The day’s investigative festivities in a New Hampshire House committee bring to mind Part I, Article 38 of the New Hampshire Constitution.
Social Virtues Inculcated. A frequent recurrence to the fundamental principles of the constitution, and a constant adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, industry, frugality, and all the social virtues, are indispensably necessary to preserve the blessings of liberty and good government; the people ought, therefore, to have a particular regard to all those principles in the choice of their officers and representatives, and they have a right to require of their lawgivers and magistrates, an exact and constant observance of them, in the formation and execution of the laws necessary for the good administration of government.
That article is dated June 2, 1784. It has remained unamended all this time, in all its clear and explicit glory.
The House may decide that there is no behavior or speech bad enough to justify censure of either of the reps under scrutiny today. Their sandbox, their rules.
Article 38, on the other hand, is for the voters who need to demand an accounting from reps behaving badly. The First Amendment protects speech; the House rules might let a rep get away with all kinds of nonsense. The ultimate sanction on state representatives behaving badly is defeat at the polls, and that can only be administered by a district’s voters.
Anyone who wants to help the voters get the job done might want to get busy on candidate recruitment efforts in the relevant districts.
