Rep. MARJORIE PORTER, D-Hillsborough
I have not written much in the past few months about the goings on at the legislature, and not because there hasn’t been much happening. In fact, it’s just the opposite. Events are occurring at such a fast and furious pace; I don’t have time to get my head around one topic before something else pushes its way to the front of the line. It’s exhausting, and unproductive.
Also, I seem to have lost my courage.
But the events of recent weeks are just too serious to let go by, and if ever there was a time to be brave, this is it.
I was first elected to the legislature in 2010, and my first Speaker was the infamous Bill O’Brien. There were controversies galore that term. Two especially jump out at me now, for some obvious reasons.
In March of 2011, 91-year-old freshman Rep. Martin Harty (R-Barrington) gained the national spotlight when he told a constituent the mentally disabled should be shipped off to Siberia. When the constituent told him he sounded like Hitler, Mr. Harty told her he did agree with Hitler on this issue.
He later said it was just a joke, but he handed in his resignation anyway. Speaker O’Brien gladly accepted it. Then-GOP Party Chairman Jack Kimball said the comments were inappropriate, and the resignation was for the best. Quote Mr. Kimball, “He failed to represent the sentiments of his constituents and the core values and principles of the Republican Party.” (AP news report, March 14, 2011)
Core values and principles.
And in May of 2012, the late Rep. Steve Vaillancourt (R-Manchester) made national news as well, when he was suspended and removed from the House floor for shouting “Sieg Heil!” at the Speaker, who had just shut down debate on an election law bill. Rep. Vaillancourt was made to publicly apologize to the Speaker before he was allowed back into the hall.
These were events of a decade ago. Things seem to have changed.
It made the news last year when freshman Rep. Dawn Johnson (R-Laconia) shared an article from the Daily Stormer, a known white supremacist website, on social media. She apologized for posting from the site, which she claims she did not know was anti-semitic and white supremacist, but she did not apologize for the content she posted. She suffered no disciplinary action. She still serves on the powerful Commerce Committee.
Rep. James Spillane (R-Deerfield) also posted an anti-semitic meme on social media. He also said he didn’t know it was anti-semitic, and there were no consequences for this behavior until an ethics complaint was filed against him by a group of Jewish legislators. The Ethics Committee did find him at fault, and admonished him, and he was made to publish a written apology. In my opinion, the apology was a weak one, barely covering the basics. He remains on his committee.
But the Ethics Committee’s future warning to all of us—when acting in our capacity as an elected official, be careful what you post and share—seems to have gone unnoticed by Rep. Ken Weyler, (R-Kingston), and House leadership as well.
Rep. Weyler, who chaired the powerful Finance and Fiscal committees, got into hot water over his interactions with Health and Human Services Commissioner Shibinette. He made wild and inaccurate claims about the effectiveness of COVID vaccines. To defend his statements, he sent members of both committees a fifty-two page “report” that included such delusional misinformation about the vaccines (they contain tentacled creatures and 5G tracking devices, among other claims) even the Governor asked for his resignation.
For days, the Speaker did nothing. Weyler claimed he had not read the full report before he sent it. Deputy Speaker Steve Smith, (R, Charlestown), in defending Weyler, said the first twelve pages or so really didn’t seem so unreasonable. Having read them myself, I take exception to that statement.
Rep. Weyler eventually resigned from his chairmanship positions; the Speaker “reluctantly accepted.”
He has not been removed from his committee.
Spreading medical disinformation during a global pandemic is bad enough, but what horrified me most about that report, though it got far less media attention, is the undisguised anti-semitic and anti-Catholic bigotry that make up a large portion.
It’s not new, the stuff in there. The rich Jews trying to control the world, Freemasons, dark Italians, puppet-master Popes, Catholics as Satanists and Luciferians.
Where have we heard these things before?
The curse seems to be spreading. Just last week, Rep. Maria Perez, a first-term Democrat from Milford, used a phrase in a Tweet that is code for the total destruction of Israel. I know Maria. She is a good-hearted and kind, and I believe her when she also said she did not know. She deleted the tweet and made a public apology. But she has not been asked to resign, and she still sits on her committee.
What is so very disturbing to me about this whole set of events, and what is so very different from the events of a decade ago, is how comfortable House leadership seems to have become with these obvious bigotries. No repercussions for Reps Johnson, Spillane, and Perez; “reluctant” acceptance or Rep. Weyler’s resignation.
The lack of consequences implies acceptance of those beliefs.
If these things were happening in a vacuum, I might be able to let them go. But they are not.
Masked “Proud Boys” wearing swastikas and guns intimidated attendees at recent Nashua school board meetings. Groups of angry, shouting people have forced school boards in other towns to cancel meetings.
In the legislature, bills have passed, and more are being filed that take away rights from women and LGBTQ citizens and prohibit the teaching of certain topics that might be ‘divisive.” The Speaker is stubbornly denying our disabled and medically fragile members from participating remotely in committee meetings, even though the technology is easily available.
The meme that got Rep. Spillane into trouble is popping up on my Facebook feed, again and again.
I grew up in the 1950’s, not long after the end of WWII. Images of the atrocities from Nazi concentration camps gave me nightmares for years. My mother would comfort me by saying, “We will never let it happen again.”
As a young adult, the dark background messages in the movie Cabaret haunted me. I was the future, looking back and saying, “How can you not see what is happening? Why don’t you do something to STOP it!”
I want to believe my mother.
How will history look back on us?