Crime and Punishment

By Valley News

It's not surprising that when Democrats took control of the New Hampshire House of Representatives after the 2006 election, they were obliged to cast around for governing models: After all, it had been 84 years since they were last in charge. It's only too bad that the model they settled on dates from the 1930s Soviet Union.

We refer, of course, to last week's news that three Democratic representatives "resigned" from their top committee positions after meeting with Speaker Terie Norelli and Majority Leader Mary Jane Wallner. The purpose of these meetings was to discuss a letter the three had signed, along with a dozen other committee chairmen and vice chairmen, opposing the latest attempt to amend the constitution to nullify the state's obligation to provide and pay for an adequate education for each schoolchild in New Hampshire.

That bipartisan amendment, which had Norelli's strong backing, failed abjectly in the House, as it should have, and now apparently the speaker has begun to purge the leadership ranks of those who failed to hew to the party line. Perhaps show trials and confessions of ideological error will follow.

Those consigned to Siberia include Lee Hammond of Lebanon, vice chairman of the legislative administration committee; David Essex of Antrim, vice chairman of the environment and agriculture committee; and Jessie Osborne of Concord, vice chairwoman of the municipal and county government committee. Moreover, the Concord Monitor reports, the other dissident committee chairmen and vice chairmen have been barred from serving on conference committees, where differences between House and Senate versions of legislation are worked out at the end of the legislative session.

"It was a decision: Either play on the team or resign," Osborne told the Monitor in explaining her departure. "(Given) the choice of speaking out or resigning, I chose my speech."

At issue is a rule imposed by Comrade Norelli that prohibits members of the Democratic leadership from speaking in opposition to a committee's recommendation, either on the House floor or in public. They are, however, permitted to speak out in a closed party caucus and to vote against any measure they oppose, which we suppose is some sort of protection against being air-brushed out of the leadership picture.

We certainly understand the argument for party discipline in the normal course of legislative affairs. In order to strike a deal, the leaders of each party have to be able to count on delivering their followers' support. But there's no good argument for enforcing such discipline when the legislation at issue involves a matter of conscience, such as the moral obligation to provide children with an adequate education, or something as serious as amending the constitution, which ought never to be done cavalierly, whatever the Democratic and Republican House leaders think.

No legislator ought to be required to check his conscience, his voice or his constituents' interests at the door of the House chamber as the price of being a member of the "leadership team." Any number of suitable apparatchiks can be found to fill that role.