I know lots of people are focused on their upcoming town elections, as they should be, but I’m here to point out that we are in Year Two of our current legislature and filing time will be here sooner than you know it. With that piece of excrement commonly known as federal judge Landya McCafferty raining on the parades of people with January birthdays, there’s a lot of “Team Red” activity in cyberspace, including social media posts asking for money. Yes, we should keep both chambers red, but remember the mascot is an elephant. If you don’t “have the memory of an elephant,” I’m here to help! Because I’m NOT from the government, Ronald Reagan shouldn’t have a problem with me, a private citizen, saying I’m here to help.
I have identified all the bad actors who failed to vote YES on HB649 (Removing the requirement for physical safety inspections and on-board diagnostic tests for passenger vehicles) in a House roll call in March of last year. As I’ve pointed out to the late Ms Gloria Timmons and her kindred spirit, Ms Melanie Levesque, separately, voting records don’t lie. Thankfully, due to a variety of reasons that I won’t get into the weeds of, many of them are no longer in office or are not seeking reelection as state reps. I’ve filtered them out for this article, but I’ll make one exception, Brian Cole, because he’s running for federal office. I happen to like Brian, but even though I can’t vote in that race, let it be known that he’s an enemy of sticker tax freedom, and the voters in that darling OTHER district should remember that at primary time. Let’s move on to the 3 categories I’ve made lists for, which are reps who voted the wrong way, reps who showed up that day and abstained from voting on HB649, and reps who played hooky. Yeah, the last group is reps that were elected as Republicans to do the People’s Work and blew off an important day in the House.
The following incumbent reps voted NO on HB649:
- Bill Boyd*
- Brian Cole
- Crawford*
- Drye*
- Hamblen
- Khan*
- Litchfield
- Lundgren*
- Toupee MacDonald*
- Markell
- Nelson*
- Proulx
- S Pearson*
- Trottier
- Vandecasteele
If there’s an asterisk, they’re also an enemy of 91A. You might think I’m beating a dead horse, but I sadly predict another anti-91A bill, SB626, is heading for the House because our Senate just plain hates 91A as demonstrated by its processing of HB1002. Let’s move on to the next category of reps regarding HB649, the ones who abstained from the vote. Again, their excuses for not voting could vary. One of those reps is mine and I had a conversation with him once I was able to make contact. I still don’t like that he didn’t vote, but I accept his excuse. If any of the following reps are yours, you deserve to know why they didn’t vote. If you’re in Londonderry, keep in mind that the Speaker usually doesn’t vote unless there’s a tie, but the rest of the reps who didn’t vote do owe their constituents an explanation for their abstinence from the roll call.
- Ankarberg*
- DuPont
- Durkin
- Fedolfi
- Katsakiores*
- Packard
- Plante
- Thackston*
- L Walsh*
The 4 enemies of 91A are asterisked. Let’s move on to the hooky players. They just plain blew off the People’s Work, and some of them might be leveraging unfortunate current events to ask for money. Before you open your wallet, you deserve to know WHY they didn’t show up for work that day. Are they serial no-shows? Did they have legitimate excuses? You decide, especially if any of them are YOUR reps and planning on seeking another term. Without further delay, here they are:
- Andrus
- Comtois
- Franz
- Melvin**
- M Murphy**
- Notter*
- Rice
- Red Flag Roy**
- Turcotte**
- Varney**
Because Notter is an enemy of 91A, she has been asterisked, but TWO asterisks are for the reps that blew off the House, according to Legiscan, on both session days(in 2024 for HB1002 and 2025 for HB649). If any of those reps are yours, you might want to look up how many other times they chose to not show up for the work YOU elected them to do, especially if they’re looking for your help in getting reelected this fall. You deserve to know where they stand on both the sticker tax and 91A.
And speaking of 91A, I will finish with an action item. Please register your OPPOSITION to SB626 in the remote sign-in portal by selecting February 3 and Senate Judiciary. Follow the directions until your opposition is confirmed, and please consider testifying at the hearing and/or emailing the committee.
