By NANCY WEST, InDepthN H.org

Another complaint against Rep. Michael Vose as chairman of the House Science, Energy and Technology Committee – this one dating back three years – appears similar to the aggressive behavior Rep. Wendy Thomas and a Windham man recently complained publicly about.

Attorney Arthur Cunningham filed a complaint against Vose, R-Epping, to House Speaker Sherman Packard, R-Londonderry, three years ago after testifying on House Bill 159 in February 2023 before the Science, Energy and Technology committee Vose chaired.

Cunningham was testifying on behalf of the Sierra Club when he went over the allotted time limit and apologized as he finished. “Thank you for allowing me a bit of extra time but this is a serious matter that deserves serious study by this committee,” Cunningham told Vose and the committee that day.

Vose responded to Cunningham: “Your refusal to honor the time limits requested by the committee hasn’t done your cause any good.”

The bill, which would was supposed to even out retail electric rates, passed the House and died in the Senate.

Cunningham complained about Vose’s behavior to House Speaker Sherman Packard, R-Londonderry, after the hearing:

“The hearing on HB 159 was scheduled to run from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Chairman Vose interrupted testimony and treated witnesses rudely and disrespectfully,” Cunningham wrote.

“He treated me and other witnesses supporting the important HB 159 in a similar manner. He talked to witnesses in a disparaging tone of voice. Instead of listening to testimony and encouraging questions from the Committee he interrupted the witnesses and talked over them. He demanded
witnesses cut their testimony short. He was inattentive and had side conversations. He advised me that my exceedance of his time limit did not help my cause after which he walked out. The hearing was abruptly ended at about 11:15 a.m. by Vice-Chair Douglas Thomas,” Cunningham said in his complaint to Speaker Packard.

Cunninham said he urged Packard to replace Vose as chairman.

” I never heard back from him,” Cunningham said.

InDepthNH.org has left multiple messages for Vose and Packard and they have not responded to requests for comment.

More recently Vose was in the news when Rep. Wendy Thomas, D-Merrimack, was removed from the committee because she asked to be addressed by her full name because another committee member has the same last name and because of her “attitude.” It is unclear in that case who complained about Thomas to Speaker Packard.

A story about Thomas’ removal from the committee in InDepthNH.org prompted a Windham man to share his complaint about treatment by Vose as well and shared a photo of himself being confronted by Vose at a hearing last year.

Thomas said Vose had previously “agreed that it was respectful to call me Representative Wendy Thomas during committee and then apparently someone put a bug in his ear and he stopped. 

“The problem of identification on the transcripts did not go away and so every time he called me Rep. Thomas, I self identified as Rep. Wendy Thomas into the microphone. 

“Vose has said that there is no need to call me using my first name because he uses the title of ‘Vice Chair’ for Doug (Thomas), however at nearly every committee meeting, … he has called Doug Thomas – Rep. Thomas and other members of the committee have also called Doug that. It makes for confusion,” Wendy Thomas said.

She said the politics of climate change are also involved.

“If you are a climate change denier, (Vose) fawns on you. If you believe in climate change or renewables he doesn’t give you the time of day,” Thomas said.

Wendy Thomas says “Vose has a history of being aggressive.” A recent disagreement, she said, caused Vose to “act in a threatening manner to me in the hallway about the request.”

She called out House Speaker Packard, for not removing Republicans from various legislative committees despite uncivil behavior, but had no problem removing her because of her “attitude.”