical of city tax caps in New Hampshire municipal government because they are both arbitrary budget caps that are disconnected from the financial needs that municipalities face year in and year out. Arbitrary tax caps often gives Beacon Hill in Massachusetts and Concord's State House in New Hampshire a way to downshift a lot of costs onto municipalities and school districts by unfairly pointing to excessive municipal spending, which is usually the fault of the State Legislature(s) and Governor(s) in the first place by the state government shortchanging local government's financial needs.
Jonathan A. Melle
-----
City Matters: "Top vote-getters on opposite sides of spectrum"
By Mark Hayward, NH Union Leader, September 26, 2021
I FOUND THE RESULTS of Tuesday’s Manchester primary election depressing.
I write not about the mayoral race, but the races for two other citywide positions — alderman at-large and school board at-large.
I fret because the two people who topped the ticket in the two races — Joe Kelly Levasseur and Jim O’Connell — are ideological opposites. Hence my fellow voters and I have provided no direction for the city, other than a Manchester Middle East, a city always in conflict. A den of sworn enemies.
“It doesn’t make a lot of sense,” admitted Tammy Simmons, a former Republican city chair. “There’s a slice (of people) that likes anyone who’s outspoken. Joe and Jim both are, just in opposite directions.”
Levasseur, a Republican and avid supporter of former President Donald Trump, has been involved in city politics the longer of the two. If he wins the general election, he will have a seventh term as alderman. He has an uncanny ability to convert potential bad publicity — such as confronting a parking officer over a ticket — into favorable press.
In three of the last five alderman at-large elections, he has been the top vote-getter.
O’Connell, a Democrat, is running for his second term on the school board. He was top vote-getter in the school board at-large race two years ago.
They don’t agree on what the results mean.
“The country and the city are split down the middle. There doesn’t seem to be a middle ground,” Levasseur said.
O’Connell said the outcome shows him that people don’t vote along ideological lines.
“They vote for the people they perceive will represent them, work hard for them and be responsive to them,” he said.
O’Connell won 4,400 votes compared to 3,550 for Levasseur. It would be easy to say that O’Connell won the popularity contest, but O’Connell had only four other opponents. And he actually lost by 1,800 votes to the top-vote getter — the number of blank ballots in the race.
Levasseur had seven other opponents. Right on his tail was Dan Goonan, the former Manchester fire chief who wants to run a non-partisan campaign.
The third highest vote-getter in that race was blank ballots, at 3,350, meaning large numbers do agree on something — not doing their homework so they can cast intelligent informed votes up and down the ballot.
Kathy Sullivan, a Manchester resident and former Democratic National Committee member, said there are several factors involved in the strong showings for the two.
She suspects both encouraged their supporters to bullet vote, meaning that the voter, faced with two choices, would vote for only one, denying a vote for any other competitor, even a political ally. (Both deny doing so.)
And she said they are both well known.
“Obviously, Joe’s always doing things to put his name out there. They both have (public access) TV shows. They’re both very well known,” Sullivan said.
(She actually sees more drama for the second alderman-at large position. Will the likeable Goonan be able to tread a non-partisan tightrope? Will the hard work of June Trisciani pay off? Will veteran alderman Dan O’Neil survive his biggest challenge yet?)
As for O’Connell and Levasseur, I like them both. They are intelligent, articulate and engaging. And, unlike Mayor Joyce Craig, they return my calls and those of my reporter colleagues.
They both live in the North End’s Ward 2 — Levasseur off Wellington Hill, O’Connell in the older Currier museum neighborhood.
O’Connell is 63; Levasseur 60.
Both sent their children to Catholic elementary schools. The four O’Connell children switched to public schools in their middle school years. Levasseur’s two boys are still at St. Catherine elementary school.
They have their differences.
Levasseur is a Manchester native and grew up in Elmwood Gardens housing project.
O’Connell grew up in Ireland and has lived in the United States since 1992. He became a citizen in July 2019, the same day he registered to run for the school board.
O’Connell worked for tech companies in the network security business and now does business consulting and copywriting.
His biggest accomplishment on the school board is prodding his colleagues to review school buildings and facilities and start the decision-making process on their future, he said.
Levasseur used to own and run restaurants and is now a lawyer. His biggest political accomplishment over the past two years is blocking budgets that would exceed the city’s tax-and-spending cap, he said.
The general election in November will probably draw twice as many voters as last week’s primary. My hunch is that both will get re-elected. So divided government will prevail?
“Isn’t that good in some ways?” Republican Simmons said. “Think what it would be like if all Democrats, all of one thought process, won. There would be no middle ground.”
Likewise, Levasseur sees a divided Manchester. He doesn’t expect many Manchester residents will vote for both him and O’Connell on Nov. 2.
“From my side of the aisle, I don’t see why people would vote for this guy,” Levasseur said.
O’Connell didn’t want to acknowledge that some of his supporters may also vote for Levasseur. He said Manchester is more divided along lines of old and new than Republican-Democrat.
To him, it’s the well-connected people with ancestral ties to the city vs. newcomers with young families who want a vibrant city with good schools and other amenities.
“If there is a divide,” he said, “it’s that divide right there.”
----------
