NH Rep. Jasper to Chairman Bates: "I have lost all respect for you sir"

NH House Speaker Bill O'Brien (R-Mont Vernon) says House Deputy Majority Leader Shawn Jasper (R-Hudson) asked to be re-assigned from the Election Law committee; Rep. Paul Mirski (R-Enfield) says he heard Jasper resign first-hand; and Majority Leader DJ Bettencourt (R-Salem) says he negotiated a two-week cooling off period for all parties.

Now, video from the Granite State Progress State House Video Monitoring Project reveals what really happened. And none of it is what the three names above would have you believe.

Background

On Thursday, October 27th, Rep. Jasper and other committee members vocally protested House Leadership's blatant attempts to interfere in committee work and force partisan, ideologue-driven provisions in a voter ID bill. The top-down approach overlooked weeks of subcommittee work that sought to reach a compromise while still complying with state and federal election laws.
During a public hearing on the subcommittee amendment to the voter ID bill, Deputy Speaker Pamela Tucker (R-Greenland) requested the committee reject the amendment and send the bill back for further study. Tucker justified her actions by saying she was a co-sponsor of the original bill. What she failed to mention was that she never once attended any of the weeks of subcommittee meetings and never once voiced any concern about the direction of the amendment.

Even more shocking, after Tucker gave her controversial testimony Election Law Chair David Bates (R-Windham) stated she was a busy person and that she would not have to receive questions from members of the committee that had their hands raised.

Bates then sided with House Leadership and undermined the hard work of his own committee, urging them to vote against the subcommittee. Bolstered by five substitute committee members handpicked by Speaker O'Brien - none of whom had been present for any of the previous public hearings on the bill - the vote followed O'Brien's orders.

Following the vote, Rep. Jasper volunteered for the Minority Report, stating:

"I will be doing the Minority Report and I will have it to you by the morning. Mr. Chairman, I will however - later after the Minority Report - be asking to be removed from this committee. I have lost all respect for you sir, and this process that we have gone through for today, and I cannot sit here in a committee with a Chairman who I do not respect."

"Even Speaker O'Brien's own leadership team cannot stand by and watch him desecrate the foundations of our democracy," said Zandra Rice Hawkins, Director of Granite State Progress. "The question now is why Rep. Paul Mirski scurried to the Speaker's office to spread misinformation and why Speaker O'Brien would chastise a member of his own team without first speaking to him directly."

"Jasper's immediate and unrequested removal from Election Law circumvents his plans to write a minority opinion for the committee," Rice Hawkins said. "You've got to wonder if this isn't a case of tit for tat from Speaker O'Brien for not following his dictates."

Media outlets and blogs welcome to embed YouTube video on sites, with credit to Granite State Progress.

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Granite State Progress is a progressive advocacy organization that addresses issues of immediate state and local concern. Granite State Progress works as a communications hub for the progressive community to provide a strong, credible voice in advancing progressive solutions to critical community problems.

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