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Executive Councilor Karen Liot Hill may or may not be “the top Democrat in state government,” as she claims. But she is definitely the king of the road.

While the first-term councilor won’t be facing the voters again until (at least) September of 2026, her latest campaign finance report claims she’s already covered more than 9,670 miles on the campaign trail as of June 1. As a result, she’s paid herself $6,771.70 from her campaign fund to cover the costs.

In addition to the mileage, Liot Hill’s campaign filings include $2,518 for candidate travel. However, the report indicates that $2,462 of those “travel” expenses were actually three separate payments to Gills Point S Tire & Auto Service in West Lebanon.

But that’s not all for the District 2 road warrior.

Every executive councilor receives an annual mileage/expense stipend on top of their modest $18,000 a year salary. Councilors from Districts 3, 4, and 5 get $7,980 per year. But because Districts 1 and 2 — Liot Hill’s — are so geographically large, they receive $11,970. 

Add six months of her Executive Council travel to her campaign filing, and Liot Hill has already received more than $15,000 in travel reimbursements as of June 1.

Liot Hill reported $39,590 in this fundraising revenue this reporting period, mostly from individual donors, and spent $30,416. Of that spending total, $7,530.91 — or about 25 percent — went to Liot Hill herself.

Eye-grabbing campaign spending is nothing new for Liot Hill, despite the fact that her job as executive councilor is to review contracts and impose fiscal accountability on state government.

Her previous filings are already under investigation by the Election Law Unit of the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office. Questions were raised about the accuracy and authenticity of her filings when, after an NHJournal report on her spending, Liot Hill filed an updated version with significant revisions. The originals bear the signature of her treasurer, former state Rep. Corrine Morse. For the revisions, Liot Hill replaced Morse as her own treasurer and signed the documents herself.

Asked by NHJournal if she had in fact signed the original documents, Morse declined to respond.

Liot Hill has also declined to respond to repeated requests for comment about her campaign spending. Her new report lists accountant Michael Button as her campaign treasurer.

Liot Hill’s latest campaign filing is very different from those of her executive council colleagues.

District 3 Republican Janet Stevens reported raising $18,795 from Jan. 1 through June 1, and spent $12,923. Most of Stevens’ spending went to media consultants ($4,950) and campaign consultants ($2,250). She spent another $2,900 total on yard signs and food for fundraising events. Stevens does not claim any payments for reimbursements, travel, mileage, or candidate meals in her report.

Councilor John Stephen (R-District 4) reported $92,701 raised during the same period. His campaign spent just $4,523. Stephen claimed a $66 reimbursement for event supplies, and nothing for mileage, travel, or candidate meals.

Liot Hill, who had been the elected treasurer for Grafton County, was found in default this month in a small claims case over her failure to pay $4,234 in credit card debt. According to court records, Liot Hill never responded to the complaint filed in February in the Lebanon District Court.

Executive Councilor Karen Liot Hill calls herself “the top Democrat in state government.”

But a New Hampshire court just called her a deadbeat.

A court declared Liot Hill in default over her failure to repay $4,234 in outstanding credit card debt. It’s the latest in a series of financial faux pas by a state official whose job is to prevent fraud and overspending in state contracts. 

Liot Hill is already under investigation by the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office Election Law Unit over questions about her campaign spending in her race for executive council. The longtime Lebanon city councilor and four-term Grafton County treasurer spent thousands of campaign dollars on personal items like $190 for a ferry ride to the Hamptons, $181 to register her car, and $250 for a haircut at Rio Blanco Salon. There were also two unexplained checks totaling $1,350 corresponding to two court cases against Liot Hill; one a violation for driving with a suspended license, and another involving a debt collection on a car loan.

In the current credit card debt case, Liot Hill stopped making payments about the same time she started running for executive council.

According to court records, Liot Hill never responded to the complaint filed in February in Lebanon District Court.

Liot Hill did not respond to requests for comment from NHJournal on Monday, either.

In an interview with the Valley News that was published this weekend, Liot Hill touted her important place in the Democratic Party.

“I am an executive councilor, but I’m actually the top Democrat in state government,” Liot Hill said in the interview. “I feel a responsibility to try and communicate with my constituents and also to be a presence and to be a voice for Democratic values across the state.” And her answer to a question about running for governor or Congress was “never say never.”

Republicans say Liot Hill lacks the values — or the record of responsibility — for the job she has now.

“When I applied to be dean at the University of New Hampshire, they ran a full background check, including my credit score, because I was going to be put in charge of a budget of $30 million or so,” said state Sen. Dan Innis (R-Bradford). “It would seem to me that someone who has trouble with her personal finances shouldn’t be trusted with an entire state‘s finances.”

Liot Hill’s campaign finances have been the subject of multiple media reports. Soon after NHJournal published its first story about her extravagant campaign spending, she filed and amended spending reports to remove some items and clarify others. Two mystery checks were switched to reimbursements the campaign made to her for the purchase of software and other more legitimate expenses.

Also noteworthy: Liot Hill’s first campaign filing was signed by her campaign treasurer, Corrinne Morse. When Liot Hill filed the amended version changing the descriptions of her spending to less problematic expenditures, Morse had been replaced as treasurer. Instead, Liot Hill listed herself as treasurer and signed her own amended filing.

Asked by NHJournal if she had actually signed the original filings, Morse declined to answer.

Morse declined to respond to a request for comment on Monday as well. Perhaps with good reason.

Liot Hill has already filed paperwork indicating she plans to seek reelection in 2026. Her amended campaign committee registration form lists Morse as the treasurer for her upcoming campaign.

New Hampshire’s embattled Human Rights Commission (HRC) is getting two new members and, according to Gov. Kelly Ayotte, their first priority is reforming the failing agency.

The Republican governor told reporters after Wednesday’s Executive Council meeting that it’s past time to get the HRC functioning after a damning audit by the Office of Legislative Budget Assistant earlier this year. The report found unresolved cases that were years, and in some cases, decades old. One pending case dates back to the Reagan administration.

The audit also found the understaffed office and its poorly trained investigators have been mismanaged by leadership for years.

“I’ve been quite clear that those audit findings are unacceptable, and where we are right now with the Human Rights Commission is completely unacceptable,” Ayotte told NHJournal.

The Executive Council confirmed business leader Ray Pinard to the commission on Wednesday, and Ayotte nominated Dr. Stewart Levenson to another seat. Under the law creating the agency, Human Rights Commission members are appointed by the governor, and they are responsible for overseeing the staff, including the position of executive director.

But that’s hard to do, critics say, when Executive Director Anhi Malachi has gone AWOL.

Malachi, who’s been the HRC’s director since 2018, has rarely been in the office since last summer. She reportedly suffered a heart attack and has been on medical leave through January of this year. However, after returning to work part-time for a couple of weeks, Malachi again took leave and continues to be out of the office and incommunicado.

Emails obtained by NHJournal through a Right to Know request indicate Malachi is still not communicating with the HRC staff, including current Interim Executive Director Katrina Taylor. Malachi’s lack of communication with her office dates back to the summer, based on the emails. 

After informing staff through an email on July 27, 2024, that she would be out for an extended period, no Malachi emails appeared until January of this year.

It’s not clear how much Malachi worked until she went out on leave again for medical reasons. It’s also unclear whether Malachi informed any staff about her second leave. Taylor, who has been running the agency through the LBA audit, did not find out until Commissioner Elizabeth Asch informed her on Feb. 4, according to the emails.

Malachi’s absence is even more puzzling — and perhaps ethically questionable — after the HRC staff found out last fall that Malachi had been chairing a volunteer board for the city of Concord the entire time.

“Staff brought to my attention the attached and expressed concerns (and disappointment) that it appears Anhi is semi-working in other capacities but is seemingly unwilling or unable to communicate (by way of simple check-in) with HRC,” Taylor wrote to Asch on Nov. 14.

The attached document was a copy of the Sept. 30 meeting minutes of Concord’s Diversity Equity Inclusion Justice and Belonging (DEIJB) Committee. They included a letter from Malachi explaining her temporary absence from the DEIJB, and her promise to continue working with the committee even as she was out of contact with the HRC, where she was paid to work.

Some Republicans say the HRC’s lack of action and the subsequent lack of negative outcomes prove that the entire agency should be shut down. Ayotte doesn’t agree. She’s trying to fix the agency within the current law. She’s keeping the HRC funded in her budget proposal, and she’s waiving hiring freezes to get three more investigators on the job addressing the caseload backlog.

Asked about the HRC’s performance and whether senior staff should be fired, Ayotte noted that the agency doesn’t answer to the governor or the Executive Council. She also hinted that firing would be her preferred solution.

“If (the executive director) were a governor and council appointment, and perhaps that’s a proposal that the legislature might consider as well, then we obviously would take a different tactic here,” Ayotte said.

Ayotte pointed to the appointment of Pinard as a sign that Granite Staters can expect vigorous action — and soon. Pinard is known for turning around businesses, and he has pledged to put in 500 hours of his time to get the HRC reform started. 

“He offered to serve on the HRC following the release of the alarming LBA audit, and I applaud him for stepping up, offering to serve the State of New Hampshire, and willing to put in the time to overhaul the HRC, which he estimates will be 500 hours of his time. A self-described ‘change agent,’ he’s exactly what we need on the HRC right now,” said Executive Councilor Janet Stevens (R-District 3).

Reached Wednesday, Levenson said if confirmed, he wants to focus on building better policies and procedures that will serve the people of New Hampshire for years to come.

“It’s an important job, and unfortunately, I think there have been some issues in the past and that going forward we have to do better, and I think we can,” Levenson said.

Controversial Executive Councilor Karen Liot Hill’s 2024 campaign spending made headlines, and now it may be getting attention from the Attorney General’s Office as well. It confirms it is investigating the Lebanon Democrat’s campaign finances.

Questions about Liot Hill’s campaign finances began with NHJournal’s coverage of her lavish spending during the Democratic primary for Executive Council. Her allegedly campaign-related expenditures included charges for house cleaning, home heating oil, clothes, haircuts, groceries, gifts, payments to relatives, out-of-state trips, and more than $15,000 in gas and meal expenses.

Now, the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office confirms to NHJournal that its Election Law Unit is investigating a complaint filed against Executive Councilor Karen Liot Hill (D-Lebanon).

“The New Hampshire Department of Justice Election Law Unit can confirm that there is an open campaign finance matter involving Executive Counselor Liot Hill,” Election Law Unit Chief Assistant Attorney General Brendan O’Donnell told NHJournal.

Liot Hill, an Upper Valley Democrat who previously served on the Lebanon City Council, refused to answer when NHJournal asked her about the investigation. Liot Hill simply shook her head in response to NHJournal’s questions.

The New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office declined to give details about the investigation, and the original complaint is not being made public at this time. NHJournal’s review of Liot Hill’s campaign finance reports, and her subsequent moves to correct the reports, uncovered curious details.

For example, nestled among her campaign receipts were two mystery checks that corresponded to court dates in two separate legal matters facing Liot Hill.

After NHJournal reported on her spending, Liot Hill filed amended reports with the New Hampshire Secretary of State’s Office that removed some of the spending line items, and attempted to explain the two mystery checks.

Liot Hill’s original reports listed two unexplained checks from December 2023 and January 2024 totaling $1,350. The checks did not include any information on who received the money, or the purpose of the expenses.

NHJournal found the timing of the two checks corresponded with two court cases involving Liot Hill. One was a violation for driving with a suspended license, the other involved a debt collection. The amended reports list those checks as reimbursements to Liot Hill for various software subscriptions, as well as cell phone and internet services.

These aren’t Liot Hill’s first legal troubles. The Democrat has been arrested twice for DUI, once in 2010 and again in 2018.

One interesting element about Liot Hill’s campaign disclosures for investigators to review: the sudden change in the status of her campaign treasurer.

The original reports listed former state Rep. Corrine Morse as the campaign treasurer, and appear to bear her signature. But the amended reports, which are significantly different from the first ones, are signed by Liot Hill, who declared herself her campaign’s treasurer.

Filing campaign documents that make false representations, such as who signed them, is a serious violation of state campaign finance laws.

NHJournal contacted Morse in November about her role in the campaign and asked if she had in fact signed the original reports for Liot Hill.

“I can’t comment on that,” Morse told NHJournal at the time.

Morse has not responded since to NHJournal’s multiple calls or emails about the campaign or the investigation.

It’s past time for the public to get the truth about Liot Hill’s finances, says New Hampshire Republican Party Chairman Jim MacEachern, particularly given the financial duties of her position as an Executive Councilor.

“Councilor Hill, who has a history of breaking the law, is now accused of misusing campaign dollars and fraudulent filings,” MacEachern told NHJournal. “It’s alarming that someone like that is empowered to review state contracts and even pardons. I’m happy to hear this is being investigated and trust that justice will be served,” MacEachern said.

Liot Hill’s GOP colleague, Executive Councilor Joe Kenny (R-District 1), learned about the investigation from NHJournal. He declined to comment on Liot Hill’s campaign spending, but he added,  “I hope it’s cleared up very quickly. We have a lot of work to do.”

Executive Councilor John Stephen (R-District 4) echoed that view.

“At the end of the day, we’re going to serve the people of this state who elected us,” Stephen said.

Amid a flurry of proposed budget cuts coming out of the legislature, the council is also navigating the sudden loss of $80 million in federal funding from the Centers for Disease Control. Stephen would not say if he thought Liot Hill being investigated could tarnish the image of the council as the public watches their decisions.

“I’m going to continue my role representing the people of District 4 in the most accountable way possible, with transparency and integrity in everything I do,” Stephen said.

Republican Kim Strathdee, who unsuccessfully ran against Liot Hill for the Executive Council, filed the complaint now under investigation. Strathdee did not respond to a text message seeking comment, and the phone number listed for her is not in service. Strathdee filed her complaint Oct. 7, days after NHJournal broke the story about Liot Hill’s campaign spending habits.

As for Strathdee’s campaign finances, she has a perfect record. While Liot Hill spent close to $120,000 on the contested primary and general election, Strathdee raised no money and spent no money throughout her entire campaign, according to her reports.

After years of operating with little oversight and producing even fewer results, New Hampshire’s Human Rights Commission (NHHRC) is now set for a major overhaul. Critics say it’s long overdue.

A brutal report released in February found the agency has unresolved cases of alleged discrimination going back to the Reagan administration. Its performance is so poor that it takes on average more than two years to resolve a single case.

All the while, the agency, nominally led by Executive Director Ahni Malachi, shuffled key staff without any approval and provided annual reports that were years late.

Even with red flags about the commission’s operations, such as the years’ late reports, Executive Councilor Janet Stevens (R-District 3) told NHJournal she and the other councilors had no idea of the scope of the problem until the February performance audit released by the Office of the Legislative Budget Assistant.

For example, they were unaware that Malachi had simply stopped showing up for work, replacing herself with an “interim” director — all without oversight or scrutiny.

“The Council was not formally notified of the NHHRC Executive Director’s (Ahni Malachi) failure to fulfill the agency’s statutory responsibilities until the release of the Legislative Budget Assistant audit,” Stevens said.

The Human Rights Commission has rarely gone to the Executive Council in the time Stevens has been in her post. There was one software contract last year that needed Executive Council approval, and three appointments to the commission. The only other instances the Human Rights Commission interacted with the council is when it submitted its annual reports, sometimes a year or more late.

The LBA audit found pending cases that were years, and in some cases decades, old. The understaffed office included poorly trained investigators being mismanaged by leadership for years.

“We found the Commission did not perform necessary management control responsibilities such as developing a strategic plan; defining objectives; developing performance measures; identifying, analyzing, and responding to operational risks; and resolving prior audit findings. As a result, there was an increased risk the Commission would not achieve its objectives,” the audit stated.

Under the law that created the Human Rights Commission, the governor nominates the commissioners and the commission chair to oversee the agency, and those nominations are voted on by the Executive Council. It is the commission itself, made up of volunteers, that hires the executive director.

The Executive Council was never kept in the loop when Malachi left her post last summer due to a health problem and Investigator Katrina Taylor was made Interim Executive Director. Since Malachi and Taylor are both hired employees and not appointed, the Executive Council has no direct oversight of their jobs. That is left to the Human Rights Commission and its chair.

In January, weeks before the LBA audit was released, Human Rights Commission Chair Christian Kim resigned his post. The resignation occurred during the transition between outgoing Gov. Chris Sununu’s administration and incoming Gov. Kelly Ayotte’s. Both Ayotte and Sununu were informed of the resignation. Kim did not respond to NHJournal’s requests for comment. The commission currently does not have a permanent chair. 

Republican Ayotte announced her intention to fix the Human Rights Commission and get it serving the people of New Hampshire. 

“The long-term issues at the Human Rights Commission are unacceptable. My office is working with the attorney general to ensure the Commission is efficient and effective in investigating discrimination claims,” Ayotte said.

Ayotte wants to see more direct oversight of the Executive Director position by the Governor’s Office and Executive Council. Stevens said that is the right direction.

“Given the critical nature of these executive branch leadership positions, (Executive) Council oversight would ensure proper management and adherence to statutory obligations from the outset,” Stevens said.

The Human Rights Commission is administratively attached to the Department of Justice, and not an integrated part of the DOJ or Attorney General’s Office, under the law that created the commission. Attorney General John Formella said his office is working with commission staff to address the audit findings. 

“Right now, we are doing a lot of work to help them through this audit, the results of the audit, and to start developing plans to address the audit,” Formella told the Executive Council last week.

Stevens wants to see a remediation plan put into place that includes frequent and transparent reports about the commission’s progress in fixing the problems. 

“I remain committed to ensuring accountability and corrective action within the New Hampshire Human Rights Commission,” Stevens said.

Democrat Karen Liot Hill, whose unorthodox campaign spending in her Executive Council race has already raised ethical questions, failed to meet the filing deadline for both of her final two campaign reports. 

One of the Lebanon Democrat’s reports was due Oct. 30, the other on Nov. 13. But neither was filed with the Secretary of State’s Office until Thursday, Dec. 12 and they didn’t appear in the public campaign finance database until Dec. 13.

Liot Hill is set to be sworn in next month as the District 2 Executive Councilor, replacing Cinde Warmington, who chose to run for governor rather than another term on the council. Warmington lost to former Manchester Mayor Joyce Craig in the Democratic primary. Craig went on to lose to Republican Kelly Ayotte in the general election.

Liot Hill handily defeated Republican Kim Strathdee in the heavily-Democrat district.

In October, NHJournal broke the story of Liot Hill’s questionable campaign finance spending in her primary against Democrat Mike Liberty. According to her campaign disclosures, Liot Hill spent thousands in campaign cash on meals, clothes, and visits to salons. Her campaign expenditures included a $190 ferry ride to the Hamptons and $181 to register her car.

She also reported spending $7,004 on gas for her car, $755 for car maintenance, and another $8,330 on meals.

A major concern regarding her original reports were two checks, one for $700 and another for $650, that did not include details on who she paid or for what election-related purpose. Both the checks correspond chronologically to court costs charged against Liot Hill. 

On Dec. 12, 2023, a car financing company filed a motion for contempt against Liot Hill in Lebanon District Court for her failure to comply with a previous payment order. At the time, she had a balance of more than $1,000.

In January, Liot Hill pleaded no contest to a 2023 violation for driving with a suspended license and agreed to pay $620 in fines and court costs. However, court records show Liot Hill’s first check to cover the fine bounced.

In response to NHJournal’s reporting, Liot Hill filed amended reports. She listed the two checks for $1,350 as reimbursements to Liot Hill for campaign expenses. And while the first campaign finance documents were signed by Liot Hill’s campaign treasurer Corinne Morse, the amended filing was signed by Liot Hill herself, who took over the treasurer duties for her own campaign.

At the time, neither Morse nor Liot Hill would confirm that Morse had actually signed the original reports.

Liot Hill declined to respond to questions from NHJournal, including inquiries into whether she is currently under investigation for any of her campaign filings.

Liot Hill did not respond when contacted on Dec. 12 by NHJournal about the reports. Nor did the Secretary of State’s Office respond to NHJournal’s questions about the reports. The New Hampshire attorney general would not confirm or deny if an investigation is underway. Contacted Saturday, Morse said she has not been interviewed by anyone from the Attorney General’s Office.

The Executive Council’s job is to provide oversight of state spending on behalf of the taxpayers, which makes the issues surrounding Liot Hill particularly problematic, said New Hampshire GOP chair Chris Ager.

“For someone who must review state contracts, these reports are very disturbing.”

Days after a NHJournal article about her questionable campaign spending on personal items like home heating oil and paying her car registration, Democrat Karen Liot Hill (D-District 2) filed an amended financial disclosure.

In addition to changing some of the details of her spending, the amended documents are missing two key items from the originals: the name and signature of her campaign treasurer, Corinne Morse.

On the amended forms, Morse is replaced by Liot Hill, who has now declared herself the treasurer of her campaign — despite the fact that Morse had previously signed off on the spending in question. 

Now, Liot Hill is dodging NHJournal’s questions about Morse’s involvement in overseeing her campaign finances.

Liot Hill bested fellow Democrat Mike Liberty in the Executive Council District 2 primary in September and easily defeated a token GOP opponent in the heavily-Democratic district.

Morse, a Canaan, N.H. Democrat elected to the legislature in 2022, had served as treasurer for Liot Hill’s run to replace Cinde Warmington. Morse’s name and signature appear on all original reports. They included unexplained checks totaling $1,350 that appeared to correspond to two court cases against Liot Hill: a violation for driving with a suspended license, and another involving a debt collection.

Liot Hill also included house cleaning, home heating oil, and more than $15,000 in gas and meals expenses in her campaign spending reports, all with what is purportedly Morse’s signature.

By amending the filings, Liot Hill conceded there were problems with her initial paperwork. The question is whether, as treasurer, Morse asked about the details of the filings before she signed them.

And why didn’t she sign the amended documents — amending factual claims Morse has already endorsed — for the same spending period?

In fact, NHJournal asked Morse if she actually signed the original campaign reports in the first place.

Morse declined to answer.

“I can’t comment on that,” Morse told NHJournal on Monday.

Nor did Morse respond to an email from NHJournal that included one of the original reports to confirm that the signature appearing on it is hers. Morse’s own campaign finance reports, and her House financial disclosure forms, appear to have been filed electronically and did not require a physical signature that could be used for comparison.

Liot Hill did not want to take questions when reached by phone on Monday, instead offering to answer questions via email. However, when she responded on Tuesday, Liot Hill did not answer NHJournal’s questions about Morse’s signature or her decision to act as her own treasurer.

“I am proud that I ran my entire campaign on a minimal budget, doing almost everything myself from my car as I crisscrossed the district to meet as many voters as possible. As many candidates do, I have recently filed amended reports, making some clarifications and minor corrections. These items make up a very small percentage of my overall campaign budget. But it is important to correct even small mistakes, so I have done that.

“Corinne Morse stepped down as treasurer for my campaign after the primary, and the amended reports bear my signature. I look forward to serving on the Executive Council and finding common ground so that I can help tackle the challenges facing New Hampshire and deliver results for Granite Staters,” Liot Hill wrote to NHJournal.

Acting as her own treasurer, the mysterious checks that appeared to correspond with two court cases are now listed as reimbursements the campaign paid to Liot Hill for various software subscriptions as well as cell phone and internet services. 

On Dec. 12, a car financing company filed a motion for contempt against Liot Hill in Lebanon District Court for her failure to comply with a previous payment order. At the time, she had a balance of more than $1,000.

In January of this year, Liot Hill pleaded no contest to a 2023 violation for driving with a suspended license and agreed to pay $620 in fines and court costs. However, court records show Liot Hill’s first check to cover the fine bounced.

Forging or knowingly falsifying state campaign finance documents is a crime, as is misreporting campaign finance spending.

In 2005, former House Speaker Gene Chandler (R-Bartlett) pled guilty to a misdemeanor charge of failing to report $64,000 in contributions from lobbyists and special interests. The money was raised at Chandler’s annual “Old Fashioned Corn Roast.” Chandler paid a $2,000 fine and was sentenced to 100 hours of community service.

Karen Liot Hill may serve as the treasurer of Grafton County, but her use of campaign dollars for personal expenses in her Executive Council race is raising eyebrows.

According to her campaign disclosures, the Lebanon Democrat has spent thousands in campaign cash on meals, clothes, and visits to salons. Her campaign expenditures include a $190 ferry ride to the Hamptons and $181 to register her car.

Liot Hill also reports spending $7,004 on gas for her car, $755 for car maintenance, and another $8,330 on meals. 

Gubernatorial candidate Joyce Craig (D-Manchester) ran a bruising statewide primary campaign against Executive Councilor Cinde Warmington (D-District 2) and reports spending just $849 for meals.

“I’ve run a very grassroots campaign,” Liot Hill said.

The detailed reports on Liot Hill’s spending also include unexplained checks totaling $1,350 that appear to correspond to two court cases against her: a violation for driving with a suspended license and another involving a debt collection.

Liot Hill serves on the Lebanon City Council and is the elected Grafton County Treasurer. She’s also a former restaurant owner whose business went under during the COVID pandemic. That hardship is behind the financial difficulties she had earlier this year.

On Dec. 12, 2023, a car financing company filed a motion for contempt against Liot Hill in Lebanon District Court for her failure to comply with a previous payment order. At the time, Liot Hill had not made a payment since June 2023 and had an outstanding balance of $1,061, according to court records. The case was resolved this February after Liot Hill paid $945.

In January of this year, Liot Hill was again in trouble, but this time in a traffic case. She was charged in June 2023 for driving with a suspended license. The case was resolved with Liot Hill pleading no contest and agreeing to pay $620 in fines and court costs. However, court records show that Liot Hill’s first check to cover the fine bounced on Jan. 8.

Contacted Thursday, Liot Hill denied she used campaign funds to cover payments related to her court cases. However, she did not immediately recall why or to whom she paid $600 on Dec. 26, or $750 on Jan. 12. The campaign reports do not give any information about the recipient or purpose of those payments, unlike the thousands of other expense entries.

“They might be reimbursements to me,” Liot Hill said.

Liot Hill called back a short time later after checking her bank accounts to say the two checks were for reimbursements for different subscription services related to the campaign. 

Liot Hill told NHJournal she planned to amend her campaign reports to reflect the correct details on the two checks. But those checks represent a fraction of the $113,000 she has spent on the campaign. Liot Hill won her primary against Mike Liberty despite Liberty’s spending more than $400,000 on his campaign. Instead of television ads or digital ads, Liot Hill said, she put 40,000 miles on her car to meet voters.

“I’ve driven 1,000 miles a week. That’s how I won despite being outspent four to one. A lot of expenses are related to meeting the people and being out on the road,” she said. 

Having the campaign reimburse her for gas ultimately saved money, Liot Hill argued. She could have taken a mileage reimbursement at 75 cents per mile, but that would have driven the cost up to about $30,000 instead of $7,000.

Liot Hill noted that Executive Council District 2 is a large area, going from the Monadnock region and Keene, to north of the Upper Valley, and then out to Concord. But it’s not as large as District 1, where Democrat Emmett Soldati spent just $31,000 of the $106,000 he raised. Those expenditures include $1,500 for gas and $677 for meals.

Unlike Liot Hill, Soldati did not face a competitive primary opponent.

Liot Hill’s unusual campaign spending doesn’t end with dinner and a drive.

Also included is a $250 payment to a Vermont heating oil company. That payment was made in July to a company that performs $250 annual furnace tuneups. Liot Hill denied she used campaign money to service her heating system, but she did not have an immediate explanation for the charge.

Liot Hill also spent $711 on hair and nails, $1,600 on clothes, $330 on books, and $1,230 at grocery stores on “food and flowers.” Additionally, Liot Hill spent $736 on airfare, $453 on hotels, and $1,017 on transportation. Many of those expenses are not out of the ordinary for campaigns, including the out-of-state travel she charged.

Asked about her out-of-state stays, including a trip to Orient Point on the Hamptons in New York, Liot Hill said there were fundraising ventures to her old home turf.

“I grew up on Long Island,” she said.

However, a review of the donations reported by her campaign shows Liot Hill brought in a negligible amount of money from out-of-state donors. Her campaign reports nine donations from New York residents totaling $4,250. Her campaign has raised more than $122,000 as of the Sept. 19 report.

Vincent Liot, a retired Sag Harbor, N.Y. resident, accounts for four of those New York donations. Vincent Liot gave the campaign $3,550 in total, and Carolyn Liot from East Hampton, N.Y., gave another $300. The four New York donors not named Liot gave a total of $400.

At the other end of spectrum, Liot Hill’s opponent in the general election, Republican Kim Strathdee, is reporting zero money raised or spent. Candidates are not required to report any spending if the total is under $1,000.

State Rep. Ross Berry (R-Manchester), who has pushed for campaign finance reforms in the past, said the current law gives candidates a wide berth when it comes to how they spend money. Spending campaign money on personal expenses is prohibited, but defining what’s personal and what’s not gets tricky due to New Hampshire’s citizen legislature and Executive Council.

“That can open a Pandora’s Box, and we don’t want to curtail someone’s First Amendment rights,” Berry said.

Instead, New Hampshire law leaves it to voters and donors to oversee the candidates, he said. Candidates must be transparent in how they spend money, and who they get that money from.

“The point of campaign finance reporting is so the public can suss out if there’s an appearance of impropriety,” he said.

Former House Speaker Donna Sytek, who is a current member of the House Legislative Ethics Committee, said candidates need to make sure they can show donors they are spending donations in an appropriate manner. 

“You have to be able to tie it to the campaign,” Sytek said. “In a campaign, it’s best not to be on the receiving end of questions about possibly unusual expenses.”

Progressive activists who pushed for a state marker honoring a Granite State Stalinist are suing, claiming the Sununu administration did not follow procedure when it took down the historic plaque.

State officials changed the rules, then broke them, in the scramble to remove the sign honoring notorious Communist Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, according to the lawsuit filed this week.

The Historic Highways marker for Flynn, the former U.S. Communist Party Chair convicted of advocating the violent overthrow of the U.S. government, was removed from its Concord location on May 15, less than two weeks after it was unveiled. The marker is currently in the possession of the New Hampshire Department of Transportation.

Now, liberal activists Arnie Alpert and Mary Lee Sargent, represented by lawyer and former Executive Counselor Andru Volinsky, accuse Gov. Chris Sununu and others of breaking the law to get rid of the Flynn marker in the face of community backlash.

‘The State has the unequivocal legal duty to follow its own duly adopted laws and not to act by the fiat of the Governor and members of the Executive Council,” Volinsky wrote.

Alpert and Sarget want a judge to order the marker to be erected once again at its original Concord location.

The marker was unveiled on May 1, and the state’s Department of Natural and Cultural Resources promoted Flynn’s tribute. That did not sit well with Executive Councilor Joe Kenney, who lodged a complaint at the May 3 Executive Council meeting.

“Well, I’m going to say that this particular person has no historic value here in Concord. And this person, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, was a profound Communist who died a Soviet, who was anti-American,” Kenney said. “I am dead set against this. And I think it’s an embarrassment that we have a program that allows us to put Communists on historical markers and then say, ‘Oh, that’s part of our history.’ It’s not part of my history.”

In the days that followed, Flynn’s record as an unrepentant Stalinist who supported the Soviet Union during the height of the Cold War and received a Red Square burial came to light. As members of the public began to speak out,  Sununu vowed to get rid of the marker and blamed Concord City Council members for approving its placement.

Concord officials rejected that argument, pointing out that the marker is a state sign for a state program approved and funded by the state.

The marker was removed on May 15 and is currently in the possession of the New Hampshire Department of Transportation.

In a statement regarding the lawsuit, Sununu welcomed Alpert and Sargent’s court case, saying criticizing the government is an important part of the American Way.

“America is a free country, and we appreciate their ability to sue the government for a decision they might disagree with — a privilege not afforded to citizens in communist countries. An avowed Communist who benefited from a state funeral in Moscow’s Red Square should not be celebrated in New Hampshire. All policies were followed when removing this Anti-American sign, and it will not be coming back under my watch,” Sununu said.

The Department of Natural and Cultural Resources changed the rules for removing Historic Highway Markers after that May 3 meeting, allowing for removing markers that could be deemed inappropriate. However, according to the lawsuit, the new rules still required that the decision go to the Historical Resources Council.

According to the lawsuit, Department of Natural and Cultural Resources Commissioner Sarah Stewart ignored the rules and, on May 12, ordered that the sign be removed. 

“Commissioner Stewart did not consult the State Historical Resources Council as required by the newly amended policy,” Volinsky wrote. “Nor was the reason for retirement officially recorded in the minutes of the State Historical Resources Council also as required by the newly amended policy.”

Flynn was born in 1890 in Concord and became a socialist activist in her teens. She was a founding member of the American Civil Liberties Union and, in 1936, joined the Community Party, becoming the U.S. party chair in 1961.

She joined the Communist Party during Josef Stalin’s deadly purge and high-profile show trials, facts known to the public at the time. When Flynn joined in 1936, the Soviets had already murdered nearly 9 million people in Ukraine and other territories in what is now known as the Holodomor. Another 1.2 million were about to be killed in Stalin’s great purge. 

Her membership in the party got her expelled from the ACLU in 1940 when the civil rights groups formally denounced Communism. A decade later, she was found guilty under the Smith Act of advocating the overthrow of the U.S. government by force and violence. 

The Soviet government gave Flynn a state funeral in Red Square, with more than 25,000 people attending.

The historic marker in Concord commemorating unrepentant Communist Elizabeth Gurley Flynn got sent to the ash heap of history as the Sununu administration finally stepped up and removed it from state property.

Now the progressive activists who pushed for the marker are complaining about its removal.

The New Hampshire Historical Highway Marker was unveiled on May 1 (May Day). It celebrated Concord-born Gurley Flynn as an early labor activist, a civil rights pioneer, a supporter of women’s access to birth control, and the former head of the Communist Party in America (CPUSA).

Gov. Chris Sununu first promised to get the marker removed after learning about it from irate executive councilors Joe Kenney (R-District 1) and Dave Wheeler (R-District 5) during a Governor’s Council meeting two days later.

“This is a devout communist. We are the ‘Live Free or Die’ state,” Kenney said. “How can we possibly promote her propaganda, which still exists now through this sign in downtown Concord?”

Sununu, however, did not immediately take the marker down. Instead, he and his administration blamed Concord city officials for the marker’s placement.

“Why Concord would want to put this in the first place, God knows,” Sununu said on Good Morning NH with Jack Health. “Just tell us to take it down we’ll take it down. I’d love to take it down.”

However, Concord City Attorney James Kennedy responded, making it clear in a letter to Department of Cultural and Natural Resources Commissioner Sarah Stewart that the state could do whatever it wanted with the marker it installed.

“To the extent that the State seeks removal of (the Flynn marker) a marker that it approved (title and text) created and installed, bearing the State seal and located on State property, the City takes no position on this issue,” Kennedy wrote.

On Monday, the Gurley Flynn monument was gone.

“Through their public statements, the City of Concord made clear they were not advocating to keep the marker up,” Ben Vihstadt, Sununu’s spokesman, said Monday. “In their communications with the state, it was learned that the marker was located on state property, not city property as previously believed, and therefore the marker was removed this morning.”

Far-left supporters of the marker and Flynn’s legacy cried foul.

“The policies of the Division of Historical Resources specify the conditions under which markers can be retired,” said Arnie Alpert, who, with Mary Lee Sargent, initiated the proposal for the Flynn marker. “Even under the policy’s latest revision, there is no provision for markers to be retired because of objections to their content.”

The pair continue to defend the marker saying Flynn is a historically significant person born in New Hampshire and should be recognized. “We still say that under the department’s own guidelines, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn’s birthplace in Concord is a fitting location for a historical marker,” Sargent said.

Flynn was an outspoken member of the American left who helped found the American Civil Liberties Union, which she was later kicked out of because she chose to join the Communist Party. In fact, Flynn joined in 1936, during the infamous purges under Soviet leader Josef Stalin that drove many other Westerners out of the party.

Flynn made no apologies for her Communism. In a May 6, 1940 speech, Flynn praised the USSR.

“On May Day, we salute the Soviet Union, land of socialism, land of peace and plenty, the great ideal of labor since time immemorial, the cooperative commonwealth of all who toil,” Flynn said.

Flynn was convicted in 1951 for fomenting the overthrow of the United States, later became head of the Communist Party USA, and was given a state funeral in Moscow’s Red Square by a grateful Soviet Union when she died in 1964.

Alpert and Sargent continue to insist the marker should have remained and that Sununu lacked the authority to remove it as he did. They say that, under the state’s guidelines, markers are only removed if they are in disrepair or contain text with factual errors. The state also requires a public hearing before any marker is removed.

“None of the conditions for the marker’s removal have been met,” Alpert said. 

Vihstadt, however, said the state acted correctly in taking down the sign.

“All policies and guidelines were followed in removing this controversial marker,” Vihstadt said.