What $100 a year buys, contemporaneously

Letter published in the Apr. 10, 2007 edition of the Nashua Telegraph, concerning the state representative recently charged with speeding while en route to the State House:

Recently, there has been much ado about the constitutional guarantee of the elected representatives of the people from freedom of executive branch harassment.

New Hampshire, like many other states, has three contemporaneous branches of government. Under the New Hampshire Constitution, those branches are not co-equal; they are only cooperative.

The governor (executive) of New Hampshire has, in effect, exactly one “power.” That is the power of veto. Other actions of the governor must be ratified by the governor’s council or approved by the General Court (also known as the Legislature). The judiciary is limited by the constitution in its scope of power to ruling only on the cases before it.

All other power, the power to tax, to make laws, the exclusive power to suspend laws and the power to disburse money lies in the General Court (the House and the Senate). Even the name of the legislative body in New Hampshire evokes a superior status of the three supportive branches, i.e., the General Court.

The New Hampshire Constitution begins with the phrase that “all government of right originates from the people.”

The representatives and senators are defined as the surrogates of the people.

The executive and judicial branches are specifically barred from interfering with the legislative actions of the surrogates of the people so as to prevent intimidation and coercion by force (badge or gun).

That is the only thing that prevents the executive branch (of which all police agencies are part) from running roughshod over the people (through their elected representatives).

This does not mean that legislators are above the law. Indeed all the executive branch (police) need do is mail a ticket (a summons or mesne process) to the suspected offender, which is routine and common practice – even taught at the police academy, I understand.

However, neither the police nor a court of any kind may interfere with a legislator while that legislator is acting as the representative of the people, the source of all governmental power in New Hampshire.

If the alternative were the case, nothing would prevent the executive from riding roughshod over the people.

The legislative privilege granted in Part the Second, Article 27, is not for the legislator, it is to protect the people, through their elected representatives, from being coerced by the executive.

State Rep. Jordan Ulery R-Hudson