CONCORD, N.H. — Executive Councilor Karen Liot Hill, D-Lebanon, has been cleared of allegations by the Republican State Committee that she may have inappropriately “electioneered” on behalf of a political law firm in her official capacity.
In an email sent to James MacEachern, chair of the NH Republican State Committee on Thursday, Senior Assistant Attorney General Brendan A. O’Donnell of the Election Law Unit, wrote that none of Liot Hill’s emails constitute “electioneering” within the meaning of state law and “accordingly this matter is closed.”
Republicans called on Liot Hill, the only Democrat on the five-member Executive Council, to resign or be impeached over their allegations that she violated law under RSA 659:4-a to solicit plaintiffs for a lawsuit against New Hampshire’s recently enacted voter identification law.
Liot Hill immediately responded to the Republican claim as baseless.
Attempts to get comment from Republican officials or Liot Hill Thursday night were not successful.
According to O’Donnell’s findings, Republicans reported Aug. 14 that the Executive Councilor inappropriately sent out Aug. 5 emails to Charles Saia, the executive director of the Governor’s Commission on Disability; Isadora Rodriguez-Legendre, executive director of the NH Council on Developmental Disabilities; a private organization known as Strategies for Disability Equity; another private organization called Community Action Partnership Hillsborough and Rockingham County; and to the Executive Director of Open Democracy, a private organization.
In each of the emails, Liot Hill wrote, “I am writing to ask for your help.” She identified Senate Bill 287 and the concern she had with it.
The bill requires applicants for absentee ballots to present a photo identification with their application. The bill was signed into law by Republican Gov. Kelly Ayotte on Aug. 1.
Liot stated in her emails that she was trying to identify voters who might be impacted and also asked if any would be willing to join a call with the Washington-based Elias Law Group to discuss it further.
The Attorney General’s office wrote that while the law prohibits certain public employees from electioneering while performing their duties, the statute defines electioneering to mean acting in “a way specifically designed to influence the vote of a voter on any question or office.”
The finding by the Department of Justice was that the conduct did not meet the definition of electioneering and further stated that it is not uncommon for elected leaders to take positions and use their official email to do so.
Investigators said that the recipients did not interpret the letter as commands.
In the end, none of the recipients provided the names of any voters who would have reported being impacted by the bill, which had just become law.
“Even though Councilor Liot Hill’s emails were not phrased as a command and neither recipient interpreted those emails as a command, sending this type of email from her government email address to other executive branch officials created a risk that these officials would interpret her request as commands. All executive branch officials should use care to avoid acting in any way that would create an appearance of impropriety.
“Nonetheless, based on the text of the emails and the interviews of the recipients, this office cannot conclude that the email constituted a misuse of position or otherwise violated the executive branch ethics code. This matter is closed,” O’Donnell wrote on Thursday.