David Hess is a bald-faced liar

by: Tim C.

Wed Oct 28, 2009 at 15:05:02 PM EDT

After a brief debate, the House, by a 240-115 vote, overrode the Governor's veto of HB 648, the medical marijuana bill.  The pro arguments were, as usual, bipartisan, reasoned, moving and passionate.  The anti arguments were, as usual, largely nonsensical partisan chaff.

One feature of NH legislative debate is that after any member has spoken to a bill, any other member may request that he or she yield to a question.  This is done to request clarification, to disagree, to concur, to make additional points, to correct errors of fact, and for many other reasons.

After the debate is over, the Speaker allows two additional speakers, one for the pending motion and one against, in order to make clear exactly what pushing the green button (voting Yes) means.  The speakers will almost always make one last brief argument for their side while doing so.  (For example, "If you believe, as I believe, that American cheese is a disgusting and degraded substance, adequate perhaps to caulking drafty windows in an emergency, but utterly unworthy of inclusion in the cheese family, and that under no circumstances whatsoever should it be declared the state cheese of New Hampshire, will you please vote Yes by pushing the green button to approve the motion of inexpedient to legislate.")  However, as these speakers are technically only making Parliamentary Inquiries, they are not subject to questions.

This is where David Hess enters the picture.

Speaker Norelli's body language as she turned and spoke with an aide clearly stated, "What the hell is he talking about?  That's been gone from the bill for months."  As indeed it has.  In the well-publicized back-and-forth between the NH House and Senate and Governor this past June, the proposal to allow patients or caretakers to grow their own marijuana was removed, and a very limited number (i.e. three) of "compassion centers" across the state was substituted.  David Hess knew this perfectly well.

But Representative David Hess of Hooksett had not chosen to lie to the entire New Hampshire House during the debate.  He had chosen to lie to the entire New Hampshire House during his Parliamentary Inquiry, and neither the Speaker nor any other member could question him and point out his dishonesty.

One might be charitable and say that the alteration of the bill so many months before had escaped his mind.

And one might say that as the member of the House Republican leadership tasked with giving the Parliamentary Inquiry on the matter,
-- having known for almost four months that this vote was coming, --
-- having had notice of the day and subject matter of the October 28th session at the top of his House Calendars for almost four months, --
-- having had all of 3 (three) vetoed bills to consider and scrutinize and huddle with fellow House Republican leaders on over the summer, --
-- having sufficiently involved himself in the minutiae of House affairs to urge his fellow Republicans to pry in to the backgrounds of those testifying at the "tax summit" and ask them questions designed to embarrass and attack rather than illuminate, --
-- having considered himself well enough informed on the bill on the day of its passage to speak to The Dartmouth and the Nashua Telegraph on June 24th, calling "compassion centers" (which exist only in the final, revised version of the bill that he voted on that day) a "euphemism," --
-- having gained a profound respect for the importance of precise familiarity with the letter of the law as a Dartmouth and Yale Law grad, Hooksett's Town Moderator, Hooksett's Legal Counsel, a former Judge Advocate and Military Judge in the US Air Force, a former New Hampshire Assistant Attorney General, an Instructor at the New Hampshire Police Standards and Training Academy, a partner in his own law firm for twenty-eight years, an eight-term legislator and the second-ranking Republican in the New Hampshire House of Representatives --
-- he had never noticed, or had utterly forgotten, an extraordinary and highly publicized wholesale revision of the bill, which revision he had previously freely commented upon to various media outlets.

And you might say that cows can fly.

I do not say that.

I say that David Hess of Hooksett is a bald-faced liar, a disgrace to his party, a disgrace to the Legislature, and a disgrace to New Hampshire.