New Hampshire
Judge allows transgender New Hampshire girl to play soccer as lawsuit challenges new law
CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — A federal judge temporarily cleared the way Monday for a transgender girl to play soccer for her high school team while she and another student challenge a New Hampshire ban.
The families of Parker Tirrell, 15, and Iris Turmelle, 14, filed a lawsuit Friday seeking to overturn the “Fairness in Women’s Sports Act” that Republican Gov. Chris Sununu signed into law last month. While Turmelle doesn’t plan to play sports until December, Tirrell sought an emergency order allowing her to start soccer practice Monday evening.
U.S. District Court Chief Judge Landya McCafferty granted the request with just hours to spare, finding that Tirrell had demonstrated likely success on the merits of the case. The two sides now have 14 days to schedule a hearing on the plaintiffs’ broader motion for a preliminary order blocking the state from enforcing the law while the case proceeds.
The lawsuit said the law violates constitutional protections and federal laws because the teens are being denied equal educational opportunities and are being discriminated against because they are transgender.
The judge questioned how the law, as applied to Tirrell, would protect girls from unfair competition given that the state isn’t contesting evidence that she has no physiological advantage after taking puberty-blocking medication to prevent bodily changes such as muscle development. McCafferty also found Tirrell had proven that she would suffer irreparable harm without it, another criteria for emergency relief.
Michael DeGrandis, an attorney for the state, argued that missing soccer practice, while “stressful,” didn’t meet that standard, but the girls’ lawyer disagreed, saying it would have a “permanent, stigmatizing impact.”
“We are very happy with the judge’s order. It is also what we expected, because we know that this law is unfair and violates the rights of transgender girls of New Hampshire,” Chris Erchull, an attorney at GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders, said after the hearing.
The rights of transgender people — and especially young people — have become a major political battleground in recent years as trans visibility has increased. Most Republican-controlled states have banned gender-affirming health care for transgender minors, and several have adopted policies limiting which school bathrooms trans people can use and barring trans girls from some sports competitions.
New Hampshire
Electioneering accusation against high-ranking N.H. Democrat cleared – The Boston Globe
The New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office has closed a complaint after finding that Executive Councilor Karen Liot Hill did not engage in illegal electioneering.
At issue were a series of emails Liot Hill, a Lebanon Democrat, had sent from her official government account to help the partisan Elias Law Group connect with voters impacted by a new state voting law.
Republican lawmakers said that was an inappropriate use of official resources, threatening to impeach Liot Hill over her correspondence. James MacEachern, chairman of the New Hampshire Republican State Committee, reported his concerns to the Attorney General’s Office in August.
In August, the Elias Law Group, which represents Democrats and progressive causes, represented three visually-impaired plaintiffs who sued New Hampshire officials over the constitutionality of a new law that would tighten photo ID requirements for voters seeking an absentee ballot. That case was recently dismissed by a New Hampshire Superior Court judge.
This week, the Attorney General’s Election Law Unit released its determination that Liot Hill’s emails did not constitute illegal electioneering, in a Dec. 18 letter to MacEachern.
The Election Law Unit said it reviewed five emails from Liot Hill’s official government account that MacEachern had provided.
It found the content of the emails did not meet the state’s definition of electioneering, “because it does not relate in any way to ‘the vote of a voter on any question or office,’ i.e., something to be voted on at an election,” Brendan A. O’Donnell, senior assistant attorney general in the Election Law Unit, said in the letter.
“Moreover, it is not uncommon for elected officials to use their official capacity to take a position on the constitutionality of an enacted law that is being challenged in court,” O’Donnell said.
However, the letter noted that Liot Hill’s emails did raise the risk that its recipients — including two executive branch officials — could interpret her requests for help as commands.
“All executive branch officials should use care to avoid acting in any way that would create an appearance of impropriety,” said O’Donnell.
But, he continued, his office did not find in this case that there had been a misuse of position or that the emails otherwise violated the executive branch ethics code.
MacEachern said he still has concerns about Liot Hill, when reached for comment on the Election Law Unit’s findings.
“This report, among others, continues to raise serious questions about Councilor Liot-Hill’s judgement and brazen willingness to push ethical boundaries with her conduct,” he said in an email.
But Liot Hill said the findings “underscore the partisan nature of the ongoing attacks” against her, including the impeachment proceedings Republicans have failed against her.
“I am being impeached not for wrong-doing, but for being a Democrat,” she said in an email.
Amanda Gokee can be reached at amanda.gokee@globe.com. Follow her @amanda_gokee.
New Hampshire
NH Republicans push to allow guns on college campuses
CONCORD — The recent fatal shooting at Brown University shows that banning guns on campus makes students more vulnerable to violence, state Rep. Sam Farrington, a University of New Hampshire senior, told reporters Dec. 17 in promoting legislation to end such bans.
Farrington, R-Rochester, and other House Republicans, also said in the Statehouse news conference that the shooting that killed 15 people at a Hanukkah celebration in Sydney, Australia on Sunday, illustrates that Australia’s restrictive gun laws don’t protect the public.
Rep. Joe Sweeney, R-Salem, the deputy House majority leader, said gun control restrictions leave people “unable to defend themselves, their families, their peers.”
Farrington said violence similar to what occurred at Brown University in Rhode Island, which left two dead and nine injured, could occur in New Hampshire, where universities also prohibit guns on campus.
“UNH, Plymouth State, Keene State, the list goes on, they all have one thing in common — these are public universities that are infringing on the Second Amendment rights of college students right here in New Hampshire,” said Farrington.
“They claim to be gun free zones. Well if we know anything about gun-free zones, looking at Australia and Brown, we know that they are not violence free zones. They are only defenseless zones where victims are left hopeless, without any hope of defending themselves.”
He is the prime sponsor of House Bill 1793, which the Legislature will consider next year. It would prohibit public colleges and universities from regulating the possession or carrying of firearms and non-lethal weapons on campus.
Under the bill, if a college or university that received federal funds instituted such a ban, they could be sued.
Democrat speaks against legislation
State Rep. Nicholas Germana, D-Keene, a history professor at Keene State College, said Thursday he wouldn’t feel any safer if people coming on campus were packing firearms.
Any police response to an active shooter on a college campus would be fraught if armed bystanders became involved and crossfire broke out, he said.
“All the sudden police come on that campus and it’s a shootout at the OK Corral,” Germana said. “How do police know who the good guy is and who the bad guy is?”
He said the tragedy in Australia last weekend is an anomaly that doesn’t alter the fact that gun violence rates in that country decreased after strict firearm regulations were passed almost 30 years ago and remain much lower than U.S. rates.
“We can look around the world to see examples of this where the number of guns in the population at large corresponds to gun violence,” Germana said. “It’s clear that when Republicans say in this country that gun control measures do not decrease gun violence, it is demonstrably false.”
The University System of New Hampshire said in the fiscal note of House Bill 1793 that the measure could cost it as much as $500,000 because insurance premiums and liability claims would increase, more security measures would be required, firearm storage systems would be needed, expected lawsuits would create attorney fees and the ability to attract students and faculty would decrease.
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New Hampshire
NH attorney general clears top Democratic official of ‘electioneering’ charge
The New Hampshire Attorney General’s office has concluded that Executive Councilor Karen Liot Hill did nothing wrong when she used her government email to assist a law firm that was suing the state over its voter ID law.
Assistant Attorney General Brendan O’Donnell wrote that Liot Hill’s use of her state email to assist a national Democratic law firm find plaintiffs didn’t amount to “electioneering” under state law.
The state Republican party alleged in August that Liot Hill — the only Democrat on the five-member Executive Council — misused her position by involving herself in a lawsuit against the state.
From the start, Liot Hill called that claim baseless, and the Attorney General’s office said Liot Hill’s conduct didn’t warrant sanction.
“This Office cannot conclude that the e-mails constituted a misuse of position or otherwise violated the executive branch ethics code. This matter is closed,” the office wrote.
In a statement Friday, Liot Hill, from Lebanon, welcomed the conclusion of the case.
“The AG’s findings underscore the partisan nature of the ongoing attacks against me: I am being impeached not for wrong-doing, but for being a Democrat,” she said.
The lawsuit challenging New Hampshire’s voter ID recently failed in state court. But this issue may not yet be over: A top House Republican has filed a bill to explore Liot Hill’s impeachment next year.
As the lone Democrat on the Executive Council, Liot Hill is her party’s ranking member in the State House. That profile has made Liot Hill, who spent two decades in local politics before winning election to the council last year, a regular target for Republicans, who argue that her approach to the job, which she says honors the state’s volunteer spirit, has crossed ethical lines.
The New Hampshire Republican Party did not immediately respond to a request for comment to the Attorney General report Friday afternoon.
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