April 2026
“Mr Speaker I rise on a point of personal privilege. My character has been publicly impuned - by a disciplinary letter from the Speaker that makes me the first ever, representative to be barred from this chamber on non session days, by resulting press accounts that bears little resemblance to what actually occurred, and by a sustained effort to characterize principled advocacy as instability. I rise today to correct the record. In order to do that I must give the true accounting of events. The bill at the center this is HB1633, the language of which has passed this chamber with near unanimity three times. It simply requires the victims of sexual assault be informed of their rights under New Hampshire law. It creates no new rights. It creates no new crimes. This body most recently passed it on a roll call vote of 340 to 1.
At the recent Senate judiciary hearing on the bill, supporters of the bill, including four sexual assault survivors were limited to three minutes, but opponents received 20 minutes and were called back for a second turn. Further, the Chair spent a considerable portion of the hearing clearly confused about what the bill even did. An effect of, as he confirmed personally to me later, heavy lobbying by one organization beforehand. I was not in the room. I was in the public hallway outside of it, where I am not subject to House rules, nor Senate rules and where I broke no rules, which is why in fact, I have not been accused of breaking any rules. I want you to try to imagine what it is like being a sexual assault survivor having worked for three years, for just the most basic of rights, in a hallway watching yet again another institution meant to help survivors, fail them.
No, I was not quiet about that failure. I said one word, everyone's favorite cuss word, into the air by myself directed at no one. No law-enforcement or protective services spoke to me and at no point was I escorted to or from anywhere, but for speaking my frustration to the ceiling, I received the first access ban in the recorded history of this body siting, not a decorum rule, but a criminal statute. A criminal statue that the Speaker has no authority to enforce, imposed without a hearing, without findings and without due process. I would invite the body to consider that discipline next to the record, just five years ago a sitting Speaker of this House presiding over this body referred to a sitting member as a misogynistic slur on a live microphone. It disrupted public proceedings, but there was no ban, no committee removal, no invocation of a criminal statute. A sitting member this year has made an obscene gesture to a sitting Govenor from the floor during session, and another member of this body publicly called for a final solution on another member - a reference by any honest reading to a Nazi program of extermination, but no one has been banned. No one else. That member is moving through a process that affords him notice, hearing, and the opportunity to respond. I am not asking that those members be treated more harshly than they are. I'm asking this body to notice that I was not afforded anything resembling what they were afforded for conduct that does not remotely compare, and that none of them have been punished the way that I have.
So I would ask honestly, what is actually being punished here? Because it's not language. Let's drop the façade, a high conflict, high stress environment with 400 adults with larger than average egos, we use colorful language all the time. This building has a high tolerance when the speaker is the right kind of person, saying the right kind of thing, in the right direction. What is being punished here is caring too loudly, in the wrong hallway, on the wrong bill, on behalf of the wrong people, and opposition to the wrong group. That is not a matter of decorum, that is bad faith, and bad faith is the operating principle of too much of what happens in this building. We forget that we pass policy that impacts the real lives of 1.4 million people. We pretend bills are just pieces on a board to be moved for reputation, for clout, for leverage, for the preservation of relationships with lobbyists who prefer that survivors not know their rights. We pass or defeat bills on the basis of whose name is on it, or what makes the other team look bad, what pleases our leadership, with what is the best interest of the people often being an afterthought.
I am not telling any of you what you don't already know. When we treat the people of the state like pawns, and we do every day, the people we serve, they know, and that is why they have stopped trusting us. The emperor wears no clothes and the only thing more embarrassing than his nakedness is the number of us who have agreed to keep admiring the tailoring. I've been called erratic. I am not erratic. I am consistent. For 10 years in this body, and for every year before it, my constituents know exactly who they elected. They elected me five times. They elected the woman who raises her voice when survivors are being procedurally silenced, because this is the woman they sent here to raise it. The problem is not that I am uncouth. It is that I am principled, and power hates principles because the principled cannot be controlled. I cannot be bought. I cannot be manipulated. I cannot be intimidated. That is not a personal virtue. That is the job description my district wrote for me, and I intend to honor it for as long as they allow me to hold the seat, and that is their job description for me because they know that decorum is well and fine, but decorum alone is meaningless. It is not enough courtesy to each other while we burn down the principles of good governance every day. They know that the ways in which we govern are often obscene, and that sometimes the only language that can describe that is obscenities. The thousand survivors a year in New Hampshire, who leave hospitals without ever being told they had a right to evidence, do not have the luxury of performing civility while their claims are procedurally strangled - neither, therefore, do I. May we all learn to, like our constituents, take far more offense with bad faith governance than with colorful language. Whatever comes next I will be here doing the work my Constituents elected me to do. That decision is there’s alone and belongs to no one in this room.
The only question is what this body chooses to stand for, because I am not going anywhere.”
Despite there being plenty of clerical work to be done, we are not afforded the privilege of our own workspaces in the House of Representatives. Therefore, the anteroom of the House chamber is used by members such as Representative Read to do work when needed. My first encounters with Representative Ellen Read came as a result of us being two of the few members in the legislature who actually spend time in the building doing that work. Very quickly after becoming acquainted with Representative Read, and exchanging not but more than conversation; I was told by self-proclaimed mentors of mine to be ‘weary of Ellen’, because of her ‘reputation as a troublemaker’. I was told that by merely conversing with her, that I would be tarnishing my own potential as a freshman legislator.
I listened to their stories, but heard no more than petty squabbles between individuals that disagree. I heard slanderous rumors about her personal life that were always ambiguous, second, and third hand stories. Though I heard no substantive reasoning behind her clearly potent toxicity among members of stature in both the House and Senate. If you’re going to tell people that someone isn’t even worth talking to in an institution where communication is the cornerstone to our ability to work, there better be good reason for doing so - and I heard none. All this reminded me of behavior exhibited in a high school. Although, I think ConVal wasn’t nearly as vicious as the House is.
This was my entry into the lunch room legislature.
Where it wasn’t a member’s legislative record that mattered, but instead how willing to bow to the popular they were. It isn’t the text of the legislation that’s debated behind closed doors, but instead a veiled debate on the merits of the personality of the sponsor of the text. It is a place where the unorthodox, the misunderstood, and marginalized are thrown to the blades of the rumor mill. Where the most despicable version of the schoolyard game, telephone, is played with the lives of those unwilling to bow to the system.
I began this month’s letter with the words of Representative Read’s point of personal privilege given to the House at 1532 hours on 23 April, 2026, because they, with such rhythm and clarity, encapsulate that which ails the House of Representatives and the New Hampshire General Court at large.
April also marks the annual month where the New Hampshire YMCA hosts it’s Youth and Government program at the State House. This is a program where students in participating high schools across the State, write legislation in the fall, run for the House, Senate, Governor, or the executive council. Some may also choose to be a lawyer, or serve as Supreme Court justice. The program then hosts elections in the State House in March, with the kids returning in April to do their mock jobs in the buildings where they are actually done. When I was in high school, I naturally served in the House for the three years I did the program, with my fourth being impeded by the world being shut down.
It is a fantastic program, and getting to get to sit and reminisce on my time in it is always a highlight of the year. However, this year, sitting there with the cloud of all the dramas and chaos of the actual legislature looming large, I couldn’t help but notice how much the kids cared about their mock responsibilities to the State. For those still in the high school lunchroom, it was heartening to see them rise to the occasion. It’s good their proceedings weren’t filmed because they would have absolutely embarrassed the legislature when put to comparison.
There was a young man from ConVal named Liam, who was serving as Chair of a committee, and had a piece of legislation on the policies around banning certain material in school. I remember watching Liam on the House floor get his bill passed to the Senate. He gave a speech on the merits of the bill, speaking better than most of the actual Representatives who take the well with their caucus script. Then, the Speaker prompted members to take the well to ask questions. At which point a flurry of kids came scurrying down the aisles of the chamber to take the well to ask their questions. After so long, the Speaker closed the question period by moving the question to a vote. The bill passed, and you could see the well-earned pride on Liam’s face.
Later in the day, the Senate passed the bill onto the Governor’s desk. Not shortly afterwards, the House got a message from one of it’s pages that the Governor had vetoed the bill. The House quickly took action to overturn the veto, and despite some speeches in favor of the Governor’s action, the House by a narrow margin had the 2/3rds majority necessary to overturn the veto. The chamber erupted in applause. I went over to the Senate where they too were taking up the veto message from the Governor.
The legislation would have set up a program which would give the power as to what material is in schools, to the local district. He proposed the bill concerned about the efforts to make these decisions from a State wide basis. When I first hear the bill being introduced to the Senate, I thought it was going to be as fiery a debate, if not more so than the one this topic evokes in the legislature. I was quickly proven wrong as these students eloquently debated the merits of the bill, the underlying policy goal, and grievances it is intended to solve. They didn’t engage in personalities, or frivolous political theater, but instead exemplified what a legislature is intended to be.
The Senate, after a close and contentious debate, overturned the Governor’s veto - marking Liam’s bill as the first in New Hampshire Youth and Government history to have it’s veto overturned. The Senators all coalesced around Liam at the end of the session to give their congratulations, and he was clearly on cloud nine. When the Governor came to give his address at the end of the program, he too congratulated Liam, and praised the legislature for its diligent work; even if it resulted in his being overturned. He aptly spoke to the fact that ultimately this is what the program is about, learning the legislative process through direct participation. They stand not simply as an example of the best of this program, but of what the legislature could look like when members truly care about their responsibilities
If the High Schoolers of Youth and Government, and even the 4th Graders brought to tour the State House understand putting your responsibility before your personality; then the legislature is capable of understanding it too.
House Bill 1633 is but one of many examples, however serves as one of the most egregious recent examples we have. Again, this is a bill which quite simply mandates sexual assault survivors seeking care be fully informed of their legal rights under the existing state law, dubbed the sexual assault survivors’ bill of rights. The House has passed this legislation unanimously through the Criminal Justice and Public Safety committee, and through the House Finance committee with all but one voting for it. It has passed the House floor unanimously once, and a second time with all members present voting in favor of it barring that same one member voting against. According to the Department of Justice, at least a thousand survivors a year are leaving the hospital without having accessed their full services as a result of being misinformed to what they are entitled to. The House, despite all the chaos, and division, has been able to put that aside and pass what is an incredibly simple measure to protect the most vulnerable.
Yet the Senate, when it heard the bill, dismissed the notion of it’s importance. Purposely confused the subject, and demeaned the sponsor behind closed doors. When the sponsor, after being told not to introduce her own bill, said the word ‘fuck’ loud enough in a hallway that echoes - that it could be heard through doors thin enough to constitute ice; resulting in the Speaker of the body in which she serves, at the behest of the Senate, banning her from all House facilities on non-session days.
The Speaker, instead of using his power as a constitutional officer to protect his members from unwarranted persecution by bullies in the Senate, and advocate for the 340-1 House position on legislation which protects sexual assault survivors; used power he does not have to further the persecution of his own members, in the aim of destroying the prospects of legislation his body overwhelmingly supported. Some may write this off as ‘politics as usual’, but I promise you this is not the New Hampshire General Court as usual. Ask anyone in the building who has been there longer than fifteen years. Whether a member, staff, or a janitor; they will all tell you that it has never been this bad.
The people of this State deserve a legislature committed to addressing the grievances of it’s citizenry. To get there we need a process that is transparent, accountable, and fair to all. That comes from a House leadership team committed to that vision, with a Speaker whose got the strength to hold the line against those who would rather the chaos.
A Speaker who wouldn’t remove Chairs from their position for voting against the will of their caucus leadership, resulting in committees that have the leeway to get the best product out; rather than the one that is most politically expedient. A Speaker who upholds and advocates the House position to the Senate and Governor even when it’s a policy they may personally disagree with. A Speaker who drastically raises the standard of the behavior expected of the members, with an unflinching willingness to enforce those standards. A House, that once again legislates because there is a Speaker committed to fair and transparent scheduling of an ever changing process. A Speaker who relies on the wisdom of the membership, rather than a membership that bends to the will of it’s Speaker.
These are not pipe dreams, although I admit the bench of candidates who meets the qualifications and skillset necessary to take on these goals is seemingly slim. The more the House devolves into a circus, the harder it will be to get out of the ring.
346 years of history where this bit of land has been called New Hampshire. The settlers all those years ago were those who constructed the very ideals through which this great Republic was built. The traditions of public input, enfranchisement of the broader citizenry, the very idea of being a citizen; and much more, came from the hills under which we live here in New Hampshire - and New England more broadly. There has been much chaos in the history of this young civilization. We can not let the chaos of today be our death knell. I remain blindly confident that it won’t be, and that this is all still growing pains.
346 years of history, but compared to the civilizations of the world, we are still teenagers in our lunch room legislature.
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