Today during a hearing of House Special Committee on the Division for Children, Youth and Families (regarding DCYF), something interesting and (perhaps) wonderful occurred. A recommendation was made to ask those testifying to swear they were telling the truth (under penalty of perjury), and a Democrat objected to it.
To borrow from RebuildNH, who, in all fairness, beat me to the punch breaking this news (on Telegram),
This morning, the House Special Committee on DCYF, chaired by Rep. Leah Cushman, required every person testifying to take an oath before giving their testimony. This is unusual for House committees, but it is in statute and is therefore within the rights of the People’s representatives to do so. With the level of outright lying we’ve seen on other committees (ahem, executive departments testifying in front of the HHS committee), thanks should go to the Republican representatives insisting on truthfulness. On the other hand, Democrat members objected to this move, calling a requirement that people testifying tell the truth “insulting.”
In this excerpt, Rep. Sandra Panek makes the suggestion, citing the relevant state statute at 4 minutes (in the video below.
Pursuant to RSA 1414, which states that any Senator or Representative, while acting as a member of the committee, of the legislature, may admininster an oath to any person who may be examined before such a committee. I would like to require an oath of the witness and all witnesses testifying before this committee. The testimony we are taking is concerning a very serious subject matter, and we must ensure truthfulness. There have been various committees, both ad hoc and standing that have heard lots of testimony, relative to family law matters, and in many cases can go on and on, and take up lots of precious time. And sometimes it was later found out that the testimony was infactual. What we want to do is establish that this process is eliciting factual information so we can make the most informed decisions, based on the testimoney we received.
Democrat Rep. Lucy Webber immediately objects.
It’s something that we normally do not do. This is not a tribunal. This is a fact-finding mission and it seems to me that to require an oath is way outside of our normal procedure. And as one who assumes people standing in front of us are going to be truthful, I think it’s, it’s, frankly kind of insulting to our witnesses but I also .. the point of this commission .. committee, is to discover issues with DCYF, it is not to prepare the ground for some kind (of) future prosecution. And so I think that the administration of an oath is both unnecessary and insulting and I would really prefer to get a ruling form the speaker’s office as to whether it is an appropriate thing for us to be doing because I’ve literally in 18 years never seen it.
The Committe Chair (Rep. Leah Cushman) thanks Rep Webber for her input, but decides to require the oath, after which there is some additional remarks. I’ve excerpted the exchange below. The Full committee hearing can be viewed here. My question to the readers is this. Is it time to change the practice of assuming those testifying before any legislative committee are telling the truth (to the best of their knowledge) and asking them to swear an oath affirming that what they have to say is the truth under penalty of perjury?
Or maybe (just) public officials and (in particular) members of the executive branch, as observed in the pull quote from Rebuild at the beginning of this piece?
I’m sure you have thoughts. Here is the excerpt 4 min in to about 7 min. (The debate on this matter continues up to just past the 12-minute mark in the full version before anyone is sworn in).
