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With control of the state House of Representatives down to a handful of votes, New Hampshire Democrats continue to count on every vote from their caucus — including one member currently sitting in a Manchester jail cell. And while Rep. Stacie Laughton (D-Nashua) is a repeat offender accused of stalking a Hudson woman for years, Granite State Democrats have declined to denounce her or call for her removal from the caucus.

Laughton is currently being held without bail after 9th District Court Judge Kimberly Chabot found clear and convincing evidence that the incumbent state representative is currently a danger to the alleged victim and the community at large. According to court documents reviewed by NHJournal, Laughton’s harassment of her alleged victim extends back to at least 2019.

Laughton is facing dozens of misdemeanor charges ranging from making false 911 calls to stalking to criminal defamation, all related to her harassment of the alleged victim. NH Journal is not identifying the woman named as Laughton’s target.

Prosecutors are also asking the court to impose the suspended nine-month jail sentence from a prior case involving the same victim. According to court records, Laughton pleaded no contest to three misdemeanor counts in August alleging she called 911 to make false reports about the victim.

Laughton is due to appear in the Nashua courthouse this week for a status conference hearing. It is not known if her public defender, Elliot Friedman, plans to argue for her release. Friedman was not available for comment on Tuesday.

Laughton’s next big date is Organization Day at the State House on Dec. 7, when House leadership positions will be decided and the secretary of state will be elected. With the GOP’s majority a slim 201 to 198 (with one tie outstanding), it is possible Democrats could hold the majority, depending on attendance. Every vote will count, including one cast by an accused criminal.

Rep. Matt Wilhelm (D-Manchester), the progressive recently elected leader of the Democratic Caucus, did not respond to a request for comment. Would Democrats allow Laughton to participate as part of the caucus if she is still behind bars?

Under the New Hampshire Constitution, state representatives cannot be stopped from attending a House session for any reason, including arrest. If Laughton gets a ride from Valley Street Jail in Manchester to Concord on Dec. 7,  will she be sworn in?

House Clerk Paul Smith said that while he is not a lawyer, he does not think Laughton can get out of jail for the day to get sworn in and vote on leadership.

“I can’t imagine that a member-elect (who could theoretically be sworn any time) would be released for the purposes of being sworn in,” Smith said.

Anna Fay with the New Hampshire Secretary of State’s Office said the protocol for a member who is being held on bail is not clear. However, members who are convicted of felonies are ineligible to serve, she said.

Former House Speaker Bill O’Brien said New Hampshire’s Constitution protects House members from being arrested while performing their duties, but he does not think that protection extends to cases like Laughton’s.

“When the framers of the New Hampshire Constitution in 1784 included Article 21, they were seeking to avoid the experience of about a hundred years prior in England when Charles I was seizing members of Parliament on their way to London to vote against him or while they were attending Parliament,” O’Brien said. “While seeking to avoid that, the framers surely weren’t intending to allow legislators to violate anti-stalking protective orders without consequence.”

Laughton has a long history of illegal behavior. She was convicted in 2008 of credit card fraud for stealing from a person in Laconia. In 2015, Laughton was charged with a crime after calling in a bogus bomb threat at the Southern New Hampshire Medical Center hospital in Nashua. Those charges were later dropped as Laughton claimed she was suffering from a mental health crisis at the time.

Laughton won a seat for state representative in 2012 but was forced to resign soon after her 2008 credit card fraud arrest became public. Laughton tried to run again to fill the seat in a special election after her resignation, but that bid was cut short when it was deemed, she was legally ineligible for office at the time since she was still technically serving her suspended sentence for the felony credit card fraud case.

Laughton has been engaged in harassing the woman and her parents for years, according to court records. She used her radio show and social media accounts to stalk and harass the woman and repeatedly called 911 to falsely report the woman was suicidal, according to court records. Alarming to the victim, at one point, Laughton referred to the woman as her “wife.”

Laughton, New Hampshire’s first transgender state representative, is already married to a different woman.

None of this stopped state Democratic Party chair, Ray Buckley, from giving Laughton a shout-out as part of the “backbone of the Granite State” in a June 2022 op ed celebrating Pride Month.

With the House so closely split, it’s possible the vote to pick the next Speaker could come down to a single vote. If that vote belongs to Stacie Laughton, will Democrats take it?

Nashua Democratic state Rep. Stacie Laughton is back in legal trouble, this time being held at Valley Street Jail in Manchester on stalking charges. 

Laughton, 38, was arrested over the weekend by Hudson police on charges she was stalking a resident in that town, according to a report from Patch. Court records show Laughton was already on bail after being charged with sending fake 911 texts to police. Those charges resulted from an investigation last year.

Last week’s midterm elections brought better-than-expected results for Democrats, and they have an outside chance of winning control of the state House. Republicans say that is one reason Democrats, in Nashua and in Concord, are silent about Laughton’s history of criminal behavior. 

Reps. Steve Shurtleff (D-Penacook) and Matt Wilhelm (D-Manchester) are locked in a race to lead the House Democratic Caucus. Both declined to respond to a request for comment about Laughton’s ongoing criminal prosecution.

Outgoing House Minority Leader Rep. David Cote (D-Nashua) also declined to comment on Laughton’s behavior, as did other Nashua Democrats NH Journal contacted regarding the matter. Rep. Michael Pedersen (D-Nashua), who serves as chair of the city’s Democratic Committee, did not respond to a request for comment, either.

Democrats may not be talking about Laughton’s latest arrest, but Nashua Republican Di Lothrop is fed up.

“She has a huge problem,” said Lothrop, co-chair of the Nashua Republican Committee. “She’s been through this before, she’s been in prison. Obviously, the lesson wasn’t learned.”

Laughton became the first transgender person elected to the New Hampshire Legislature in 2012, though she was quickly forced to resign when her criminal past became public. Laughton was sentenced to prison time in 2008 for a Laconia credit card fraud conviction. Laughton served a few months but was released on a 10-year suspended sentence.

Laughton was pressured to resign her House seat but signed up to run in the ensuing special election. That bid was cut short when it was deemed she was legally ineligible for office since she was still serving her suspended sentence for the felony credit card fraud case.

Under New Hampshire law, convicted felons may not vote or hold public office while they are serving their sentences. Once the sentence is discharged, however, people convicted of felonies may again vote and seek public office. The New Hampshire Constitution only states that people must reside in the district they are seeking to represent.

Laughton was charged with another crime in 2015 for allegedly calling in a bomb threat to Southern New Hampshire Medical Center, an episode she later blamed on a mental health problem. That criminal case has since been closed.

Laughton’s political career restarted in 2019 when she was elected a Nashua Ward 4 selectman, and she won the House of Representatives seat in 2020.

 Lothrop blamed the city’s Democratic Party for promoting a person with clear mental health problems to represent voters. There is a good chance Laughton will still be in jail by the time state representatives gather in Concord for their swearing-in, she said.

“How can she dedicate her time and energy to the voters who she is supposed to represent? She’s unfit,” Lothrop said. “It’s abominable, and it’s an embarrassment to Nashua to have her go up to Concord and represent [the city.]”

Chris Ager, chairman of the Hillsborough County GOP, said any decision on Laughton’s status needs to be made by House leadership.

“This is a very serious matter that must be looked into with respect to actions the leadership of the House of Representatives can take,” Ager said.

With New Hampshire’s open qualifications for office, Ager said both parties have a responsibility to provide some oversight on who is running for office on their respective tickets. However, there is only so much a party can do, he added.

“There is some responsibility for the party, but ultimately the voters of the district elect the person,” Ager said.

On Monday, House Minority Leader Renny Cushing (D-Hampton) asked a federal court to rush a ruling on House Democrats’ lawsuit to block a return to regular session in the State House chamber.

On Tuesday, Democrats crowded into Congress, maskless, to cheer on President Biden’s State of the Union speech.

Granite State Republicans took note.

“I saw a headline this morning that the [U.S.] Capitol’s attending physician notified Congress that masks are no longer required ahead of Biden’s State of the Union address,” New Hampshire Speaker of the House Sherm Packard (R-Londonderry) told New Hampshire Journal Tuesday afternoon. “So we’re talking about putting hundreds of people — members of Congress, Supreme Court justices, cabinet officials, and all the guests — packing them all into a room together, and Democrats say that’s all right. But we can’t go back to the [N.H. House] chamber?

“The Democrats keep saying ‘listen to the science.’ Well, we’re the ones listening to the science and the latest CDC guidelines. They aren’t,” Packard added.

The House Democrats’ lawsuit seeks remote options for legislators unwilling to return to in-person work. Since the start of the pandemic, House members have met in sports complexes, the University of New Hampshire and the convention center at the Manchester DoubleTree by Hilton.

Lawyers representing Cushing filed a motion on Monday in the First Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston seeking an expedited ruling in Cushing’s lawsuit against Packard. Cushing wants legislators to be able to log on for the House session remotely. Packard has rejected this request and, thus far, has prevailed.

The appeal was heard in the federal appeals court in September, and no ruling has yet been made. Since September, however, Gov. Chis Sununu has effectively called for an end to pandemic restrictions, and the Centers for Disease Controls have adjusted the masking requirements.

The New Hampshire House is now set for its first session in Representatives Hall on March 10, the first time that House members have gathered in Concord since the start of the pandemic.

Cushing wants the federal appeals court to issue a ruling before the state of the session on March 10, claiming members have been risking their health for months because of Packard’s refusal to allow remote access to lawmakers.

“Some of the Plaintiffs have chosen to risk death by attending committee meetings and House sessions. Others have heeded the advice of the CDC and their doctors and chosen to not spend hours inside with unmasked, unvaccinated people. None of the Plaintiffs should have ever had to make a choice between the risk of death and their duty to their constituents. None of them should have to expose themselves to the extraordinarily dangerous conditions in Representatives Hall,” the motions filed Monday states.

Cushing did not respond to a request for comment on Tuesday. Packard has said the return to Representatives Hall in Concord will not be a problem.

“We have managed smartly throughout the pandemic with many risk-mitigation measures in place to ensure the people’s business continues to get done,” Packard said. “We’re now in a different phase of the pandemic, and without some return to normalcy, we risk long-lasting damage to this historic institution and its traditions.”

According to Cushing, holding the session in the State House will mean many members of the legislature will not be able to take part due to health concerns, and their constituents will be denied their representation. This despite a year of widely-available vaccinations and boosters, in a state with one of the lowest rates of hospitalization and death in the nation.

“You’d think, with the Biden White House and the Congress going maskless and the CDC’s new guidance, that Democrats would be ready to move on,” Packard said. “Because it’s time. It’s time to get back to the normal way of doing things. It’s been two years. We can’t be cowering in a corner and afraid of going out and doing anything. We’ve got to get back to normal life.”

State Rep. Karel Crawford (R-Moultonborough) is adamantly opposed to a bill that would allow New Hampshire teens to get their driver’s license without spending hundreds of dollars attending driving school. And, she insists, her “no” vote in committee this week had nothing whatsoever to do with her occupation:

She owns a driving school.

“This isn’t about me, or my Red Hill Driving School, this is about an industry,” Crawford told NHJournal.

However, the main sponsor of HB 1208, Rep. Tim Lang, R-Sanbornton, said he is considering filing an ethics complaint against Crawford.

“There is an ethics challenge that can be filed here, and there have been conversations about that,” Lang said.

Crawford, along with the majority on the New Hampshire House Transportation Committee, voted against Lang’s bill that would allow people under age 18 to get a driver’s license without going to a certified driving school. Instead, the bill “authorizes a waiver of the driver education requirement if a father, mother, guardian, or other responsible adult provides equivalent classroom instruction and behind-the-wheel training.”

Crawford did not make a public disclosure at this week’s committee hearing that she has a financial interest in keeping the professional driver’s education mandate. However, she said she makes that disclosure on all her official paperwork.

“I’ve been a state rep for 10 years. I disclose that every time I’m elected on all my paperwork that I am licensed to instruct driver education by the State of New Hampshire.”

Crawford said she checked with the House Speaker to make sure she could weigh in on Lang’s bill when he first proposed it two years ago. 

Lang maintains parents can do the job to get their children driving without the need for expensive classes that are often difficult to schedule.

“The average cost of a driver education program in New Hampshire is over $700 per student. That puts it out of reach for a lot of teens,” Lang said. 

The other problem is the months-long waiting lists most of the state’s driver’s ed programs have. Lang said when his son turned 16, he had to wait several months before he could get into a class.

For Crawford, the issue is safety. She said parents don’t do as good a job teaching their children as she or any other licensed teacher does.

“I teach 16- and 17-year-olds how to drive. Their parents do a job they think is good, but I spend the first three lessons undoing what they have been taught,” Crawford said.

Crawford said studies show teens who learn to drive outside of a driving school are far more likely to get into accidents, including fatalities, than students who went through the paid program. According to a 2015 study by the University of Nebraska, driving school-taught teens are safer on the roads.

The study of 150,000 teen drivers found drivers who have not gone through driver’s education are 75 percent more likely to get a traffic ticket, 24 percent more likely to be involved in a fatal or injury accident, and 16 percent more likely to have an accident.

However, according to a 2021 review published by the National Institute of Health looking at more than 200 education/safety studies, like the University of Nebraska’s, there is no real evidence that driver education makes teens safer. Traffic crashes and fatalities continue to rise, even as more states impose driver’s ed on teens.

“There was no evidence that driver education is an effective approach to reducing crashes or injuries. This negative result might be due to ineffective teaching methods. To improve road safety, it appears necessary to change the method or content of driving education since the current approaches to driving education do not reduce traffic crashes or injuries,” the NIH report states.

Lang said parents can safely teach their children and there will be oversight from the state as always. The state will still require new drivers to pass both the DMV written test and road test, he said.

Lang plans to bring the bill back up to the full House for a vote.

In an unusual move, the New Hampshire House of Representatives voted to review controversial comments made online by two lawmakers. Yet, Republican leaders aren’t expecting the committee to find that they violated any House ethics codes.

It started as an inquiry into Rep. Robert Fisher, R-Laconia, and comments he made in an online forum that were construed as misogynistic, but Republicans successfully added Rep. Sherry Frost, D-Dover, in the inquiry for tweets she wrote earlier this year that some found “offensive.”

Before the House met in their regularly scheduled session on Thursday, it was anticipated that House Democratic Leader Steve Shurtleff would bring up a motion for a House committee to investigate Fisher’s comments.

“At any time any member says anything or does anything that holds this body in disrespect, it affects each and every one of us,” he said on the House floor.

Fisher was identified as the creator of a a Reddit forum called “The Red Pill” in a report from The Daily Beast last week. His posts on the message board garnered criticism for being disrespectful toward women and normalizing rape culture. He admitted to the comments, which were made as far back as 2008, but said they were taken out of context.

Republican Gov. Chris Sununu and New Hampshire Republican Party Chair Jeanie Forrester have called for his resignation, but Fisher insists he will not step down.

Frost posted tweets earlier this year that said more terrorism is perpetrated by “white men who claim Christianity than by Muslims in the USA.” She also tweeted, “The people (read; men) telling me to ‘calm down’ & ‘not take it so hard’ are making me homicidal.”

The NHGOP criticized her for the tweets, calling her a “radical” and “a threat to her colleagues.”

“All representatives should be held to the same standard,” said Rep. Victoria Sullivan, R-Manchester, who put forward the amendment to include Frost. “This body cannot pick and choose who they support and who they do not.”

The House voted 182-180 to include Frost in the inquiry and then approved of the investigation of both lawmakers by a 307-56 vote, with Fisher and Frost voting in favor of the review.

“I think the truth will be out at the hearing,” Fisher told the Concord Monitor. Frost said she has nothing to hide.

The Legislative Administration Committee’s reviews will be limited to comments made by the two lawmakers during the current legislative session, which means Fisher’s previous posts will not be included, but Frost’s tweets will be reviewed.

After that, the committee will make a recommendation to the full House for each lawmaker. The committee could recommend that no action should take place, or that the representatives should be reprimanded, censured, or expelled. The House will then vote on the recommendations.

“Referring this matter to the Legislative Administration Committee will allow for an investigation into Representative Fisher’s involvement with this forum since his election to the New Hampshire House,” Shurtleff said in a statement. “As elected officials it is our duty to act with honor both inside the State House and out, and I am confident that the Legislative Administration Committee will give this serious matter the consideration it deserves.”

His statement didn’t include any comments about Frost, though.

Some lawmakers criticized Republicans for including Frost in the inquiry, saying the two lawmaker’s comments do not equate to equal treatment. New Hampshire Democratic Party Chairman Ray Buckley took to Twitter to criticize the decision.

Misogyny rampant in @NHHouseGOP – voted to equate outspoken woman to a man praising rape. NH hangs its head in shame. #NHpolitics

— Ray Buckley (@ChairmanBuckley) May 4, 2017

Yet, House Speaker Shawn Jasper admitted that he doesn’t believe the committee will find that the lawmakers violated any ethics codes.

“I don’t think we’ve ever done anything quite like this,” he told the New Hampshire Union Leader. “Normally there would be something that falls under the ethics guidelines, and there’d be a complaint made by somebody and it would go to the ethics committee.”

Some lawmakers questioned why they spent time debating the issue.

@WMUR9 House votes to spend time investigating those who drop F-bombs on twitter. #nhpolitics don't we have more important things to do?

— Rep. JR Hoell (@NH_Braveheart) May 4, 2017

Rep. Keith Ammon, R-New Boston, motioned to table the matter, but it overwhelmingly failed.

“This is being used as a political football,” he said. “We need to have some more harmony in this body.”

Protesters lined the hallways of the State House and gathered outside on the plaza to protest Fisher’s comments. A protester’s sign said, “Rep. Fisher: This feminist says resign!” Another read, “Rape culture: He isn’t a symptom, he is a disease. Fisher must go.”

Fisher’s review hearing will begin on Tuesday, with Frost’s review to follow on Wednesday.

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